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Electoral College Confirms Biden Win

Tony Nash joins Jamie Robertson at the BBC Business Matters podcast and they discussed mostly the US Election as the electoral college confirms Biden win. Or is it too early to tell? They also talked about the recent Google meltdown and why it shouldn’t be a surprise. Also, do Chinatowns around the world suffer because of the anti-China movement? What about the vaccine — will it help us get back to normal at last? And, what’s wrong with California and why do businesses and people move out of the state and to Texas?

 

This podcast was published on December 15, 2020 and the original source can be found at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172x194l551ll3

 

 

BBC Business Matters Description:

 

Joe Biden has been formally certified as the next president of the United States, with results from electoral colleges in all but one US state giving him 302 votes. This takes him over the 270 threshold required to win the presidency. The electors in each state are appointed to reflect the popular vote, which was won by Mr Biden in November. We get reaction from Washington DC and examine the US democratic process.

 

Two major cyber-incidents on Monday. The first you may well have noticed, the second will have almost certainly passed you by but may be in the long term far more significant. Google applications including YouTube, Gmail and Docs suffered a massive service outage, with users unable to access many of the company’s services. The second was a sweeping hacking campaign that may have attacked the US Department of Homeland Security, the Treasury and Commerce departments and thousands of businesses. We take a look at how working from home may be leaving businesses and government more vulnerable.

 

And we’re in the Philippines where the country has been showing an interest in the very English game of cricket. Throughout the programme, Jamie Robertson is joined by analyst Tony Nash in the United States and social welfare expert Rachel Cartland in Hong Kong.

 

 

Show Notes

 

 

JR: Joe Biden has been formally certified as the next president of the United States, but results from Electoral College is in all but one US state, giving him 302 votes. That takes him over the crucial 270 threshold, which is required to win the presidency. The electors in each state are appointed to reflect the popular vote which has won by Mr. Biden in November. OK, so, Tony, it’s all over. Pretty much, you reckon?

 

TN: I don’t know. I sat with you guys the day after the election and I said, everyone is pretty convinced that it was the end of the line then. And I said at that point, it’d be weeks, if not months before this was settled. And we still have a lot happening here. So honestly, I have no idea what’s going to happen on January 6th, but it’ll be interesting.

 

Look, Donald Trump is always interesting. You can never accuse the guy of being boring. So I wouldn’t be surprised. Actually, your commentator was not right about the president of the Senate, which is Mike Pence, actually has to accept the electors.

 

JR: It’s not just a question of counting. It’s a question of accepting that count as a right.

 

TN: So the speaker of the House and the president, the Senate have to accept the electors. So if they don’t, then it goes to the House. But there’s one vote per state and there are more Republican delegate delegations to the House of Representatives than there are Democrat delegations. If you look purely a state, no. So I actually have no idea how it’s going to end. I have no idea what’s happening on January 6th. But it’s not as simple as this was done because there are, I think, six or seven states where the Republican electors actually protested and actually sent their electors as well. So you have states divided and protesting, it can be problematic, so I have no idea what’s going to happen.

 

JR: I certainly haven’t heard the fat lady sing in us. Tony who feels like we might be losing a battle somewhere here, or do you think it’s not as easy to say as that?

 

TN: First of all, there is more hacking and there’s more information lost than most people are aware of. This is terrible, but I don’t think we should be naive and believe that this is rare.

 

JR: Why would it become public, though? It’s quite interesting that I mean, why tell people this has happened?

 

TN: Because so many companies have been exposed. It’s 18,000, I think. But I think publicly traded companies never disclose that  happens to them, even though they’re obligated to disclose, they don’t govern institutions. You know, it happens all the time. And it’s a daily occurrence.

 

My company is on Google infrastructure for part of our work. And what worries me is we’ll never know what information was exposed, especially with the Google hack. And I think there should be a requirement that companies let people know what has been exposed, but we’ll never know and we’ll never know what was lost and what was exposed. Companies have their their corporate secrets, their trade secrets on their cloud drives. And we never really know if things were exposed. And we never you know.

 

JR: Tony, there’s a Chinatown in Houston. And there’s research to back this up. Chinatowns have suffered worse than many other communities in the U.S. Is it connected to an anti China feeling, do you think? Or is there something else going on here that I haven’t seen?

 

TN: I don’t think there is. I lived in Asia for 15 years and my entire social community for much of that time was Chinese. I understand it at a different level. I do think there is a sensitivity among the Chinese community that they may be targeted for this. So I don’t necessarily believe that is the case. At least it’s not in Houston. Maybe it is in New York. But in Houston, I don’t feel that’s the case at all.

