This is a video I have prepared for my lectures as guest speaker on cruise ships. It is meant as part education and part entertainment, infotainment as they like to put it in the industry! Comments and questions welcome below.
12 April 2024
Opium to the "Fragrant Harbor": a Short History of British Hong Kong (1842-1997)
This is a video I have prepared for my lectures as guest speaker on cruise ships. It is meant as part education and part entertainment, infotainment as they like to put it in the industry! Comments and questions welcome below.
05 April 2024
The Dragon at Sea: A Brief Maritime History of China
02 November 2023
Electric cars and the future of Europe
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Build Your Dreams |
Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Union's Commission, says Europe is flooded with cheap subsidized Chinese electric vehicles (EV), and she sees it as her sacred duty to "protect" European carmakers. She said Europe should not allow car makers to go the way of solar panel makers, who lost to Chinese competition.
First of all, this is not always true: some European makers of solar panels, the best, are thriving. Meyer Burger, a German solar panel manufacturer, has seen its share price increase by more than 500% in the past year. Siltronic, a German silicon wafer manufacturer, has also seen its share price increase significantly in the past year. REC Solar, a Norwegian solar panel manufacturer, has announced plans to expand its production capacity by more than 80% in the next two years. SolarPower Europe, the European solar industry association, has forecast that solar installations in Europe will grow by 30% in 2023.
So the premise is wrong. Be that as it may, she has started an investigation. That will teach the sneaky Chinese. Let's see where that leads us. The EU and China are both members of the WTO, so that would be the place to settle any problem.
In the meantime, it is remarkable to note that European car makers don't want to be "protected" by von der Leyen! The CEOs of both Volkswagen and Stellantis said this investigation is a bad idea, it would stifle both trade and the green transition. It would also hurt profits for these two European giants of car making. That is because, instead of whining, VW and Stellantis are a step ahead of the Commission and have started new joint ventures to make EVs in China. And they sell lots of cars to the Chinese market and other markets in Asia, as well as importing them back to Europe.
Another detail that may be worth recalling is that the biggest EV producer in China is BYD, where Warren Buffet is a major investor. (Just think of the name, BYD stands for "Build Your Dreams", and compare it with "People's Car", a slogan invented by the National Socialists in the 1930s.) The biggest exporter of EV made in China to Europe is Elon Musk's Tesla. So two Americans are among the biggest "culprits" of "cheap EVs made in China" that von der Leyen argues are unfairly flooding the European market. Is she going to take this up with Washington?
By the way, EVs made in China have "flooded" the market with a share of 8%, not insignificant but hardly a flood, though that number is growing.
Speaking of numbers, some so-called experts (W. Cutler, Financial Times, 2 October 2023) accuse China of knowingly producing more EVs than they need so they can flood Europe with the excess production, which this expert estimates is the suspiciously round number of 10 million cars. Let's assume it is true. Since when producing more than you need of something is a bad thing? All countries produce more than they need of some things, and export the surplus. And all countries produce less than they need of some other things, and import the rest. It's called TRADE, it's good, it widens choice, it lowers prices for consumers, it increases the efficient use of resources, it creates jobs.
Ah but China is subsidizing production, says von der Leyen, and since "we don't accept state subsidies inside the EU we cannot accept them from outside". Excuse me? The EU benefited a lot from reducing subsidies but tons of internal market-distorting subsidies remain in the books.
Examples of European excess production and subsidies are countless. Germany has produced more cars than Germans can drive for over one hundred years, and exported the surplus. Italy produces more wine than we can drink and sells the rest abroad. The UK, whose car industry was largely bankrupt and has been saved by foreign - including Chinese - capital, now exports four out of five cars it manufactures, and so what? Both the EU and the US produce more grossly subsidized airplanes than they will ever be able to fly, and China buys all of its airliners from them, for now at least. France produces far more heavily subsidized cheese than the French can digest, and exports the surplus. And so on and so forth, the list could fill a small book. So why shouldn't China produce more cars than it needs and subsidize some of that production, especially in a nascent industry like EV?
And you know what? I write this from China and have seen and been driven in Chinese EVs made by Guangzhou Auto, Geely, BYD, and others. They are sleek, smart, beautiful, efficient (ranges over 500km are becoming common), hypertech, and user friendly. So I am not surprised they are selling like hot cakes.
On the other hand, when I went to buy my Audi in London last year the saleswoman told me: you can choose gas, diesel or electric, the price and the waiting time for delivery are similar, but I advise against our electric, we are not there yet. (By the way, she also said the least polluting version was the diesel version, but politicians have demonized diesel so that no one wants them any more, but that's another story.) And you know where Audi made my car? Germany? Nope. Slovakia, can you guess why?
Maybe Europe will make fewer cars in the future. It will make less of many things. But another basic lesson in economics is that the richer a country the less it "makes" in terms of tangible goods and the more it produces in the service sector. By far the largest numbers of new jobs in Europe these days are created in the service sector, not in manufacturing.
These are basic economic principles, it is hard to believe von der Leyen, or at least her capable Commission staff, are not aware of them. Then why the bluster? Perhaps because these days protectionism gets votes, especially populist votes, and next year the Commission's President job is up for grabs. Sad days ahead for those of us who believe in the potential of an open and competitive united Europe. It's going to remain a dream we can not build.
04 April 2021
Book review: The Shell Money of the Slave Trade (1986) by Jan Hogendorn and Marion Johnson, *****
Synopsys
18 February 2012
Recensione: Sale Nero, di Marco Aime, Stefano Pensotti e Andrea Semplici, ****
Taudenni e Ahmed Ela: due "non luoghi" africani, il primo in Mali il secondo nella Dancalia etiope, sono un chiaro esempio di quelle società "diversamente sviluppate" dove il modello è ancora quello della cultura materiale. Per entrambi è grande l'importanza che continua ad avere il commercio del sale, l'uso dello stesso per gli scambi commerciali è ancora ampiamente diffuso.
