Any decisions on what to do about Afghanistan and Pakistan should be made in the light of the ruinous cost to the ailing US and UK economies of these wars.
The Iraqi surge was morally the right thing to do, given the bloodshed there, and the fact that the allies had broken the previous status quo; the surge gave military backing to the political alliances and avoided unequivocal defeat. To what extent a surge will have the same short-term effect in Afghanistan is the burning question, to which I don't have an answer.
But we need to get out as soon as is practical, because even America, never mind the UK, can't afford to play world policeman anymore. When America had a strong industrial base, it could have done so. Incursions into Pakistan will undermine the Pakistani state rather than support it; a political solution will involve some form of compromise with uncongenial Islamic social systems.
At least we have learned to stop talking about liberal democracy. Not much comfort in this situation, but the West is becoming a little more attuned to the political, cultural, demographic and economic realities.
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Economic man vs Political man
My blog of yesterday is really about the disconnect between on the one side "the man is an economic individual" theory of the world, shared by neo-classical economics and the humanitarianism lobby, and the "man is a political animal" theory of Aristotle. The "man is a political animal" theory was dominant of most of western history and is pretty much obvious to everyone apart from liberals.
From the economic individualism perspective, the fact that China with its billion-strong population and ever-more dominant production-based economy, is simply a relatively poor country, because individual incomes are lower than in the West. From the political animal perspective, China is simply a very powerful country, possibly more powerful than the United States in the economic arena due to its holding of American reserves and very real status as factory to the world. It is a little like the United States saying to Scandinavians, who have a higher per-capita income than Americans, that the US should be treated as a relatively poor country rather than a superpower.
From the economic individualism perspective, the fact that China with its billion-strong population and ever-more dominant production-based economy, is simply a relatively poor country, because individual incomes are lower than in the West. From the political animal perspective, China is simply a very powerful country, possibly more powerful than the United States in the economic arena due to its holding of American reserves and very real status as factory to the world. It is a little like the United States saying to Scandinavians, who have a higher per-capita income than Americans, that the US should be treated as a relatively poor country rather than a superpower.
Monday, 30 March 2009
China, bank manager for the US
The Chinese ambassador to the UK has appeared yesterday on the Andrew Marr show (20/3/08) and today (29/03/08) on Channel 4 news, interviewed by John Snow. She was at pains to say that China was still a developing country, that China's dollar reserves are not very much given the number of Chinese people - $1000 or £1000 (I forget which, but it didn't sound like much) per person. No need to worry: China is still poor and is just trying to make its way in the world.
Yet I have blogged recently on the Chinese monopolising of raw materials for industrial production and remarked on the obvious fact that with industrial capacity and trade surpluses comes economic and military power as well as influence. More important than China's increasing strength is our increasing weakness: the lack of ability to pay our way, the lack of a production-based economy leading to impoverishment and a loss of independence, even basic security. In my inexperience as a political blogger, I thought the new phase of China's influence over the US was new, given America's immense debts and financial troubles.
Not so. Paul Craig Roberts, and others no doubt, made this clear two years ago in August 2007. He argued even then that China's holding of American reserves meant that the US had no influence on China, that the Chinese could precipitate a dollar crisis; that offshoring has eroded American living standards and pushed up deficits, and that America is as dependent on Chinese imports as it is for imported oil. The media don't discuss it; economists adhere blindly to Free Trade orthodoxy.
How can the West have been so stupid? Well, a drunkard will justify his drinking binges by various rationalisations. We cling to the notion that there is a privileged developed world and a (formerly oppressed) less privileged developing world, including China, that Free Trade leads people out of poverty, that trade reduces tensions, helps to create a better, more unified future. The West, by leading on trade liberalisation, is helping to save the needy. They rationalise our indebtedness as a kind of post-imperial largesse for the world's poor.
