And after Tibet?

This is the disputed territory of Arunachal Pradesh (red) - currently Indian, formerly part of Tibet, and included in Tibet on modern Chinese maps. See "Better Days" blog post (Nov 2004) here; a current Indian political comment here; Wikipedia entry on the region here. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Tibetans number an estimated 5 - 7 millions. The official Chinese 2000 Census has the Chinese Han population in the "Tibetan Autonomous Region" (TAR) as merely 6% of the total. However, as this illuminating BBC guide explains, the TAR is not Tibet as its government in exile defines it. The larger Tibetan area including Amdo and Kham contains 6.5 million Tibetans and 8.5 million Chinese immigrants. And there may be bigger plans: "Chinese demographers back in the 1980s estimated that Tibet could provide living space for 100 million Chinese."

Tibet is important because of timber, minerals, extra living space for Chinese - and it houses up to a third of China's nuclear arsenal. A major interest is water, because Western China is very dry; among other plans, one is a hydroelectric plant exploiting the Brahmaputra River, which further down flows through Bangladesh and ultimately joins the Ganges. The Chinese claim it will have twice the output of the Three Gorges Dam. "Work is tentatively scheduled to begin in 2009 but has been described as a 'declaration of war' against India and Bangladesh. One of Tibet's most sacred lakes, Yamdrok Tso, has already been mined, tunnelled and used for hydroelectric development."

The population of Arunachal Pradesh (formerly a part of the Indian state of Assam) is slightly over 1 million. The area was a lifeline to China in WW2 after the Burma Road was cut off by the Japanese in 1942. It is well watered and forested.

UPDATE

Climate change already threatens to reduce the great northern Indian rivers to "seasonal water flows", without further constriction by Chinese projects. The potential extra disruption is discussed in this Guardian article from a year ago.

Prudence

(the percentages are annualised equivalents) Source: Bank of England

Defying gravity

"...the equity markets are simply not acting in a rational manner given the underlying issues in the economy and credit markets"

So it's not just my perception. Read Karl "hold cash" Denninger's latest.

The boom that wasn't

Karl Denninger just gets better - it's one of the advantages of sticking to your theme and endlessly rehearsing your arguments, as politicians know.

There is only one way that home prices where they are, even today, are sustainable - that would be for wages to rise by 30% across the board. That, of course, isn't going to happen, and if it did it wouldn't do you a bit of good because prices would simply rise to the same degree, leaving us exactly where we are now!..

There never was a "boom" in earnings power for middle America. The median family income - including all quintiles - was actually down $500 or so over the last eight years. If you exclude the top quintile it was down materially - 5% or so. And that's in nominal, not constant, dollars...

We're now going to adjust spending and investment levels to incomes because there is no way for us to adjust incomes to spending levels! The big productivity gains that came from computerization are finished, and we've already offshored nearly all of our manufacturing, so there's no more "cheap labor improvement" available either...

If we can keep the government from screwing things up with more vote-buying attempts we'll get through the other end of this, although people's standards of living will change. You won't be able to afford to milk your house for the second Lexus and six plasma TVs, but is this really such a disaster? I think not.

Read the whole thing in all its beauty here.

Next task, when I have the time, is to see what happened to the middle quintiles in the UK.

It really, really is a swindle

I am grateful to James Higham for directing me to this article by a very distinguished economist, explaining the scam of fractional reserve banking. Even when you understand how it works, you find it difficult to believe; it's a bit like finding out how babies are made, looking at your parents, and... naaaaah!

Where are the police?

UPDATE

I've been directed (see comments) to this video, "Money as debt", by Canadian Paul Grignon:



Here are the artist's own comments; here's the dedicated website; here's his professional artist's website; and here's a link to the Idaho Observer, with a little extra detail on the making of the film - cut off the last part of the address to see more of the Observer's output.

Whether it's right or wrong, simplistic or not, I'm heartened to see practical idealism like this.

FURTHER UPDATE

Karl Denninger explains why the money-lenders won't permit inflation to run away and destroy the basis of their wealth. And why this means the economy will hit the buffers.

If history repeats itself

A few days ago, I looked at the Dow over the past 40 years and concluded that, on average, the real growth rate was very close to the very long-term historical norm.

What I didn't think to do then, is to illustrate the shape of the Dow if it continues to be as volatile as in the last 40 years. So here goes - same average growth, same inflation rate etc:

It's the volatility that does you in. As Keynes said, "In the long run..."

Matter of fact, if history repeats itself, there's a point around 2021 where in real terms, we're behind where we were in 1967. This time, I will buy beads and wear flares. I'd still be younger than Robert Graves was last time round.

Chirpy

Don Boudreaux is an economist, yet although an expert in the "dismal science", he is an optimist, which makes a very nice change. He claims it's because he's a professional in the field.

Here he says that America's freedom and creativity will overcome present problems, as they have in the past; here he says the housing market can't be too bad if workers are unwilling to sell their houses in a falling market; and here he claims to love America's trade deficit.

Is he right? Or just seeing affairs from the point of view of a man who's had a good dinner and is assured that, in his case, good dinners will never stop coming? I've often thought that war movies should end prematurely and at different points for a random selection among, say, 20% of the audience, to remove the Olympian perspective.

But it is nice to read someone who thinks it's not all gloom and doom.