The Economist - 2 декабря 2023

Год выпуска: декабрь 2023

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: 76

BLUE-COLLAR BONANZA

Why conventional wisdom on inequality is wrong

• The conventional view that inequality is rising inexorably is wrong: leader, page 9.
• Demographic change, technology and policy are transforming labour markets, page 60.
• Why economists are at war over inequality: Free exchange, page 66.

Is Putin winning?

• Leader, page 10.
• How Putin is reshaping Russia to keep his war machine running: briefing, page 16.
• Support for Ukraine is less assured than it once was: Charlemagne, page 47.
• Political splits in Ukraine, page 43.

America's most conservative court

• The Fifth Circu it Court of Appeals makes the Supreme Court look moderate by comparison—and is shaping its agenda, page 79.

Time for a methane deal

• A chance at COP28 to limit a nasty source of emissions: leader, page 77, and analysis, page 67.

Political Islam after Gaza

• America has to get tougher with Israel: leader, page 77.
• The debate inside Hamas, page 37.
• The future of political Islam, page 57.

The world this week Politics

• Antony Blinken, America’s secretary of state, went to Israel to press for more extensions to the ceasefire in Gaza. Under the truce Hamas has released Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel. During the week William Burns, the director of them a, and David Barnea, the head of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, went to Doha to hold talks with the Qatari prime minister and Egyptian officials about the hostages. The Americans want Israel to prolong the ceasefire. Israel’s government is insisting that the war against Hamas must resume soon.
• The annual climate summit convened by the un got under way in Dubai. COP28 is being attended by 70,000 climate advocates, diplomats and journalists, though Joe Biden is skipping this one (he attended the previous two cops as America’s president). The three main battles at the 12-day gathering are cracking down on methane emissions, reaching a deal on climate finance and finding a path to end the use of fossil fuels.
• An attack on a prison in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, killed 20 people, including 13 soldiers, and freed 1,890 inmates. The country’s information officer described the assault as a failed coup directed by bodyguards loyal to the former president.
• Volodymyr Zelensky said his government would reform the system for mobilising troops in Ukraine. The president did not disclose details, but the recruitment process has been plagued by draft evasion and corruption. Ukraine said that Russia was intensifying its attacks, and had carried out its biggest drone assault on Kyiv since the start of the war. Meanwhile, the wife of Ukraine’s military intelligence chief was poisoned.
• Finland shut its entire border with Russia for two weeks to stop what it claims is an organised attempt by Russia to ferry illegal migrants across the frontier. The Finnish prime minister, Petteri Orpo, described it as “Russia’s influence operation”.
• Negotiations began in the Netherlands to form a new government after the election victory of the far-right Party for Freedom (pw), led by Geert Wilders. Mr Wilders is trying to determine which parties will enlist in a coalition, a tricky task given that the mainstream conservative party has ruled out joining him in government, though it has suggested it would support a centre-right cabinet.
• Ireland’s prime minister, Leo Varadkar, said he would tighten the country’s laws against incitement to hatred “and hatred in general”. He was responding to a rare spate of rioting in Dublin that was sparked by the non-fatal stabbing of three children and a school assistant by a man of Algerian origin.

Dead government walking

• The Polish president, Andrzej Duda, swore in a new government formed by the Law and Justice (pis) party. The government is expected to last just two weeks, pis won a minority of seats in Poland’s recent election. A coalition led by Donald Tusk, a former prime minister, gained the most seats and will vote the government down when it presents its plans to parliament. Mr Duda hails from the pis.
• Downing Street became embroiled in a diplomatic row when it cancelled a meeting between Rishi Sunak, the British prime minister, and his Greek counterpart, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, claiming that Mr Mitsotakis had broken a promise not to raise the thorny issue of the Elgin marbles in public during his visit. The Greeks denied that he had made such a promise.
• Tens of thousands of people marched in London against antisemitism, the city's biggest demonstration in support of Jewish people since 1936. The previous day another large protest was held calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
• Mass demonstrations took place across Italy to protest against violence against women. The murder of a college student by her former boyfriend has brought the issue to the fore in a country where 105 women have been murdered this year, more than half at the hands of a current or former partner.
• Prosecutors in America charged an Indian national with trying to arrange the assassination in New York of a leading proponent of a separate state for Sikhs in India. The reported target, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, is one of the leaders of the Khalistan movement. Mr Pannun describes himself as a dual American-Canadian citizen. Two months ago Canada claimed that Indian agents had murdered a Sikh separatist in Vancouver.
• All 41 workers who were trapped in a tunnel in the Indian state of Uttarakhand were rescued. They had been cut off for 17 days when the tunnel, part of a construction project connecting four holy Hindu sites, collapsed.
• New Zealand’s new rightwing government said it would overturn a ban on smoking introduced by the previous left-wing administration. The ban was the first in the world to outlaw gradually the sale of tobacco products to future generations, starting with anyone born after 2008. The law was due to come into force next year. The government has suggested it needs the revenue from tobacco sales to fund tax cuts.
• A 48-year-old man was charged with the attempted murder of three students of Palestinian descent in the town of Burlington, Vermont. Two of them were wearing a keffiyeh, a Palestinian headdress, when they were shot.

