Barry D. Wood
Washington writer Barry D. Wood for two decades was chief economics correspondent at Voice of America News, reporting from 25 G7/8, G20 summits. He was the Washington correspondent for RTHK radio in Hong Kong from 2012 to 2025. Wood's earliest reporting included covering key events in South and southern Africa, among them the Portuguese withdrawal from Mozambique and Angola and the Soweto uprising in the mid-1970s. He is the author of the book Exploring New Europe, A Bicycle Journey, based his travels – by bicycle – through 14 countries of the former Soviet bloc after the fall of Russian communism. Read more of his work at econbarry.com. Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07OIjoanVGg
Articles By This Author
Fragility in US Financial Markets?
On the surface all is good. Growth is solid, the dollar strong. The economy is running at full employment, having matched a 1960s record with the jobless rate below 5% for 61 consecutive months. Despite a 40% rise in fuel prices from the Iran war, the stock market has been at record highs.
The pursuit of excellence: Grant Wood and William Shirer, from Cedar Rapids to the world
One hundred years ago, in the summer of 1926, Bill Shirer and Grant Wood sat on the terrace of the Deux Magots café in Paris
Trump’s G20: back to basics
As a crisis response entity, the Group of 20 was superb. In 2009 at the nadir of the global financial crisis, leaders from lands accounting for 85% of global output agreed to flood their stumbling economies with cash—demonstrating to a benumbed public that competent leadership was in charge, that confidence would be restored—and most importantly–there would not be a worldwide depression.
Franz Kafka lives on in Hong Kong and Washington
In Franz Kafka’s 1925 novel, The Trial, Prague bank clerk Joseph K is arrested but not told why. He was informed neither of the nature of the purported crime nor the names of the accusers. He is left to speculate about what was going on.
The need to reprise a golden age of foreign reporting
After the First World War and disastrous 1919 Paris peace accord, four young American would-be journalists rolled up on European shores.
Creative Destruction: America’s Losers and Winners
Joseph Schumpeter in 1942 coined the term creative destruction where innovation renders old economic models obsolete. Technology marches on. Embrace the new or die.
The Gordie Howe Bridge—A Terrible Way to Treat a Friend
Canadian Gordie Howe was one of the greatest hockey players ever. Known as Mr. Hockey, Howe played 25 years with the Detroit Redwings, leading them to four Stanley Cup titles. He retired from professional hockey in 1980 at the age of 52. Howe died in Ohio in 2016.
Letter from Hong Kong: flexibility and transition
HONG KONG: Outwardly, Hong Kong hasn’t changed. Vintage trams still trundle through Central, street names are unchanged since the 1997 handover, and Hong Kongers drive on the left as they always have. Hong Kong’s currency peg to the US dollar is still in place.
Life-changing sudden wealth: financial windfalls for a few
Seoul, Korea: If you’re working at SpaceX in the States or chip-makers Samsung and SK Hynix in South Korea, you’ve struck it rich. At rocket
Assessing Powell’s performance at the Fed
MIT professor Kristin Forbes says Jay Powell successfully dealt with four extraordinary events during his eight years heading the Federal Reserve. Fed independence, she said, was tested more than at any time in 50 years, US tariffs went to a 90-year high, a global pandemic was the worst in 100 years, and inflation, she told a Washington audience, spiked to a 40-year high.