| Friday, December
8, 2006
From another discussion. I had argued against
Free Trade and our free trade policies. Peter Schaeffer responded:
Attacking "free trade" might have some merit if "free
trade" was the problem. However, the global system of relatively free trade
died some number of years ago. Now we have a system of "exchange-rate
protectionism". These are not my words (although I strongly agree with
them). They are from a rather interesting paper written by Martin Wolf
("Will Asian Mercantilism Meet its Waterloo?"
http://www.pc.gov.au/lectures/snape/wolf/wolf.pdf).
[Peter Schaeffer adds here for this publication:
"Martin Wolf is almost certainly the foremost economic
journalist in the world. I am not saying that he is always right (as I see
it) or that I always agree with him. However, he is the only journalist I
know of who could produce the presentation (three parts) linked to here
http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/setser/122822"
]
The reality is that many of our trading partners (and
not just China) have found a new form of tariffs/protectionism that they can
get away with. The new trick is to simply maintain a strongly undervalued
exchange rate. For example, the Yuan is around 7.81 per dollar. On a PPP
basis, the rate would be roughly 1.9 per dollar. This implies that the Yuan
is 75% undervalued. This is an exaggeration because poor countries generally
have market exchange rates lower than PPP parity.
Typically a country at China's level of development
might value the Yuan 50% below PPP parity. This means that that Yuan should
be 3.8 per dollar or more than 100% above the current exchange rate.
Effectively China is imposing a 100% tariff on American imports and paying a
100% subsidy to China's exporters. Nice trick if you can get away with it.
So far the US has done nothing to repel this attack on
the viability of our economy. The reasons are many fold including the
widespread prevalence of radical free trade ideology. Of course, economic
interests play a role as well. China has shrewdly bribed much of the elite
economic class (investment bankers) to maintain the status quo (see Brad
Setser's comments on this subject). More broadly, China has sold corporate
America on a general strategy of "move your factories here, we will provide
cheap labor, and then provide debt to consumers to buy the stuff they can no
longer afford".
A fascinating point is that Japan never tried either
approach. American financial institutions were kept at arms length (to say
the least) as Japan boomed in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. American corporations
never seriously thought they could move their production operations to Japan
and profit from the switch (Nike was an exception). As a consequence,
American corporations regarded Japan, Inc. as a threat, not an opportunity
for profit. China has been far more intelligent about this.
Of course, there are counterarguments. Without China's
(and the other neo-mercantilists) lavish purchases of US debt, US interest
rates would be considerably higher. The housing bubble would never have
happened. Imports would be more expensive and some domestic products would
sell for higher prices because of greater foreign demand.
Still, the US would be globally solvent and
economically stable. The same can not be said for the status quo.
Thank you
Peter Schaeffer
I replied:
I would like to publish that letter. May I?
Let me point out that the Housing Bubble, which
artificially inflates property taxes, hasn't been all that helpful to most
people. Young couples can't get houses, older people can't find a place to
live once they are forced out of the old family house. I do not think real
estate bubbles are good for a real economy, although some speculators
benefit greatly from them.
Otherwise I more or less agree. But NAFTA hasn't
been all that useful either. There WAS a giant sucking sound. And one in the
other direction too, of course. We have people who don't think they ought to
have to mow lawns for a living, but their jobs making, say, store display
furniture, have long gone away. The result could be imagined if it weren't
all too plain.
==========
Subject: Correctly remembering
BOTH Vietnam wars
Dr Pournelle
This article brought back
memories for me.
Some years ago I had a client who told me that -- as a
young soldier -- he entered Vietnam in January 1975. I immediately remarked
to him that we left Vietnam in April 1975. He said he knew that; he was on
board the penultimate chopper out. He said I was the only person he had
spoken to in twenty years who recalled the April "get the hell out of
Saigon" date.
He told me he won his CIB in Vietnam before going on
to other actions. I asked what those actions were. He would not provide any
details about the actions except that they were all in the western
hemisphere. When asked what he did he invariably answered, "I killed people
and blew things up."
Some years ago I also had a colleague and friend named
Quang Nguyen, who is without doubt the bravest individual I have ever known.
