That’s how I’ve seen things in the financial markets this past week. Why? There’s nothing there about economic policy. It’s all about politics. Turkey is going to the polls this Sunday.
Looking at the economy these days, there are things that I understand and there are things that I have difficulty in understanding.
In December 1995, the American rapper 2Pac (Tupac Amari Shakur) was on MTV talking about his new album. “It’s called All Eyez on Me. That’s how I feel it is. I got the police watching me, the Feds... everybody’s looking to see what I’mma do now so All Eyez on Me.” That’s what it feels like in Turkey these days.
“The times they are-a changin’” sang Bob Dylan in the 1960s. That got to me sometimes. Aren’t they always “a-changin’?” Isn’t that what time is? Not necessarily.
I see two important trends shaping the future of the global debate: The first is population aging and the second is migration. It’s an old story in a new setting.
Have you heard of the testimonies of U.S. intelligence chiefs at a Senate hearing last week? They all said that Iran is not trying to build nuclear weapons. It seems like very good news for our troubled region. Looking for short-term policy implications? It’s time to re-engage with Iran. So the Europeans, together with Turkey, were right, and the U.S. and Israel were wrong in their policy recommendations.
Brexit discussions have turned into a farce in the U.K. If we consider the referendum itself as a tragedy, Prime Minister Theresa May’s handling of the Brexit process has turned it into a comedy. Currently, there is a whole new discussion on how Brexit should be carried out. Interestingly, the current discussions are all U.K.-centric. However Brexit is more important for Turkey than you may imagine, therefore how they see this process through with the U.K. is very important for the EU, too. Let me explain.
This week minimum wage has increased by 26 percent while household natural gas and electricity prices have declined 10 percent. The President himself has made the announcement. These can be thought kind of a new year’s present for the nation. Turkey is going to have its municipal election in March 2019. You may say that it is just another election season in Turkey? I tend to disagree. This time is different.
About 10 years ago, it was the Americans who started funding projects to revitalize the old Silk Road — the land route connecting China to Europe. I specifically remember how an American official told me not to waste my time with projects on Israel-Palestine, and to look more closely at Central Asia. People were doing things like sending test containers over Silk Road train tracks just to see how much time it would take. Projections at the time made a striking case. Companies — many of them American — were going to reorient their supply chain logistics according to this plan.
