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BLINDED BY THE LIGHT – Official International Trailer
Without further ado, here’s what you need to know.
China’s Messy Apartment
Many years ago when we first moved into our own place sans roommates for the first time, we discovered something. It wasn’t just our roommates who forgot to take out the garbage, wipe down the kitchen counters or clean up after themselves. It was us. We were the guilty party!—at least in part. We thought of this listening to people blame China’s slowing economy on the trade war. As we have noted before, China is not returning to high single digit/double digit GDP growth, and this is mainly due to demographic trends. China’s working age population has already peaked and will fall by 100 million people over the next 20 years. That’s a large reason for China’s slowing GDP the last five years. But even in the last year, it is unlikely the trade war is causing the current slow down. U.S. trade has not fallen overall, it’s just shifted some out of China. On the other hand, China’s overall trade has fallen. In looking at China’s economic condition, the one current driver increasing is investment in the real estate sector. As you see in the graph below, investments in infrastructure and equipment are way down. China’s economy is slowing but it’s not due to the trade war. And also remember, absent catastrophe, even a slower growing China is still hugely important. That’s the other mistake people make. Yes, China won’t be growing as fast but they will still be hugely important in the world.
Eyes On Our Prize
You ever get the feeling someone is watching you? Well, nowadays, they probably are thanks to surveillance technology. Comparitech recently set out to determine which are the most surveilled cities in the world. They did this by “collating a number of data resources and reports, including government reports and police websites, to get some idea of the number of CCTV cameras in use in 120 major cities across the globe.” Comparitech focused “primarily on public CCTV—cameras used by government entities such as law enforcement.” So what did they find? Not surprisingly, eight out of the 10 most surveilled cities in the world are in China with Chongqing, Shenzhen and Shanghai ranked first, second and third. You’ll guess one of the only two non-Chinese cities in the top ten: London. But, I bet you had no idea Atlanta is the 10th-most surveilled city in the world. Interestingly for those that somehow think surveillance and giving up our privacy and rights makes us safer, Comparitech found “little correlation between the number of public CCTV cameras and crime or safety.
The World’s Top Scrabble Country
We’ve probably played Scrabble only twice in our lives. So when we picture Scrabble players in our mind we see older women librarians’ friendly faces furrowed in concentration. Like most pre-conceived notions, ours is utterly wrong as we learned this week when reading that Nigeria is the Scrabble capital of the world. “The country is top-ranked in the world.” They are Scrabble mad in Nigeria and not just the librarians as this description of a recent tournament in Lagos testifies, “At one table sat Wellington Jighere, the 2015 World English Language Scrabble Players Association Champion, known for his quiet demeanor, fedoras, and Cheshire cat–like grin. At another, Olawale Fashina, nicknamed the Champion of Ten Continents, who won the African title, the Nigerian title, and the British title in the span of seven years — a rarity in the game — prepared to play. Bukunmi Afolayan, a Scrabble coach for Ogun state and one of the best female players in the league, sat nearby. Then there was Enoch Nwali, a university student studying human kinetics and health education, who at 22 is the youngest Nigerian in the masters category.” Our stereotypes of Scrabble players is matched by most people’s errant stereotypes of Africa in general, where a lot more is happening than people realize.
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admin2019-08-22 11:00:292019-08-28 22:48:41China’s Messy Apartment, Eyes on Prize, and Top Scrabble CountryIt’s easy to despair nowadays given the state of the world. We nearly succumbed to it ourselves at a baseball game over the weekend and not just because our team lost yet again…and again…and again. It was also because we felt an era ending with the celebrations of Edgar Martinez over and because we were bombarded by a seemingly endless stream of bad news on our phone between innings. Protesters violently attacked for speaking up for their inalienable rights in Hong Kong. The President of the disunited states employing an accent to mock Japanese and Korean allies. Our cruel and unusual prison system allowing yet another inmate to commit suicide. A nuclear weapons accident in Russia. And a rogues gallery of other flotsam catastrophes and jetsam disasters floating all over our earth. So yes, despair is easy, but then as we walked out of the baseball stadium we saw…well, you can see it for yourself below. And we dare you to frown and fret while doing so. So as you smile, we stand up for Hong Kongers, admire the world’s support for refugees and examine Ethiopia’s challenges. It’s this week’s International Need to Know, together since 2016.
Without further ado, here’s what you need to know.