He was a lieutenant in the Navy of the Republic of Vietnam. When the south
fell, he was sent to a re-education camp. He escaped but was captured. After
his capture, his education consisted of being confined to a 4x4x4 foot hole
without toilet facilities and a rice ball and a liter of water a day for six
months. This ruined his eyes. (When I met Quang, his vision was 20/120.)
Nevetheless, he escaped again and walked to Thailand where he asked for
asylum.
Quang Nguyen never expressed any anger about the US
betrayal of South Vietnam nor about his treatment at the hands of his NVA
captors. Once relations thawed, he entered into contact with the son of
General Giap to buy garbage collection trucks from the US.
My other contacts with the lessons of the Vietnam War
were direct and personal.
In the second week of UPT in 1981, my class was herded
into the "Big Blue Bedroom" (the base theater) for a lecture. The lecture
took 2 minutes from start to finish. The gist of it was you are training to
be hired assassins; politicians are our masters; they will use us badly and
never thank us; but we will do our goddammed best to accomplish any mission
they set us and we will die trying; if you don't like those terms, you can
resign now and the Air Force will release you from your contract
obligations; but if you stay every man in blue will be your brother and he
will die for you if the need arises. No one left.
During my Air Force career, I was indoctrinated (never
officially) against McNamara-ism. In truth, I was taught to hate Robert
MacNamara. The line went something like this: We are the United States Air
Force; we are not GM; we don't make cars; we defend a country; no one asks
an auto assembly worker to give his life as part of his job; we do; GM needs
managers; we need leaders.
I had many military friends from the other services
including the Coast Guard. I learned from every one of them that the
military never forgets the lessons of history (I had a spirited discussion
with a friend who -- as a Coast Guard commander -- had sat on the board that
recommended court martial for Commander Eustis of the USCG Vigilant
vis-a-vis the Simas Kudirka incident. He was opposed to the summary
cashiering meted out by President Ford. I pointed out that the precedent
came from 1799 when President John Adams cashiered Captain Philips for
permitting the Royal Navy to impress men from his command. My Coast Guard
friend was very familiar with the reference and pointed out salient
differences. We argued this point for hours in the Vandenberg AFB O club.) I
also learned that the memories of our masters extended back no further than
the last election.
Legionnaires say "The Legion is my country." My
experience was that this is no less true for those who serve in the American
armed forces. I read J Glenn Gray's The Warriors in college; my military
career confirmed Dr Gray's observations. At least for me.
Soldiers will not get to make the decision to stay in
or to leave Iraq. But soldiers will remember either way.
Gratefully h lynn keith
========
Subject: Nasa question and empire
Dear Sir,
I read in Wired magazine a small article (I'm not
quite sure how it passed editorial standards) decrying NASA's current
priorities of manned space flight while cutting earth science (i.e., polar
satellites for global warming studies) and unmanned exploration.
http://blog.wired.com/sterling/2006/12/uh_about_that_b.html
You follow space news more closely than I do ... do
you know anything about what he's talking about? I ask, because I suspect
that -- to the extent these are real developments -- your viewpoint on them
may be substantially different than is.
Also, I am following your Republic Vs. Empire
discussion, and I agree with you, that we have to be one or the other but
not both.
And I would choose Empire.
Well, not really choose because I like the idea of no
entangling alliances and limited government et al. But I simply don't see
how such a thing is possible or even feasible today. For two reasons:
1) Nature abhors a vacuum. Thanks to technology, it is
possible for one nation or combination of nations (a la the codo) to
dominate the world. Given the drive and fanaticism of ambitious men in
whatever Worthy Cause they aspire to, it is certain that this will be
attempted. One faction will be defeated only to have another take it's
place. And another and another and another.
If we choose Republic, it will require a certain
amount of disengagement and isolation from the world -- we will lose our
ability to influence events in the rest of the world. By default, those
events will be influenced by other powers in the world. Eventually one
power, or combination of powers, will arise.
I am certain that this power will be hostile to the
United States. For the very reason you outlined in "Mote in God's Eye" -- we
possess the capability to harm them, if not the intention. I have no doubt
that those ruthless enough to take power will similarly not be concerned
with any scruples about attacking without a good cause.
The United States can no longer afford the isolation
it's Fathers intended for it, because our oceans no longer provide security
against nuclear missiles or terrorists with fancy weapons. We are now, IMO,
in the position of a continental power such as France was on Europe, if you
think of "Europe" as being the entire planet.
