In Print

The United States Is Fighting Inflation With History

August 27, 2022

Fed chief Jerome Powell wants the world to understand his present decisions are guided by past traumas. At the annual gathering of central bankers and economists in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, this year, all eyes were on U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Last year at the Jackson Hole conference, Powell had announced a new era in economic policy. This was premised on the assumption that we were in an era of low inflation. The Fed would, in the future, target average inflation, offsetting periods of low inflation below 2 percent per year with periods of more rapid price increase. Today, that world seems very remote. Inflation in the United States is running at more than 8 percent, the most rapid rate since the 1970s. Given this extraordinary turnaround, Powell needed to signal that the Fed was serious about stopping inflation. How to make the case?

The World Is Seeing How the Dollar Really Works

August 12, 2022

By raising interest rates, the Federal Reserve strengthened the U.S. currency—and revealed its centrality to global order. 2022 has been a year of dollar power—power that manifests itself in both overt and subtler forms. In the spring, the financial sanctions slapped on Russia’s Central Bank following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine demonstrated the extent of U.S. financial sway, especially when it is exerted in cooperation with America’s European partners. If you export far more than you import and thus hold really large foreign exchange reserves—like Russia’s $500 billion—there really is nowhere else to hold them other than dollars or euros. If it comes to a confrontation, that puts you at the mercy of the financial authorities of the United States and its alliance partners. NATO reveals itself to be a financial power. Russia has, so far, ridden out the storm, but to do

The 1970s Weren’t What You Think

July 1, 2022

Yes, fiscal and monetary policy seemed stuck for too long in expansionary mode. But the era also saw the rebalancing of the world economy. Some historical analogies are playful. Some require elaborate academic justification. Others are native to our world. The lessons learned from them are so ubiquitous as to be part of our intellectual furniture. They are built into our very institutions. The European Union, for instance, repeatedly invokes

The second coming of Nato

May 18, 2022

In November 2019, from the salon doré of the Élysée Palace, where Charles de Gaulle once held court, Emmanuel Macron warned his fellow Europeans that Nato, the transatlantic alliance that had secured Europe since 1949, was on the point of “brain death”. President Donald Trump’s administration, to the horror of America’s own soldiers, had just unilaterally withdrawn support from the Kurdish forces in northern Syria, sacrificing them to Bashar al-Assad

It’s Africa’s Century—for Better or Worse

May 13, 2022

Asia gets the attention, but the real economic revolution is the inevitable growth of an overlooked continent. In the coming decades, we face a revolutionary shift in the balance of world affairs—and it is likely not the one you are thinking of. Since the 1990s, the idea that we might be entering an “Asian century” has preoccupied and disorientated the West. However, once we take in view the long sweep

Adam has contributed articles to the above publications. Click on a logo to see his articles in situ.

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Britain

Central Banking

China

Climate Political Economy

COVID

Critical theory

Debt Politics

Democracy

Europe

Europe’s Political Economy

Germany

Global Political Economy

History

USA

Archive

After the Zeitenwende: Jürgen Habermas and Germany’s new identity crisis

May 12, 2022

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has upended world politics and nowhere more so than in Germany. Addressing an emergency session of the Bundestag on 27 February, German chancellor Olaf Scholz declared a Zeitenwende, a turning

Is escalation in Ukraine part of the US strategy?

May 4, 2022

The aim of the billions committed through the Lend-Lease plan could tip the geopolitical balance. History may be about to repeat itself In the spring of Russia’s war on Ukraine, Washington DC seems haunted by

Does Ukraine need a Marshall Plan?

April 21, 2022

Amid the twisted girders, ruined walls and underground tunnels of the Azovstal plant, Ukraine’s defenders are making their last stand in the siege of Mariupol. The steel factory dates to 1933 and the era of

War at the end of history

April 6, 2022

Will Putin’s invasion of Ukraine lead to a new world order, or an era of grinding compromise? It was the French Revolution that defined the stakes in modern war as an existential clash between nations

Ukraine’s War Has Already Changed the World’s Economy

April 5, 2022

Global economics will never be the same—but not in the ways you might think. For NATO and the West’s relations with Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is clearly a historic turning point.

What happens when a major economy can’t pay its debts in dollars? Russia is about to show us

March 17, 2022

The problem for Putin’s regime is political rather than financial – that’s why this would be no ordinary default As of Wednesday Russia has been scheduled to pay investors holding two dollar-denominated government bonds $117m

John Mearsheimer and the dark origins of realism

March 8, 2022

Rage aimed at the eminent international relations scholar reflects liberal frustration over the West’s limited power to prevent Russia’s war in Ukraine. “Why is Ukraine the West’s fault?” This is the provocative title of a

The world is at financial war

March 2, 2022

The freezing of Russia’s central bank reserves has brought conflict to the heart of the international monetary system. Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s invasion has changed everything. Analysts in the West did not expect the war

The Nord Stream 2 saga is not over

February 23, 2022

It may be an embarrassment now, but with $11bn spent you would be brave to bet against the pipeline eventually carrying Russian gas to the West. Somewhat incongruously, Germany has ended up at the forefront

How Much Power Does the Federal Reserve Have?

February 22, 2022

A review of: THE LORDS OF EASY MONEYHow the Federal Reserve Broke the American EconomyBy Christopher Leonard As the U.S. economy bounces back from the Covid shock, we wait anxiously to see how the Federal

Why inflation and the cost-of-living crisis won’t take us back to the 1970s

February 4, 2022

Surging energy prices force us to confront the suffering caused by inflation and our uncertain future. But a new wage-price spiral is still unlikely. Prices are rising by 5, 6, 7 per cent per annum.

Can Europe tame pandemonium?

January 25, 2022

Covid-19 brought the EU together — the crisis in Ukraine may now tear it apart. As 2022 begins, Europe presents a Janus face. In the east, Russia’s military is massing on the border of Ukraine.

After Biden’s first year, the US economy is surprisingly healthy. His prospects are not

January 20, 2022

Despite victories from Covid to climate change, the president is hamstrung and the nation as divided as ever At the 12-month mark, the obituaries for the Biden administration are being written. The polls are terrible.

Mario Draghi Doesn’t Have ‘Whatever It Takes’ Anymore

January 14, 2022

Whether as Italy’s prime minister or its president, he may not have the solution to Italy’s problems. On Jan. 24, Italy’s parliamentarians and a caucus of regional representatives will start the process of electing a

Fossil Fuel’s Downfall Could Be America’s Too

December 3, 2021

How U.S. polluters might drag the country’s economy down with them. The United Nations climate change conference (known as COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, was billed as historic. By that measure, the conference didn’t deliver. But

The Cop26 message? We are trusting big business, not states, to fix the climate crisis

November 16, 2021

The summit exposed a world looking beyond a broken neoliberal model Cop26 delivered no big climate deal. Nor, in truth, was there any reason to expect one. The drastic measures that might – at a