Posts of 2017

American Decline & Declining Life Expectancy

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Americana at 12/28/2017 03:10:00 PM

If "truth in advertising" held, this ditty should be the United States' national anthem. If America is such a great place, then why do so many Americans want to end their lives faster? The numbers don't lie: for a second consecutive year in 2016, US life expectancy has decreased. All this is happening in the face of medical advances and is due primarily to two things. First are "unintentional injuries," a euphemism for the aforementioned high-risk drug abuse. Second are increased numbers of suicides. Yes, deaths of despair are real Stateside and are occurring at an an increased rate just as other countries are still...

Post-NAFTA Mexico Alludes to Plans B, C & D

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Latin America,Trade at 12/19/2017 03:47:00 PM

Going back to plain vanilla trade, there is much afoot in Mexico as politicians there appear to be contemplating the end of NAFTA as we know it thanks to el loco del norte Donald Trump. There is now some weird shorthand emerging about the different strategies Mexico can pursue if NAFTA is scuttled. Sure, none of them are quite as attractive as trading with the world's largest economy right on its doorstep on tariff-free terms, but hey, you have to make a living for your people somehow if that convenience falls through. Plan B is, simply put, sign as many trade deals as possible with whomever is willing to do so: The government...

El Gordo: How NAFTA Made Mexico Ameri-Fat

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Americana,Health at 12/18/2017 01:23:00 PM

The Trumpian Buddha-esque physique is now achievable in Mexico thanks to NAFTA. While Donald Trump likes to recycle easily refutable arguments about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) being "the worst trade deal ever," he doesn't seem to mention one that should be of concern to his Mexican counterparts. While such self-interested reasoning is what you'd expect from an "America First"-championing US president, a woe that the Mexicans are now suffering from is actually one Americans are profiting from: Mexico began lifting tariffs and allowing more foreign investment in the 1980s, a transition to free trade...

Deport-o-Rama: N Koreans in Canada

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in South Korea at 12/12/2017 07:43:00 AM

On the face of it, this news item is rather dispiriting: what kind of heartless people would deport North Korean refugees? Somewhat more promisingly, it's not as bad as it sounds. Rather, authorities in Canada are looking into those who gained entrance into Canada based on dubious stories. Since North Koreans are granted automatic asylum in South Korea, it is their belief that they would be "safe" there anyway if Canada refuses their applications: Hyekyung Jo, a North Korean defector living in Toronto with her husband and sons for seven years, had hoped to remain in Canada as a permanent resident. Instead, she...

PRC‘s Trump Appeasement: Import Expo 2018

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in China,Trade at 11/29/2017 04:42:00 PM

He likes military pomp, but does Trump also like "import expos"? I almost forgot about this post: In the run-up to Trump's recent swing through Asia, Chinese apparatchiks devised something that they hoped would appease the orange-colored menace. Since he keeps complaining about China's massive trade surplus with the United States, why not host an "import expo" designed for foreigners to show their wares in the mainland? In response to questions from Bloomberg News, China’s Commerce Minister Zhong Shan laid out a list of measures being undertaken that could help narrow the $327 billion gap, America’s largest with...

Trump's Bigotry & Disappearing US Int’l Students

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Americana,Education at 11/22/2017 05:25:00 PM

Make America White Again, university without diversity edition. Commentators often use "nativism" as a euphemism to describe Trump's apparent self-superiority over non-white people. Often couched by fellow bigots in terms of "preserving cultural identity" or "protecting national security," this irrational fear of others who do not look like you is dragging an entire country into the mud in more ways than one. The United States' global reputation is taking a hit worldwide as only 22% of the rest of the world has confidence in the America Firster. At least Trump knows what his base looks like. Perhaps unsurprisingly,...

Norway's $1T SWF & 'Divesting' From Oil

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Energy,Europe at 11/17/2017 05:23:00 PM

Make no mistake: Norway's gonna cover you in oil for the foreseeable future. Financial markets are currently in a tizz over Norway's sovereign wealth fund (SWF) investigating the possibility of divesting entirely of its oil and gas stocks. We aren't talking small beer here since it is a $1 trillion fund amassed over the years largely from Norway's oil and gas royalties. Believed to hold an incredible 1.5% of the world's floating stock valuation, it is a relative giant in the business world. With the continuing drive among progressive (read: non-American) countries to move toward renewable energy sources, this announcement...

TPP - USA = CPTPP

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Trade at 11/15/2017 02:50:00 PM

If you can't spot the sucker at the trade negotiating table, then it's probably Trump. Whoa, that's some weird math we've got to deal with in today's international political economy: the fewer countries that are negotiating an FTA, the longer its name becomes. Due to Trump's intransigence on trade, the United States seems set to be left farther and farther behind in terms of economic integration. At the recently-concluded Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation gathering in Vietnam, the remaining eleven countries decided to continue with efforts to seal a deal. With the United States out of the picture, though, it looks like...

Brexit, Outmigration & Rotting Cornwall Crops

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Agriculture,Europe at 11/12/2017 06:54:00 PM

"Erm, we didn't really mean it, mate." Surely, this must be the dumbest Brexit headline yet. Cornwall in the United Kingdom is a rural community which has felt left out by the rest of her majesty's realms. Throw in a less-educated populace and you can pretty much guess how it voted during the Brexit referendum: they wanted out. British jobs for British workers and so on and so forth. They must've been in seventh heaven when the Brexiteers won and the UK won back its "independence," whatever that means. Or maybe not. Recently, Cornwall has been petitioning the government to--get this--bring back the accursed furriners since...

