Anti-Globalization Protesters Outlast Royals, Too

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 4/29/2011 09:00:00 PM
I am sure that had they been on the parade route of a Middle East royal wedding, they'd have met a grislier fate: anti-war, anti-globalization protester Brian Haw and friends have been in the vicinity of Parliament Square--right across the Parliament building--since 2001. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya...Blair, Brown, Cameron...wars and prime ministers have come and gone, but these folks remain a literally immovable fixture of the British political landscape. They even have a fairly elaborate website if you're curious.My favourite placard obviously remains "CAPITALISM ISN'T WORKING." Despite being a rather unpleasant eyesore at...
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BRICs Poised to Benefit London More Than NY?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 4/28/2011 12:03:00 AM
So says the man who coined the term "BRICs," Jim O'Neill. Time differences mean that the more centrally located London bridges trading hours among the emerging centres of Asia, obviously those of Europe, and America later in the day:If it were just football and London house prices, I could see the benefits as more questionable, but it extends much further. I have often thought that if New York were to have the same time zone as us, modern life for London could be so different. The five hours' difference means New York is an awkward time for Beijing, Shanghai, Delhi, Mumbai and Moscow [BRICs capitals and financial centres].Of the four Bric countries, only Brazil works on a vaguely similar time zone. For international business of all shapes and varieties, London is perfectly placed. Centre of the world's time zones, well connected through technology and of course, our language the modern choice for communicating. For my business, international financial services, it is perfect....
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More Research on Remittances from the US

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 4/27/2011 12:01:00 AM
Despite its obviously more limited prospects for international workers at the current time, the United States remains the world's largest source of workers' remittances--especially to nearby Latin America. It is thus with no small interest that I've been flipping through this new Congressional Budget Office report Migrants' Remittances and Related Economic Flows. For those of you interested in migration in general or are into area studies, this should be worth a look.What follows is the summary, though the rest is well worth reading if the subject matter catches your fancy:Migrants to the United States often send money to people in their home country or take it with them when they return home. Those transfers can involve sending money through banks or other institutions to family members or others in the home country, making financial investments in the home country, or returning to the home country while retaining bank accounts or claims on other financial assets in the United...
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Singapore Gets on the RMB Trading Bandwagon

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 4/26/2011 12:07:00 AM
In case you missed it, here is more news of the internationalization of the yuan. Singapore and Hong Kong usually duke it out for bragging rights as the financial centre of East Asia. For some time now, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority has experimented with facilitating trade settlement with the Chinese yuan--a first step in making it a more widely used vehicle currency in the region. In the longer time frame which China looks at things unlike shortsighted Americans, first the region then the world. It's a different perspective when you're on the way up instead of the way down.Being ever so hip to the times, the Singaporeans...
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London Wants to Get on the RMB Trading Bandwagon

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 4/26/2011 12:01:00 AM
To accompany today's other blog feature, may I just point out that it's not only the Asian crowd that wants to get on the RMB bandwagon. It may be confusing to my international readers, but to repeat, the Lord Mayor of London (Michael Bear) is different from the Mayor of London (Boris Johnson). The former represents merely the City of London where the financial services industry is concentrated, while the latter represents the much larger Greater London Authority. Moreover, the latter post was only created in the year 2000--the first directly elected mayor in the UK.Unsurprisingly, one of the Lord Mayor of London's tasks is to represent the interests of the financial services industry. And what better cause is there than to make trading in the currency of the future available right here in old Europe? There's already a City of London Advisory Council for China to help promote this effort. From Dow Jones:Mayor of the City of London Alderman Michael Bear said the city wants to...
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Trouble Among BRICs: Brazil v PRC Imports, Pt 2

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 4/25/2011 12:06:00 AM
Here's another angle on the incipient troubles of one major emerging economy dealing with imports from another in the traditional domain of more labour-intensive manufacturing. A few weeks ago, I dubbed the importation of cheap Chinese garments in Brazil--land of the famously skimpy swimwear--the "bikini wars" in honour of China's previous entanglement with the EU known as the "bra wars."As it turns out, the story is a bit more complex. In an odd rerun of the so-called "Wal-Mart effect" wherein Chinese imports by the leviathan US retailer are attributed to keeping inflation in check Stateside over the past few decades, we...
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QE2, Hand Westminister Abbey Back to Us Catholics