 

JR: I just want to continue our conversation she had earlier, which is about China or at least Chinese Institute of Chinese Chinatowns in the United States, which may have been losing more business than most other communities, possibly because they’re Chinese. And Tony gave a very nuanced view saying, but perhaps there’s a perception this is happening, but it may not be actually true in reality. Right, Tony? A vaccine, is it a shot in the arm for the economy as well? I mean, my impression I got from that interview with Constance Hunter from KPMG was that he thinks it’s going to take a bit of time, but it may be just the light at the end of a tunnel, which everybody needs.

 

TN: Just put the vaccine into context. So fatality rates for Covid, at least in Texas, are a third today of what they were just in September. So it’s more the government halting business that.

 

JR: Can I just challenge you on that? You say it’s a third time. It is a third of the total. But on the other hand, you’re having many more many more cases identified than you were in September. I mean, that may be in absolute terms. I’m not quite sure whether if you’re getting more cases actually reported, if it’s a third of the ones being being reported.

 

TN: More deaths in August.

 

JR: Yes.

 

TN: August 5th and 6th, we had 229 deaths in Texas now were around 139, 146, 121, 128, OK. So right now, the thing that we need to caution both on absolute and percentage numbers, we’re a third as a percent. We’re a third better. We’re a third of what they were in September even.

 

It’s great that we have a vaccine. I’m not trying to pull back on that.

 

But the problem here is that the government pulled the plug on people’s livelihoods. Hundreds of thousands of companies in America are out of business because state and local governments shut economies. That is a fact.

 

JR: You don’t think people would have been frightened to go out, frightened to go to restaurants, frightened to go to cinemas?

 

TN: I believe that people are responsible and they would have washed their hands and done all this stuff, worn masks, all that stuff.

 

Government officials killed local economies. What’s happening right now is federal government officials have not put the stimulus out that they should have put out in August. The package that came out in May was only supposed to last three months. They were supposed to put another package out in August, September. They didn’t. So we’re in on one hand, it’s state and local governments that killed economies and killed hundreds of thousands of companies and millions of jobs. On the other hand, it’s the federal officials who wanted to negotiate small details while people starve. It is government on both ends of this that are harming individuals, killing companies, harming families. It’s terrible.

 

JR: What is wrong with California? What’s so great about Texas?

 

TN: I have an artificial intelligence company in Texas. So we are in a technology ecosystem here in Texas. And Oracle, as you noted, just announced on Friday, they’re coming. Tesla’s moved.

 

I lived in California during the first Internet bubble of the late 90s, early 2000s. And what I find about California now is especially around the talent. They’re good. There’s nothing wrong with the talent there. It’s good. But it’s not the world class that it once was. It’s really expensive and it’s very arrogant. Silicon Valley is, kind of, to use an Asian analogy, it’s the Singapore of the U.S. It’s entitled, expensive, and kind of OK, good, but not great.

 

I’m in Texas and I moved my company from Singapore to Texas because I can find a very experienced technical person who will roll up their sleeves and actually do hard work. People are pretty affordable. The quality of skills here are great and it’s a fantastic business environment.

 

JR: This may sound a little bit like an Englishman talking, but it’s not to do with the weather, is it? And there is more to that question to mention immediate, bearing in mind for the rather high temperatures and wildfires.

 

TN: California’s got the Pacific Ocean and beautiful weather. People are coming here initially because they have to. But then they want to because they realized there are a lot of really nice people here. And I loved it. I lived in California for a long time and I voluntarily moved to Texas because of the business environment. I’ve been here four years now.

 

JR: And Tony, I mean, cricket may be played in far flung things, but in Texas, I don’t think so.

 

TN: You would be surprised, Jamie, 20 miles from my house is the largest cricket complex in America. That’s amazing. So Texas has a very large Indian community and we have the largest cricket complex in America.

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Visual (Videos)

CNA Asia First: How the US Foreign Trade Policies will Change after the US Election

Founder and CEO of Complete Intelligence, Tony Nash joins CNA Asia First to give insights around the 2020 US Elections and how the possible turnout will affect US’s foreign policies, economy, and trade. Was the delay in stimulus affected the voters’ decisions? Can oil companies be greener without causing a lot of disruptions? And did Trump’s trade strategies yield results?

 

This video segment was published on November 5, 2020 and is originally from Channel News Asia’s videos on demand, which can be found at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/video-on-demand/asia-first

 

Show Notes

 

CNA: Now for more on the markets, the US elections, and economy including trade policy from whoever takes place in the White House going forward, Tony Nash founder and CEO at Complete Intelligence joins us from Houston, Texas.

 

So Tony, it’s been a very divisive election and I don’t know at this point is it worth looking back at how there was gridlock and was difficult for congress to push forward any form of stimulus leaving a lot of Americans out in the cold. I don’t know if there’s weight on the minds of voters that maybe the whole of congress was complicit in this issue. But where do you think paving the way forward for the American economy needs to start.

