Sitting at a Formica table in the tiny kitchen, my seven-year-old hands eagerly tore open the corn flakes box looking for the treasure inside it. And we pulled out what was to us the equivalent of pure gold—a 3-D Willie Mays baseball card. We couldn’t believe it—Willie Mays was our first baseball love and even at that tender age we were jaded enough to assume there’d be a Jim Lonborg or Bill Singer card in the cereal box, but we didn’t dare to believe Willie—the greatest baseball player of all time—would become our prized possession. But there he was staring at us—in 3-D!!!—held tightly in our little hands. Our memory is that the first biography we ever read was of Willie. So we knew his story and yet he was—still is in someways—a mythical figure to us. He translated easily to a child’s mind, including the stories of his playing stickball in the streets of New York—a city we visited every summer to stay with our grandparents—before he came out to the West Coast, something our family did too, though in our case to Bellingham not San Francisco.
Our love for Willie Mays, our appreciation of his greatness was not matched until Ken Griffey Jr.’s rookie season while we watched in Yankee Stadium’s center field bleachers the Mariners playing the Pinstripes. That day the bleacher bums give Griffey the business. It was then we realized how special Griffey was and would be. For New Yorkers wouldn’t yell so creatively at just anyone, they were paying their respects. So it makes sense that upon Mays death Griffey wrote, “…to me, he’ll always be the Godfather of all center fielders.” RIP to the Godfather, the greatest of all time. And we throw out catastrophic thinking, make a basket catch of where the wealthy are leaving and bat at China’s escalation in the South China Sea. It’s this week’s International Need to Know, like the Summer Solstice, shining into the night on international information and data.
We’ll be sizzling in the summer heat next week. But back in July.
Without further ado, here’s what you need to know.
Catastrophic Thinking
We’ve noticed that weather forecasters and news providers continue to create new monikers to make events sound worse than they are and thus attract more eyeballs and bring in more revenue. So instead of a heat wave we now get the ominous sounding “heat domes” or instead of heavy rains or even torrential downpours we are now subject to “atmospheric rivers.” Related, ask your average person and they are likely to say there are more natural disasters today than when they were younger. But it’s not necessarily true as the invaluable Hannah Ritchie (whose book Not The End of the World we’re currently enjoying) notes in Our World in Data. What’s happening is with greater communications and more people measuring, more disasters are being counted. But, “If you look at data from 2000 onwards, there is no clear increase in the number of global disasters.” This does not mean the intensity of disasters is not greater, say, for example, from the effects of climate change. But there is no clear data showing an increase in disasters. You’re just exposed to more news about them due to more communications. It is time to update what we mean by “news.” Old usages are skewing what is actually happening. Now that’s news.
Latest on Where The Wealthy Roam
As always, we follow the money. Which means this week we read the latest Wealth Migration Report from Henley and Partners which tracks where the wealthy are moving to and from. China again leads in projected net outflows of millionaires in 2024. For all the talk of China surpassing the U.S. in scientific prowess, exports and other areas, this is the true test—where do people want to live. Well, rich people (and poor–Ecuador cut off visa access to Chinese immigrants who then flow up to the Mexico border to try to enter the U.S.) are leaving China in far greater numbers than from the U.S. But look at number two on the list: the U.K. I’d hate to be an incumbent running for election there. India is third but at least the number of wealthy Indians leaving are fewer than in previous years (4300 compared to 5100 last year). South Korea is number four which coupled with its bad demographics, makes one worry for its future despite its amazing economic gains. And, of course, Russia, a death cult masquerading as a country is in fifth. It’s worrisome that Vietnam is now in tenth place. The good news is Vietnam is minting more and more wealthy, the bad news is they increasingly don’t want to stay there as its government is conducting a Xi Jinping-light crackdown on society. Nguyen Phu Trong may want to look at who is number one on the list and reassess some of his recent actions. Next week we’ll examine to where the rich are moving.
China Corner: China Escalates in the Shoals
For nearly a year we’ve been warning and pointing out the potential water firebomb happening at shoals inside the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone. Nearly 1000 miles from its borders, China claims it as its own territory and has been ever more aggressively staking that claim. This week China intercepted and repelled two Philippine resupply ships to the shoals. According to Palawan News, “Filipino naval personnel, a member of the Naval Special Operations Group (NAVSOG), was injured during the confrontation, losing one of his fingers. Several others were also wounded.” As always, we remind that the U.S. and Philippines have a mutual defense pact which requires the U.S. to defend the Philippines against armed attacks. Perhaps the U.S. government will find a way to say this was not an armed attack though a nine-fingered Filipino may disagree. But amidst all the other news in the world, pay special attention to this one, which has the potential for as much danger to the world as any.