The weakness of the US and most of Europe should be apparent; an aging population, a debt-based economy and no signs of addiction to consumption abating; social decay; an inability to protect our borders; the military capacity of many European countries is laughable; those countries with a military budget are struggling to pay for it. Yet white guilt and one-world ideology has led us to a belief that our liberal trade policies are helping save the world. Why not save ourselves?
We are in denial. the US and Europe are in terminal decline. Maybe Africa is still poor enough for us to continuing patronising that resource-rich and demographically vital continent, although I wouldn't be suprised if Africans were richer than Europeans in 30 or 40 years. But the Chinese have already surpassed us; by raising the idea of a new reserve currency, they are telling the US that they veto US decision making, even while the Chinese ambassador in London, on being asked about trade imbalances, tells us that China is still a developing country. She is just passing the drunk another drink.
Yet I have blogged recently on the Chinese monopolising of raw materials for industrial production and remarked on the obvious fact that with industrial capacity and trade surpluses comes economic and military power as well as influence. More important than China's increasing strength is our increasing weakness: the lack of ability to pay our way, the lack of a production-based economy leading to impoverishment and a loss of independence, even basic security. In my inexperience as a political blogger, I thought the new phase of China's influence over the US was new, given America's immense debts and financial troubles.
Not so. Paul Craig Roberts, and others no doubt, made this clear two years ago in August 2007. He argued even then that China's holding of American reserves meant that the US had no influence on China, that the Chinese could precipitate a dollar crisis; that offshoring has eroded American living standards and pushed up deficits, and that America is as dependent on Chinese imports as it is for imported oil. The media don't discuss it; economists adhere blindly to Free Trade orthodoxy.
How can the West have been so stupid? Well, a drunkard will justify his drinking binges by various rationalisations. We cling to the notion that there is a privileged developed world and a (formerly oppressed) less privileged developing world, including China, that Free Trade leads people out of poverty, that trade reduces tensions, helps to create a better, more unified future. The West, by leading on trade liberalisation, is helping to save the needy. They rationalise our indebtedness as a kind of post-imperial largesse for the world's poor.
The weakness of the US and most of Europe should be apparent; an aging population, a debt-based economy and no signs of addiction to consumption abating; social decay; an inability to protect our borders; the military capacity of many European countries is laughable; those countries with a military budget are struggling to pay for it. Yet white guilt and one-world ideology has led us to a belief that our liberal trade policies are helping save the world. Why not save ourselves?
We are in denial. the US and Europe are in terminal decline. Maybe Africa is still poor enough for us to continuing patronising that resource-rich and demographically vital continent, although I wouldn't be suprised if Africans were richer than Europeans in 30 or 40 years. But the Chinese have already surpassed us; by raising the idea of a new reserve currency, they are telling the US that they veto US decision making, even while the Chinese ambassador in London, on being asked about trade imbalances, tells us that China is still a developing country. She is just passing the drunk another drink.
Friday, 27 March 2009
The Lancet, the Pope and condoms
A supposedly objective Lancet article, which is really an editor's press release (so read "opinion", not "science"), criticises the Pope on condoms. Yet, beyond the liberal dogma on condoms and AIDS prevention, we find that scientific support for the Pope's warning against reliance on condoms.
An article on mercator.net concludes that multiple partnerships are the main reason for the spread of AIDS in Africa. The view that condoms are the answer is attacked by Harvard AIDS prevention expert, Dr Edward C. Green; also by James Shelton, who in a brief article references by case studies and published by the Lancet (you need to register - for free), exposes various myths about HIV infection, including the one that condoms help in generalised epidemics such as Africa (they help with sex workers in some circumstances), that poverty and discrimination are factors or that sexual behaviour does not change. He identifies concurrent partnerships as the main driver. The Mercator.net article also cites a book by Helen Epstein,which notes that infection is spreading despite increased condom use. In an article on Dr. Green's home page at Harvard, behaviour changes are more effective than medical-technical ones. He cites a previous study to support this.
