Rant: Poverty and Cultural Authenticity

Short version: you don't need the former in order to have the latter.

So tell me, ye judges of authenticity: am I "authentic" enough for you?  Maybe my smartphone and laptop and high heels disqualify me as a "proper" Taiwanese.  Should I be back wading in the rice paddy and wearing a coolie hat with a baby strapped to my back?  Does that better meet your laughably ignorant expectations?  Would it make you feel better if all the businesspeople and computer engineers of Taipei knock down the high-rises and go back to living in villages?  trade in their cars for wagons and water buffalo again?  ARE WE ANY LESS TAIWANESE BECAUSE WE'RE NOT POOR?  How insulting.

Oh, and heaven forbid that anyone say that the greater issue is whether quality of life is better.  Let me tell you: on my last visit to "the old country," one of my elderly aunts started telling me about life 50 years ago when she knew that "culturally authentic" poverty firsthand.  I won't weary you with details; suffice it to say it was horrifying and included phrases like "no running water" and "no indoor plumbing."  Then she smiled, gestured around her comfortable modern home, and said, well, thank goodness that's all over with!  Indeed.

Lord, give me patience with those horrible people who argue about "authenticity" ... or, better yet, Lord, give me the self-control not to punch them in the face.  Why, one might even think the authenticity police's breathtakingly arrogant behavior is ... raaaaaaaaaaacist or something.

OK, OK, how about something like this for a solution?  Wealthy tourists want to see "authenticity" from the ethnic locals while the ethnic locals want a better life with modern advances.  Why not take a hint from the brilliant Gary Larson's cartoon?  

Photo Essay: Worldly Possessions in China

Fascinating.

Magi Market Issues: Frankincense Shortage

Oh, my!  

Welcome to the Future: the Global Black Market

Comprising $10 trillion and growing.

Quirky Asia Files: Chopsticks to China

Here's a neat little tale about a Georgia company making chopsticks to send abroad because China's got a chopstick shortage.  The company also exports to Japan and Korea.  Well, whaddyaknow?  (I like bamboo chopsticks instead of wooden ones, but to each their own.) Belated link xie-xie to Sushiphagos the Progenitor of Alessandra!

Thoughts on the American Dream

Interesting. 

Nerd Analysis: Prof. Mankiw on Emerging Markets and Higher Education

Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw (he usually blogs here) has this interesting piece in the New York Times.  It's all good, but I excerpted my favorite bit after the fold:

Best Blog Post Title of the Day: "Green Man's Burden."

Awesome Aussie Tim Blair strikes again, with apologies to Kipling.

Oops, Tim seems to have taken his cue from another Aussie:

The biggest opponents of a broad, sweeping international agreement aren't business but poor countries because they know they cannot afford the green man's burden.

It is why attempts to get the Indian and Chinese governments to take on significant emissions reduction targets will fail because there's no choice between two weeks of criticism from the 20-strong Australian Youth Climate Coalition delegates, against a lifetime of criticism from the billions of people who have to live with the consequences.

The tragedy of Copenhagen is that the impact of any agreement on the world's poor has largely been lost among the self-indulgent circus caused by rich country green activists who'd rather see themselves on television back home.

UPDATE: See this great combination of green-tinted Kipling and Al Gore eco-poetry!

Is China's Economy a Paper Tiger?

Uh-Oh if true. A BIG Uh-Oh.

China: Government Bans Foreign Financial News Operations

Here's the report from the Financial Times. Because, hey, nothing increases confidence like shutting off information:

China raised the spectre of renewed international trade friction over market access for foreign financial information providers as the government said such businesses must not engage in news gathering in China.

The surprise ban on this business area is seen by industry executives as backtracking on an agreement China reached with the US, the EU and Canada in November last year on allowing companies like Bloomberg, Dow Jones and Thomson Reuters to distribute information to financial and corporate clients.

. . . the US, the EU and Canada lodged a complaint against China at the World Trade Organisation earlier last year over Beijing’s move to make Xinhua, its official news agency and a competitor for the foreign providers in the financial information business, its de facto regulator.

Xinhua! That paragon of journalism. Pffft.

More:

In regulations published on the cabinet’s website on Thursday, the government said foreign financial information providers would be allowed to set up businesses in China and would be regulated by the State Council Information Office.

Hey, how would you like your information to be "regulated" by an entity with a name like "State Council Information Office"? Is that like the Ministry of Truth? Just askin'.

Follow-Up: More Analysis on Aid to Africa

Take a look at this op-ed piece from -- wait for it -- the New York Times (link xie-xie to blogfriend Pursuit of Serenity, who rightly wonders if the era of "white guilt" might be waning in terms of that "guilt" partially driving the African aid machine).

