Many years ago, we decided to transplant a dwarf maple tree from one part of our front yard to another. We began digging. And digging. And…the tree’s roots were much deeper and wider than anticipated and before we knew it perhaps half of the front yard was a rather deep and wide hole. But the roots were not yet free and clear so once more we thrust the shovel deep into the ground and—clang!!!. We hit metal. We looked up from our toils and saw we were lined up perfectly with the natural gas meter. We had hit the main gas line into the house. But fortunately had not broken it. We, of course, stopped digging, snipped the remaining roots and moved the mighty dwarf to its new, what we considered, much better location. Not too long after that we started dating, then got married and moved to a new house. One night we drove by our old home and saw that all our work had been uprooted, including the dwarf maple, which had been moved yet again. It was then we truly understood the impermanence of life.* We thought of the dwarf maple when watching Notre Dame burn this week. Like our tree, we assumed it would live forever. We have visited this 800-year-old structure, and stayed in an apartment but a few blocks from it. But, like everything on this earth and off, Notre Dame shall someday pass away and be lost to the vestiges of time. Until then, we bring you China’s Planet of the Apes, China’s own Notre Dame destruction and Europeans views of the EU. It’s this week’s International Need to Know, singing Ava Maria to all our world’s wonders while you read the Mueller Report.

*Perhaps you believe the moral of this story is to call the gas company before digging in your yard.

Without further ado, here’s what you need to know.

China’s Planet of the Apes

The old cliché that given enough time a monkey typing on a keyboard would eventually write Shakespeare is being transformed by Chinese scientists who have introduced human brain genes into macaque monkeys. The Chinese researchers claim these monkeys are smarter as a result of the new genes. According to Vox, “In a study published last month in Beijing’s National Science Review journal, researchers took human copies of the MCPH1 gene, which is believed to play an important role in our brain development, and introduced it into monkey embryos by means of a virus that carried the gene.” This, of course, is controversial, especially since six of the 11 monkeys they tried this on died. The researchers claim that the monkeys with the human gene performed better on short-term memory tests and that their brains “developed over a longer period of time, which is typical of human brains.” Where this will all lead and whether these Macaque Monkeys are really smarter we do not know, but we expect in the future macaque monkeys will conduct strange experiments on other animals. Or as a future macaque monkey might say, “Ay, in good sadness is he; and talks of the basket too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.”**

**Merry Wives of Windsor

China’s Notre Dame Problem

The venerable Notre Dame is not the only historic building recently felled by man. Notre Dame was an accident but the destruction of the Keriya Mosque in Xingjiang, China was not. Yes, in the same area where some one million Uighurs are in concentration camps, in an attempt by the Chinese government to stamp out Islam, the Chinese government last year destroyed an historic religious building even older than Notre Dame. Rachel Harris in The Guardian reports this mosque “dating back to 1237…a towering architectural monument” was bulldozed leaving nothing but metaphorically scorched earth. Man is both careless and cruel in nearly equal measure.

European Views of the E.U.

The EU is 26-years-old which is still young by country standards. In fact, it is still so young that PEW Global surveyed the EU’s constituent countries on what they think about it.  Three-fourths of Europeans believe the EU promotes peace, nearly two-thirds believe it promotes democratic values, and a majority believe it promotes prosperity. From there, the EU’s popularity goes down with a majority of Europeans believing the EU is intrusive, inefficient and does not understand the needs of its citizens, making Europeans sound like employees in the movie Office Space (all hail 20^th anniversary). Unsurprisingly, Greece has the least favorable view of the EU followed by the U.K. Since we don’t remember seeing polls of whether Vermont or Arkansas has a favorable view of the United States, we assert we will know the EU has fully made it when Pew no longer needs to survey European countries’ views of the E.U.

