October 26, 2007 – 2:58 pm
Hong Kong is a global financial center, and a city famous for its “laissez-faire” economic policy. However, it is also a city with one of the highest income gaps in the world. The United Nations’ 2006 human development revealed that the Gini index of Hong Kong was 43.1, the highest among developed countries and cities in the world.
The best way to discover the difference between lives lived by the rich and the poor in Hong Kong is to spend a whole day following individuals and watching them earn their income in the city. Read More »
October 4, 2005 – 9:19 pm
On July 21 2005, I received an email from a company asking me to accept a simple, but very profitable job offer. Being new to posting my resume online, I was thrilled that not only had I gotten an offer, it was a job I could do from home – no interaction with potentially rude customers, no rigid schedules, and it wasn’t complicated, all of which were important to me. So I replied to the email, signed an employment agreement, and I was on top of the world. The perfect job had fallen right into my lap. Right?
Wrong. Read More »
August 10, 2005 – 9:20 pm
Politics influenced the final outcome of bargaining for Unocal. China lost, but we can expect it to retaliate.
On April 4, directors of Unocal, the twelfth largest U.S. oil company (rated by the Forbes survey of 2000 World’s Biggest Companies) accepted a $16.5 billion offer to be bought by Chevron, the second largest U.S. oil company. The offer was one quarter in cash and three quarters in Chevron stock. However, on June 22, the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), the third largest Chinese oil company, and a company smaller than Unocal, made a counteroffer of $18.5 billion in cash, financed in part by low interest rate loans from its state-owned parent company.
In mid-July 2005, Chevron increased its bid to $17.3 billion, turning up the heat on CNOOC to respond with a higher bid of its own. Although higher, CNOOC’s offer faced “unprecedented political opposition” in Washington , leading it to withdraw its bid on August 2, thus leaving it to Chevron to complete the takeover. This comes as no surprise, for when it comes to oil bargaining, political factors rule over economics. Read More »
November 24, 2003 – 9:21 pm
Three giant trading blocs account for more than one half of the value of world’s trade at current prices. The biggest is the European Union (EU-15) whose intra-trade in 2001 was worth $1,418 billion. The second is Asia (a bloc that excludes Japan and Australia, but includes Greater China—Taiwan and Hong-Kong— South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Mongolia, Cambodia and Brunei); in 2001, it had $722 billion in intra-trade. The third in importance is the North Atlantic Free Trade Association (NAFTA) consisting of the US, Canada, and Mexico), with $637 billion in intra-trade. Read More »
