#international-finance

#international-finance

U.S. trade deficits are large and need to be brought down. Reducing U.S. fiscal deficits is important. At the same time, there is no doubt in the US ability to pay the world and therefore no crisis. The U.S. has run a trade deficit for most of the past 50 years, but has never had a fiscal crisis related to this imbalance because international investors have kept buying up U.S. assets throughout that period.

The United Nations estimates more than $70bn is needed to rebuild Gaza. From the air, it looks like a city erased. Entire neighbourhoods have vanished from the map two years since Israel's relentless bombardment of Gaza began. What were once homes, schools, hospitals, factories and power plants have been reduced to debris and dust. Thousands of Palestinians are now returning to ruins or rubble in a place that has lost the very fabric of daily life. Economists estimate the cost of rebuilding at tens of billions of dollars far beyond the capacity of Gaza's shattered economy.

average borrowing costs in Africa are almost 10 times higher than for the US, fueled by perceptions of risk propagated by international credit rating agencies.