04 Dec 2008 09:15 am
I truly love the (state controlled, voice to the outside world) China Daily. There is a wonderful purity to the worldview it conveys. It never disappoints -- as with this front page
story yesterday setting the stage for the latest meetings in the US-China "Strategic Economic Dialogue" series.
Those urging the U.S. to stop harping on currency values turn out to be two Chinese analysts, one at a government agency. Who needs to hear from financiers, business people, economists, or, ahem, experts from any other country!
As it happens, I too have been continually urging American politicians to stop
harping on beating their gums about the "rigged" Chinese currency, notably
here and
here -- mainly because, until quite recently, it was already rising in value. Moreover, the obsession with the RMB seemed mainly to show a failure of imagination on the US side: it was the only thing Americans could think of to "do" about China's trade surpluses.
Yes, the Chinese government was obviously "managing" the currency's rise and keeping it unnaturally low to help exporters (as explained blow-by-blow
here). But U.S. discussion seemed based on the assumption that this was
the secret of China's export boom. As I heard constantly from the foreign and Chinese business people I visited in factories and export shops and quoted in those stories, it was at best a secondary factor.
Now things are different. China's exporters, like businesses in every part of this recession-slowed world, are losing orders and laying off workers. This is tough for them -- as the counterpart is tough everywhere else. In response, governments elsewhere in the world are taking steps that, at a minimum, should not
worsen conditions for other economies. That is, they mainly are mounting stimulus programs to keep people buying, whether from domestic suppliers or foreign sources. China too has of course announced a huge stimulus program.
Yet there are increasing rumbles of China's desire/intent to do something that would in fact aggravate problems elsewhere: trying to help its exporters by pushing the RMB's value
down again, after two-plus years of letting it rise. In essence, this would be a game of exporting unemployment -- yes, yes, with all caveats about Chinese people being on average so much poorer than Americans or Europeans and suffering so much more when laid off.
Some very interesting economic discussions in and around China concern exactly this issue. Will the government try to devalue the RMB again? Should it try? Could it succeed? And if it tries, how will other countries respond? Could this be the step that turns a "contained" international economic crisis into something worse?
This subject is so complex, deep, and fast-changing that there are countless angles to explore. For now, as a first installment, after the jump are excerpts from my friend Andy Rothman's "Sinology" newsletter for CLSA, arguing that on balance the Chinese authorities won't take this step. (Proprietary newsletter, so no web link.) More on this theme to come.
______
Continue reading "Harping on the RMB" »
04 Dec 2008 03:30 am
Even non-buffs might be attracted to the several videos listed on
this page, where
Cirrus Design officials talk viewers through the concepts, trade-offs, and progress stages involved in building the Cirrus Vision, their forthcoming "personal jet."
I enjoy this not just because, in times of overall retrenchment, it's encouraging to see ambitious product development of any sort; and not just because in my dream life, in sharp contrast to my actual life, I would be able to have and fly one of these (~$1 million) airplanes. In my actual pre-China life I did own and fly one of their SR-20 propeller planes.
The extra pleasure for me is seeing the very people I first interviewed in Duluth ten years ago, when they had not yet delivered their first airplane to their first customer, having come so far while maintaining the same sense of excitement and passion. You'll see two of those people on the main video at the site: the CEO, Alan Klapmeier, who introduces the video, and the designer Mike Van Staagen, who when I met him was building models of cockpit interiors out of clay and wood and now is Vice President of Advanced Development. Such people bring us the new things we enjoy, and not just in the world of airplane nuts.
03 Dec 2008 04:10 pm
Three quick followups to
yesterday's mention of an IBM research project that would involve all-hours recording of all circumstances in your life.
1) As many, many people have noted, yesterday's English version of Spiegel Online carried
a story about a woman with this very capacity naturally built into her own brain, and she's not so crazy about it.
2) After the jump, an extended version of the IBM release on the topic, which has more details and hints at some of the promising but complicated implications of this kind of effort.
3) From reader Karen Weickert, an account of an earlier foray in the same direction, under the auspices of Paul Allen's paradoxically secretive-but-publicized, and now defunct, Interval Research Corporation. (Long and interesting 1999 Wired story on Interval
here.)
