Posts by Kim Browne
House Republicans Just Touched the Third Rail
The main vehicle for the House GOP’s Medicaid cuts is to require Medicaid recipients to get a job. That’s pretty ironic, because the program, as it was first implemented in 1966, required Medicaid recipients to be unemployed. Enrollment was almost entirely limited to people receiving Aid to Families With Dependent Children, the pre-1986 cash welfare…
Read MoreJamieson Webster’s Elegant Meditation on How We Breathe
Formally, the book is broken into short essays, each around 10 pages long or shorter. The structure reminded me of the sessions of a psychoanalytic treatment. Grouped under four themes—First Breath, Anxiety, Asphyxiation, and Last Words—the essays overlap in subject, and sometimes an observational thread from one essay will follow through to the next or…
Read MoreThe Obscure Legal Doctrine Guiding the Supreme Court Into Oblivion
The principle of constitutional avoidance isn’t innately absurd. The court has previously applied the principle in more parsimonious fashion to (arguably) less silly-seeming results. One example is Masterpiece Cakeshop in 2018, where a seven-person majority—including Alito and Gorsuch, with a Thomas concurrence—elected to avoid the complex constitutional issue of how the right to same-sex marriage…
Read MoreTrump Unravels in Crazed Rants to Media as Poll Reveals Fresh Weakness
President Trump’s presser on Wednesday flew off the rails. He raged at a reporter for questioning his acceptance of a luxury jet from Qatar, then kept on ranting about it. He snapped when asked why he’s resettling white Afrikaners but no other refugees. And he tried to humiliate the South African president by rambling about…
Read MoreLenovo reports 64% profit decline in fourth quarter
Published Thu, May 22, 2025 · 01:30 PM [BEIJING] China’s Lenovo, the world’s largest personal computer manufacturer, on Thursday reported a worse-than-expected 64 per cent fall in fourth-quarter profit, which it said was mostly due to a non-cash decline in the value of warrants. Lenovo reported revenue of US$16.98 billion for the quarter ended March…
Read MoreGoldman Sachs combines Asia investment banking units, names Drayton APAC head
Published Thu, May 22, 2025 · 01:23 PM [HONG KONG] Goldman Sachs is bringing together previously separately-managed three Asian investment banking businesses into one unit to integrate its regional deals advice and capital market capabilities, according to a memo reviewed by Reuters on Thursday. Iain Drayton, currently head of investment banking, Asia excluding Japan, at Goldman Sachs, will lead…
Read MoreUS accepts Qatar luxury jet as Trump’s new Air Force One
[WASHINGTON] The Defense Department formally accepted a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from Qatar to temporarily serve as the new Air Force One for US President Donald Trump, one of the biggest foreign gifts ever given to the US government. The move fulfils Trump’s desire for a new presidential aircraft, after years of delays in…
Read MoreJPMorgan is long-term in China despite pressure, Dimon says
[SHANGHAI] JPMorgan Chase chief executive officer Jamie Dimon said his firm is committed to long-term investments in China, despite tension between the governments of the world’s two biggest economies. “We’re a long term investor here,” he said in a Bloomberg TV interview at the lender’s Global China Summit in Shanghai. “Yes, there’s all these…
Read MoreJPMorgan sees broad-based recovery, more interest in China
[HONG KONG] JPMorgan Chase is seeing a broad-based recovery in China and growing interest from foreign investors seeking to diversify, as the global tariff regime drives portfolio shifts and fuels an expansion overseas by Chinese firms, according to Rita Chan, co-senior country officer for China. “The development in the last 12 months have definitely been…
Read MoreAsia: Equities track Wall Street sell-off as US deficit fears grow
[HONG KONG] Asian equities sank and Treasuries remained under pressure following sharp losses on Wall Street fuelled by US economy fears as Donald Trump tries to push through fresh tax cuts that could balloon the already huge deficit. A weak auction of 20-year US government debt flashed a warning sign that the bond market was…
Read MoreBank of Japan policymaker rules out intervention to stem bond yield spike
[TOKYO] Bank of Japan board member Asahi Noguchi said on Thursday (May 22) he saw no need for the central bank to intervene in the bond market to stem recent sharp rises in super-long yields, describing the moves as “rapid but not abnormal.” Noguchi, a former academic regarded as one of the central bank board’s…
Read MoreRinggit may gain most in South-east Asia on exporter conversion
[HONG KONG] Malaysia’s ringgit stands to gain the most among its South-east Asian peers if the nation’s exporters convert their overseas earnings to the local currency, thanks to the nation’s outsized foreign-currency deposits. Such deposits in Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia combined have jumped to US$62.2 billion as at March, close to a record…
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