The Economist - 19 ноября 2022

Год выпуска: ноябрь 2022

Автор: The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group

Жанр: Экономика/Политика

Издательство: «The Economist Newspaper Ltd»

Формат: PDF (журнал на английском языке)

Качество: OCR

Количество страниц: 80

CRYPTO’S DOWNFALL

• The collapse of FTX has dealt a catastrophic blow to crypto’s reputation and aspirations. Is this the end? Leader, page 13.
• The failure of an exchange and its mastermind, Sam Bankman-Fried, page 63.
• And what it means for the prophets of effective altruism, page 65.

Indonesia, Asia’s overlooked giant

• It is back on the map. In the next decade it will become only more important: leader, page 14.
• The country is poised for a boom, politics permitting: briefing, page 22.

Trump v DeSantis: what could go wrong?

• Florida’s governor may be Republicans’ best chance to block the former president’s return, page 40.
• Making America great again, again, page 38.
• Glenn Youngkin’s Republican alternative: Lexington, page 43.

Investors’ misguided optimism

• Clouds hang over the world economy: leader, page 15.
• Enduring inflation, page 67.

In defence of Qatar’s World Cup

• It is a worthier venue than other recent hosts, page 16.
• Atide of money will change the world’s favourite sport, page 55.
• Tournaments and autocracies: Graphic detail, page 81.

The world this week Politics

• The G20 summit in Bali concluded with a strongly worded statement condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and demanding its immediate withdrawal. Russia managed to insert the phrase that there are “other views and different assessments of the situation” into the document. The Kremlin did, however, publish the statement in full, including the references to war and invasion. Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister (pictured above), attended the gathering, and criticised it for being too politicised.
• A day before the summit, Joe Biden met his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. After months of tension, they pledged to resume high-level dialogue on issues such as food security and economic affairs. But when it came to more divisive topics, such as Taiwan, there was little agreement.
• A missile struck a farm in Poland, close to the border with Ukraine, killing two men and sparking fears of an escalation of the war. But nato reacted cautiously. It now seems likely that the missile was not fired by Russia, but was probably Ukrainian, meant to intercept part of an attack by Russia involving around 100 missiles that was a response to Ukraine’s liberation of Kherson.
• Britain and France signed a new agreement that will increase the number of migration officers in northern France in the hope of reducing the flow of illegal migrants crossing the English Channel. “Irregular entries” have become a problem across the EU again. Over 280,000 were recorded in the first ten months of 2022, up by 77% compared with 2021. The western Balkans saw the biggest influx of illegal migrants, but the Mediterranean routes also recorded large increases.
• The Turkish police said a woman they arrested on suspicion of planting a bomb in a busy street in Istanbul is a Syrian national working for Kurdish militants. The explosion killed six people.
• China relaxed some of its covid-related restrictions. Quarantine requirements for close contacts and international travellers were reduced, and some cities curtailed mass testing. The changes were made despite a recent surge in cases. An outbreak in the metropolis of Guangzhou led to fears of a city-wide lockdown and a bout of unrest, as people expressed their anger over restrictions.

A cleaner future

• Indonesia and nine rich countries announced an agreement designed to curb the archipelago country’s dependence on coal. The Just Energy Transition Partnership, brokered by America and Japan, promises to provide Indonesia with $20bn in public and private finance to help it retire its fleet of coal-fired power stations and shift to renewable energy. Given Indonesia’s enormous reliance on coal—it is the world’s third-biggest producer—the deal has potentially enormous climate significance.
• In Afghanistan the Taliban ordered judges to impose strict interpretations of sharia law in cases such as stealing and kidnapping, which could lead to public amputations and executions. The regime is becoming ever more repressive; it recently banned women from entering parks.
• Myanmar’s ruling junta is releasing almost 6,000 political prisoners to mark a nation al holiday, according to state media. Around 15,000 people have been arrested since the coup in February 2021. Kubota Toru, a Japanese documentary maker who was detained in July for filming a protest, was said to be among those being set free.
• Ariel Henry, the prime minister of Haiti, dismissed the justice minister, interior minister and the government commissioner. He gave no reason for the dismissals. They come a month after America announced that it was imposing sanctions on two separate officials and that it would pull the visas of those it thinks are involved with gangs.
• Huge protests took place in Mexico against proposed changes to the country’s electoral authority by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. He downplayed the demonstrations, saying that 50,000 people took to the streets “in favour of corruption”. The organisers claim 200,000 people turned out, making them the largest demonstrations against the president.
• For the first time since mass protests began in Iran two months ago, a court sentenced a protester to death, for setting fire to government property. And 227 members of Iran’s parliament signed a letter calling for protesters to be executed. Human-rights groups reckon that 15,000 protesters have been detained.
• Binyamin Netanyahu, whose Likud party won the most seats in an election on November 1st, was asked by Israel’s president to form a government. He was said to be reluctant to give leaders of the far-right all the senior posts they are now demanding as the price for joining a coalition, including the ministry of defence.
• Fans began to arrive in Qatar for the football World Cup, due to kick off on November 20th, amid controversy over the emirate’s human-rights record. Local authorities have been accused of mistreating immigrant labourers and of persecuting homosexuals.
• The first humanitarian-aid deliveries since August have been allowed into Tigray. Hundreds of thousands of people are starving in the northern region of Ethiopia, which has been blockaded by government forces.
• The Democrats retained control of the Senate, after late results from America’s midterm elections gave them victory in Arizona and Nevada. The Republicans won control of the House of Representatives, but with a tiny majority, far short of expectations. Recriminations began against the Republican leadership. The party in the House nominated Kevin McCarthy for speaker, though 31 colleagues voted against him.

