Divide

Conspicuous consumption refers to the practice of increasingly spending money to buy more and more expensive items as a depiction of affluence and social acceptability. The term was coined in 1899 by the American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen in his book ‘The Theory of the Leisure Class”. The type of goods for which demand increases as the price increases are called Veblen goods. The exclusive nature of certain luxury goods leads to this phenomenon.

China’s inbound Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is trudging upwards and is likely to depict a downward trend, when corrected for inflation, in the time to follow despite declaration of steady growth. According to a report by World Bank, FDI in 2010 accounted for 4 percent of China’s GDP which fell sharply to 1.5 percent in 2016. One can observe how China is ensuring a significant fall in the impact of FDI on its economy.

The irony of Trump’s incessant commitment is scathing in the eyes of other member countries especially in the light of his relationship with the Russian President – Vladimir Putin. It raises a cause of concern because Russia’s entire foreign policy revolves around undermining the West. One can extrapolate a pattern of Trump’s willingness to prioritize talks with authoritarians at the cost of United States’ strong diplomatic relations with the West. This was observed as he rushed through the G7 summit to meet Kim Jong Un in Singapore.