 

TN: It really depends on where in America you are. There are parts of America that just can’t wait to get out and work and there are restrictions. There are other parts of America where people want to stay in under restrictions and generally that’s the red-blue divide in the US.

 

What we’ve seen is more people wanting to push out demonstrations and say California and other places where people just want to get out. The stimulus issues with congress, there were a number of windows where stimulus could have come out. But it didn’t. And that was a lever that was pulled largely by the house of representatives before the election. They wanted to hold off from it. Especially business owners, very frustrated by that. People who have been laid off, very frustrated by that. Certainly, some of this has been a part of the voting consideration.

 

CNA: Both sides red and blue are blaming each other on why stimulus was difficult and not being pushed forward before the election. But I want to get to the issue of the backbone of some of the sectors of the economy in this election. Climate change featured very heavily. You come from an oil state. The bigger question now going forward is because of this increasing climate consciousness, can these sectors actually pivot away from oil without causing huge disruption, political and economic?

 

TN: That’s fine in terms of climate change. The US actually performed very well in terms of emissions and efficiency. The bigger issue for these oil companies is actually the inefficiencies of their organizations and we’ve seen a lot of oil companies come out to say that they’d be laying off 16 percent of their global workforce. They’re realizing that with oil prices where they are and gas prices where they are,
they just can’t sustain the bloated workforces that they’ve had to date.

 

So, yes climate change is an issue and that’s a consideration. But with the fossil fuel companies, they’ve had bloated workforces that they’re having to contend with now that oil prices are lower.

 

CNA: As we look back at what the Trump administration set out to achieve with its very aggressive trade policy based on the metrics of leveling or gaining leverage to negotiate better terms for trade deals, do you think it has achieved this?

 

TN: What the current administration has been doing is a long game. It’s not something that is a short-term plan. To get factories to move, to get capital investment, to get say supply chains to move, that’s a three to five to ten-year process and can be even longer for industries that have super heavy capital investment. It’s making progress. If you look at investments say in electronic supply chains going into Mexico, I think both the aggressive nature toward China and the USMCA have really helped.

 

The electronics industry come back to Mexico and to the US. Those are some of the faster moving industries where we’re starting to see some real traction. But it is a long game. It’s something that if that’s dialed back now, you won’t necessarily see that continue or you may not see that continue.

 

CNA: The way that the Trump administration up and NAFTA, it does seem that it antagonizes some of its closest security partners including Canada. Is that counterproductive trying to form an alliance to counter the rise of China?

 

TN: There are two things with the USMCA, the kind of NAFTA part two. There was an agreement among the partners that it was a much better agreement. Getting them to the negotiating table was the first hurdle. But once they realized what the US wanted to do, what I understand is all sides were very happy especially Mexico. But in terms of getting a coalition against China together, I don’t think the US has necessarily tried to do that. The US has understood that where there are multilateral organizations or multilateral relationships countering China, that China will peel off one or two or three to create division. And so the US has taken China on one on one. This was a strategy from the very beginning and it’s yielded some of the results. But again, it’s a longer term strategy that they’ve tried to undertake.

Categories
Podcasts

US economy suffers sharpest contraction in decades

Tony Nash joins the BBC Business Matters to discuss the US economy contraction, Federal government’s cash subsidy, the upcoming US election and Trump’s issue on postal ballots, lithium batteries and electric vehicles, and Eid al-Adha.

 

This podcast first and originally appeared in BBC Business Matters at  https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172x18vhgd3z2p

 

BBC Notes

Official data shows that the world’s biggest economy contracted by 9.5% in three months. That’s worse than at any point since the US government started keeping quarterly records in 1947. We hear from Professor Tara Sinclair, an economist at George Washington University. Black Lives Matter protests have added to a continuing backlash against brands selling skin-whitening creams in South Asia; Nikhil Inamdar reports from Mumbai on an industry under threat. We talk to listener, Elizabeth Pendleton, in Colorado Springs about the unemployment picture in Colorado. The BBC’s Ed Butler reports on the world’s biggest lithium deposit; it’s in Bolivia and is worth billions of dollars to a world scrambling to reduce its reliance on carbon. Plus, we’re joined throughout the programme by Tony Nash, co-founder and Chief Economist at Complete Intelligence in Houston, Texas and from Lahore in Pakistan, Mehmal Safraz, co-founder of The Current PK.

 

Show Notes

 

BBC: Talk about Houston for us.

