Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Samsung has in recent days cancelled $2.11 billion of its shares. In its own native currency, that of the Republic of Korea (the won) that number of 3.05 trillion.  This follows up on earlier buy-backs of those shares of course.  You have to own them before you can cancel them.  Significance of this move?  Like the initial buy-back, the point of a share cancellation is to support the price. The price needs the support largely because of the Trump administration's tariff policy.  Samsung is a Korean company with indispensable business ties both in the US and in the PRC. A trade war between those two counties is a nightmare for its managers and shareholders.   Consider this post just a random bit of flotsam from the stream of recent news. 

The Trump administration is forfeiting a great US asset. The US has long been at the center of world trade, and the US dollar has become the currency-of-currencies, the numeraire.  That fact has worked in our national favor in countless ways. Now, some of my readers might say that it is "about time the US lose this privileged position." But of course the Trumpets won't say that. They're the "America First" administration after all. Yet their actions will remove American firstness in one very important respect. How? Well, one object of Chinese policy for a long time has been to rebuild the famed "Silk Road," the trade route leading from China through the Middle East, to Ottoman lands and northeastern Africa. Marco Polo tapped into it when he wasn't too busy inventing swimming pool games. China wants to revive that route, and wants it emphatically to include all of Europe this time, not just for an occasional traveler, and ideally it woul...