This trend is hindering Japan's long-time strategy of relying heavily on exports to drive growth and adding to pressure to find fresh momentum through stronger domestic demand at a time when the workforce is aging and shrinking and corporate investment remains feeble.

NPR: Japan Posts Record $17.4B Trade Deficit In Jan.

Stated differently, if Simon was really betting that inflation-adjusted prices of a basket of commodity prices have a significantly negative trend over long periods of time, and Ehrlich was betting that the slope of that line was significantly positive, I think Simon wins the bet.

FORBES: But Why Did Julian Simon Win The Paul Ehrlich Bet?

But it may also herald the re-emergence, after a decades-long trend among Israel's neighbours to accommodate the Jewish state, of a broad rejectionist front, this time inspired by pan-Islamist feeling rather than the pan-Arab nationalism of the 1960s and 1970s.

ECONOMIST: The Arab world