Sympathy for the Monsanto: An Unenviable PR Job

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 10/31/2014 01:30:00 AM
Anti-Monsanto campaigners have fun with Photoshop. Environmentally-conscious readers will no doubt be aware of the controversies surrounding Monsanto. If there ever was a poster child for The Evils of Big Ag(riculture), Monsanto would be it. Heavy pesticide use. Genetically modified organisms. Terminator seeds. Monoculture. As if things were not bad enough with environmentalists already, Monsanto also has to deal with the next generation of food consumers who are generally more picky about what they eat. Largely unfamiliar with agriculture, millennials are susceptible to being swayed mostly by overwhelmingly negative press...
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How Venezuela Gives Socialism a Bad Name

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 10/30/2014 01:30:00 AM
Living the socialist dream? Shortages of basic goods abound.  It is hard to dislike the aim of socialism--egalitarianism in resource distribution among the plenty. However, years and years of experience with these regimes from the Soviet Union and all sorts of Marxist-Leninist offshoots demonstrates that, in practice, the opposite holds true. In China, for instance, the Communist Party elite--ostensibly the vanguard of the proletariat--hardly paved the way for more equitable distribution of wealth but merely concentrate political-economic power in the hands of a few.  It's the same story nearly everywhere you...
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Play With ≈$4 Trillion: Reading China's Falling Reserves

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 10/29/2014 01:30:00 AM
PBoC guv'nor Zhou Xiaochuan, second most powerful person in the world?  If you were to be reborn as a global power broker, chances are you'd choose being Zhou Xiaochuan going by the numbers alone. Yet it is a lot less glamorous than it sounds waking up each morning with $3.89 trillion to play with. You'd think the world's your oyster as you make Norway's sovereign wealth fund look like a pipsqueak, but no, it's not that simple. The People's Bank of China (PBoC) is not an independent central bank after all. Nor does it have enough human capital in comparison to commercial fund management concerns in the West: But there...
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Will Malala Attend My Uni (Across Her High School)?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 10/28/2014 01:30:00 AM
Edgbaston High School for Girls is literally a stone's throw away. I obtained my doctorate in Political Science way back in 2008 at the University of Birmingham, in the UK's second largest city by population. A year before that, I began writing this blog which still survives (and thrives!) somehow. Despite three or four changes of academic affiliation since, the blog lives. However I am not exactly the most famous person associated with Birmingham, writing a blog in a somewhat obscure academic discipline. After being shot by crazed Taliban assassins in Pakistan while on board a school bus, Malala Yousafzai became a heroine...
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Nina Pham & Vietnamese Postwar Resettlement

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 10/27/2014 01:30:00 AM
Vietnamese-Americans in focus. The cruel thing about the Ebola virus is that it infects those who care. Medical professionals, including nurses, are often most susceptible to infection for this very reason. When I first read that the nurse infected in Dallas, Texas was named Nina Pham, I immediately knew she was of Vietnamese descent. Fortunately, state-of-the-art facilities Stateside enabled her to fully recover and even meet President Obama. By now the image above has been beamed around the world. In part, it is of course propaganda to show the American public that the Ebola virus is something which need not debilitate...
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Will Mitsubishi Outdo Boeing in Jetliners?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 10/25/2014 01:30:00 AM
The next Japanese "threat" to US domination? Mitsubishi needs no introduction as a Japanese conglomerate that has heavy industries for nearly everything under the sun aside from diversified interests from banking to brewing. Mitsubishi also has a measure of notoriety for building the A6M Zero fighter plane used for kamikaze attacks towards the end of WWII. During the postwar years, its sophisticated manufacturing facilities allowed it to produce F-15 fighters under license as well. I bring up this bit of history since the Japanese are supposedly embarking on another episode of outdoing their American counterparts. Having...
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US Plan to Strangle China's World Bank Rival, Pt 2

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,,, at 10/24/2014 01:30:00 AM
Today the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) was born. This is a continuation of a previous post on the US wanting Chinese competition in development lending to just go away despite the likes of the World Bank and Asian Development Bank lauding the developmental benefits of competition. You know, when it comes to actual competition in development lending, the usual American BS, posturing and hypocrisy rear their ugly head. How will China's Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank survive? Depending on your point of view whether this is a good or bad thing, the US has largely succeeded in discouraging developed countries...
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Territorial Disputes & PRC Travel Warnings on Philippines

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,,, at 10/23/2014 01:30:00 AM
Good luck finding these sorts of wedding photo ops back in the PRC. An area of study in international relations that nobody has looked at is this one: countries locked in disputes engaging in travel warnings against each other. Since most countries today are WTO members, using discriminatory measures against others' products and services is more difficult to do than in the per-WTO period. So, how are you going to get back at the offending party? Try travel advisories warning that the country in question is some kind of godforsaken hellhole where terrorism is rampant and the rule of law is an illusionary concept. As it...
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PR Stunt or Third World Solidarity? Cuba & Ebola