In the 1990's, a research shop funded by Paul Allen worked on a number of the IBM projects described in their press release. Specifically, the "memory" idea was put into practice by a researcher who strapped a video and audio recorder to his body, and recorded his daily rounds for weeks. He attempted to capture 360 degree audio and video. The point was to never miss anything that happened in your day, such as important conversations, your child's first steps, etc.
What happened instead is that no one wanted to speak with him. We assume in conversation that what we say will not be recorded and played back directly (if we are not politicians, of course). If all social interaction was assumed recorded, as opposed to the opposite, our shared world becomes something very different. It was creepy.
There were a number of other projects toying with social connectedness and interaction -- virtual offices and researchers connected through "surround sound" for example. Again, something important about our assumptions of social interaction were broken. We assume all work happens when groups are connected, but of course, we are private beings as well.
Extended IBM release after the jump.
________
Continue reading "Updates on "Forgetting? Fuhgeddaboudit" " »
03 Dec 2008 09:11 am
I don't understand Korean, so I can't really be sure, but this afternoon Korean KBS-2 (part of our rich array of viewing choices here in China) carried what seemed to be either a dating program, or a College Bowl-type contest, between teams dressed in what looked for all the world like Harvard and Yale "Oldest Living Alum"-type blazers. It was as if we were at the Henley Royal Regatta or something. Life is strange.
Judge for yourself.
03 Dec 2008 04:08 am
Which follows on this
positive update and some earlier
sobering news.
1) Another company covering a lot of territory with propeller-driven Cirrus SR-22 airplanes is
Midwest Air Taxi, which is based in Iowa and says it serves 450+ airports in the sizeable area below:
2) As several readers have reminded me, for decades passengers in the Pacific Northwest, Florida, Maine, and a few other lucky, watery places have been familiar with a form of air taxi known as float-plane travel. One of the best-known companies is
Kenmore Air, in Seattle -- known in particular to me because I took seaplane lessons at Kenmore in the late 1990s. There are few more enjoyable forms of flying for the pilot -- you go low and slow over interesting scenery, you usually get to land straight into the wind -- and where the topography allows it, it's a great way to travel too.
Thanks to Tom Brandt and Hillel Schwartz.
Continue reading "By popular demand: more positive air-taxi news" »
02 Dec 2008 08:51 pm
After yesterday's
post on the prevalence of Chinese people sleeping in public places, I got many responses saying that this was merely a sign of how hard-working the country was -- everyone is exhausted! True enough, in many cases. But, as reader John Neville points out, unremitting physical toil might not be the only explanatory factor:
I have to agree, the Chinese are napping maniacs. I teach at a university in Wuhan, where on my first day I was told that the couch in my office is there for sleeping on, not sitting. Any teachers or administrators who come to my office during the lunch break always close the door behind them as they leave, so as to give me more privacy for napping (I've still never once slept on that couch, but I guess they hope that some day I will). I need to get some pictures of people sleeping on the rattling, wildly careening and hard-breaking buses that make up the Wuhan bus fleet.
I'll simply leave it as an interesting -- to me -- aspect of contemporary Chinese life.
02 Dec 2008 11:23 am
Two of America's tech powers -- IBM and Microsoft -- have given glimpses of what they consider the most exciting and promising research opportunities for the future. Their lists are fascinating in their own right but also in a comparative sense, for what they show about the two companies.
There will be more to say about specific items later on. For now, you can see IBM's list of "Five Innovations That Will Change Our Lives in the Next Five Years"
here, and a Network World report on 10 hot projects from Microsoft's research center
here. I think much about both companies is revealed by the comparison -- not to mention the implications for all of us if these visions are fulfilled.*
Now, where's Google's list?
_____
* This one from IBM has philosophical ramifications worth exploring in the longer run:
Forgetting will become a distant memory
Information overload keeping you up at night? Forget about it. In the next five years, it will become much easier to remember what to buy at the grocery store, which errands need to be run, who you spoke with at a conference, where and when you agreed to meet a friend, or what product you saw advertised at the airport. That's because such details of everyday life will be recorded, stored, analyzed, and provided at the appropriate time and place by both portable and stationary smart appliances. To help make this possible, microphones and video cameras will record conversations and activities. The information collected will be automatically stored and analyzed on a personal computer. People can then be prompted to "remember" what discussions they had, for example, with their daughter or doctor by telephone. Based on such conversations, smart phones equipped with global-positioning technology might also remind them to pick up groceries or prescriptions if they pass a particular store at a particular time. It's not hard to imagine that TVs, remote controls, or even coffee table tops, can one day be the familiar mediums through which we tap into our digitally-stored information.
