Martin Langfield's Blog, page 5

Uncharmed “Circle”

James Ponsoldt’s #TheCircle means well and the issues are real but, like its protagonist, the movie lacks a strong sense of identity. The book’s better, “Black Mirror” better still. My review: http://reut.rs/2ppGQpH.

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Talk to me

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Reposting this 2012 piece I wrote on how people of left and right can talk to each other, and the value of dissent: http://reut.rs/2jZy5PE

How left and right can talk to each other (and the value of dissent)

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Reposting this 2012 piece I wrote on how people of left and right (at least those of good faith) can talk to each other, and the value of dissent: http://reut.rs/2jZy5PE

Mi casa no es su casa

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A modest proposal: replace NAFTA with a bilateral Treaty for U.S.-Mexican Prosperity, or TRUMP. That would go down well in the White House.http://reut.rs/2jfJABq

Castro embodied the weakness of strongmen

A column I wrote overnight on the passing of Fidel Castro http://reut.rs/2ggbFbm

The charismatic Cuban leader resembled other paternalistic caudillos of right and left in his outsized ego, which ultimately stymied his people. Cubans, like other Latin Americans, need institutions more than saviors like Fidel. Venezuela’s leaders are another example.

(Photo: Havana, outside the U.S. Interests Section of the Swiss Embassy, 1998.)

Colombia’s Nobel fillip

http://reut.rs/2dFp2Bq

President Juan Manuel Santos has won the Nobel Peace Prize for trying to end a 52-year civil war, days after voters rejected his deal with FARC rebels. A bit of chat in my work hat about the economic implications.

“Peace will generate even more pathology”

My 1990 Reuters piece (as printed here in the L.A. Times) was prescient, sadly, about the mental fallout of El Salvador’s civil war. May Colombia do better.

http://lat.ms/2c8kmDF

Brazil after Rousseff

A bit of chat in my work hat about the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff:

reut.rs/2c4NVGq

Antony Currie and Martin Langfield lay out how new President Michel Temer can help turn around the economy after his predecessor’s impeachment – and how lawmakers could be a big impediment.

The Central Park Obelisk, part trey

This was kind of fun:

Shot last summer, the segment on the Central Park obelisk gave me a chance to talk about one of the more Dan Brownian background elements of “The Malice Box” without sounding like an utter nutter, so thanks, Indigo Productions! That doomy silhouette standing and turning in front of the obelisk in the trailer is yours truly, putting to use years of doomy-silhouette training at last. It aired last week, I learned today. Watch out for re-runs!

Chile, Brazil, and Monty Python’s “Four Yorkshiremen” sketch.

Breakingviews TV: Chile’s “luxury” woes

Watch: http://reut.rs/2bGfarZ

Antony Currie and Martin Langfield explain why the country’s political-funding scandal, pension problems and an economic slowdown would feel like a vacation for Brazil’s leaders.