Can Ivanka Trump Stop Pop From Cutting US Aid?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 6/28/2017 04:47:00 PM
Would Ivanka Trump be complicit if tens of thousands died due to starvation arising from US foreign aid cuts? To say Donald Trump hates poor foreigners is an understatement. He's definitely bigoted, but apparently it matters less if you're a Muslim [a] from a wealthy nation with [b] Trump-linked business interests. After all, the 9/11 attackers were mostly from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but they go off scot-free in a world where, well, money talks. Although the world is fixated on the fate of his travel ban on folks from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen (countries which account for a grand total of zero terrorist...
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Hong Kong Expat Banker, Endangered Species

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 6/25/2017 05:51:00 PM
I remember when most Lan Kwai Fong bar hoppers were Westerners. No more. A brace of articles came out recently reflecting the changes wrought on employment in Hong Kong's financial services industry. Once upon a time, it was fairly common to come across Westerners plying their trade in the Far East. In particular, the self-deprecating acronym FILTH was used by British expatriates meaning Failed in London, Try Hongkong. The underlying assumption here, of course, was that it was easier to find a job in the less competitive environs of Hong Kong than in the City of London. With the world's economic center of gravity shifting...
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Will Automation End Asia's 'Old' Development Path?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 6/22/2017 12:33:00 PM
Is this an endangered scene for countries like Bangladesh? What would its consequences be? There is much hand-wringing going on about automation lessening the need for human workers and the unemployment that may occur as a result. In the West, scare stories about robots making humans redundant in any number of industries are all the rage as even skilled work that relies on think power becomes vulnerable to the rise of machines. This may or may not occur in the future, but whatever it holds for us, it's a narrative that's helping sell scare stories in the meantime. Now, a Bloomberg article argues that it's not just folks...
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Pointless Trip? UK Trade Minister Seeks FTA in US

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 6/18/2017 04:03:00 PM
Why send a Brexiteer (code word for isolationist) to negotiate a bilateral FTA with Trump's America? Things are smacking of desperation in the UK as Prime Minister (as of this moment) Theresa May is not only vulnerable for calling an election when her party's majority was squandered, but also for coming into Brexit negotiations with a weakened position as a result. It is thus quizzical that she recently dispatched her trade minister to the United States. Recall that this is a new position after the UK left negotiating trade deals to the EU for decades. It's being reported as a mission to scope the level of support for...
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EU: Ensuring Theresa "Trump Lite" May Can't Brexit

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 6/10/2017 03:12:00 PM
Before her boneheaded, majority-killing snap election, May was sending self-deportation vans around the UK as home secretary. Before getting into more detail, let me be clear that the main characters in this story are not "protagonists" to any Remain advocate: Theresa May calling a snap election to improve her negotiating position for Brexit by increasing the Tories' majority instead resulted in the loss of her party's majority. Good for her. Meanwhile, her opponent, Labour's Jeremy Corbyn, is an old-style socialist / Communist sympathizer who reflexively favors nationalization and state control. It's as if Tony Blair's...
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Investors Decide UK Isn't Part of "Europe"

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 6/06/2017 11:12:00 AM
There are several ways to signify membership in a particular geographical region. The most straightforward one is that you share [duh] roughly the same real-estate on the world map. Others may, of course, include being part of a regional cooperation organization--or any number of such organizations. Into this picture we have this strange bastard entity called the "United Kingdom." Not only is it physically detached from continental Europe, but it has also chosen to forsake many of the signature institutions of Europe. The UK is not part of the Schengen Agreement for continent-wide travel. The UK has never been part of the...
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Linking Depopulation and Debt in Puerto Rico, Illinois

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 6/02/2017 05:49:00 PM
Accumulating debt is the American way...even in a protectorate. The role of demographics in economics is often overlooked. However, there are any number of examples you can bring up that illustrate its substantial role. First, consider Puerto Rico. To say that the US protectorate is in dire economic straits is an understatement. With its ballooning debt, it has the disadvantage of being a mere protectorate instead of a full-fledged part of the USA. Besides defaulting on its debt, poor prospects there are causing an exodus as folks seek work where it is to be found. Namely, somewhere else other than Puerto Rico: The population...
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