02 Dec 2008 07:36 am
Attentive readers will be familiar with the trail of tears recounted
here, involving the dashed hopes of the small-jet maker
Eclipse and the pioneering air-taxi company
DayJet. Sigh sigh sigh.
But all along, air taxi companies that have flown passengers not in the spiffy new Eclipse jets but rather in also-spiffy Cirrus SR-22 propeller planes have survived and have steadily been expanding their service. For background on the best known of these,
SATSair, see
this; for info on another called
Miwok, see
this. For more on the propeller/jet difference in business models, see the second half of
this post.
Recently, there's another entrant, which will use the same Cirrus SR-22s to transport passengers on short-haul trips around the SF Bay area. It's called
Indigo Flyer, and its service map is here (detailed pricing and route info at its site):
Will it succeed? Lord knows. But the entrepreneur in me, and the aviation enthusiast, and the person who thinks this air-taxi model actually has a future, all wish it the best. (Thanks to Chris Baker, my instrument-rating instructor ten years ago, for the tip.)
02 Dec 2008 03:10 am
You probably know the white man in this photo below, shown with Hu Jintao on a recent front page of the China Daily:
You probably don't know this white man (recent picture of me in China):
OK, yes, they're both middle-aged white men looking somewhat the worse for life's wear. And believe me, I have fished around for the most similar-looking poses and expressions and hair styles etc I could find, minus the accompanying Chinese dignitary. Still, despite these powerful similarities, the fact is that not once in my life has someone in the United States or Europe stopped me on the street to say, or mentioned in a conversation, "Oh, you look just like George W. Bush."
Rarely has a day passed in China without a Chinese person saying this.
I think this reflects the same principle by which any middle-aged, non-glasses-wearing Chinese man might be told in America, "You know, you look just like Jackie Chan," or a middle-aged black man might be asked, "Are you Sidney Poitier?" (Samuel L. Jackson, Forest Whitaker, Dennis Haysbert, Laurence Fishburne, etc). We all look the same....
It could be worse. They could be asking if I was Karl Rove. Or Cheney.
01 Dec 2008 11:36 am
... you can meet the
people responsible for the book that I
keep on
lauding,
America's Defense Meltdown -- plus get a free copy of the book, by coming to a book-launch reception. You have to pay for your own beer, but it's at a place I have been many times and whose beer quality I can vouch for.
Details: Wednesday, December 3, 6pm, at the Officers' Club at Fort Myer, across the river from downtown Washington in Rosslyn, Va. This same site has for several decades been the location for weekly beer sessions among the defense-reform community that originally featured the famous, late Col.
John Boyd. Further info about the event, including instructions for RSVPs, at the Center for Defense Information site
here. I'd be there if I weren't on the other side of the world. Have a beer and get a book for me.
01 Dec 2008 02:35 am
The first picture below is from the Qingdao Beer Festival in the summer of 2006 -- back when I made the rookie error of thinking that a "beer festival" would offer a greater variety of brands than I could find in the local shops. (The most exotic brew I found at the festival was Pabst Blue Ribbon, which had its own promotional tent.) This photo is of some construction workers who, as I later determined, had not been laid low by drink but were just taking a little break. The following shot is a standard street scene in Shanghai from about the same time. More in similar vein after the jump.
I mention this in connection with the fascinating collections of photos on the "
Sleeping Chinese" site. They're similar to what I'm showing here but vastly more numerous. In an introduction to the collection, the site's author, Bernd Hagemann, a German living in Shanghai, says this:
I gotta warn you! Before you click through my large collection of photos,you should not forget, what you hear and read daily in of your home country's media about China's boom.
They talk about "The Sleeping Giant". About "The Birth of the New Super
Power" or "The Awakening of the Red Dragon". Often with a strange kind
of undertone, which is supposed to frighten us. The reality definitely
looks more peaceful.