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 10/22/2014 01:30:00 AM
Next stop for Cuban doctors: the Hot Zone.  Despite Cuba's (largely US-imposed) isolation from the rest of the world for the sin of being Communist...at least in the Americas when the US has long since cottoned up to the likes of China, Vietnam, and other so-called Reds, its medical system has remained one of the world's best against all odds. The World Health Organization (WHO) lauds it as being a model for the world, while even citizens of its oppressor nation say it is "unreal" in care being free yet of high quality. So much so that it has exported doctors in exchange for petroleum. I am of two minds about Cuba....
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Re-Trying Carlos the Jackal, Celebrity Terrorist

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 10/21/2014 01:30:00 AM
bin Laden is dead and gone, but Carlos rambles on. Whereas Osama bin Laden struck me as a po-faced fanatic, Venezuelan Carlos the Jackal always had an ironic streak to him. At the height of his infamy, his pseudo-socialist leanings gave lie to his high living nature as a self-styled "professional revolutionary." The contradictions inherent in Carlos the Jackal are what make him interesting in a manner that eluded bin Laden. The latter was simply a blowhard, whereas the former always had a nudge and a wink ready. As he jetted from one America-hating safe haven to another the world over in between (attempted) acts of terrorism...
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Watch Out, Evita: Imelda Marcos, the Musical

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 10/20/2014 01:30:00 AM
Sometimes 2000 shoes just ain't enough. David Byrne should be familiar to 80s music fans as the Talking Heads frontman of "Burning Down the House" fame. Together with Fatboy Slim, they have turned their 2010 double concept album Here Lies Love loosely based on the life story of Imelda Marcos into a London musical. (I've listened to the album and it's far from an audio biography of the Imeldific one's life story.) Never far away from the headlines, Mrs. Marcos recently returned to the limelight when the Philippine government seized artworks allegedly by Picasso, Gaugin and others. (She recently denied they were purchased...
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Manchester United: From AIG to Chevrolet Killer Cars

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 10/18/2014 01:30:00 AM
Chevrolet is "Like a Rock"? Man U makes itself into a global punch line (again).  When I contemplate the largest follies of sports sponsorship, one name immediately comes to mind, "Manchester United." It takes the cake by some margin even if the competition has become more intense. I have written at some length about the dastardly activities of the Ameriscum Glazer clan which saddled this once-solvent sports team with boatloads of debt after they bought it via leveraged buy out (LBO). They say that misery loves company, and one of the "benefits" the Glazers have brought to Manchester United are American shirt sponsors...
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Race Over: Why Venezuela Should Default

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,,, at 10/17/2014 01:30:00 AM
Supposedly paying Lotus $40m/year for a non-competitive drive is only the start of Venezuela's folly. Amidst the wider economic turbulence worldwide, among the very first to get hit are energy exporters with very high production costs for obvious reasons. Dependence on energy revenues amidst an oil rout ensures that state coffers are being depleted--especially when your breakeven price is high. The poster child for national mismanagement--dwindling production, inefficient technology, and politicization of oil funds is, of course, Venezuela's state-owned oil companny PDVSA which features all these things and worse. For a...
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Russia Sues EU Over Sanctions on Gazprom Funding

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 10/17/2014 01:00:00 AM
Hot on the heels of Russia intervening in the currency markets to no real effect, we receive word that it is using legal maneuvers to resume being able to obtain financing from Western capital markets which have been closed to the country ever since a new round of sanctions were implemented by the European Council (the "upper house" of European Parliament composed of EU heads of state) in the wake of the downing of the Malaysian Airlines jetliner. The troubles in Ukraine continue to roil, especially if the Russian state-owned enterprises are unable to roll over their debts coming due at the end of next year: The EU bans,...
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Meet America's #2 Real-Estate Buyer, Norway

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 10/16/2014 01:30:00 AM
Where Monopoly money comes from. As far as Europeans go, Norway has a maverick, independent streak. It is not a member of the European Union, let alone a user of the euro. Unlike most of its neighbors, it has a petroleum-based economy. The latter has given rise to a fairly sizable sovereign wealth fund (SWF) officially known as the "Government Pension Fund Global" as oil proceeds have been saved over the years. Depending on the source quoted, its holdings range from $820 billion to a cool $890 billion--supposedly worth $178,000 for each Norwegian. [Can I retire as a Norwegian?] As you would expect from these smart, non-subprime-loving...
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Brent Spar 2: Greenpeace, Lego & Shell's Betrayal

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 10/15/2014 01:30:00 AM
This WSJ feature is sponsored by, er, Shell. Environmentalist activists are not infallible despite being ostensibly well-intentioned. Common failings include impractical courses of action as well as those which actually make the situation worse. With regard to the latter, Greenpeace has some history with energy titan Shell. In 1995, Greenpeace singled out Shell for the planned sinking of an exhausted oil platform, Brent Spar. Greenpeace argued that it was better to bring the platform on land and dispose it from there at considerable additional expense. After making a huge racket, Shell eventually bowed to the environmentalists....
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