Attention Movie Buffs

Check out this award winning New York Times/FlowingData graphic entitled: The Ebb and Flow of Movies: Box Office Receipts 1986 – 2008.  Click on the graphic to link to the interactive (you can move this graphic throughout the years).

Facebook Closes in on 200 Million Users

Growing and growing.  It will be interesting to see how the recent rise of Twitter impacts the continued growth of Facebook.  Does anyone even talk about MySpace anymore?

Facebook

Courtesy: FlowingData

Recent Image of North Korea’s Taepodong-2 on Launch Pad at Musudan

Taepodong-2 on launch pad at Musudan

Courtesy of: Closing Velocity

Google Envisions the Future

Check out this interesting piece from Jonathan Rosenberg, SVP, Product Management at Google.  I think the most fascinating part is the discussion of how we’ll all be working, and networking, in “the cloud”.

If you don’t already subscribe to The Official Google Blog you should.  They don’t post too often and what they do post is usually of value.

LEGO staff have the best business cards EVER

Staff at LEGO have business cards with their details printed on a toy figure which looks like them!!!!

Lego staff business "cards"

Watch Walmart grow – literally!

Thanks to FlowingData we have this:

http://projects.flowingdata.com/walmart/

Capstone, Stepping Stone or Tombstone for Biden?

Mark Leibovich gets into the psyche of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in a commendable piece in the New York Times.  The President apparently wants this to be the VPs capstone to his political career; Biden joked he just hoped it wasn’t the tombstone; and a few think it just might be the stepping stone he needs to fulfill his still-cherished Presidential ambition.  Leibovich also relates how the relationship between the Obama and Biden is developing.

Early indications are that the partnership has evolved as they had imagined. “I think he’s playing the role as ‘adviser in chief’ that he has foreseen,” Mrs. Clinton said of Mr. Biden, adding that he was “involved in the whole agenda of the president.”

When both men are in town, Mr. Biden regularly makes the 17-step walk from his West Wing office to the president’s. They speak by phone (communicating rarely if ever by e-mail), and Mr. Obama will spontaneously call and ask the vice president to join him in meetings.

Mr. Biden attends Mr. Obama’s morning briefings on national security and the economy. He has full access to the president’s schedule and is free to attend anything.

Biden is becoming Obama’s shadow.  Although this is positive overall, and it’s a good thing he has access and gets cold-called into meetings at will, it also says something about the inherently rather irregular and random constitutional nature of the American vice presidency.  The fact that Biden is really not managing a specific file nor directing a department or agency of the Government means he is actually available to jump into a meeting when necessary.  He’s akin to any other White House staffer in that way.  Although I’m pretty sure anyone drops what they’re doing when the President asks you to come on over – one of Obama’s Secretary’s, the ones who are actually implementing policy through their departments and/or agencies,  would have to take time away from implementing policy decisions to come in to advice about future ones.  Obviously this happens, but it’s much more structured around scheduled meetings – Cabinet and others.  Any Vice President, much like any First Lady, must decide what they want to make out of their office and try to achieve that without the benefit of the either of the necessary policy levers: Budget (provided by Congress) or Regulation (the State’s power to make and enforce laws).

Their relationship will likely continue to improve in the short term; however over time  (especially in a second Obama term) Biden may tire of constantly having his sage advice solicited,  and accepted, but not actually getting to implement those excellent ideas.  For an action-oriented guy like Biden this could get very irritable over time.  One doubts whether, given his vast experience (the reason he was selected), he will feel others (who are by implication less experienced) are implementing his ideas as capably as he would himself.  He may start to consider the stepping stone option if he feels he still has work to do.

GM CEO Resigns after White House Request

Politico is reporting that GM CEO Rick Wagoner will resign.

The Obama administration asked Rick Wagoner, the chairman and CEO of General Motors, to step down and he agreed, a White House official said.

Pyongyang invites Tehran over to watch the fireworks

Japanese daily, Sankei reports (covered by the always up to speed Closing Velocity) today:

… in a separate dispatch from Washington that 15 personnel from the Iranian satellite and missile development company Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group are staying in North Korea at the invitation of the North Korean government.

Quoting unnamed intelligence sources in Washington it said are close to North Korean affairs, Sankei said the Iranians are likely to join North Korean preparations for the launch and also observe it. The report said North Korea sent missile experts to Iran when it launched a satellite in February.

North Korea is believed to have sold missiles to Iran, and Iran’s Safir-Omid space launch vehicle owes much to the North’s Taepodong missile.

In a fantastic run-down, CV lists the opposing cycles that NK/Iran and the Obama administration seem to be following, and he asks – which cycle is the winner?

North Korea-Iran Ballistic Missile Proliferation Cycle

1. NK mass produces basic ballistic missiles (Scuds), sells them to Iran & others.
2. NK uses the proceeds to fund advanced ICBM development & deployment.
3. NK sells advanced missile technology to Iran.
4. Iran utilizes NK’s advanced technology to fire its first space launch vehicle (SLV), aka ICBM. NK is on-site for the launch and takes copious notes, both on the technical aspects and the West’s (non)response.
5. NK quickly labels its ICBM test a “space launch,” too. NK improves its own ICBM, with the Iranians on-site, taking their own copious notes.
6. Rapidly repeat Steps 1-5 until each party has long range ICBMs capable of reaching the United States.

Meanwhile, the Obama Administration has its own audacious cycle; his famous Hope plays a big role:

1. Allow the North Korean Taepodong-2 test go off without a hitch, with Hillary Clinton (and now Bob Gates) proclaiming that the US has no plans to intercept a possibly US-bound ICBM. Completely ignore the deterrent value of missile defense.
2. With unopposed missile launches, North Korea & Iran share ICBM technology (see 5 above). The speed at which Iran builds an ICBM capable of reaching Europe and the eastern seaboard of the US increases dramatically.
3. Scrap European-based defense against long-range Iranian ICBMs, thus having no plans to intercept a possibly US-bound ICBM. Completely ignore the deterrent value of missile defense. Again.

We all know Washington has more on its plate these days than at almost any other time in its history, but as I pointed out in a previous Iran-related post, Obama and Clinton have made it clear that Washington’s overarching foreign policy priority is Af/Pak, and specifically the stability of Pakistan.  Of course they can’t ignore the serious moves towards ICBM development by Pyongyang and Tehran, but they must have some lowering of rhetoric and hostility between themselves and Tehran if they have any hope of stabilizing their positions in Iraq and Afghanistan enough to allow for the necessary focus on Pakistan.

