Are Smart Cities The Answer to Urbanization of the World? Examining the Pros and Cons
Urbanizing World, Social Unrest, and Urban Nightmares The world is urbanizing at an alarming pace. We used the word, alarming, as the pace of migration to the cities and the urban and metropolitan areas worldwide is making such places groan under the weight of too many people and too inadequate infrastructure. Indeed, the rate at […]
New Emerging Markets: Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey (MINTs)
Global capital is always on the search of the next profitable opportunity and this is the reason why the BRICs or the grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, and China found favor as emerging markets in the last two decades. As these economies began to sag and saturate, the restless investors began looking for the next […]
What is Ease of Business rankings and why do they matter to countries like India?
The Recently Published Ease of Business Rankings The news that India jumped 30 places in the Ease of Business Rankings as published by the World Bank and which covers 190 countries worldwide was met with jubilation and chest thumping by the Indian Government, which promptly announced that the Indian Economy was on a path to […]
How Companies are Avoiding Tariffs
The biggest ever trade war is underway. China and the United States, which are the two largest economies in the world, are at loggerheads. President Trump drew first blood when he imposed duties on steel and aluminum imported from China and many other countries. However, the Chinese government was not far behind either. China unveiled […]
The Global Economic Crisis and its Impact on India
Much has been written about the way in which India was one of the few countries that was relatively unscathed because of the global economic crisis. Most of these narratives focused on how India managed to weather the storm in the dark days following the collapse of Lehmann Brothers. However, it cannot be completely said […]
According to many respected commentators like Nouriel Roubini and Joseph Stiglitz, the Global Economy is facing severe headwinds which can culminate in a “Global Perfect Storm” in beginning 2013. The term perfect storm refers to the coming together of extreme weather conditions that culminate to produce a storm of such a magnitude as never seen before.
When applied to the global economy, the term denotes the simultaneous impact of the United States facing a “fiscal cliff”, the Eurozone breaking up and China deleveraging which spells trouble for the economies of the world. Though this has been predicted before, what makes the situation different this time is that the conditions for these events have been set in motion and are accelerating towards a finale.
The combination of falling tax revenues, increased debt and cuts to wages and benefits including layoffs of workers in the government sector means that conditions are ripe for a prolonged recession. And when these portend gloomy days for the US, the world economy is bound to be effected since the global economy is heavily dependent on the US for support and sustenance.
The point here is that till now Germany and France have been resisting the breakup of the Eurozone which many say is inevitable. Hence, it remains to be seen how long this situation can persist given the rather humungous debt that the countries of the Eurozone hold.
Further, the US economy is no longer importing that much from the Chinese and hence, the time for China to consume more domestically and export less is coming into play. This means that stimulus packages aimed at the export sector must now be oriented towards domestic consumption and the excess inventory of goods that have piled up have to be sold off.
In conclusion, these trends are slowly rubbing against each other and the global economy is moving towards a situation where they all impact at the same time leading to conditions that have been described as a perfect storm. Hence, policymakers in all countries including India have to assess the impact of the coming storm and plan accordingly. After all, being forewarned is being forearmed.
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What the Current Wave of Protectionism and Populism mean for the Future of Globalization and Free Trade
February 12, 2025
