The World System

The Breaking Storm – the real threats to the Global Economy

31 May 2018

Note: This piece is a high level comment on current threats to the global economy, there is more detail in other posts on this Site There are two long-term problems that will increasingly drive events; one is the loss of German control of the European Union/EuroZone, and the second is the impending [read more]

A review of “Failing States Collapsing Systems – Biophysical Triggers of Political Violence” by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Springer, Cham, Switzerland, 2017

19 October 2017

This is an excellent book, but it, in my opinion, generally arrives at the right conclusions by the wrong path. The key problem is the focus of the author on the increasing cost of extraction of fossil fuels and the arrival of “peak oil” in a number of major oil provinces. I think that five, or [read more]

Commentary on “Write off Donald Trump and the dollar at your peril” by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

7 September 2017

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, who writes in The Daily Telegraph (London) published a very interesting article on 6 September 2017, “Write off Donald Trump and the dollar at your peril.” In this article he points out that American corporations have retained a large amount of their foreign [read more]

A Review of “Grave New World”, by Stephen D King

4 July 2017

Published: Yale University Press (2017) I was looking forward to reading this book, Stephen D King has an excellent reputation and he has a key role at HSBC, while also advising the House of Commons Treasury Committee. The advance notices were also excellent and the author is writing about an [read more]

“The World in Crisis” by Andrew Palmer, a Synopsis

10 April 2017

Paradigm Shifts and an Inflection Point – This is a Synopsis of “The World in Crisis”, which will be published later this year (2017) The World in Crisis is an account of the fundamental and systemic problems that we face today, and the way in which these stresses will interact [read more]

The Earth System A Hierarchy

6 November 2016

The Earth’s climate is an energy system, it is complex and adaptive. Sunlight arrives from our star, some bounces back into the coldness of space, some of the energy is trapped in the atmosphere and some in the oceans. That’s a very basic picture. A better view is to see the Earth’s [read more]

Review of “National Competitiveness and Economic Growth, The Changing Determinants of Economic Performance in the World Economy” – Timo J Hämäläin

29 October 2016

Pub. 2003 Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, England and Northampton, Massachusetts This book is, in my opinion, is one of the most important economic books published in the last few years. The title fails to hint at the explosive contents of the book and its price unfortunately puts it out of the reach [read more]

The Influence of Corporations on the Global Economic System

21 October 2016

Large corporations are often vehicles for expressing the opinions and supporting the interests of their owners and senior executives. Although they are a key part of the operation of the global economic system, and have a legitimate interest in ensuring that legislation and government policy does [read more]

Criminality and Corporations

21 October 2016

Some corporations have policies which actively encourage law-breaking, Enron was one example. Rowan Bosworth-Davies’s report on the 33rd Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime held at Jesus College, Cambridge in September 2015 “The Limits of the Law, The role of compliance in the [read more]

We no longer have internationally agreed rules of behaviour in the financial markets

19 October 2016

The original Bretton Woods settlement, by providing for fixed exchange rates and a link to gold imposed a degree of control over international financial exchanges, which were primarily mechanisms for facilitating international trade. With the development of the Eurodollar markets in London in the [read more]

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Pakistan’s water shortage is a myth

7 June 2018 // 0 Comments

Daanish Mustafa, Thursday June 7th, 2018 The country’s water scarcity is socially constructed, and large farmers engaged in agricultural exports are the culprits and the [read more]
Economies have to decarbonise to stay competitive: former UNFCCC chief

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The Breaking Storm – the real threats to the Global Economy

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How the world’s water changed between 2002 and 2016

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