Cruel Lalagus, why do you not love me? --Graffiti at Pompeii:
The flu is a good way to start a weight loss plan. We're still sick.
A guy wrote recently that America has virtually no socialist history; what we have is "transferism."
Socialist rhetoric always scores higher than socialist policies, and both score much better than socialist outcomes. Telling people they’re entitled to free stuff, or assailing the rich generally, appeals to a certain number, but those figures shift when rhetoric meets reality. This is one reason nobody—socialists, least of all—is conducting any polling in Venezuela.--Reed
Mini-Chernobyl. Before genetic engineering, there was atomic gardening, the 1970s practice of planting some seeds in a circle around a radiation source and hoping some of them got beneficial mutations. The process produced modern Ruby Red grapefruits, among other things.
We are fine-tuning our lives--or they are:
Studies have found that Nobel Prize-winning scientists are about 25 times more likely to sing, dance or act than the average scientist. They are also 17 times more likely to create visual art, 12 times more likely to write poetry and four times more likely to be a musician.
On December 12, 1980, American oil tycoon Armand Hammer paid $5,126,000 at auction for a notebook containing writings by the legendary artist Leonardo da Vinci.
China's Population
Carl Minzer is Professor of Chinese law and politics at Fordham Law School and author of End of an Era: How China's Authoritarian Revival is Undermining Its Rise (Oxford, 2018). He has a Twitter account with this interesting collection of posts: China’s new births estimated at 11m this year, lower than even our own (Marro's) pretty pessimistic projections (we expect total population to peak in 2026. Steep fall from 17m just two yrs ago.
Naturally, it is well known that China is rapidly aging. *Official* data - from both the Chinese government and the United Nations - predict the share of China's population aged 65+ will rise as follows: 2019 11.5% 2027 15% 2037 22% 2046 25%
What is less appreciated is that those estimates are all based on the assumption that China's total fertility rate somehow rises to the 1.7-1.8 child/woman level - and stays there - for decades into the future. Call that into question, and things change dramatically.
Note that other East Asian societies - Japan, South Korea, Taiwan - that are ahead of the P.R.C. in terms of the demographic aging process are nowhere near that level. Japan is around 1.4. Taiwan and South Korea are lower - around 1.1-1.2. (!)
Start looking at South Korea or Taiwan as proxies for where China might go, and the picture begins to look a lot different. Here, for example, is the current demographic forecast for South Korea: % of elderly (65+) 2020 16% 2030 25% 2040 33% 2050 38% 2060 41%
Remember that *official* data (based on 1.7-1.8 fertility rate assumption) already shows China: a) moving from (by 2046) to look like 2019 Japan (currently 25% of the population aged 65+) in terms of aging, and b) hovering at 30% for decades after.
Change the underlying assumptions - which seems merited given drop in births + experience of other East Asian societies - and all that goes out the window.
a) moves China's aging process forward by a decade - i.e., China looks like Japan today (re: aging) by late 2030s, not 2040s, and: b) ensures China's elderly surges above 40% of population
It's also worth remembering that China has a huge gender imbalance, with about 115 boys born for every 100 girls, and this will only make matters worse in the years to come.
The flu is a good way to start a weight loss plan. We're still sick.
A guy wrote recently that America has virtually no socialist history; what we have is "transferism."
