8/1/2019
In my quest to find out about your meeting with Mongolian President Battulga Khaltmaayesterday, all that came up was that you revealed the name of Barron's horse (Victory) and that you talked about cashmere. I was surprised that you didn't talk about coal, copper and gold as those make up 75% of Mongolia's exports. We might need some of that copper and gold sometime soon so you might want to figure out how we'd get it through China or Russia and onto a ship. According to Mining.com, demand for copper will soon outstrip supply "driven by China’s power and infrastructure sectors and increasing electric vehicle production" so the Chinese might put a big tariff on copper coming through their territory. I encourage you to take a look at the OEC website that reports on exports and imports with great graphics and some fancy measures, the best of which is the "economic complexity index," too complicated to explain here. Suffice it to say that Mongolia's is the 93rd most complex economy in the world. Good to know!
I encourage you to take a look at the article in today's NYT about the closing of the Warroad Pioneer, the newspaper that has been serving a corner of northern MN for the last 121 years. The owner says that the “dire retail reconfiguration and exodus has had a catastrophic impact on this community newspaper.” Maybe you can do something about this. Andrew Yang alluded to this kind of thing in the debate last night when he talked about the fact that the economy is changing due to automation. In case you missed it, he said "the most common jobs in America may not exist in a decade, or that most Americans cannot pay their bills." He wants to solve the problem by paying everyone $1000 a month. What a radical idea! I haven't wrapped my head around it, have you?
So much to fathom and so little time.
I hope you enjoy your visit to Cincinnati today. Please be your best self at your rally. Remember, if you can't say something nice, don't say it at all.
Best,
RCA
