America’s Capitalist Missionaries, Let a Thousand Towers Bloom, Draining the Ruhr

Tim Cook. Elon Musk. Warren Buffet. Jeff Bezos. Jamie Dimon. Lately, a who’s who of American business power has been sent over to meet their Chinese counterparts. With embassy-level diplomacy increasingly in the deep freeze, are they using their corporate rockstars to do what the State Department can’t? Meanwhile, inside China, as the post-Covid recovery slows, we may be about to see the economy of Keynes’ dreams swing into action, as the Chinese get busy building. Will it be a clunking fist, or a jumpstart to the heart? Finally, Germany’s recession dials are blinking red. Will the airbags inflate on their auto industry? Or is this the moment their national chest cavity is speared on the steering column?