At 6:30 pm our cat, Willow, expects to be fed and our other cat, Putter, expects to be taken outside for his afternoon jaunt. During his time patrolling the yard, Putter will purr, rub against our leg and give us a gaze of love, contentment and gratefulness. At 7:37 pm Pacific Daylight time on October 17, 2001, the Seattle Mariners last played in the playoffs, losing in heartbreaking fashion to the New York Yankees. As of 11 am today, the Seattle Mariners, in a self-professed “step back” year, are 7 and 1 and in first place in the American League. We arrived yesterday at the doctor’s office at precisely 10:15 am, per their request 15 minutes before our 10:30 am appointment. One and a half hours later, at 11:45 am, we still had not seen the doctor, despite informing them we were to give a speech at 12:30 pm at a location forty minutes away. When exiting the medical office’s parking garage, we were told we had to pay for parking because we had been there for longer than one and a half hours despite the fact it was the doctor, who we never did see, who kept us waiting. We were very late to the speech. As you can tell from this series of seemingly unconnected events, Putter is, of course, much better than the U.S. healthcare system, but perhaps much more distressingly, so too are the Seattle Mariners baseball team who, as we have noted, have caused little but torture to their fans the last 18 years.  So even as we nominate Putter for Surgeon General and the Mariners as our insurance carrier we diagnose India’s popularity, put a stethoscope to Korea’s aging heart, and wonder at the natural medicine of the India-Pakistan dance off. It’s this week’s International Need to Know, diagnosing all the world’s ailments.

Without further ado, here’s what you need to know.

Is India a Cricket Player or a Nerd?

The world is not exactly like an American high school but there are certainly in-crowds and even mean girls. Pew Global recently conducted a survey testing India’s popularity. Pew polled six Asia-Pacific countries on whether they have a favorable or unfavorable view of India. As you see below, all view India more favorably than not, with Americans being least likely to hold a favorable view, which probably says more about America today than India. South Koreans look on India most favorably. We very much wish Pew had been able to conduct their survey in China. In addition to surveying Asia-Pacific countries, Pew also asked people from 26 countries “whether India is playing a larger role in the world today.”Indians themselves think so as you see in the second chart below. The French are most likely to think India is playing a larger role, Argentenians least likely. If India continues to grow faster economically than China, as it has in recent years, it will indeed play a larger role in the global campus. Upcoming elections in India are as important as any in the world this year. So I guess student government is more important than I thought.

Korea is Old

South Korea is an amazing success story. Fifty years ago its economy was the same size as many African countries. Today it is the 12^th largest in the world and transitioned from an authoritarian government to a democratic one. But as Mick Jagger surely realizes as he prepares for heart valve surgery and as he crooned fifty years ago, “What a drag it is getting old.” Because Korea, like many other developed countries, and especially Japan, is a rapidly aging country due to a fertility rate that has plunged below one birth per woman. In fact, under current trends, Korea’s population will start shrinking in less than 10 years, in 2028. They will then join Japan as a country whose population is getting smaller. Already people over the age of 65 make up 14 percent of Korea’s population. The shrinking of the developed world (with China soon to be added to that list) is the third-most important trend of our world, one that will offer many challenges for economic growth and innovation.

Good God, It’s a Dance Off!

We are perhaps late to the great India-Pakistan Wagah Border Dance Off, but we worry you too did not know about this fantastic ritual. So we end the week, thanks to our favorite Twitter thread of 2019, presenting to you a ceremony that takes place each afternoon at the Wagah border between India and Pakistan, in the north of both countries. As the border prepares to close for the day, the Pakistani and Indian sides scream and shout…and then engage in a John Cleese-like march off, often to pop songs of the day. We feel that every border, every point of conflict, should be settled in this way. In fact, the next time we encounter conflict in our life, we intend to scream and lift our legs high in the air, whether to Cardi B, Marshmello or Ariana Grande, we’re not sure.