There is simply no way such a monstrosity -- which
will ALWAYS possess overseas interest, cutting off all our trade links
overseas so that we have no interests overseas to fight for -- can coexist
peacefully with other great powers. Even if we are absolutely still, our
very existence will disturb and threaten theirs.
We must dominate, or be dominated.
We must step up to the plate and establish Empire, or
go back into ourselves and take our position in someone else's Empire. There
simply are no other alternatives that I can see.
I have seen the Iranians and the Russians and the
Chinese and all the other contenders. If Empire is coming -- and I believe
it is, in a few generations -- then better us then them.
That means, of course, that the Republic we both know
and love will vanish, like Athenian Democracy or the Roman Republic. A
terrible day. But the alternative will ALSO end the Republic, as I am
certain other nations will not simply leave us alone.
"All we want is to be left alone" was the slogan of
only one political figure in American history I remember, and his example is
not one I would wish to follow.
2) Believe it or not, the educated classes of America
ARE patriotic, but if they are anything like me -- and I was born in 1971,
educated entirely in public schools -- their patriotism is to World Empire,
not to the United States.
I wasn't ever told this directly, of course. But the
thrust of movies and of games and of the sci-fi I watched was that loyalty
to the United Nations superseded loyalty to the US the way loyalty to the US
supersedes loyalty to Virginia. *I* believed this quite firmly until I left
college.
So, we have a whole generation raised on "Star Trek"
and similar stories, implanted firmly with the idea of Man as being a single
political entity. Factor in to that continuous news stories from Darfur and
Rwanda, encouraging the Great And The Good to go out and save the unwashed
masses from themselves.
Note also that no one has raised a peep about our
actions in Kosovo or Afghanistan. That's because, in a mind the way *I* was
brought up, action by Humanity is moral and good, while action taken in the
interest of the United States is lesser, common. The way I was brought up, I
would view it much as we might today view Virginia invading Venezuela ...
maybe a good idea or maybe not, but not something to do alone.
The reason is simple: In the educated class ... at
least the part I was brought up in ... global government is the new Manifest
Destiny. It is the idea that drives and energizes, as the United States does
not.
The bottom line is that two generations of education
have prepared the way for the US to be a global empire, and prepared the
educated classes to do that very thing. And if we don't, we're sure to be
dominated by someone else being driven by the same pressures.
We can't afford the luxury of Republic any longer.
The choice is: Rule, or Die.
The only way I can see to preserve a Republic is
exactly the one outlined in your book -- for freedom loving individuals to
take ship and set out to found a new society on the frontier. And the
sooner, the better, I'd say. So get busy and invent the Alderson drive! As
far as I can see, we're a few decades behind your schedule on that :)
Respectfully,
Brian P.
There has always been an anti-manned space
movement. My one time physics professor James Van Allen was quite vocal in
opposition to wasting money on manned space. He wanted more planetary
probes.
The two are mutually exclusive only
because we have sunk a trillion dollars in an overseas war that we did not
need to fight.
Which may be relevant to your second
point. Rule or Die is not the lesson I take from history. The Venetian
Republic sought neither and lasted a long time. Byzantium gave up the notion
of world domination and managed to survie a very long time, indeed being
brought down more by Western blind greed than by Muslim ability. Of course
both Venice and Byzantium had strong military forces. The Venetian Arsenal
was famed for being able to turn out a warship in a day.
I have certainly objected to our action in
Kosovo. I have compared it to France bombing Washington because the United
States refuses to turn over San Diego to Mexico. If you protest there is an
Albanian majority in Kosovo I can point out that it got there by illegal
immigration; Serbia did not invite Albanians (whom they consider
collaborators with the Turks) into their most sacred province.
Global Government is I think a chimera. It
is not possible, and those who seek it will waste their substance and break
their hearts. I say this as a one time officer of several world government
organizations which I fondly supported in my younger days.
If we are destined to become a global
empire we had better learn a lot more about how to behave as an empire. I
guarantee you that naive Jacobinism -- whether sincere or as my friend
Cochran believes, feigned -- is not going to make for good imperial
government.
