Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.
There is an absolute shocked silence here in Taiwan. The Taiwanese have just seen an American president kow-tow to a Chinese emperor. Not since the Ming dynasty has China been able to dictate terms of trade to the USA.
If the US president is willing to sell out his own people to the Chinese communists, what hope does Taiwan have of the USA coming to defend democracy on the doorstep of communist China?
This is a pivotal moment in history. Pax Americana is over.
(more…)Yesterday, without even looking for it, I stumbled across this headline from an interview in the spring of 2016:
The latest from Binkius Hippo: The trade war is a proxy for the fight between democracy and autocracy in the digital age.
The trade war is not about fighting for jobs. 25% tariffs will not work.
GM is spending $1.5 MILLION to create EACH job position at Lordstown assembly. The Peterson Institute estimates that it costs $900,000 for each steel worker job. These type of skilled-trades jobs pays $3/hour in Taiwan and $1/hour in China. Korea is a bit more expensive than Taiwan, but Vietnam and Thailand are much cheaper.
(more…)Now that the long-awaited Mueller investigation is done, the predictable camps have formed: one calling for impeachment, and another wanting to just put the entire matter to rest forever. In a few weeks, the latter camp will succeed.
But I think it is more worthwhile to look ahead – – far ahead – – to anticipate what might be next. A combination of history, politics, and financial markets blend together into some intriguing possibilities, and I would like to offer my own theory as to what the next six years may hold.
(more…)I’m a libertarian at heart, and as such, I believe that, with few exceptions, pretty much the worst entity to handle any task is a government body. Therefore, over a decade ago, when Californians were sold a pipe dream about a high-speed rail (HSR) that would whisk them from San Francisco to Disneyland in just 2.5 hours, I rolled my eyes.
I didn’t keep my eye-rolling private. Five years ago, in this post, I mentioned the HSR project:
