The world’s rich-poor divide can be parsed in infinite ways — the richest 1 percent of the world makes twice as much as the poorest 50 percent, it’s getting worse in Russia than in China, it’s hitting the young harder than the elderly.

This tension expresses itself in many ways, from the concrete walls of New Taipei to the pit mines of the Congo.

Can we blame corruption, often the only way to get things done around the world? Can we blame our own complacency and addiction to little benefits?

One thing is for sure: the world is going to jump through some creative hoops to adapt to change. Venezuela launched a oil-backed cryptocurrency to save its ailing economy — but it might all be a farce intended to keep the country solvent for a little while longer.

While Caracas runs low on food, Cape Town is dangerously close to running out of water, another crisis that will hit the poor much harder than the rich.

In this year of the earth dog, will we roll over bark endlessly into the night?

TNIi