Chimes of Freedom
Generally we try not to write about what is currently in the headlines but rather on what should be or sometime in the future will come to be. But the protesters of Hong Kong deserve our attention. It has become almost fashionable in recent years to disparage democracy and freedom, almost always by those who have it and are not at risk of losing it. Hong Kongers know better. They fight not just for their own liberty but are indeed on the front lines of the battle against authoritarianism. As we wrote last week, China is many things, like any complicated entity: some good, some indifferent, but make no mistake, some bad. China continues to reeducate torture millions of Uighurs. The government sows seeds of censorship and propaganda across China’s fire-walled Internet that bloom like an invasive species. And, in Hong Kong, China now invokes the term “terrorism” while bloodying and blinding protesters who seek what billions have sought through the ages—freedom and liberty. America has never lived up to its ideals. But the idea it wrought painfully onto this planet is one still worth fighting for. Hong Kongers will not live up to their ideals either should, against all odds, they succeed in their protests. But they damn well deserve the right to fail.
Hong Kong protesters sing Les Miserables’ ‘Do you hear the people sing?’
Unarmed Road of Flight
As of late, the chimes of freedom have not flashed for Bob Dylan’s refugees on the unarmed road of flight either in the United States or around the world. Which is strange because among broader populations—if not specific politicians—refugees generally elicit much sympathy and support. In a Pew Global survey,71 percent of respondents worldwide support accepting refugees into their country. Refugees are defined by Pew in the survey as people “fleeing violence and war.” Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and Japan are most supportive with more than 80 percent of their populations in favor of taking in more refugees. Only a few countries had minority support for taking in refugees: Israel, Russia, Hungary, Poland and South Africa. Japan, who most people still think of as an insular country, is one of the most supportive of taking in refugees. And even 61 percent of Japanese are in favor of more immigration generally. Japan is what people used to think America was, although even America is far more pro-immigration and supportive of refugees than its current leader would have you believe.
Inside the Doorway, Thunder Crashing
Last week we quantified the amazing economic progress of the world’s most underrated country, Ethiopia. However, like the weather of Seattle, we live in a world of grays—there are no utopias, no pure hells on this orbiting globe. In other words, Ethiopia has great challenges too, as evidenced by a coup attempt in June. The attempt took place in the Amhara region, one of nine ethnic divisions of Ethiopia, and yes, it is these divisions that are a challenge. Ethiopia has long been riven by ethnic strife (the fear of the other may have saved humans in pre-historic times but may destroy us here at the end of history). Bloomberg reports that “Almost three million Ethiopians were driven from their homes by conflict last year.” Reform minded though he may be, such tensions and problems have led the prime minister to cut off the Internet for long periods of time. Ethnic tensions are prominent in a fascinating Bloomberg article about the apparent suicide of the chief engineer of the “Renaissance Dam” which aims to bring a large swathe of power to the still more than 50 percent of Ethiopians without access to electricity. Ethiopia has increased its debt load significantly over the last ten years, but most of that debt has been productive by building up much needed infrastructure. But more infrastructure is needed as is more cohesiveness. If Ethiopia can navigate these challenges, it may become the first African Lion, a worthy successor to the Asian tigers. But it could also be swallowed up by these challenges.
President at May rally: How do you stop these people? You can’t.”
Someone in the crowd: “Shoot them.”
The audience of thousands cheered.
President smiles: “Only in the Panhandle can you get away with that statement.”
President in January, 2018: “Why are we having all these people from sh**hole countries come here?
President in June 2017 after being told Haiti had sent 15,000 people to the US: “They all have AIDs.”
President in June 2017 after being told forty thousand had come from Nigeria. “Once they have seen the United States they would never go back to their huts in Africa.”
Candidate in July 2015 regarding Jeb Bush: “He has to like the Mexican illegals because of his wife” (Bush’s wife is of Mexican heritage)
August 3, 2019: 22 people are killed in a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas by a shooter with an anti-immigrant manifesto
Without further ado, here’s what you need to know (internationally).
The Collapse of European Coal
Last week, we noted that scientists are worried we are running out of time to stop the worst consequences of climate change. But this week we present bluer skies, specifically the apparent collapse of coal usage in Europe. According to Sandbag.org, a European climate change thinktank with a vaguely dirty sounding name, “Coal generation in the EU collapsed by 19% in the first half of this year, with falls in almost every coal-burning country.” The report notes that half of this coal usage was replaced by solar and wind power and the rest by natural gas. The consequences for climate change emissions are large, “If this continues for the rest of the year it will reduce CO2 emissions by 65 million tonnes compared to last year, and reduce EU’s GHG by 1.5%. Coal generation already had fallen 30% from 2012 to 2018.” The key for combatting climate change, as noted last week, is to make transformations, such as large coal reductions in Europe, possible in China and India. This is where world policy must concentrate, not silly Swedes sailing instead of flying. Silly, silly Swedes.
