According to the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook, maybe. And not just since Covid, but the world has been slowing since the 2008 financial crisis. They say it’s due to demographics (aging population, shrinking work force), “misallocation of resources” (low capital investment?), “fragmentation” (moving away from free trade?) and slowing innovation as measured by total factor productivity. Well crap. So we should have been investing in education, infrastructure, research and development all this time? Instead we let big business capture the political system, stifle competition and innovation, and starve the public realm apparently. Which is not even in their best interests in the long run. Our society is gradually slipping, and each time there is a crisis we are not able to bounce back all the way to our previous trend. Now we are looking at a looming food crisis and the loss of our coastal urban centers all over the world. And we are stupid enough to get ourselves into wars on top of all this.
Category Archives: Web Article Review
America’s “ambiguous” Taiwan policy
This article explains the U.S. policy of being intentionally vague about defending Taiwan. It is all about maximizing deterrence. Historically, the idea was both to deter China from any attack, but also to deter Taiwan from a declaration of independence that would be likely to provoke an attack. Going forward, this article suggests arming Taiwan to the teeth and encircling China by stationing U.S. forces in Japan, the Philippines and Australia.
I don’t know – not being a foreign policy expert but not wanting war or especially nuclear war, I might focus on convincing China that the U.S. is not a threat to them as long as they do not threaten Taiwan. And keep reducing our nuclear stockpile so they don’t feel like they have to keep growing theirs, and consider a no first strike policy.
Formalizing the U.S. alliance with other countries in the region sounds a bit NATO-like, and look how well that has been working for Europe.
bird flu in cows
A strain of flu infecting wild birds now seems to be pretty widespread in cows. The concern is not so much that cows will infect humans, but that this shows the virus can evolve and spread from birds to mammals, where it can evolve again. It doesn’t sound too dangerous in its current form given the vaccines available.
April election poll check-in, or “it’s just the fading price shocks in gas and groceries, stupid”
Here’s where we stand as I write this on April 3, 2024. Sure, there are all sorts of reasons the polls might be wrong and it is a long time until election day…but I would rather be ahead in the polls and saying that than behind, wouldn’t you? Or even behind and getting less behind.
| STATE | 2020 RESULT | Most Recent Real Clear Politics Poll Average (as of 4/3/24) |
| Arizona | Biden +0.4% | Trump +5.2% (March 1: Trump +5.5) |
| Georgia | Biden +0.3% | Trump +4.5% (March 1: Trump +6.5) |
| Wisconsin | Biden +0.6% | Trump +0.6% (March 1: Trump +1.0%) |
| North Carolina | Trump +1.3% | Trump +4.6% (March 1: Trump +5.7%) |
| Pennsylvania | Biden +1.2% | Trump +0.6% (March 1: Biden +0.8%) |
| Michigan | Biden +2.8% | Trump +3.4% (March 1: Trump +3.6%) |
| Nevada | Biden +2.4% | Trump +3.2% (March 1: Trump +7.7%) |
The electoral college vote, as it stands at the moment, would be 312 for Trump to 226 for Biden. (March 1: 293 for Trump to 245 for Biden)
So the verdict is…Biden behind but getting less behind in every swing state (6 out of 7) except Pennsylvania. The Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina moves are all more than 1% towards Biden. Arizona, Wisconsin, and Michigan are less than 1% towards Biden. The Pennsylvania move is less than 1% towards Trump, but because this flips the state from slight Biden to slight Trump, Trump now leads all swing states and the electoral college looks even worse for Biden than a month ago.
Have we gone from “it’s the economy, stupid” to “it’s the rate of change in the rate of change in the price of groceries, compared to the rate of change of the rate of change in the price of groceries two years ago, stupid”? Maybe it’s that simple. Sure, there is plenty going on in the world in terms of war and peace and the collapsing biosphere that supports all life. But we are Americans, and we don’t base our votes on these things. At least not enough of us, enough of the time to make a difference compared to the damn price of groceries. All things being equal, I would wager on this trend continuing over the next seven months. Of course, all things will probably not be equal – a significant recession that throws a significant number of voters out of work would be the worst possible thing for Biden. Because it doesn’t matter so much how much the damn groceries cost if you have no money at all. On the other hand, most other crises might tend to give Biden a chance to show some leadership, which at least some voters might like. And of course, Biden and/or Trump could drop dead at any time. I am not predicting any of these things, just defining a range of things that could happen.
free trade vs. migration
“Free trade” seems to have gone out of fashion at the moment. But this article in The Conversation makes the point that easing trade restrictions with countries sending large numbers of migrants to the U.S. could help. And not just at the margins – the study this article says that reducing restrictions on just textiles from just six countries could potentially reduce migration to the U.S. by two-thirds. This seems like a political win-win to me – there is something in it for the anti-immigration racists, the pro-cheap-labor big business interests, and the average Joes who just want cheap stuff. This worked brilliantly when we were trying to support our Cold War allies in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan back when they were developing countries. It worked when we were trying to rebuild Western Europe. It can work again.
Biden crumbles to dust
I thought the State of the Union went okay for Biden. No doubt, a medically appropriate dose of a 100% legal methamphetamine prescribed by a doctor could help a person get through something like that.
Oh, but the Onion captures the spirit put out by the other party’s senile candidate so well…
Netanyahu
This is an article from 1996 in something called the Washington Report for Middle East Affairs. Here are some facts about Benjamin Netanyahu as reported by this article.
