Huawei’s suppliers in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan (ROC), and Britain are examining if they can continue to make business with Huawei, while some have already declared a suspension in cooperation.
The issue is that these non-American companies nonetheless use some American components of technology, and if they proceed they will be sanctioned by the US themselves.
It is the same reason why Russia’s Sukhoi did not in the end sell its SSJ-100 airliners to Iran….Apparently some have forgotten that Nazi Germany was way ahead of the West in development of rocketry, jet aircraft, and atomic weapons. The US instituted the Manhattan Project to catch up. And remember how MIG-15's ended US control of the skies in Korea? The US had to scramble to bring its own jets into service as quickly as possible. Certainly, China and Russia will try to do the same to become self-sufficient in technology, and they have the resources to do so if they choose. Now they have no choice.
Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon gave an impassioned account of what is driving the US war on Chinese tech firm Huawei… and trade has little to do with it. The US wants to destroy its competitor, for good.Capitalism is about monopoly power. Free market competition as modeled by neoclassical economics reduces profit to costs, eliminating rents.
Russia is adding warships to its navy faster than the US. The reason for that is simple, while the US is pouring $14 billion into the USS Gerald Ford carrier the Russians are building corvettes. A class of warships between 500 and 1,000 tons.
Not only are they small, they are cheap. The newest class, Karakurt, sets back the Russian budget 2 billion rubles or just over $30 million at the exchange rates.
These sound like puny vessels, except here is the thing: they can hit an enemy surface ship from four times the distance a US destroyer (Arleigh-Burke) or cruiser (Ticonderoga) can.
Four different classes of corvettes are being built. Buyan-M-class of which 15 are planned and 10 are already serving. Steregushchiy-class of which 24 are planned and 6 are serving. Karakurt-class of which 18 are planned and one is already serving. And Gremyashchiy-class of which 4 are planned and 1 is already serving.
Except the Steregushchiy-class all these vessels may fire the Kalibr and the P-800 Onyx anti-ship missiles with the respective range of 660 and 600 kilometers. Steregushchiy carries a lighter Kh-35 missile with the range of “only” 300 kilometers.
Arleigh-Burkes and Ticonderogas fire the Harpoon anti-ship missile with the range of just 130 kilometers. Even if the US had heavier anti-ship missiles ready its primary “surface combatants” could not fire them because their multi-functional weapons cells would be too small to accommodate them. An Arleigh-Burke costs $2 billion, the older Ticonderogas cost $1 billion at the time they were built. Both classes displace around 10,000 tons....On the cheap. And the corvettes are chiefly relatively short range (brown/green water) and defensive in perimeter rather than long range (blue water), offensive vessels like destroyers and cruisers, a chief mission of which is to serve in carrier groups to protect carriers.
It is Wednesday today and a blog-lite day. An announcement and a few videos only. But plenty to occupy your time if so inclined. I have an important announcement to make, a video of our Birmingham event (May 11, 2019) and some music from one of the best guitar players. Thomas Fazi and I also have an article coming out in The Tribune magazine soon in response to a rather unsavoury and silly attack on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) by an ex-advisor to the British Labour Party. There will also be a longer version published here in the coming days – which contains more detail. But I have to finish the edits today! So with that said …
Announcing – Foundation for Monetary Studies Inc.
Today, I am formally announcing the – Foundation for Monetary Studies Inc. – aka The MMT Foundation.
Regular readers will know that this has been in the wind for some time. We have now completed all the legal steps to bring the MMT Foundation into operation.Bill Mitchell – billy blog
We hope this will take our MMT-related projects forward and help more people understand our work and use that understanding to improve their nations down to their local communities....
Chinese firm is a queen on tech chessboard, but Beijing will just tell its whiz-kids to reach the next level….Asia Times
The House of Representatives didn’t know what hit it.
The Green New Deal, introduced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in February, energized politicians on both sides of the political spectrum with its twin goals of carbon neutrality by 2030 and the promise of jobs for every American. It also polarized them. Critics have one main question: How the hell are we going to pay for it?
As the guy responsible for the plan’s “jobs guarantee,” Andrés Bernal, 32, has a lot to answer for. And he’s more than happy to. The Colombia-born, Texas-raised advisor to Ocasio-Cortez spends most of his time thinking about the people who need that kind of job security and how to pay their salaries. In fact, he’s one of them.
When he’s not advising the most galvanizing congresswoman on the planet on progressive economics, he’s a Ph.D. candidate and lecturer of urban studies at Queens College in New York City, making him part of one of America’s most notoriously underprotected workers’ groups....
The next generation is rising up and they are energized.
The debates about MMT are expanding. There are weird offerings springing up each day. I read something yesterday about how MMT is really just Marxism in disguise and therefore a plot to overthrow entrepreneurship. Well in a socialist society there will still be a monetary system! Most of the critiques just get to their point quickly – MMT is about wild printing presses undermining the value of the currency! That should summarise 25 years of our work nicely. But there are also other developments on a global scale. A few weeks ago there was a lengthy debate in the Japanese parliament during a House of Representatives Committee hearing considering whether the October sales tax hikes should continue. The Finance Minister, Taro Aso was confronted by Committee members who indicated that it was useless denying that Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) was some abstract theory that was wrong because the Japanese are already “doing it”. The Minister told the hearing that MMT was dangerous and would undermine financial markets if anyone said otherwise. An interesting discussion took place. It highlighted some key features of MMT. It also indicates that progress is being made in the process of education aimed at giving people a better understanding of how the monetary system that we live within operates....