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 4/22/2011 10:07:00 PM
[NOTE: This is the first of two royal wedding overload "specials" from your cranky correspondent. Blogging is not usually an activity for the well-adjusted.] A few days ago, I eagerly watched the BBC documentary "Does Christianity Have a Future?" which focused on the fate of various Christian churches here in the UK. To be sure, the statistics look fairly alarming as weekly attendance for the two major denominations, Anglicanism and Catholicism, has fallen steadily.There is an important caveat, however: the Roman Catholic church has actually become the dominant religion in this here land by virtue of losing followers at a...
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Shorting America: $ Swoon Chronicles, 2011 Edn

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 4/21/2011 08:29:00 PM
[NOTE: It's time for rubbish collection again, and today's point of collection is familiar to all.] I am rather incredulous about others' fixation on the minimal movement on Treasury yields since S&P dropped its credit warning on the unsuspecting American public. First, it's early days--other agencies have yet to follow. Second, it's only a warning, not an actual downgrade. So, there's plenty to, well, look forward to if your interested in obtaining a (marginally) more honest picture of American fiscal decrepitude, moral turpitude towards the global economy, and overall bad attitude. Then again, Americans famously have...
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Rumour: Carlos Slim, Rupert Murdoch Want F1

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 4/21/2011 12:05:00 AM
Ah, Bernie Ecclestone. The F1 impresario was mugged late last year outside his tony office in Knightsbridge, about twenty minutes from where I live. However, if the rumour proves to be correct--which I kind of doubt--he may now be falling into the clutches not of street thugs but of two of the world's wealthiest persons who are allegedly keen on the pinnacle of motorsports. Which, to be honest, is not quite an achievement given that probably its biggest competition is American NASCAR--a race series proudly featuring antique technologies alike carburettors {?!] Seen any production cars running on those recently? Like America...
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PM Cameron to Block Gordon Brown Heading IMF?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,,, at 4/20/2011 12:30:00 AM
The House has noticed the Prime Minister’s remarkable transformation in the last few weeks from Stalin to Mr Bean...Creating chaos out of order rather than order out of chaos - then-UK Shadow Chancellor Vince Cable on Gordon Brown in November 2007Poor Gordon Brown. During the early years of New Labour, he was widely considered a master of public financial management. He famously coined the so-called golden rule of fiscal policy that over the economic cycle, the UK will borrow only to invest and not to fund current spending. In other words, net borrowing must be close to zero during an economic cycle. Of course, many pounced on this notion as problematic. How do you define an "economic cycle" being the most obvious question left unanswered.The global financial crisis put paid to the golden rule rhetoric in a way that the later Blair years were already beginning to hint at. Tight-fisted control of the public purse? You must be joking. It's Brown's misfortune to come into office...
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Easy to Tell if China or Japan US Ally After S&P

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 4/20/2011 12:14:00 AM
Whose strategic interests are more aligned with those of the US, China or Japan? While the latter occasionally acts up such as after being asked to open its market to unsaleable US cars in the 90s, it knows when to toe the line. Geopolitically speaking, Japan relies on the US military to keep its own defence expenditures down and to sort out troublesome neighbours alike North Korea and, for that matter, China.Speaking of which, China is more of a free agent willing to honour the principle of non-intervention to seek raw material and energy supplies where it pleases, Western human rights happy talk aside. In a more strictly financial sense, we see the contrast most clearly in the aftermath of S&P rightly putting the US on a negative outlook for its triple-A credit rating. Having had the experience of being banished from triple-A status itself, the Japanese should know.What's more, Japan is wary of criticizing the US for obvious reasons given its own bloated public debt (but...
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Mideast Migrant Spillover II: UK; Italy v France

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,,, at 4/18/2011 09:47:00 PM
On my walk home from work, I regularly pass by the statue of Bernard "Monty" Montgomery--a British war hero whose exploits in the desert sands made him famous. So, I just wanted to make a follow-up post on what I wrote on the "Pottery Barn" effect of European countries becoming involved (so there, I avoided using the word "intervention") in the Middle East / North Africa. We have two stories here. On a positive note, the land of Monty--Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein to be exact--appears to be returning to the desert in a big way. No, the UK isn't confronting Erwin Rommel's successor. Rather, it's supporting...
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Yippee, S&P Cuts US Credit Outlook to Negative!!!

