November 22, 2021—Following the conclusion of the most recent Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee plenum on November 11, it now seems almost certain that Xi Jinping, currently 68 years old, will remain ruler for the rest of his life. Moreover, it seems that Xi will persist in pursuing his political and socio-economic policies, including the “common prosperity” business interventions he ordered in 2021.
September 23, 2021Debt ceiling negotiations in Congress have returned to the spotlight, as they do every few years. Current estimates suggest the U.S. Treasury will be unable to meet its payment obligations starting between mid-October to early November.Markets are watching closely because failure on the part of Congress to raise or suspend the debt ceiling ahead of that deadline could raise the risk of the U.S. Treasury defaulting on its debt, which would be an unprecedented event.
September 22, 2021—At a White House cybersecurity summit in August, President Biden described cybersecurity as a “core national security challenge… and the federal government can’t meet this challenge alone,” in a blunt assessment of our critical infrastructure resiliency. The issue of cybersecurity is hardly new and is only growing as we move towards an increasingly digitized world.
