Saturday, May 7, 2016

On Current Economic Politics




The End of the 28-year old Bush-Clinton Era

When President Ronald chose George Bush as his running mate, he probably did not predict that an era of historic economic politics had started. As a notorious President, Reagan envisioned an America strong at home and overseas, but founded on the basis of a true democracy.  Reagan was also a successful visionary on immigration issues reaching an important reform. Reagan's only blemish came from the CIA of his time. With Bush being closer to the Central Intelligence Agency than the President, the CIA was accused on money laundering with the only goal to fund the Nicaraguan rebels in their efforts to oust President Somoza. Finally, the Sandinists lead by today's President Daniel Ortega succeeded, and upon returning he maintains an aggressive and expansionist politics trying to take waters from Colombia and land from Costa Rica. Ortega may have benefited from his connection to the CIA and from the Post-Soviet Finlandization of The Hague, which probably supports a Nicaraguan-Cuban pathway on the Caribbean.

Reagan-Bush's CIA conspired against its own AML principles, which collided with those of the DEA, giving the beginning of a new era a significant blemish, which forced the next Bush's government to show off another perspective while ousting General Noriega of Panama, and starting what was believed to be the successful Desert Storm war against Sadam Hussein. But the key issue is that the Bush era failed to bring prosperity to the USA on a limited democracy, I mean one heavily controlled by a military vision, in which Vice President Cheney played an important role through three terms.

The Clintons, both Bill and Hillary, had a dubious role in the White Water land case, where they were the only ones never prosecuted, among those involved.

Today democracy is tired of a 28-year era, which Americans see as a controlled democracy, but which is perceived as a regime from overseas, in a similar way as Americans have perceived dictatorships in the Middle East and Africa. Indeed, everyone knows that a Hillary Clinton government would represent a third term for her husband and the extension of an era that has put Americans on their knees economically and financially.  This means the return of underage White House Interns like Monica Lewinsky, and the return of Clinton's romantic affairs, scandals that are pleasant some in the Democrat Party, which they see under the lemma of "This is America", i.e., this is America's moral in the White House.  I believe that President Obama is just the cushioning of the era, not to make it so obvious to call it a regime from overseas. Let us remember that Obama took lead over Clinton after an incident where the two campaigns collided on the road, and one of Clinton's bodyguard was fatally injured. 

As such, after all, the USA starts resembling some monarchies where the father, the son, the grandson must be named king; or otherwise, the mother take that honor in the lack of a child available for that goal. In a country filled with many highly capable businessmen and renowned economists, and also many bright women, the dollars have to be managed on the overwhelming control of military expenditure, the F-35 being the most current investment of this nature. This is certainly not a requirement in the eyes of democracy or a need in the vision of Reagan or any other US President focused on national security. 

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's admission that invading Irak was a mistake — for which he issued an apology — suggests that President George W. Bush acted "on his gut" rather than waiting from a Congressional consensus and support, but he has been blessed for doing so. With Hillary Clinton as President Obamas's Secretary of State, the completion of the Middle East jamming was "purposely completed", according to an unofficial threatening and bullying Democratic source, who called her the potential "Push-Button Lady", target for which she had started that Middle East diplomatic mess.

With all these historic economic politics events in the mind of the average American, I would expect that the American people use a reasonable common sense to put an end to this era.

While Donald Trump has certainly used an aggressive language, many of the things that he has said on illegal Mexican immigrants, Iowan, and Muslims I had already heard from many other Americans a few times, so he is not the first person to make those comments.  As a man of Hispanic origin, I would prefer that someone is honest in his viewpoints, even if they might sound offensive to me, rather than having some people stabbing me in the back, which I could find condemnable. It is my opinion that Trump is the best candidate for the American economy with a great economic vision, and he needs to synergize with others. But - on the other hand - the apparent negative of the Bushes to support him, as well as the creation of the "Never Trump" movement just indicates the imperative of the need of the beneficiaries of the 28-year old area to extend it. It also gives the Bushes the narrow-minded anti-democratic viewpoint that parties must be lead and controlled by dynasties and family hierarchies, a principle that I religiously detest for being so close to a dictatorship. Surprisingly, other millionaires like Mitt Romney do not see him positively; while Bloomberg, a successful Democratic major with a Republican vision had made bitter comments about him.  This is probably because they ignore that the Republican Party is not the party of millionaires but rather the party that attracts people of conservative views, and every especially, the young people, the recent graduates; those who have dissimilar perspectives on the CIA: some seeing it as their dream workplace; others, as an agency to be banned; others indifferent, not caring for it due to their economic politics history.

I do support Donald Trump in his ideal to bring an immigration law that enhances the ethical values of immigrants, and his expectations on such a higher morality, without detriment of their living standards and human dignity. This is important for legal Hispanic immigrants because the most common crime committed by illegal immigrants is identity theft, which they usually need to get a job, establish a business, or start and maintain formal relationships. Donald Trump should compromise to improve the lives of those he had depicted as outcast.

PAPER CUTS FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL



Apple shares continue to slide...


Supreme Court rules on Seattle's Wage Law...



Philippines offer jobs to returning citizens...




Sunday, January 31, 2016

2016 Economic Markets Start up with High Volatility

Colombia Gets Ready for New Offshore Crude Production



Colombian Minister of Mines and Energy, Tomás González, has announced the enormous potential of Colombian Atlantic offshore oil reserves. The current logistics, operations research, and enterprise planning are being performed in conjunction in conjunction with Barranquilla Chamber of Commerce, namely, ProBarranquilla and the National Agency of Hydrocarbon, — Agencia Nacional de Hidrocarburos —,  (ANH), for its acronym in Spanish.

