Lamborghini Aventador, US-Subsidized Supercar

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 1/31/2012 07:43:00 AM
Now for one of my occasional Robb Report impersonations--albeit with an IPE twist. (We've got style, baby.) In 1998, Lamborghini became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Audi AG, which in turn is a luxury brand of the almighty Volkswagen Group--the real largest automaker in the world. What if the Germans overran not the world's territory but the global automobile industry? I'd venture that it would look a lot like the present-day VW Group: (British) Bentley, (French) Bugatti, (Italian) Lamborghini, (Spanish) SEAT, (Czech) Skoda and the father brands (they're from the Fatherland, right?) Audi, Porsche and Volkswagen. Being made...
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2012: Year of the Dragon, Year of the Renminbi!

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 1/30/2012 03:37:00 AM
A week ago today, the Chinese and their vast diaspora celebrated Chinese New Year. As it so happens, it also ushered in the Year of the Dragon. Famously the most auspicious of characters, this too may be the year that the PRC powers-that-be become serious about internationalizing the RMB with the long-term goal of reforming the international monetary system in mind. Just as red envelopes like those above are used to give gifts in cash, 2012 may be the year the Chinese give the gift of renminbi internationalization to the world in a meaningful way. I've mentioned recent efforts to make RMB use more widespread worldwide,...
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Long Time Coming: Int'l Derivatives Court, Now Live

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 1/29/2012 04:02:00 PM
Here's something that I found in the LSE employee newsletter, of all places. Given the often legalistic culture of Western economies, it is no surprise that they prefer the settlement of economic disputes in formal fora. The WTO's dispute settlement mechanism exemplifies that for trade. Meanwhile, the likes of the International Court for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Court of Arbitration do the same for disputes involving foreign investors and governments. Think of Hugo Chavez's latest fulminations against international energy companies.Whatever you think of derivatives...
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Yay! Our LSE IDEAS, World's 4th Best Uni Thinktank

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 1/27/2012 07:27:00 AM
Well here's a nice bit of news concerning LSE IDEAS, the research centre I am associated with. The good folks at the University of Pennsylvania Think Tank and Civil Societies Program recently came out with the 2011 edition of their authoritative report on the world's leading thinktanks. To my personal surprise considering that LSE IDEAS only started in 2008, we are now considered the world's fourth most influential university thinktank alongside our colleagues from the Public Policy Group. Launched at the United Nations no less, the UPenn report is not a trifling one. Here is the relevant table with the 30 top-ranked university...
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Fact-Checking Obama: GM World's #1 Automaker?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 1/25/2012 07:29:00 AM
Obama's 2012 State of the Union address was your typical flag-waving, USA #1 cheerleading exercise. It's to be expected with these kinds of events, to be fair. Particularly notable on the trade end though was Obama declaring the creation of a "Trade Enforcement Unit that will be charged with investigating unfair trade practices in countries like China"--your official China-bashing unit. Those trade evildoers must be punished, eh?Together with the formation of this odious agency, however, we too have an egregious misstatement of fact concerning the bailout of various troubled American automakers in the aftermath of the (self-inflicted)...
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Goin' Down: Those Crappy US Airlines, Cruise Lines

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 1/24/2012 09:13:00 AM
For those of you who remember your high school literature, Charon in Dante Alighieri's Inferno was the ferryman of Hades who transported the souls of the dead across the river Styx on a journey to farther reaches of the underworld. In today's international political economy, you can argue that American travel services now perform similar functions. Perhaps ol' Charon has hung up his oars for good and struck a deal with Satan himself to outsource these devilish duties. At any rate, modern American travel services epitomize America itself circa 2012: an economically unviable entity that should be put out to pasture ASAP if our...
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R.I.P. Japanese Trade Surplus, 1981-2010

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 1/24/2012 08:26:00 AM
There's grim news care of Reuters in anticipation of Japan's release of trade figures tomorrow. The country is expected to have run a trade deficit for the first time in nearly 30 years in 2011. Worse, prospects are for it continuing to do so in the near future despite the (hopefully) one-time catastrophes of 2011:Japan probably produced its first trade deficit last year in more than three decades as energy imports surged to cover for the loss of nuclear power following the Fukushima disaster, a major blow to an economy built on its exports prowess... Official trade figures due for release on Wednesday are expected to show that Japan swung to a deficit for the first time since 1980, as utilities purchased fossil fuels for power stations to make up for the loss of nuclear power.Economists say Japan's trade will be in deficit for the next few years as it copes with the Fukushima catastrophe that released radiation into the atmosphere and forced most nuclear power stations to shut...
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Allah & Moolah: Muslim Brotherhood Meets IMF

