The meltdown in May 2022 in the cryptocurrency world, in which the values of digital coins plunged and rendered some near-worthless, is a wake-up call. It once again shows that cryptocurrencies are nothing but a bunch of insubstantial, digital ‘bits’…
The global food crisis has now grown to such proportions that everyone is talking about it (even though world leaders are doing relatively little about it). It has become an article of faith to blame the war in Ukraine for…
Exuding optimism at a time when most indicators point to economic stress across the world, India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry put out a press release on 20 May celebrating what it describes as the “highest annual FDI (foreign direct…
In a new turn to its advocacy of a conservative fiscal stance amidst a recession, the International Monetary Fund in the April 2022 edition of its “Global Financial Stability Report” has called for reining in bank credit to governments as…
As the earth warms up to increasingly unlivable temperatures, it is clear that fossil fuel energy sources will have to be abandoned as fast as possible, even though most governments today are extraordinarily slow to move decisively on this. Clearly,…
The contours of the economic, political and humanitarian crises that Sri Lanka currently faces are now well known. With limited economic diversification, it has for long been an open economy that has found it difficult to earn the foreign exchange…
When the world’s financial leaders met mid-April at Washington for the annual spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the mood was one of gloom. The world economy is in disarray, with world leaders clueless as…
The latest IPCC report makes it clear: the planet is now dangerously close to a tipping point and reliance on fossil fuels has to be drastically curtailed and even fully eliminated soon, to avoid catastrophic climate changes. Obviously, this urgent…
Sri Lanka’s economy is sliding into chaos afflicted with multiple crises, triggered by a steep fall in foreign exchange revenues during the Covid pandemic, a difficult to manage external debt servicing burden, a collapse in the volume of foreign exchange…
Global inflation, the launch of a monetary tightening cycle in the US with increased interest rates, depreciating exchange rates and the fall out of the war in Ukraine, are forcing many countries to borrow their way out of balance of…
