Should-Read: Martin Wolf: A political shadow looms over the world economy

Should-Read: I really wish that the FT would stop calling it “populism” and start calling it “fascism”. “Populism” is a set of policies—some good on net, some bad—to redistribute income downward. Fascism is something much uglier. Fascism is what we have. Nobody thinks Trump or his Republican enablers or their allies and fellow travelers elsewhere are interested in redistributing income downward:

Martin Wolf: A political shadow looms over the world economy: “Optimism about the global economy is tempered by fears of populism…

…promising simple solutions to complex problems… Brexit… Catalonia… above all, in the US, where the implications of Donald Trump’s election remain almost as obscure as they were on the day of his inauguration. Inevitably, the transformation of US policy is far and away the deepest worry. This might still amount to little more than sound and fury signifying nothing. But it is also far too early to be confident of that…. Vast tax cuts at a time of near full employment… reducing the external deficit through a series of negotiations, starting with Nafta. The aim of fixing an overall current account deficit through bilateral trade negotiations is not only intellectually incoherent, but clashes directly with its fiscal policies. It may be nonsense, but it could lead to the cumulative unravelling of the global trading system…