Economist, May 20, 2017 (I)

choi

(1) Shark attacks in Australia l Fatal Shore’ The death of a surfer prompts a row about how to keep swimmers safe.

Note:
(a) There is no need to read the text.
(b) The only graphic of the article:

"Not Biting, But Drowning

Australia, deaths
Selected causes
2000-16

Sharks:26
Bee (or wasp): 27
Horse: 74
Burns: 974
Drowning; 4,820

Source: AVRU [Australian Venom Research Unit] (Dr Ronelle Welton)
national statistics"

choi

(2)
(a) Special Report: Israel. The introduction is titled
Six Days of War, 50 Years of Occupation; Israel has become powerful and rich, but has not found peace with the Palestinians -- nor with itself, says Anton La Guardia.
(i) I will not call it rich -- its per capita GDPs are projected, for 2017, to be $36,378 (PPP) and $39,125 (per exchange rate), respectively.  
World Economic Outlook Database. International Monetary Fund, April 2017.
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs ... PC&grp=0&a=(%225.%20Report%20for%20Selected%20Countries%20and%20Subjects%22)

In comparison, per capita GDPs (PPP) for Taiwan and S Korea are, for 2017, >$48,000 and > $38,000 (CIA World Factbook does not project for 2017, but has 2016 estimates).
(ii) Population of Israel, according to CIA World Factbook, was 8.2 million in 2016 estimate, including those in Golan Height and East Jerusalem, both of which Israel annexed  (in 1967 and 1981 respectively, though not recognized internationally. Israeli law provides that inhabitants are permanent residents and can apply for citizenship.)

(b) The fourth of a total six articles in the special report is:
The economy l Startup Nation of Left Behind Nation?  Dazzling firms divert attention from a serious productivity problem.
http://www.economist.com/news/sp ... ity-problem-israels

Note:
(i) "The Israeli government wants to turn Beersheva, a comparatively poor southern city, into one of the world’s prime cyber-security centres"

Beersheva
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beersheba
(section 1 Etymology)
(ii) Israel is "the most dynamic innovation ecosystem outside America. * * * All this marks a remarkable change from the 1980s, when Israel was on the brink of financial collapse. Its near-defeat in the Yom Kippur war had caused it to push defence spending to an extraordinary 30% of GDP in 1975. By 1984 public debt had reached nearly 300% of GDP and hyperinflation peaked at 450% a year.  In the past decade the economy has grown at about 4% a year. * * * [presently] Public debt has come down to 62% of GDP"
(iii) "Israel scores poorly in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a test of the science, maths and reading skills of 15-year-olds from across the world run by the OECD, a rich-world think-tank."
(iv) Israel's labor productivity caught up in the period "leading to the Yom Kippur war in 1973, when Israel's productivity converged with that of the G7 countries; thereafter it diverged again."

This sentence is what The Economist has to say about Israel first improving and then lagging productivity -- no reason given.

choi

(3) Financial Crisis l Secret Agents.
(book review on Richard Bookstaber, The End of Theory; Financial Crises, the failure of economics and the sweep of human interaction. Princeton University Press, 2017)

Quote: "In a lecture to the American Economic Association in 2003 [Nobel winner/macroeconomist at University of Chicago] Robert Lucas argued that macroeconomics had succeeded in so far as the 'central problem of depression prevention has been solved, for all practical purposes.'  Yet within five years the world faced its worst crisis since the 1930s")

My comment: There is no need to read the rest.