We've talked about some incredibly poor countries on this channel before, but perhaps nothing as bad as the small East African country of Eritrea. This country is a complete military dictatorship, and has been called the North Korea of Africa. There are no free markets. No trading partners. Their debt to GDP ratio runs very high for one reason only: their country is in a critical region of the world for international shipping. But life really couldn't be much worse in Eritrea ..read more

Capitalism is the system that has helped the world become infinitely more wealthy than it has ever been in human history, but there are problems. A disregard for the drawbacks of production like waste, pollution and inequality are often cited by people who want capitalism to be replaced by social democracy, communism or even anarchy. But even communist countries like the USSR and China have reluctantly returned to capitalism. So, is capitalism inevitable?  ..read more

The Davos Summit of the World Economic Forum (WEF) draws a lot of attention every year. Started by German engineer Klaus Schwab, the WEF the stated mission to "engage business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.” It's no wonder there are a lot of conspiracy hypotheses about the real motivations of such an organisation. But despite their image as the club of the wealthy elites, the reality is much less sinister, but could somehow be worse than the conspiracy theories about lizard people ..read more

Apparently us guys think about the Roman Empire 5 times a day, but from an economic Perspective it's hard to see why. While they did build a lot of architectural monuments, their economy was actually rather pathetic by almost all metrics. Why was Rome, which had a large empire and notoriety throughout Europe for millennia after its demise, actually a very weak economy ..read more

The Davos Summit of the World Economic Forum (WEF) draws a lot of attention every year. Started by German engineer Klaus Schwab, the WEF the stated mission to "engage business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.” It's no wonder there are a lot of conspiracy hypotheses about the real motivations of such an organisation. But despite their image as the club of the wealthy elites, the reality is much less sinister, but could somehow be worse than the conspiracy theories about lizard people ..read more

There is no more deadly area in the world than the DMZ between North and South Korea. Millions of mines, guns and surveillance prevent anyone from crossing. But if tensions were to somehow stop and North and South Korea reunite into one country, it would still be almost impossible to combine their economies. Why would we not be able to use the lessons learned by the reunification of East and West Germany ..read more

Japan's economy has been stagnant for 2 decades, and while some economists look at this as an outlier, it might be something that just happens to all advanced economies, and Japan just got there first. After suffering the "lost generation", can Japan come back and recover growth, or is their fate one we will all eventually reach ..read more

Australia's biggest export is natural resources, and as we have talked about on the channel many times, this isn't always a great thing for an economy. Resources don't provide much value to the local economy, especially in Australia where mines are thousands of miles from residential centres, and they don't employ all that many people for the massive wealth they create. Australia lags far behind technological centres like the US, but somehow has a strong economy. How has it done this and what can we learn from a country that just digs holes and builds homes ..read more

While California is famous for its industries, Texas has so many incredible advantages and opportunities that it could one day overtake the biggest state economy in the US. What possible issues could affect the rapidly growing Texan economy, and what could its future look like ..read more

LinkedIn Jobs helps you find the qualified candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/ee⁠⁠⁠⁠. Terms and conditions apply. There's a reason we include confidence and stability on our National Leaderboard. It might not be an easily measurable economic metric, but it can have a massive effect on a national economy. If people don't have confidence that a country is in good hands and will be managed well into the future, then they will stop investing there. So why is the UK having a crisis of confidence, and to what extent is London to blame for t ..read more