Love in the Time of Chinese CRISPR
A large country, like a single human being, is complicated and can be described by no single adjective. Jane Doe is not merely bad or good, silly or serious, smart or dumb. She is all of these things at once and at different times. China is big. It is an authoritarian government that is threatening Hong Kong. It has a closed economic system stealing technology. But as we have noted before, it is a place of innovation and flourishing technology. Science Magazine breaks down China’s progress in CRISPR, the genetic swiss army knife, the duct tape of DNA. “Although the United States has had the most CRISPR publications—and continues to have the most cited papers—China is now a close second and is pouring money into CRISPR’s uses.” The article notes that the China CRISPR community is still feeling the repercussions of Chinese scientist He Jiankui’s altering of two human embryos last year, but at the same time is full speed ahead in pushing the technology forward. “…China is aggressively exploring genome editing in medicine, having launched far more clinical trials using CRISPR, mainly for cancer, than any country.” China continues to transform the world in ways helpful and troubling, sometimes all at once.
Underrated Country Update
Ethiopia’s fast growing economy and reform minded politicians garnered the country the coveted INTN Most Underrated status. Recently, an Ethiopian economist at the IMF, Abebe Aemro Selassi, gave a presentation on Ethiopia’s economic progress and continued challenges. Selassi compares Ethiopia’s economic growth with other Sub-Saharan countries as you see in the chart below. Ethiopia towers over its comparators, even other fast-growing Sub-Saharan countries (note there are a number of African countries doing well, flying under the radar). Economic growth and smart government investments have also led to big increases in life expectancy and infant mortality decreases. Ethiopia, however, faces continued challenges as a recent coup attempt last month illustrates. Next week we’ll delve into those challenges.
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admin2019-08-08 11:00:272019-08-28 22:40:02Collapse of European Coal, Love in Time of CRISPR China, Ethiopia UpdateThe greatest movie going experience of our life was opening night of Pulp Fiction in 1994 at the old Neptune Theater when the packed Tarantino-loving house cheered the opening credits and two of our friends walked out of the theater in disgust during The Gimp scene. Later a friend’s very liberal Mom (so far to the left she’s on the right) told us it should be illegal for Tarantino to make such movies. She was dead serious. We thought of all this when attending opening night of Tarantino’s latest, Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood—his elegy to 1969 Los Angeles. Like every Tarantino movie, Hollywood has three things: a) a great soundtrack; b) allusions and homages to movies, television and pop culture; and c) people attacking the movie based on their pre-conceived notions rather than the film itself (Tipper Gore lives!). Hollywood has many incredible scenes, including one much talked about of Margot Robbie, who plays Sharon Tate, watching the real Sharon Tate in a movie. But, our favorite scene features Brad Pitt’s character driving through the L.A. night from his boss’s mansion to his humble RV trailer. With each cut, a different song or commercial plays from the radio, showing how long it takes to get from point A to point B in L.A., and how much fun it is to listen to music while doing so, perhaps especially in that era of limited media distractions. For many it was probably a meaningless throwaway scene, but for us, it summed up everything that is great about Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood and leads us to drive our convertible through the world’s transformation to a service economy, give a foot massage to people worried about climate change and munch on the Big Kahuna Burger of space exploration. It’s this week’s International Need to Know, a glowing suitcase of international data and information.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD – This Town
Without further ado, here’s what you need to know.
Work in the Future
During our brief vacation, we ate In Utica, New York at the Tailor and the Cook, one of the best meals you’ll find in these united 50, so if you ever find yourself in Utica (and why wouldn’t you?), go there. Also prominent in Utica are the closed up factories that have sat dormant for decades. The World Bank recently published a graph showing that the highest percentage of jobs in the world are in the service sector, more than double manufacturing and far more than agriculture too. This is much different than in 1999 when there were far more agricultural jobs. The graphs (see below) also show the percentages for Low Income, Lower Middle Income, Upper Middle Income and High Income countries. Note that as countries become richer there is a big drop in agricultural jobs and a steady increase in service jobs. Manufacturing jobs also increase with wealth–until a country reaches High Income status. Then the percentage of manufacturing jobs decrease. That’s when countries complete the transition to service oriented economies. In fact, as we’ve noted in the past, all upper income countries have seen the same slope of decrease in manufacturing jobs whether it’s Germany, the U.S., France, and now even China. Policy makers will ignore all this, of course, in trying to save manufacturing jobs.
