BWorld 335, Smart cities with little congestion and regulations

* This is my column in BusinessWorld on June 04, 2019.

Metro Manila is composed of 17 cities and has a population of 13.1 million in 2016, the 18th largest city in the world. This 13 million would swell to around 15 million at daytime when people from neighboring provinces come to the big city to study, work, do business and so on. This is big, but not so big compared to other cities around the world like Tokyo, Delhi and Shanghai. Other Asian cities will soon have 10+ million people like Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh (see table).

Developing “smart cities” for those huge and densely-populated metropolis is among the important challenges for these micro areas and local governments.

At the recent Jeju Forum for Peace and Prosperity 2019 last May 29-31, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF) sponsored a panel, “Smart Cities and Startups — Opportunities for Business Innovation” with three speakers.

The head of FNF Korea office in Seoul, Christian Taaks, said in his opening remarks that “Smart Cities offer many new opportunities and requires adaptation from individuals. Smart cities need smart citizens and technology is used to empower citizens.”

Moderator-speaker Waltraut Ritter, Founder of the Knowledge Dialogues in Hong Kong, said that Smart cities are about citizens and technology as a platform to empower citizen to become “citypreneurs.” Citizens and local governments interact, unlike before where the mayor seems to “know everything” and has a control of everything in a city. Seoul is a good example with a citizen dashboard project to get feedback from citizens what went wrong in the city.

Marc Bovenschulte, Director of Institute for Innovation and Technology in Germany, said that smart cities are about citizens, an inclusive concept. In theory, ‘Smart Cities’ is an umbrella term for holistic development concepts aiming cities to be more efficient, greener and more socially inclusive. In reality, smart cities have become a playground for big companies to implement new technologies serving traffic control, energy efficiency and camera surveillance security.

Marc added that local governments should create publicly-owned space for business creation and development. He cited the case of Berlin — after reunification, East and West Berlin were both underdeveloped. The East offered affordable stylish culture that attracted young international talents in the arts, culture and lately digital bohemian. Part of this wave created startups. The city government of Berlin initially had no plan to attract and promote startups, then it offered cheap spaces which allowed the growth of a creative mix of arts, culture, entrepreneurs and international exchange.

Hwang Jie-Eun, Chair of Department of Architecture, University of Seoul, said that smart cities and startups provide opportunity for business innovation by using non-optimized urban space for SME technology and products innovation. In particular, the Sewoon Campus project, a 1.2 km megastructure in the heart of Seoul designed in 1967 and now consists of seven shopping centres and urban manufacturing. Traditional SME factories are kept, local knowledge and skills are preserved and this serves as connecting points to enable ecosystem for startups. It is a bottom-up approach.

She added that to manage big data, teams developed several levels of data inquiries. While many cities have policies in place, in practice data is treated as assets, data owners tend to monetize.

When SME manufacturing can be done in the city, when citizens and the local governments regularly communicate to solve problems, when public space is optimized for business innovation and start ups, then mobility of people and goods are made shorter and faster.

City governments in Metro Manila and nearby provinces can devise ways to optimize market and private enterprise innovation, not optimize regulations, restrictions and taxation. The former can empower citizens to a prosperous future, the latter can do the reverse.

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See also:  

BWorld 332, The global taxpayers conference, June 02, 2019 

BWorld 333, The Public Service Act and provincial tourism, June 03, 2019 

BWorld 334, US-China relations at Jeju Forum, June 04, 2019

Energy 126, Oil prices now only $51+ per barrel

Good news. (1) World oil prices keep falling, now only $51+ per barrel vs $62 a month ago. (2) US oil production now 12.4 million barrels per day (mbpd) vs 8.8 mbpd end of Obama admin. (3) Despite Saudi oil production falling to 9.8 mbpd last April vs 11.1 mbpd peak production in November 2018.

Lesson: Trump and the US are winning in the battle to keep world oil prices low. Saudi, rest of OPEC and Russia are losers to force high oil prices. Putin and Russia hate low oil-gas prices, these goods are their main bread and butter.