- He went to high school in suburban Philadelphia. (I looked up elsewhere, and it was Cheltenham high school. This is a public school district in a not particularly posh area.) Then MIT.
- He was a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, at least at that point of graduating MIT.
- He has gone by at least four names. One of the three alternates is just a shortened version, but the other two are John Jay Sullivan and John Jay Sullivan Jr.
- His social security file is marked “classified”. According to this article, that suggests he may have been on the payroll of the CIA or FBI.
- To run for office, he had to give up his U.S. citizenship, which he did legally in Israel. But in the U.S., at least according to this article and in 1996, he was still legally considered a U.S. citizen. (This situation is not unusual though, as I know plenty of people in ambiguous dual citizen categories in their home countries for one reason of convenience or another. An innocent one is because someone lives in the U.S. but wants to visit family in their home country for an extended period without applying for a tourist visa.)
The article veers into some interesting territory from there, but I found these apparently fact-based nuggets interesting.
weather forecasting
This is interesting. It is not 100% clear to me what the measure of accuracy is below, but the plot shows how much weather forecasting has improved over the last 50 years or so. A 3-5 day forecast is highly accurate now, and 3-5 are not that different. It’s interesting to me that there is such as large drop off in accuracy between a 7 and 10 day forecast – that is not necessarily intuitive, but useful even in everyday life. A 10-day forecast is basically a coin flip, while check back 3 days later and you are closer to 80/20 odds. This is based on pressure measured at a certain height I think, so it doesn’t necessarily mean forecasts of precipitation depth and intensity, rain vs. snow vs. ice, thunder and lightning, tornadoes, etc. are going to be as accurate as this implies.
There is some suggesting that AI (meaning purely statistical approaches, or AI choosing any blend of statistics and physics it wants?) might make forecasting much faster, cheaper, and easier yet again.
immigration by the numbers
This post on a blog called Demography Unplugged is a nice piece of data journalism. I have been trying to figure out if there is really a “border crisis”, or if challenges that are typical at the border are being exaggerated and cherry picked in an election year.
Measuring immigration is tricky, and this article explains how people try to do it. Basically, you want to know net migration, which is determined both by people coming in and people leaving, which both happen constantly. The Census Bureau surveys the foreign born population periodically and changes in this number are one way to do it.
Immigration really is up significantly over the past year or so. This is partly post-pandemic recovery, but it is also up significantly compared to what it has been historically even in comparably good economic times. They are coming to work. They are not coming disproportionately to commit crimes, although take a large enough group of people and there are going to be some crimes that can be cherry picked and publicized by disingenuous media outlets and political campaigns. There is no evidence I am aware of that terrorists are trying to sneak across the southern border, although of course we need to be alert for this at all ports of entry.
Some are sneaking in, but many are legally applying for asylum, after which most are allowed to enter the country while they wait for a decision on their case. This can take years, and even after a decision is made, there typically are not aggressive efforts made to find and deport them.
They are probably not taking a lot of American jobs that Americans would actually want. They are taking low wage jobs, paying taxes, and not receiving government benefits in return. Unemployment is low. Remember the labor shortage during and after the pandemic, when immigration was mostly shut off. And remember how prices shot up at least partly as a result of that labor shortage? I suspect the uptick in immigration is one factor holding wages and prices down now. The business community loves low wages, which presents somewhat of a dilemma because they also hate taxes, and the same party that advocates for low taxes also advocates for low immigration. This party generally is fine with having a dysfunctional immigration system as long as they can pin the blame on the other party.
So if you want to decrease immigration, you can let people apply for asylum at the border but not let them in until/unless their cases are decided in their favor. That exports the problem to Mexico and creates a humanitarian dilemma, which is what Trump chose to do and will do again if he gets the chance. Eventually word would get out and people would stop coming in such large numbers, but people would (and were) hurt in the meantime. You could drastically scale up whatever processes allow people to apply at U.S. embassies in their home countries. And finally, you could just try to help those countries solve some of their issues that make people want to leave, which would also be solving some of your own issues at home.
Also remember, these are relatively good economic times, and the climate change shit has not really hit the migration fan yet.
nuclear reactors on the moon
According to Breitbart (yes, I occasionally peruse Breitbart to see what propaganda spin they are putting on current events and because they occasionally pick up on a story others do not), Russia and China are considering a joint moon research base powered by a nuclear reactor. NASA is also considering a research base powered by nuclear power. This makes sense to me in a technological sense. What is concerning is the end of an era of international cooperation symbolized by the International Space Station, which Russia has said it is backing out of this year. An international moon base would just make a lot of sense rather than competing national bases.
Now, for some fun science fiction references. In Kim Stanley Robinson’s 1993 novel Red Mars, which I enjoyed unlike his recent book Ministry for the Future which I couldn’t finish, the first thing humanity does when it gets to Mars is build a nuclear reactor.
In the 1968 Godzilla entry Destroy All Monsters, it is assumed that by the year 1999 humanity will have settled their differences and established an international moon base led by a world government. This is important because they will need to cooperate to deal with threats such as aliens and monsters.
And finally, let’s just watch the Russian space station Mir blow up in the 1998 movie Armageddon. In 1997, there really was an explosion and fire aboard the actual Mir, which the cosmonauts present were able to put out. In 2001, most of the station was intentionally burned up in Earth’s atmosphere, and the rest allowed to crash into the Pacific Ocean. The Mir was originally a Soviet project. NASA had plans to put up its own competing space station, but after the fall of the USSR the two countries agreed to cooperate on the International Space Station instead. Seems long ago now.