Western values are diverging from the rest of the world

Hello from London.

Last week was an unusual one for us at The Economist. Regular readers of our weekly edition will have noticed that, well, there wasn’t one, thanks to the previous week’s feature-packed summer double issue . But our digital offerings have been as lively as ever, from an investigation into the World Values Survey that yielded surprising findings to a health check on those parts of the American economy unaffected by the AI hype. Did you mind? (Did you notice?) What did we do well, and what might we have done better? Let us know: the email address is below.

This week we will be paying close attention to the unrest in Niger . With the backing of France, the former colonial power, ECOWAS, a bloc of west African countries, had threatened to intervene should the coup leaders that seized power in Niger last month refuse to restore President Mohamed Bazoum to power. Its deadline passed last night and Niger’s ruling junta has now shut the country’s airspace and warned of an attack by “a foreign power”.

In China, meanwhile, figures published on Wednesday will offer a clue as to whether the country risks tipping into a prolonged period of deflation —a problem that Western countries battling cost-of-living crises might almost envy. And on Friday we will mark the day officially declared the 50th anniversary of hip-hop. Economist readers will surely need no reminding that, as Grandmaster Flash, a mixmaster, once noted, “You don’t need no invitation, there’s a party going on throughout the nation.”

Then there are the legal travails of Donald Trump. Fresh from his indictment over what federal prosecutors consider his illegal attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, in the coming weeks Mr Trump faces the prospect of a fresh prosecution, this one devoted specifically to his efforts to reverse the result in the state of Georgia. (If you’ve lost track of the state and federal charges hanging over Mr Trump, our explainer may prove handy.)

Thanks as ever for your feedback. This week I invite readers to opine on whether Mr Trump’s legal woes will hurt or help his presidential bid, and to explain why. I am about to quit Britain’s miserable attempts at summer for the warmer climes of southern France, where I plan to resort to the consolations of rosé and—confession time—not to think about Donald Trump at all. But my colleagues will welcome your emails on the fortunes of the former president, and anything else, to [email protected] .

Tom Nuttall, Deputy digital editor

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Beyond the tech hype, how healthy is American business?

Ten months ago the spectre of recession was haunting corporate America. Inflation was rampant, earnings were depressed and the Federal Reserve was rapidly tightening the screws. Instead, inflation has moderated, the jobs market remains tight and recession is no longer a certainty. The prospect of an elusive “soft landing” has combined with hype over the productivity-boosting promise of artificial intelligence (AI) to give investors a fillip. This year the S&P 500 index of big American firms is up by nearly a fifth.

Western values are steadily diverging from the rest of the world’s

In 1981 over 40% of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty. But economic growth was starting to accelerate in developing countries. And Ron Inglehart, a professor at the University of Michigan, was organising a worldwide survey team to test the theory that, as peasant farmers escape poverty, they begin to think and behave differently, as people in the past had done when they joined the middle classes.

How the Democrats lost Florida

Rather than simply making America great again Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, is bent on making America Florida. That rallying-call should send shivers down any Democrat’s spine. In a state that used to swing, today Republicans hold supermajorities in both legislative chambers, control both Senate seats and every statewide executive office. The policies passed in its statehouse this session were some of the most hardline in the country.

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