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 1/23/2012 06:38:00 AM
Elected with a convincing majority, Muslim Brotherhood-linked legislators under the Freedom and Justice Party umbrella are now the forces to be reckoned with in Egypt. It will be fun to see how Yanqui hypocrites of the "elections are great...except when you elect Hamas" variety will respond if and when more elements of sharia law are enshrined there. While it's certainly debatable whether hardline Islamism is a marked improvement over despotism in the freedom department, one thing is for certain: the economic situation in Egypt is deteriorating. Foreign investment has fled. So have the tourists.You certainly can make the argument...
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Axis of Upheaval: Iran-Russia Trade in Own Monies

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 1/20/2012 12:40:00 PM
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: They get our oil and give us a worthless piece of paper.Vladimir Putin: They are living like parasites off the global economy and their monopoly of the dollar.Factually speaking, the ongoing long-term devaluation trend of the dollar is not in dispute. However, America #1 cheerleaders don't like hearing it from the likes of the folks mentioned above with their particular put-downs (however appropriate). The common refrain of "well, what are you gonna do about it?" referring to dollar hegemony is an important one. How do you escape being ripped off in advance by Uncle Sam? Already Japan is buying more RMB-denominated sovereign bonds.In such a vein, I suppose this example is as straightforward an example of the principle of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" as you can get. You see, the axis of upheaval of Iran and Russia--two countries currently in the Western doghouse over alleged nuclear weapons programmes and vote-rigging respectively are joining forces...
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Indonesia Got It Right: A Post-Crisis Success Story

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 1/19/2012 02:10:00 AM
To say that I didn't rate Indonesia's prospects highly after the Asian financial crisis of 1997/98 would be an understatement. It was going from one transitory leader to another after Suharto's ouster. Its economy contracted hugely. All the while, various secessionist movements were tearing the country apart. That was a nasty, nasty time.It is remarkable how in the relatively short space of little over a decade how Indonesia has reconstituted itself. I guess adversity brings out the best survival instincts in some (while bringing about even more gorging on debts 'n' fats in others). Regaining its investment grade credit rating...
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Islamization: Libyan Rebels' Price for Qatari Support

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 1/18/2012 10:18:00 AM
It may have been a self-serving argument, but hardline leaders in the Middle East who successfully beggared the West on the premiss that even more fundamentalist forces would take over in their stead were not really being disingenuous. Witness Egypt. While wet-behind-the-ears white kids with a penchant for digital exceptionalism (today's cyber-equivalent of American exceptionalism possessing similar pitfalls) were working themselves into a frenzy about the "Arab Spring," less excitable commentators looked on warily. And so it has come to pass that far more extreme figures have emerged on Egypt's political scene, while the...
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More "Internet Freedom" Hypocrisy c/o the Yanks

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 1/18/2012 08:15:00 AM
This post will be brief: I have identified the several contradictions of Hillary Clinton's hoary notion of "Internet Freedom" in a previous co-authored essay. Mind you, that bit of writing even preceded the WikiLeaks dustup which permanently consigned that bit of digital exceptionalism to the scrap heap of computer history.More recently, American lawmakers have forwarded bits of legislation in the House and Senate designed to protect intellectual property rights by strongly obliging Internet service providers (ISPs) to monitor their customers for piracy. It seems even American tech firms recognize this sort of inconsistency...
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Apple & Samsung: Who's Got Whom by the Balls?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,,,, at 1/17/2012 01:08:00 PM
[NOTE: For those who don't get the title, play this AC/DC song.] There are two broad debates going on regarding the current dominance of Samsung in the consumer electronics space. First we have the perennial question about the role of industrial policy for its success. Widely lauded for being a source of South Korea's competitive advantage during its rise to "Asian tiger" status, industrial policy was subsequently derided as a mechanism for harmful corruption during the Asian financial crisis. Surely there are those who criticize the continued state favoritism shown towards chaebol and its effective stifling of the emergence...
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What Threat Does Europe Pose to Asian Growth?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 1/16/2012 12:03:00 AM
Not much according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Despite the ongoing--how should I describe them--gyrations in the Eurozone, the Asia-Pacific is expected to do well. Actually, the ADB has already downgraded its prediction for Asian growth in light of the various Western foibles--from 7.5% to 7.2% [yawn]. As I said, there is not much of a threat predicted. The worst case scenario is of simultaneous US/EU combustion. Here is the press blurb:Economic growth in emerging East Asia will continue to moderate into 2012 as growing sovereign debt problems in Europe and an anaemic US economy raise the spectre of a deep global economic downturn, says the Asian Development Bank’s latest Asia Economic Monitor [you can download the whole report here].In the event that both the eurozone and the US economies contract sharply, the impact on emerging East Asia would be serious yet manageable, the report says. “The turmoil emanating from Europe poses a growing danger to trade and finance...
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Sinking US Exports? Obama Says Merge Agencies

