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Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good

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November 10, 2021

What to Make of America's Inflation Spike

Things have gotten more expensive in the US, government statistics confirmed Wednesday, reporting the largest inflationary jump in more than 30 years. As for what's behind the trend and how long it will last, disagreement has unfolded swiftly.
 
Some have pointed to America's massive Covid-19 economic-relief package as a likely culprit. On GPS, former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers warned in March that such big spending would produce exactly this result, by putting "too much water in the bathtub."
 
Others chalk it up more strictly to Covid-19. In a tweet thread, Washington Post economics correspondent (and recent GPS guest) Heather Long writes, "It's clear a lot of inflation is coming from crazy pandemic dynamics: i.e. there was a ton of demand for goods (cars, washing machines, etc) and supply chain hiccups drove up prices. *BUT* inflation is starting to spill out into other areas like rent." Former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers Austan Goolsbee made a similar case in a New York Times column before the new numbers were released, writing that our current economic moment—inflation included—is self contained and virally driven. More economists have weighed in on either side.
 
Though much of the reaction has centered on US President Joe Biden's massive, still-in-progress spending plans, inflation isn't just a US problem. At Bloomberg, Robert Brand notes inflation increases in China and Brazil and troubling signs in negative real interest rates (which account for the declining value of money—i.e., inflation—over the course of a loan) in Eastern Europe.

Will Economic Crisis Change the Taliban?

Amid well-founded doubts that the Taliban will modernize as some have hoped, Rina Amiri writes for Foreign Affairs that the country's ongoing economic collapse could force the group to change, particularly as some $9 billion in central-bank reserves remain frozen overseas.
 
The possibility of recovering that money could induce the group to govern more inclusively, Amiri suggests, noting international demands and the likely strings attached to unfreezing the cash. As importantly, popular resistance could grow along with the economic crisis, leaving the Taliban unable to maintain control, Amiri writes.
 
"As frustration with Taliban rule increases, the Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K) … may be able to mobilize greater support, particularly among youth and other groups feeling the brunt of Taliban restrictions," Amiri writes. "To stave off further instability and protect the Afghan population from greater suffering, the Taliban and regional and international powers must engage in greater diplomacy, take risks, and make difficult compromises. There is no moral high ground in policies that lead to the starving of the Afghan population."

Will Travel Ever Be The Same?

Covid-19 has forced large companies in the travel sector to take on debt and/or lay off employees, Alice Hancock and Philip Georgiadis write in a Financial Times essay. Some think the industry will never return to its pre-pandemic normalcy.

The US has opened its borders to vaccinated travelers, and business-driven flight routes are expected to pick back up, Hancock and Georgiadis write; at the same time, some companies have slashed plans for business travel moving forward. Tourism appears to be changing, too, as Airbnb reports that stays of 28 days or more account for its fastest-growing segment of bookings, as people look to live and work remotely for weeks or months on end.

Still, Heathrow airport CEO John Holland-Kaye anticipates a return to the previous makeup of travelers, with a third seeing friends or family, a third vacationing, and a third flying for business, Hancock and Georgiadis write. "If a place opens up, people are going there. If it stays closed, people aren't going there," Expedia CEO Peter Kern tells them. "There's no magic."

Another Migrant Crisis for Europe

European pariah state Belarus has irked the European Union with a manufactured migrant crisis, The Economist writes—by effectively importing migrants from the Middle East, allegedly shipping them to the EU's outer edge (in this case, Belarus' border with Poland), encouraging them to cross illegally into EU territory. (Belarus's government has denied such claims.) Large crowds of migrants are now trapped in limbo along the border, as Lauren Said-Moorhouse, Antonia Mortensen, and Magda Chodownik report for CNN. 
 
This has been unfolding for months, more or less: In August, Linas Kojala wrote for CNN that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko seemed to be poking Lithuania via the same tactic, in apparent retaliation against EU efforts to sanction Belarus over its domestic political repression and alleged human-rights abuses.

An Epic Showdown Looms in Brazil

There's been much talk of a "third way" candidate emerging in Brazil ahead of next year's presidential election, Oliver Stuenkel writes for Americas Quartely, but it seems the two candidates who loom largest over Brazilian politics have crowded them all out. Leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (known as Lula) is seen as the most formidable potential challenger to right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, and Stuenkel writes that no one else has gained much traction, leaving centrism off the table in Brazil, for the time being.