The World is Doomed, How to Save It*
The International Need to Know spouse alerted us to a headline that instead of the world only having 12 years to stave off the worst effects of climate change (last month’s alarming headline), we now only have 18 months (this month’s even more alarming headline). Our initial reaction is the world won’t come to its senses in 18 months so as long as we’re doomed let’s drain the bank account and have a good time. Of course, when we clicked on the headline, the story was a bit more complicated. So in the interest of not giving up hope, let’s reiterate again that though the United States needs to get its act together in confronting climate change, the real challenge going forward is other countries as the chart below illustrates. Sure it may be unfair that in the past the United States and Europe accounted for a large portion of CO2 emissions (the Soviet Union too) but going forward it’s China and India that are the largest culprits. Finding policies that help those and other fast developing countries to reduce emissions is the most important factor to combating climate change.
*Editor’s Note: So you’re saying we’re not doomed? INTN Response: We are always and everywhere doomed–eventually
To Boldly Go
During our travels a few weeks ago, the 50th anniversary of humans landing on the moon took place. And last week, India launched a rocket into space as they ramp up their space exploration. So which countries spend the most on space (outer we mean, not real estate, which would clearly be China)? As you see below, the U.S. is still the leader by a large margin with China and Russia a distant second and third. As a share of GDP, however, Russia is first, and India is sixth. And by this measure Israel pops into the top ten. Of course, there are many private space efforts as well. One of the great disappointments of our lifetime is the lack of progress in space exploration. Perhaps with the many new countries and companies joining in the adventure, that will change.
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Nestled between the Adirondacks and the Catskills, sits the little village of Cooperstown, New York, where a group of disparate tribes gathered last weekend. From Gotham, Chicago, Seattle, Panama, Puerto Rico and other far-flung places, tribes gathered to celebrate excellence–the six new inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame. We were part of the Seattle Mariners tribe there to bask in the glory of the greatest right-handed hitter of his era, Edgar Martinez. Throughout the weekend, chants of “Edddgaaaar” echoed around the bucolic valley. Tribal tendencies are usually harmful but in sports they can be a virtue bringing people meaningfully together over something meaningless. Of course, much of what people care about during our lives is meaningless. Those obsessed with politics–sports for nerds one person called it–would be surprised at how much of their yearnings and struggles are ultimately trivial. And far less harm has come from masses lauding a ballplayer than a political leader. One African-American ballplayer we saw talk described taking the back roads through the green hills as he drove into Cooperstown–he described it as going back in time, but he didn’t mean that as an insult, not hearkening back to 1950s segregated America, but as an idyllic place. And, he’s right–the sloping green hills, the quaint houses with people sitting on their porches, is like a movie set from a film depicting goodness. Back now in Seattle we wistfully remember Cooperstown magic, as we bring sabermetrics to China and India population estimates, marvel at the Ichiro ingenuity of Japanese car renters, and admire the up and coming prospects of African AI. It’s this week’s International Need to Know, always above the Mendoza line for international data and information.
Without further ado, here’s what you need to know.
The Size of Things To Come
Hall of Famer Edgar Martinez famously measured each and every one of his bats on a food scale to make sure they were each just shy of 31 ounces. China is not so careful about its data, including as it turns out, the size of its population, and India’s population bat, it turns out, will soon be getting smaller. According to Yi Fuxian of the University of Wisconsin Madison, China is 115 million people smaller than it says it is. He claims this error “is a product of China’s rigged population statistics system, influenced by the vested interests of China’s family planning authority.” During the one-child policy era, Yi asserts authorities adjusted the fertility rate of 1.22 to 1.80 in part to justify the one-child policy. Census data was adjusted accordingly, leading to the larger population estimate. Meanwhile in India, the second most populous country–projected to be the most populous by 2025–has seen fertility rates fall from 2.2 to 2.1 with many states around 1.7. India will be less populous in the future than projected. The world’s leaders need to be a bit more Edgar Martinez-like in their approach to measurement—in temperament, kindness and diligence too, come to think of it.
