Al Qaeda has long held that the West is locked in a civilizational war with Islam. The terror group has now found a prominent Westerner who agrees with them: Steve Bannon, top adviser to US president Donald Trump.
Swedes face one the world’s highest tax rates. And apparently, they want to pay even more than they owe. Last year, Sweden’s budget surplus totaled 85 billion kronor ($9.5 billion), around half of which came from people and companies overpaying tax, reports the Financial Times (paywall).
Last year, Americans bought more new cars than ever before. Given that auto sales make up around a fifth of all retail spending, 2016’s banner year is being hailed as a sign of burgeoning consumer confidence across the country.
In the last three months of 2016, Germany broke character. Its households—long thought of as fanatically thrifty—bought a little more than they usually do. In fact, for once, Germans bought more from abroad than they exported. Perhaps most remarkably, though, the country’s sober, responsible, tightfisted government cranked up the spending too.
At first glance, the life of a hagfish—also known as the slime eel—may not seem very inspiring. The blind, jawless fish scours the seafloor in search of dead sea creatures to eat. But when threatened, a hagfish reveals its strange Spider-Man-like power: It spews forth gummy, gelatinous goop that clogs up the predator’s gills, or just leaves them with a mouthful of tacky gunk.
We know cephalopod brains are big. And disarmingly effective. But it turns out they’re are even more dazzlingly complex than we’d realized. The latest surprise comes from studying not their brains, though—but, rather, their skin. Or, more specifically, the dizzying medley of speckles, stripes, and colors that squid (and other cephalopods) can cycle through in mere seconds, a phenomenon Wired explores in detail.
In the history of the US presidency, only three men—Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton—have ever been impeached or resigned. But gamblers are already betting on a fourth.
Donald Trump has made a lot of big promises. Among the most ambitious is his vow to “create 25 million new American jobs in the next decade and return to 4% annual growth.”
Germany’s got a nasty habit—one that it’s foisting on the rest of the world. The country just announced record-breaking surpluses in trade and its current account. So huge is the latter that, in 2016, it exceeded that of China—a mind-blowing feat considering Germany’s economy is about a third the size of China’s.
Donald Trump is infamous for being someone you can ”bait with a tweet.” But can you charm with a tweet? Shinzo Abe is about to find out.
China’s heaping hoard of foreign-exchange reserves once symbolized its economic might. At their peak, in June 2014, they reached just shy of $4 trillion—more money than the entire German economy made that year.
What does Donald Trump want for America? His supporters don’t know. His party doesn’t know. Even he doesn’t know.
Donald Trump relentlessly bashed China on his way to the White House, and not without reason. Between 2001 and 2015, the US lost 3.4 million jobs due to its trade deficit with China, nearly three-quarters of them in manufacturing, according to a new study by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning research group.
Lox lovers and sashimi devotees, prepare to shell out this year. According to the Nasdaq Salmon Index, salmon prices are at historic highs—and it’s all because of one tiny, nefarious little creature.
Mexico really just can’t catch a break—and it can blame a lot of that rotten luck on its northern neighbor. The latest on that list of American offenses is a bout of stagflation brewing in Mexico, according to Société Générale.
Globalization officially has a new champion. At the World Economic Forum this week, Xi Jinping praised international trade and decried protectionism (and, indirectly, Donald Trump). Does this signal the dawn of a new China-led era of globalization?
Even behind bars, Bernie Madoff is still the master of monopolizing people’s money. The business he ran from prison, however, is vastly more legit than the multibillion-dollar con that landed him a 150-year sentence.
Almost all female animals breed until they die. This makes sense: the longer you can procreate, the more likely you are to pass on your genes.
President-elect Donald Trump stoked conspiracy theories throughout his campaign. Now he wants to make them official policy, it seems.
Right now, a “Make America Great Again” hat will set you back $25 on the official merchandise site for president-elect Donald Trump. Vendors on Taobao—the Chinese online marketplace run by e-commerce giant Alibaba—will sell you one for as little as $0.50.
It was the era of Top Gun and “Walk Like an Egyptian.” The year of Iran-Contra affair, the Chernobyl leak and the tragic Challenger explosion. The launch of the Mir space station and the Oprah Winfrey Show.
America’s traditional stewardship of the global economy is in limbo. As president-elect Donald Trump sees it, the United States’ role in the world isn’t necessarily to lead it. Sure, the US will still engage with other countries—but only in line with Trump’s guiding principle of ”America First.”
It’s not just the Chinese fat cats that are driving up New York City real estate prices anymore. Now, thanks to a network of global crowdfunding platforms, regular middle-class households in China are getting in on the gold rush.
Donald Trump spent the last year alternatively bellyaching and praising the Fed’s low interest rates and vowing to replace its chairwoman, Janet Yellen, when her term is up (paywall). “She should be ashamed of herself,” he said in September 2016, after accusing her of following orders from president Barack Obama. “What they [the Fed] are doing is, I believe, it’s a false market,” he said.
