Hong Kong Credit Downgraded for PRC Lackeydom

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 4/23/2020 04:47:00 PM
To paraphrase Sting, don't stand so close to Xi...or get a credit rating downgrade.  Apparently, the rating agency Fitch does not think much of the "one country, two systems explanation for Hong Kong's existence alongside the PRC. If you are a Hong Kong civil servant, the logic Fitch used would be especially dismaying since their rationale for downgrading your special administrative region was "guilt by association". Was it a fair process through which HK was downgraded from AA to AA-? If you ask me, no. Here's what Fitch had to say: The anti-government protests, which grew increasingly violent in late 2019, appear...
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COVID-19 Vaccine Development as Reality Show

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 4/20/2020 07:26:00 PM
This pharma reality show could use a loudmouthed, orange-faced fatty whose tagline is "You're FDA disapproved!" Almost every conceivable activity has been turned into a reality show: (90s rap star) Vanilla Ice Goes Amish...a real-life 'Lord of the Flies' scenario where young'uns run society in Kid Nation...the list goes on and on. The age of Trump has transformed even normally staid and dignified human endeavors into, well, reality shows--and you could very plausibly argue that he's turned the entire USA into Kid Nation, but I digress. Given Trump's incessant search for a COVID-19 miracle cure to save his political fortunes,...
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Death Wish 6: Bolsonaro’s Brazilian Slaughterhouse

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 4/18/2020 08:34:00 PM
"I'm sorry, some people will die. That's life." - Jair Bolsonaro.  Charles Bronson starred in a number of increasingly formulaic action movies depicting gritty scenes of urban decay in the Death Wish series. The first of these movies actually garnered passable reviews and captured the zeitgeist of the times. By the fifth installment, though, its formula had worn out its welcome critically and commercially. That should not be especially troubling for fans of this series since a real-life Charles Bronson wannabe has been installed as a Latin American leader in Brazil. A real-life sequel appears to be unfolding in Brazil...
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Trump's Art of the Oil Deal [sic]

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 4/17/2020 12:07:00 PM
Trump likes to portray himself as a dealmaker par excellence, but even this Wall Street Journal article he tweeted about was fairly condescending of his abilities in this respect, saying "Donald Trump’s legendary deal-making ability during his years as a real-estate mogul is more fantasy than reality, but the president outdid himself in this weekend’s high-stakes oil diplomacy." At any rate, how's the reality of this Savior of the American Oil Industry act playing out? In the aftermath of this so-called Trump-orchestrated deal, the benchmark US grade West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude cratered from an abysmally low $20...
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Boris Johnson, UK's COVID-19 Trump-Alike

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 4/14/2020 07:36:00 PM
Meet that other Anglo-Saxon biggie causing unmitigated COVID-19 disaster, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.  I will be upfront and say that I detest Boris Johnson at least as much as Donald Trump. He is much of the same ilk: a clownish, loud-mouthed, and obese isolationist. Johnson is the best-known proponent of that exercise in self-harm known as Brexit. Still, there may be some slight differences that are in no way substantive between these two big-bellied blond-haired buffoons. Johnson epitomizes the romanticized view of British exceptionalism, that somehow curtailing personal freedoms through, say, a lockdown,...
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American Obesity Supersizes COVID-19's Impact

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 4/07/2020 08:51:00 PM
Physique-wise, Trump is the perfect embodiment of the country he "leads". The French author Joseph de Maistre famously said that "Every nation gets the leader it deserves." With the obese fraudster Donald Trump, the United States gets a leader whose bulbous, Jabba the Hutt-like physique mirrors the unhealthiness of its general population. To be sure, Trump's slothful response the COVID-19 outbreak Stateside is nothing short of disastrous--but what exactly did you expect? (See de Maistre's statement above.) From stating there's nothing to worry about with the coronavirus to downplaying the virus as a hoax meant to harm his...
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