Complicating this will be Israel’s determination, for it’s own national interests, in preventing an Iranian bomb becoming a reality.

Soros warns of Depression worse than ’30s if G20 summit fails

Billionaire businessman George Soros notes that the G20 summit in London

… [is] the last chance to avert a full-scale depression that could prove worse than that in the 1930s.”

Mr Soros made his comments just days after an auction of government bonds failed for the first time in 14 years, signalling serious issues about Britain’s ability to fund its increasing debt load.

To Cap or Not to Cap?

It doesn’t seem like much of a question after you see this:

THE ‘NO POLICY’ GAMBLE (2002 V. 2009)
2002	2009
These wheels assume a scenario in which “no policy” action is taken to try to curb the global emissions of greenhouse gases. In the previous wheel the likelihood of exceeding 5°C was about 4%, but in the new wheels that likelihood is 57%. MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, 2009.

THE ‘POLICY ACTION’ GAMBLE (2002 V. 2009)
2002	2009
If greenhouse gas emissions are controlled to relatively low levels then the Earth systems feedbacks are much lower, but there is no longer any possibility of less than 1°C warming. MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, 2009.

Israeli Red Line on a Nuclear Iran

Roger Cohen has some interesting comments in the NYT on how far Tel Aviv will allow Tehran to go before taking action to prevent an Iranian bomb.

A senior Israeli official told me Iran has 1,000 kilos of low-enriched uranium and will have 500 more within six months, enough to make a bomb. It could then opt for one of three courses.

Rush for a bomb by shredding the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, adapting its centrifuges and producing enough highly enriched uranium within a year.

Move the process to a secret site, in which case getting a bomb would take longer, perhaps two years.

Or continue making low-enriched uranium so that “it would have enough for 10 bombs if it decides to rush at a later stage.”

And where, I asked, is Israel’s red line? “Once they get to 1,500 kilos, nonproliferation is dead,” he said. And so? “It’s established that when a country that does not accept Israel’s existence has such a program, we will intervene.”

Krugman Rule

(1) Paul Krugman is always right.

(2) If your analysis brings you to the conclusion that Paul Krugman is wrong, refer to rule #1.

– Brad Delong

Markets are good all the time, right?

Krugman comments on the Obama administration’s new found love of all things free-market (to bolster Geitner’s plan), even given some recent and some would say serious (!) evidence to the contrary.  He notes relative to the Geitner plan:

… administration officials tout the virtues of markets in general, and say, hey, this creates a market, so it must be good.

It’s a bit disappointing to see the Obama administration engaging in this sort of market-worship — hailing markets as a Good Thing in themselves, rather than as an often but not always useful means to an end. But I have reason to think that unlike the Bushies, they don’t really believe it; it’s just politics. Which is actually better than having genuine market fanatics running things, I guess.

Hope for Afghan mission afterall?

Just as Harper lowers expectations on Afghanistan, David Brooks (who recently spent 6 days there) has a different view.  Key for Brooks is understanding the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan, and why it is still possible to succeed in the latter:

In the first place, the Afghan people want what we want. They are, as Lord Byron put it, one of the few people in the region without an inferiority complex. They think they did us a big favor by destroying the Soviet Union and we repaid them with abandonment. They think we owe them all this.

That makes relations between Afghans and foreigners relatively straightforward. Most military leaders here prefer working with the Afghans to the Iraqis. The Afghans are warm and welcoming. They detest the insurgents and root for American success. “The Afghans have treated you as friends, allies and liberators from the very beginning,” says Afghanistan’s defense minister, Abdul Rahim Wardak.

Second, we’re already well through the screwing-up phase of our operation. At first, the Western nations underestimated the insurgency. They tried to centralize power in Kabul. They tried to fight a hodgepodge, multilateral war.

Those and other errors have been exposed, and coalition forces are learning. When you interview impressive leaders here, like Brig. Gen. John Nicholson of Regional Command South, Col. John Agoglia of the Counterinsurgency Training Center and Chris Alexander of the U.N., you see how relentless they are at criticizing their own operations. Thanks to people like that, the coalition will stumble toward success, having tried the alternatives.

Third, we’ve got our priorities right. Armies love killing bad guys. Aid agencies love building schools. But the most important part of any aid effort is governance and law and order. It’s reforming the police, improving the courts, training local civil servants and building prisons.

In Afghanistan, every Western agency is finally focused on this issue, from a Canadian reconstruction camp in Kandahar to the top U.S. general, David McKiernan.

Fourth, the quality of Afghan leadership is improving. This is a relative thing. President Hamid Karzai is detested by much of the U.S. military. Some provincial governors are drug dealers on the side. But as the U.N.’s Kai Eide told the Security Council, “The Afghan government is today better and more competent than ever before.” Reformers now lead the most important ministries and competent governors run key provinces.

Fifth, the U.S. is finally taking this war seriously. Up until now, insurgents have had free rein in vast areas of southern Afghanistan. The infusion of 17,000 more U.S. troops will change that. The Obama administration also promises a civilian surge to balance the military push.

Sixth, Pakistan is finally on the agenda. For the past few years, the U.S. has let Pakistan get away with murder. The insurgents train, organize and get support from there. “It’s very hard to deal with a cross-border insurgency on only one side of the border,” says Mr. Alexander of the U.N. The Obama strategic review recognizes this.

Finally, it is simply wrong to say that Afghanistan is a hopeless 14th-century basket case. This country had decent institutions before the Communist takeover. It hasn’t fallen into chaos, the way Iraq did, because it has a culture of communal discussion and a respect for village elders. The Afghans have embraced the democratic process with enthusiasm.

Here – kittie kittie …

Crazy Congresswoman Continues Concocted China Currency Crisis

Congresswoman Michelle Bachman has been on a warpath recently telling anyone who will listen, and ignorantly questioning the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and Sectretary of the Treasury about the grave danger that China, Russia and other ‘evil’ nations are putting America in by plotting to dump the dollar and create some new currency between them that they will then coerce the rest of the world into adopting as the new,  “one world currency”.  Using the therm “one world”, repeatedly, is designed to  conjure up Stalinist-era rhetoric of Communist world domination.

