Trade War! Boeing vs Bombardier, US vs Canada & UK

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 9/29/2017 05:47:00 PM
Will Delta really fly Bombardier CS100s? Of Canada has trade "friends" like the US, who needs enemies... When it comes to capital-intensive businesses, commercial aircraft is among the most demanding of sheer funding. Especially when it comes to developing all-new models, the level of research and development required equates to a lot of money spent. Today's case in point is Canadian jetliner manufacturer Bombardier. Its niche is jets smaller than the smallest offerings of the industry titans Boeing [737] and Airbus [A320]. You'd think that not competing directly with them puts it in a safe spot, but no: Boeing’s beef...
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Did Xi, Macron & Merkel Make US Stocks Great Again?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 9/26/2017 05:58:00 PM
It's probably not Trump, or Invader Zim for that matter, making the world economy great again. There are any number of mysteries as to why US-listed stocks are reaching all-time highs early in the presidency of Donald Trump. As business media always explains, markets abhor uncertainty. With Trump you certainly have very little certainty. In trade, he's killed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and threatens to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (KORUS). For good measure, he's spoken about pulling out of the World Trade Organization (WTO) over his disdain for...
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Kim Jong-Un [Hearts] Markets, Sort Of

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 9/25/2017 06:00:00 PM
We sorta knew they love rockets...but markets too?! The perception we often get is that North Korea is the archetypal Communist state, with collectivist means of production concentrated in mostly rural communities churning out goods which the government tells to make in what quantities. Actually, the old-style command economy is on the outs. For several years now, the hermit kingdom has been experimenting with the use of markets. Mind you, it's not because of any sort of enlightened about the virtues of capitalism. Rather, it's being done out of survival. Indeed, North Korea may be more resilient than believed because of...
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Foreign Investment, Duterte Drug War Victim

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 9/17/2017 12:18:00 PM
Unlike poor, defenseless Philippine teenagers, foreign investors have successfully avoided Duterte's Philippines. Philippine strongman Rodrigo Duterte has elicited international condemnation over his bloody drug war,  whose most visible result are thousands of deaths among poor Filipinos unfortunate enough to live in open areas targeted for anti-drug operations. While primarily a security issue, there are also apparent economic consequences for Duterte's "reign of terror" (as the Catholic Church describes it) being waged on the civilian population as foreign direct investment dries up. In fact, foreign direct investment...
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Premier League Post-Brexit & Post-Free Movement

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 9/12/2017 03:06:00 PM
Premier League clubs would have a harder time hiring European talent like N'golo Kante after leaving the EU. The top flight of British football--the Premier League--is arguably not the most competitive in Europe if you go by the number of European Champions League winners it has produced. That said, the overall level of competition may be rather higher given its higher wages than comparable first divisions in other European countries. Something that has enabled a lot of transfer activity to the Premier League was being part of the European Union, where freedom of movement is part of the deal for EU citizens. The UK's impending...
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Deport-o-Mania 2: Houston's Rebuilding Labor Shortage

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 9/05/2017 03:32:00 PM
Is Donald Trump's America so hateful of immigrants that it'd rather slow Houston's reconstruction significantly? Being human after all, we have certain cravings that are personally destructive: nicotine cravings, sugar cravings, and so on. For several members of the American Trump administration--and those who voted for this affront to humanity--they have a different sort of craving that is rather worse in being societally destructive. That's right, their one true addiction is deporting people who are "different" from them culturally, ethnically or religiously. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists,...
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