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 4/18/2011 05:21:00 PM
Sometimes I'm so glad to be mistaken. I've often thought that the political economy of credit rating agencies went like this: The likes of Standard and Poor's, Moody's, and Fitch's would never downgrade American sovereign debt since the US government held the ultimate ace. That is, it could remove their status as Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations (NRSROs) if they did not play along. Just as these credit rating agencies happily slapped "AAA" ratings on all sorts of subprime securities which turned out to be utter rubbish, they've been more than willing to grant the US government the highest credit rating...
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LDCs to IMF: Shove Yer Capital Control Guidelines

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 4/18/2011 04:56:00 PM
Boys and girls, here's an interesting development as we rejoin the currency wars. Sometime ago, I discussed the Strauss-Kahn era IMF warming up to the idea of capital controls--at least in certain situations deemed unusual such as excess speculative inflows or too-rapid currency appreciation. Most likely, this warming up is attributable to IMF-organized research which finds that capital inflows are negatively associated with economic growth. According to Messrs Prasad, Rajan, and Subramanian:Taken at face value, our results suggest that there is a growth premium associated with reduced reliance on foreign finance-—though we do not have strong evidence to suggest that this is a causal relationship. The reliance of nonindustrial countries solely on domestic savings to finance investment comes at a cost, however. There is less investment and consumption than there would be if these countries could draw in foreign capital on the same terms as industrial countries.So, have we embarked...
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China's Material Girls II: No Home, No Marriage

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 4/18/2011 12:03:00 AM
Numerous studies in anthropology, social psychology, sociology and so forth corroborate findings that men value physical appearance most in their partners, while women value financial security most among theirs. This phenomenon generally holds across cultures. As it turns out, China's economic boom is exacerbating it in interesting ways.A year ago, I featured a story on how China's demographic imbalances are causing a commoditization of marriage markets, with services aimed at matching rich men and beautiful women. Well, a year later, we have another story in a similar vein. Not only does it implicate gender imbalances, but...
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The Hugo Chavez - Formula One Connection

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 4/16/2011 03:07:00 PM
It seems colourful regimes and Formula One go hand in hand given that the latter is already populated with several colourful characters. From S&M fetishists to crash artists, F1 has all the shenanigans going on. Given that it is one of if not the world's most-watched sport depending on who you're listening to, there's also the allure of a vast global audience. While watching the qualifying session for tomorrow's Shanghai Grand Prix, my early morning daze failed to dim my awareness of one of Williams' sponsors: PDVSA. That, of course, is the national energy company of Venezuela and a vehicle for various Hugo Chavez pet...
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American Hypocrisy on Libya & Int'l Criminal Court

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 4/16/2011 12:54:00 AM
I read with no small amount of amusement the grandiosely titled op-ed "Libya's Pathway to Peace" by Barack Obama, David Cameron, and Nicolas Sarkozy. One way or another, none are free from hypocrisy to keep things lively. When the Libya mess erupted, Cameron was on a junket to the Middle East selling arms. Meanwhile, Sarkozy in the not-too-distant past was encouraging Western defence firms to hawk their wares in Libya.As usual, though, the Americans take the grand prize in the hypocrites' sweepstakes. Sometime ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had the chutzpah to suggest China and the Southeast Asian countries disputing islands in the South China Sea resort to "international law" when the US was famously not even a signatory to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). In the grand American tradition of paying international cooperation lip service but flouting the United Nations' various conventions and instruments, the lead author and president of a country that...
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Bailout Fatigue, Casual Racism & EU Tea Parties

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 4/15/2011 12:02:00 AM
For obvious reasons, yours truly is particularly attuned to shifting political sentiment towards migration here in Europe. Earlier on, I had a post on the electoral gains made by parties with openly xenophobic agendas. Sour times breed sour sentiments; that much is obvious. While far-right parties are worrisome, I've previously thought that mainstream parties co-opting this message in a more offhand manner is actually more dangerous. Here in Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron is no stranger to stirring this particular pot. For instance, he like Germany's Angela Merkel has declared multiculturalism dead while not grasping...
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Euro Mideast Intervention = Own the Refugees?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 4/14/2011 12:05:00 AM
We've heard this story before. Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell is usually credited for applying the Pottery Barn principle to foreign intervention. For international readers, Pottery Barn is a housewares retailer in the US. Instead of breaking what the Brits call "crockery," Powell asserts that breaking a country results in the interventionist taking responsibility for the "broken" country. Among these, of course, are its people.Alike the quarrels over a two-speed Eurozone with stalwart countries alike Germany and the Netherlands outperforming their southerly peers, we appear to have something of another North-South...
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