Niall Ferguson
Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
March 24, 2010
"The End of Chimerica: Amicable Divorce or Currency War?"
Testimony
By Niall Ferguson, Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Niall Ferguson testifies before the House Committee on Ways and Means about restructuring the economic relations between the United States and China.
AP Photo
February 11, 2010
"A Greek Crisis is Coming to America"
Op-Ed, Financial Times
By Niall Ferguson, Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"...[T]he idiosyncrasies of the eurozone should not distract us from the general nature of the fiscal crisis that is now afflicting most western economies. Call it the fractal geometry of debt: the problem is essentially the same from Iceland to Ireland to Britain to the US. It just comes in widely differing sizes."
AP Photo
January/February 2010
"What 'Chimerica' Hath Wrought"
Magazine or Newspaper Article, American Interest
By Niall Ferguson, Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"For a time, [Chimerica] was a symbiotic relationship that seemed like a marriage made in heaven. Put simply, one half did the saving, the other half the spending. Comparing net national savings as a proportion of Gross National Income, American savings declined from above 5 percent in the mid 1990s to virtually zero by 2005, while Chinese savings surged from below 30 percent to nearly 45 percent. This divergence in saving patterns allowed a tremendous explosion of debt in the United States, for one effect of the Asian "savings glut" was to make it much cheaper for households to borrow money than would otherwise have been the case."
December 28, 2009
"The Decade the World Tilted East"
Op-Ed, Financial Times
By Niall Ferguson, Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"The question I wanted to pose was not especially original, but increasingly it seems to be the most interesting question a historian of the modern era can address. Just why, beginning in around 1500, did the less populous and apparently backward west of the Eurasian landmass come to dominate the rest of the world, including the more populous and more sophisticated societies of eastern Eurasia?"
AP Photo
December 7, 2009
"An Empire at Risk"
Magazine or Newspaper Article, Newsweek
By Niall Ferguson, Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"Military experts talk as if the president's decision about whether to send an additional 40,000 troops to Afghanistan is a make-or-break moment. In reality, his indecision about the deficit could matter much more for the country's long-term national security. Call the United States what you like-superpower, hegemon, or empire-but its ability to manage its finances is closely tied to its ability to remain the predominant global military power."
AP Photo
December 2, 2009
"How to Take Moral Hazard out of Banking"
Op-Ed, Financial Times
By Niall Ferguson, Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"As Dubai World's default shows, the financial crisis is far from over. Surprise, surprise, among the creditors with the biggest exposure is Royal Bank of Scotland - a reminder that reckless lending by supersized banks was a global phenomenon. Taxpayers are entitled to ask for a radical reform of banking regulation to ensure they will never again have to foot huge bills for financial folly. So far, there is only one credible proposal."
AP Photo
November 16, 2009
"The Great Wallop"
Op-Ed, New York Times
By Niall Ferguson, Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Moritz Schularick
"A few years ago we came up with the term "Chimerica" to describe the combination of the Chinese and American economies, which together had become the key driver of the global economy," says Niall Ferguson member of the Belfer Center's board of directors. "Correcting the economic imbalance between the United States and China - the dissolution of Chimerica - is now indispensable if equilibrium is to be restored to the world economy."
AP Photo
November 16, 2009
"The Year the World Really Changed"
Magazine or Newspaper Article, Newsweek
By Niall Ferguson, Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"...1989 was less of a watershed year than 1979. The reverberations of the fall of the Berlin Wall turned out to be much smaller than we had expected at the time. In essence, what happened was that we belatedly saw through the gigantic fraud of Soviet superpower. But the real trends of our time—the rise of China, the radicalization of Islam, and the rise and fall of market fundamentalism—had already been launched a decade earlier."
iStock Photo
September 11, 2009
"Wall Street’s New Gilded Age"
Op-Ed, Newsweek
By Niall Ferguson, Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"But now, barely a year after one of the worst crises in all financial history, we seem to have returned to the Gilded Age of the late 19th century-the last time bankers came close to ruling America," argues Niall Ferguson, member of the Belfer Center's board of directors. "A few Wall Street giants, led by none other than JPMorgan, are back to making serious money and paying million-dollar bonuses," Ferguson says, while "every month, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans face foreclosure or unemployment because of a crisis caused by ... a few Wall Street giants."
AP Photo
August 11, 2009
"A Runaway Deficit May Soon Test Obama’s Luck"
Op-Ed, Financial Times
By Niall Ferguson, Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
President Barack Obama reminds me of Felix the Cat. One of the best-loved cartoon characters of the 1920s, Felix was not only black. He was also very, very lucky. And that pretty much sums up the 44th president of the US as he takes a well-earned summer break after just over six months in the world’s biggest and toughest job.
