Martin Langfield's Blog, page 5

Never a dull moment

When dealing with Argentina it’s prudent to expect the unexpected: my column today.

Argentina grinds toward economic credibility

Within just a couple of days Latin America’s third-largest economy sold a rare 100-year bond and was then surprisingly snubbed for inclusion in a major stock index by MSCI. Amid all the noise, President Mauricio Macri is slowly asserting the dullness of competence.

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Brazil’s economy teeters at the abattoir gates

Laws and sausages alike are famously messy to make. That Brazil’s President Temer, a master of the dark legislative arts, may lose his job over meatpacker JBS’s corruption charges is perhaps fitting. But pension reform still needs forcing through Congress, whoever’s in charge. My Breakingviews column http://reut.rs/2rSOlFw 

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Review: 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.

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