In the middle of last month, the Bank of China quietly announced a startling new bank account available to America citizens. At one of three Bank of China branches in the United States–two in New York and one in Los Angeles–an American can walk in, open an account and convert their grubby dollars into the currency of the hottest, and arguably the most important, economy in the world, the Chinese renminbi.
Read moreCancun and Climate: Government Won’t Act, But Business Will
Over the next two weeks, Cancun will be in the spotlight for something other than spring break madness. As host of the annual climate summit that once saw such promise in Kyoto in 1997, Cancun in 2010 is framed by the spectacular failure of last year’s Copenhagen talks and by the stark realization that nearly 200 nations simply cannot agree on anything of consequence.
Read moreThe G-20: This Time, It’s Different
Last week’s G-20 economic summit in South Korea was widely depicted as a failure for the Obama administration and a rebuff for the United States. In many respects, it was. Obama remarked that if the U.S. hadn’t tried to set the agenda, it would have had an easier time. “Part of the reason that sometimes it seems that the United States is attracting some dissent is because we’re initiating ideas,” he said. “We’re putting them forward. The easiest thing for us to do would be to take a passive role and let things just drift which wouldn’t cause any conflict.”
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