today, 25 countries have exceeded this mark. the old obsession with economics over politics was overdone. it achieved great successes but it created other problems, such as wage stagnation. but the current emphasis of politics over economics seems more dangerous. it allows politicians to engage in patronage policies, protectionism and short-term gimmicks to prevent ordinary people from feeling the pain of a crisis. in the long run, however, one wonders if it is the same ordinary people who will have to pay the price. go to cnn.com/fareed for a link to my washington post column this week. and let s get started. after three rounds of high-level meetings between russia and the west this week,
nationalism when xi announced his made-in-china strategy and for its part mirrored its protectionism with its own subsidies. the western world has followed suit. driven by an understandable concern of middle class wages and inequality, economic policy is no longer oriented towards economic growth. tariff, relief and substance packages all reflect that politics has trumped economics. central banks everywhere have rushed in over the last decade to take extreme measures to the response to the big shocks of the age, the financial crisis and pandemic. in the mid-19 90s, not one country in the world had a debt-to-gdp ratio of 300%. today, 25 countries have exceeded this mark. the old obsession with economics over politics was overdone. it achieved great successes but it created other problems, such as wage stagnation.