Tag Archives: economics

More Fallout

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…from President Barack Obama’s (D) timidity in the South China Sea.

Beijing has responded to the January election of Tsai and her pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party by intensifying pressure on Taiwan with military exercises, diplomatic moves and cross-border deportations and prosecutions.

It’s quite explicit.  Here’s Zhu Weidong, Deputy Director Institute of Taiwan Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing:

It is impossible for the mainland to get along with a party or a leader that doesn’t recognize the one-China policy or seeks to split the country.

There will be no so-called cold peace, but will definitely be a fresh confrontation.  In that case, the domestic and international situation for Taiwan will only get more and more difficult.

And Li Fei, Xiamen University’s Taiwan Research Institute Deputy Director:

If Tsai fails to recognize the ’92 consensus and one-China principle, there will be no room left for Taiwan’s diplomacy.

And this, too:

In April, a meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s steel committee ejected a [RoC] delegation after China complained.

We could help Tsai and the Republic of China by expanding trade with the RoC to reduce its dependency on the PRC and by selling the RoC arms with which to upgrade and strengthen its military.  And we could tell the PRC to stop whining; the RoC, as a vibrant, prosperous nation, is entirely welcome in organizations like the OECD.

A personal, State Dinner-type meeting between our President and President Tsai would go a long way, too.

Because One Size Fits All

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This time it’s the trivium of expiration dates on the food we buy in our grocery stores.

That can of soup in your pantry says “Best by June 2018.” The cereal box on the shelf above it says “Use by October 2016.” The salsa in your fridge says “Sell by June 6, 2016.”  And the quart of milk next to it simply says “May 22, 2016.”

Among the dates found on labels across the US are “production” or “pack” dates of manufacture, “sell by” dates, “best if used by” dates, “use by” dates, “freeze by” dates and even “enjoy by” dates.

And

Two Democrats in Congress—Senator Richard Blumenthal (D, CT) and Congressman Chellie Pingree (D, ME)—are just as confused as you are, and they hope to do something about it before their terms expire.

Wait—what?  Is any rational adult human being really confused about those dates?  Does anyone really not understand these expiration dates?

The States of our Republic set their own rules, but those two Progressive-Democrats don’t want variation across States; they don’t want the citizens of individual States to set their own rules: these worthies of the Federal government Know Better.  And they don’t like our choices.

After all, too many choices, too much variation makes Progressives uncomfortable.

Blumenthal and Pingree are expected to introduce bills in the Senate and House this week to establish a national standard for date labeling that would provide consumers throughout the US with consistent information on when a product begins to lose quality and when it is no longer safe to eat.

Because these two are easily confused, everyone else must be, too.  They’re projecting, again.

Elections have consequences.

Greece and Loans

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There is a kerfuffle going on just now among Greece, the IMF, Germany—mostly between Germany and the IMF.  The IMF wants to freeze interest rates on Greece’s loans for the next 30-40 years—so that Greece can pay up.  Germany is demurring from this, saying that’s not paying, that’s just delaying things.  Of course, the IMF is saying this about other nations’ loans; the IMF isn’t a current participant in them.

But there’s a misunderstanding at the center of the kerfuffle, and it has nothing to do with fixed interest rates or their duration.

[German Chancellor Angela Merkel] and many of her lawmakers believe that, without the IMF, the eurozone wouldn’t be able to enforce rigorous fiscal and economic overhauls in Greece in return for loans.

That might be difficult with the present round.  However, Germany, nor any of its fellow eurozone participants are obligated to loan to Greece, especially if the latter defaults on the current round.  The example of not lending further would be a valuable object lesson.

Of course, that also would take less timidity than Merkel, et al., are showing presently with their demand for IMF cover: on a default, Greece might leave the eurozone, and Europe is very much afraid of that.

A Good Reason to Leave

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The International Monetary Fund said a British vote to leave the European Union could have significant and negative effects on the UK economy, the latest contribution by an international institution to the fierce debate over Britain’s future in Europe.

