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Global stock-markets are in a crashing frenzy over the economic ‘slow down’ in China. Yet China optimists would say that there’s an overreaction and that China is reshaping to a consumer society.

Perhaps the ‘new’ China of rampant consumerism was on raw display in the wildly popular Chinese TV dating show If you are the one. With 36 million regular viewers, one young female contestant disclosed her ‘love’ match criteria with the words ‘I would rather cry in a BMW than laugh on the back of a bicycle.’  Her comment made her an overnight celebrity. More...

The stock market gyrations of the last week-or-so were somewhat crazy. From a panic crash to creeping back to ‘normal’? It all seemed to relate to speculation about China.

The follow-up analysis is as up-and-down as was the stock market. The blog ‘Peak Prosperity’ is VERY pessimistic about China, saying China’s debt is now 300 per cent of GDP and in Spanish/Greek territory. And there’s an even more pessimistic assessment saying that China’s economic data is unreliable.  More...

The Australian union movement has this week been debating its future. It’s worried. Its membership in the private sector is plunging below 14 per cent of the workforce (less than 17 per cent overall). It’s frantic that new disruptive technologies such as Uber, job networking, crowd-sourced funding and more will create an explosion in self-employment. It is horrified that people will become their own bosses!  More...

 I’ve just spent this last week at a global small business conference in Macau.  Attendance was largely from the Asian region with a smattering of others from across the globe. Although the conference was about small business issues, discussion took place within the context of understanding the broader economic environment. There was a range of impressive presentations, mostly from Asia-based speakers to a packed auditorium. More...

During October I undertook the first phase launch of ICA’s Global Entrepreneurs Enabler Index in Washington DC. This week the second phase of the launch was conducted at the International Small Business Pan Asia Congress 2013 held in Macau.

I can report that the GEEIndex was received with significant interest! I’m hoping ICA can make a contribution to Asia’s avoiding many of the bad small business policies that have been so common through Western countries over the last few decades. More...

It’s Japan that should make everyone worry.

On this analysis Japan is facing an inevitable economic meltdown. Japan’s economy is one big Ponzi scheme. More...