An economics, investment, trading and policy blog with a focus on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). We seek the truth, avoid the mainstream and are virulently anti-neoliberalism.
Pages
▼
Pages
▼
Friday, December 11, 2020
China Completes its Beidou Satellite Navigation Network — Ulson Gunnar
Pouring more cement for China's great power status.
A few selected paragraphs from an article by Fred Reed, who blogs at "The Unz Review":
The future? An asleep thought (I presume this is the opposite of “woke”): demographics is destiny. America draws its scientists and engineers from roughly 200,000,000 STEM-capable whites. Blacks and Latinos contribute, if not negligibly, then almost so. China depends on a billion STEM-capable Han Chinese. These are the people who dominate America’s elite technical high schools and universities. Thus, it can potentially put five times as many scientists and engineers to work on tech work. As America’s schools deteriorate under the assault of social-justice warriors, China expands its already-rigorous schooling. Add that psychometricians put the East Asian IQ about five points higher than that of Eurowhites. Thus, many more and somewhat smarter STEM people from demanding universities against fewer and less intelligent from inferior schools. Then add stable, focused government versus rule by chaos. Arguably, massive Chinese technological superiority might seem likely.
Increasingly America does not compete with China, but strongarms it because it cannot compete. For example, in Five G China is ahead in technology, manufacturing capacity, and turnkey systems. Unable to produce an equivalent product, Washington banned Huawei Five G in the US and has twisted arms to keep countries that it controls from using Huawei. Seeing that Huawei had very attractive smartphones that would have competed with Apple, it banned these also. What America can’t do, it seeks to keep anybody else from doing.
America invented the microcircuit, and once dominated its manufacture. Today, American companies cannot make the seven nanometer chips now used in high-end telephones, and certainly not the five nanometer chips now coming online. Neither can China. Both countries buy them from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, TSMC, Interestingly, the Taiwanese are genetically and culturally Chinese. Washington has strongarmed TSMC into ceasing to sell to Huawei—the US still can’t make high end chips. Recently it strongarmed TSMC into agreeing to build a semiconductor fab in Arizona. Because America can’t.
Then there is TikTok, a hugely popular Chinese video app that threatened to break America’s lock on social media. Unable to compete, Washington decided simply to confiscate it on grounds that it might be used to spy on Americans. (Chinese intelligence is deeply interested in your daughter’s video of her cat.)
What is not mentioned in the above is Russia. Russia has escellent STEM education and although it has only a third the population of the US it turns out as many STEM grads a year.
Couple that with a Sino-Russian "strategic alliance" and the US and combined allies have a formidable competitor coming online.
Eventually, the Asian allies of the West will switch affiliation, too, as they see more in it for them, you know, win-win instead of kowtow to the Empire "or else."
The West is no longer solidly in the US camp either. The US making an especially big mistake sanctioning allies like Germany over Nordstream 2 and twisting arms over Huawei. And European business knows it is over for them if they get shut out of China and Russia, since the US won't save them.
The big danger now is that the window for potentially defeating Russia and China militarily is closing fast (it's probably closed already) and the Western hardliners are thinking it's now or never to go for it.
Americas schools aren’t deteriorating under assault of SJWs they are being neglected and it’s not benign neglect either, it’s intentional. Blaming people who are insisting that their educational institutions live up to an ideal of equal public education for all children is ignorant. Expecting your child to be able to go to school and not be harassed or bullied is something any decent parent would expect. The learning process can’t even begin if the proper social environment for learning isn’t present.
The reason more white kids excel in STEM is due to the fact that most white kids attend a school which is properly funded .....PERIOD. Americas race problem, since it’s inception, has been the toxin that has deteriorated our society to its current point. Btw STEM Education won’t save you if you use that education to design bigger and better killing machines or apps to share your dog dancing videos. All education needs to be applied to something useful to be useful.
The Chinese need to change their writing system -- just like the Greeks did 3000 years ago when they had the brilliant idea to drop their syllabic script and adopt the new and improved you know what.