Matthew Yglesias gives the best explanation I’ve read of what sparked her rampage and why she’s so wrong:

“[M]ost countries hold “reserves” of various kinds—foreign currency and gold. Most countries, right now, primarily hold dollars. Euros are also popular, and Yen and British Pounds somewhat less so. The United States of America does not, obviously, hold any dollars in our reserves. We actually have quite a lot of gold. And different countries vary their practices in this regard. But most countries mostly hold their reserves in dollars. So the dollar is, in effect, the “global reserve currency.” The IMF also issues something called Special Drawing Rights that countries can use as a reserve asset. SDRs work as a kind of meta-currency, with their value based on a basket of major world currencies. A Chinese official suggested that it might be good for the world to tilt away from such a heavy reliance on dollars as the reserve currency of choice, since this leaves countries exposed to policy decisions in the United States, and toward something more SDR-like that would be balanced between dollars and euros and yen and pounds and so forth.

Perceptive Punditry by Packer

George Packer makes some insightful observations in his latest semi-regular New Yorker column on why the far right in America is so much more influential than the far left.  Here’s the best part:

The views of right-wing commentators in the grip of the paranoid style (Obama is a stealth radical, the Democrats are imposing socialism) are much closer to mainstream conservative and Republican belief than the views of their counterparts on the left (the levees in New Orleans were blown up by the government, the White House had something to do with 9/11) are to mainstream liberal and Democratic belief. The reasons are complex, but I would list these: the evangelical and occasionally messianic fervor that animates a part of the Republican base; the atmosphere of siege and the self-identification of conservatives as insurgents even when they monopolized political power; the influence of ideology over movement conservatives, and their deep hostility to compromise; the fact that modern conservatism has been a movement, which modern liberalism has not.

(Nod – Dish)

SEIU pickets “union bashing” … SEIU!!

The SEIU laid off 75 of its own unionized employees. Today those workers picketed the union in protest of the union’s “union busting.”  It doesn’t get much richer than that!  Did the SEIU office workers cross the picket lines to go to work?

Now behold what Ed Morrissey of Hot Air called: the “Most awesomely awesome video ever: SEIU pickets … SEIU.”

Jesus loves us all – but sometimes it must be pretty hard.

So you say you like democracy, eh? Brodie shows what’s it really all about.

Anyone who was breathing and had even a rudimentary knowledge of tax policy knew that the federal Conservatives campaign pledges to reduce the GST had nothing to do with sound tax policy, and everything to do with sound political strategy.  You tend to do things like this when you assume the vast majority of the electorate does not possess even a rudimentary knowledge of tax policy.  We know this, but it’s still pretty galling to have Prime Minister Harper’s former Chief of Staff, Ian Brodie, say this:

“Despite economic evidence to the contrary, in my view the GST cut worked,” Brodie said in Montreal at the annual conference of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. “It worked in the sense that by the end of the ’05-’06 campaign, voters identified the Conservative party as the party of lower taxes. It worked in the sense that it helped us to win.”

The icing on the cake was that this was in response to a question raised during a session entitled: Does Evidence Matter in Policy-Making?

The lunacy of many of the Conservatives policies has been reported and discussed ad nauseum, but to hear someone of this former stature outright declare that they decided to lie to Canadians because it was good politics calls out for even more discourse.

Anyone involved in politics knows that evidence is key when it works for you, and to be discarded and ridiculed when it doesn’t.  This is the nature of living in a democracy.   The premise is that the all-knowing and infallible citizens (ie: John Tory’s recent statement: “… the voters can never be wrong in what they decide…) always make the right choice.  They  will seriously consider the issues before them in the election and who would be best to lead them.  In fact, the majority of the electorate is vastly unaware of the actual details of almost all public policy and it makes it almost irresistible for political parties to use smoke and mirrors and lots of mumbo-jumbo spin to convince voters what they’re saying is reality.  No matter how many times politicians let voters down, they still somehow keep believing that this time they’re telling them the truth.

News flash people – they never are.  They can’t.  This is a democracy and to paraphrase Jack Nicholson, “[They] can’t handle the truth.”  I’d add that they can’t discern the truth even when it’s right before they’re eyes.  There was no economist worth his economics degree that would back up the Conservatives assumptions around the GST cuts, but that didn’t seem to bother the thousands of voters who thought a 2% GST cut would be the solution to their problems, monetary and otherwise.  How’s that working out for you?  Banked all those massive savings did you?  Took the family south this winter on all those thousands you’ve saved, you say?

Even though the cut has made not a whit of difference to any Canadians life (relative to their disposable income) the federal government has actually seen an impact, and by extension so have we all.  The GST cuts “have cost the federal government about $12 billion a year at the worst possible time.”  That’s right – $12 billion a year is now missing out of federal coffers – all so that we can all save a few cents on our latest trip to Winners.

As long as we continue to allow the ‘demos’ to call the shots, while being totally ignorant of the details of the issues, when most stay home on election night, and those that do vote do so based on whatever political spin was most effective on them, then George Bernard Shaw’s famous quote will continue to be our prophetic reality.

“Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.”

Back to the Future

Thanks to Boing Boing.

From the 11/5/99 New York Times: “CONGRESS PASSES WIDE-RANGING BILL EASING BANK LAWS By STEPHEN LABATON“:

”Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century,” Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers said. ”This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy.”The decision to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 provoked dire warnings from a handful of dissenters that the deregulation of Wall Street would someday wreak havoc on the nation’s financial system

CONGRESS PASSES WIDE-RANGING BILL EASING BANK LAWS (11/5/99)

Earth Hour 2009 is this Saturday 8:30pm – 9:30pm

Make sure you participate in this important initiative.  It’s only an hour and the visual impacts are huge!

Facebook By the Numbers

Facebook Info

Thanks to FlowingData.

Little Red Riding Hood – simplified and energized

This is very cool.  Check it out.

Olmert’s Legacy

As Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert prepares to hand over power to his successor, Benjamin Netanyahu, we’re reminded in a piece by Haaretz’s Amos Harel that even though Olmert’s tenure was beset with political troubles, international and sub-national crisis and a massive corruption scandal, Israel’s enemies could not relax.