वाघा बॉर्डर पर ऐसे भिड़े भारत-पाकिस्तान|Beating the retreat @ Wagah Border on Republic Day 16,062,577 views

Monty Python Ministry Of Silly Walks 26,558 views

On the first day of spring the mind wanders: to a study in Sweden that finds centrists have the best bull%$#& detector. Those with extreme views have more difficulty detecting BS than those in the middle of the spectrum, or as the study puts it, the results point “to the existence of bull&%$# receptivity among both right- and left-wingers.” Our favorite aspect of the study is it uses the word “bull$%#& and unlike us, does not censor it.  We love that the word strides among arcane academic language such as, “The results are supportive of theoretical accounts that posit ideological asymmetries in cognitive orientation.” Now that’s some bull%&$# academic language designed to obscure rather than clarify. But our mind also wanders to the upcoming release of Amazing Grace, documenting Aretha Franklin’s extraordinary 1972 gospel concert in a Los Angeles church, a moment full of extreme wonders. And our mind even wanders to the last days of that baseball extremist, the great great Ichiro. And so we know it is no bull&%$# that there is a place for moderation and extremism in this wacky world of ours, and so too for a tale of China’s economic future, the state of electric cars and just how racist Australia is (or isn’t). It’s this week’s International Need to Know, slapping infield singles of information and data about our world Ichiro-style.

