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
The USA is going broke
In the novel The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway’s character Mike Campbell is asked how he went bankrupt. He famously replies, “Two ways, slowly and then suddenly.” The United States today is in the “slowly” phase.
Mounting risks of recession
Even with the current ceasefire, does the US and Israel war against Iran portend recession?
June 16, 1976 – What it was like in Soweto on the first day
Implausibly, on the morning of 16 June 1976, I first heard there was trouble in Soweto from London.
The threat to SA’s biggest industry
Could South Africa lose its motor industry, its biggest manufacturer, and half a million jobs? Could SA repeat the sad experience of Australia, which lost its car industry a decade ago?
Welcome to Zimbabwe
Harare, Zimbabwe: Arriving at Harare’s renovated, ultra-modern airport, I paid for my tourist visa and stepped outside. There was a line of taxis, and I
Trump’s unprecedented assault on the rules-based economic order
In Budapest some time ago, I came upon a wall poster bearing the likenesses of potentates whose imperial rule collapsed in the aftermath of World
Because Jay Powell fought back, Fed independence is more secure
Jerome Powell’s eloquent defence of Federal Reserve independence, delivered in a two-minute YouTube video on January 11th, was an inspiring act of courage. The 72-year-old
The sad demise of Kellogg’s – snacks defeat nutrition
From the 1950s and into the 80s a box of Kellogg’s cereal was as ubiquitous as a smart phone is today. The Michigan company manufactured
Three iconic buildings by Frank Gehry, “our greatest architect”
A quarter century ago 91-year-old Philip Johnson stood in the atrium of Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain and wept. Moved by the astonishing
Saving the G20
The Trump administration made a big mistake by not participating in the Johannesburg G20 summit. Having declared several months back that he would not be