Despite his deficiencies, the prime minister has throughout his term demonstrated a steely determination in leading military operations into enemy territory. A series of decisions, some of which we only learn of through reports in foreign media, reflect a willingness to take risks in approving distant, secret operations aimed at ensuring Israel’s strategic position.

First and foremost is the decision to destroy the nuclear facility in Syria. Also of paramount importance was the attack on the cache of Fajr missiles on the first night of the Second Lebanon War and (according to foreign media), the bombing in Sudan, and the liquidation of senior Hezbollah operative Imad Mughniyeh and Syrian general Mohammed Suleiman.

Picture = A thousand words

The Mexico-U.S. border.

South Korea wants its shot too

South Korea has sent it’s sole missile defence vessel, the Sejong the Great, to monitor the North Korean missile launch which will likely occur on April 4th or 5th.

There are already four American and Japanese missile destroyers in the area.  If any shots are taken, it is very unlikely that they will be from the South Korean vessel – Koreans firing on Koreans and all that stuff.

The North had a rather robust, if typical, reply to the new movements:

“The Lee Myung-bak [South Koren President] group of traitors is showing themselves in their true color as confrontational maniacs who spread malicious insults at whatever their brethren does,” countered the Minju Joson, a newspaper of the North’s Cabinet.

Thanks to Closing Velocity for the image and the info.

Canada leads the way

We love to hate it but you can’t knock success.  A reader of Daily Dish writes about the elephant in the Oval Office:

On revenue, you know the answer as well as I do. Obama needs to move to a VAT/Consumption tax. These things pee money and it was key to Canada turning away from the debt wall it was about to smack into in the mid 90’s. Needs to be sold along with an income tax reduction. Congress will be skittish but it is the right answer.

Bad news for Britain though.

Now on to wrong answers, Gordon Brown. I see the Brit Treasury couldn’t sell all the debt it needed to today … gulp. Gordon Brown, along with Tony Blair, has shown what the ultimate result of Tax AND Spend does. For all its faults, having a lot of debt, the US still maintains an enormous tax capacity. The UK does not and now when they might need to spend the UK government is coming close to a line where it cannot. So while a VAT shoots out money like a firehose in good times it means those surpluses need to be used to pay down the debt incurred in bad times. Do Americans have the discipline the UK under New Labour failed to show?

Both Liberals and Conservatives have made efforts to use the good times to pay down debt.  Although folks were often outraged by the massive surpluses the federal government would regularly run, the difference was always paid down on debt – something that would have been harder to achieve if they had tried to do it via Budget.  Underestimating revenues was a way to ensure debt repayment, and it worked.  The U.K. instead spent the difference.

North Korea moves ahead with missile launch preparations – now stacked at Musudan

North Korean Taepodong-2 Missile vs. "Iraqi" Scud-B

Reports from U.S. officials are confirming (here, here and here) that North Korea has positioned a Taepodong-2 missile on the launch pad at it’s missile base in Musudan. Ostensibly they are preparing to launch a communications satellite, you know because they have so many friends they want to communicate with.

Japan has said it will shoot it down via its Patriot anti-missile systems if it threatens to hit the country.  North Korea has announced it will interpret any attempt to shoot it’s missile down as an act of war.

Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair testified before Congress that a successful test of a three-stage rocket would demonstrate North Korea’s ability to reach the continental United States with a ballistic missile.

As for US intercept plans, the Navy left two Aegis missile defense ships behind from the armada sent to the Sea of Japan for war games.

Stay tuned.

PM Gordon Brown brutally taken to task

Ouch.

Did Lincoln Win by a Whisker?

Kids always know best!

Lincoln Beardless

Lincoln with Beard

I’ll Take My Chances on Krugman

Some are warning us not to take Krugman’s every word as Gospel.

He’s getting to be one of those people whose every statement is treated as oracular. Which I tend to take as a dangerous sign.

For my money (and isnt’ that what it’s all about these days?) I’m going to follow what Krugman has to say very closely – but only pseudo-religiously. I might make a graven image of Krugman, but I promise not to worship it.

Visual aids anyone? The Econopocalypse in pictures!

The following are from the great site FlowingData, which reports on GOOD magazine’s recent contest to make visual sense of the econopocalypse:

The Beginning to the End and Back Again

Where did all the money go?

Economic Meltdown of 2008 - 2009

Now doesn’t that clear it all up for ya?

Nowruzgate II

As I suggested in a post last week, it seemed to be more than coincidental that the U.S. and Israeli President’s would both issue Nowruz messages to Iran without any forethought or coordination.  I postulated that the difference in tone and audience (Obama’s was to the Iranian people and their leadership, while Peres’ was only directed at the citizens of Iran) did not suggest to me a lack of  coordination of effort (as was suggested by many), rather it seemed to display a tacit understanding that Washington was going to make the statement and Tel Aviv decided to follow suit, in their own way.

Now, Haaretz is reporting:

Senior U.S. officials are preparing to present President Barack Obama with a plan for dialogue with Iran on its nuclear program, including increased international sanctions against Tehran alongside dialogue.   Top Israeli and U.S. officials have been holding meetings on Iran.

To think that officials at the level that would be discussing Iran strategy would not have discussed the Nowruz message from Obama is naive at best.   It appears that when Tel Aviv could not dissuade Washington from making the statement, it determined on it’s own message, with it’s one tone.

As M.J. Rosenberg notes, it hardly seemed coincidental that Peres, a long-time Israeli uberhawk on Iran,

suddenly sends “greetings” to the Iran people urging them to rise up against their government at the same moment that Obama respectfully addressed the “Islamic Republic of Iran” with the most conciliatory US message in decades….

As one close observer of Iran-Israel matters put it, “there is little doubt that Shimon Peres’ subversion of Obama’s Nowruz message was as deliberate as it was destructive.”

The reports that Washington is “furious” at Tel Aviv over the message are likely more for show (to Iran and others in the region) than of any real substance.  For all their alignment on substantive policy issues, Israel has always charted its down path in diplomacy and there is no indication this is about to change just because Washington’s tone towards Iran has started to.  This all seems like much ado about nothing – the United States (because of too many reasons to note here) will never abandon its special “protector” relationship with Israel and any divergence in approach (coordination) to Iran will be surface at best.  Underneath the covers, Washington and Tel Aviv are pretty straight with each other (their relationship allows for divergence of action) and that is not likely to change.  Whether they act out publicly as seems likely in the Peres case, the foundation of the relationship is too deep, and necessary, on both sides to be seriously damaged.