AMAZING GRACE – Official Trailer – Aretha Franklin Concert Film 118,788 views Without further ado, here’s what you need to know. Okay, But What About Tomorrow? The world is concerned about China’s economy like Lakers fans over the apparent decline of Lebron James. Everyday we read another article, tweet, pronouncement about how its economy has slowed down or is having troubles. And they’re all true and we have covered many of them ourselves, often before others even noticed. But the assumption built into some of these assessments is that China’s economy is doomed for evermore, like a Poe raven. That we don’t believe. As we noted a few months ago, for demographic and other reasons, we guess that the days of double-digit and high single digit growth are over. But that does not mean China is going back to the dark ages or will be an inconsequential economy going forward. Just the opposite. China is too large and its economy is too developed not to be important going forward. Even if they experience a lost decade(s) ala Japan, they will still be important just as Japan has been post-1989 (even more important and influential than Japan given China’s size). And, if they are going through a recession currently, it will not last forever, and they will recover, just as all economies do. Not enough people are thinking about China post this recession, if indeed they are in one, and what that means for doing business there and their role in the world. Countries Share of World GDP Electric Slide Check-Up It’s time for our 5000 mile check up on how electric vehicles are doing in our climate change-challenged world. They have not taken off as rapidly as hoped but there is still a big increase according to Visual Capitalist. Norway leads the way with 49 percent of their car sales of the electric variety due to a variety of incentive policies. Iceland comes in second with 19.1 percent and then there’s a big drop off down to the single digits. Another way to look at progress in the world is the number of charging stations in a country. Here China leads with more than 300,000 installed charging stations, followed by the U.S and Germany. Of course, none of this will matter unless the electricy generated to power those cars is renewable. So even as we fall behind in electric car sales projections, we also need to continue to concentrate on how the power is generated. This will be important for industrial CO2 emissions as well which are likely to be an even greater problem than transportation moving forward. Don’t be Quite So Down on Downunder In the wake of the terrorist attack on a mosque in New Zealand by a self-professed white nationalist, perhaps it is a good time to review perceptions of immigrants around the world. Last year, Pew Global surveyed 18 countries and found that 11 of them had majorities of people saying immigrants “make our country stronger.” The other eight have majorities who believe immigrants “are a burden on our country.” The hard eight are topped by Hungary, Greece and Italy, all countries experiencing challenging economies or political changes. Canada had the largest majority feeling favorably about immigrants with 68 percent, followed by Australia at 64 percent. Interestingly we read lots of angry denunciations of Australians after the massacre in New Zealand, with angry Twitter and other social media mobs calling Australians a bunch of racists. Undoubtably there are racism problems downunder but Pew’s survey indicates it is not as widespread as the mob claims. https://gittesglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/logo-02-300x54.png 0 0 admin https://gittesglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/logo-02-300x54.png admin2019-03-21 11:00:262019-03-24 23:28:48What About Tomorrow, Electric Car Check-Up and Don’t be Down on Downunder Revisiting China & India, Brexit’s Demographic Challenge and Women & Business March 14, 2019/0 Comments/in Uncategorized /by admin Like Donna Summer we were on the radio. Okay, not like Donna Summer in any way, but we were on the radio, whoa, oh, oh, oh. Paul Casey asked us to be on his show “Voices of Experience” on KKNW-1150 AM where we talked about this very newsletter you are reading right now, as well as about a variety of important international issues. While we love WWOZ New Orleans, KEXP Seattle and KUOW, we now are, of course, enamored with KKNW and Paul Casey’s Voices of Experience. His questions were sharp and interesting as is his show. You can hear our contribution here around the 20 minute mark. So even as we practice, Bradley Cooper-style, lowering our voice to a deep resonant radio timbre, we broadcast to you a reassessment of India and China’s economies, how Northern Ireland’s demographics affect Brexit, and women in business around the world. It’s this week’s international need to know, wishing we had college age children so we could try to out-bribe Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin. Without further ado, here’s what you need to know. Revisiting China and India You probably saw last week that a Brookings Institution study determined that China was inflating its GDP growth rate by an average of 1.7 percent each year from 2008 to 2016 (China’s government economists  also work closely with Tom Brady). That’s not a huge surprise, most people believe that China has been overstating its economic growth, but it’s interesting to see someone try to put a number to it. If Brooking’s numbers are accurate, this has ramifications for understanding China, including its comparison to India’s economy. As you see in the chart below, using the new GDP numbers for China, on average India’s economy grew faster than China’s from 2008 to 