Obviously this kind of analysis can be taken too far. Probably people have been sneaking catnaps even in the most aggressive, malign and dangerous of history's powers. But the sheer abundance of napping photos on the Sleeping site is one more illustration of why it's hard to maintain a 24/7 state of alarm about China's ceaseless rise if you're exposed to the way most people in China actually live and behave.
More photos below.
__________
Continue reading "The 'Sleeping Chinese' exhibit (updated)" »
26 Nov 2008 12:44 am
It has been coming for a while, and today it came:
Chapter 11 bankruptcy for Eclipse Aviation, pioneering maker of the Eclipse 500 Very Light Jet. For more background than you'd want to know, check the posts assembled
here.
Gives an additional bittersweet twist to the splash page on the company's site,
here, which (as of this instant) still has this message from another era.
________
You might say we're dreamers.
Eclipse
Aviation was formed with the humble intention of transforming the
aviation industry into something better than it was before. You can't
do something like that by half measures. That's why we embrace and
incorporate innovation, imagination, and boldness in everything we do.
There is an intensity and a passion here you just don't find anywhere
else. We love what we're doing, and it shows in all we do.
Possible grounds for residual thankfulness? That it's not "abandon all hope" Chapter 7 bankruptcy, as with its poor former client
DayJet.
25 Nov 2008 07:42 am
When you're in a
tryptophan - induced daze and looking for stimulants of the most wholesome and enjoyable sort, the place to start is of course with the
latest great issue of The Atlantic.
After that, two suggestions:
1) The Global Trends 2025 report from the National Intelligence Council. (Intro page
here; 8MB pdf file of whole report for free download
here.) Projections of how the world will look 17 years into the future are by their nature preposterous. One conducted in 1991, looking toward the present day, would have found it hard to imagine the defeat of George H. W. Bush (then on the top of the world politically) and the subsequent Clinton and Bush II and possible Clinton II eras that made possible; the tech induced stock boom, and tech bust, and second boom, and second bust; the current situation of both China and Russia, then mere glimmers of what they are today; the resonance of the names bin Laden and Guantanamo. And... a whole lot more.
Still, for what it is, this forecast is sensible and provocative. It has gotten a lot of ink as a forecast of US "decline," but it is more interesting and less blatant than that. I disagree with a lot of it but am glad to have had the occasion to think through its arguments. And 17 years from now, we can see how it stands up.
2) I can't say this
often enough: seriously, anybody who presumes to hold an opinion on America's defense needs, defense spending, and long term military strategy really has to read "America's Defense Meltdown," available in free 2MB pdf download
here. (More words than the NCI report above; fewer graphics.)
This report has facts; it has figures; it has history; it has to-do lists for the next administration; it has things you might expect and things you don't.
From what you might expect, an introductory passage about what's happened to our military establishment:
Our equipment is the most sophisticated and effective in the world. We easily whipped one of the largest armies in the Middle East, not once but twice, and we have now clearly mastered a once difficult and ugly situation in Iraq. Success in Afghanistan will not be far away, once we devote the proper resources there. Those who take comfort in the last three sentences are the people who need to read and consider the contents of this book the most. Reflect on the following:
• America's defense budget is now larger in inflation adjusted dollars than at any point since the end of World War II, and yet our Army has fewer combat brigades than at any point in that period, our Navy has fewer combat ships and the Air Force has fewer combat aircraft. Our major equipment inventories for these major forces are older on average than at any point since 1946; in some cases they are at all-time historical highs in average age. [etc etc]
For a sample of something you might not expect, the following, from probably the most right-wing of all the authors in the book -- a man whose cubicle wall, in the Senate office building where he worked, was adorned with a poster of Mussolini when I met him in the early 1980s. He is discussing the overall balance between the US Navy and the Russian and Chinese fleets -- especially the looming Chinese "menace" that drives the need for new US ships:
Overwhelming any comparison of fleets is the fact that war with either Russia or China would represent a catastrophic failure of American strategy. Such wars would be disastrous for all parties, regardless of their outcomes. In a world where the most important strategic reality is a non-Marxist "withering away of the state," the United States needs both Russia and China to be strong, successful states. They need the United States to be the same. Defeat of any of the three global powers by another would likely yield a new, vast, stateless region, which is to say a great victory for the forces of the Fourth Generation. No American armed service should be designed for wars our most vital interest dictates we not fight.