Japanese in Cars Getting Naps
On our vacation to upstate New York, we rented a car—to drive, to get from point A to point B. In other words, we are a traditionalist. But in Japan, as the Asahi Shimbun reports, many Japanese are renting cars to take naps in. It turns out rental car companies in Japan noticed some of their cars were returned with very few miles on them so they did a survey to figure out what was going on. They discovered that customers were using them to take naps, eat in and use as storage lockers. “I rented a car to eat a boxed meal that I bought at a convenience store because I couldn’t find anywhere else to have lunch,” one Tokyo suburb customer admitted. Another respondent used the car to take a nap, “Usually the only place I can take a nap while visiting my clients is a cybercafe in front of the station, but renting a car to sleep in is just a few hundred yen (several dollars), almost the same as staying in the cybercafe.” Venture capitalists take note: I’m starting a naptime Uber company. We’ll drive you around for 30 minutes while you sleep and return you back to work.
Asleep at the Wheel 
Google in Africa
A number of African countries are rising manufacturing stars as we have noted but Google is also setting up shop there—specifically an AI research lab in Accra, the capital of Ghana. Google states in a press release, “We’ll bring together top machine learning researchers and engineers in this new center dedicated to AI research and its applications.” Accra, in the old Sesame Street song about which one doesn’t belong, joins Paris, New York, Tokyo and Mountain View, California as a location for an AI research center. Or seemingly didn’t belong. But things are changing in parts of Africa. You can google it.
It’s time we have a little talk about security measures at baseball games and other sporting and concert events. A string of 17 consecutive years of not making the playoffs has not dissuaded us from attending Seattle Mariners baseball games, but silly security theater might. For a number of years, Major League Baseball has mandated that teams search fans’ backpacks and go through a metal detector to gain entrance to stadiums. This year, security is taking extra time to search bags and backpacks. Fans are required to pull blankets and jackets out of their bags, for instance. This means it takes a long time to get into Mariners games even at a time of low attendance. Just think how long it will take when the team starts winning (okay, use your Donald Glover size imagination–come on, they’ll eventually win again, right??!!!). When we go to a baseball game or concert, we don’t want the same feeling we have when flying to Duluth–an annoying, cumbersome airport experience. Worse, the long security lines at events are not making us safer–we have only transferred the vulnerable targets from inside the stadium to outside. A large group of people are now massed together making for a perfect target for would be terrorists. Perhaps my favorite part of the security theater is that my knee replacement sets off the metal detector, but only 50 percent of the time does the guard notice and wand me. The rest of the time I walk in unnoticed. Come on, America, don’t let the terrorists win: End Security Theater now! While we wait for America to come to its senses, we pat you down with what it means to be Chinese, wave a wand over European supply chains and pull you out of line to question your trust in science. It’s this week’s International Need to Know, aiming to be the Megan Rapinoe of international data and information.
Next week we will be in Cooperstown celebrating the induction of Edgar Martinez into the Baseball Hall of Fame. We’ll be back on July 25th.
Without further ado, here’s what you need to know.
What Does It Mean to be Chinese?
What does it mean to be Chinese? Does Chinese blood bleed Communist Party Red? These strange hematology questions came up in two perhaps related news stories this week in regards to Hong Kong. First, an ongoing University of Hong Kong Survey of what people in Hong Kong consider themselves found that the “percentage of Hong Kong people identifying as Chinese is at a record low since 1997.” The survey was conducted after the recent massive protests against the now perhaps defunct extradition bill. Even as the number of people identifying as Chinese is at a record low, the number identifying as “HongKonger” is at a record high since 1997 (let’s be honest, “Hongkonger” is a fabulous name–I’d love to be called a HongKonger). Meanwhile, in Canada, where Chinese are the largest non-white ethnic group, an ad was taken out by a variety of Chinese groups (including some affiliated with China’s government) against the Hong Kong protestors and raising that bloody hematology trope: “we are all the children of Emperor Yan and Emperor Huang [two of China’s mythic founders], we belong to the same Chinese nation, based on the idea of blood being thicker than water, patriotism and love of our homeland, we are paying close attention to the development of the current Hong Kong situation, we are obliged to unite with the Hong Kong residents and not to be taken advantage of by the separatist forces.” Blood’s advantages over water have been misstated and used to bloody ends far too many times in human history.
Europe and the Supply Chains*
You are reading this on a device that was made in many places. I don’t care if it’s a computer (old people), tablet (Gen X), or phone (older millennials)**, a product of any complexity sources parts from many different places and then is assembled into one final shiny good that you and I buy in the store or increasingly online. And that’s another thing that make tariffs like a weapon used in a house of mirrors. You’re never sure who you’re shooting, John Wick style. That places Europe in an interesting position in the trade wars because, according to the IMF, “Europe is more closely integrated into global value chains than the Americas or Asia.” As you see in the chart below, nearly 80 percent of European exports are linked to the supply chain. In other words, European companies are making a lot of stuff that is used in other stuff. And that will affect how the trade wars are conducted.