Real empire is realistic. Real empire uses
puppet kings and foreign troops, constabulary and occupation forces, keeping
control of the puppets through Legions, and controlling the Legions through
Praetorians. How the Praetorians are to be controlled is another matter.
Quis custodiet and all that.
It may be that we cannot have a Republic,
but it is no luxury. Republics are cheap, with self government, and wealthy
citizens who do not work for government and do not seek rent and pensions.
We may no longer have enough inhabitants well enough educated to be citizens
of a Republic; in which case we will have empire. We will get it good and
hard.
As to star drives, I would settle for the
moment for a drive that will make asteroid settlements possible. After
Inferno and Mamelukes that is probably my next story.
===========
Subject: .....the notorious Al-gebra movement
Hi, Dr. P:
This chap's page came up while I was doing a search on
Thunderbird email problems. Given what we hear of the TSA, we could easily
believe this!
>
http://www.askbobrankin.com/teacher_terror.html
> NEWS FLASH: Teacher Arrested at Airport -- A public
school teacher was > arrested today at John F. Kennedy International Airport
as he > attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a >
protractor, a set square, a slide rule and a calculator... > > Posted by Bob
Rankin on September 14, 2006 02:59 PM
"H"
Hortensia
===========
Subject: Three slashdot stories of interest
Internet consolidation: <http://slashdot.org/article.pl?
sid=06/12/08/1533240>
Earthlink losing a lot of e-mail: <http://slashdot.org/article.pl?
sid=06/12/08/1350238>
Firefly MMORPG: <http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?
sid=06/12/08/0358216>
-- Harry Erwin, PhD, Program Leader, MSc Information
Systems Security, University of Sunderland.
<http://scat-he-g4.sunderland.ac.uk/~harryerw> Weblog at:
<http://scat-he-g4.sunderland.ac.uk/~harryerw/blog/index.php>
The Earthlink story has disturbed me and
several of my associates and we are looking into it. We think some
subscription orders through Robert's web site may have been lost. Alas.
A Firefly MMORPG might be very
interesting. I need to look into that. Of course lately I have no time for
games at all. I am happily busy writing...
============
Subject: Comcast/Adelphia/RoadRunner e-mail
Jerry:
If I recall correctly, your home was on Adelphia cable
and should now be TimeWarner/RoadRunner. I do not know if you receive any
mail on those systems or if all is sent via your domain host. If you get
some to a ca.rr.com address, you might want to glance at the headers.
This week, I have noticed a major delay in e-mail from
someone in Colorado on a Comcast system that stayed Comcast to one of my
RoadRunner addresses that used to be a Comcast address. Looking at old
headers, the delays have began on Nov. 28 but were only an hour at that
time.
On Thursday we did some tests--one to a mac.com
account took 19 seconds and one to this old compuserve.com address took 14
seconds. He tried sending to a Yahoo account of his with no delay.
The Comcast to RR messages are getting delayed between
1 and 12 HOURS at the gateway between those systems. There are different
Comcast and RR servers involved in these exchanges but over 3 days and over
40 messages, the quickest was about 1 hour. Most were at high end of delay
range. I have sent some headers to RoadRunner and my friend is going to send
some to Comcast.
FWIW--all of my mail actually ends up a group of
servers named edge7.adelphia.net, edge8 and edge9--all of which stamp time
as EST so are likely on east coast. I am in Costa Mesa, California and my
mail software is pointed at "pop-server.ca.rr.com".
My guess is that all the forwarding of mail including
spam sent to previous addresses of customers who have switched domains may
be part of the problem.
I am NOT seeing any delays from systems other than
Comcast to my RR address.
--Jim
Thanks. Just now we're down at the beach house
and we are not seeing any problems at all here. We are on Time Warner cable
here.
============
Subject: New Atrocities Uncovered in Iraq WARNING Very
Graphic,
Jerry
Well, it seems that photographers caught American
soldiers doing typically American things with Iraqis:
http://www.strategypage.com/military_photos/200612722377.aspx
Ed
===========
Subject: Muslim Swim Time,
The Brits are really getting soacked . . .
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006560750,00.html
'Muslim only' pool outrage
By BEN ASHFORD December 08, 2006
A COUNCIL has sparked fury by virtually
shutting a swimming pool on Sunday afternoons for "Muslim-only"
sessions.
