Krugman Madness

Finally, Mr. Krugman gone mad. And the last straw was actually what he wished for: a Chinese announcement of RMB appreciation. The only problem? Not fast enough to save him from going crazy.

The incompatibility between Mr. Krugman's academic civility and his political sourness against China has been long recorded in the New York Times op-eds, but this time he just reach a new high: a mostly angry, illogical, disparaging climax. Of course, as a liberal with a "conscience" somehow he has to do so to prove his worthiness. And of course, as a liberal in the U.S., criticizing China has no down side anyway. But let's look at his mad piece.

Again, Mr. Krugman blame China for all the problems in the world, which he actually means America. For when the dollar went down against everybody else, the pegged yuan provoked some antagonism from many others, but since dollar's rise, yuan also climbed rapidly, eliminating non-dollar complains. Krugman seemed to forgot that effect. He blamed China for all the lost-jobs in the U.S. and also forgot to mention that the U.S. multinationals got 70% of the share while Chinese workers got mere a single digit. Surely he loves the recent labor movement in China, but again he was false to blame the exchange rate. Rather, most protests were against foreign companies which made their sales IN CHINA!

He never could come up with any reason why the yuan appreciation would "re-balance" the world trade and bring the jobs back to the US. In fact, those jobs would most definitely move to Vietnam or somewhere else, and the consumer in the US would probably suffer a bit more. Well, maybe at that time, he'd complain about some other country's exchange rate distortion "crime".

Most significantly, Mr. Krugman attributed all government dollar reserves to open market purchase of foreign currencies, ignoring what he had already mentioned capital account regulations.

ultimately, his wishful thinking of yuan appreciating 50% overnight will only destroy both Chinese and the U.S. economy, since the two are now closely tied to each other. His prescription will send the world down to a Great Black-hole altogether.

Perhaps Mr. Krugman has been immersed in American politics for too long and applied his anti-corporate ideology to China too easily. It is not some numbered exporters hold the Chinese government hostage, it is the legitimate claim for jobs from ordinary Chinese people that counts!

Funny how a self-claimed liberal democrat suddenly turns into a fascist imperialist once across the pacific ocean.

If Krugman really wants his dream of American full employment, he should have given more advice on how the US government could improve its stimulus plans and stop wasting the world's treasure on futile wars. He should have persuaded the congress to get rid of the stupid trade bans and investment barriers. He should have encourage his fellows to realize that it's time for them to stop living like the world's resources are infinite.

All in all, he could either come back to reality or stay in his bitter fantasy. As to his crusade against the Chinese currency? The earlier he sync with the rhythm of the Chinese economy the sooner he'd come up with a more realistic approach.

Paul Virilio and the Speed of War

As made clear in his works, Virilio has convinced me with his theory of dromology long ago, but with the advent of drone warfare, his wisdom seemed even more salient today than ever. He derived most of his cases from the first Iraq war, when CNN and modern cable news transformed the perception of contemporary war and he called it the "world war in miniature". I believed he'd be happy that he was absolutely right about the direction of development of war production, but he'd be even more sad that his prediction was right.

The electronicization of reality into video images and the light speed of surveillance have further evolved into a ubiquitous weapon that inserts technicians/analyst/non-combatants directly into the integrated battlefield. The "all seeing EYE" from the sky links Afghanistan with control rooms anywhere around the globe, making real battles more and more indiscernible from computer games and real killings more and more like wiping out a zombie. Though nothing new or unpredicted for us, the intensity and realness and the speed of such weapon system are still shocking enough.

Speed is power, Virilio says. No wonder apps online with the speed of light sooner or later will be converted into military techs. Or maybe they are military invention/with military implication from the very beginning. Like twitter that's capable of destabilizing a country, Facebook now is used to converse soldiers out of danger or into a counterinsurgency action, let alone Google's power to ignore the warning from the world's no.2 power. Very soon, we'll see 3D becomes the new toy of the military, enabling troops to fight a detached warfare and yet maintaining all visual or even more sensation from the field. Casualties will decrease. As long as the military spending keeps up, less and less understanding of the local human society is required. So in order to look at your enemies in High Definition, you don't see them anymore.

Virilio believes in technology only in the sense that that forces the course of history more and more into the wrong direction. We throw a new tech into an old tech's mess without even contemplating the full ramifications of either one. We blindly applaud all technological advancements in a global race ( dromo )track. That being said, ironically, the reality is we're already in the war era of socially networked drones.

The World After Oil

It's an understatement to say that fossil energy is important to modern life. It's essential to modernity. All the freedom, mobility and utility are based upon the very energy that we are consuming today. Merely 200 years ago, our life style is unthinkable, and probably 200 years from now, our life style will again be unthinkable. Our time perhaps is just a burst in human history and a play with a sudden spoil.

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico for Americans is a problem with oil corporation, the industry and government supervision. But for humanity, it's a symbol of limit. Such limit was everywhere, in the Chinese coal mines, the Canadian shale fields. the Middle East battle field and finally the seashore south of the US. People are dying and the environment is ruined, all for the "rising living standard" of our generation.

Sooner or later the oil or all forms of fossil fuels will be gone. 100, 200, 500 years from now, what will the world look like? Without oil (other resources notwithstanding), how can we sustain 6 billion, later this century 9 billion people? More specifically, without oil, what would the US, a country built upon oil, be like? What would so called globalization be like?

Old Chinese saying "without long term considerations, there must be short term worries". Even if oil reserve is still abundant for another century, we might have to think about the world without oil, and be prepared for it.