Well, I have to help restore karmic balance some way.

1 The G20 in 2050. Another data point adding to the emerging consenus that China will be the world’s largest economy in just over twenty years, barring political developments which the authors say they can’t predict.

I will try one prediction: there won’t have been a G20 for a long time by 2050.

2 This is supposed to be about India’s economic position in 2109, but it says more about China’s underrated position today: “The Chinese haircut industry alone might be larger than the economies of many small countries.” And so on.

Incidentally, both links show how very difficult it is to measure economies using GDP and the variations thereupon.

Flickr/bazril

2 The man behind “one of the most remarkable military comebacks in modern history”: who is Mullah Omar?

3 How to execute an orderly imperial withdrawal from Mesopotamia. Although I suppose the jury is somewhat still out on this.

4 “There’s nothing more basic than food. If people don’t have it, one of three things happen: they revolt, they migrate or they die.” This is why I still pay for print newspapers.