The mantra that condoms are the answer is symptomatic of the fact that liberals like technical solutions such as condoms rather than moral solutions, such as behaviour change. The condoms controversy in Africa is a proxy-battle for the sex education/sexual liberation battle going on still in the West. Just as liberal sex education is failing to stop family breakdown, unwanted pregnancies and abortions in Europe and America, so over-reliance on condoms is failing to protect Africans from Aids. Yet liberals and Westerners stick to their sanctimonious bullying of dissenters in spite of the failure of their own dogmatic solutions. The views of the Catholic church correspond much more to the evidence. Isn't that what Science is supposed to be based on: evidence, not liberal prejudice?
Condoms work for prostitutes, I'm sure. They were first used as part of Government policy by the British in World War I to fight venereal disease on the Western Front. There is no relationship of intimacy between a prostitute and client and it as forms of sexual activity go, it is a clinical business. To use this as a template for sex in marriage or sex between inexperienced teenagers, or most other scenarios, is very misguided. It assumes that married people do not want to have children, it ignores the effect of spontaneity or inexperience. It ignores the various social pressures which operate in the real world.
If you created a controlled laboratory experiment with two equally experienced couples, and asked one pair to use condoms and the other not to do so, you would no doubt find that condoms "work" to protect the users against conception or whatever disease you are fighting. To pretend that such ideal conditions exist in the real world is naive in the extreme. Yet this is received wisdom in enlightened circles.
An article on mercator.net concludes that multiple partnerships are the main reason for the spread of AIDS in Africa. The view that condoms are the answer is attacked by Harvard AIDS prevention expert, Dr Edward C. Green; also by James Shelton, who in a brief article references by case studies and published by the Lancet (you need to register - for free), exposes various myths about HIV infection, including the one that condoms help in generalised epidemics such as Africa (they help with sex workers in some circumstances), that poverty and discrimination are factors or that sexual behaviour does not change. He identifies concurrent partnerships as the main driver. The Mercator.net article also cites a book by Helen Epstein,which notes that infection is spreading despite increased condom use. In an article on Dr. Green's home page at Harvard, behaviour changes are more effective than medical-technical ones. He cites a previous study to support this.
The mantra that condoms are the answer is symptomatic of the fact that liberals like technical solutions such as condoms rather than moral solutions, such as behaviour change. The condoms controversy in Africa is a proxy-battle for the sex education/sexual liberation battle going on still in the West. Just as liberal sex education is failing to stop family breakdown, unwanted pregnancies and abortions in Europe and America, so over-reliance on condoms is failing to protect Africans from Aids. Yet liberals and Westerners stick to their sanctimonious bullying of dissenters in spite of the failure of their own dogmatic solutions. The views of the Catholic church correspond much more to the evidence. Isn't that what Science is supposed to be based on: evidence, not liberal prejudice?
Condoms work for prostitutes, I'm sure. They were first used as part of Government policy by the British in World War I to fight venereal disease on the Western Front. There is no relationship of intimacy between a prostitute and client and it as forms of sexual activity go, it is a clinical business. To use this as a template for sex in marriage or sex between inexperienced teenagers, or most other scenarios, is very misguided. It assumes that married people do not want to have children, it ignores the effect of spontaneity or inexperience. It ignores the various social pressures which operate in the real world.
If you created a controlled laboratory experiment with two equally experienced couples, and asked one pair to use condoms and the other not to do so, you would no doubt find that condoms "work" to protect the users against conception or whatever disease you are fighting. To pretend that such ideal conditions exist in the real world is naive in the extreme. Yet this is received wisdom in enlightened circles.
Catholics, the Act of Succession and Evan Harris
Evan Harris, friend to Catholicism, known as Dr Death for his extreme pro-abortion views, wants to scrap the Act of Succession, on the basis that it discriminates against Catholics. This is rather ironic since he believes that Religion (in practice, dissent from failed progressive policies) should give way to "Science" (aka liberal ideology) on matters relating to abortion, euthanasia, the family, education, etc..