If the IMF thinks it’s a bad idea, it’s probably a pretty good idea.

More seriously, the IMF is making its assessment on this basis:

…a vote in the June 23 referendum to leave the EU could “precipitate a protracted period of heightened uncertainty, leading to financial market volatility and a hit to output.”

The uncertainty and ensuing volatility and output hit are non sequiturs.  Of course there’ll be turmoil during the transition.  There’s turmoil in any major transition.  That’s not a reason to do or not to do anything.  The reason, the valid reason to do or not come solely from the new régime post-transition, when things have stabilized again.  For the IMF to obfuscate like this is for the IMF to show itself unserious.

Long-term costs could be substantial?  This is purely speculative, at least as much so as the other side’s claims that long-term gains could be substantial.  And, frankly, the gains are more likely than the costs.  For one thing, the decisions leading to gains or costs will be solely those of the Brits, and not anything imposed on them by an extranational body that is not focused exclusively on what’s good for Great Britain.  For another thing, the Brits will lose the costs of a bureaucracy that depends badly on not just consensus within a single Parliament, but on consensus across nations that don’t share the same values regarding social, political, or monetary philosophy.

And Great Britain will be able to go back to a free market economy of its own devising, and not be straitjacketed by the social democratic economies of the continent.

British Sovereignty and British Exit from the EU

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Chatham House, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, has a paper out claiming that Great Britain’s perceived need to go out from the EU in order to preserve its sovereignty is “misguided.”

It’s possible to see the misguided perception of Chatham House from the Executive Summary of its paper.

  • The question of sovereignty lies at the heart of the UK’s upcoming EU referendum. …
  • This ignores the fact that successive British governments have chosen to pool aspects of the country’s sovereign power in the EU in order to achieve national objectives that they could not have achieved on their own, such as creating the single market, enlarging the EU, constraining Iran’s nuclear programme, and helping to design an ambitious EU climate change strategy.

And yet creating a (European) single market or enlarging the EU have nothing at all to do with British sovereignty, even were these things on the whole useful to Great Britain.  In many respects the former would be, but it can be accomplished as well with the Brits outside.  And, of course, joining an extra-national organization and one that is granted authority over (some of) a nation’s domestic affairs can only come at the expense of the nation’s sovereignty.

Then, too, the EU has done nothing to constrain Iran’s nuclear program, weapons or peaceful.  The “agreement” that President Barack Obama (D) got with Iran—over France’s strong objections and over Great Britain’s tepid objections—has instead formalized Iran’s ability to develop and field nuclear weapons.

The EU’s climate change strategy, ambitious or not, can only work to the detriment of Great Britain, damaging as that strategy is to the national economies of the EU constituents, especially given that there is very little human involvement in climate change, for all the economic benefits accruing to climate change pseudo-scientists.

  • Apart from EU immigration, the British government still determines the vast majority of policy over every issue of greatest concern to British voters—including health, education, pensions, welfare, monetary policy, defence and border security. The arguments for leaving also ignore the fact that the UK controls more than 98 per cent of its public expenditure.

Apart from EU immigration….  No sovereignty question here.  Mm, mm.  Nor is that 2% of public expenditure dictated by that extra-national body.  Nossir.

  • The British economy has prospered in the EU. The UK boasts higher economic growth and lower unemployment than most major developed economies. …

Carefully elided in this is that Great Britain is not in the eurozone.  How much better could the Brits’ economy be were they completely gone from the EU?  Hopefully, we’ll find out.

  • [T]he UK would be excluded from the process of EU rule-writing, making it a less attractive location for foreign investment.

This doesn’t follow at all.  Great Britain also would be free to write its own rules, making it a far more attractive location, absent the EU’s heavily bureaucratized system, a system that’s also heavily anti-competitive.

And so on.  But RTWT.