The $650bn binge: Fear and greed in the entertainment industry
The world this week
Leaders
Netflix, Disney and the battle to control eyeballs
Who will win the media wars?
Disney’s new streaming service and the media wars
The end of Evo Morales
Was there a coup in Bolivia?
The armed forces spoke up for democracy and the constitution against an attempt at dictatorship
America’s multi-trillion dollar pension hole
Public pensions are woefully underfunded
The crunch point is coming soon
Unlock that door
Voters could make the world twice as rich. Why don’t they?
How to make immigration more palatable in rich democracies
Sink or swim
Aircraft-carriers are under threat from modern missiles
If carriers and the planes that fly off them do not adapt, American allies in Asia will be in trouble
Letters
Briefing
Military kit
Aircraft-carriers are big, expensive, vulnerable—and popular
The queens of the fleet are too big to fail
Power to the people
The future of entertainment
Media giants are battling for viewers’ attention. There will be blood
Europe
Are the black zero’s days numbered?
Why Germany sticks to strict budget rules despite a slowdown
Compensation culture
Ireland’s insurance premiums have rocketed
Old wine in new bottles
Leonardo da Vinci’s personal vineyard has been re-created
Charlemagne
Reading the cards
Britain
Tactical voting
Nigel Farage’s Christmas present to Boris Johnson
Britain’s new political generation
Meet Parliament’s class of 2019
Giving it some welly
Floods hit marginal constituencies in England
Middle East & Africa
A kaleidoscope of possibilities
The politics surrounding an assassination and its aftermath in Gaza
A Sala-fifth column
The battle for Tripoli could be decided by the Madkhalis
The resource curse
How west Africa’s gold rush is funding jihadists
United States
Clean slates, rich states
Why states are rushing to seal tens of millions of old criminal records
Inverse psychology
America’s yield curve is no longer inverted
Come in, Sand Point
Extreme broadcasting in Alaska
History in the Mississippi Delta
Memories of Emmett Till
The Americas
Rainbow resignation
Evo Morales leaves Bolivia dangerously divided
When “sí” means “we’ll see”
Why planning weddings in Mexico is hard
Asia
Self-reinforcing bias
Japan’s electoral map favours the ruling party
The opposition twitches
Cambodia eases up on one dissident to distract attention from another
Nat guilty
Monks in Myanmar have a new target
China
No shelter for some
Homelessness has become a problem in China’s cities
Towards the brink
Confrontation in Hong Kong is turning ever uglier
International
We all want to change the world
Economics, demography and social media only partly explain the protests roiling so many countries today
Special report
Skilled migrants
How migration makes the world brainier
Low-skilled migrants
When a worker migrates, a family benefits
Domestic migration
Why people should leave the countryside
Voting with your feet
Why voting with your feet is more effective than a ballot
Business
Out with the proxies
Proxy advisers come under fire
Bartleby
Don’t show, tell
Ascending scale
A huge lift business is up for sale
Internet shopping frenzies
One for the money
Finance & economics
OPEC’s waning power
Tighter production targets have failed to lift the price of oil
Parked trade policy
The Trump administration is trying to reforge carmakers’ supply chains
Buttonwood
The case for a falling dollar
Sentimental journey
The improved mood in financial markets
Fake it till you break it
Some Chinese firms turn out to have lied about their state pedigree
The reckoning continues
Stiff sentences for bank fraud capture Italy’s sour public mood
A life’s rich tapestry
How Jim Simons became the most successful investor of all time
Science & technology
Additive manufacturing
Giant 3D printers for making boats, bridges, buildings and rockets
Conservation
How to forge rhinoceros horn
High-tech rugby
Sensors, data and the self-policing rugby match
Culture
A night at the museum
Some building works threaten Turkish antiquities. Others save them
Diamond geezers
The glittering rise of the Cartiers
A severe contest
Has The Economist made history, as well as reporting it?
Graphic detail
Playlists and politics
Why Obama-Trump swing voters like heavy metal
Obituary
Indonesian mass murderer