All women are banned - and non-Muslim men
may swim IF they follow the strict Islamic dress code of swim shorts
that hide the navel and extend below the knee.
Croydon Council in South London runs the
sessions at Thornton Heath leisure centre between 4.45pm and 6.45pm.
Similar slots are laid on for Muslim women
outside opening hours, where bathers must be covered from the neck down
to the ankle.
Locals who flock to the area's only major
leisure centre each week are furious.
Member Daniel Foley, 44, said: "I turned up
and saw a sign saying it was closing early for Muslim afternoon - I
couldn't believe it."
Nearby Croydon Mosque defended the move. It
said: "Muslims are not allowed to show off intimate parts of their body.
This is non-negotiable. Muslims have as much right to go swimming as
anyone else."
Croydon Council said: "We are keen to
ensure sports facilities are there for everyone."
Sue
==========
And returning to our beloved hole through
the earth:
Subject: There's a Hole
Jerry P:
I need to pick a small error on the pipe through the
center of the earth posting by Jim.
Item 2. There is no need for a comment on momentum as
it is not forcing anything if you don't know the size of the pipe etc. There
is a net force at bottom hole, the center of the earth, and that needs
balancing by a similar column of water on the other side. This requires no
momentum consideration, it is an energy balance.
Item 3. If we are talking about free fall in a vacuum,
that is one thing, but lets consider a real pipe and the issue is somewhat
different and calculating time and velocity is meaningless. Remember for
instance you have to pump the air out of the other end, and it is a closed
system so there are mass, viscosity, and wall friction considerations.
Engineers have to think about such things, maybe physicists don't. Then
again, we wouldn't want to ignore the tangential velocity component and how
the energy is converted into pressure etc.
4. Heat transfer etc. is kind of cute but imagine the
hoop stress on the pipe. Please don't mention stuff like this as it leads
people to believe that practical engineering considerations have been
considered and are soluble.
Charles Simkins
And Dr. Jim responds:
Item 2: I was considering the context of an open
hole which was drilled from an unspecified point within CONUS to the
antipodes in the Indian Ocean, presumably initially unfilled, and with
(following Mr. Hellewell's original presumptions) many of the engineering
considerations ignored. I agree that final equilibrium is defined by the
energy balance (that was in fact the basis my first response) but the
initial dynamic situation of water flowing into the pipe does require
consideration of fluid momentum for a detailed answer. I will note that my
"first order" answer did not consider any fluid dynamic considerations but
was a point approximation for the fluid surface, and implicltiy assumed more
or less laminar flow, also a poor approximation to the stated problem.
Item 3: I concur, and acknowledge that those
considerations were ignored by my first order answer.
Item 4: I'll admit that I didn't give much
consideration to hoop stress until after I penned the initial answer, but
that if someone were to realistically consider the problem there are a
number of additional factors as well -- hoop stresses, thermal stresses
(temperature gradients sufficient to allow significant differential rates of
thermal expansion), compression by the overlying magma (and you're certainly
moving beyond my knowledge of geophysics -- and elasticity of non-newtonian
materials) to consider how closely the inner core can be approximated by a
hydrostatic sphere at an equilibrium pressure which varies with radius, much
less the effects of the outer core and the mantle. The material suggestion
was, frankly, intended to be a "cute" idea rather than a serious solution
for this application; that said, there aren't many other material candidates
that would stand a better chance of working. The engineering magnitude is on
the scale of conventional "beanstocks" -- 13,000 km long -- and the
engineering problems are of evern greater mangitude because of the
thermomechanical environment (even assuming, of course, that the tunnel
boring machine can survive past the mid-mantle). Therefore the actual
thickness of a pipe built from even the strongest conventional materials
would be of the order of 10 km.
Jim
=========
Subject: hole through the earth's centre
Jerry,
The obvious solution to the "hole through the centre
of the earth" problem is to line it with unobtanium. This has infinite
strength and given that the correct grade is selected, infinite thermal
resistance. So, the pipe would fill and the level in the two ends would only
fluctuate slightly due to the relative variation in atmospheric pressure at
those ends. To critics who say that this solution is fantastical, I reply
that as soon as they have drilled the hole I will provide the lining at no
cost.
Back to building my ftl drive, John Edwards
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