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Jan 31, 2025 | 
phenomenalworld.org | Kate Mackenzie |Tim Sahay |Lara Merling
The United States will be a source of chaos and volatility for the next several years. The first month of 2025 has set the scene.
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Oct 11, 2024 | 
phenomenalworld.org | Kate Mackenzie |Tim Sahay |Andrew Elrod
At September’s UN General Assembly in New York, Brazil’s President Lula described the international financial system as a “Marshall Plan in reverse” in which the poorest countries finance the richest. Driving the point home, Lula thundered, “African countries borrow at rates up to eight times higher than Germany and four times higher than the United States.”Lula is not alone in this diagnosis.
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Sep 26, 2024 | 
phenomenalworld.org | Andrew Elrod |Ted Fertik |Daniela Gabor |Tim Sahay
Total debt stood $2 trillion higher than before but $500 billion had been purchased by the Social Security trust fund. ↩For the popularization of the idea that federal borrowing would “squeeze out” corporate investment, see “Simon Voices ‘Horror’ at Size of Deficit in Ford’s Budget, Denies He Will Quit,” Wall Street Journal, January 17, 1975, p. 3; “Burns Gives Ford Package Mixed Review, Vows Moderate Fed Anti-Inflation Policy,” Wall Street Journal, January 31, 1975, p.
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Aug 30, 2024 | 
phenomenalworld.org | Kate Mackenzie |Tim Sahay
Last month, young people in Bangladesh revolted against their government over a jobs quota bill that would have reserved 30 percent of public-sector jobs for family members of veterans of the 1971 war with Pakistan. Protestors did manage to drive out the country’s prime minister Sheikh Hasina, though not before hundreds were killed by authorities.
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Aug 15, 2024 | 
phenomenalworld.org | Tim Barker |Dylan Saba |Jack Gross |Tim Sahay
Martin Luther King once called the United States government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.” That formulation may be controversial, but no one denies that the US is by far the world’s biggest arms dealer, with a 42 percent share of the global arms export market. Since the Cold War, Congress has passed various laws to govern the sale and financing of American weapons and humanitarian aid to foreign states.
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Jul 4, 2024 | 
phenomenalworld.org | Tim Sahay |Kate Mackenzie |Indrajit Roy |Jack Gross
On June 25, crowning a dramatic, nationwide tax revolt, demonstrators in Nairobi stormed Kenya’s parliament buildings. President William Ruto’s new finance bill, introduced in Parliament in May, sought to increase levies on everything from bread and money transfers to sanitary items and cellular data. In response, the “Gen-Z” generation that has been criticized for not being politically active took it upon themselves to organize on TikTok and mobilize in the streets.
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May 17, 2024 | 
phenomenalworld.org | Kate Mackenzie |Tim Sahay |Lee Harris
Biden’s announcement this week to sharply raise tariffs on Chinese imports is an escalation in the yearslong tariff war on China. The new tariffs specifically target green goods, most notably electric vehicles, duties on which have now quadrupled to 100 percent. Tariffs on lithium-ion batteries, critical minerals, and solar cells will also be substantially increased.
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Apr 17, 2024 | 
phenomenalworld.org | Kate Mackenzie |Tim Sahay |Herman Schwartz |Mona Ali
We live in a dysfunctional system in which money flows out of the countries that need it most and into the coffers of the wealthiest. In 2023, the private sector collected $68 billion more in interest and principal repayments than it lent to the developing world. International financial institutions and assistance agencies extracted another $40 billion, while net concessional assistance from international financial institutions was only $2 billion—even as famine spread.
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Mar 14, 2024 | 
phenomenalworld.org | Tim Sahay |Kate Mackenzie |Ted Fertik |Daniela Gabor
Protests led by farmers have been roiling Europe for months. In Belgium, Germany, Romania, the Netherlands, Poland, and France, farmers—armed with grievances ranging from subsidized Ukrainian grain imports to the EU-Mercosur trade deal and falling prices—have been taking to the streets, blocking traffic, and pelting the European parliament with eggs. In the European halls of power, right-wing parties are taking note.
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Mar 7, 2024 | 
phenomenalworld.org | Hugo Fanton |Kate Mackenzie |Tim Sahay |Jesse Salah Ovadia
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s campaign for his third term as Brazil’s president was defined by the idea of reconstruction. This encompassed a political recovery from the antidemocratic reign of Jair Bolsonaro, as well as the promise of reindustrialization and a green transition for Brazil’s economy. Key to such efforts, the role of state-owned petroleum giant Petrobras has been a focus of debate in the Brazilian development story.
