The Musings Of A Politics Junkie & Closet Economist

U.S. infrastructure is the never-ending problem that all administrations want to solve. Yet attempts to find a solution generally creates more questions and angst…

The French recently re-elected Emmanuel Macron for a second term as president. It is not clear that most French like Macron but we do know that a majority of French favored Macron over his 2nd round runoff opponent, Marine Le Pen. The election itself garnered more attention than many French probably could have expected. Portuguese, Spanish, and German leaders (Antonio Costa, Pedro Sanchez and Olaf Scholz respectively) thought it necessary to pen a letter in support of Macron. The Macron victory should not overshadow the economic realities underpinning the relative success of the Le Pen campaign.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is worsening a food crisis in the North African region, as Ukraine and Russia are leading exporters of agricultural products to North Africa, while also forcing countries to do a geopolitical dance to avoid picking a side, especially when the countries have military and diplomatic ties to either Russia or the US or sometimes both countries. The conflict also presents opportunities for exporters who can fill gaps in the global supply chain, in particular energy…but then again, those gaps are the result of both economic and political challenges with the political challenges never being so simple to solve.

To think many people predicted 2021 couldn’t get any worse than 2020. Little did they know that 2021 would bring delta, omicron, and inflation with a lot of messiness in-between. The result is 2022 will be volatile with a covid overhang and inflation coupled with aggressive interest rate hikes (by the U.S. Federal Reserve and other similar authorities across the globe) to combat the inflation – as a result, 2022 may present more distress than 2021. These are the markets distressed investors will, as a result, be watching in 2022.

Is Ghana a potential victim of interest rate hikes or a bigger problem?

Vaccines gave hope going into 2021…fast forward a year later and the omicron variant is not providing the same confidence, especially with much of the globe still not fully vaccinated and / or without a booster shot. Such a reality has created renewed economic uncertainty. As we enter 2022, there are several countries whose economic trends will provide some insight into the global economy going forward…

Elections across Africa in 2021 began with a bang and ended with surprises: from military coups, to complaints of rigging, to stable leaders. What will 2022 bring?

If Southern African leaders wrote a letter to the world after the first border closure for Omicron…

Modi may have appeared brash in his approach and his words at COP26…but that cannot overshadow the hard truths raised by his speech…