When the Chinese get around to that, then let's talk about "cement" ;)
Actually, they already did that, as did the Japanese. That is to say, they greatly simplified the writing system from the ancient system, which was highly developed in both cases, tens of thousand of characters.
The Japanese use 1800 characters in newspapers, which are the standard for modern Japanese. The Chinese have followed suit in limiting the standard character set.
I recall asking some native Chinese students about a translation of the Tao Te Ching I had with English and Chinese facing pages. Their answer was, we don't know, we don't read ancient characters — you need to talk to professor so and so (an American) who studied that at Harvard.
One can argue that Chinese is difficult to learn but so it English in comparison to say Spanish, where pronunciation conforms exactly to the letters of the alphabet. English is a hodgepodge by comparison.
The big difference between China and India is that China has a shared language and India does not. There are many languages, based on some combination usually of Sanskrit and Arabic or Farsi (Persian). English is used primarily by the educated but much of the population is not fluent in English.
Interestingly, language tend to become simplified over time, for example, inflection is dropped in favor adding extra words like prepositions and dropping inflections. Greek is more inflected than Latin and the romance languages based on them are uninflected. Sanskrit is highly inflected while Hindi and Marathi are not.
Linguists have not yet accounted for this well-established historical trend. One would think that complexity would increase rather than simplicity. Why the original languages were much more complex than language that developed from them later is a mystery of history.
They aren’t spending that money on students they are spending it on administrators. Schools there still lack heating in many cases... what a joke. Note that I said PROPERLY funded. Regurgitating per capita spending is like regurgitating average incomes..... meaningless.
That’s what is to be expected of you though Frankie boy
The Danish model is best, as it covers both tuition and a living stipend. Tuition by itself is not enough.
All education in Denmark ranging from primary school, the Danish equivalent of high school gymnasiums as well as Universities and all other officially recognised forms of higher education are completely free of charge.
As for living expenses:
Not only are students charged no tuition fees, but all Danish citizens (and many others meeting certain criteria) are offered monthly financial aid, known as "SU" (Statens Uddannelsesstøtte, meaning State Educational Support), amounting for each student to about DKK 950 monthly if the student lives with his/her parents or guardians, and they have high incomes, and about DKK 5,486 monthly if the student lives away from his/her parents or guardians. Students can supplement the SU with low-interest government loans amounting to DKK 2,807 per month, which must be paid back upon the completion of their education.
More details on the SU:
When a student starts at a university or another kind of higher education institution, they are entitled to SU for a maximum of 72 months. As most university education (with the exception of medicine) takes five years in Denmark, it allows the student to take one year more on their studies than stipulated, or to change their major during their first year without economic consequences.
Equality of opportunity, which moves society to closer to a meritocracy.
They aren’t spending that money on students they are spending it on administrators. Greg
Just think of it as a Job Guarantee. /sarc
Which brings up the following points:
Any job is a PRIVILEGE, not a right. That follows from freedom of association in the case of the private sector. Now an equal Citizen's Dividend and some land to live, work and grow food on, those, per the Bible, should be considered RIGHTS. But working for someone else is a PRIVILEGE, not a right.
This applies even more to government jobs where only the absolutely best qualified people should be hired and well compensated too as long as they perform well and given the boot when they cease to do so.
The ancients knew this and when they conquered a country they kidnapped the brightest children and educated them to be government officials (c.f. Book of Daniel) and no doubt they had the very best teachers too.
So screw the notion that everyone has a right to a job. They have a right to an equal Citizen's Dividend and a roughly equal plot of land to live, work and work on and free education and training to the extent they qualify for it but government jobs should be reserved for the best and the private sector free to pick and choose from the also-rans.
A few selected paragraphs from an article by Fred Reed, who blogs at "The Unz Review":
ReplyDeleteThe future? An asleep thought (I presume this is the opposite of “woke”): demographics is destiny. America draws its scientists and engineers from roughly 200,000,000 STEM-capable whites. Blacks and Latinos contribute, if not negligibly, then almost so. China depends on a billion STEM-capable Han Chinese. These are the people who dominate America’s elite technical high schools and universities. Thus, it can potentially put five times as many scientists and engineers to work on tech work. As America’s schools deteriorate under the assault of social-justice warriors, China expands its already-rigorous schooling. Add that psychometricians put the East Asian IQ about five points higher than that of Eurowhites. Thus, many more and somewhat smarter STEM people from demanding universities against fewer and less intelligent from inferior schools. Then add stable, focused government versus rule by chaos. Arguably, massive Chinese technological superiority might seem likely.