Four more years?

• Much of the Republican finger-pointing about what went wrong was aimed at Donald Trump. The twice-impeached former president deflected the criticisms when he formally announced that he will run again for the White House. His long-winded speech was a rehash of previous campaign rallies, and also mentioned the criminal investigations into him.
• nasa at last launched the first rocket in its Artemis project, propelling an unmanned capsule to orbit the Moon for three weeks before it splashes back down to Earth. nasa hopes a successful test will eventually lead to the first manned mission to the Moon since 1972.

The world this week Business

• Regulators around the world opened investigations into ftx, after the crypto exchange and its sprawling network of affiliated firms filed for bankruptcy protection. Traders withdrew $6bn from the platform in just 72 hours amid claims that it had mishandled customers’ investments. ftx could owe money to as many as 1m people. Its spectacular collapse has prompted calls for tougher rules to regulate markets in digital assets. After it declared bankruptcy in America a hacker, possibly an insider, stole around $470m from the exchange.

Diverging economies

• Stockmarkets staged their biggest rally in more than two years on November 10th, after figures for American consumer prices were published. Annual inflation slowed to 7.7% in October, its lowest level since January. The s&p 500 surged by 5.5%, the NASDAQ by 7.4% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average by 3.7%. There were other signs of cooling inflation in America. A measure of wholesale prices rose by 8%, the smallest increase since July 2021.
• In Britain inflation headed in the other direction, accelerating to a 41-year high of 11.1%. Food prices rose by 16%, the most in 45 years. The cost of gas and electricity was also up sharply again. The British economy contracted in the third quarter, by 0.2% over the previous three months, on cue for the start of a long recession that the Bank of England has forecast. All food for thought for the British government, as it unveiled its plan to plug a fiscal hole in the public purse.
• Japan’s economy also shrank in the third quarter, by 0.3%. A weak yen has pushed up the price of imports, curtailing consumption by households and businesses. Even so the contraction was a surprise; most economists were expecting modest growth in the quarter.
• China announced a set of measures to boost liquidity in the troubled property market, such as extending deadlines for loans to developers. The package is seen as the most significant attempt yet by the Chinese authorities to bail out the sector, which is burdened by debt and falling sales. The prices of stocks and bonds of Chinese property companies rose sharply in response.
• Germany nationalised a company that imports natural gas and which was owned by Russia’s Gazprom until April. It is the second time an energy company has been nationalised in recent months in order to secure gas supplies. Poland made a similar move this week, taking control of a section of a pipeline operated by Gazprom. With colder weather on the horizon, the price of natural gas has started to rise again in Europe, after falling for three months.
• Tyson Foods said it would carry out a “thorough review” into the conduct of its chief financial officer, John Randal Tyson, who was recently arrested for being drunk, entering a woman’s house and falling asleep in her bed. Mr Tyson is the son of the meatprocessor’s chairman, John H. Tyson. Given the circumstances, investors may have preferred the review to be overseen by an independent expert, rather than the board.
• America’s biggest retailers reported a mixed bag of earnings. Walmart’s sales in the third quarter were stronger than expected and it raised its outlook for the year. Low-income shoppers are dipping into their savings to fund their spending, according to the company. Target’s profit fell. It described consumers as “stressed”, cutting back on everything. It now expects sales in the Christmas quarter to be lower than in the same three months last year.
• SoftBank’s share price struggled to recover from the hammering it took after reporting another huge quarterly investment loss at its two Vision Funds, this time of ¥1.38trn ($9.8bn). The Japanese conglomerate did manage to make an overall net profit, in part by selling off a large chunk of its stake in Alibaba.
• There was more bad news for employees at tech firms, which are culling staff numbers after a period of expansion during the pandemic. One large hedge-fund investor in Alphabet called on it to reduce its staff count and cut the salaries it pays to non-engi-neers. Alphabet hired 36,000 people over the past 12 months, increasing its workforce by 25%. Amazon was preparing to lay off 10,000 people, mainly in corporate jobs.

None but the brave

• Elon Musk, Twitter’s new boss, told staff that they would have to commit to working longer hours if they wanted to remain at the company, giving them a deadline of a few days to do so or face the sack. Around half the staff have already been laid off in the two weeks since his takeover. Mr Musk faced questions about his own working practices at a court hearing into his $56bn pay package at Tesla, which has upset a shareholder. The carmaker’s chairman said Mr Musk needed such vast sums to fuel his ambitions for “interplanetary travel”.