Blurb from the Times piece:

CAPE TOWN — Less than four years ago, on the back of Tony Blair’s Africa Commission recommendations, the Group of 8 summit meeting at Gleneagles agreed to write off Africa’s debt and to double aid by 2010. Aid, trumpeted the British prime minister and his fellow celebrity travelers from Bono to Bob Geldof, was the answer to Africa’s development woes.

But this once politically correct view has suddenly become unfashionable.

A key reason is that aid has proved to be an extremely ineffective way of getting a return — in this case, development — on serious money flows. Some put total aid to Africa over the past 50 years as high as $1 trillion.

. . . If Africa is to use aid productively, the responsible government — and not the donors — have to set the agenda. One way to do this is for African countries to ensure that only those projects will be considered that focus on the creation of hard (physical) and soft (education and health) infrastructure. And the government alone, not the donors, should identify priority projects, all of which need clear, identifiable and tangible outcomes and benchmarks — and not workshops, seminars and studies.

You will remember this recent post/book review on Western aid to Africa.

Book Review: "Dead Aid" by Dambisa Moyo and Western Aid to Africa

An interesting book review is now available for Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way for Africa by Zambia-born economist Dambisa Moyo.

Here is a piece of it:

Moyo’s views will not surprise readers familiar with the issue. When aid is easily available, she asks, why become an entrepreneur? Lobbying in Washington or Paris is more rewarding for an African entrepreneur than investing in his own country. Moreover, as Moyo shows, aid can destroy the continents’ few indigenous companies. The distribution of free anti-mosquito nets by aid programs, for instance, puts local manufacturers of nets out of business. Moyo proposes classic free-market solutions. The U.S. and E.U. should stop subsidizing their farmers, enabling Africa to export more of its primary products. Slum residents should receive legal title to their homes. African nations should foster the institutions of microfinance. All of this would spur real African growth, she believes.

You may remember that the issue appeared on the blog several years ago with a link to this interview with Kenyan economist James Shikwati, who also called for an end to Western aid to Africa.

In some ways, the Western developed world's love affair with aid is -- OK, I'm going to say it, though it's not politically correct! -- a new version of paternalism and the "white man's burden." It also goes with the entire therapeutic drive behind a lot of seemingly bleeding-heart endeavours: the wish to feel good about oneself for being charitable and whatnot. Good intentions are fine and all -- as paving stones to hell. People need results and a better standard of living.

Also, Africans are not pets -- no matter how many African babies some Hollywood celebrities want to adopt (with much fanfare and self-aggrandizing publicity), regardless of whether the local African authorities want them to adopt a native child or not. *cough* Madonna! *cough* (Boy, I'm trying not to launch into a digression about celebrities and their kinda/sorta neo-colonialist adoptions and messianic aid projects.)

Really want to help? Throwing money at the problem of African poverty won't fix it. In fact, it makes the problem worse. Go for trade, not aid -- and capitalism, free trade, and free markets that create wealth. Also along with the growth of free markets, the growth of free people, of self-sufficient individuals.

See an archived post from my defunct first blog.

Also, I apologize right now for often using so general a term as "Africa." But I haven't time or resources to look at each individual country in that continent; note that each one is different and that talking in overgeneralized terms really can't do much specific good.

UPDATE: Related article here! Blurb:

Africa needs aid, but not the kind the West is currently providing. Conventional development aid has turned the continent into a dependent recipient of charity. We should halt the handouts and adopt successful micro-lending models instead, helping Africans to help themselves.

OK, I can't help myself. Confucius say, if you want to feed a man for a day, give him a fish. If you want to feed him for a lifetime, teach him how to fish!

"He is the perfect symbol of our culture of emboldened stupidity": the Art of the Vitriolic Book Review

If you enjoyed yesterday's gloriously enraged movie review, then take a look as an angry book reviewer brutally disassembles Thomas Friedman. Language warning.

(Dignified Rant, this one's for you!)

Recession in Taiwan: the Battered Tech-Based Export Economy

The frozen economy needs CTRL + ALT + DEL.

Tired of stimulus-a-palooza here, I look back at the "Old Country" and see an even worse picture there. The numbers are bad as reported by the Economist. Here are some of them:

Which economy has been hit hardest by the global slump? In its back pages and on its website The Economist tracks 55 countries each week. Based on industrial production, Taiwan has suffered much the biggest shock. Output fell by 32% in the 12 months to December; in the fourth quarter it plunged at an annual rate of 62%.

...Taiwan is one of the world’s most export-dependent economies, making many high-tech gadgets for Western consumers, so it has been battered by the slump in global demand. Exports plunged by a record 44% in the year to January. The slide in exports has been exacerbated by a drying up of trade credit. This partly explains why imports also fell by 57% over the period.

...The island’s electronics industry is enduring its worst-ever slump. Cheng Cheng-mount, a Taipei-based economist with Citibank, points out that Taiwan’s mainstay exports, such as flat-screen monitors and semiconductors, were in oversupply even before the global financial crisis. Now, he estimates, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, is running at around 35% of capacity.

