Neil Weinberg

In today’s WSJ China, I write about the parallels between Beijing’s recent economic policy U-turn and the U-turn on zero-Covid. Both point to how Xi’s centralization of power has delayed effective policy response. https://lnkd.in/etQ6w5pb Also we highlight the story by Liyan Qi on China’s most famous red guard. Hope you enjoy reading it! H/T Clarence Leong

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The incoming #Trump Administration will bring with it a new regulatory outlook for the #bond market. With several #Biden appointees already targeted for dismissal, the expectation is that the White House will have a clear path to revise many existing or planned financial controls. Among them: The U.S. implementation blueprint for the Bank for International Settlements – BIS' final #Basel3 update. Revisions to the financial frameworks of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are back on the table as well, along with a whirlwind of other possible actions. Get the insider details plus other leading-edge news and authoritative statistics on worldwide securitization activities in this week’s issue of Asset-Backed Alert, Green Street News title. https://lnkd.in/euAbgSZb

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Self-citations exaggerate Chinese research prowess, scholars charge. In this week's Latitudes, a new paper suggests that China’s research preeminence is inflated by a disproptionate tendency among Chinese academics of citing one another’s work. Plus: • A U.S. House committee has voted to restart the China Initiative,  the federal-government investigation of academic and economic ties with China that cast a pall over international research collaborations. • A member of Congress accused Qatar of trying to “buy influence” in American higher education through partnerships with Northwestern University and other instiutions.  Rishi Sunak, the British prime minister, has backed away from a proposal to bar or limit the ability of international students to temporarily work in the U.K. after graduation. #internationaleducation #intled #china #research #highereducation #highered https://lnkd.in/gvydFkxg

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The failed impeachment motion in South Korea’s National Assembly last Saturday highlights more than a dramatic political spectacle—it reveals critical missteps and deeper strategic miscalculations by both the ruling and opposition parties. From Minjoo’s premature theatrics to the PPP’s resistance rooted in survival instincts, the unfolding events carry significant implications for the future of South Korea’s democracy. In my latest analysis, I unpack: ✅ How Minjoo’s misplaced timing squandered momentum ✅ Why the PPP’s defensive stance could be its undoing ✅ What this means for political strategy and governance going forward It’s a story of high-stakes political chess—and why misreading history might be shaping an uncertain future. https://lnkd.in/gc7pq_tw

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China's irresistible rise and the US' predominance have made them classic Thucydidean rivals and put them on a path of conflict. But can they avoid war? Igor Patrick and I sat down with Professor Graham Allison, the renowned political scientist who popularised the Thucydides' trap concept, to discuss the state of US-China relations, China's growing alignment with Russia, and the odds of the heated tech rivalry between the two world powers ending in conflict. Our full interview here.

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Company executives can’t stop talking about the US election. Anne Cronin and I looked at data from the latest crop of corporate earnings calls and found a sharp spike in mentions of election risk to quarterly profit growth. One CEO called the noise and uncertainty around the polls a "Mad Hatter's tea party." For many captains of industry, the election has joined high interest rates, geopolitics and macroeconomic unease as a new "headwind." That's due in large part to a wait-and-see attitude about potential policy changes among both consumers and companies alike when it comes to big ticket spending. There's also a big distraction factor. As Etsy Inc. CEO Josh Silverman told stock analysts, the nonstop political circus is “an incredibly distracting mind-share event.” Another chief executive noted it's tough to break through as advertising rates are being pushed up by campaign ads flooding airwaves and social media sites. The good news is that it's over now -- at least until 2028 -- and that C-Suite types won't be able to use it anymore as an excuse for missed earnings targets. How much of an impact did the electoral hubbub have on your business? Read all about it here: https://lnkd.in/eCKdmysM #Election2024 #3Q #Headwinds #MadHatterTeaParty

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My full-length post-mortem analysis of the Question 4 campaign is still in the works, but for the time being here's my 3-tweet takeaway after a few days of reflection: The Question 4 campaign here in Massachusetts, the power players behind it, and the total failure that was Tuesday night’s election are a fascinating microcosm of the foundational ineptitude of the Democratic establishment at large. Case in point: Dewey Square Group (born in 1993) is the faux-progressive brainchild of the Clintonite/neoliberal elite… DSG is a “grass tops” consulting firm: designed to co-opt and repackage populist ideologies into watered down, corporate-friendly Uniparty drivel. Out of touch, glaringly and embarrassingly inept — and yet somehow still clinging to power due to the influence of their largely nepotistic networks and a consistently sharp-elbowed approach to dealing with outsider input. Sound familiar? PS - This is intended as a critique of the political machinations at work, not an attack on or condemnation of the character of any individuals involved.