*”The band “Europe and the Supply Chains” are your 2020 Eurovision winner
**Gen Z and young millennials go retro, print it on hemp paper and stretch out under a poplar tree to read INTN
Who Trusts the Scientists?
As we binge watched the third season of Stranger Things last weekend, a 1980s Nostalgia fest where nerdy science kids help save the world, we stumbled upon the Wellcome Trust’s survey (so hospitable they added a second “L” to their name) of which countries trust science the most. Northern Europe, followed closely by Western Europe, are the most trusting regions of science. When it comes to individual countries, perhaps surprisingly Uzbekistan is number one, followed by Belgium, Tajikistan, Niger and Spain. The least trusting countries are Gabon, Burundi, Togo, Montenegro and the Congo. Interestingly, there is a large gender gap in the world with men thinking they know more about science than women even though test scores show they don’t. “The gender gap is largest in Northern Europe (the alleged Eden of gender equality) standing at a 17 percentage point difference, and the lowest level is in the Middle East, with a three percentage point difference.” Globally, 49% of men say they know “some” or “a lot” about science—a full 11 percentage points more than women. Of course, this being about science, don’t trust, but rather verify this survey.
Summer is our favorite season. We bask in the warmer weather, luxuriate in the longer days and enjoy the greater variety of fruit at our local produce stand. So there should be an extra bounce in our step this week as the calendar turned to a more friendly page. And yet twice in the last week, we were so alarmed and angered by the news that our step plodded rather than sprung and we turned off all media to avoid the anger-inducing distractions. This, of course, is a selfish thing to do. If we are moved so emotionally by what is going on in our world, the proper step is to try to change the world for the better. But occasionally one throws up their hands in dismay and apparent powerlessness, search the fridge for Rainier cherries and distract oneself with loud music. But the world and its problems remain. And so an idea we had not too long ago germinated as we spit out a cherry pit and turned up the music just a bit louder yet. The idea is not quite ready for prime time, alas. Most of our ideas are quarter baked, half baked at best. But we hope soon to present this one after it has broiled in the oven a bit longer. And even as we toil in the kitchen, we serve up a dish of the state of honesty in the world, spice things up with some UN AI, and throw onto the grill what the Arab world thinks. It’s this week’s International Need to Know, a bit calmer now while listening to our favorite Frank Sinatra song.
Summer Wind (Remastered 2008)
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Without further ado, here’s what you need to know.
Honest to Goodness
If we ever find a wallet with money in it, we like to think we would work to return it to the owner. Three researchers, who weren’t about to take our word for it, conducted experiments in 40 countries to determine which people are most honest and “whether people act more dishonestly when they have a greater incentive to do so” by leaving wallets with varying amounts of money in them in public places. Honestly, we were surprised by the results and we bet you will be too. It turns out the more money in the found wallets the more likely a person will turn in the wallet. Most people, including economists, according to the research, predicted it would be the opposite. We were all wrong. There are differences in rates of honesty by country. The northern European countries were most likely to return wallets. China was least likely. What causes this difference in honesty among countries? The researchers suggest “that economically favorable geographic conditions, inclusive political institutions, national education, and cultural values that emphasize moral norms extending beyond one’s in-group are also positively associated with rates of civic honesty.” The researchers plan on conducting more studies to delve into population differences—so if you see a wallet lying on a park bench…you are being tested, one way or another.
Is that Boutros Boutros-Ghali or a Computer?
In news that we found completely believable, researchers have created an AI program that can create UN speeches indistinguishable from the real thing (or maybe we are living in a software simulation and these speeches have always been AI generated?). Researchers “used a readily available language model that had been trained on text from Wikipedia and fine-tuned it on all the speeches given by political leaders at the UN General Assembly from 1970 to 2015. Thirteen hours and $7.80 later (spent on cloud computing resources), their model was spitting out realistic speeches on a wide variety of sensitive and high-stakes topics from nuclear disarmament to refugees.” AI created speeches on general topics such as climate change that were almost impossible to differentiate from the real thing. Speeches on “inflammatory” topics only produced realistic speeches 60 percent of the time. Articles in INTN are impossible to replicate using AI.