An illiberal college education

• The University of California was sued by the Brandeis Centre, a Jewish watchdog, for an alleged "long-standing, unchecked spread of antisemitism” on Berkeley’s campus. The centre says that since the October 7th terrorist attack in Israel, antisemitism “has run rampant at the school.” It is the most prominent such claim to be filed against an American college so far. Three Jewish students lodged a legal complaint against New York University in early November.
• Almost 50,000 Americans killed themselves last year, according to preliminary statistics. At 14.3 per 100,000 people the suicide rate was the highest since 1941. Men accounted for almost 80% of the deaths.
• Henry Kissinger, one of the world’s most powerful statesmen during the 20th century, died aged 100. Mr Kissinger fled Nazi Germany to become America’s top diplomat and one of the architects of foreign policy on Vietnam and the cold war. In a recent interview he said that Hamas’s terrorist assault on Israel and Russia’s war in Ukraine were a "fundamental attack on the international system.”

The world this week Business

• Tributes were paid to Charlie Munger, who died aged 99. Mr Munger was Warren Buffett’s long-standing partner at Berkshire Hathaway. Their friendship stretched back to Mr Buffett’s first investments in the 1950s. Mr Munger joined the holding company’s board in 1978. Mr Buffett credited Mr Munger with breaking "my cigar-butt habits” and driving company strategy, once telling shareholders that he was merely the contractor while Mr Munger was the architect of the business's growth.

The sun shines for Shein

• Shein, a fast-fashion retailer, has filed for an initial public offering in America, according to reports. Shein's cheap clothing range is hugely popular; its sales are comparable to those of H&M and Zara. America is its biggest market and Shein’s website is almost as in demand as Amazon’s among teenagers. The company was founded in China but now has its headquarters in Singapore. That might smooth the process for what could be the biggest stockmarket flotation of a Chinese-origin firm since Didi Global’s ill-fated ipo in 2021.
• ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, is reportedly pulling out of the mobile-gaming business. Its Nuverse division accounts for only a fraction of its revenues and is being wound down.
• Hong Kong’s exports grew in October by 1.4%, year on year, the first increase since April 2022. Shipments to mainland China were up by 5.6%, which was taken as an optimistic sign that regional trade is on the road to recovery.
• Tesla prepared the first deliveries of its long-delayed Cybertruck. Initial orders for the vehicle were placed before the start of the pandemic but production has been plagued with problems. Elon Musk has described the suv as a "badass, futuristic armoured personnel carrier” and "intentionally an insane technology bandwag on”. Tesla doesn’t expect to make a profit from it for at least 18 months.
• Nissan and aesc, its batterymaking partner, are investing another £2bn ($2.sbn) making electric cars and batteries in Sunderland, a deprived city in England's north-east. The investment includes a new gigafactory. The news was welcomed by the British government, which has made more money available to support battery manufacturing. The factories will add 20 gigawatt hours of battery capacity annually by 2030.
• Boots, Britain’s biggest chain of chemists, sold its £q.8bn ($6.ibn) pension scheme to Legal & General, a financial-services firm. The deal opens the way for a potential sale of Boots by its owner, Walgreens Boots Alliance. The American company tried, and failed, to sell the business last year.
• The European Union’s antitrust commissioner lodged a formal objection against Amazon’s proposed acquisition of iRobot, claiming the deal "may restrict competition in the market for robot vacuum cleaners”. Amazon announced the takeover in August 2022. America’s Federal Trade Commission, which launched a wide-ranging antitrust lawsuit against Amazon in September, is also investigating the proposal.
• Another potential tech takeover also received a setback when Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority decided that Adobe’s offer to buy Figma, an online service used by designers to develop apps and websites, could harm the digital-design industry. Adobe has offered $2obn for Figma. Critics of the deal claim the software giant is trying to squash a potential rival.

Pet project

• America’s Food and Drug Administration accepted a "reasonable expectation of effectiveness” application from Loyal, a firm in San Francisco, for its candidate lifeextending drug for large dogs. This is the first time the administration has officially recognised the possibility that a drug intended for any species might have general lifespanextending properties.
• A record summer helped propel easyjet to its first annual pre-tax profit since the start of the pandemic. It has reinstated its shareholder dividend, making it one of the first big European airlines to do so.
• Saudi Arabia’s sovereignwealth fund is buying a 10% stake in Heathrow. Ferrovial, an infrastructure company, is selling its 25% holding in the airport. Ardian, a French private-equity firm, is buying the other 15%.
• A Virgin Atlantic 787 made the world’s first commercial flight powered completely by sustainable aviation fuel. The plane burned a fuel blend that was 88% waste fat (from cooking oils and food scraps) and 12% synthetic kerosene made from plant sugars. The aircraft flew from London to New York. It did emit carbon, though the emissions over the fuel’s life cycle were 70% lower than those that power a regular flight. Greens contend that the only way to reach climate targets is to fly less.