Trump haters who enjoy the comfort of cheaper oil prices (for their cars, flights abroad, energy-intensive companies, etc.), despite the higher domestic oil taxes under TRAIN law, now they have more reason to lambast him :-)

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See also:

Energy 123, Gasoline prices in selected ASEAN, April 20, 2019 

Energy 124, US, Russia, Saudi oil production, May 03, 2019 

Energy 125, Falling world oil prices, June 02, 2019

BWorld 334, US-China relations at Jeju Forum

* This is my column in BusinessWorld last Friday, May 31, 2019.

Jeju, S. Korea — The two largest economies in the world, the US and China, have GDP sizes in 2018 of $20.5 T and $13.4 T, respectively. Third to fifth largest are Japan with $5 T, Germany with $4 T, and UK with $2.8 T.

In terms of per capita income and by extension individual productivity, the US is far way ahead of China, a multiple of more than 6x. The Philippines, while having the 13th largest population in the world, is a midget, both in GDP size and per capita income (see table 1).

Among the major sources of disagreement between these two giant economies is merchandise trade. Data from the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) World Trade Statistical Review (WTSR) show that China is the world’s biggest exporter and the US trade deficit is indeed large, $863 billion in 2017 or average of $2.4 billion a day (see table 2).

People often talk about “protectionist Trump/US” and they imply that China, EU, etc. are non-protectionists and free traders. They may be jokers.

  

Here at the Jeju Forum for Peace and Prosperity 2019 Conference, May 29-31, the first plenary discussion on Day 2 is on the subject, “Destined for War? The Future of US-China Relations and its Implications for the Korean Peninsula.” The three speakers were Prof. Graham Allison of Harvard University, Li Zhaoixing, former Foreign Minister of China, and Prof. Martin Jaques of Cambridge University. Moderator was Prof. Moon Chung-In of Yonsei University and Special Advisor to the ROK President for Unification and National Security Affair. Congratulatory remarks before the discussion started were given by Wang Guoqing, former Vice-Minister of the State Council Information Office, China.

Wang talked about the importance of Asia, did not lambast the US. Li talked about peace, repeatedly. Allison talked about a possible “2nd Korean war” that would also involve the US and China, the “Thucydides trap” where a rising power can wage a war to topple the established power, and indirectly attacked Trump. Jacques talked about a “new cold war” where before, the US was a rising power, now a declining power as China is now the world’s biggest economy, a technological superpower, and in this trade war, the US will suffer.

My impression is that the two Chinese ex-government officials were hoping for more peace while the two American academics and consultants were entertaining a new war. In case there will be a shooting war someday between the US and China, it could be partly due to alarmist but influential US academics, US media, and US politicians that tend to exaggerate things.

Meanwhile the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF) held its panel discussion in Day 2 here on “Smart Cities and Startups — Opportunities for Business Innovation.” Speakers were Christian Taaks of FNF Korea Office, Marc Bovenschulte of the Institute for Innovation and Technology in Germany, and Prof. Hwang Jie Eun of the University of Seoul in Korea. Moderator was Waltraut Ritter of Knowledge Dialogues in Hong Kong, and Rapporteur was Pimrapaat Dusadeeisariyakul of FNF Thailand. I will write about the discussion and related subjects in my next column.

Peace and prosperity. More trade, investments and tourism among countries and not more bombs and missiles. More smart and innovative cities and countries, not war-freak ones. Tomorrow should be better than today. We should hope and work for this future.

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See also:  

BWorld 331, How governments expand, May 31, 2019 

BWorld 332, The global taxpayers conference, June 02, 2019 

BWorld 333, The Public Service Act and provincial tourism, June 03, 2019

IPR and Innovation 44, Plain packaging on sweets, soda -- impact on investment and health

The brand- and trademark-busting policy of generic plain packaging, started first with tobacco products, is now moving to sweets, soda, cakes and so on. State nannyism is becoming a monster year after year.