The Warm and Cold Waters of the Arabian Sea
The waters we swim in affect who we are. The arguments in America, for example, as polarized as they may be, are constrained within a certain spectrum*. That spectrum is different in various parts of the world as a recent survey shows. The poll conducted by a partnership of BBC News and the Arab Barometer finds that in certain countries the number of non-religious has risen significantly, including in Tunisia, Libya Morocco and Egypt. But note that the number of non-religious is far fewer than in Europe and the U.S. There is a Persian Gulf sized difference between the Arabian Sea and the Atlantic and Pacific. Strikingly, in most Arab countries, honor killings are more acceptable than being gay, though honor killings are not particularly popular which means being gay is really unpopular. And finally, Turkey’s weak strong man Recep Erdogan is more popular in the Arab world than either strong weak man Trump or silly strong man Putin. In fact, given the recent election, it’s safe to say that Erdogan is more popular in Algeria than Istanbul which means he’s likely to be unpopular there soon too.
*The spectrum has been widening in recent years
For reasons that may become apparent in the future, we’ve been listening to lots of 1970s New York City Puerto Rican salsa music. Essentially Puerto Ricans living in the Big Apple adopted and adapted Cuban Salsa music, popularizing it to the world even as they made it their own. Tino Puentes is perhaps the most famous example from this era but there are plenty of others including Ray Barretto, Willie Colón and Eddie Palmieri. New York was an amazing incubator of creativity and innovation in that day and age–from disco to punk to rap in music, to Keith Haring, Tseng Kwong Chi and others in art, to gay rights and other social causes. Since the late 1980s, New York has ceased to be an interesting place with the West Coast becoming the incubator of innovation and now at the end of the first fifth of the 21st century, other countries are beginning to pick up the American cultural and innovation slack. But that NYC Puerto Rican salsa still moves the hips and pounds the hearts of listeners. For New Orleans music aficionados like ourselves, you’ll note the Caribbean rhythms that helped jelly-roll the Crescent City beat. So even as we tickle the keys to China’s lowering tariffs, shake the marimbas of China’s closed market and blow the horn on increased use of coal, we turn up a little Che Che Colé by Willie Colón. It’s this week’s International Need to Know, grooving to the many tunes of this complex world.
Willie Colón – Che che colé
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Without further ado, here’s what you need to know.
We See Your Ace and Lower You Three Kings
We are reading Bruno Macaes book, Belt and Road, A Chinese World Order, that describes how and why China is becoming assertive in the world, or as Macaes puts it, “China is transforming from a participant to a shaper of globalization.” This is true and the U.S. – China trade war is accelerating this phenomenon like two teenagers drag racing on the city strip, t-shirt short sleeves rolled up above their biceps, a cigarette dangling from each of their lips (wait, is tobacco on the tariff list?). The Peterson Institute documents that as China has raised tariffs from 8% to 20.7% on U.S. goods, it has slightly reduced tariffs on non-U.S. goods from 8% to 6.7%. That’s not a huge reduction, but on a host of goods the difference is greater than that as you see in the chart below. In other words, China is working to help other countries compete against America. The rest of the world may become more tied to Chinese trade as the U.S. and China decouple with all the consequences, intended and unintended on both sides, that will bring. Of course, the most challenging barriers to doing business with and in China are non-tariff barriers. Read on!
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You’re Not Allowed in the Game
Count us among the many who think the way the current U.S. Administration is countering China is wrong-headed. But there are reasons to challenge China. The country continues to be a very closed market as the graphic below from Visual Capitalist shows. There are certainly examples of successful U.S. companies in China (hello Starbucks), as well as other countries’ companies, but in any strategic industry it is well-nigh impossible for a foreign company to succeed in China. Analysts will note that many countries protected their industries when developing, including the U.S., but China has done so on a larger scale and more deeply than most.
Coal Races Renewables
Renewable energy, led by solar and wind, saw the largest increases in electricity generation in 2018. Unfortunately, just behind was coal. In fact, coal-based electric generation increased by 3 percent last year to a new record total of 19,000 TWh (TerraWatt Hours). Electricity generated by coal actually decreased in the developed world last year, primarily because of large reductions in the U.S. and Europe. But in Asia, coal-generated electricity is increasing, led by the two most populous countries in the world, China and India. That coal-generated electricity decreased in the U.S., even as overall U.S. electricity usage increased, is a great sign for the future. It’s further evidence that any effective Green New Deal must be one that finds ways to develop, export and spread new clean technologies throughout the world.