Read these between football games over the weekend. You won't be sorry. And consider sending copies of #2, especially, to the Obama household for Christmas.
Continue reading "A little Thanksgiving holiday reading" »
24 Nov 2008 06:34 pm
It's been a year-plus since I last saw a bottle of Sam Adams beer in an import-grocery store in Beijing. So when I found some in a store recently, at a reasonable-for-a-luxury-good-that-has-traveled-a-long-way 11.6 RMB/bottle ($1.70), naturally I ... bought every bottle they had:
It's hard to avoid such behavior when you confront erratic supply situations: buy now, because you have no idea when the chance will come again. Of course the next forlorn Westerner into the store will think: Jeez, I remember years ago when I saw some good, flavorful beer in this place. Guess they can't get it any more.
This behavior is made all the more painful on the heels of reading the great New Yorker story on
extreme beer, which featured my former staple brew, Dogfish Head
60 Minute IPA, and realizing that in some parts of the world people can walk into a store and buy any kind of beer they want! Ah, but they don't have the adventure I'm enjoying here on the frontier. Plus those 20 bottles to work through. Slowly.
Update: Via the
Brezhnev.net blog from Shanghai, evidence that I'm not the only one to think and act this way. On the other hand, my wife and I have avoided the specific heartbreak described in that post by hauling Skippy and real mayo back with us on
provisioning runs from the US. (Mayo visible in this linked picture, PB not because we'd brought a lot the previous time.)
24 Nov 2008 08:14 am
... but its goal, operating plan, and marketing language live on in India!
Check out the site for
MyJet, based in Mumbai, and its upcoming "
Per Seat, On-Demand" air taxi service in the subcontinent. "Values" rendering from the site:
For background on this whole concept, see
this article and
this book. For the sad story of DayJet, which has
just now filed for Chapter 7 ("no light at the end of the tunnel") bankruptcy, see the long skein of postings
here. As for MyJet, I say: Godspeed! Attentation of success! And all other appropriate good wishes.
23 Nov 2008 09:44 am
I will present this coveted prize to the next reporter / pundit / columnist who gets through a discussion of the pros and cons of Hillary Clinton as Sec of State without
using the now-unbearably hackneyed term "team of rivals."
Nothing against
Doris Kearns Goodwin, who in prehistoric times was my professor in a college course on the American presidency. And nothing against her application of the concept to the composition of Lincoln's wartime cabinet and the political challenge of holding Union factions together before and during war. (For somebody who does challenge that application, go
here.)
But this is not the Civil War, Obama is not Lincoln -- and even if he were and all circumstances were identical in every way, out of simple self-respect you'd think people would get embarrassed about using the catch phrase they'd heard a million times for the million-and-first. To me, listening to this unvaried refrain is like hearing "bitchin' !" among my fellow teenagers in the late 1960s or "groovy! " after that. And I'm in China!
We do already have words for the underlying concept, and many other examples in history than Lincoln's bringing Seward et al into his administration. You could call it an "inclusive" approach. Or "big tent" politics. Or "bipartisanship," if the rivals in question are from the other party. Or "coalition-building." Or "compromise." Or a "unity cabinet." If you really want a hoary adage, you have two familiar ones to chose from: something about bygones being bygones, or about keeping your friends close, and your enemies... America needs a lot of things, but not additional cliches to stunt political thought before it has a chance of taking place. (This reminds me of the tech cliche "mashup," to describe what really is an "overlay" or a "combination" or "fusion.")
As I write, the Sunday talk shows have not yet begun in America. My guess is that no one who appears on them will still be eligible for my award at the end of the day. But I am an optimist and hope to be proven wrong!
22 Nov 2008 07:10 am
What a strong northwest wind can do (two days ago):
Some of the people who have loaned the US more than a trillion dollars:
22 Nov 2008 01:44 am
In an email from Bill Bikales, the senior economist for China/Mongolia with the UN Development program, based in Beijing:
Two nice things about this pick - I should say first that I do not know him personally.
