The United States has Encountered a Force it Cannot Stop Today, the United States has the privilege of issuing the global reserve currency. All around the world, countries save and transact with US dollars due to the Bretton Woods Agreement and the petrodollar system. The petrodollar system, which spawned from an oil deal between the Nixon administration and Saudi Arabia, enabled the US to maintain its role as the global superpower as it abandoned its peg to gold. This role, though, did not come without a cost. Wars started over oil in the Middle East have resulted in decades of death, destruction, and deficits. Further east lies the biggest threat to the US, China. China recognize...
What We Should Learn About Risk Following the Pandemic
Governments and Corporations Were Unprepared Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, the S&P 500 was hovering around all time highs. The US government had cut corporate tax rates during a decade long bull market. The federal reserve kept interest rates low, which encouraged continued debt-fueled spending. Publicly traded companies repurchased their shares on the open market, known as stock buybacks, to send their share prices soaring. Considering corporate managers are compensated based on their companies' stock market valuations, they were financially incentivized to inflate their share prices. With the economy roaring, government and corporate leaders alike paid no mind to risk ma...
How China Will Benefit from the Coronavirus Crisis
The Worst is Behind China In November of 2019, doctors in Wuhan, a city in China, began treating patients presenting with flu-like symptoms. As some patients developed respiratory issues, doctors began to suspect the spread of a coronavirus like SARS. The Chinese government initially made efforts to suppress these suspicions. They feared that raising alarm bells may hurt the economy. It turned out, though, that the doctors' suspicions were valid. A novel coronavirus, now named COVID-19, originated in a Wuhan wet market. It has since spread across the globe and is wreaking havoc on healthcare systems and financial markets. Make no mistake. China's failure to react quickly led to the...
Why Autocratic Government is the Government Model of the Future
A Shift Away From Democracy Democracy has proven to be a successful government model up until this point. Lifespans have extended. Standards of living have improved. Advancement up the societal latter is now achievable through hard work. However, we are seeing the democratic foundations that propelled us into an age of prosperity begin to crumble. Presidential elections are being manipulated with increasing frequency. Nations across the globe are run by tyrants elected into office through their cults of personality. Yes, students of history may argue that autocratic governments have failed to compete with their democratic counterparts. That said, autocratic government is again emer...
3 Things that are Happening as Hong Kong Protests Chinese Autocracy
What are the Hong Kong Protests About? Hong Kong has had a chaotic past few months. Millions of Hong Kong citizens have taken to the streets in protest of the Beijing government. Some of these protests turned violent, as police applied force against demonstrators. To better understand the potential consequences of the Hong Kong protests, we need to first understand the cause. The Chief Executive of Hong Kong, Carrie Lam, has proposed a change to Hong Kong's extradition bill. The proposed change would allow citizens of Hong Kong to be extradited to mainland China. This would effectively enable the Chinese autocracy to target and prosecute any Hong Kong based threats to its governm...