Now comes this 44-pages report,

ENDING THE BLAME GAME

THE CASE FOR A NEW APPROACH TO PUBLIC HEALTH AND PREVENTION

https://www.ippr.org/files/2019-06/public-health-and-prevention-june19.pdf

See the first four reports here.

1. Sweets and fizzy drinks are to be sold in cigarette-style plain packaging in latest bid to tackle the UK's obesity epidemic

PUBLISHED: 22:01 BST, 3 June 2019 | UPDATED: 01:47 BST, 4 June 2019

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7100797/Sweets-fizzy-drinks-sold-cigarette-style-plain-packaging.html

To combat the obesity epidemic, Cadbury, Walkers Crisps, Coca-Cola and other major brands would be forced to abandon their vibrant designs.

Instead they would be compelled to use a uniform drab design intended to put off consumers. This would be in line with the greeny brown colour – chosen for its ugliness – seen on cigarette packs….

Simon Stevens, who is chief executive of the NHS, said last week that obesity was becoming the ‘new smoking’.

The proposals from the Institute for Public Policy Research, an influential think-tank, also include:

* Extending the sugar tax on soft drinks to sweets and cakes as well as milkshakes;

* A ban on day-time TV adverts for junk food, sweets, soft drinks and processed food;

* Free fruit for pupils and a ban on fast-food outlets within 160 metres of school gates;

* Supermarkets to be ordered to provide cookery lessons;

* Raising the legal age for buying cigarettes from 18 to 21.

2. Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

Nick Triggle   4 June 2019

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-48499195

From the smoking ban in 2007 to the introduction of plain packaging a decade later, everything has been done to discourage people from taking up the habit.

And there are signs sugar is heading the same way.

Sugary drinks are already taxed - and now a leading think tank has even suggested sweets, snacks and sugary drinks should be wrapped in plain packaging to make them less appealing, given the excess consumption of the sweet stuff….

3. CHEWING GLUM Sweets, crisps and sugary drinks should be in plain packaging to reduce ‘pester power’ from kids, health campaigners say

By Shaun Wooller  4th June 2019, 2:13 amUpdated: 4th June 2019, 2:14 am

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9216714/sweets-crisps-sugary-drinks-should-plain-packaging/

The Institute for Public Policy Research also calls for the products to be taxed, their adverts banned from daytime TV and for supermarkets to fund healthy cooking classes for customers.

Critics say plain packaging, like with cigarettes, will make shops “grey and boring” and do nothing for waistlines.

But the IPPR’s research found two decades of progress in reducing preventable disease has stalled since 2012.

4. Fat chance of tackling obesity without advertising bans

clare foges, june 3 2019, 12:01am, the times

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/fat-chance-of-tackling-obesity-without-advertising-bans-fhxfkfn7n

Freedom campaigners against ‘nannying’ taxes are condemning the poorest children to a life of ill health

5. In defence of food advertising

Chris Snowdon, 30 MAY 2019

https://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/2019/05/in-defence-of-food-advertising.html?m=0

The Department of Health's consultation on banning adverts for HFSS (high in fat, sugar and salt) food and drink before 9pm on television closes on June 10th. The government's various allies and sockpuppets have been encouraging people to make a submission so I thought I would too.

Banning advertising is a hunch-based policy, but the Department of Health's impact assessment is obliged to make it look evidence-based…

the government wants to tackle something that is far less common than it thinks by restricting something that is far less important than it thinks, in order to make financial savings that probably don't exist….

There is no meaningful difference between the state banning an advert because it disapproves of the product being advertised - or the views of the person featured in it - and the state censoring an article, speech or play being it doesn't like what is being said. If a ban on cakes, ice creams and jam being advertised before the watershed becomes law, it will give licence to every obsessive, single-issue fanatic to press for further prohibitions. Once we start banning inoffensive adverts for harmless products, the censoriousness will become a runaway train.