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admin2019-06-20 11:00:452019-07-07 23:41:45Chinese Tariffs, Closed China Market and Renewables Vs CoalWhile drinking and eating from a bar and grill based on the back of a pick-up truck (only in New Orleans), as we waited for the Mardi Gras Indians on St. Joseph’s Day a few years ago, we felt a stir in the crowd. And there was Mac Rebbenack, otherwise known as Dr. John, rambling, a little unsteady on his ornately carved walking stick, through the neighborhood. The locals greeted him like an old friend, which of course, he was. We said hello too. It feels as if we’ve known Mac Rebbenack our entire life. First probably through Dr. Teeth on Sesame Street and The Muppet Show but then through the man’s music itself. But it wasn’t until later in life that we saw him perform live. We were front row in a small club, seated at the foot of his piano–we could practically touch the voodoo skull sitting atop it–and grooved to one of the tightest bands we’ve ever had the honor and pleasure to listen to. We have a thing for voices, and Mac had one of the most unique talking voices in the world. It was as if it was baptized out of the canals, saloons and dirty back streets of New Orleans on a full-moon night. And, of course, it was. As The Times-Picayune obituary wrote, “Mr. Rebennack was a man whose style and outlook were shaped, too, by voodoo, that mysterious and mystical spiritualism that developed from the city’s Afro-Caribbean roots. And in New Orleans, that meant he stood out so much he fit right in.” The word “legendary” was invented in some bayou swamp thousands of years ago just so we would have a way to describe him. Rest in peace Mac, and the rest of us will continue to groove because of you. And we groove to a new troubling world order beat, listen to the funky sounds of inflated Indian GDP growth and totally get down to Japanese office chair racing. It’s this week’s International Need to Know, carrying an umbrella even on a sunny day.
Dr. John – Goodnight Irene
Without further ado, here’s what you need to know.
Trade Waits for No One
As China rises and the U.S. is run by a short-sighted, transactional presidency, the world is shifting and twisting like an alligator breaking into a Floridian’s kitchen. When we were in Vietnam a few weeks ago, we met with someone the U.S. government hired to examine how goods were being smuggled into China so as to avoid U.S. tariffs. Business people don’t sit idly watching leaders drunkenly move their chess pieces—they act. Meanwhile, Huawei, the controversial Chinese IT company, acted recently by buying one of Russia’s leading face recognition technology companies. As the world splits into divided Internet spheres, it would be short-sighted to believe our globe will remain static. In fact, just last week, gizmodo.com reported that “For more than two hours on Thursday, one of China’s largest internet providers forced a huge chunk of European mobile traffic to be rerouted through its own servers.” This included U.S. military traffic, data to and from companies such as Microsoft, and almost all traffic to and from France and other European countries. All of this activity, illicit and otherwise, occurs in an era when most large challenges are transnational—climate change, refugees, health (see China’s under-covered swine flu epidemic which is now an Asian epidemic) and others. Alas, our world’s short-sighted leaders have not made appointments at Warby Parker’s.
India Goes All “China” On Us
In March, we noted a new study that quantified how much China was inflating its official GDP statistics (1.7% per year from 2008 to 2016) and compared China’s revised GDP with India’s higher GDP growth rates during that same period. But what if India was also inflating its official GDP growth figures? Well, a paper published in Harvard’s Center for International Development by Arvind Subramanian, a former economic advisor to the Indian government, claims, “A change in the method used to calculate India’s GDP led to a significant overestimation of growth.” How much? The report claims instead of an average of 7% growth from 2011 to 2017, the average was actually 4.5%. This changes the chart we presented in March considerably (see below). Who else has been inflating GDP growth? And how much grade inflation is there at Harvard? We await answers.
Japan Chair Racing Grand Prix–the Greatest Grand Prix
In a week where memorials and second lines were held for two New Orleans icons—Leah Chase and Dr. John—and should have been held for Kevin Durant’s Achilles’ tendon and perhaps for democratic hopes in Hong Kong, we feel we must end on a lighter note. And so we present the Japan Office Chair Grand Prix. This is a race held in Hanyu, Japan in which “teams of three battle it out on ordinary office furniture across two grueling hours to see who can complete the most laps of the 200 meter course.” We are ashamed to admit that this race was first started in 2009 and we have yet to watch it. Or even better, we are searching for two teammates to join us in the 2020 race. Send us your credentials and applications immediately.
Office Chair Grand Prix Sees Racers Scooch, Slide and Glide
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