Tag Archives: economics

What’s So Hard?

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Great Britain is agonizing over how to deal with the People’s Republic of China’s Huawei Technologies Co and the latter’s desire to supply the nation’s 5G mobile network.  On the matter of Huawei’s having supplied the predecessor 4G network, Great Britain thinks it had arrived at “an understanding” with Huawei concerning the latter’s behavior vis-à-vis the installed 4G—which, astonishingly, allowed Huawei to monitor “aspects” of 4G tech.  Britain’s MI6 head, Alex Younger, seems to be the chief agonizer.

5G will by and large be based on Chinese technology, chiefly with Huawei. We need to decide whether we are comfortable with the ownership of these platforms in the case where our allies take quite a definite position…This is not straightforward[.]

Why must Huawei be the supplier of Britain’s 5G network?

And: Huawei is an arm of the People’s Republic of China government—how is this not a straightforward decision?  Why is it so hard to decide whether the nation wants to let the PRC government spy on every aspect of the British government, its defense, its economy, its citizens?

Rewarding Thuggery

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Recall the rioting, looting, and graffiti-spraying—on l’Arc de Triomphe, yet—in France over the Macron government’s decision to raise fuel taxes and utility rates.  Now the government has abjectly surrendered to the rioters: it will not implement the new tax and utility rates at all (Deutsche Welle has reported that the tax is suspended for six months rather than canceled altogether).

The tax and rate hike were bad moves on principle: it’s nearly always wrong to raise taxes before cutting spending or to raise utility rates for reasons other than to cover expenses and preserve a measure of profit, but these were especially foolish: they were intended to fund the nation’s even more expensive—to the citizenry, and especially the nation’s poor and unemployed—move to a purely “green” economy.  This, though, was the wrong time to correct the error, and it’s the wrong reason to do so.

This was done, not in response to the will of the people demurring, it was in immediate, meek obedience to thugs.

And far from putting an end to the troubles, it has had the opposite—and obvious to objective outside observers—response from the thugs.

France’s Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe:

No tax is worth putting the nation’s unity in danger[.]  …  The violence must end[.]

I plead with you.

The response for his reward:

But the announcement is unlikely to put an end to the road blockades and demonstrations, with more protests possible in Paris this weekend.
…
“It’s a first step, but we will not settle for a crumb,” said Benjamin Cauchy, a protest leader.

And

Segolene Royal, a former candidate for president, lauded Philippe’s decision but said the course correction on the climate change tax came too late.

And

Marine Le Pen lashed out at the decision as too little, tweeting it was “obviously not up to the expectations of the French people struggling with precarity.” … “A moratorium on taxes is being considered. But a moratorium is only a postponement.”

President Emmanuel Macron:

I will never accept violence.  No cause justifies that authorities are attacked, that businesses are plundered, that passers-by or journalists are threatened or that the Arc de Triomphe is defiled.

Tough talk for someone who has just surrendered to the thugs.  No, Macron’s government isn’t finished paying up.

Another Free Trade Deal

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As Ashley Tellis, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, pointed out, a free trade deal with “Taiwan” would be a Good Thing.  Indeed, that would be a good start, but it really would be better to sign a free trade deal with the Republic of China rather than with an island.

He also pointed out that such a trade deal would go a long way toward easing, if not stopping, the People’s Republic of China’s effort to diplomatically isolate the RoC.

Accordingly, a free-trade agreement would demonstrate American solidarity with Taiwan is just a bit ironic given the thrust of Tellis’ piece.

Second Thoughts?

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The New York City city council has decided to hold a series of hearings on the just concluded Amazon HQ2 deal cut with the city.  The council’s beef is the secretive nature of the negotiations between amazon.com and the folks purporting to represent the city.

Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen, Economic Development Corp President James Patchett, and Amazon executives have been invited to the hearings, which will take place during the next few months, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson’s office said Thursday.

There’s nothing wrong with the negotiations themselves being done behind closed doors; that’s the only place “frank and open” discussions can occur.

However.

Now that the negotiations are concluded, and before the city council has to vote on accepting or rejecting the deal—especially over what the negotiated deal wants to commit the city to—it’s time for the city council and its members’ constituents to hear the full details of the arrangement.

The council’s hearings should be open to the public and moved to a larger venue if needs be.  If the constituents don’t like what they hear, the deal should be voted down.  Or maybe the deal should be put to a referendum.

If amazon.com walks away from that, that would demonstrate the uselessness of the deal to the city’s residents.

Veterans Administration Fails Again

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Recall the VA’s failure regarding paying our veterans all of the funds they’re due under the GI Bill; those student veterans are being shorted the money they’re owed.  That shortchanging will continue next year due to a “software glitch” that the VA isn’t fixing any time soon.

Now we get the VA’s Undersecretary of Benefits, Paul Lawrence, saying that the agency has no plans to retroactively pay shortchanged GI Bill recipients or to make next year’s VA victims whole.  He didn’t even have the integrity to admit this to the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs subcommittee before which he was testifying—under oath, mind you, as is typical for witnesses before Congressional hearings—until he’d been pressed on the matter by several Congressmen.

After that admission, VA Secretary Robert Wilkie said otherwise:

To clear up any confusion, I want to make clear that each and every post-9/11 GI Bill beneficiary will be made 100 percent whole—retroactively if need be—for their housing benefits for this academic year based on Forever GI Bill rates, not on post-9/11 GI Bill rates[.]

Whom to believe?  Based on what evidence?  It’s true enough that of the two, only one was under oath, and it wasn’t Wilkie, but that doesn’t count for much here.

And this: that software glitch is being blamed on an outmoded computer system that hadn’t/couldn’t be upgraded due to lack of funds.  Molly Jenkins, a spokeswoman for that House VA committee had a different view, though:

It’s laughable that VA is blaming Congress for its IT issues, especially given the fact that Congress just passed the largest VA budget in history[.]

She also emphasized that the VA was allotted $30 million to improve its system.

She then pointed out a few other things: one is that the VA’s problems are “inexcusable, decades-long and well-documented.”

And that that the agency already is six months late with a required progress update.

And

[VA] sounded no alarms in their May 2018 report that there would be any delays at all[.]

It’s hard to tell whether VA management is not trying, is breathtakingly incompetent, or is actively defying Congress—and our veterans, whom the VA was created to support.

In any event, the VA needs to be eliminated and its once and future budgets committed to vouchers for our veterans.

Veteranos Administratio delende est.