Why should we care about whom the US elects as president? It is an internal US affair, and the American electorate is free to choose whoever they want. There is however a cacth. As the US possesses an enormous world-wide military power and dominates the international financial system, it affects all us non-Americans how they are going to use their power. In this sense, both candidates are absolutely unappetizing. Even so, for some countries it may matter who wins: Cuba, Iran, Yemen and Russia. For these four countries Biden may be the better outcome. And for some global issues also: first of all nuclear arms control and climate change.

The automotive industry is on the brink of a major upheaval due to the arrival of electric vehicles. Not only cars, also delivery vans, trucks, buses – you name it. After the automotive industry tried to pretend for years that nothing serious was going on, it is now increasingly clear that change is unavoidable, and may come much faster than many think. There is presently a lot of arguing and sweating in the board rooms. Some will take right decisions, some will take wrong. Some well-known car companies may survive and prosper – others may disappear ingloriously in the coming years. But change will come.

Thursday, 21 February 2019 23:31

Electric cars are too expensive

Electric vehicles are presently ridiculously expensive. Could be the cost of the battery, couldn’t it? That is only part of the explanation. The other is scale: the production volume is too low to secure economies of scale. And to this comes a lack of competition: existing car producers are not really interested in selling quantities, as they will cannibalize their own profitable traditional car business. The answer is regulation and more competition. Not more subsidies.

We have just seen a flurry of new reports on Climate Change, and they are not funny reading. Before we fall into gloom and accept that the end is nigh, the good news is that with what we already know and the instruments we have at hand, it is absolutely within our reach to avoid the worst climate change scenarios, and the cost is absolutely not scaring. But it needs bold and determined policies and willingness to take risks. The lack of capacity for this is the biggest risk we are facing.

Mention Bolivia, and for the last decade it has been difficult not to mention Evo too. Evo Morales was elected as president for the first time in 2005 with 54% of the votes, and he can now celebrate 10 years as president. An absolute outsider, brought forward by social movements of mainly indigenous farmers, workers and small traders, with a tough anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist discourse, he horrified the traditional economic and political elite and the “international community” alike. His government has lived through conflicts and crisis, bordering to civil war, but at the same time it has brought a decade of economic prosperity, dramatic reduction of poverty and a revaluation of the country's indigenous ethnic and cultural roots.