 

TN: Just on my block, I have 6 houses for sale. If that tells you anything about the oil and gas down turn as a result of COVID, we really are starting to see some action on the real estate side. It is a seasonal thing partly because of summer. But we are the epicenter of epicenter of oil and gas. And the oil and gas went to receptical in May. We’re still seeing the after-shock of that even though we’re back above $40 for WTI and Brent. Something interesting is that I’m speaking recently with somebody from Panama Canal today and they were telling me about the volume in trade and what they’ve seen. They’ve reflected what Samara said and that things kept slowing down until June and then in July, they’ve started to come back. I really thought that April and May was the worst of it, but things kept declining into June, which was really difficult.

 

BBC: And that shipping, of course, is a crucial indicator, because we can track not just what China is doing, what US is doing. We can follow everybody’s trade globally by watching those boats.

 

TN: That’s right. And this is not a market failure. This was governments pulling the plug on economies and we say that personal consumption fell by 25% in the first quarter. But it’s no surprise because nobody can get out of their house because restaurants were closed, etc. On one hand these are shocking numbers, but on the other hand they are not shocking numbers when states and local governments pull hte plug on economies and people cannot get out, then this really isn’t a surprise. To be honest, I’m surprised that more data isn’t as bad or worse than the US because there were harsher lockdowns in a lot of other countries. I don’t understand it on some level.

 

BBC: In Houston, are we rising predictably to debate as the president proposes another idea by tweet?

 

TN: It’s more about his objection to postal ballots than it is about election day because there is a recent study done by CBS News in the US looking at potential fraud around election ballots and they found that something like 3% of them didn’t even arrive to the person and then fraudelent ballots that looked like what they’ve sent out, could have been sent similarly. I think what Trump is doing is trying to get the discussion going about fraud around postal ballots more than moving the election.

 

BBC: Has it always been a relatively tiny minority voting by post apart from those early voting?

 

TN: Well he said, and he said this several times. He doesn’t have an issue with what’s called absentee balloting, which is a slightly different process. But with mass postal balloting, there are several states like Oregon that do mass postal balloting. But fraud in US elections has become a very big concern. In the last election, ballots were found in the back of people’s cars. There was a rental car that was returned with ballots in it. Fraud in US elections has become a very big concern and I think Trump is voicing that concern a lot of people.

 

BBC: In Texas, dig into the nitty gritty of the state level.

 

TN: What ends tomorrow in the US is Americans are getting $600 a week additional from the Federal government on top of the state funds, unemployment funds, that they get, which are lower, like $350 a week. The $600 a week is extraordinary. I know people who don’t even make that much money when they are working fulltime, who are getting $600 a week. But at the local level, the problem is, you have the state and local governments who are closing things down. But it’s actually the Feds who have had to pay more money and it’s a lot of money to help make up for the economic decisions that were made at the state and local level. This is really where, through the whole COVID thing, and I said this many, many times to people, the state and local governments don’t have the resources to pay back for the decisions taht they’ve made. The decisions are made at the lower level. But it’s really only the Fed who has the money to provide this level of income to allow the economy to keep moving forward.

 

TN: Obviously, the environment is a big concern. But I think the payoff is also a big concern. It really all depends on how quickly the battery industry grows. If the payback isn’t there, it’s like looking at the Tarzans in Canada. Relatively expensive way to pull up oil, but oil now is too cheap for the Tarzans to function. If they pull it out in a very expensive way, the question really is not just environmental sustainability but economic sustainability as well.

 

BBC: I take your point on the environment, but compared to some of the alternatives. What I thought I knew in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo had the lithium mines, which is the other resource to be tapped, leading to headlines a couple of years ago in Financial Times, “Congo child labor in you electric car”, makes up that whole sector really problematic.

 

TN: Absolutely. Look, if it’s a better way, it’s great. I mean, the problem then is the supply chains and figuring out how to get it to market, which those are never easy. But if it’s a better way, more humane, then great.

 

BBC: Were you surprised by the little footnote in the report that it’s China that has the downstream value chain sewn up.

 

TN: No, not at all. China has a very high profile electric car program. And really a lot of subsidies for electric vehicles. So that actually doesn’t surprise me at all. It is the largest market.

 

BBC: And this is why the developments happen, right? Because I read recently, I probably get the numbers slightly wrong, but it said there’s a new battery coming that can run something like a million miles over 16 years instead of a couple of hundred thousand miles in 5 years.

 

TN: Yeah. But people will get bored by their car by then. People want to sell their car after a couple hundred thousand miles. If it can change hands multiple times, great.

 

BBC: This is something not widely celebrated in the US, but certainly a lot of Muslims in the US will bring this extremely to heart today.

 

TN: Absolutely. And Houston is the most diverse city in the US, so we’ve got a very large Moslem population in Houston. I have friends in Austin who are celebrating, so it’s definitely all around here.