2016. In fact, in six of the eight years India’s economy had higher growth rates. People often ask me how an authoritarian government can be more successful economically than a democratic one. Well, for the last decade, India’s democracy has outperformed China’s increasingly repressive government in GDP growth rates. Of course, China’s economy outperformed India’s before that and demographics play a huge role in economic development and growth, but nonetheless, the story has become more complicated with Brooking’s calculations. Brexit’s Demographic Challenge Time is on my side, sang Irma Thomas before the Rolling Stones ripped her off, but many might want to change the lyrics as the March 29th Brexit deadline looms. But whose side are demographics on? We ask because concern over Northern Ireland has been a major angle of Brexit angst, and those demographics continue to change. As you see in our table below, in 1991, about 38 percent of Northern Ireland was Roman Catholic. In 2011, 44 percent were Roman Catholic and under current trends 51 percent will be Roman Catholic by 2021. Meanwhile, the percentage of Protestants has decreased during that same time period, making the calculus of Northern Ireland, the U.K. the EU, Ireland (predominantly Catholic) just that much more complicated. Of course, the number of religious people of any persuasion continues to drop in Northern Ireland as it does throughout all Europe. At any rate, demographics, tribal tendencies and good old political belief inertia will be a fascinating factor in Brexit politics. Women and Business We’re a week late in presenting gender equality data in time for International Women’s Day (Ed note: If only you had women on staff. INTN: If only we had staff). Nonetheless we persevere by presenting this week the World Bank’s Women, Business and Law Index which attempts to measure laws and regulations’ effects on women’s ability to work in different regions of the world. The good news is the Index has found improvement in every region of the world for women over the last decade. “Ten years ago, the global average score was 70.06. Since then 131 economies made 274 legal changes towards gender equality. This led to a 4.65 point increase in the average global score, to 74.71 today.” Six countries achieved perfect scores of 100 in the Index: Belgium, Denmark, France, Latvia, Luxembourg and Sweden. There is far more work to do, especially, according to the Index, in the Middle East and North Africa, but trends are pointed in the right direction. https://gittesglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/logo-02-300x54.png 0 0 admin https://gittesglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/logo-02-300x54.png admin2019-03-14 11:00:412019-03-24 23:25:08Revisiting China & India, Brexit’s Demographic Challenge and Women & Business Secure Your Biolabs, Japan Gives in to Reality and This Video Changes Everything March 7, 2019/0 Comments/in Uncategorized /by admin Recently we sat in a local coffee shop, one unaffiliated with any present or potential presidential candidates, sipping rooibos tea while tapping away on our Microsoft Surface (not yet a sponsor, but should be) when we began eavesdropping on the two women at the table adjacent to ours. It is perhaps a bad habit and yet when we heard them discussing black holes and how they were monitoring one in particular, perhaps you will forgive our prying ears. It struck us how fortunate we were to be living in a place where such talented people–astrophysicists in this case–are there to be eavesdropped on. In fact, for quite some time we stopped our writing and listened to the equivalent of real life Internet–the good part of the web where one can learn and absorb all sorts of interesting information, not the Social Media Mobs, gossip corners and transgressive trolls of so much of the online experience. The two women were excited about their work, their findings and potential for huge discoveries down the road. They asked each other questions and plotted their next moves. And then we looked out the window, saw a man carrying a kitten and a woman walking a puppy on the sidewalk, and forgot all about black holes. But we remember to bring you scary news of biolabs, Japan’s relenting to reality and China’s video of the week. It’s this week’s International Need to Know, the weekly newsletter with such gravitational pull that no important world information or data escapes its grasp. Without further ado, here’s what you need to know. Secure Your Biolabs, Please We’ve always had an inkling that if the world came to an end it would be Madison, Wisconsin’s fault. And now the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists backs us up with a report stating that “The most secure bio-labs routinely make errors that could cause a global pandemic and are about to re-start experiments on pathogens engineered to make them mammalian-airborne-transmissible.” One of these labs is in Madison, Wisconsin. But actually most such labs are located in Asia and the Bulletin (the same folks who monitor the Doomsday Clock) makes some alarming points about the inability of even the most secure labs to avoid that most human of activities–mistakes. According to the report, “Human error is the main cause of potential exposures of lab workers to pathogens. Statistical data from two sources show that human error was the cause of, according to my research, 67 percent and 79.3 percent of incidents leading to potential exposures in BSL3 labs…”  The analysis also asserts there is a 20 percent probability of a release of dangerous pathogens. When the odds are far better of a pathogen release then a Lebron James’ team making the playoffs, we’ve