6. The IP squeeze: Brand restrictions around Malaysia — Etienne Sanz de Acedo

01 March 2019

https://www.malaymail.com/news/what-you-think/2019/03/01/the-ip-squeeze-brand-restrictions-around-malaysia-etienne-sanz-de-acedo/1728221

The sky is the limit when one believes there is no downside to plain packaging. For example, there even have been calls in Australia to plain package financial services — lest consumers be induced by brands to take on bad loans.

With plain packaging, trademarks will cease to serve their function to distinguish one producer from another. This will ultimately hurt consumers.

Ultimately, the question is whether taking such a radical step as removing trademarks from legal products that consumers trust and rely upon will be beneficial for a country overall.

And what could come next?

7. Banning Brands: A Menace To The Global Economy

Lorenzo Montanari  Feb 21, 2019, 04:46pm

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenzomontanari/2019/02/21/banning-brands-a-menace-to-the-global-economy/#2f43ba11248d

Just last month The Lancet published the “Global Syndemic of Obesity, Undernutrition, and Climate” which called for advertising restrictions on all “unhealthy food” in order to protect the environment.

By spreading to more industries than tobacco plain packaging has the potential to disrupt major industries and trade relationships. Far more countries are stakeholders in the targeted food, sugar, and beverage industries. These categories contain the most well-known and valuable brands in the world -- many headquartered in the United States.

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Soon the nanny states will go for plain packaging of all beer, wine, whiskey and rhum, all candies, cookies and cakes.

Statists still do not realize that nature abhors a vacuum: penalize and restrict the legal, unique supply, the illegal and easy-to-copy generic supply will fill the gap. These illegal products are a lot cheaper and hence they will encourage more consumption of the targeted 'bad, unhealthy' products. In addition, the investment climate will sour for legal brands as the illegal brands undermine them.

The nanny state and its activist advocates ultimately will go for socialism and heavy-handed interventions and prohibitions. Soon people can go to jail because they ate the unique, non-plain packaged soda or cake or candy. What a lousy society it will be then.
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See also: 

IPR and Innovation 41, Governments and the UN on patent prizes, February 23, 2018 

IPR and Innovation 42, Coalition letter to WHO re plain packaging, March 22, 2018 

IPR and Innovation 43, Recent news on India, China and HK on IP, May 14, 2019

BWorld 333, The Public Service Act and provincial tourism

* This is my column in BusinessWorld last May 29, 2019.

One of the oldest laws in the Philippines yet having a huge and restrictive impact on the modern economy is Commonwealth Act 146 or the Public Service Act (PSA), which was approved on November 7, 1936, or nearly 83 years ago.

That law lists five sectors as “public utilities,” and hence, foreign capital is restricted, if not prohibited. These are (a) transmission of electricity, (b) distribution of electricity, (c) water works and sewerage system, (d) telecommunications, and (e) transportation (land, sea, air).

Where there is restriction, there is limited or no competition and thus, consumers are penalized with the limited choices. The solution is to expand competition, and one proposed legislation is amending the PSA and removing for now sectors (d) and (e), telecommunications and transportation. These are contained in HB 5828 (passed on third reading since September 2017) and SB 1754 (still a Senate Committee Report).

Two relevant news here and I quote portions of those stories:

1. “Public Service Act Amendments to open economy to more investments, generate more jobs – Poe”

(Senate Press Release, February 15, 2018).

“Poe, chairperson of the Senate committee on public services, said the proposed amendments seek to address the confusion in the definition of a public utility and public services, which, for several decades, hampered economic growth. ‘Foreign entities would be allowed to come in and invest. The goal is to increase competition, provide better quality services and also to create jobs,’ Poe said.”

2. “Senate eyes approval of Public Services Act amendments before 17th Congress ends in June” (BusinessWorld, April 3, 2019)

“‘Increasing FDI and promoting national security are not conflicting goals. The country can have both as long as proper safeguards are observed’” she (Sen. Poe) said, “Foreign competition can give consumers more genuine alternatives to existing services.”

