ATHENS — The quiet days of August are a good time to contemplate the year ahead. Peering at my 2024 calendar, the European Parliament elections loom largest.

ATHENS — In 2008 Europeans earned, in aggregate, 10 per cent more than Americans. By 2022, Americans were earning 26 per cent more than Europeans. This week, the Wall Street Journal confirmed that Europeans are becoming poorer not just collectively but also privately.

ATHENS — Last week brought a rare good-news story: Artificial intelligence enabled researchers to develop an antibiotic capable of killing an exotic superbug that had defied all existing antimicrobial drugs.

ATHENS — When First Republic Bank failed, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation organised a shotgun sale of its assets to JPMorgan Chase.

ATHENS — European industry is reeling under the twin threat of high energy prices and President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) which, in essence, bribes Europe’s green industries to migrate to the United States.

ATHENS — The banking crisis this time is different. In fact, it is worse than in 2007-08.

ATHENS — This is not a polemic about whether Russia can be trusted to respect any future peace treaty with Ukraine. Nor is it a commentary on the merits of ending the war by diplomatic means.

ATHENS  —  Elon Musk had good reasons to feel unfulfilled enough to buy Twitter for $44 billion. He had pioneered online payments, upended the car industry, revolutionised space travel and even experimented with ambitious brain-computer interfaces.

ATHENS  —  Capitalism conquered the world by commodifying almost everything that had a value but not a price, thus driving a sharp wedge between values and prices. It did the same to money.