According to [economist and director of the China Institute of Fudan University, Zhang] Weiwei, it is enough just to take a look at the volume of the Chinese economy to understand the cause of his lack of concern. It turns out that Trump is trying to impose tariffs on imports of the goods on the Asian country which is the largest manufacturer in the world.
“No matter what Trump says about his victory, we know that this is nonsense,” the expert said in an interview with Russia’s Rossiya 24.
As a result of this war, the burden of tariff rates will ultimately fall on US citizens in the form of taxes.
Although there are usually no winners in commercial wars, in the current battle with China, the US loses more than its Asian rival, says Weiwei.
“If China throws the US out of its market, the US will no longer be a superpower,” he warned.…The present US administration, not just the president, doesn't seem to understand that China exacted a price for entry to its market. They see this as China "cheating" us.
As the Canadian experience shows, deciding which episodes qualify as "recessions" can be debated. The safest course of action is to make it clear what definition you are using, and apply it consistently across regions.This is logic and critic thinking 101, and also fundamental to math application. While it is basic for thinking critically, it is key for doing science.
Today’s blog post considers the Australian election and some issues that arose from my recent trip to Scotland – all of which bear on the progress of our work in the public debate. In Australia, we have just held a federal election and it was expected (and certainly the polls and bookies expected) that the Labor Party would win easily after 6 shocking years of conservative rule. Those 6 years have been marked by scandal, three leaders (Prime Ministers), massive internal divisions within the government, on-going climate change denial and a slowing economy. But Labor was thrashed in the election and I offer a few reasons why I think that happened. For Scotland, as they debate independence in the lead up to another referendum (as yet unscheduled) they have been struggling with the choice of currency issue and whether the new independent nation should join the EU. After initially thinking they would stick with the British currency for some time, the debate has swung heavily in favour of introducing their own currency as soon as is possible after the independence is achieved. Clearly, I have favoured that option for several years. But the overwhelming thinking is that the new nation should join the EU. That is a choice that I think would bring grief. And given the fact that the rUK will retain “continuing nation” status, a newly independent Scotland would be under significant pressure to use the euro. In other words, the currency choice and EU membership trends at present are incompatible. During my visit there I urged the activists to ditch their pretensions for EU membership and become truly independent.…Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Speaking at China’s second Belt and Road conference in Beijing featuring 37 heads of state, Russia President Vladimir Putin unveiled the intention to unite Russia’s Northern Sea Route with China’s Maritime Silk Road. This announcement should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to the close strategic friendship between both countries since the 2015 announcement of an alliance between the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union and Belt and Road Initiative. This extension of the Maritime Silk Road represents a powerful force to transform the last unexplored frontier on the Earth, converting the Arctic from a geopolitical zone of conflict towards a new paradigm of mutual cooperation and development....Strategic Culture Foundation
Trade in intermediates (or ‘unbundling of production') and trade in capital have become increasingly important in last 25 years. This column shows that trade in intermediates generates a reallocation of capital across countries that exacerbates world inequality in both income and welfare. Unbundling of production hurts middle-income countries but helps those with high productivity. Trade in intermediates also increases within-country inequality, and this increase is U-shaped in the aggregate productivity level of the country....
There exists a general consensus among economists that globalisation is good at the world level. However, the increasing discontent with globalisation in developed countries has forced economists to better understand the mechanisms through which it affects the distribution of income between and within countries. In this column, we have discussed that in the most developed (productive) economies, the new globalisation is good at the country level but it generates a redistribution of income towards capital. Thus, the optimal policy for these countries does not seem to be to put the brakes on the emergence of global supply chains but to better redistribute income within the country. Finally, it is worth mentioning that since the new globalisation amplifies competition among countries, the returns to productivity enhancing policies (like education or infrastructure) have increased.
"The bank will make “good use” of targeted monetary tools, such as cuts to the amount of money banks lock up and targeted medium-term lending facility, to channel credit to specific sectors,"China turning Japanese.. and btw Japan hasn't made a new high in price of equity shares since 1989... as both moron hacker nations appear to be competing in continued zombie action to "add high powered money to lend out!"...
China's central bank warned that the escalating trade war could destabilize the global economy https://t.co/nyTfhgkER2— Bloomberg (@business) May 17, 2019
China will be pumping money into their system and probably reducing interest rates, as always, in order to make up for the business they are, and will be, losing. If the Federal Reserve ever did a “match,” it would be game over, we win! In any event, China wants a deal!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 14, 2019
[Mark] Weisbrot and [Jeffrey]Sachs say that these sanctions “would fit the definition of collective punishment,” as laid out in the Hague Convention (1899) and in the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949). The United States is a signatory of both of these frameworks. “Collective penalties,” says the Fourth Geneva Convention, “are prohibited.” Tens of thousands of Venezuelans are dead. Tens of thousands more are under threat of death. Yet, no one has stood up against the grave breach of the convention in terms of collective punishment. There is not a whiff of interest in the UN Secretary General’s office to open a tribunal on the accusations of collective punishment against Venezuela. Allegations of this seriousness are brushed under the rug.