Posts of 2020

US Obesity & Stupidity: Barr, Pompeo & Trump

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Americana,Health at 12/28/2020 02:49:00 PM

Who's the fattest of them all? Everyone else's well-being may be victims of their brainless girth. [WARNING: In the spirit of Trump's disdain for political correctness, I am waiving it for this post, although the subjects here fully deserve the opprobrium they receive.] I do not need any encouragement to poke fun at American obesity since I've always considered it as part of US descent into, ah, fatheadedness. Prominent examples of US decline are its recent political class: Chicken Barr, Portly Pomepo and Plump Trump. These lard-assed eater-leaders exemplify current Americanness to the rest of the world--fat and obnoxiously...

The British Empire Died on 1 September 2020

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Europe at 12/14/2020 03:04:00 PM

The chief architect of British decline at "work". What marks the end of Britain's dominance in world affairs? That question has always been tied to that on British identity in the post-WWII era. To be sure, there are some who would say the ascent of the United States relative to the United Kingdom's fall rendered that debate moot a long time ago. (And many now question whether the US remains hegemonic, anyway.) Regardless, there have been bits of evidence to suggest how Britain still plays an outsized role in global affairs even after its numerous former territories--most notably India--became independent. Prominent...

Trump's Losing War on ESG Investing

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in CSR,Energy at 12/06/2020 03:32:00 PM

Funds like this one from BlackRock's iShares now list ESG no-nos. Trumpists couldn't care less.The Trump administration is essentially a throwback to a time when white men ruled the world, burned fossil fuels with wild abandon, and were unapologetic about America's dodgy history concerning racism. So, it was perhaps inevitable that one of its last few efforts on the way out the door was to throw a middle finger to the very idea of environmental, social and governance [ESG] investing. You see, the US government manages any number of funds, including those of government employees for retirement. The Department of Labor...

Trump's Expanding PRC Blacklist: CNOOC, SMIC

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in China,Security at 12/01/2020 06:59:00 PM

If you think Trump's 2020 electoral defeat at the hands of Joe Biden have slowed his anti-China instincts, then you are sadly mistaken. Given that Biden has historically been sanguine about free trade, his policies towards China are expected to be more moderate than the orange China-basher. To preempt Biden, therefore, the Trump administration is speeding up plans to blacklist even more state-owned companies over their Communist Party links. Reuters reports that China's largest energy company, CNOOC, and its largest chipmaker, SMIC. In reaction, their share prices declined significantly:The Department of Defense (DOD)...

Trump's Racism: Introducing African Travel Bonds

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Africa,Migration at 11/23/2020 07:21:00 PM

In the final days of the horrid Trump administration, they are putting the final touches on his most blatantly isolationist and racist pipe dreams to put President-Elect Joe Biden in the worst position to possible to try and undo the damage. Just when you thought thing couldn't sink any lower in these categories, the State Department is mulling the requirement that travelers from--you guessed it--African countries put up bonds of up to $15,000 if they want to travel to the US that would be forfeited to Uncle Sam if they overstayed in America. From Reuters:The outgoing administration of U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday...

Asia's Giant US-Free FTA, RCEP, is a Go

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Economic Diplomacy,Trade at 11/15/2020 06:14:00 PM

Spot the missing country during this mother of all virtual meetings (read more below). This just in: After being on the drawing board for eight years, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) has been agreed to at the regional level. Featuring 15 countries with a combined GDP of over $26 trillion and a third of humanity, its dimensions exceed all those that came before. Befitting the vast expanse of the "Asia-Pacific," its pan-regional free trade agreement was destined to be geographically expansive as well. Fitting the times, the region's countries agreed to it during a meeting hosted by the Vietnamese...

COVID-19 Victim: Privatizing NZ All-Blacks

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Sports at 11/06/2020 12:20:00 PM

Sold?! The NZ national rugby squad may be on the auction block. Imagine Brazil's national football team the Seleção privatized. Or Germany's Mannschaft and Italy's Azzurri for that matter. The uproar would be deafening since these storied squads are parts of their national identities instead of being mere corporate identities. There is a saying that everyone has their price, though, and something akin to that may be happening in the Southern hemisphere. Whereas Brazil [5x], Germany and Italy [4x each] represent the winningest nations in Football World Cup history, international sports aficionados should be well aware that...

Adios Trumpian Shithole: Surrendering US Citizenship

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Americana,Migration at 9/14/2020 04:03:00 PM

Well, OK, Trump is not really the main cause of expatriate Americans wanting to surrender their citizenship...but it likely doesn't help matters. 2020 is shaping up to be a banner year for citizenship renunciations, and the proximate cause is the ridiculous amount of paperwork expats must fill to be in compliance with US financial regulations. Especially after 9/11, American authorities have kept a tighter leash on financial record-keeping worldwide. And, unfortunately, US citizens abroad have borne a disproportionate share of the pencil-pushing burden. So, it was only a matter of time that more wanted out of America for...

