WEDNESDAY, MAY 9, 2024 FUTURE THOUGHTS (RIOTS)

 WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 2024 - FUTURE THOUGHTS

Protests seem like acne on the face of life.  Maybe not a real sickness, but an outbreak of something..

There seem to be three ways to work on acne - (1) ignore it: (2) pop the acne and drain it; (3) get medication to sooth and cover it.

If one ignores the protest - it might just blow over.  My guess is for the current spate of protests that when summer comes on college campuses, and the students go home, that the protests will end.  

If one pops the acne and drains it, the hurt is still there for a while and maybe a scar, but in a little time, it heals and goes away. Use tear gas on the protests, fire rubber bullets, spray the crowd with fire hoses.  Arrest the protests - and it will go away.

Maybe the best is to get medication - solve the problem.  Is my diet too rich in oils and sugars?  What is causing the breakout of acne?  Or with protests, what is causing the protests?  Is there really an underlying reason (other than it is spring and students and campuses need to protest almost any issue).  Or is there really something wrong in the middle east?  Is Israel really bombing hospitals and schools?  What are the reasons?

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What is the reality?  What is going on.  If something really deep is going on, we need to solve the problem.  In the Vietnam War were the protests real?  Was the so-called “Industrial and military complex” encouraging wars in order to keep making faster and better military equipment?  

Can you have guns or butter?

"Guns or butter" is an economic concept that describes the trade-off governments face when deciding how to spend money on national defense or domestic programs. The term "guns" refers to military programs, while "butter" refers to social programs like Social Security or family assistance. The model is a simplification of national spending as part of GDP and is used to illustrate the spending constraints governments face.”

Some governments love to have enemies (real or not).  Warfare is good for the economy.  During World War II, shipyards were at full (plus) capacity being ships; airplane companies were making more airplanes.     And at that time, men were the fighting force, so women (“Rosie the Riveter”) got jobs making the war materials. (And the government went into debt).

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It seems to this observer that rhetoric and innuendos are slippery topics.  Are we in a world with China?  Is China our enemy?  Let’s put tariffs on Chinese goods, let’s stop Tik-Tok as it might be a subversive data gathering network for the Chinese government. 

(On China - Americans like to save money - and I doubt that any household in America has NO goods made by Chinese companies.  - do we need college protests against China?)

Growing up, the economic competitor to the United States was Japan.  In the 1950s, items stamped with “Made in Japan” were laughable mock-offs of American goods - made cheaper in Japan.  Then the quality movement made Japanese goods better than American goods.  Toyota, Honda, Sony, Panasonic, and Mitsubishi are leaders in their fields.  

And, now - Japan is an ally.  

Land, labor, intellectual properties are major economic factors.  China currently has a large labor force (and some may add with intellectual properties stolen from America).  

BUT, India has the world’s largest population - surpassing China recently (2023).  

Bloomberg - one of the major business analytic companies - predicts “If India hits all the right economic notes it could lead global growth by 2028”

So, will “Made in India” become the standard for manufacturing?  The population is growing - labor is abundant - and maybe an advantage is that that India has English as a main language.  If you have been in graduate schools in Engineering and Sciences, you will find that White Americans are a minority - and Indian and Chinese students are filling graduate class seats.  

“The Chinese economy may now be more than five times larger than India's, but India is growing much faster than China, and no one expects that to change anytime soon.

Already, since 2010, India's economy has overtaken those of the U.K., France, Italy and Brazil in size. Japan, which last year slid behind Germany to become the world's fourth-largest economy, is set to be the next to fall behind India, sometime in the next few years.

Unless there is a major shock then, the Indian economy is on track to converge in size with that of China over the coming decades. Whether Indian output will actually overtake that of China is hard to predict, since that will depend on how swiftly Chinese output decelerates and how long India continues to benefit from conditions favorable to its growth momentum, including an expanding, urbanizing population and Western investment interest in the country as a hedge against dependence on China.”

https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/India-s-economy-can-overtake-China-s-if-it-can-stay-on-track

(And, … just for a thought provoking question - When will the American economy fall to India?)

Is our world changing from philosophical systems (Democracy, Communism) to economic systems?  Will the Indian Rupee overtake the “Almighty Dollar”?.

Would it be better to let the American border with Mexico to get our own cheap labor?  I have driven through southwestern Texas - and there is an abundance of cheap land (not good for agriculture).  

Ah yes, I wasn’t an Economics Professor.  

And, at age  76, I’ll be gone soon enough.  (But, I do speak the language of India better than the Chinese language!!!

LOVE WINS

LOVE TRANSFORMS

Karen Anne White, ©, May 8th, 2024