Increasingly America does not compete with China, but strongarms it because it cannot compete. For example, in Five G China is ahead in technology, manufacturing capacity, and turnkey systems. Unable to produce an equivalent product, Washington banned Huawei Five G in the US and has twisted arms to keep countries that it controls from using Huawei. Seeing that Huawei had very attractive smartphones that would have competed with Apple, it banned these also. What America can’t do, it seeks to keep anybody else from doing.
America invented the microcircuit, and once dominated its manufacture. Today, American companies cannot make the seven nanometer chips now used in high-end telephones, and certainly not the five nanometer chips now coming online. Neither can China. Both countries buy them from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, TSMC, Interestingly, the Taiwanese are genetically and culturally Chinese. Washington has strongarmed TSMC into ceasing to sell to Huawei—the US still can’t make high end chips. Recently it strongarmed TSMC into agreeing to build a semiconductor fab in Arizona. Because America can’t.
Then there is TikTok, a hugely popular Chinese video app that threatened to break America’s lock on social media. Unable to compete, Washington decided simply to confiscate it on grounds that it might be used to spy on Americans. (Chinese intelligence is deeply interested in your daughter’s video of her cat.)
What is not mentioned in the above is Russia. Russia has escellent STEM education and although it has only a third the population of the US it turns out as many STEM grads a year.
ReplyDeleteCouple that with a Sino-Russian "strategic alliance" and the US and combined allies have a formidable competitor coming online.
Eventually, the Asian allies of the West will switch affiliation, too, as they see more in it for them, you know, win-win instead of kowtow to the Empire "or else."
The West is no longer solidly in the US camp either. The US making an especially big mistake sanctioning allies like Germany over Nordstream 2 and twisting arms over Huawei. And European business knows it is over for them if they get shut out of China and Russia, since the US won't save them.
The big danger now is that the window for potentially defeating Russia and China militarily is closing fast (it's probably closed already) and the Western hardliners are thinking it's now or never to go for it.
Tom,
ReplyDeleteIn retrospect, I should have posted the title of the article also as it was specific to China. Here it is (a little humor in the title).
China: A Cold Shower - (It’s only a lump. It will probably go away.)
Ahmed
ReplyDeleteAmericas schools aren’t deteriorating under assault of SJWs they are being neglected and it’s not benign neglect either, it’s intentional. Blaming people who are insisting that their educational institutions live up to an ideal of equal public education for all children is ignorant. Expecting your child to be able to go to school and not be harassed or bullied is something any decent parent would expect. The learning process can’t even begin if the proper social environment for learning isn’t present.
The reason more white kids excel in STEM is due to the fact that most white kids attend a school which is properly funded .....PERIOD. Americas race problem, since it’s inception, has been the toxin that has deteriorated our society to its current point.
Btw STEM Education won’t save you if you use that education to design bigger and better killing machines or apps to share your dog dancing videos. All education needs to be applied to something useful to be useful.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe Chinese need to change their writing system -- just like the Greeks did 3000 years ago when they had the brilliant idea to drop their syllabic script and adopt the new and improved you know what.
ReplyDeleteWhen the Chinese get around to that, then let's talk about "cement" ;)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Greek_alphabet
PS: I can tell that Ahmed is a prolific reader ;)
The Chinese need to change their writing system
ReplyDeleteActually, they already did that, as did the Japanese. That is to say, they greatly simplified the writing system from the ancient system, which was highly developed in both cases, tens of thousand of characters.
The Japanese use 1800 characters in newspapers, which are the standard for modern Japanese. The Chinese have followed suit in limiting the standard character set.