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 1/13/2012 03:57:00 PM
Ho hum, hot off the presses is yet another lacklustre just-released American trade report for the month of November. With imports on the rise (mostly due to energy) and exports on the wane, let's just say US trade performance is not going to be contributing as positively to their GDP figures in Q4 2011 as hoped. You may recall back in 2010 when Obama set a target to double US exports by 2015? Let's just say they're not moving towards that goal with any alacrity as evidenced by the latest trade figures or with the figures to date.What to do? It's probably just rearranging deck chairs on the US Titanic, but just in is word that...
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Watch al-Jazeera To Get Smart, Not BBC or CNN

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 1/13/2012 11:51:00 AM
There's a feature in a recent issue of Newsweek that reiterates something many probably already acknowledge: al-Jazeera is now the international news channel to be reckoned with. Sure its lapses now and again into bashing the West may be grating to occidental audiences, but hey, that may be a good thing. The logic here is that persons think through their beliefs more when challenged, stimulating their intellect in the process. Hence, the worldviews which underlie much of al-Jazeera coverage may prompt those with more whitebread notions about the white man's burden in civilizing us primitives to rethink such ideas.And so the fourth best way to get smart in 2012 according to Newsweek is...Don’t shut yourself out from new ideas. A 2009 study found that viewers of Al Jazeera English were more open-minded than people who got their news from CNN International and BBC World.If even the hopelessly Amerocentric Hillary "Internet Freedom" Clinton cites al-Jazeera for its breadth and depth...
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Revealed: Secrets of Korean Economic Policy

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 1/12/2012 12:05:00 PM
Well OK, the title of this post is an exaggeration. Still, I believe that I've come across something quite significant for scholars of development. My e-mail inbox tends to get clogged with not only the usual things--manhood enhancement products, cheap vacations and whatnot but also their academic equivalents--invitations to obscure conferences (which you must pay for), invitations to review for obscure journals (which you've never heard of) and so on. Unfortunately, lost among this pile of stuff folks send me to read are a number of very helpful publications.So, it is with no small pleasure that I've rescued the Korea Development...
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The Agony of Wolfgang Munchau, Euro Hater

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,,, at 1/11/2012 10:46:00 AM
Brother will kill brother; spill blood across the landKilling for religion is something I don't understand...Do Financial Times columnists listen to Megadeth? I admittedly do--and proudly so. One of my trademark posts in the run-up to the global financial crisis concerned "The Subprime Wisdom of Megadeth" which was true then as it is now. However, it seems that the FT's Wolfgang Munchau wants to do me one better by implying that Europe is not only combating financial crisis but is also engaged in "Holy Wars...The Punishment Due" [padarumph...padarumph...padarumph (I can hear air guitars riffing the intro already)].To avoid possible conflicts of interest, let me disclose that the FT once gave me a fairly lucrative prize a few years ago. While I still regard it as being at the pinnacle of financial reporting alongside the Wall Street Journal sans the latter's op-ed section, I'm beginning to wonder if the standards of the FT in the column writing department are now approaching WSJ...
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Stephen Roach: It's Still Bet On China, Not India

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 1/09/2012 02:51:00 PM
Rumours of China's imminent demise are much exaggerated (see Roubini on the overinvestment thesis, for instance)--or so says Stephen Roach (inveterate PRC fan). In a new al-Jazeera op-ed, he addresses the alleged seeds of China's downfall alike excess real estate investment (the PRC's subprime moment?) and excessive lending of state banks by official diktat to marginal projects:[I]t is a serious exaggeration to claim, as many do today, that the Chinese economy is one massive real-estate bubble. Yes, total fixed investment is approaching an unprecedented 50 per cent of GDP, but residential and non-residential real estate, combined, accounts for only 15-20 per cent of that - no more than 10 per cent of the overall economy. In terms of floor space, residential construction accounts for half of China's real-estate investment. Identifying the share of residential real estate that goes to private developers in the dozen or so first-tier cities (which account for most of the Chinese...
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Hugo Away: Chavez Ignores World Bank on Exxon

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,,, at 1/09/2012 10:31:00 AM
File this under: pre-emptive strike. It appears that the indefatigable Hugo Chavez is back on the warpath against all things American. A few days ago he publicly suspected the United States of unleashing cancer on fellow left-leaning Latin American leaders. In less improbable news, however, we now understand that his Venezuela will not abide by subsequent rulings that find the country liable for nationalizing ExxonMobil oil fields in the Orinoco Belt. At the end of last year, forum shopping ExxonMobil received a favourable $746.9 million verdict against state oil company PDVSA at the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)...
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