AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
Divergent dauntless12/10/2023 And all over the Muslim world, myriad Islamist organizations, from Islamic State to the Taliban, are using violence to pursue their atavistic goals. Having annexed Crimea to Russia, President Putin still has forces camped out in eastern Ukraine. President Obama has shown a growing preference for European-style soft (he might say “smart”) power. ![]() In autocracies, by contrast, corrupt hierarchies are tightening their grip on power with old and new forms of coercion, ranging from police brutality in Venezuela to Internet trolling in Russia.įinally, there is a fourth divergence between soft powers and hard powers. The majority of democracies are now characterized by multiple parties, very close results and, consequently, relatively weak governments. The third divergence is the political one between democracies and autocracies. ![]() Assuming that energy prices do not bounce back in 2015, the outlook is as bleak for exporters as it is rosy for importers. The second divergence is between exporters and importers of energy in the wake of a steep decline in global oil prices from over $100 a barrel as recently as July to just above $50 at year’s end. The European Central Bank, meanwhile, badly needs to reverse two years of balance-sheet contraction. While the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England have been signaling their intention to “normalize” policy (i.e., to raise interest rates), the Bank of Japan has already launched an open-ended QE program, with the bank’s balance sheet projected to hit 70% of GDP. The first, and most obvious, is between the taperers and quantitative-easers in the realm of monetary policy. To understand the world in 2015, it may therefore be preferable to think of four trends that are divergent in the traditional sense. recovery, and political uncertainty around elections in May could prove distinctly daunting. would love to be Dauntless, but its economic turnaround lacks the breadth of the U.S. Japan is trying its best to be Aspirant, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe can’t seem to fire his “third arrow” of structural reform. Mexico would like to be Erudite but retains many traces of its Abject past. Roth’s adolescent heroine, Tris-displaying more than one trait. In truth, this is a Divergent world, with many countries-like Ms. And let’s not forget the Catatonic: from Japan to the eurozone, economies either immune to monetary stimulus or reluctant to administer it. There are the Aspirant: from India to Mexico and Peru, countries engaged in a real process of economic reform. There are the Abject: from Argentina to Venezuela by way of Russia, corrupt pseudo-democracies reliant on the export of natural resources. But the other three factions would need different names. Then there are the Erudite little countries, like Estonia and Singapore, that have the rare distinction of intelligent governance. The U.S., its economic recovery firmly established despite learned talk of secular stagnation, is looking Dauntless. If you were to sort the world’s countries into five factions, you would need a slightly modified classification scheme. People who fail the initiation tests are consigned to poverty as “factionless.” People with multiple traits are classified as “divergent” and persecuted. This being a post-apocalyptic Chicago, the last faction turns out to be the bad guys. N Veronica Roth ’s “Divergent”-a 2011 “young adult” novel set in a dystopian future not a thousand miles removed from “The Hunger Games”-humanity is divided into five factions according to their dominant character traits: Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless and Erudite. IN Veronica Roth ’s “Divergent”-a 2011 “young adult” novel set in a dystopian future not a thousand miles removed from “The Hunger Games”-humanity is divided into five factions according to their dominant character traits: Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless and Erudite. In Veronica Roth ’s “Divergent”-a 2011 “young adult” novel set in a dystopian future not a thousand miles removed from “The Hunger Games”-humanity is divided into five factions according to their dominant character traits: Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless and Erudite.
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |