From me on Autocade World: President Donald J. Trump has been talking about tariffs for a very long time, even as a businessman back in the ’80s. Back then he lamented that the US was being hard done by Japan, with all the Japanese cars and VCRs that Americans were buying, and yet the reverse […]
I haven’t commented on US politics much lately, primarily because there are others who do it far better. If you want excellent insight without being weighed down in detail, read what Richard Murphy in the UK has to say on, say, US tariffs, or the madness of austerity economics. His blog Funding the Future has […]
A very interesting analysis on Crikey by Bernard Keane on the turmoil the occident finds itself in. In the opening paragraphs we find this zinger about what the right wing believes it was to protect the west from. Protecting from whom? Name your favourite other—the Soviet Union. Islam. China. Declining birth rates. Secularism. Immigrants. Globalism. […]
Read More… from If you want a slice of the pie, then compete
At some point as a young man, my Dad worked at a bank. He had a formal understanding of finance—despite his schooling being interrupted by the Sino–Japanese War and then by the communist revolution, he managed to get himself a qualification in economics, and had some time working for a bank. I was taught […]
Read More… from You can’t bank on the Wales (or, why I closed our Westpac account)
GM pulled out of Russia and India, so with hindsight, those of us Down Under, with a far smaller total population, shouldn’t have thought we were particularly special. Even where GM remains, such as South Korea, there’s a broken model range, with a big gap where the Cruze used to be. It’s becoming […]
Martin Wolf, writing in the Financial Times, touches on a few points that resonate with my readings over the years. He believes capitalism, as a system, is not a bad one, but it is bad when it is ‘rigged’; and that Aristotle was indeed right (as history has since proved) that a sizeable middle […]
SumOfUs/Creative Commons Prof Jane Kelsey, in her critique of the still-secret Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement on Trans-Pacific Partnership (formerly the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement [TPPA]) notes in The Spinoff: The most crucial area of the TPPA that has not received enough attention is the novel chapter on electronic commerce—basically, a set of rules that will cement […]
FJM88NL, licensed under Creative Commons I’ve had a phone call and a lot of comments on this in the last couple of days: my Dad, who is 81 with early-stage Alzheimer’s, called the US presidential election for Donald Trump months ago. I posted it on my social networks the day he made his definitive call, […]
Read More… from How my Dad called the primary and the election for Donald Trump ages ago
Above: When I refer to Hillary in the below blog post, I mean the self-professed ‘ordinary chap’ on our $5 note. As the results of the US presidential election came in, I didn’t sense a panic. I actually sensed a great opportunity for New Zealand. I’ve been critical of the obsession many of […]
Read More… from What a great opportunity for New Zealand that lies before us
That’s another British General Election done and dusted. I haven’t followed one this closely since the 1997 campaign, where I was backing John Major. Shock, horror! Hang on, Jack. Haven’t the media all said you are a leftie? Didn’t you stand for a left-wing party? Therein lies a fallacy about left- and right […]