Sunday, June 09, 2013

If you can't fix it you've got to stand it


I have to give the Economist editors credit for the cojones to print a Brokeback Mountain cover with Obama and Xi: If you can't fix it you've got to stand it.

Compare the assumptions I made in some 2004 calculations to the widget below.

14 comments:

  1. Richard Seiter2:40 PM

    I have trouble understanding how (for an extended period) China can have annual inflation of 4% (presumably in yuan?) and annual appreciation of the yuan of 3% while the US has annual inflation of only 1.5% (am I missing some implication of using the GDP deflator rather than the CPI?). Are the two markets really that misaligned/decoupled? Surely that is not true for commodities at least? Does anyone have historical data (say a comparison of the US and Britain in the early-mid 20th century) that might cast light on the plausibility of this?

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  2. gide077:46 PM

    The rise of China should be welcome by the few true believers left. The Chinese will never be Jewed. The Jews are captain of a ship they themselves have scuttled.

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  3. Bobdisqus6:26 PM

    http://globalwarming-arclein.blogspot.com/2013/06/pending-chinese-population-contraction.html?utm_source=BP_recent

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  4. gide077:12 PM

    The yuan dollar market is not a free market. The yuan has been artificially depressed by the PRC. Alignment/coupling obtains only in a free market. It's not as if the Chinese are buying a lot of American made goods or a lot of any non-Chinese made goods, so the reduced value of the yuan doesn't mean that other currencies should appreciate vs the yuan.

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  5. SethTS1:17 AM

    This reminds me of Niall Ferguson's "Chimerica". The term "Chimerica" aptly suggests the two-way conceptual mind-meld in progress between the ruling classes of the two countries. China is absorbing American economic values while America is absorbing Chinese political values. On the other hand, Ferguson's punchline was that Chimerica is a marriage on the verge of break-up. My worry is the reverse: we're all going to be peeking in at Orwell's "Animal Farm"-house window and find that we can no longer recognize the difference between the "human" and "pig" rulers. The Economist appears to agree with the relationship metaphor and with my take on the direction the relationship is going: more intimate rather than less.

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  6. BobSykes8:37 AM

    Of course, a finite number divided by infinity approaches zero in the limit.


    China right now is near the apex of its power v.v. the US. Population decline is about to set in hard, and the population lost will be the productive young adults. The population left will be nonproductive dependent seniors. There will be a sharp reduction in economic growth in the near term, and in the long term economic output will actually decline.


    This also affects China's military power. They will not have either the required personnel or the economic base to challenge the US.


    The same is true for Europe and Russia.


    The US will be the dominant military and economic power for the rest of this century at least.


    Demography is destiny.

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  7. gide075:33 PM

    You're ignoring that the quality of Americans has been and will continue to decline.

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  8. According to this sublime argument, Nigeria and Pakistan are the countries of the future.
    Back on earth, white Americans' fertility rate is no higher than that of Han Chinese.

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  9. gide075:05 PM

    Ferguson is a Scot and therefore can never be taken seriously.

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  10. SethTS5:09 PM

    And you, like Gore Vidal, enjoy being provocative more than you enjoy real argumentation.

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  11. gide076:54 PM

    Real argumentation never involves a Scot.

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  12. SethTS7:13 PM

    And "no true Scotsman" would ever use too many syllables.

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  13. gide077:20 PM

    Serious people include David Sinclair, Lenny Guerente, Aubrey de Grey, Peter Thiel, Dmitry Itskov, David Murdoch, etc.

    EVERYONE else is a f---ing retard.

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  14. TimothyBates2:54 PM

    I'm confused: Why does this graph (and the Economist) think that having high inflation is a key for China to overtake the US economy? If so, the answer is simply to "enter" more inflation for the US economy... Or did I misunderstand?

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