Companies increase pay rates at lower rates than inflation, so overtime the value of what people actually get paid become less and less. Employees fight back by working slower, accomplishing less, and become generally lazy. The phenomenon that starting salaries for companies are non-negotiable is a sign of this "matured" labor market.
The only counter example in recent memory to this gradual, but inevitable, decline into economic malaise is Silicon Valley in the late 1990s. It was just a few years before the dot com bubble that the labor market saw much fluidity. Everything: salary, benefits, stock options for joining a high tech company can be negotiated. Yet it was only a brief respite, then the labor market regressed back to the mean.
The British train system, built by Empire wealth and money, and if it breaks down today, the contemporary U.K. economy cannot afford to build a new one.
The U.S. highway system, the best in the world and built back in the 1950s. There are no projects of such magnitude that the U.S. government is investing in today.
In a sense we are living on inherited legacies. The government no longer invests, yet collect the same amount of taxes. Ex. the telephone tax. If the private sector is suppose to supplant government investment, where are the tax cuts to the people?
Perfect markets, rational behaviors... the stuff of dreams.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Monday, July 23, 2007
Those funny Austrians
Mises.org just published an article titled:
The Death Camp of Communist China
it begins with: A hysteria of sorts has been generated by reports that some of China's products lack quality control. Some cat food has been tainted. A few cell phone batteries have blown up. Cough syrup contained stuff that makes you sick. And so on. In response, the Chinese government actually executed its regulatory head of food and product safety, Zheng Xiaoyu.
hmmmm, a most pertinent subject matter, yes? but wait for the bait and switch
it goes on to saying: It's a scandal, in fact, that few Westerners are even aware, or, if they are aware, they are not conscious, of the bloody reality that prevailed in China between the years 1949 and 1976, the years of communist rule by Mao Zedong.
Ok... so the opening was just polemics to support the body of the work. Maybe there is merit, let's read on
Having read the above, you are now in a tiny elite of people who know anything about the greatest death camp in the history of the world that China became between 1949 and 1976, an experiment in total control unlike anything else in history. Many more people today know more about China's exploding cell-phone batteries than they do about the hundred million dead and the untold amount of suffering that occurred under communism.
therefore we arrive at the morally virtuous conclusion that: When you hear about shoddy products coming from China or wheat poorly processed, imagine millions in famine, with parents swapping children to eat in order to stay alive. And what do China's critics today recommend? More control by the government. Don't tell me that we've learned anything from history. We don't even know enough about history to learn from it.
In short, according to this article: regulation of food safety in China, or any type of quality control mandated by the Chinese government would be in essence a return to totalitarian control, and *gasp*, first step on the slippery slope back to communism!
Think of all the people that will die if the Chinese government have its way and force the food companies to adhere to food safety! Pleasssssse, save the children!!!!!~
The Death Camp of Communist China
it begins with: A hysteria of sorts has been generated by reports that some of China's products lack quality control. Some cat food has been tainted. A few cell phone batteries have blown up. Cough syrup contained stuff that makes you sick. And so on. In response, the Chinese government actually executed its regulatory head of food and product safety, Zheng Xiaoyu.
hmmmm, a most pertinent subject matter, yes? but wait for the bait and switch
it goes on to saying: It's a scandal, in fact, that few Westerners are even aware, or, if they are aware, they are not conscious, of the bloody reality that prevailed in China between the years 1949 and 1976, the years of communist rule by Mao Zedong.
Ok... so the opening was just polemics to support the body of the work. Maybe there is merit, let's read on
Having read the above, you are now in a tiny elite of people who know anything about the greatest death camp in the history of the world that China became between 1949 and 1976, an experiment in total control unlike anything else in history. Many more people today know more about China's exploding cell-phone batteries than they do about the hundred million dead and the untold amount of suffering that occurred under communism.
therefore we arrive at the morally virtuous conclusion that: When you hear about shoddy products coming from China or wheat poorly processed, imagine millions in famine, with parents swapping children to eat in order to stay alive. And what do China's critics today recommend? More control by the government. Don't tell me that we've learned anything from history. We don't even know enough about history to learn from it.
In short, according to this article: regulation of food safety in China, or any type of quality control mandated by the Chinese government would be in essence a return to totalitarian control, and *gasp*, first step on the slippery slope back to communism!
Think of all the people that will die if the Chinese government have its way and force the food companies to adhere to food safety! Pleasssssse, save the children!!!!!~
Friday, July 20, 2007
Austin
Back in Austin this weekend. It was suppose to take 3 hours, I drove here in 2. The weather here is unusual in what seems in Houston as completely normal, endless rain.
Don't miss school anymore. At least, with no reason to. Internship is going very well, and I want to start working full time, learn for a few years and go work overseas - in London, Amsterdam, or Dubai. There is no one here at the moment for whom I would stay for. All I need to do is to take a deep breath and finish.
And what was the last 4 years but holding a long breath. People, their insecurities and fears have moved on while I stood still. Now it seems the path before me stretches into the horizon without a single person in sight. What remains feels... like exhilaration.
Time to start running... going to grab this opportunity and run as fast and as far as I can, until nothing around is recognizable, until the faces of people are no more than mists in memory.
Don't miss school anymore. At least, with no reason to. Internship is going very well, and I want to start working full time, learn for a few years and go work overseas - in London, Amsterdam, or Dubai. There is no one here at the moment for whom I would stay for. All I need to do is to take a deep breath and finish.
