We live in dark times.

There are at least three major dark clouds hovering above our world. The first is inflation. It is roaring rapidly across the world, toppling weak governments (like in Sri Lanka and Italy) along the way. The second is the Ukraine war. No end is in sight. And the spike in energy and food prices it has generated has aggravated global inflation. As Tom Friedman said recently, poor Europeans will soon have to choose between heating and eating. The third is the zero-Covid policy of China. It has slowed China's economic growth significantly, depriving the world of one of its major growth engines.