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Headlines seeming to portend political instability and chaos have not prevented stock markets from soaring. What gives?

With the appointment of Jerome Powell as the next Chair of the United States Federal Reserve Board, Donald Trump has made perhaps the most important single decision of his presidency.

The US cannot "win" a trade war with China, and any victory will be Pyrrhic - leading to massive price increases in the low-cost stores on which many Americans rely.

Markets are fixated on how high the Fed will raise interest rates in the next 12 months. This is dangerously shortsighted. The real concern should be how far it could cut rates in the next deep recession.

One of the biggest economic surprises of 2015 is that the stunning drop in global oil prices did not deliver a bigger boost to global growth. The good news is that the welcome but modest effect on growth probably will not die out in 2016.

How should one understand the disconnect between new highs reached by global equity indices and new depths plumbed by real interest rates worldwide?

There are good reasons why central bankers receive so much media. But the bubble around their pronouncements grossly exaggerates their economic significance.

Modern central banking has worked wonders to bring down inflation. Today, high inflation seems remote. But inflation is only dormant, it is certainly not dead.

Moving to a twenty-first-century currency system would make it far simpler to move to a twenty-first-century central-banking regime as well.

Will each future generation continue to enjoy a better quality of life than its immediate predecessor? The likely answer is yes, but the risks seem higher.