danniliu's blog

It is fascinating to read Prof. Mankiw’s opinion on an IMF study suggesting that debt-financed infrastructure spending is good for IMF in the long run. Prof Mankiw believes that it is too naive to think that this will work out although it is theoretically possible. I think Prof. Mankiw is a bit too harsh on IMF there. The fact is without improvement in infrastructure, it is hardly possible for a poor country to grow its economy and improve its people’s lives. In many developing countries, infrastructure is one of the main…read more

Kelly made a very good observation about the relationship between companies and the First Nations. If a company tries to use native people’s land to do business, it should definitely pay attention to what those local people will think. Although some people, especially business people, are fed up by the news that First Nations dispute over land issues, I think Canada should be really thankful to them. If they all like all other capitalists who simply want to make profits and care nothing about the environment, we should be the…read more

              It is interesting to read Mengjie Wang’s comment on the relationship between Daimler and Tesla. As far as I know, Tesla made profits for the first time in 2013. Normally, a partner company would be happy to hold on to the share instead of selling it. Thus, I found Wang’s suggestion that Tesla has become Daimler’s competitor instead of cooperator can explain at least partly Daimler’s action. I guess another possible reason is that Tesla would like to have more control of their…read more

                                                     After Apple CEO Tim Cook’s announcement last week that he is gay, Russia declares they will ban retailers from selling the Apple iPhone and iPad devices starting from January,2015. Notably, this ban includes the latest iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.  There is a rumour that this restriction is the result of Russia’s outlawing homosexuality.  Russia passed the LGBT propaganda law on June 11, 2013 which is supposed to protect children from information advocating for a denial of traditional family values….read more

Have you ever thought about using Twitter to advertise your business? Recently, a family-owned Turkish restaurant in the gentrifying East London attracts lots of people. What first drew those people, though, wasn’t the food. It was the commentary on the restaurant’s Twitter feed. The restaurant’s uniqueness impressed many customers.                           This is just one successful case of using Twitter. The truth is small businesses, such as florists, pubs and restaurants can all make good use of the free and popular…read more

Marriott, a popular hotel, recently disabled personal hotspots intentionally while charging its customers high fees to use the hotel’s own Wi-Fi network at the same time. This behaviour is really short-sighted: the hotel basically forced the customers to pay twice for the same service, and in the end, it had to pay a large amount of fine. What is worse, its reputation was totally destroyed, and one can imagine the long term profit will be negatively affected since not many customers will want to stay in Marriott in the future…read more

               vs.           If a mining company tries to mine in or near  the First Nations territory, there is  always a danger that the First Nation will try to sabotage it. This is happening to Taseko Mines Ltd. which is planning to mine copper and gold at Fish Lake. Tsilhqot is set to declare a vast chunk of Chilcotin as a tribal park, covering the company’s Fish Lake site.  If the native tribe wins the claim, the mining company will not…read more

There is a rumour that Tesla is going to add automated driving or driving assist system in the Model S which is a luxury sedan. Actually before there were some automakers already started to develop this technology, such as Volkswagon and Mecedes-Benz. This new technology is basically to install a radar and a camera in front of a vehicle to detect all the obstacle. Furthermore, this allows car to park themselves and automatically maintain a safe distance from the car in front of. I believe this is a future tendency…read more