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Despite official support for open capital flows, foreign direct investment into the United States has always been controversial – particularly in periods when Americans feel their economic and technological position is under challenge. The national security objection to Nippon Steel’s acquisition bid for US Steel is particularly weak, and reflects the fact that “national security” has become an all-purpose argument, often divorced from what actually enhances or reduces security. Today’s real national security challenge is new technology acquisition; preventing technology leakage is not enough. Inward foreign direct investment is a powerful tool for acquiring and diffusing technology. https://lnkd.in/dKjUZfjs

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The opening of Donald Trump’s second term will be unlike any US government transition the world has seen in the modern era: It promises to combine the sharp policy break of a new presidency with an incumbent’s mastery of the levers of power. Trump emerged from Tuesday’s election in a stronger position than even many allies anticipated. He's prepared to move swiftly on core economic priorities such as raising tariffs, cutting taxes and cracking down on undocumented migrants. You'll want to read this Bloomberg Big Take on what to expect in the initial sprint of the new administration that I wrote with Eric Martin and Tom Orlik, with input from a host of Bloomberg experts. It includes analysis from Bloomberg Economics and Bloomberg intelligence analysis on the likely impact on markets and businesses. Here's a gift link, good for 7 days: https://lnkd.in/eExi9QTY #economics #politics #tax #immigration #trade #tariffs #energy #finance

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New review by Zachary Shore of Andrew J. Bacevich's _On Shedding an Obsolete Past: Bidding Farewell to the American Century_. https://lnkd.in/dkEcDV67 "If you ever worry that America is being run by a bumbling mass of venal nincompoops, or fret that American society is slouching toward self-destruction, Andrew Bacevich’s collected essays will provide ample fodder for your fears. _On Shedding an Obsolete Past: Bidding Farewell to the American Century_ is not a work of scholarship, but rather a compilation of learned opinions. Bacevich peppers his pieces with a sprinkle of sarcasm and a dash of venomous invective, pulling no punches, barbs, or jibes as he excoriates the United States’ institutions, most notably its military, media, and political elites. Unfortunately, he has no shortage of material, and not just regarding President Donald Trump, a 'bozo of such monumental proportions as to tax the abilities of our most talented satirists' (129). Bacevich himself might qualify for membership in that club of humorists. When discussing the efforts to impeach the former president, he quips that replacing Trump with Vice President Mike Pence is 'the equivalent of exchanging Groucho for Harpo' (304). But Trump is just the lowest hanging fruit. The author reaches much deeper. Bacevich’s primary concern is with the eight-decade-old paradigm of America as the 'indispensable nation,' a notion he views as dangerously obsolete. As he sees it, a self-reproducing cadre of foreign policy gurus, sometimes called 'the Blob,' has convinced itself that US military dominance and overseas meddling are requirements of a stable world order, one that largely benefits the US. Although this notion does nothing to aid average Americans, it preserves the status of the establishment."

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Deep dive: Courts started shaping the US presidential race long before Nov. 5. An extraordinary onslaught of cases filed over the past two years have questioned fundamental principles of who can vote, how ballots are cast, which votes count, and how the winner is decided. And they preview issues that could fuel the expected wave of legal action after polls close. https://lnkd.in/gccMDYTm

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My latest column for #barrons -- on why Trump's trade war with #China is already going off the rails

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Modern-day election denialism, with Donald Trump as its most duplicitous practitioner, can be defined by three distinct phases. We’re in the middle phase now. My USA Today column: https://lnkd.in/eJ-8r2-9

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The overall thrust of this article--waning influence of legacy media--is not new, but it's an interesting read in the context of Trump's election victory. https://lnkd.in/gX3nQV6k

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Reuters INVESTIGATION: Our long-read story reveals how the U.S. has counterintuitively become a major transit point for fentanyl precursor chemicals flowing from China to Mexico. 🇨🇳 ➡ 🇺🇸 ➡ 🇲🇽 It also zeroes-in on an obscure trade law called de minimis that made this circuitous route possible and helped turbocharge the U.S. synthetic opioid epidemic. We illustrate this phenomenon through the untold story of an elderly Arizona delivery driver who, unwittingly, ferried across the U.S.-Mexico border about 15,000 pounds of fentanyl precursor chemicals for the Sinaloa Cartel. That's enough to manufacture more than 5 BILLION fentanyl pills.

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"The Trump phenomenon is here to stay..." Re-posting Martin Conway's acute 2021assessment of how historians comprehend the Trump phenomenon: https://lnkd.in/e3UbzvzG "Historians seem to have a problem with Trump. I do not mean by this the dominance of partisan hostility to Trump in the ranks of the historical profession, or even the way in which many historians have been offended by the way in which the president has treated history as a resource to be exploited, rather than a reality to be respected or understood. The more substantial problem posed by Trump is that for many historians he simply should not exist. The possibility that the conclusion of the evolution of the United States across the half-century since the 1960s could be the election – albeit against the weight of individual votes – of a man who boasts of his distaste for the goals of racial equality, wider health-care provision, and a narrowing of income differentials, seems to many historians to be somewhere between an institutional outrage and an absurd accident of history. But the political is supplemented by the personal. Trump’s swagger, and his disregard for bureaucratic procedure and legal constraints, stands as a refutation of deeply-held assumptions among historians about how the democratic politics of the U.S. are supposed to work. The complexity of institutional procedures, the careful reconciliation of competing interests, and above all the prestige of the presidency as the symbol of democratic legitimacy, have all been bulldozed by a man whose personal qualities – or lack of them – seem like an insult to the historical narrative. However, as the narrow scale of the victory of Biden in 2020 amply demonstrates, these responses are not adequate. The Trump phenomenon is here to stay..."

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