Primary Deficit explained

King Banaian has a great explanation of the debt and deficit implications of the current range of stimulus and rescue injections the U.S. gov’t is making.

Managing debt to GDP post the econopocalypse will likely be harder than we think.   Banaian notes that the real way to understand the entire situation is to understand the concept of “primary deficit”:

Suppose you are paying on a credit card you’ve decided not to use any more. They are charging you high interest. You have to pay off at least all of the interest each month, plus some of the principal, for you to make any progress towards paying that debt off. Likewise, if the government wants to make any progress towards paying off its debt, it must collect enough in taxes, or cut spending enough, to not have to borrow all of what it needs to pay the interest on the debt. Now, it can hope to have an easier time paying back the debt because the economy grows, and it will if GDP growth should exceed the real interest rate it has to pay on the debt. But each year we add to the debt it gets a little harder. And doubling the debt-to-GDP ratio in ten years, with a forecast for real interest rates near 3% in their figures, that’s quite hard to do.

Things have already changed, but Canada has had the lowest debt to GDP ratio in the G7 since 2004.  Canada was on track to eliminate total government net debt by 2021.   These are 2008 numbers, so brace yourself for the next set!

A percent here, a percent there

A little revision will likely be needed in the stated GDP numbers for most of the world’s advanced nations for the past few years.

Is Krugman in the best place to do the most good? Some don’t think so ……

A great video.

If you own a Wii – this is cool

TED Wii.

The Future is Now

A-MA-ZING.  Watch the full video.  Starts a bit slow, but you need the intro and it is worth the 8 minutes.  If you’ve never done so, check out some of the other TED videos here.

Death of Sudoku?

John Harlow and Sara Hashash report that an American computer scientist is going to destroy the trasnit commuting past-time of millions.

Well, maybe destroy is too harsh as they note:

The drawback: it takes ages – typically an hour. Yet through logic and intuition, most Sudoku puzzles can be solved in 20 minutes or less.

Play on!

Israeli President ends Nowruz party

I noted President’s Obama’s remarkable Nowruz  message to the people and government, of Iran earlier.  Following the President’s message Israeli President Shimon Peres sent a message of his own – directed only at the people of Iran, not their leaders.  As Ben Armbruster reports, Peres called on Iranians to topple their government:

I think that the Iranian people will topple these leaders…these leaders who don’t serve the people, in the end the people will realize that.

Obama  had taken pains to spell out the opposite in his message:

In particular, I would like to speak directly to the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran. […] The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations. You have that right — but it comes with real responsibilities.

President Obama and  Secretary Clinton look willing to try some creative diplomacy on the Iran file.  They have both made it clear that they view Pakistan and the amorphous Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan as the United States’ clear strategic focus and they would be happy to ratchet down the rhetoric with Iran, who also has a major stakes in the region, and put State Dept resources behind the coming challenges in Pakistan.  Undoubtedly some Iran watchers will be disappointed that Israel seems to have evaporated the possibility of building on this initial outreach by Washington by demonstrating that without an engaged Tel Aviv there is no substance behind the President’s overture.  However, given the current Israeli domestic political situation where sometime next week right wing Jewish settlers’ rights champion, Avigdor Lieberman, is likely to be named as the new Israeli Foreign Minister in the Netanyahu Cabinet, Peres could hardly have followed up Obama’s message with a similar one.  The difference in tone between the two messages does not mean that Washington and Tel Aviv are not coordinating behind the scenes as Armbruster thinks.  Unlike the previous administration’s world-view, international relations are all about compromise.  There may have been tacit acknowledgement at lower bi-lateral levels that the President was going to make this overture and Israel would respond, after a fashion.  The fact that Israel purportedly did not provide the text of their message to the White House does not surprise me.  If from the beginning there was never going to be a coordinated message track it wouldn’t be necessary to share the text especially, as is likely, if Israel is less than overjoyed at Washington’s change of tone with Tehran.  I stand to be corrected, but I don’t recall very many previous Nowruz messages from sitting American President’s, or Israeli ones.  That they both did so this year could speak to some level of ‘compromise coordination’.

Liquid History

Some of the world’s top wine experts recently had a “once in a lifetime” experience.

Krugman reiterates and expands

Krugman has followed up his earlier piece rejecting Treasury’s bank plan with a reiteration and deeper explanation of his serious concerns.  He is so “vehement” in his opposition to  the plan because he feels:

… that this will be the administration’s only shot — that if the first bank plan is an abject failure, it won’t have the political capital for a second. So it’s just horrifying that Obama — and yes, the buck stops there — has decided to base his financial plan on the fantasy that a bit of financial hocus-pocus will turn the clock back to 2006.

The real distinction as he clearly points out is whether you think the current financial crisis was cauased mainly because of undue panic in the financial markets or if you think the banks took massive risks and actually made bad investments.

President Obama, Secretary Geitner and to some extent, Fed Chairman Bernanke seem to believe (or need to believe?) in the panic explanation. Even with such august company on the panic side, I have to agree with Krugman’s analysis (as I almost always do) – these were in effect toxic assets from the beginning, it just took awhile for that toxicity to work its way through the system.  As the government and the Federal Reserve both worked to prevent the insolvency of Bear Stearns by forcing a merger with JPM Chase they were clearly aware that the cause was the underlying sub-primce mortgage and hedge fund investments that Bear had tried to save, but was unable to.  In July, 2007, Bear Stearns disclosed that two of its  sub-prime hedge funds had lost nearly all of their value amid a rapid decline in the market for sub-prime mortgages.

The panic trigger was pulled when the powers that be allowed Lehman Brothers go under in the fall of 2008 and the subsequent failure of Congree to pass the $700 billion bank bailout package the first time.

Wide-spread investor panic wasn’t the cause, but the result.

Latest numbers from Nanos

LP 36, CP 33, NDP 13, BQ 10, GP 8

Details here.