Apple “Understimated” in the Economic Market


















After self-assessment of their stock, Apple's CFO, Luca Maestri, suggests that Apple is being undervalued in today’s economic market. The report reveals that the strong dollar has affected the company sales and overall revenue overseas, but the an iPhone was sold at an average price of $691 [USD]. The 2016 economic markets startup has been driven by high volatility, and predictive analytics are using a much narrow interval of time of about 7 years, for long-term market predictions on aggregate rather than the 15 year span used at the end of the millennium.  Thus, for the first time Apple is forecasting that sales of its iPhone could remain with a flat trend until the release of its new iPhone 7.

Google to pay £130m (GBP) to the UK in back dated taxes


Google has reached a deal with HMRC to pay £130m [GBP] in back dated taxes. According to British Prime Minister, David Camerom, having Google pay more was a fair act.

Mosquito Epidemic in Brazil threatens to become a Worldwide Pandemic



The mosquito epidemic, which started in Brazil with epicenter in Recife, has prompted the World Health Organizations and the South American countries' Health Ministries to start a preventive medicine campaign in order to neutralize and eradicate the danger posed by the virus affecting particularly new babies and pregnant women. These organizations should look at the Caribbean strategies to neutralize the mosquito bearing the dengue virus, through which countries like Jamaica and Haiti have been able to considerably reduce its dramatic impact of that sometimes fatal virus — its signs and symptoms — with the assistance of incumbent NGOs.
Yoga modernizes to overcome the “economic” stress



Yoga is one of the most practiced health activities to overcome daily life stress in the world. While yoga is practiced mostly by women in Western nations, there is quite a balance among genders among the EMEA nations. One brilliant innovation to yoga is called “Dog Yoga”, which is exercised with your favorite pet.

Saturday, January 2, 2016

The 2015 Nobel Prize in Economics

On Consumption, Poverty, and Welfare


In a year where the S&P 500 had the largest losses (in commodities since 2008), the 2015 Nobel Prize in Economics was delivered to British-American Economist and Princeton University Professor Angus Deaton , whose contributions and research work are focused not only in Consumer Behavior, in large and small scale, and the difficulty to aggregate such Consumption Behavior, but also in poverty and welfare. His work should be inspirational to Latin American countries and other developing countries, such as African countries, and other third world nations, to find ways to overcome the hardness of leading currency markets and their effect on import-export balances.


I believe that implementing Foreign Exchanges strategies, including both private and mixed investments (a hybrid strategy with some institutional partners), will allow developing nations to overcome not only the effects of inflation, especially on imported goods, but also confront – in extreme scenarios – their inability to move in a balancing direction. An agile strategy of solid banking transactions utilizing ForEx arbitrage, in particular, triangular arbitrage can lead to a consolidated cushioning game design mechanism for the long-term. This is wonderful if the larger-scale investors can look into such as investments in the US Dollar, Euro, and British Pound, as key references, among others. This may also set limits and controls on other strategies against hard currencies, such as, the local currency devaluation.




Tuesday, August 18, 2015

The Global Risk in Money Exchange: Can Exports help?

The Strong Dollar and the Risk of Money Exchange

During my MBA days, a few years ago, I studied how money exchange global strategies can affect the enconomy of developing countries.  In particular, how event exports of developing countries with a soft currency, such as African countries, did not make enough to obtain any earnings from their exports at all due to exchange issues.

Today's strong dollar calls for Latin American countries to take pro-active action against inflation and optimizing earnings from their GDP. Most importantly, there are few options, which in my macroeconomic perspective could help.  For instance, South American countries should drive their economic earnings from exports not just from major products or commodities such as oil (in declining price) or coal (with increasing demand), but also leverage their GDP with products that are easy to produce or manufacture. For instance, he agriculture of these countries could easily expand their exports of products such as banana and corn, whose demand is likely to be inelastic for the USA.
Likewise, domestically these countries could focus on their economies of scale leading to cost-effectiveness.

A reconciliation for the domestic currencies is critical for the entire Latin American countries; and therefore, investing in dollars is useful as a balancing momentum strategy. However, protectionist strategies may not work in the long term due to the required leverage value of global macroeconomics and international trading acts.

In summary, Latin American countries, such as those in the former Gran Colombia and the Andes, have the chance to leverage the strong dollar with the following long-term strategies:

1. Inflating their GDP by expanding the growth of natural products, such as corn and banana, whose demand is rather inelastic and clearly increasing.
2. Partner with technology manufacturers to leverage the cost of imports by producing, manufacturing and producing locally, and by investing in new technologies such as solar panels and other thermo- and photo-voltatic technologies, electric vehicles, and cell phones, among others.
3.  Adopt other historic measures to prevent and control inflation.
4. Leverage portfolios, which include primarily Euro investments.
5. Work consistently towards an improved organization of the domestic markets and add value in components such as the real-estate markets and experiencing the country via the touristic industry.

The current devaluation of the Chinese and Japanese currencies has recently affected the international stock markets, but since the strong dollar is mostly due to its reestablishment of the de facto international currency over the euro, as a direct consequence of the Greek crisis and possible exit, and not by a significant increase in the American Nominal or Real GDPs. This is why Americans may not be exempt to some inflation effect in spite of the oil prices. The USA in return is benefiting from his exports, and has even agreed to small oil exports to Mexico.  However, it is obvious that the Fisher effect will further impact and be more visible in countries where currencies tend to be more volatile, either by circumstances or by historic fiscal practices, independently from the country's economic development.

Useful Links 
http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/19157/1/sp05ch10.pdf

N.B.  Numbers may not be current (from source link above).




http://www.investmentreview.com/analysis-research/the-fisher-effect-under-deflationary-expectations-5119