From the great Gave Kal service
In 1939, Franklin Roosevelt famously dismissed
reservations about Nicaragua’s brutal dictator Anastazio Somoza with the
comment “he may be a sonofabitch, but he’s our sonofabitch.” In the world of
foreign policy realpolitik, to a large degree FDR’s doctrine still holds true.
Witness, for example, the verbal contortions that US president Donald Trump and
secretary of state Mike Pompeo have been forced to pull off in recent days in
order to condemn Saudi Arabia, but not too much...
from Bloomberg
The world’s business leaders have suddenly been stricken with a conscience.
After the disappearance and suspected murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi from the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, executives who’d been lined up for the “Davos in the Desert”1 Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh this month are getting cold feet.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon and his peer at Blackstone Group LP Steve Schwarzman, along with BlackRock Inc.’s Larry Fink, Uber Technologies Inc.’s Dara Khosrowshahi and Richard Branson have all sent in cancellations. Credit Suisse Group AG CEO Tidjane Thiam and HSBC Holdings Plc’s John Flint became the latest to shun the forum on Tuesday..................................
The double standard is hardly surprising. Making money has required a certain flexibility on moral issues ever since Joseph taught Pharaoh how to profit off a seven-year famine. Being ethical in business is difficult because being unethical is often lucrative.
Of course it pays being ethical but the best for a company for a corporate leader is not to fake he is concerned about politics, image, minorities, etc....the most important thing is to do a great service to your clients, to be of service to constantly improve the service and product. Amazon is a great company not only because they are ethical but because they really care about their client and their service. Lot's of companies care about minorities and they don't care about their customers. they will disappear. to go or not to go to Saudi Arabia does't matter. The best for Saudi Arabia was to have the great service of Amazon or Facebook or Google to all their citizens. That would change Saudi Arabia more than skip a conference!
In Portugal the Government as a dual system if you are Portuguese you pay 50% marginal tax above 80,000 euros /year plus 11% Social Security plus 24% VAT plus ......If you are a new resident in Portugal you pay 0% for 10 years or 20% if you get income locally.
This has make real estate skyrocket and make life difficult for Portuguese who live in Portugal. Big taxes and high real estate prices.
From The Economist
With populists in the driving seat, Italy is heading for
trouble
Both chambers of parliament are hung, with no easy or
quick way for anyone to achieve a majority. More alarming is that half of the
voters—fed up with high unemployment, stagnant wages, uncontrolled immigration
and a self-serving political class—voted for the two main populist parties, the
Five Star Movement (M5S) and the Northern League. Both are hostile to the EU and
especially the euro, and both campaigned on lavish tax and spending promises
that Italy cannot afford.
Beppe Grillo, a part-time comedian who began his political career with the cry of vaffanculo! (fuck off!) to the establishment is the light behind the 5 star movement!
Italy shows that people vote as if it does not matter.
The Capitalist system takes care of everybody so we can vote in any crazy
person that when in power can’t do nothing crazy
Beppe
Grillo, a part-time comedian who began his political career with the cry of vaffanculo! (fuck off!) to
the establishment is the light behind the 5 star movement. Poor Italy!
i think people are a bit snozzy almost everything is getting cheaper, we can fly low cost, we can use UBER, food is cheaper in the supermarket the only problem in the world is that no ones needs us to work. Besides programmers & techies no one is really needed anymore perhaps football players and entertaining people. all the rest are interchangeable.
this is why people vote in crazy people as if it did not matter. The big job of Governments is to keep people entertained and busy.
The swiss (Swiss national Bank) are making a huge
profit. Good for them.
From The Great Gartman letter. We have written
many times about the fact... and it is a fact... that the Swiss National Bank
has effectively become both the nation’s central bank and one of the largest,
if not indeed the very largest, hedge funds in the world. The process began
several years ago when the SNB swore that it would do what it could and using
what methods were available to it to weaken the Swiss franc relative to the EUR
and to the US dollar. It has succeeded, until recently, creating Swiss francs
out of the thinnest of air, and selling those Francs vs. the EUR and the
dollar, and then taking those EURs and dollars to buy European and US equities
and debt securities. The SNB’s balance sheet is a CHf 813 billion (and given
that the CHf and the US dollar are effectively at parity one with the other
that CHf 813 billion is the same as $813 billion) and this is very nearly 125%
of the Swiss GDP.
