G7` shadow of war and gloom hang over Japan's G7 meeting

The shadows of two previous, brutal wars — and the potential consequences of one raging in eastern Europe — hung over Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as he arrived Thursday in Japan for the opening of the G7 leaders summit.

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History - repeating itself?: Can History Predict the Future? - by Graeme Wood

The fundamental problems, he says, are a dark triad of social maladies: a bloated elite class, with too few elite jobs to go around; declining living standards among the general population; and a government that can’t cover its financial positions. His models, which track these factors in other societies across history, are too complicated to explain in a nontechnical publication. But they’ve succeeded in impressing writers for nontechnical publications, and have won him comparisons to other authors of “megahistories,” such as Jared Diamond and Yuval Noah Harari. The New York Times columnist Ross Douthat had once found Turchin’s historical model­ing unpersuasive, but 2020 made him a believer: “At this point,” Douthat recently admitted on a podcast, “I feel like you have to pay a little more attention to him.”

Read more at:Can History Predict the Future? - The Atlantic

Glonal Economy: gloom forecast as IMF revises down world growth

Not surprisingly the International Monetary Fund has cut its global growth forecast for the next two years.
In October the IMF projected world growth of 3.8 percent for 2015 now revised down to 3.5 percent.
In 2016 growth will fail to meet the IMF’s initial 4 percent target and will hit the 3.7 percent mark.

The latest doom and gloom comes despite most countries benefiting from the low oil prices.

Olivier Blanchard is Chief Economist at the IMF: “For 2015, we have revised US growth up to 3.6 percent, but we have revised Eurozone growth down to 1.1 percent and Japan growth down to point six percent.”

The exception to the rule is the United States of America with the IMF saying Washington has well and truly put the financial crisis behind it.

The British economy is expected to bump along at 2.4 percent growth for 2016.

While Russia will see its economy contract by 3 percent this year and 1 percent next.

A Capital Market Advise for Close Brothers Seydler Bank is Oliver Roth: “America and Asia have stable growth, while the Europeans are still right in the middle of a debt crisis. The economy is going nowhere. So the global economy is being supported by two and not three pillars and that is a grave concern for the IMF. .

"The emerging markets are facing problems namely from high US interest rates and as growth steadies governments need to take prudent decisions for the well being of their economies."

Read more: Global gloom forecast as IMF revises down world growth | euronews, economy