Real concerns about Treasury’s plans to deal with toxic/misunderstood bank assets

Krugman:

This plan will produce big gains for banks that didn’t actually need any help; it will, however, do little to reassure the public about banks that are seriously undercapitalized. And I fear that when the plan fails, as it almost surely will, the administration will have shot its bolt: it won’t be able to come back to Congress for a plan that might actually work.

Read it all here, here and here.

Recession, Depression – what’s the diff?

Krugman has done some calculations, and as any good economist has put those into a handy graph.  The graph represents the change in industrial production, measured in logs (multiply by 100 to get the percent change), from the previous peak in 1929-30 and 2007-9.

Change in industrial production from peaks

Krugman favours, but notes risk, with Fed’s $1 trillion printing spree

Paul Krugman absolutely supports the quantitative (actually, as he correctly notes, qualitative) easing that the Fed’s purchase of long-term bonds will bring.  He is clear however, to note the underlying risk:

The problem may come when the economy recovers, and inflation starts to become a problem rather than a hoped-for outcome. Basically, there will come a time when the Fed wants to withdraw that extra $1 trillion of money it created. It will presumably do this by selling the bonds it bought back to the private sector.

But here’s the rub: if and when the economy recovers, it’s likely that long-term interest rates will rise, especially if the Fed’s current policy is successful in bringing them down. Suppose that the Fed has bought a bunch of 10-year bonds at 2.5% interest, and that by the time the Fed wants to shrink the money supply again the interest rate has risen to 5 or 6 percent, where it was before the crisis. Then the price of those bonds will have dropped significantly.

And this also means that selling the bonds at market prices won’t be enough to withdraw all the money now being created. So the Fed will have to sell additional assets; if the rise in interest rates is at all significant, it will have to get those assets from the Treasury. So the Fed is, implicitly, engaged in a deficit spending policy right now.

My back of the envelope calculation looks like this: if the Fed buys $1 trillion of 10-year bonds at 2.5%, and has to sell those bonds in an environment where the market demands a yield to maturity of more than 5%, it will take around a $200 billion loss.

The Fed’s juggling act is far from over and there will be much more quant/qual easing before we’re done.

Gordon Brown about to go Psycho?

Poor Gordon Brown.   On his recent visit to Washington British PM Brown gave Pres. Obama a truly touching gift – a pen set made from the timbers of a British anti-slavery vessel.  The President return the kindness by giving the PM a boxed set of 25 American movie classics.  Not exactly touching, but then the President does have other pressing matters to attend to.

Outrage in the British press ensued and just as it seemed to be dying down, the Times reports that when the PM recently sat down to view his first selection from said set – Psycho (there’s surely much we could read into that) – he was surprised to see this:

Did they realize I live in Europe?

Another “learning experience” for the White House staff perhaps?

If only we’d all listened to Tom and Martha …

Nothing says you’ve made it like a Cardsettes Video Greeting Card

Having a little trouble with the ladies?

Drunk emailing – Gmail to the rescue!

Many will appreciate this.

Ah, that’s why Rick Steves was always in Amsterdam

Great point, but strange coming from Steves, isn’t it?

Tory exits – stage right, or stage left?

March 20, 2009

Dear Fellow Progressive Conservatives:

Today, I stepped aside as the Leader of our great Party, safe in the knowledge that the leadership will be in the capable, experienced hands of Bob Runciman while we await the selection of my successor. I hope you will give Bob your complete and total support in the months ahead.

I wanted to write you this short note, inadequate as it may be, to express my thanks to each and every one of you for the privilege I was given to serve as your Leader.

40 years ago this year, I signed up the same way most of you did to help a local candidate deliver flyers. Since then, I have been given the opportunity, almost always as a volunteer, to do every possible job one could do in the political world. In that process, I have made many friends, and I have learned a lot about other people, about the difference one can make and about myself. I have learned a lot about the Party too.

I have learned that we are at our best when we are united and we don’t do well when we aren’t. In my experience, the unity that is so necessary only comes when the Party members, starting with the Leader and the Caucus place the Party’s interests first. When they do that, it is because they have come to understand an important reality, namely that the Party and the enduring values it stands for, are bigger and more important than any one of us. So too, is the public interest which we should all be seeking to advance through the political process.

I have learned that we are at our best when we make everyone feel welcome in our Party and don’t try, intentionally or otherwise, to treat our membership as any kind of exclusive preserve, not open to anyone and everyone who wants to join our cause. I worked very hard to reach out to people who had incorrectly concluded we weren’t interested in having them involved in our Party. It is crucial to continue with that work so that our ideas, policies and candidates can truly represent all of the people of Ontario. The easier part is to make Progressive Conservatives feel good about themselves and that is important. The harder part is to make more people in Ontario feel good about becoming Progressive Conservative supporters. We can’t form government if we don’t do both.

I have also been reminded by this experience how important it is to maintain your integrity at all times, even as one may be tempted to do otherwise. While I am disappointed that we did not win the government on my watch, I would be even more disappointed if we had adopted the kind of “winning at all costs” approach which has dragged down the reputation of politicians and has contributed to the current shambles in parts of the business community. Whether you pick a man or woman, rural or urban, veteran or newcomer, make sure you pick a person of steadfast integrity to lead us. It matters more than anything else.

People all across Ontario are looking to us for leadership now. They feel abandoned by a government that only knows how to tax and to spend. Once there was no more money and once the public relations flim-flam was exposed, they too were exposed as having no plan and no idea what to do.

That is why we must get through the leadership process without a lot of internally inflicted wounds. Quite frankly, I have always disliked leadership selection processes, as a participant and as a candidate, because they forced our membership to divide up. That is a part of democracy, but there is a special responsibility we have to place limits on how we compete within the family and to make a special effort after the contest is over to come back together as quickly as we can. I will be most anxious to help in that process in any way possible.

While we can point to some significant successes in outreach, a new and hugely open policy development process and in the financial position of our Party under my leadership, I am sorry we didn’t do better than we did in the Party standings during my tenure. I must ultimately accept responsibility for that, regardless of the contributing factors.

But I think the foundation has been strengthened and I know the will is there among the Party membership to go that next step not for us, but for the people of Ontario.

I want to conclude by thanking you for the warmth of the greeting you always given me as I travelled the province. I almost completed three visits to every riding in the province in less than five years as Leader, and without exception, I was enthusiastically welcomed by people who love our Party and our Province as I do.

