|
||||
|
This YouTube outlining John McCain’s views on economics, foreign policy and disaster relief amused and frightened me. I have suggested before that Barack Obama will be the first black American President and, despite my conservative politics, believe this will be, on balance, a good thing. He is the best of a weak field and [...] The US economy grew by 0.6% in the first quarter of 2008. It was not in recession. At Intrade the probability that the US has fallen into recession has fallen to 25%. (When I last looked it was 33%, look under Financial/Economic Numbers). Hat tip: Gregory Mankiw Update: Even Paul Krugman is cautiously optimistic. [...] While I lived in Thailand in the 1980s I always appreciated the possibility of cheap local dental and health care. It was easy to find well-qualified, English-speaking dentists and doctors – an incidental bonus was that the nurses who looked after you were often extremely attractive. The cost of these services was a fraction (about [...] UK consumers are even more indebted than those in the US according to this New York Times report. The story in the UK: In the past there has been plenty of debt available, rising house prices and an obsession with home ownership. Economic prosperity has meant caution has been thrown to the wind – spend [...] The Wall Street Journal think it might. The main concern is that unanchored inflationary expectations might cause a collapse in confidence in holding dollars. Quote: ‘The Fed needs to restore its monetary credibility, or today’s panic could become tomorrow’s crash’. I searched through the leftwing blogs I know about and not one had anything critical to say about the current repression of peaceful demonstrators in Tibet by Chinese troops. I always wonder about the sincerity of the left when it couples intemperate criticism of the United States and the forces of decency and civilisation in [...] A piece in The Age yesterday (by Dvir Albramovich) listed various ways the Holocaust has been trivialised by western comedians. I agree that such humour is in poor taste (although I disagree that the movie ‘Life is Beautiful’ starring Roberto Benigni, that Albramovich criticises, trivialised the Holocaust – it was, in my view, unrelentingly anti-Nazi [...] This is a simple story about current US events. Lulled by continuing, uninterrupted prosperity US citizens spent too much – the last 10 years have been a credit-driven spending frenzy. Now it is payback time and because many asset prices (housing and stocks) remain high the potential for a severe prolonged contraction is there. If [...] This silly video clip by Daniel Mitchell argues the case for unregulated tax competition between nations. The idea is that the lowest rates of company and personal income tax are best so globalisation which forces high tax countries to cut their taxes to levels of low tax countries to avoid job and investment losses must [...] The NYT has a stern neoclassical defence of free trade (by Stephen Landsberg) with outsourcing. Landsberg is clearly discussing US-Chinese trade from the US viewpoint. The gist is that just as we should not feel morally obliged to compensate a restaurant owner when we shop for food at a cheaper McDonalds store so too the [...] Barack Obama’s stunning victory against Hilary Clinton in the Iowa caucuses last Thursday night is the talk of the international press. That a black man defeated the establishment candidate in a primarily (95%) white state and the fact of a record turnout of Democrat voters suggests that Americans are seeing the need for fundamental change. [...] Benazir Bhutto assassinated. A brave woman who risked all for her country. What a tragedy for Pakistan. What a terrible further tragedy for the Bhutto family. It was only 13 days to a general election that she had a good chance of winning. What conceivable good can come from this evil action? Civil strife, more [...] Melanie Phillips dumps on a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report that guesses Iran stopped its attempt to produce nuclear weapons in 2003. Israel doesn’t believe the report and others suggest it might reflect a deal done with Iran whereby the US agrees not to bomb it provided Iran stops assistance for terrorism in Iraq. This [...] The Times has an interesting account of the Israeli air raid on Syria on 6th September – it claims the raid knocked out a ‘plant’ equipping missiles with nuclear warheads – the plutonium in the warheads being supplied by North Korea. If true it makes a bit of a joke of Bush’s claimed nuclear diplomacy [...] Rioters, rumoured to be Presbyterians, have fired on police in France with shotguns. One policeman had an eye blown out. Youths burnt a library, a primary school and torched cars. The attacks follow the deaths of 2 young males without crash helmets who drove an unregistered motorcycle into a police car at high speed. Update [...] Inscrutable lot. [...] If you are concerned about the situation in Burma the most effective course of action is to put pressure on China and India – countries with extensive corporate invol;vement in Burma’s natural resource wealth. This attached petition seeks to do that. Please consider ‘signing’ it online – and if you have your own blog please [...] Bloggers are a major part of the opposition to the ruling military in Burma. Initially they were targeted for arrest but that still left a stream of news leaving Burma coutesy of blogs. Now the regime has simply turned off the internet. ‘While the veteran democracy activists, and then the Buddhist monks, marched in their [...] What an amazing event the APEC meeting is for Australia to host – a meeting of world leaders including US President George Bush, China’s President Hu Jintao and Russian President Vladimir Putin. As a child of the Cold War who saw immutable communism as the long-trerm enemy I was also taught at school that developing [...] Paul Krugman is pessimistic about what is currently happening in financial markets. The crisis in sub-prime mortgage lending in the US has spread to Europe and Asia – batches of these loans have been sold to French and Dutch banks. Financial markets have suddenly become illiquid – people wish to hang onto their cash. This [...] |
||||
|
Copyright © 2012 Harry Clarke - All Rights Reserved Powered by WordPress & Atahualpa |
||||
Recent Comments