And what was the last 4 years but holding a long breath. People, their insecurities and fears have moved on while I stood still. Now it seems the path before me stretches into the horizon without a single person in sight. What remains feels... like exhilaration.
Time to start running... going to grab this opportunity and run as fast and as far as I can, until nothing around is recognizable, until the faces of people are no more than mists in memory.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Rice and Political Autarky
I was curious as to the dietary staples of the Middle East. Upon inquiring a Jordanian friend of mine, Rami, on whether rice is grown and eaten in huge quantities in the region, the answer was "no".
Why doesn't the Middle Eastern countries grow rice? Mesopotamia, the fertile crescent is one of the earliest areas to cultivate rice, yet one ponders why the present day Middle East does not continue this tradition.
At first I thought it was a shift in life style, something like the Second Consonant Shift in the German language, but instead of a change in language, there was a change in diet. One could come to the conclusion that the present state of food in the Middle East is just a natural evolution of habits, cultural interaction, climate. Upon closer examination, perhaps only the first two explanation can withstand scrutiny. Modern day Middle East is fully capable of growing rice, despite people routinely mistakes the Middle Eastern countries as being full of deserts.
When I posited habits and cultural interaction as factors in the change of diet in the Middle East, I wasn't expecting the answer to be so cynical. Today, the only Middle Eastern country that grows rice is: Iran. Another country is just starting to grow rice again: Syria. Rice growing is a method of exerting independence from foreign powers. When you start to grow your own food from the land, as oppose to relying on subsidized food imported by the express policies of the regime, the population gains a degree of autonomy.
Iran under the Shah did not grow rice, but now it is the biggest rice growing country in the Middle East.
Syria is only growing rice because it is afraid that the U.S. will embargo them.
The regimes in the Middle East lack the willpower to invest in their own agricultural system. Or anything else for that matter; no agriculture, no industry, everything is imported. The populace is kept dependent on the autocratic regimes that put the whole country on perpetual life support.
Why doesn't the Middle Eastern countries grow rice? Mesopotamia, the fertile crescent is one of the earliest areas to cultivate rice, yet one ponders why the present day Middle East does not continue this tradition.
At first I thought it was a shift in life style, something like the Second Consonant Shift in the German language, but instead of a change in language, there was a change in diet. One could come to the conclusion that the present state of food in the Middle East is just a natural evolution of habits, cultural interaction, climate. Upon closer examination, perhaps only the first two explanation can withstand scrutiny. Modern day Middle East is fully capable of growing rice, despite people routinely mistakes the Middle Eastern countries as being full of deserts.
When I posited habits and cultural interaction as factors in the change of diet in the Middle East, I wasn't expecting the answer to be so cynical. Today, the only Middle Eastern country that grows rice is: Iran. Another country is just starting to grow rice again: Syria. Rice growing is a method of exerting independence from foreign powers. When you start to grow your own food from the land, as oppose to relying on subsidized food imported by the express policies of the regime, the population gains a degree of autonomy.
Iran under the Shah did not grow rice, but now it is the biggest rice growing country in the Middle East.
Syria is only growing rice because it is afraid that the U.S. will embargo them.
The regimes in the Middle East lack the willpower to invest in their own agricultural system. Or anything else for that matter; no agriculture, no industry, everything is imported. The populace is kept dependent on the autocratic regimes that put the whole country on perpetual life support.
Monday, July 02, 2007
A Friend Whom I still Remember and Wish to Know
Six months ago I asked one of my female cousins about how her best friend is doing. The three of us went to the same elementary school back in Gaozhou, and I had a crush on her best friend. I had my hopes.
I found out that she was studying to become a clinical psychologist. It was an odd choice, my cousin mentioned, because the recognition and treatment of psychological disorders is not widely talked about in Southern China. Reminiscing about her, it didn't seem odd at all. She was quiet, had good grades, and hid a tremendous will. The imagination that one can change things and people around her for the better is a universal dream. Becoming a clinical psychologist is a... romantic way of realizing it. But why not? If a person can be happy in changing society for the better, then they deserve pleasure in their choice of jobs.
"She has a boyfriend", my cousin said. Ok, fair enough, I thought to myself - when you really want to know, then the truth is inevitable.
"Her boyfriend is wealthy too, he comes from a family that is pretty successful in commerce" Right, directly to the business then.
After struggling to word everything carefully, I asked my cousin if she had a picture of her friend. She asks, puzzled, "For what?"
When I said it was for reminiscence, cousin retorted back, "What is there to reminiscence about?"
I had to chide my cousin to get away with it all. Yet... what is there to reminisce about?
I found out that she was studying to become a clinical psychologist. It was an odd choice, my cousin mentioned, because the recognition and treatment of psychological disorders is not widely talked about in Southern China. Reminiscing about her, it didn't seem odd at all. She was quiet, had good grades, and hid a tremendous will. The imagination that one can change things and people around her for the better is a universal dream. Becoming a clinical psychologist is a... romantic way of realizing it. But why not? If a person can be happy in changing society for the better, then they deserve pleasure in their choice of jobs.
"She has a boyfriend", my cousin said. Ok, fair enough, I thought to myself - when you really want to know, then the truth is inevitable.
"Her boyfriend is wealthy too, he comes from a family that is pretty successful in commerce" Right, directly to the business then.
After struggling to word everything carefully, I asked my cousin if she had a picture of her friend. She asks, puzzled, "For what?"
When I said it was for reminiscence, cousin retorted back, "What is there to reminiscence about?"
I had to chide my cousin to get away with it all. Yet... what is there to reminisce about?
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