EconAir

  INTRODUCTION   The English East India Company (EIC) might be a model for how a multinational corporation could survive and prosper in an increasingly chaotic and hostile geopolitical world.   HISTORIC BACKGROUND   The East India Company (EIC) was chartered in 1600 by Queen Elizabeth I to promote and monopolize English trade with Asia. England, a poor country in the 1600s but with colonial ambitions after defeating the Spanish Armada in 1588, outsourced its colonial ambitions to the EIC and other private companies.    The East India Company was privately funded by 218 merchants and other investors. It was the first modern multinational corporation. The EIC was a joint stock company, that is, a company with publicly traded stock bought and sold in a secondary stock market.  Like modern companies, the EIC issued financial reports, held annual meetings for stockholders, and had quarterly meetings of the Board of Directors.    The EIC was v...

President Trump Might Washington, like Rome, fall victim to imperial overstretch? Could military force abroad eventually have to be withdrawn because of bankruptcy at home? Might the whole idea of America eventually be challenged and destroyed by some charismatic new faith: some fundamentalist variant on Christianity? Or will nature disrupt America’s new world order? Robert Harris, "Does Rome's fate await the US?," The Mail on Sunday , October 12, 2003 (1) INTRODUCTION:  FOREIGN POLICY AND DOMESTIC POLITICS This post will discuss American foreign policy, with an emphasis on economic aspects. It will focus on the structure of America's trade treaties and policies, and the interaction of America's foreign economic policies and domestic politics. The companion post,  "Pax Americana": The World That America Made , the will discuss America's projection of global power and influence through military power, security arra...