[T]he most effectual plan for advancing a people to greatness, is to maintain that order of things which nature has pointed out; by allowing every man, as long as he observes the rules of justice, to pursue his own interest in his own way, and to bring both his industry and his capital into the freest competion with those of his fellow-citizens. Every system of policy which endeavours, either by extraordinary encouragements to draw towards a particular species of industry a greater share of the capital of the society than what would naturally go to it, or, by extraordinary restraints, to force from a particular species of industry some share of the capital which would otherwise be employed in it, is, in reality, subversive of the great purpose which it means to promote.--A Smith
Envy as a basis for government policy: "His [Thomas Piketty’s] ethics is a narrow ethics of envy. His politics assumes that governments can accomplish anything they propose. And his economics is flawed from start to finish."--McCloskey
Envy as a basis for government policy: "His [Thomas Piketty’s] ethics is a narrow ethics of envy. His politics assumes that governments can accomplish anything they propose. And his economics is flawed from start to finish."--McCloskey
....the University of Michigan .... established a “Bias Response Team.” The campus cops had the power to investigate students for incidents of “bias” and hurt feelings at the expense of free speech. And it wasn’t until a Circuit Court ordered the Team to be disbanded that the school agreed to never again revive its speech police and un-Constitutional harassment codes. And although they did eliminate the Bias Response Team, in Ann Arbor alone, the school still employs 76 diversity-related administrators who cost taxpayers and students more than 10 million dollars in compensation every year. They focus on every kind of diversity except a diversity of ideas. And the University of Michigan isn’t alone. More than 200 other colleges and universities still have teams of speech bullies with the power to punish perpetrators of hurt feelings. from DeVos
Socialist rhetoric always scores higher than socialist policies, and both score much better than socialist outcomes. Telling people they’re entitled to free stuff, or assailing the rich generally, appeals to a certain number, but those figures shift when rhetoric meets reality. This is one reason nobody—socialists, least of all—is conducting any polling in Venezuela.--Reed
Mini-Chernobyl. Before genetic engineering, there was atomic gardening, the 1970s practice of planting some seeds in a circle around a radiation source and hoping some of them got beneficial mutations. The process produced modern Ruby Red grapefruits, among other things.
We are fine-tuning our lives--or they are:
- A toilet tank should only hold 1.6 gallons
- A showerhead flow can’t exceed more than 2.5 gallons per minute (gpm) at a water pressure of 80 pounds per square inch (psi)
- Bathroom sink faucets and accessories should use a maximum of 1.5 gallons per minute
The above are all real mandates. They reach into every home and every business in America. In the name of some undefinable something, the net result is absolutely indisputable: our lives in our bathrooms, and with our dishes and with our clothing, have been forcibly degraded.
Studies have found that Nobel Prize-winning scientists are about 25 times more likely to sing, dance or act than the average scientist. They are also 17 times more likely to create visual art, 12 times more likely to write poetry and four times more likely to be a musician.
On December 12, 1980, American oil tycoon Armand Hammer paid $5,126,000 at auction for a notebook containing writings by the legendary artist Leonardo da Vinci.
China's Population
Carl Minzer is Professor of Chinese law and politics at Fordham Law School and author of End of an Era: How China's Authoritarian Revival is Undermining Its Rise (Oxford, 2018). He has a Twitter account with this interesting collection of posts: China’s new births estimated at 11m this year, lower than even our own (Marro's) pretty pessimistic projections (we expect total population to peak in 2026. Steep fall from 17m just two yrs ago.
Naturally, it is well known that China is rapidly aging. *Official* data - from both the Chinese government and the United Nations - predict the share of China's population aged 65+ will rise as follows: 2019 11.5% 2027 15% 2037 22% 2046 25%
What is less appreciated is that those estimates are all based on the assumption that China's total fertility rate somehow rises to the 1.7-1.8 child/woman level - and stays there - for decades into the future. Call that into question, and things change dramatically.
Note that other East Asian societies - Japan, South Korea, Taiwan - that are ahead of the P.R.C. in terms of the demographic aging process are nowhere near that level. Japan is around 1.4. Taiwan and South Korea are lower - around 1.1-1.2. (!)
Start looking at South Korea or Taiwan as proxies for where China might go, and the picture begins to look a lot different. Here, for example, is the current demographic forecast for South Korea: % of elderly (65+) 2020 16% 2030 25% 2040 33% 2050 38% 2060 41%
Remember that *official* data (based on 1.7-1.8 fertility rate assumption) already shows China: a) moving from (by 2046) to look like 2019 Japan (currently 25% of the population aged 65+) in terms of aging, and b) hovering at 30% for decades after.
Change the underlying assumptions - which seems merited given drop in births + experience of other East Asian societies - and all that goes out the window.
a) moves China's aging process forward by a decade - i.e., China looks like Japan today (re: aging) by late 2030s, not 2040s, and: b) ensures China's elderly surges above 40% of population
It's also worth remembering that China has a huge gender imbalance, with about 115 boys born for every 100 girls, and this will only make matters worse in the years to come.
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