Falling exports have, in turn, squeezed domestic spending. Unemployment rose to a six-year high of 5% in December, and the true picture may be far bleaker. Taiwanese companies tend to wait until after the lunar new year holiday before swinging the axe. Average wages have also fallen by 5% in real terms over the past year. Many companies are ordering employees to take unpaid leave. The volume of retail sales slumped by 11% in the year to December.

Even before the financial crisis, household spending had seen the weakest growth rate among the East Asian tigers.

You know that Taiwan is heavily dependent on import-export, particularly in electronics. You'll remember that the Taiwanese government recently had to bail out computer chip manufacturers.

How bad is the downturn? Backing up the Economist, the Taiwanese government says that this is the worst slump since it started keeping quarterly records in 1961.

Add also a record fall in the Taiwanese GDP; the numbers were released just today. The latest prediction: the Taiwanese economy will shrink by 3% this year. Previous hopes had been for a 2% growth this year. Not gonna happen. And it's time to use the R-word: a recession is defined as 2 consecutive quarters of contraction.

Oh, and one more thing: the Taiwan dollar has hit a five-year low against the US dollar. The exchange is $1 US = $34.62 Taiwan. (This is actually not the most that I've seen. When I was in Taiwan right after the dot.com bubble popped, the ratio was something like $1 US = $36 Taiwan.) Then again, the Taiwan dollar could very likely drop some more.

Thailand: Trading Rice for Iranian Oil

Behold the latest bizarre combination of food crisis, energy crisis, globalization, and money/credit crisis. The result? We're back to the barter system. Or Thailand is, anyway. It's going to trade its rice for oil from Iran. Yes, really.

(Does this mean I'll face shortages here of my beloved Thai jasmine rice? Nooooooooooooo!)

Euro Notes and Schadenfreude Alert: the EU-rocrat, the Chinese Milk, and the Kidney Stone

I can't make this stuff up if I tried. Just go here and read it all.

MM Blog wishes Mr. Mandelson a full and speedy recovery from his kidney ailment, but I can't help saying, well, sir, that's what you get for supporting a rotten Chinese milk industry that has sickened people around the world, including 53,000 children in China alone (and that's just the number that's being reported).

Even if Mandelson's kidney stone had nothing to do with his Chinese milk stunt, you have to admit that the circumstances are too perfectly coincidental not to cause a snicker or two.

Quirky Euro Files: Bavarian Germans Upset at Cheap Chinese Lederhosen

I'm sorry, but I think I'm posting this just so I can say "Chinese Lederhosen."

Bonus quirkiness: the article refers to the mini-political kerfuffle in Munich now known as "Dirndl-Gate." Really.

What's German for "wardrobe malfunction"? I'm simply tickled by all this. (Golly, can you imagine me wearing a dirndl? Hilarious! Plus I'll put the Cinema-Mad Sibling into some lederhosen, hahaha.)

Euro Notes: French Surrenders to English

I knew it! Mwahahahaha!

For generations, the French have fiercely guarded their language against the horreurs anglais.

But France's education minister yesterday admitted for the first time that the secret to success is speaking better English.

Xavier Darcos claimed poor English is now a 'handicap' because all international business is conducted in the language, and said French schools would offer extra lessons during the holidays.

*MM spikes her French dictionary and dances around her living room.*

Hello Kitty Monstrosity of the Ages: Meet Kitty Designer Yuko Yamaguchi

Time magazine recently interviewed the Antichrist -- um, I mean, Public Enemy Number One -- um, I mean, Yuko Yamaguchi, the woman who created and designed Hello Kitty.

Yuko Yamaguchi poses with her horrid brain-spawn

I think we can all safely shriek, "IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT, YUKO!" with perfect justification.

Plus, if you had any lingering doubts that Yuko is completely evil, take a look at this quote from the interview. Any more doubt that she's determined to take over the world and subject us all to a horrifying global tyranny of cuteness?

Q: What will Hello Kitty be doing in 10 years?

A: In 10 years' time, everybody around the world will know her. Also, the number of male and female fans will be the same. Men who are still reluctant to be seen with Kitty in public today might be wearing Hello Kitty boxers. But they will eventually stop being shy and will show off Kitty proudly.

And here am I half-expecting Yuko to add, "Everybody around the world will know her...and love her...and worship her...OR ELSE. We are working on our legions of Hello Kitty storm troopers who will, with total charm, frog-march you to Kitty re-education camp where you will watch musical cartoons in pink painted rooms until you acknowledge the Rule of Cute. Or until your brain melts in a welter of blood and fire. Whichever comes first."

Plus -- Hello Kitty boxers?? OMG.

France's Troubled Wine Industry

Yes, yes, we know that the French wine industry has had some issues, but . . . wine terrorists?