I want to thank you for your patience. We didn’t get everything we wanted, but we made progress on rebuilding a great and enduring Party, at opening it up, at re-establishing grassroots policy making and making sure our Party was in the mainstream of Ontario thinking.

While I have retired from the leadership of the Party, I couldn’t possibly retire from the Party itself. And so, I am back to where I started 40 years ago, as a member of the Party like you, looking for the opportunity to serve and to work hard for our election in 2011, in whatever way will help the most.

Thank you for giving me this wonderful opportunity to serve and to lead. I will look forward to seeing you at the riding meetings, the policy conferences and on the campaign trail in the years to come.

Sincerely,

John Tory

MTP sidelined?

Verne Gay, who has covered TV for Newsday for 16 years, has a piece on Newsday’s website on why President Obama appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, rather than using the more staid vehicle of Sunday morning’s Meet the Press.

BOTTOM LINE “Meet the Press” is now the de facto safe show on Sunday morning – “safe,” that is, for those being interviewed.

As Gay points out, it also likely had much to do with Leno’s audience size vs. MTP’s, but the points he makes against David Gregory are honest and ring true.  As an avid MTP watcher I have to agree with this assessment by Gay:

Gregory is terrifically polished, well-informed, a good listener and has the talking points of both sides down cold. But he also seems more intent on covering the waterfront than digging for news, or in pushing the talking heads off their talking points.

Gay notes the importance of MTP to journalism as a whole.  Under Tim Russert’s (rest his soul) leadership MTP became THE Sunday morning must see TV, now I often skip through the interview segments at the beginning (thanks PVR) because I can’t stand listening to straight talking points one after another.  Gregory seems quite pleased with himself watching the dueling sound-bites when he has opposing sides of an issue on together.  He lacks Russert’s knack for genially giving folks enough rope to hang themselves.  When guests wander off message, Gregory almost always pulls them back with a lob question that relates directly back to a talking point, rather than taking the opportunity to push the guest into an uncomfortable area.

Russert had a gleam in his eyes that you only get when you’re doing something you were born to do.  Gregory does not have that, and likely never will.  He is new, and no one will ever be Tim Russert, but pulling in the big names to appear on the show is only one step, not knowing what to do with them once they’re there is the bigger task.  Russert was a master, let’s hope Gregory will find his feet soon.

What Lies Beneath

Underwater volcano erupts - and is caught on camera.

Putin image boost?

If Vladimir Putin (the PM of Russia) thinks the annual seal hunt is a “bloody trade” and that “it’s clear that it should have been banned long ago” and has now banned it, will be interesting to see the defence Canadian politicians and sealers put up this year as the annual cull begins.  As the Times article points out:

The world’s largest annual commercial seal hunt, due to begin this month, takes place in Canada

— 207,000 seals were caught in Canada last year, earning the 6,000 licensed sealers a total of $7 million (£4.8 million).

First it was Sir Paul and Heather, clearly easier to dismiss, they now must answer how they can justify it when one of the world’s most unemotional leaders speaks of it as he has.

Nowruz Resolutions

President Obama today delivered a video message to all those celebrating Nowruz, or New Year;  but it was mainly targeted at those living inside Iran.  The Administration hopes that the millions of secret satellite dishes in Iran will deliver his message to the Iranian populace.  The thaw continues.  The Administration’s recent attempts to lower the tension with Iran have been nothing if not inspired.  This video message continues in that vein.  It will be increasingly difficult for the Iranian leadership to continue to demonize the United States as the ‘Great Satan’ if said devil is speaking openly, honestly and directly to the Iranian people – so many of whom are under 35 and are the real people he’s attempting to impact.

Peak-a-boo continued

More on peak oil: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/03/how-peak-is-o-1.html

And more: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/03/how-peak-is-o-2.html

A Bridge to Far?

The Washington Post is reporting that Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki has formed a coalition of sorts with Sunni Arab nationalist Saleh al-Mutlaq.

Chinese tightrope walking

Minxin Pei has an interesting piece on Foreign Affairs.com about the current state of the Chinese Communist Party and the potential dangers the seemingly resilient autocrats in charge are facing as the global economy continues it’s decline.

Every year, the Chinese labor market grows by more than ten million workers, the bulk of whom are leaving the countryside for urban areas in search of employment. Each percentage point of GDP growth translates into roughly one million new jobs a year, which means that China needs GDP to rise at least ten percent every year in order to absorb the influx of laborers.

Yikes.  At a current GDP growth rate of 7% the anecdotal stories of mass exodus of labourers from the major cities back to their rural villages seems likely to be factual.  Does this mean the rural population will begin to blame the CCP or “capitalist imperial powers”?

Minxin thinks the CCP will be in their sights:

Strong economic performance has been the single most important source of legitimacy for the CCP, so prolonged economic stagnation carries the danger of disenchanting a growing middle class that was lulled into political apathy by the prosperity of the post-Tiananmen years. And economic policies that favor the rich have already alienated industrial workers and rural peasants, formerly the social base of the party.

But he doesn’t think there is much danger for CCP mandarins, at least not from the lowly masses anyway:

If those groups were in fact to band together in a powerful coalition, then the world’s longest-ruling party would indeed be in deep trouble. But that is not going to happen. Such a revolutionary scenario overlooks two critical forces blocking political change in China and similar authoritarian political systems: the regime’s capacity for repression and the unity among the elite.

For Minxin, the real threat could be internal disunity among the Communist elite, the ones who have the most to lose in any reversal of fortune for the Party:

Those who talk of China’s “authoritarian resilience” consider elite unity to be one of the CCP’s most significant achievements in recent decades, citing as evidence technocratic dominance, a lack of ideological disputes, the creation of standardized procedures for the promotion and retirement of high officials, and the relatively smooth leadership succession from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao.

But there are reasons to remain skeptical of such apparent harmony — arrangements of power that are struck in times of economic prosperity often come undone when crisis hits.

The elite, he says, have been virtually paid off by the State via enormous amounts of pork in the economic apparatus of the country.  If that begins to dry up there is no loyalty to a grand leader that will keep the elite in line.

Rising social discontent may not be enough to force the party out of power, but it might be sufficient to tempt some members of the elite to exploit the situation to their own political advantage. Such political entrepreneurs could use populist appeals to weaken their rivals and, in the process, open up divisions within the party’s seemingly unified upper ranks.