got a problem. Japan Gives in to Reality On one of our periodic trips to Japan ten years ago, some Japanese officials told us that the country’s aging, soon to be shrinking, population, was no problem. They were addressing it with automation and robots. They did not see the need to increase immigration. We are just as much a tech geek as the next person but we were skeptical. And now Japan, that most insular of countries when it comes to immigration, is singing a new karaoke tune and allowing in more immigrants. In December, the Abe government approved increasing five-year residency permits to 345,000 low skilled workers. And, as Bloomberg reports, “Although the terms are still vague, some who pass language and technical exams will be allowed to extend their visas indefinitely and bring their families.” This is new but necessary territory for Japan. Under its current demographic trends, the working age population will shrink nearly a quarter by the 2040s.  Increased immigration will change Japan, and likely make it less unique (there are always trade-offs in this world) but ultimately will improve it like immigration has every other country. This Video Changes Everything The stakes are enormous in the continuing battle with Huawei as has been reported elsewhere. The U.S. and other countries continue to ban Huawei’s 5G technology. Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou’s case continues to wind through the Canadian court system while two Canadians are held by China incommunicado. But, China has hit on a sure-fire way to defuse the situation: a video of children singing the praises of Huawei. With lyrics like these, I’m sure you too will be convinced: Which is the most beautiful phone in the world? Everyone says Huawei! Teacher tells me to love my country, and to love our domestic brand Huawei! Huawei is good, Huawei is beautiful, Huawei wins glory for our country! I’ve just dropped my iPhone in the garbage and am headed out to buy a Huawei phone! (actually, their new folding phone does seem cool). https://gittesglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/logo-02-300x54.png 0 0 admin https://gittesglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/logo-02-300x54.png admin2019-03-07 11:00:062019-03-08 23:27:51Secure Your Biolabs, Japan Gives in to Reality and This Video Changes Everything Uh Oh, The Young and the Restless, and the Old and the Healthy February 28, 2019/0 Comments/in Uncategorized /by admin As part of our knee rehab, we are required to lie in a continuous passive motion (CPM) machine which slowly bends and straightens our knee. We do this many, many hours each day. It appears to be helping although it is no substitute for the strengthening exercises we also do multiple times each day  To pass the time on Wednesday morning in the CPM machine, we tuned into Michael Cohen’s appearance before Congress. There representatives passively made statements and asked questions according to their place in the political register. While the TV lights burned brightly on the scene, the members’ statements and questions illuminated nothing, as the Continuous Political Machine passively moved their lips and minds. We wonder whether Members of Congress need to step out of their CPMs and do some actual exercises. And while we wonder, prone in our CPM machine, we strengthen our mind on India and Pakistan’s underreported military engagements, do another rep on world demographics and ice ourselves with which is the most healthy country. It’s this week’s International Need to Know, like Bradley Cooper, performing a duet with our Lady Gaga world. Without further ado, here’s what you need to know. Uh Oh While we were all obsessing over an actor making up a crime and whether Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga are an item, one nuclear power attacked another with conventional weapons. Yes, earlier this week India “launched an airstrike” in PakistanI territory. This was ostensibly in retaliation for a suicide bombing in Kashmir a few weeks ago. India asserted it destroyed a terrorist camp in Pakistan that was planning additional strikes in Kashmir. Pakistan claims India’s planes were intercepted and “released their payloads early without any casualties.” Pakistan’s foreign minister called India’s action a “grave aggression” and said it reserves the right to a “suitable response and self defense.” It now claims it has, shooting down one of India’s planes over Pakistani territory. We get the allure of Michael Cohen’s testimony, and the focus on the U.S. and North Korea, but it is remarkable nonetheless how little coverage or comment there have been on these incidents. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming. Have a nice day. The Young and the Restless Long time readers know we are somewhat obsessed with demographics, but in a good Stephen Curry practicing three pointers way, not in an Alfred Hitchcock Vertigo disturbing manner. So imagine our data joy when we stumbled upon a map in Visual Capitalist of the median age of every continent’s population. Europe (really part of Eurasia—read Bruno Marceis’ thought provoking book, the Dawn of Eurasia) is the oldest with a median age of 42. Africa is crazily young, with a median age of only 18. That’s where economic growth, and perhaps trouble, given all the young men, is likely to be found over the next few decades. In fact, the top five youngest countries in the world are all to be found in Africa. Three of the oldest countries in the world are in Europe with Germany, Italy and Greece the 3rd, 5th and 6th oldest countries in the world. Contrast this to 1950 when Europe’s median age was just below 30 and in Asia it was in