Archive for the ‘Economy’ Category
Goldman Sachs: villain in a dumbed-down fable
UPDATE: This post has been re-published as an article in spiked (here). The media is in a frenzy over Goldman Sachs. On Friday the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Goldman Sachs of securities fraud in a civil lawsuit. The SEC claims that the Wall Street giant deceived clients by selling them a subprime mortgage investment [...]
The Chinese are coming! (maybe)
A couple of articles this week indicate that the Chinese economic presence in the US may be increasing in the near future. First, an article in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal reported that “Chinese companies are increasingly looking to invest in the US, and state and local governments are scrambling to win a share of the [...]
The return of the consumer
“American consumers are finally coming out of hiding,” reports the New York Times today. Retail sales are up, and people are now spending on items other than food and medicine, such as clothes, jewelry and cars. Greater consumer spending is another sign – along with increasing employment and higher factory production – that economic recovery [...]
Google: don’t be holier-than-thou
Google has been applauded for its anti-censorship stand against China. But it’s not the role of companies to take moral or political stands, and we shouldn’t praise them when they do In January Google announced that it would no longer self-censor its search engine in China, referencing attacks from hackers to access Chinese political activists’ emails. This past [...]
After health law, Washington is still disconnected from the people
There is something incongruous about the celebrations among President Obama, his cabinet members, and other Democratic leaders the past few days, to mark the passing of the healthcare bill. Yesterday’s ceremony at the White House in which President Obama signed the bill into law was described as “raucous”, with the Democrats in attendance “jubilant and [...]
Rapid decline of the US empire?
In this video, David Murrin, Chief Investment Officer of the hedge fund Emergent Asset Management, says the US will decline sooner than expected, and China will emerge as the superpower to fill the vacuum. This is the thesis of Murrin’s book, Breaking the Code of History, in which he argues that America’s decline is actually the [...]
New law doesn’t make health coverage a right
Today at the White House, President Obama signed into law the healthcare reform bill. Towards the end of his speech to mark the occasion, Obama said: “We have now just enshrined, as soon as I sign this bill, the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their healthcare.” Commentators [...]
Healthcare bill: this is not History with a capital H
The health reforms in the US are neither historic nor disastrous. They simply show what ‘Change’ means under Obama: tinkering on the edges. Read my spiked article in full here.
Health reform victory for Obama: the pundits over-react again
A healthcare reform bill has finally passed, just barely. After a last-minute deal to secure the anti-abortion Democrats, the House passed the health bill by just three votes more than necessary. Just a day or so ago, many pundits presented Obama’s presidency as on the rocks. He is not only redeemed by the Democrats’ victory, but now some [...]
To US critics of China’s currency: get your own house in order
The noise coming from the US about China’s supposed “manipulation” of its currency, the yuan (also referred to as the renminbi), has become noticeably louder this past week. Since July 2008, China has pegged its currency at about 6.83 yuan to one dollar. American critics assert that China’s policy effectively keeps its currency artificially low, [...]