Do it yourself

One of the several global trends that have been developing in the past decade, in particular, is the dissipation of the US dominance in the game of Lawn Tennis. The game that was dominated by US players for several decades does not have any commonly recognizable US players. The list of top 10 rank players in the ATP Men ranking has only two US names – Taylor Fritz (9) and Frances Tiafoe (10); while the rest eight are all European players. In women ranking also only two US names – Jessica Pegula (4) and Coco Gauff (7) – appear in the top 10 lists. Within Europe also, players from Eastern Europe are dominating the court, versus Germany, the UK, and France which had a significant presence in the game for decades. It would be interesting to study if there is a correlation between losing dominance on the Tennis court and losing dominance on the mint streets (economic muscle) and battlefields (strategic power). In the past decade, the US has ceded significant economic power to China. For...

This summer Americans drove less than the summer of 2020 when many office goers were working from home and the economy was partially shut down. The situation is no better in Europe. Higher fuel and food cost is driving the cost of living higher in most of the world, significantly disturbing the household budgets.   Many emerging and underdeveloped markets were struggling with higher inflation even before the pandemic. But pandemic and adverse weather conditions in the past two and half years have made the situation worse. Whereas many emerging markets, especially in Africa and Latin America, have been struggling with higher inflation and rise in the cost of living for a couple of decades, it is a relatively new phenomenon for the post 1980s developed western economies. The present generation in these economies had gotten used to cheap and easily available money and marginal food and fuel inflation in the past two decades. For them this sudden and sharp rise in basic cost of l...

 On 29 th June 2022, Reuters reported a trade deal that could have material and far reaching implications for India’s external trade in particular and the global trade in general as well. As per the agency, it has accessed documents from the Indian Custom department showing that Ultratech, the largest cement manufacturer in India, has imported 1,57,000 tonnes of coal, worth USD25.81million (appx INR2000cr), from Russia. The consignment is invoiced in Chinese currency Yuan (CNY), implying that the payment will be made in CNY, without using the global payment network like SWIFT. The agency also reported that other companies have also placed orders for Russian coal using CNY payments. ( see here ) This could be the first instance of an Indian company using CNY to make international payments. Apparently, this time the transaction could be to circumvent the international sanctions on Russia. Ultratech would be using USD to buy CNY in China or Hong Kong to pay the Russian coal produce...

Recently, some RBI officials reportedly told the parliamentary standing committee on Finance that RBI fears increased “dollarization” of the Indian economy due to popularization of cryptocurrencies. The representatives of the central bank reportedly testified before the committee that “… almost all cryptocurrencies are dollar-denominated and issued by foreign private entities, which may eventually dollarize a segment of the Indian economy. The cryptocurrencies could be a medium of exchange and replace the rupee in financial transactions, both in domestic and cross-border transactions, affecting the monetary system and undermining the RBI’s capacity to regulate capital flow.” In this context it is pertinent to note that— (a)   As per the latest available World Bank data, foreign trade accounts for ~38% of India's GDP. A substantial part (~86%) of this trade is invoiced and settled in USD; whereas only 5% of India’s imports are from and 15% of India’s exports to US. (b) ...