Although fragmentation in the leadership is surely possible, I tend to feel that if that were a likely outcome we would have seen something of this “political entrepreneurship” from a leader-in-waiting who would see the obvious advantage and try to fill the obvious void, but at Pei notes:

No single individual [in the CCP leadership] towers above the others in terms of demonstrated leadership, vision, or performance …

Minxin believes this sets the stage for possible “jockeying for preeminence” among the top brass, but it just as likely sets the stage for a non-entity caretaker leader (in the post Wen/Hu period), not concerned about his own aggrandizement (read old and/or infirm here) to assume the reigns and weather the economic storm.  One must remember that although the elite have been enjoying amassing and consuming vast amounts of wealth in the last two decades they are more likely, when faced with unrest in the nation, to accept somewhat less wealth, knowing that there is comfort in controlling at least what wealth there is, rather than taking a chance on no wealth at all.

However, in a country with the resources, potential and drive to be the world’s preeminent power, it is only a matter of time until some individual or group within the Politburo Standing Committee (the country’s de facto top power organ) rises to the challenge and provides China with some specific direction and ambition.

Action-Reaction in East Asia

Admittedly I’m reaching on this one, but could China be sending a message to the United States via always helpful North Korea?

Action.

Reaction?

Peak Plateau?

A well-site geologist from the U.S. has some interesting comments on peak oil and technological advancement in North America relative to extraction.

If you look at the rotary rig count – rigs around the world actively drilling for oil and gas, there are about 1100 rigs drilling in North America (US and Canada) and another 1000 rigs drilling in the rest of the world. Doesn’t this seem surprising?

Surprising yes, but let’s check those rotary rig count numbers a year from now once the impact of $50 oil fully processes through the NA oil industyr.  The very innovations he notes are costly, especially for Canadian oil/tar sands extraction, and the conventional wisdom is that extractors require something north of $60 a barrel to really make the oil/tar sands profitable.

Bracket Racket

Thanks to the rather intesne coverage of President Obama’s “bracket” selections for the upcoming NCAA championships/playoffs – whatever – I now know what a “bracket” in this context means.  (Thanks Paul)

For those who don’t know, or want to know more about the President’s official picks you can read all about it here.

The Bracket-in-Chief

Fidel still the spider at the centre of the Cuban web, but Chavez worries what will come after Fidel

CNN carried a story yesterday that gives a glimpse into the intriguing relationship between fast-friends Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez.   Former Mexican Foriegn Minister Jorge G. Castaneda postulates in the current issue of Newsweek that Chavez is worried Fidel’s brother Raul (who took over day-to-day control of the State from Fidel in 2006 and offically became Cuba’s President in February of 2008) will be forced to make economic and political concessions to the United States because:

“… they [the supposed coup plotters] also feared that the leader was beginning to feel threatened by the reaction of the Cuban people to excessive economic and social deprivation, and after his brother’s demise would be unable to control the flow of events. Consequently, he would accept a series of economic and political reforms to normalize relations with the United States….”They believed this to be a betrayal of the revolution, and the beginning of the end of its survival.”

Castaneda thinks the reason two highly placed officials were replaced by Raul because they were plotting a coup against him – at the instigation of Huga Chavez!  Raul apparently got Fidel’s approval for the removals.  No word on how Fidel felt upon learning that someone he desribed this way:  “We are like brothers” was plotting to overthrow his actual brother.

Castaneda seems to think Fidel is looking out for his younger sibling by sending coded messages of thanks and warning to Latin American leaders:

[…] Castaneda points to an “enigmatic” comment former leader Fidel Castro made in a column after the two men were removed.

“He resorted to a baseball metaphor on the occasion of the World Baseball Classic to praise Dominicans for not participating (the team’s plans had been unclear) and to claim that Chavez‘s baseball players, ‘as good and young’ as they might be, were no match for ‘Cuba’s seasoned all-stars,’ ” Castaneda wrote in the Newsweek article.

Castaneda says Castro was thanking Dominican President Fernandez and sending a veiled message to Chavez.

Only time will tell.

The Ticking Derivatives Time Bomb

We’re often asked to consider the serious risk of rapid inflation once the economy rebounds and the full impact of literally trillions of dollars in global stimulus is upon us, but even the most gloomy economist isn’t forecasting anything like this.  However, even inflation at those levels might not be the most serious economic time bomb quietly ticking away.

Descent from the Peak

What isn’t going down these days?  It appears our supply of easily accessible oil is as well.

Hold on to you hats - that looks like a steep drop coming our way

Read all about it courtesy of  The Oil Drum

Baby steps …..

Taking time out of managing the econopocalypse, President Obama today corrects one of the Bush administration’s most contemptible refusals to do the right thing.

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2009/03/18/obama_backs_gay_rights_declaration.html

If the English village is a bit pricey, don’t tell me you can’t afford $100

Will we all be kicking ourselves in ten years that we didn’t all run to Detroit and pick up some cheap property??

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/opinion/08barlow.html?_r=3

Look at your wrist when I say, “I love you”

Okay, the company’s webiste actually starts off by suggesting that this is a good tool to remind your kids not to use drugs.  So thier marketing pitch needs some help, but he coolness factor makes up for it!  Check it out, thanks to BoingBoing Gadgets.

So you’re looking for a bit of property across the Pond, eh?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090316/od_nm/us_britain_village

Sheep Art

Seriously, someone has too much time on their hands – but thank goodness they do as this is amazing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2FX9rviEhw

Socialism works for some

Interesting comments and stats from Andrew Leonard at How the World Works.  You can’t argue with his statement:

So here’s the irony: Conservative cable and radio TV talk show hosts are regularly castigating President Obama’s agenda as “socialist.” Is that supposed to be a bad thing? The country that pledged its allegiance to the free market most fervently in the entire world is floundering, up to its neck in debt, with a banking system on life support and a housing sector in freefall. Meanwhile, the country that is ostensibly “socialist” has cash to burn, is pursuing an aggressively counter-cyclical fiscal policy that would make John Maynard Keynes utterly delighted, and is steadily improving its competitive ability to dominate global markets.

In the future will Western students be attending the University of Beijing to learn how to manage a successful economy in the ‘new world’?