The Federal Reserve is facing a rather sticky problem. Despite its best efforts over the past year, inflation is stubbornly refusing to head south with any urgency to a target of 2%. Rather, the inflation report released on March 14, 2023, shows consumer prices rose 0.4% in February, meaning the year-over-year increase is now at […]
the electronic transactions tax is here to stay
Ghana’s finance minister Ken Ofori-Atta has announced that the government intends to introduce an electronic transaction levy (e-levy) in the 2022 budget. He said this was to “widen the tax net and rope in the informal sector”. The proposed levy, which will come into effect on 1 February 2022, is a charge of 1.75% of […]
Which path will humanity choose?
Governments have delayed action on climate change for too long, and incremental changes in energy and food production will no longer be enough to create a climate-resilient future, a new analysis from scientists around the world warns. The world is already seeing harmful impacts from climate change, including extreme storms, heat waves and other changes […]
The plastic recycling system is broken – here’s how we can fix it
The investor Warren Buffett once remarked that “only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked”. For the plastics recycling industry, the pandemic was a bit like the tide going out, exposing its deep-rooted structural problems. Specifically, COVID-19 exposed the plastics recycling sector’s vulnerability to oil-price changes. Economic shutdown driven by […]
how neoliberalism became an insult in Australian politics
The much-debated term “neoliberalism” again entered the political debate last week, with Greens leader Adam Bandt using a National Press Club speech to decry neoliberalism in the Labor Party. Bandt claimed that since the Keating and Hawke governments, Labor has adopted neoliberalism by “privatising public services, cutting taxes for the wealthy and adopting more austerity”. […]
Ghana’s informal mining harms health and the land – but reforms must work with people, not against them
Artisanal small-scale mining has been practised in Ghana for over a century. In 2018, small-scale miners generated 2.1 million ounces of gold, accounting for 43.1% of total gold production in the country. The sector employs 60% of Ghana’s mining workforce. But this production has come at a cost: water pollution, land degradation, the destruction of […]
Why some are rich, others are poor – and what it means for future prosperity
Why are some nations rich and others poor? Can the governments of poor nations do something to ensure that their nations become rich? These sorts of questions have long fascinated public officials and economists, at least since Adam Smith, the prominent Scottish economist whose famous 1776 book was titled “An Inquiry into the Nature and […]
5 major challenges facing the country’s next president
Nigerians will soon determine who their next president will be in a general election. Polling is due at the end of February and inauguration is scheduled for 29 May 2023. As Nigerians count down to election day, it’s worth considering the key challenges the country’s next president will deal with as he takes on his […]
Jiang Zemin propelled China’s economic rise in the world, leaving his successors to deal with the massive inequality that followed
By the summer of 1989, a series of problems were threatening China’s stability. Soaring inflation was undermining the economy at home while the violent suppression of Tiananmen Square demonstrations had left it largely a pariah state abroad. Yet within a few years the nation rebounded – beginning two decades of high economic growth, membership in […]
how the war in Sudan hurts its fragile neighbour
Since the 15 April outbreak of hostilities in Sudan, the civilian population has been bearing the brunt. The Rapid Support Forces, led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (called Hemeti), are in conflict with the Sudanese Armed Forces, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudan’s de facto head of state. Nearly 1.4 million people have been […]