We have to put up with the misrepresentation of the Catholic (really the most consistently Conservative) viewpoint on social issues such as the family, abortion, sex education and euthansia; these views are either ignored, or ridiculed. We have the attack on faith-based schooling in the name of social cohesion and British values. Like most people, I don't want teenagers or pre-teenagers to receive that trojan-horse, a value-free education on sex and be lectured on the easy availability of contraception,emergency contraception
I would like my children to be educated in the Catholic faith, and be brought up in a Christian environment; such a truly liberal education would help protect them from the culture of death promoted by a combination of Government policy, liberal dogma and commercial profit - and Dr. Harris. Yet, I am supposed to care about the Act of Succession. In any case, liberal morality is destroying the West. The Death of the West really does matter and the Catholic church is fighting it. But I digress.
Returning to the issue, our concern should be the Constitution of Britain, not treating Catholics as yet another minority to be used as a wedge for a liberal attack on our traditions. By "reforming" the Act of Succession, you tinker with the constitution, and in the process may weaken the monarchy, which is no doubt the real intention. It doesn't make any difference to the lives of Catholics, except to make another spiteful and otherwise pointless gesture against the traditions of this country. It of courses matters a lot to the left because that is their stock-in-trade. They say it is an anomaly. So? History is full of anomalies, they are part of our past, the settlement handed down to us by our ancestors - which it is much easier to destroy than to replace. There is a lot of ideology here but no injustice?
Cardinal Keith O' Brien calls it "state-sponsored sectarianism". I guess from a West-Scotland perspective, he could be forgiven for this statement, given the Catholic and Protestants divisions there; but attacking the monarcy won't do much to improve community tensions, as far as I can see. Interestingly, he is referred to as a "critic" rather than by name by BBC Radio 4. Though Cardinal O' Brien is to the left of the Government on nuclear disarmament, immigration and other issues, he was recently demonised by the left for his robust pro-life remarks. For the left, being pro-abortion is an article offaithpolicy-based evidence
The government won't back the private members bill because it is a constitutional quagmire; but true to the jacobin leanings of New Labour, Gordon Brown "is in discussions with the palace", is worried about "exclusion" and says that "there shouldn't be discrimination". His role as progressive world leader means that he must at least pay lip service to this faux equality and diversity issue.
We have to put up with the misrepresentation of the Catholic (really the most consistently Conservative) viewpoint on social issues such as the family, abortion, sex education and euthansia; these views are either ignored, or ridiculed. We have the attack on faith-based schooling in the name of social cohesion and British values. Like most people, I don't want teenagers or pre-teenagers to receive that trojan-horse, a value-free education on sex and be lectured on the easy availability of contraception,
I would like my children to be educated in the Catholic faith, and be brought up in a Christian environment; such a truly liberal education would help protect them from the culture of death promoted by a combination of Government policy, liberal dogma and commercial profit - and Dr. Harris. Yet, I am supposed to care about the Act of Succession. In any case, liberal morality is destroying the West. The Death of the West really does matter and the Catholic church is fighting it. But I digress.
Returning to the issue, our concern should be the Constitution of Britain, not treating Catholics as yet another minority to be used as a wedge for a liberal attack on our traditions. By "reforming" the Act of Succession, you tinker with the constitution, and in the process may weaken the monarchy, which is no doubt the real intention. It doesn't make any difference to the lives of Catholics, except to make another spiteful and otherwise pointless gesture against the traditions of this country. It of courses matters a lot to the left because that is their stock-in-trade. They say it is an anomaly. So? History is full of anomalies, they are part of our past, the settlement handed down to us by our ancestors - which it is much easier to destroy than to replace. There is a lot of ideology here but no injustice?