the low 20s. Look at today’s data and you can get a pretty good picture of our world’s future. The Old and the Healthy Bloomberg released their annual Healthiest Country Index this week and lists Spain as the healthiest country in the world (clearly not referring to their economy). The index “grades nations based on variables including life expectancy while imposing penalties on risks such as tobacco use and obesity. It also takes into consideration environmental factors including access to clean water and sanitation.” Spain has the third-longest life expectancy, behind only Japan and Switzerland who are both ranked in the top five in the Index. Clearly we should be eating more nuts, fish and olive oil per the Mediterranean Diet. We note that Singapore is ranked eighth, whose health care system, for reasons we don’t understand, continues to be ignored as a model by those wanting to reform the U.S. system. https://gittesglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/logo-02-300x54.png 0 0 admin https://gittesglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/logo-02-300x54.png admin2019-02-28 11:00:542019-03-08 23:23:14Uh Oh, The Young and the Restless, and the Old and the Healthy The Most Popular App, the Key to Solving Climate Change, and Who is Most Connected February 21, 2019/0 Comments/in Uncategorized /by admin You may remember a few weeks ago when we wrote about DJ Marshmello playing a live set in the online video game Fortnite to 10 million people. It turns out this was not uncontroversial in the electronic dance music (EDM) world. Our expert on EDM is the nice young man who staffs the front desk of the physical therapy place we go to for our knee rehab (which is going well thus far, thanks be to the joint gods). Over the last year he has kept us informed on a variety of EDM shows he attends. He informed us that other DJs were criticizing Marshmello for “selling out” by performing in Fortnite. Our young EDM expert, to his credit, thought this was silly. If, as we have asserted in this space, 75 percent of the world’s problems are due to people having the wrong definition of winning, it is also true that 17 percent of the world’s problems are due to people (83 percent of whom are young men) trying to be cool. We can remember in our youth similar arguments to the Marshmello one today about bands and artists and who was cool and who was not. Nearly 91 percent of those arguments, in hindsight, were hogwash, to use an uncool term. Such a mindset infuses the current story about Ryan Adam’s treatment of women and how Mandy Moore is perceived. So we coolly tell you about the most popular app in the world, don our leather jacket as we determine what climate change’s fate hinges on, and lower our sunglasses to name the most connected country in the world. It’s this week’s International Need to Know, the Fonzie of international information and data e-newsletters. Without further ado, here’s what you need to know. The Most Popular App in the World Tired of Yelp? Haven’t used Ocarina or your fitness app in years? Well it’s time to get with the masses and download the most popular app on the Apple platform—Xuexi Qiangguo, which teaches “Xi Jinping Thought” to its users. According to the South China Morning Post, “Xuexi Qiangguo requires users to sign up with their mobile numbers and real names. Study points are earned by users who log on the app, read articles, make comments every day and participate in multiple-choice tests about the party’s policies.” The article notes Communist Party member are “required to use the app every day and accumulate their scores,” which might be a way to get your kids to finally put down their smart phones during family dinners. So download the app now. It’s free…unlike the country. World’s Climate Change Fate Hinges on the World The current U.S. Administration’s negligence on climate change is disheartening. But, Noah Smith reminds us that no matter what the U.S. does, the real climate game revolves around the rest of the world as you see in Smith’s graph below. U.S. CO2 emission have been relatively flat since 1981. The rest of the world, on the other coal-darkened hand, has more than doubled its CO2 emissions since 1980. A small portion of this increase is due to the U.S. importing more of its goods but most of it is not. The much discussed Green New Deal is only worthwhile for as much as it can also help the rest of the world decrease its carbon emissions by creating new technologies and implementing effective, replicable policies. Here’s a thought provoking Twitter thread on where our real challenges lie in addressing climate change. Hint: agriculture and industry will be a bigger challenge than transportation and electricity. How Globalized is the World? Globalization, or at least the immigration part of globalization, has caused angst and shot-in-foot moves in both Europe and the U.S. But just how much is the world “globalized?” According to DHL’s Global Connectedness Index, the world has become more connected but is still not particularly globalized. The report issued earlier this week states the “Global Connectedness Index rose to a record high in 2017. For the first time since 2007, trade, capital, information, and people flows all intensified significantly.” But still, only “20% of economic output around the world is exported, roughly 7% of phone call minutes (including calls over the internet) are international, and only 3% of people live outside the countries where they were born.“ The Netherlands, which has been a major trading country for centuries, is the most connected country in the world, followed by Singapore. There is much to digest in the index. Start dining.