Recensione
Un libro insolito, il cui il protagonista è una materia prima alimentare, la sola roccia che faccia parte della nostra alimentazione da sempre. Ed è anche merce di scambio in tutte le culture del mondo. L'aspetto economico cruciale del sale è che di solito deve essere trasportato per centinaia o anche migliaia di kilometri dal punto di produzione al consumatore. Il sale, ovviamente, è bianco, ma qui siamo in Africa...
27 December 2009
Recensione: Seta, di Alessandro Baricco, ****
La Francia, i viaggi per mare, il profumo dei gelsi a Lavilledieu, i treni a vapore, la voce di Hélène. Hervé Joncour continuò a raccontare la sua vita, come mai, nella sua vita, aveva fatto. "Questo non è un romanzo. E neppure un racconto. Questa è una storia. Inizia con un uomo che attraversa il mondo, e finisce con un lago che se ne sta lì, in una giornata di vento. L'uomo si chiama Hervé Joncour. Il lago non si sa."
Recensione
Un libro che racconta con una serie infinita di viaggi, intrapresi per affari ma trasformatisi in un disperato inseguimento dell'amore. O forse di un infatuamento. Si può veramente amare una persona che non si conosce?
Il libro fornisce anche un quadro interessante del Giappone che si apre gradualmente al mondo durante la seconda metà del XIX secolo, con la restaurazione violenta dell'impero centralizzato e l'apertura dei commerci internazionali.
Un finale tragico ma, forse, istruttivo per ciascuno di noi. Anche se forse l'insegnamento non sarà uguale per tutti. Ma tutti dovremo riflettere sull'amore, sull'infatuazione, sulla responsabilità, sulle priorità fondamentali della nostra vita insomma.
La prosa di Baricco corre veloce come il protagonista nella steppa, io ho finito il libro in poche ore.
Poi ho visto anche il film che pure consiglio ma di cui al momento non vedo disponibilità di DVD o BD.
Di Alessandro Baricco ho recensito "Novecento" su questo blog.
11 July 2001
Book review: The Slave Trade, 1440-1870 (1999), by Hugh Thomas, *****
After many years of research, Thomas portrays, in a balanced account, the complete history of the slave trade. The Atlantic slave trade was one of the largest and most elaborate maritime and commercial ventures. Between 1492 and about 1870, ten million or more black slaves were carried from Africa to one port or another of the Americas.
In this wide-ranging book, Hugh Thomas follows the development of this massive shift of human lives across the centuries until the slave trade's abolition in the late nineteenth century.
Beginning with the first Portuguese slaving expeditions, he describes and analyzes the rise of one of the largest and most elaborate maritime and commercial ventures in all of history. Between 1492 and 1870, approximately eleven million black slaves were carried from Africa to the Americas to work on plantations, in mines, or as servants in houses. The Slave Trade is alive with villains and heroes and illuminated by eyewitness accounts. Hugh Thomas's achievement is not only to present a compelling history of the time but to answer as well such controversial questions as who the traders were, the extent of the profits, and why so many African rulers and peoples willingly collaborated. Thomas also movingly describes such accounts as are available from the slaves themselves.
01 May 1990
Situazione in Jugoslavia
07 May 1989
14° g - 7 MAG: conversazioni con addetto commerciale italiano e ricercatore russo
19 June 1980
Getting ready to leave Poland
This highly intellectual endeavor is followed by a more mundane one: buying Russian caviar in the market of "Praga" a neighborhood of Warsaw that is famous for a farmers'smarket. Or fishermen's market. Or Soviet traders' market. Here you can find Russians who have the right connections to buy caviar (or gold, diamonds, furs...) at subsidized prices in the USSR and then sell it at enormous profit in Poland. Sometimes to Poles, in the best case to Westerners who pay convertible cash.
We buy half a kilo of premium Beluga caviar to eat ourselves and a huge can of 2 kg which we plan to resell once we reach Italy. We'll see.
Romek presents me with a beautiful fur hat. It's not the season to wear it now but it will come in handy in Washington next Winter.
One last currency exchange. I buy some Czechoslovak Koruna from Marian. Keep some and sell some to Pat for Hungarian Forint. We'll be driving through both countries and need a bit of each. Our professionalism in currency black market deals has reached enviable levels of sophistication.
In the evening we start packing crystals, caviar and the rest of our belongings. It will be a challenge to fit everything in Giallina's trunk. Also, there where three of us on the way from Italy, now we have Cathy. But somehow we do it. We stuff even the back seat of the car with tightly wrapped merchandise.
If they stop us at the Czechoslovak border and ask about all the crystal, we'll say we bought it with our student stipend. We are entitled to spend up to half of it on domestic goods and export them duty-free. Hardly believable but it's the law. We are going to be safe.
18 June 1980
Crystal and corals
In the evening I go and meet Marian and Ewa at their place. News of our shipment to Italy is not good: my crystal vase broke. The big atlas and my old Tsarist rubles made it OK through customs and the rough handling of LOT Polish Airlines. There was no choice, Alitalia is not flying to Warsaw. Even Alitalia is usually better that flag carriers from Comecon countries. I long for a time when flag carriers won't exist any more. Why should governments have anything to do with flying people and cargo?
Marian and Ewa are very kind, they got me a new crystal vase! And one for Andrew. He also has a gift of corals for mom and another set of corals which he kindly asks me to smuggle out of the country. I am not sure why corals are such a good deal in Poland. But they are.