MADRID | By J.P. Marín Arrese | US Congress brokered a last-minute deal to prevent sovereign default and shutdown. Yet a deep damage has been inflicted on the country’s image. Holding Medicare as a hostage happened to be a bad movement that backfired on hard-line Republicans. Unable to implement their doomsday bet, they’ve been confronted to a great amount of public pressure.
MASSACHUSETTS | By Richard N. Cooper via Caixin | As ice cover yields to global warming, many countries are eying a range of economic benefits, but they may be harder to attain than imagined.
OXFORD | By Nayef Al-Rodhanvia via BBVA Open Mind | “Why do they hate us?” is a question often asked among the American population since September 11, 2001. At the same time, Arab-Islamic populations around the world find themselves in a similar predicament. Ubiquitous misrepresentations and alienating stereotypes pervade through security discourses, conflating images of an extremist minority with the attitudes of the peaceful majority.
WASHINGTON | By Pablo Pardo | To lose faith in mankind, there is nothing better than following the debt ceiling and government shutdown debate in the United States. Just one example: a big chunk of the whole discussion has been a medical device tax that, once implemented, would generate in revenue the equivalent of 0.015 percent of the US GDP–or, approximately, 3 percent of the federal deficit.
NEW YORK | By Ana Fuentes | U.S. Senate finally reached an agreement to avoid default and end the Government shutdown. Now it’s time for Congress to approve it before midnight although there is formal certainty that economic mayhem has been averted. The world’s largest economy has needed 16 days of partial closure of its Administration, warnings from Wall Street, China, Japan, the IMF… to curb its political fight between Republicans and Democrats. The deal will extend the credit authority of the United States until February 7, and let the Government continue funding its operations until January 15. For many it is just a patch and we will watch the same political ping-pong again after Christmas.
MADRID | By Francisco López | The change in the Fed’s plans regarding the withdrawal of monetary stimulus is another consequence of the political row between Democrats and Republicans.
MADRID | By Álex García and @senoritapuri
SAO PAULO | By Marcus Nunes | Simon Wren-Lewis concludes considers that we now understand more about the dynamics of inflation and business cycles and so monetary policy is better. “And so monetary policy is better”, but… is it really?
THE CORNER | Negotiations over a Senate plan to reopen the U.S. government and extend the debt ceiling were placed on hold, then renewed on Tuesday evening. Rhetoric and accusations between republicans and democrats are intensifying, as the fateful day approaches. Will the U.S. default on its obligations?
WASHINGTON | By Pablo Pardo | Robert Schiller has always been an advocate of a moderate government intervention in financial markets. He also criticised the Federal Reserve’s Quantitative Easing (QE) because he considered that asset prices are not among the areas of central banks. However, political reality seems to go in the opposite direction of the new Nobel winner.