Aramco IPO: Why Saudis Turned Oil Price Hawks

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 2/25/2018 11:32:00 AM
There's a neat story from the folks over at Oil Price about how the Saudis have done an about-face on the price of traded oil. For the longest time, they were considered as being among the least "activist" in the commodity cartel OPEC [Organization of Oil Producing and Exporting Countries]. That is, they did not push for boosting oil prices by crimping production of OPEC member countries. In recent years, though, that has changed as they've turned from "doves" content with a lower price of oil to "hawks" seeking to increase this price. The proximate cause of this apparent change of heart is the imminent initial public...
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Can Trump Delay Non-White Majority America?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 2/21/2018 05:56:00 PM
Few intellectually honest observers would dispute that Donald Trump's election was based in no small part on channeling white ethno-nationalist fears. More specifically, the United States is expected to become a non-white majority country mid-century. Estimates vary, but it's estimated to happen possibly in 2044 at the earliest. Trump's unapologetically racist tirades and policies against Mexicans, Muslims and other non-white and/or non-Christian people appeal to precisely this white ethno-nationalist base fearful of non-white majority America. A recent New York Times op-ed puts it in simpler terms: Trump wants to Make...
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(Disappearing) American Mall, the Video Game

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 2/18/2018 01:48:00 PM
Like (I hope) the IPE Zone blog itself, there's an amusingly droll American Mall video game developed by, of all people, Bloomberg. With consumer spending constituting the lion's share of economic output in most countries, the fate of the shopping mall format is of considerable political-economic interest. The anchor department store...the food court...the originators of these retail concepts are American through and through. Having created it, the Americans are now at the cutting edge of retail evolution in moving away from the mall in a big way. What will it hold for retail in other countries? It's hard to tell what...
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China's (Stock) Plunge Protection Team Rides Again

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 2/12/2018 02:16:00 PM
When the guy on the left is on the loose in stock markets, you need the guy on the right. Right? Well this is rich: The People's Republic of China has been fighting the United States and the European Union at the World Trade Organization over still being designated as a "non-market economy," implying that state intervention matters a lot more in the PRC relative to allowing market forces to work things out. At the same time, Chinese officialdom appears to be doing all sorts of actions that contradict laissez-faire economic governance necessary to improve its designation. Just as the recent US-led stock crash has laid low...
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Canada's Trudeau: To Save NAFTA, Avoid Trump

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 2/12/2018 01:57:00 PM
Trudeau's ploy to save NAFTA consists of going around Trump. If there ever was a misleadingly titled article, consider this one from Bloomberg on Canadian PM Justin Trudeau seeing a "clear path forward" on NAFTA. You see, the path he's taken is to largely bypass the Americans actually responsible for (re)negotiating trade deals, namely Trump and his trade representative Robert Lighthizer. Instead, Trudeau has taken his case directly to [a] representatives whose constituents will lose out from NAFTA's demise and [b] companies presumably with strong lobbying arms who would also be negatively affected: Trudeau’s government...
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Will Trump Ramp Up Trade War Post-Stock Crash?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 2/07/2018 03:45:00 PM
Being a disordered personality of the first order, Trump has acted as a cheereleader for both rising stock valuations and trade protectionism despite the latter being anathema to the former in the opinion of most conventional businesspersons. Insofar as American businesses with operations abroad favor a relatively open and predictable environment for international trade, further moves Trump makes to antagonize the United States' trade partners may make stocks drop even further than they have in recent days. Speaking of which, Trump's minders (babysitters for us critics) have been able to hold protectionist policies--if...
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