The advertisements for Joseph A. Bank, the men’s clothier with its ubiquitous advertising, scare me. Buy one suit, get two suits, two shirts and two ties absolutely free. I do not know what the first suit costs but two additional suits, two shirts and two ties at no charge? Hardly seems possible, unless we are heading for an economic depression. Continue reading
Category Archives: Economy
A Very Chávez Christmas, and it’s not Hugo Boss
Another gift from Hugo Chávez to the United States and the rest of the countries of the Americas. How touching. Just in time for Christmas. Not just any kind of gift, but one with long-term strategic complications: His announcement that the Chinese have loaned Venezuela another $4 billion in loans on top of the $26 billion already outstanding. The loans, secured by future sales of Venezuelan oil, ordinarily would be a normal transaction between sovereign nations, but, of course, it isn’t. The Chinese also have pledged to invest another $40 billion in other energy-related projects. Continue reading
From the ashes of war perhaps light
The images of U.S. troops leaving Iraq after a senseless, tragic waste of lives and money that left America nearly bankrupt is a blunt and brutal lesson for HispanicLatinos. Except for the families who suffered the direct loss of loved ones, few individuals should walk away more sobered than HispanicLatino men and women in charge of businesses. Business owners intuitively understand the impact of an $800-billion war debt to a struggling economy.
The Supreme Court Disrupting the Future
Redistricting and immigration are difficult and complex subjects and are easily and simply intertwined for one reason: They relate directly to the power of the two political parties in the country since most HispanicLatinos vote Democratic.
Given the expanding number of HispanicLatinos in the nation relative to the rest of the population, any fair handling of redistricting going forward should favor HispanicLatinos and, therefore, Democrats. And given that immigration is the lifeblood a country, any mishandling of it could be catastrophic for the long term. That seems natural and reasonable enough, though the U.S. Supreme Court seems poised to confirm the unfairness and outright hostility that state legislatures and other political entities are visiting upon their HispanicLatino populations.
A Niche to be Filled
It should be fairly evident by now that HispanicLatino population growth can create new markets for smart business owners who are on top of and can interpret demographic change. HispanicLatino population growth also creates new ways for corporations and businesses – HispanicLatino and non-HispanicLatino alike – to reach those new markets.
A Different Kind of Tea Party
My tea this morning is perfect. As Premier of China and head of government and the State Council, I seldom get a bad cup of tea. The intra-party struggles have been resolved. We seem to be managing that burst of inflation that reared its head in the economy. Our balance of payments continues to grow spectacularly in our favor. Things are fine. We need to open up credit a bit more, but generally we are on our way. Why do I feel so odd, then?
What Luck!
Newt Gingrich’s proposal for local citizen juries to decide which of the individuals illegally in the country gets to stay is of course nuts. Why even discuss it? The arguments against it are monumental. The idea is being laughed at across the board and it shows one of the reasons Gingrich would be an excellent choice for Republicans to nominate as their candidate for president – if they want to lose in a landslide.
Seeing Growth in Ourselves
In the midst of the economic recession and the failure of the super committee to begin fixing the federal budget, it is not surprising that households and businesses across the nation harbor doubt and perhaps a defeatist attitude about the future.
But HispanicLatino households of all sizes – and business owners in particular – might do well to consider a contrarian approach, a strategy that nets returns by going against the current grain. Contrarian thinking requires perceiving the future differently.
All the World’s a Soccer Ball
The sight astounded my friend Tony. He had entered another world far, far different than anything he had experienced. I had warned him. He did not believe it when I told him what to expect. He had been to stately Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., before, but not for anything like this. In many ways that day for me in 1978 was when the modern era of globalization became real, although its forces were already underway.
Little did we know then that the arguments among the Chinese elites were underway on whether or how to bring China out of its communist shell into the real world. Only six years prior, Richard Nixon had astounded the world by travelling to Peking to set off the debate. Three decades later, the world has changed, so that Beijing ranks as important as Washington. Continue reading
Not Armageddon Yet
The Wall Street Journal hid the woman’s face. Not the usual journalistic fare you see on a Greyhound bus between Austin and Dallas. The WSJ is more likely found zipping above us on American Airlines on a 35-minute flight. She sat to my left, within the peripheral range of my one good eye.
Every other week or so when I board the bus to go 220 miles in four and a half hours instead of three by road I resolve to fly the next time or to break down and get a car. If I get the smallest car on the market, I can minimize my carbon footprint. But I then think, regardless of the size of the car, about the number of people who would be at risk. Oh, I can drive. Recently in a rented car with a package of insurance that could have bailed out the Greek economy, I managed to navigate more than 300 miles safely. But I still shudder when I think about the old lady I almost ran over with my truck on my way to Christmas Eve Mass at Saint Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington years ago. The police rightfully would have concluded it was her fault but had I better vision I would have been able to react more quickly.
Behind the WSJ woman, a young man sat fidgeting, his face turned brackish, or perhaps crackish, and dark by either a hard life or drugs or both. A diamond ring in the ear of an NFL linebacker strutting his masculinity on television on Sundays no longer comes off as improbable. On a somewhat youngish man who should weigh another 10 or 15 pounds, his stoned ear suggests the rest of him might be too.