Huawei was founded in 1987 and it is well established that the Chinese Government “helped” at several points in its early history. There are dozens of articles on Huawei that start like this: While no direct ties between Huawei and the Chinese military and Communist Party have ever been established Read more…
The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation said: We’re deeply concerned about the risks of allowing any company (like Huawei) that is beholden to foreign governments that don’t share our values to gain positions of power inside our telecommunications networks. That provides the capacity to exert pressure or control over Read more…
When we watch the TV or read the newspaper we often see something like “OIL IS UP TODAY” but we really don’t know what that means because there are so many different types of crude oil, each with its own price. Below we briefly explore the 6 oil products that Read more…
This short clip from the author of “Prius or Pickup?” Jonathan Weiler, explains that political parties on the left and the right have stopped defining themselves by the size of government and instead focused in emotional responses to identity politics. The discussion uses the US system of Democrat vs Republican Read more…
There is much hype on the so-called “non-market” clause in the USMCA (aka. NAFTA 2.0): ‘Astonishing’ clause in new deal suggests Trump wants leverage over Canada-China trade talks: experts SOURCE Chinese embassy in Canada condemns ‘US veto’ clause in North America trade deal SOURCE Beijing attacks USMCA clause seen as Read more…
Today Bloomberg released a report stating that, at the direction of the Chinese Government, a massive China based ‘board’ manufacturer named SuperMicro added hardware to servers that were sold to Amazon and Apple. While the specific details of what was implant is not fully known yet, it is safe to Read more…
In an era of apparently undeniable Russian state sponsored interference in American and UK Elections social media companies like Facebook, Twitter & Google have been called to account for their part in the ‘attacks’. This begs the question, how much responsibility do internet and social media companies really have for Read more…
There is recent evidence that robots will not take all the manual labour jobs and that in fact, if you live in first world countries you will likely gain jobs from factories coming back to the US, Canada, EU, UK, Australia… We have been on the road to mass robotic Read more…
In our article BoycottUSA and BoycottTrump Does Not Mean Not Buying American, we explain that China is applying there retaliatory tariffs to Donald Trump supporters and no the US as a whole. That brings up the question of why China would target Boeing.
Boeing is based in Chicago and Chicago did not support Trump in the 2016 and they certainly don’t support him now:
The map to the right shows how Chicago voted; neighborhood by neighborhood voted against Donald Trump
While it is common sense and standard operating procedure for companies to quietly support their political leaders Boeing seems particularly aggressive in this area. When it looked like Hillary Clinton was going to win the 2016 Presidential Election, Boeing was there to help
Boeing, like many companies, woke up on November 9 to an unexpected political landscape. The company had been preparing for a Clinton presidency. Timothy Keating, its long-time senior VP of government operations, served under President Bill Clinton. There was even internal discussion at Boeing that Keating might join a new Clinton administration. Source: money.cnn.com/2017/02/17/news/companies/boeing-trump-dennis-muilenburg/index.html
Now the Donald J Trump has won the White House, Boeing has not unexpectedly flip flopped but they have taken it further than most, making some believe that they have a genuine support for Trump. From Presidential visits to photo opportunities to political conversation, Boeing is now tied to President Trump.
There is a growing global ‘movement’ for “Trump Free” products, which to most people means a boycott of American made products. If you are one of those people you should be thinking about two things: Boycotts Backfire Boycotts usually INCREASE the sale of a particular product because boycotts: are like Read more…
In yet another unintended consequence of US President Donald Trump’s (and his minions) lack of control, his nasty comments towards Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after the G7 summit in Quebec resulted in a major political boost for both Trudeau and Canada. “There’s a special place in Hell for any Read more…
In “The West” we don’t often discuss or even consider Africa. However, over the next 20 years the population of Africa is going to double and we will all be paying attention to that. Without doubt Africa’s population explosion will lead to two things:
Increased demand for goods and services
Increased workforce to provide those goods and services
What is in question is:
Will the governments of the Africa continue to stabilize?
Will the rule of law continue to expand and allow individuals and companies to prosper on a playing field level enough to attract foreign talent and capital?
Will African infrastructure continue to improve or will investments stop causing the existing infrastructure to decay?
Will governments be able to educate their populations so that they are useful participants in a modern economy?
Will African farmers produce enough food to sustain their population?
After World War 2 the US (and West in general) supported its former enemies. Rebuilding cities, legal systems, and economies on a massive scale. Germany and Japan were the primary beneficiaries of that financial aid and guidance and today those two countries are large stable entities that improve the West’s standard of living by providing both solid trading partners and political allies.
Some argue that those countries now take “our” jobs when in fact the evidence is clear that those countries have expanded the global economy for all. It is true that the US, Canada and the UK have a smaller slice of the global economic pie in 2018 compared to1950, but the pie is many times larger, so the net benefit to those countries is irrefutable.
China’s State Forestry Administration announced that they will add 66000 square kilometers of of trees in 2018 in an effort to reduce pollution. That is nearly the size of Ireland. This massive investment is part of their Paris Accord commitment to forest the area about three times the size of the entire United Kingdom by 2030.