COVID-19 Victim: Kuwait is Broke

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Energy,Governance,Middle East at 8/19/2020 05:52:00 PM

Kuwait's energy-dependent economy is not coping well with the pandemic like its neighbors. How the mighty have fallen together with the collapsing demand for hydrocarbons as tourism and travel have been grounded around the world due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Kuwait is a famously rich--albeit geographically tiny--country whose invasion sparked the first Gulf War. Nevertheless, its geopolitical clout was such that then-US President George HW Bush gathered together American allies to summarily eject Saddam Hussein's invading forces. Thirty years later, we see it confront perhaps a more invidious threat in the form...

Paris St-Germain v RB Leipzig = Qatar v Red Bull

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Europe,Sports at 8/18/2020 05:48:00 PM

Battle of the bad guys? Many see it that way. A few hours after I publish this post, two of the world's most reviled football clubs will meet in the first match of the Champions League semifinals in Lisbon, Portugal. (Normally, there would be home/away ties for these clubs in their respective stadiums, but the pandemic has forced them to play a single winner-takes-all match in relatively COVID-free Lisbon as a neutral site. Needless to say, the thousands of fans are also missing.) This being the International Political Economy Zone, we have international politics in abundance with Paris Saint-Germain [PSG] being bankrolled...

Silver Eclipses Gold... Thanks to the EU?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Currencies,Environment,Europe at 7/22/2020 05:46:00 PM

I have been looking at an entry point to buy silver over the past few months, but a dip has not really come. Indeed, the metal has soared recently, handily outperforming gold. Why is this so? For a long time, the gold/silver price ratio was historically high, so there is likely some mean reversion there. That is, gold became too costly relative to silver despite having similar attributes, so silver's price had to move up eventually. Like gold, silver is something with intrinsic value unlike paper money or even virtual currencies. So there's some of that consideration at play: It is hard to find an asset on more of a roll...

Is China's TikTok Turning American to Avoid a US Ban?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in China,Security,Technology at 7/22/2020 05:15:00 PM

So much international controversy over such a mindless diversion. That is TiktTok's current predicament. This is just a follow-up on a previous post I made about how India banned TikTok's app there. During these difficult times, countries are understandably adapting protectionist stances. After all, it's the easiest strategy to pursue when confronted with hardship: blame foreigners for whatever ails your country. In the telling of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, TikTok is a Trojan horse for Chinese Communist encroachment into American life. For kicks, I am linking to a Fox News story for the first time ever (I think)--fitting...

"Trade War 4.0": How the EU Plans to Punish US Tech

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Europe,Technology,Trade at 7/20/2020 08:12:00 PM

This is a follow-up to the earlier post about how the EU and US are on a collision course over the tax treatment of American tech giants, which the EU believes are operating nearly tax-free within their countries. If we were still dealing with old-fashioned goods, the solution for the EU would be simple: apply tariffs, which are taxes on goods. After all, the US is applying those on a lot of EU goods right now. But how would you retaliate against services which the US is dominant in? Since these are intellectual property-rich things, you would make it easier to violate IP. Now, if there is anything the US guards zealously,...

Missing US Innovation: Assisted Suicide On Demand

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Americana,Health,Innovation at 7/16/2020 06:10:00 PM

Numbers don't lie: There isn't much to live for Stateside. Healthcare is largely misspent there, so how about the opposite? The United States is perceived as an innovator leading the rest of the world. Sometimes, its innovations are not necessarily ethically or socially edifying. Witness the emergence of its sprawling prison industrial complex. No other country on earth spends as much on incarceration or throws as many of its own people behind bars. Usually those jailed are us colored people, but that's another discussion for some other time. Suffice to say that fortunes have been made in this industry. Profiting off the...

Can Trump Destroy Hong Kong's Dollar Peg?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in China,Currencies at 7/08/2020 07:20:00 PM

Asian financial crisis, SARS, global financial crisis, COVID-19 outbreak...HK$ remains pegged. Whither Trump? There are several ironies in the Trump administration's ongoing efforts to strike back at China for eroding Hing Kong's political freedoms through passing a national security law via the mainland's rubber-stamp legislature. For a wannabe authoritarian, Trump taking action against China for eroding its territory's independence is kind of rich. For another thing, Hong Kong is one of the few places on earth that imports far more the United States than it exports. Trump regularly bashes those the US runs large bilateral...

Techno-Nationalism: India Bans PRC's TikTok

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in China,India,Security,Technology at 7/02/2020 12:44:00 AM

Slap Xi's image with sandals...and ban Tiktok too! Well, well, well: In a previous post concerning whether India could boycott China after the recent, fatal border skirmish, I said "They can burn as many Xi pictures as they like, but their compatriots won't stop buying PRC-made goods anytime soon." As it turns out, techno-nationalism is alive and well but not in the way I had envisioned. (I am still correct on technical points since [1] what's transpired concerns services not goods and [2] it's a government ban instead of a consumer boycott). The jingoistic Modi government apparently couldn't help itself from taking...