I recall asking some native Chinese students about a translation of the Tao Te Ching I had with English and Chinese facing pages. Their answer was, we don't know, we don't read ancient characters — you need to talk to professor so and so (an American) who studied that at Harvard.
One can argue that Chinese is difficult to learn but so it English in comparison to say Spanish, where pronunciation conforms exactly to the letters of the alphabet. English is a hodgepodge by comparison.
The big difference between China and India is that China has a shared language and India does not. There are many languages, based on some combination usually of Sanskrit and Arabic or Farsi (Persian). English is used primarily by the educated but much of the population is not fluent in English.
Interestingly, language tend to become simplified over time, for example, inflection is dropped in favor adding extra words like prepositions and dropping inflections. Greek is more inflected than Latin and the romance languages based on them are uninflected. Sanskrit is highly inflected while Hindi and Marathi are not.
Linguists have not yet accounted for this well-established historical trend. One would think that complexity would increase rather than simplicity. Why the original languages were much more complex than language that developed from them later is a mystery of history.
“The reason more white kids excel in STEM is due to the fact that most white kids attend a school which is properly funded“
ReplyDeleteBS...
The minority districts have the highest expenditures and the lowest scores...
https://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/13-baltimore-city-high-schools-zero-students-proficient-in-math
ReplyDeletehttps://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/news/2019/05/21/baltimore-city-third-in-u-s-for-per-pupil-spending.amp.html
ReplyDeleteThey aren’t spending that money on students they are spending it on administrators. Schools there still lack heating in many cases... what a joke. Note that I said PROPERLY funded. Regurgitating per capita spending is like regurgitating average incomes..... meaningless.
ReplyDeleteThat’s what is to be expected of you though Frankie boy
The Danish model is best, as it covers both tuition and a living stipend. Tuition by itself is not enough.
ReplyDeleteAll education in Denmark ranging from primary school, the Danish equivalent of high school gymnasiums as well as Universities and all other officially recognised forms of higher education are completely free of charge.
As for living expenses:
Not only are students charged no tuition fees, but all Danish citizens (and many others meeting certain criteria) are offered monthly financial aid, known as "SU" (Statens Uddannelsesstøtte, meaning State Educational Support), amounting for each student to about DKK 950 monthly if the student lives with his/her parents or guardians, and they have high incomes, and about DKK 5,486 monthly if the student lives away from his/her parents or guardians. Students can supplement the SU with low-interest government loans amounting to DKK 2,807 per month, which must be paid back upon the completion of their education.
More details on the SU:
When a student starts at a university or another kind of higher education institution, they are entitled to SU for a maximum of 72 months. As most university education (with the exception of medicine) takes five years in Denmark, it allows the student to take one year more on their studies than stipulated, or to change their major during their first year without economic consequences.
Equality of opportunity, which moves society to closer to a meritocracy.
Education in Denmark
“ They aren’t spending that money on students they are spending it on administrators”
ReplyDeleteYou’re making my point again...
They aren’t spending that money on students they are spending it on administrators. Greg
ReplyDeleteJust think of it as a Job Guarantee. /sarc
Which brings up the following points:
Any job is a PRIVILEGE, not a right. That follows from freedom of association in the case of the private sector. Now an equal Citizen's Dividend and some land to live, work and grow food on, those, per the Bible, should be considered RIGHTS. But working for someone else is a PRIVILEGE, not a right.
This applies even more to government jobs where only the absolutely best qualified people should be hired and well compensated too as long as they perform well and given the boot when they cease to do so.
The ancients knew this and when they conquered a country they kidnapped the brightest children and educated them to be government officials (c.f. Book of Daniel) and no doubt they had the very best teachers too.
So screw the notion that everyone has a right to a job. They have a right to an equal Citizen's Dividend and a roughly equal plot of land to live, work and work on and free education and training to the extent they qualify for it but government jobs should be reserved for the best and the private sector free to pick and choose from the also-rans.
“Just think of it as a Job Guarantee. /sarc”
ReplyDeleteIt kind of is I dont think you need the /sarc....
It effectively is.,, just an expansion of the public sector...