These are good announcements and there are many numbers to prove this. One is about domestic tourism and domestic airports. In the ASEAN, there are three big archipelagic countries, with their estimated number of islands — Indonesia with 18,100 islands, Philippines with 7,500, and Thailand with 1,400 islands.

More islands mean more shipping lines and seaports needed, or better yet, more airlines and more airports needed. Indonesia and Thailand have expanded their number of airports over the last 10 years and their domestic passengers have nearly tripled. The Philippines did not expand its domestic airports and domestic passengers have only doubled. Vietnam has consolidated its domestic airports but it has expanded the number of domestic and foreign airlines into its soil and domestic passengers have expanded more than four times (see table). 

To further promote the Philippines’ domestic and international tourism, and in the process further expand our GDP size, we need further airlines liberalization, further expansion of existing provincial airports, and further improvement of roads, seaports, energy and other physical infrastructures to serve the many resorts and hotels in many provinces and islands of the country.

There is only one week left in the current Congress that will have sessions until June 7, 2019. The Senate and then the bicameral committee should pass the PSA Amendment bills into law. This should be among the important laws that the Duterte administration can do for the consumers, passengers, visitors and investors.

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See also:  

BWorld 330, Energy and elections: The Philippines and Australia, May 24, 2019 

BWorld 331, How governments expand, May 31, 2019 

BWorld 332, The global taxpayers conference, June 02, 2019

Lion Rock 27, Conduct and HK is not a corporation

Two nice articles last year by Nick Sallnow-Smith, former Chairman of the Lion Rock Institute. I like them, reposting but slightly clipped.
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Is Hong Kong a Corporation?

2018-07-24 / Nick Sallnow-Smith

For the high summer months of July and August I want to offer a pair of articles. The first entitled as above, the second will ask the question “Is Hong Kong a Commune?” (Spoiler alert – the answer in both cases is “no”!)

Now before you answer testily “of course not” to the question I pose, let me offer some thoughts on why I believe many people discuss our city as if it were a corporation. The first step in the erroneous chain of reasoning is to treat Hong Kong as a single entity. It is commonplace to read of Hong Kong’s “lack of competitiveness”; or that Hong Kong is “too expensive”. Some businesses may not be competitive in their segment, some items may be too expensive. Yet others may be very competitive and some very cheap. Hong Kong is not a singularity. But the metaphor of the corporation goes beyond this. Think of the many times you have read comments about Hong Kong’s “workforce”. A company has a “workforce” whereby people are contracted to provide a specific service for a salary. Hong Kong does not employ us. We have entered into no contract with the state. Yet the Administration regularly wrings its metaphorical hands about how to get more housewives/the elderly into the “workforce”, as if the city has a contract to fill and does not have the labour to complete it. The demographic debate is couched in the same terms. “We” need to boost fertility so that the “workforce” does not age too rapidly.

Education policy is framed in the same way. Are our universities producing the right graduates for “Hong Kong’s” purposes? But what are those purposes? The unspoken assumption is that the city’s purposes are somehow unitary and reflect a consensus. This is an error. In a free society, each citizen can have purposes but the city cannot. If the Administration attempts to impose unitary purposes on the rest of us, this is tantamount to a totalitarian society. What each child wishes to study, what direction they wish to follow in life, whether at my age I wish to work or not, whether a mother wishes to take a paid job or not: these are all free choices (or should be). Their aggregate effect should be what characterises Hong Kong, not a top down imposed blueprint.

It grieves me when I see business chambers routinely pleading with Government to come up with a “vision” for the future, with a better “plan” for Hong Kong to make it “competitive”, to give it a “purpose”. Perhaps because in their own businesses these questions make complete sense, they are tempted to project onto public policy the same way of thinking. What they miss is that if a monolithic top down “vision” is imposed on the city, many businesses’ own visions will become much more difficult to achieve. If you are in the IT sector and fail to win a subsidy while you competitor does, for example….

