Raghuram Rajan: “In many countries, the political landscape is changing dramatically, possibly auguring more radical policies in both the United States and Europe. Faced with societal ageing, de-globalization, climate change, anti-immigration sentiment and technological advances, central banks will feel pressure from many different directions in the coming years. One obvious concern is fiscal policy and debt. When radical politicians come to power, they rarely have austerity in mind. Most arrive with big audacious plans requiring massive increases in spending. (Argentinian President Javier Milei is an exception, in part because he was elected to reverse the policies of previous radicals). But moderate leaders also will feel greater pressure to spend in the years ahead. Real (inflation-adjusted) interest rates are likely to return to their long-term trend, which means debt-service costs will eat up more of governments’ budgets.”
Nitin Desai: “The crucial issue is the rate at which [India] can generate decent jobs in industry and services to absorb the rising number of working-age persons seeking jobs and the surplus labour shifting out of agriculture. Projecting the official working age population (age 15-59) forecasts up to 2047 and assuming that the proportion of this group seeking work will remain at around 65 per cent, we will have about 120 million new job-seekers. A more problematic forecast is the scale of assessment of the shift of surplus labour out of agriculture. If we aim for a developed or even high-income country status then the share of agriculture has to come down to at most 10 per cent, and that means a shift of about 150 million people out of agriculture. Thus, this adds up to the creation of 270 million new jobs in industry and services to absorb the increase in employment-seeking population and the shift of surplus labour out of agriculture. This amounts to more than 10 million new industry and services jobs per year over the next 25 years.”
Neal Stephenson defines “metaverse” in 2024: “A massively multiplayer online universe that has a sense of space to it so that there are experiences distributed around that space in a way that is perceived by all of its users in the same way. And you can move around from one place to another and interact with other users who are not physically present. It’s not controlled by any one entity; many creators, large and small, build things there.”
FT: “India’s move to rein in foreign tech mirrors global trends in many ways. Like Europe’s Digital Markets Act, India’s digital competition bill would allow authorities to pre-emptively crack down on companies before they form monopolies — rather than punishing or breaking them up after the fact. But at its heart, India’s approach stands out for what Udbhav Tiwari, director of global product policy at Mozilla, calls an attempt to create a “fourth path” for regulating the internet. It seeks to be lighter touch than Europe and take consumer protection more seriously than the US. But it also creates broad powers for the state to police online speech in ways critics say resembles neighbouring China more than fellow democracies.”