First, his Asia background. Geithner's father, Peter Geithner, was a development specialist who opened the Ford Foundation's China office - the first foreign NGO here, under a special agreement that continues to this day. That was just before Tiananmen Square, and the father was part of the Foundation's difficult but, ultimately, undoubtedly correct decision to remain engaged. Tim apparently also studied Chinese, was posted in Tokyo for Treasury, and focused on Asia studies as undergraduate and graduate student. This is all great background for Treasury's international dealings in the coming years.
Second, he was head of the IMF's Policy and Development Review Department (PDR) for two years. PDR are the people there who provide the intellectual framework for, and monitor and sign off on the work that the country missions do. Some of the best people I ever dealt with at the Fund. I like this because I've thought more than once in recent years that what the US needs to do is take a step back and look at itself just as the IMF looked at, say, Argentina, during those years, and develop a tough IMF program; get your fiscal act in order, get serious about risks in the financial sector, establish external sustainability. Basic flow of funds accounting techniques, the core IMF methodology, would be extremely helpful. Obviously nobody will impose anything on the Congress a la IMF conditionality - but US macroeconomic policy has been seriously off track for 8 years, and a strong IMF style program is precisely what is needed. I will take pleasure these coming months in speculating about what must be going through Geithner's mind. It won't only be bail-outs and stimulus packages - the short-term fixes -- I am quite sure.
21 Nov 2008 11:55 pm
A real if inglorious fact about environmental and climate-change issues is that people can stand to read only so much depressing news. Especially when the rest of their life is depressing enough. The economy's falling apart, half the people I know are losing houses or jobs, so what do I feel like doing at 10pm: pick up a thriller / turn on a comedy, or read further details about how the polar bears are drowning and the forests are dying and we're all doomed anyway?
And imagine if the election results had gone the other way.
So it's worth highlighting every bit of information that gives a
believable (not flat-earthish or denialist) reason to think that sensible actions, taken in time, can make a significant difference. This was one of the virtues of my friend Gregg Easterbrook's 1995 book
A Moment on the Earth, feather-ruffling as it was at the time. This has also been a consistent strategy of Amory Lovins' work at the
Rocky Mountain Institute.
In a similar vein, I highly recommend
this new report from the American Physical Society, the professional organization for physicists in the United States, about the very specific hows, whats, wheres, and how-much's of practical ways to increase energy efficiency. A cover letter says (emphasis added by me):
Can lower energy consumption come about in the United States? It
already has. Per-capita energy use in California, about half the
national average, has stayed flat for the past 30 years, largely
through an ambitious program of appliance standards and other
innovations in building design....
The report points out that the enhanced funding need only match federal
energy research levels in place in 1980. Research around that time led
to a major improvement in efficiency standards. For instance, compact
fluorescent lights and refrigerators now use about one-fourth the
energy needed for comparable models of 30 years ago. Air conditioners
are twice as efficient as those in 1980. Such dramatic improvements in
energy use could be sustained, many experts argue, but only if a
concerted energy research program is put in place.
I assume the Relevant Government Officials are well aware of such data -- at least ones from the incoming administration -- but it doesn't hurt to have the general public know too. (Thanks to UCSB physicist / Cirrus pilot Roger Freedman.)
21 Nov 2008 09:50 am
One reason math is so satisfying is that it allows you to see order in what is otherwise the randomness of life. For instance, the famous
Fibonacci sequence, which shows up in countless natural patterns like this:
Math is also satisfying when it helps you understand what parts of life truly are random or "chaotic," rather than adhering to patterns you haven't yet figured out. The most obvious example is the minute-by-minute movement of weather systems. The world's vast weather-forecasting computers can assess the layers and eddies of heat and moisture in the air and tell you where "convective activity" -- thunderstorms -- is more and less likely to occur. (An example from NOAA
here. I spent hours looking at
such stuff in my pre-China piloting days.) But a day before landfall, they can't really be sure whether a hurricane will hit New Orleans or someplace in the next state.
So I was grateful to discover, via Michael Ham's
Later On blog, another mathematical tool with surprising usefulness in daily life -- and one that, to my chagrin, I had never heard of before. It is called
Benford's law, and it has to do with the distribution of numbers we use to count many naturally-occurring phenomena.
Continue reading "Why didn't I know this before? (Math dept: Benford's law)" »
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