The political consequence of this is that, rather than making their own decisions about their lives, many citizens spend their time and energy fighting over what the top down policy should be. How the Board of Directors is selected becomes a huge issue, as it should be in a true corporation. Questions of where the minimum wage should be set; how much the MPF deduction should be; whether bus fares should rise; whether Uber/AirB&B should be “permitted” , what should be taught in government schools and so on? Political division and dissension about any top down policies of this sort is inevitable.

In a real corporation, if you as shareholder do not like the direction taken by the appointed Board, you can sell your shares and invest elsewhere. In a city you cannot do so. You have no exit (unless you have money and a foreign passport).

The metaphor of a corporation for a city is not only wrong but dangerous. Instead of COHK (the Corporation of Hong Kong), let’s please think of ourselves as COHK (the Community of Hong Kong).

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Conduct

2018-06-26 / Nick Sallnow-Smith

You will have to be patient for a couple of paragraphs before I arrive at explaining the title for my thoughts this month. My route to it begins with a quick reprise of the difference between “natural law” and what I will term “code law”, for the purposes of this piece.

By natural law, I mean those restrictions which have arisen in virtually every human society, and without which a community could not survive in the longer term: prohibitions against murder, theft and fraud. At root, these rules are based on every free human being able to do with his own body and personal possessions what he feels is in his best interests, without interference from others. It is the root of freedom. Therefore the only restriction on you as a free citizen is not to coerce others. In the words of Leonard Reed: “anything peaceful”.

It would be a rare human being who would feel such natural laws were “unjust”. Indeed that is why they are called, and feel, “natural”. By contrast, many laws invented by legislators will regularly be regarded as “unjust” by some, yet not by others (take for example those laws here that make Uber illegal). Code law like this usually involves the state coercing at least some in the community (in my example, Uber drivers) to favour other groups. All taxes do this as well.

From a libertarian viewpoint, this is not acceptable and indeed not “just”. However, at least this type of law can be clearly defined (though it often is not) and therefore predictable. One can regret it but at least manage one’s life around it. This typically applies to all regulations as well as statutes (although in many sectors in Hong Kong interpreting the meaning of the multitude of regulations can involve turning to expert consultants to find out what you are permitted to do or not). They may be regrettable but are at least predictable. Our daily lives as citizens are constrained as to what we are “permitted to do” by our government but at least if we stay within those boundaries we can relax. Or at least we could; no longer I fear….

Life is made productive and enjoyable by making our own contributions, not by spending time and energy blaming others for any social outcomes that do not please us. My hope is that more of us might “conduct” ourselves by focussing on the freedoms of the former rather than on limitations of the latter.

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See also: 

Lion Rock 24, Is everything under control?, August 23, 2018 

Lion Rock 25, A Man, A Plan, A Canal, Panama, April 20, 2019 

Lion Rock 26, Peter Wong as new Chairman of LRI, April 27, 2019

BWorld 332, The global taxpayers conference

* This is my article in BusinessWorld last May 27, 2019.

Many economists along with other social scientists and social philosophers, enjoy playing God, by which I mean laying out in detail their own private versions of the “good society” without being required to suggest ways and means of implementing their precepts or even defend these precepts with democratic political processes.

— James Buchanan

SYDNEY — That quote I borrowed from one of the slides of Prof. Sinclair Davidson of RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. He was among the many speakers in the recently concluded 7th ALS Friedman Conference and 17th World Taxpayers Association (WTA) Conference on May 23 to 26 in this city.

That big event, with 500+ participants and speakers from many countries across the world, was jointly sponsored by the Australian Libertarian Society (ALS), Australian Taxpayers Alliance (ATA), Tax & Super Australia, and WTA. The Americans for Tax Reforms (ATR) was among the major sponsors.

Sinclair is a quantitative, facts-based researcher so I attended his two panel lectures, one on “Money and Macro” where he showed the above quote, and one on “Plain Packaging & Tobacco Harm Reduction.” He observed that with the plain packaging policy in force in Australia since December 2012, “premium pricing models were undermined, smokers trade down on branding, effectively smoking cheaper, a failure to meet its stated objectives.”

