Tempering that optimism were his three reasons, besides the sheer magnitude of the task and a likely tussle for the power to allocate reconstruction funds, why reconstruction will be so difficult.

ECONOMIST: Banyan

Mr Carter has a good feel for the arc America traced from the buoyant post-war optimism of the Apollo programme across the bridge of the Vietnam war to the pessimism surrounding Nixon's fall from power.

ECONOMIST: New fiction

Expectations that Chinese companies will regain some of their pricing power this year, optimism about U.S. demand and the further opening of Chinese capital markets to foreign central banks are among the current drivers for these funds.

FORBES: Where The Money's Flowing