Globalization According to Xi & Trump

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in China,Trade at 11/10/2017 04:26:00 PM

China's already done the failed Great Wall schtick, but others are certainly welcome to try. The purpose of rhetoric has been studied extensively in the social sciences. By saying certain things, what do people intend to achieve? Of course, what people say does not always correspond to what they do. Indeed, people say things they do not mean. That said, the weight of what some people say matters more than others. Today's case in point are the USA's orange-hued leader Donald Trump and China's newly-reinstalled "maximum leader" Xi Jinping. The commentariat has noted how, since the beginning of the year, Xi seems to have...

Can Trump Increase Japanese Car Plants Stateside?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Japan,Trade at 11/08/2017 03:36:00 PM

Actually, Japanese-branded cars "Made in America" are already plentiful. The point is making even more. Here's a welcome dose of reality--even if just a little--from a person mostly devoid of it: Donald Trump lives a considerable amount of the time in cloud cuckoo land where he hatches his most harebrained ideas--global warming is a hoax invented by the Chinese, the Trans-Pacific Partnership is a backdoor to the PRC conquering the United States, we're going to build a wall along the US-Mexican border and get the Mexicans to pay for it, and so on and so forth. To be fair, the idea of getting the Japanese and Koreans to...

Nike Automation: Threat to the Asian 'Sweatshop'?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Automation,Labor at 11/05/2017 06:58:00 PM

Will automation cause labor's share of production costs to diminish ever further? I have a whole @#$%load of books I've been trying to find time to read concerning the threat of automation to the future of human work. All the same, I must point out that many of the concerns cited in this literature may be of lesser importance to those of us from developing countries since the perspective most of these authors are coming from is white collar work in the developed world. So, their relevance may be limited. Still, that's not to say more relevant stuff is unavailable. The International Labor Organization (ILO) has a fairly...

Can Trump Make Koreans Buy US Crapmobiles?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in South Korea,Trade at 11/01/2017 06:10:00 PM

Hmm...why don't Asians like these pimped-out American rides? The obvious answer is no, but that's never stopped any US president from trying. From Obama to Trump and beyond, the Asians should but American refrain never stops. For the longest time, the United States has been trying to cajole countries it runs large trade deficits with--especially those it imports a lot of vehicles from--to buy more automobiles "Made in America." The problem has always been that while non-American automakers have built vehicles designed for the US market to be sold Stateside [want a biggie-sized Toyota pickup?], the opposite does not hold...

Climate Exodus, the Caribbean Residents' Dilemma

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Environment,Migration at 10/22/2017 06:26:00 PM

If these scenes will just keep replaying, shouldn't you leave for good? The recent hurricanes which leveled vast swathes of the Caribbean islands, Irma and Maria, have raised concerns among residents about how viable it remains to live there. Certainly, others like their big neighbor to the North aren't helping matters. Climate deniers like Trump likely make their future bleaker. Saying global warming is a hoax means denying sea levels are rising and denying warmer temperatures means more water vapor is being stored--both of which make storms even more damaging. So, not only have many of these countries and territories...

How to Really Fix Massive US Trade Deficits

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Trade at 10/16/2017 04:58:00 PM

And the award for best trade villain goes to... Trumpian idiocy is endangering perfectly good trade deals with Mexico and Canada [NAFTA] as well as with South Korea [KORUS FTA]. The anti-heroes here are two economic illiterates, the vulgarian ignoramus Donald Trump and his Reagan-era trade "enforcer" Robert Lighthizer. To them, the reason for massive US trade deficits is so easy to understand: other countries taking unfair advantage of "gullible" US leaders. For them, the golden age of America--when its manufacturing was strong--is just some kind of protectionist policy away: For the administration, the core belief is...

Mexico, Screw Trump: Only Congress Undoes NAFTA

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Americana,Latin America,Trade at 10/11/2017 06:41:00 PM

Mexico should put Trump and his protectionista Lighthizer in their place by getting the US congress to stop this idiocy. I make no bones that I am far more sympathetic to Mexico than Trump's USA at the ongoing North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) "renegotiations." What US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is attempting to do is actually beggar-thy-neighbor masquerading as an "update" of NAFTA. Let's not mince words here: No self-respecting nation would agree to such one-sided stipulations--especially to replace ones that aren't so lopsided. Among other things on the American negotiators' wish list: A US proposal...

Deport-o-Mania 3: Houston's (Non-)Rebuilding

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Americana,Migration at 10/10/2017 08:32:00 PM

Trump voters ain't gonna fix this destruction. There's an insightful op-ed in the Washington Post on why Houston's rebuilding is well off-track. Simply put, there are not enough construction workers at the current time. With Trump's various immigration-unfriendly policies in progress, things aren't going to improve anytime soon. The net result is that instead of aiding the reconstruction of the United States' fourth-largest city, Trump is putting it off indefinitely. Actually, there's plenty of capital sitting on the sidelines but not enough labor to get the construction work going. This is one industry where automation...

Euro Transport Consortia: First Airbus, Now "Railbus"

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Europe at 10/09/2017 06:19:00 PM

They are the European champions, my friend. They'll compete with the Chinese till the end... Despite the imminent [?] withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, its time being considered a part of it can count as a clear success in at least one respect: Its participation in the pan-European aerospace consortium Airbus has more than lived up to expectations. British Aerospace together with France's Aerospatiale as well as their German and Spanish counterparts combined to produce a European powerhouse in civilian commercial aircraft with the resources to compete with American titan Boeing yearly for top sales...