Many participants were leaders of national taxpayers groups, like the Canadian Taxpayers Association headed by departing WTA Chairman Troy Lanigan, UK’s Taxpayers Alliance headed by incoming WTA Chairman John O’Connell, HK’s Momentum 107, India Taxpayers, Korea Taxpayers Association, Taxpayers Association from Germany, Sweden, Finland, and many more.

I got curious about the tax rates for personal and corporate income, and sales tax — the major pocket-boring policies of many governments — so I searched the numbers, which are in the table. 

European countries are notorious for having very high rates in all three taxes. Australia has high Personal income tax (PIT) and Corporate income tax (CIT) but modest Value Added tax (VAT).

In Asia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan’s high PIT and CIT may be understandable because of their high level of development and industrialization. But India, Indonesia, and Philippines have high PIT and CIT yet they remain less developed.

Several countries and jurisdictions do not impose these taxes:

• Zero both PIT and CIT: Bahamas, Bahrain, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, United Arab Emirates

• Zero PIT: Brunei, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia

• Zero CIT:, Isle of Man, Maldives, Vanuatu

• Zero VAT or Gross sales tax (GST): HK, Oman, USA

ALS founder and President John Humphreys, and ATA Executive Director Tim Andrews, are very explicit about their organizations’ goals — less government regulations, taxes, size, and waste.

I met Joh for the first time at a Heartland Institute’s climate conference in Chicago in 2010, Tim in a WTA conference in Bangkok in 2017. Both are young, cool, dynamic, and frank. Aside from leading their dynamic organizations, they successfully put up that fantastic conference and really fun-filled networking cocktails, gala dinner, and harbor cruise for three nights.

The torch of the free market, less government movement is alive and fiery in Australia and other parts of the world. There is more hope for a world of more individual freedom, more personal responsibility, and less state nannyism.

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See also:  

BWorld 329, Jeju Forum and smart cities, May 22, 2019 

BWorld 330, Energy and elections: The Philippines and Australia, May 24, 2019 

BWorld 331, How governments expand, May 31, 2019

Energy 125, Falling world oil prices

Last year, June 02, 2018, I posted this in fb:

Rising US oil output, declining world oil prices despite OPEC-Russia production cut, Venezuela socialist flop and oil production cut. Do we hear people saying "thank you US/Trump for your pro-fossil fuels policy"? :-)

So WTI oil prices, end-May 2018 of $65.8 per barrel to end-May 2019 of only $56.6 (and down to $53.5 in June 01). US oil production, end-May 2018 of 10.8 million barrels per day (mbpd) to end-May 2019 of 12.3 mbpd. 

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WCRFPUS2&f=W.

OPEC-Russia collusion to have high world oil prices via joint oil output cut vs Trump/US plan to have lower world oil prices via higher US oil output. And Trump/US wins.

Projections of US oil production, average for: 2019, 12.45 mbpd;  2020, 13.38 mbpd. Story here,

EIA raises forecast for 2019, 2020 U.S. crude output growth

May 8, 2019

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-oil-eia-outlook/eia-raises-forecast-for-2019-2020-us-crude-output-growth-idUSKCN1SD22Q

Russia and Putin are unhappy/angry with low oil-gas prices (oil-gas-coal exports constitute about 48% of Russia total exports) while Trump is happy. That is why the 'Trump-is-Putin-puppet' aka 'Trump-Russia collusion' is a lousy-idiotic proposition at the onset.

We should have cheap energy. More energy production and competition is good. Energy collusion and price cut is bad. And by extension, high energy taxes, carbon taxes, other watermelon taxes and subsidies are wrong.

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See also:

Energy 122, TAPP roundtable on the power sector, April 07, 2019 

Energy 123, Gasoline prices in selected ASEAN, April 20, 2019 

Energy 124, US, Russia, Saudi oil production, May 03, 2019