African Extractive Industries: PRC Neocolonialism

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 5/30/2024 01:12:00 PM
That the slow development of the African continent can be traced to Western colonialism is an archetype of this field of study: Mainly interested in extracting natural resources for manufacturing industries sited elsewhere (e.g., Europe), foreigners have come for valuable minerals... and not much more. It would be neat if this story was confined to the history books, but we keep being reminded that it is instead very much a story of the 21st century still. Of note in this respect are the Chinese. The stereotype of Chinese industrialists enticing corrupt regimes all over the continent with easy money in exchange for mineral...
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Turkish Football Reflects National Malaise

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 5/24/2024 02:23:00 PM
I haven't had a sports feature in ages, so here's one: The pitch invader--a fan who goes down to the football field--is a fixture of the sport the world over. However, did you wonder if such sporting hooliganism meant more than a lack of impulse control? Its repeated occurrence in Turkey, often accompanied by violence, has spurred a broader examination in the pages of the Financial Times. The overall thesis that sports reflect wider culture is not quite unique. If you consider football as an institution of significance along with, say, government, you may see things in a difference light:Mistrust among fans over institutions...
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Making US Permian Basin Part of OPEC (Really)

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 5/05/2024 04:56:00 PM
In a matter of days, ExxonMobil will complete its $60 billion acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources, which is one of the concerns that have made drilling for shale in the Permian basin a highly lucrative endeavor for American energy. However, before you conclude that it's a tribute to American ingenuity, there's a twist here that may surprise you involving a host of foreign actors.Pioneer's founder Scott Sheffield is being named by the US Federal Trade Commission in attempting to coordinate--that is, collude--with OPEC+ on the pricing of energy products. Aside from the company he wishes to keep being rather dodgy sorts...
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Should Frozen Russian Assets Fund Ukraine?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 4/20/2024 09:23:00 PM
The adversaries during more cordial times. Unbeknownst to many, one of the linchpins of the post-WWII global infrastructure is coming under sustained attack... from its main beneficiary. The United States has been extraordinarily fortunate that its national debt is regarded as being among--if not the--safest investment around. IOUs in the form of US Treasuries are a standard dollar holding across the world, and this demand allows the US to run an unimaginable debt of $34.58 trillion at the time of writing.Would it be strange if the US were to put its debt's status as a safe asset in jeopardy? Well, that's precisely what's...
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Young Worker Exodus from Low Pay Japan

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 4/13/2024 04:33:00 PM
Outbound 'r' Us. China is famously in dire economic straits, but how's Japan really doing to solve its longstanding problems like a dearth of working-age citizens? Here's a wrinkle in what is effectively Japan's attempt to devalue its way to prosperity: Just as the yen has fallen to a 34-year low of 153-something to the dollar, the resulting peanuts wages in Japan vis-a-vis those in other developed countries are making younger folks depart in search of higher pay. With similar visa programs [to Australia's] in the U.K., Canada and New Zealand recovering post pandemic, the outflow of talent risks exacerbating Japan’s acute...
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“Adios to the Chinese Dream” (Xi’s Theme Song)

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 4/07/2024 03:17:00 PM
With apologies to Rodney Crowell... Excuse me mister but what did you say? / My hard-earned money’s all gone away / Xi ain’t into capitalism you see / The stock market is just no place to be. Voila, An American Dream is a catchy ditty that I've turned into a lament for the loss of the so-called "Pacific Century" that academics so love[d] to talk about. Supposedly, China's economic ascent would power the entire Asia-Pacific into a period of global dominance. Let's just say that hasn't been how things have turned out. In the interests of "national security," the "national interest," or whatever the Communist Party claims...
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Fleeing China II: Foreign Divestment Edition

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 11/06/2023 02:04:00 PM
Bing prompt: "Draw a businessman leaving China".Hot on the heels of the previous post about how Chinese are showing at the United States' southern border seeking asylum from increasingly dire economic conditions in the PRC, we get more news of this sort. Just as people are leaving China, so is capital: For the first time its records, the PRC has seen a net outflow of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). On balance, more FDI is leaving than entering China, once the world's most notable destination for investment. From the Nikkei Asia Review: Outflows of foreign direct investment in China have exceeded inflows for the...
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Chinese Migrants at US Border: PRC's Dire Straits

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 10/30/2023 02:00:00 PM
The blog's first AI image c/o Bing: "Draw a Chinese person walking through a Panamanian jungle." A usually good indicator of an underwhelming economy is of a country's citizens departing it for greener pastures. The year is 2023, not 1882 when the US passed the Chinese Exclusion Act to stop a massive influx of Chinese immigrants. Moreover, isn't the 21st century supposed to have been the Asian Century according to some prognosticators? My belief is that policy missteps by Xi Jinping have greatly dented the forward momentum of China in recent decades, recently exacerbated by endless lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic....
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Germans Brand Thee, USA, an ESG Disaster

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 6/06/2023 11:43:00 AM
Just one flagrant American ESG violation among countless others.This news story from Bloomberg had me laffing so hard it hurt: Despite the action being rather novel--banning investment in US Treasuries over environmental, social and governance [ESG] grounds--it is undoubtedly true that America is an ESG disaster. Offhand, we can cite endless ESG offenses that the US has perpetuated on its citizens and the rest of the world. Among others:Environmental: Being the world's second-largest carbon emitter and, historically speaking, by far the world's largest;Social: Maintaining a persistent racial underclass of nearly half of blacks...
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A Problem of Unstressful US Bank Stress Tests

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 5/04/2023 04:35:00 PM
 Each day brings news of a distressed US bank about to take leave for the Great Central Bank In the Sky. Aren't US banks supposed to be safer now with the advent of greater macroprudential regulation? A common way to gauge the soundness of banks is through the use of stress tests that simulate how these financial institutions would fare in the wake of financial, well, stress. While Americans bicker about whether the 2019 loophole exempting midsize banks holding between $100 to $250 billion in assets from stress testing led to their currently precarious situation, even that may not have saved them.Comparatively speaking,...
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