Cardinal Keith O' Brien calls it "state-sponsored sectarianism". I guess from a West-Scotland perspective, he could be forgiven for this statement, given the Catholic and Protestants divisions there; but attacking the monarcy won't do much to improve community tensions, as far as I can see. Interestingly, he is referred to as a "critic" rather than by name by BBC Radio 4. Though Cardinal O' Brien is to the left of the Government on nuclear disarmament, immigration and other issues, he was recently demonised by the left for his robust pro-life remarks. For the left, being pro-abortion is an article of
The government won't back the private members bill because it is a constitutional quagmire; but true to the jacobin leanings of New Labour, Gordon Brown "is in discussions with the palace", is worried about "exclusion" and says that "there shouldn't be discrimination". His role as progressive world leader means that he must at least pay lip service to this faux equality and diversity issue.
Wednesday, 18 March 2009
Pope comments on condoms
The pope said condoms are not the answer to HIV aids, they may even add to the problem. Westerners who think that throwing condoms are the answer, are fighting a proxy-battle for sexual liberation in the west, where condoms have also failed to solve social problems.
At the time of the death of John Paul II, the left accused the late pontiff of murder. See the guardian obituary. But the most intelligent comment was by Brendan O' Neill, not a pro-catholic by any means.
At the time of the death of John Paul II, the left accused the late pontiff of murder. See the guardian obituary. But the most intelligent comment was by Brendan O' Neill, not a pro-catholic by any means.
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
China buys US and monopolises rare earth metals
An article in the Times of 9 March says that China will be the “'ultimate monopolist' in the supply of rare earth metals — a dominance that industry experts say could give Beijing control over the future of consumer electronics and green technology.”
The article states that: China controls 95% of these metals; it has resources and refinery capacity to satisfying growing world demand but has limited its export capacity to 38,000 tons, less than Japan alone needs. According to Jack Lifton, an expert on rare earths, Deng Xiaoping set out this agenda 15 years ago, saying “China would be for rare earth metals what the Middle East was to oil”. He added, “The world has to wake up and start thinking of this group of elements as the ‘technology metals' without which there will be no technology.” It will give Chinese companies a competitive edge as they move into high-technology industries [sc: didn't the free traders promise that the West would be predominant in high-tech?]; and 2) may force foreign companies to move to China, putting at risk their industrial secrets. The Chinese can engineer a drop in prices, to make development of alternative supplies unprofitable; recently an Australian company, Lucas, dropped out of a project that could have supplied Japanese Industry. While China has only 42% of these metals within its territory, it has virtually all the refining capacity. Chinese investment companies are intensifying expansion into this area.
No doubt to the pan-glossian vision of free trade devotees, this is part of the great march of progress, but it worries me. A search for rare earth metals in Google found a preponderance on physics and chemistry based pages with the Times article one of the few politics-based entries. The
wikepedia entry confirms the times article discussing japanese pleading with the Chinese in 2007, chinese villages suffering from pollution and GM moving its staff to China. Now I am not an expert, but our so-called experts are blissfully unconcerned about the dangers of China monopolising key industrial raw materials. That this has been going on for years without a mention exemplifies Charles Handy's adage that if you put a frog in a saucepan of cold water and heat it slowly, the frog adapts its body temperature to the water until it eventually boils alive. If it were a bomb, even a bomb attempt, or tinpot dictator threatening destruction, the media would be all over it, politicans would protest, they might even go to war.
There is hope as 58% of these metals are outside China; but the Chinese will keep buying these resources up, and putting pressure on any company or country that tries to break their lock on this type of metal.
You might expect the West to complain against this intentional distortion of the Free Trade system. Well, in spite of "soft power", no-one takes the Europeans seriously, who listens to them? But the US will protest surely? Maybe they can't, now that they are so dependent on Chinese money to finance the debt that they daren't complain. Apparently the chinese premier is worried about US debt; and according to another Telegraph strapline, Hilary Clinton had to plead with China to buy US treasuries. Looks like China has influence over the United States. The US has been fighting military wars, but the American colossus has economic feet of clay. The irony is that American military security is already compromised by dependence on Chinese manufacturing, which I blogged on previously.
Maybe our current leaders are saying that if the West plans to get out of manufacturing, then it won't need to compete for the world's resources with an industrial giant like China. Certainly, it won't be able to afford to do so. The specific worry with resource mercantilism is that if the West comes to its senses, it may be locked out of industrial activity altogether because China guards its monopoly supply.
That China could have influence over American policy has been registered by conservatives such as the Heritage institute, who say that China has nowhere to go at the moment except to buy US Treasuries, but the balance of power would shift if the US keeps stacking up deficits. That kind of nuance make sense, I suppose, if you see the world through the prism of finance rather than looking first at the supply of the world's resources, on which all economic activity ultimately depends.
The article states that: China controls 95% of these metals; it has resources and refinery capacity to satisfying growing world demand but has limited its export capacity to 38,000 tons, less than Japan alone needs. According to Jack Lifton, an expert on rare earths, Deng Xiaoping set out this agenda 15 years ago, saying “China would be for rare earth metals what the Middle East was to oil”. He added, “The world has to wake up and start thinking of this group of elements as the ‘technology metals' without which there will be no technology.” It will give Chinese companies a competitive edge as they move into high-technology industries [sc: didn't the free traders promise that the West would be predominant in high-tech?]; and 2) may force foreign companies to move to China, putting at risk their industrial secrets. The Chinese can engineer a drop in prices, to make development of alternative supplies unprofitable; recently an Australian company, Lucas, dropped out of a project that could have supplied Japanese Industry. While China has only 42% of these metals within its territory, it has virtually all the refining capacity. Chinese investment companies are intensifying expansion into this area.
No doubt to the pan-glossian vision of free trade devotees, this is part of the great march of progress, but it worries me. A search for rare earth metals in Google found a preponderance on physics and chemistry based pages with the Times article one of the few politics-based entries. The
wikepedia entry confirms the times article discussing japanese pleading with the Chinese in 2007, chinese villages suffering from pollution and GM moving its staff to China. Now I am not an expert, but our so-called experts are blissfully unconcerned about the dangers of China monopolising key industrial raw materials. That this has been going on for years without a mention exemplifies Charles Handy's adage that if you put a frog in a saucepan of cold water and heat it slowly, the frog adapts its body temperature to the water until it eventually boils alive. If it were a bomb, even a bomb attempt, or tinpot dictator threatening destruction, the media would be all over it, politicans would protest, they might even go to war.
There is hope as 58% of these metals are outside China; but the Chinese will keep buying these resources up, and putting pressure on any company or country that tries to break their lock on this type of metal.
You might expect the West to complain against this intentional distortion of the Free Trade system. Well, in spite of "soft power", no-one takes the Europeans seriously, who listens to them? But the US will protest surely? Maybe they can't, now that they are so dependent on Chinese money to finance the debt that they daren't complain. Apparently the chinese premier is worried about US debt; and according to another Telegraph strapline, Hilary Clinton had to plead with China to buy US treasuries. Looks like China has influence over the United States. The US has been fighting military wars, but the American colossus has economic feet of clay. The irony is that American military security is already compromised by dependence on Chinese manufacturing, which I blogged on previously.
Maybe our current leaders are saying that if the West plans to get out of manufacturing, then it won't need to compete for the world's resources with an industrial giant like China. Certainly, it won't be able to afford to do so. The specific worry with resource mercantilism is that if the West comes to its senses, it may be locked out of industrial activity altogether because China guards its monopoly supply.
That China could have influence over American policy has been registered by conservatives such as the Heritage institute, who say that China has nowhere to go at the moment except to buy US Treasuries, but the balance of power would shift if the US keeps stacking up deficits. That kind of nuance make sense, I suppose, if you see the world through the prism of finance rather than looking first at the supply of the world's resources, on which all economic activity ultimately depends.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
