Circular Sheep

The world is a wide, weird, and (literally) wonderful place. Sometimes odd things happen that defy easy explanation: things like hundreds of sheep walking clockwise, for days, in a perfect circle on a farm in Inner Mongolia in northern China. The remarkably creepy sheepy behavior was captured on a surveillance video and is so strange it has been covered by news outlets across the world. You can watch some bizarre, ghostly footage of the circular marching sheep on the New York Post website.

The rotating sheep are in one of 34 different sheep pens on the Chinese farm. According to the farm’s owner, Ms. Miao, a few days ago a few of the sheep in one particular pen started walking in a circle, then the whole pen joined in. To make the whole story even weirder, the pen where the eerie marching sheep are found is pen number 13–and none of the other sheep on the farm are exhibiting the same curious behavior.

So what’s the cause of the sheep in pen number 13 marching around like strikers on a farmland picket line? No one knows for sure. A British agriculture professor speculates that the synchronized sheep began marching because of frustration at being stuck in a pen, and that once one a few sheep started with the marching the rest of the sheep just played follow the leader, as sheep typically do. But if that is the impulse and cause, why has the behavior occurred only in pen number 13–and why have the sheep marched continuously for days in a perfect circle, using only part of their pen?

It’s the kind of mysterious conduct that leads people to indulge in conspiracy theories and fantastic explanations, like witchcraft or the sheep responding to the call of aliens who have grown tired of making crop circles and decided to make sheep circles instead. As for me, I’m just grateful to the sheep for showing, again, that the world is a pretty interesting place.

Unpaid Mortgages In China

China and its economy are notoriously difficult to analyze and evaluate. With its mix of government control and closely held data, China’s true economic performance is a closed book, making third-party analysis often seem like little more than guesswork. Reports on issues in China therefore should be taken with a huge grain of salt.

With that caveat, Bloomberg recently published an interesting story about unpaid mortgages in China that could have significant consequences akin to the subprime mortgage crisis in the U.S. that triggered the Great Recession. The real estate sector is one of the prime drivers of the Chinese economy, with construction projects and home sales being responsible for about a quarter of China’s gross domestic product, so anything that affects that sector is worthy of note.

Lately, the Chinese real estate segment has struggled in the face of a combination of issues. Developers have produced only about 60 percent of the homes they have presold to homebuyers, continuing COVID issues have caused a decline in demand for new projects, property prices in some areas have plunged, and some debt-ridden real estate developers have been unable to complete projects and have begun to default on their debts. Some homebuyers are now refusing to pay on their mortgages, either because developers have not completed the projects, or because the mortgages are for amounts greater than current property values in view of the recent decline in prices, or both. The numbers involved so far aren’t enormous, but the underlying issue is whether such a development is the first sign of a more significant trend.

China watchers are always carefully scrutinizing the meager available data about what is really happening in the world’s most populated country, and this will be an area that commands attention going forward. Our own painful experience from the 2007-2009 time period teaches what can happen when mortgages go unpaid, the real estate market craters, and what banks had considered to be assets turn out not to be assets at all. If that happens in a huge economy like China, it’s going to leave a mark on the world economy, too.

Putin’s Bad Gamble

We’re now at the two-week point in Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, and it’s safe to say it hasn’t gone well for Russian President Vladimir Putin, the architect of the invasion. If you believe the news reports, Russia expected a quick win, and Russian soldiers expected to be welcomed with open arms. The reality has been the exact opposite. The Russian forces have encountered fierce resistance and are mired in the mud, and the Ukrainian people have shown great grit and determination in resisting the Russians at every turn.

That’s what happens when you overestimate your capabilities, and believe your own faulty propaganda.

But the consequences for Putin are a lot more significant than just doing worse in a war than he expected. He’s shown that the Russian military isn’t nearly as fearsome as people thought it would be. He’s galvanized and unified the West in a way that hasn’t been the case in years, and encouraged countries like Germany to reverse their policies on defense spending and energy dependence. He’s isolated the Russian financial sector and put the fortunes of the Russian oligarchs who supported him at risk. There are reports that the Russian treasury might be bankrupted by the war and may be forced to default on debt. And in the process, Russia has become a kind of global pariah in way that wasn’t even the case during the heyday of the Soviet Union.

And what might be bugging Putin the most is that this war has exposed him in a way that goes to a core personal issue. Putin has always seemed highly conscious of cultivating a macho image, and carefully orchestrates photos of himself riding horses without a shirt and going hunting. But if Putin were really the bold, studly guy he’s been trying to portray, we’d be seeing him out in the field with the Russian generals and soldiers. Instead, he’s staying in the office–a guy with a bald spot sitting at the end of a ridiculously long table, as if he’s afraid to even get close to his own aides. It’s pretty safe to say that, even if Russia “wins” the war in the Ukraine, people will never see Vladimir Putin in quite the same way again.

Many people will no doubt be tempted to enjoy some schadenfreude at Putin’s problems, but a little caution is in order. This colossal strategic mistake by Putin may just force a reduced and depleted Russia to turn to China for financial and other assistance, which would materially alter the strategic balance in the world. I think Putin’s bad gamble is going to make the world a much more dangerous and volatile place for the next few years.

The Population Implosion

I was born in 1957, the peak year of the American “baby boom.” I grew up in a world where families routinely had three, four, five, or more children, and where population growth was a huge concern for some futurists, giving rise to scary depictions of future Earth in grim movies like Soylent Green and books like The Population Bomb.

As a result, it’s very weird to see people expressing the opposite view now. Social scientists and politicians are worried about population shrinkage, not growth–because in many parts of the world human beings simply aren’t reproducing at a rate that would even replace those who are dying. The signs of the issue are everywhere. In 2020, for example, Michigan had more deaths than births. In China, the world’s most populous country–right now, at least–the fertility rate fell in 2021, for the fifth straight year. China’s population issues are so significant that the country reversed its long-standing “one child” policy in 2016 and is now encouraging families to have more children, as well as restricting the ability of Chinese men to receive vasectomies, which once were mandated. (The Chinese about-face on children obviously is a pretty strong indictment of large-scale governmental planning of modern societies, but that’s a blog post for another day.)

China and Michigan aren’t alone. Across the world, many countries are falling far below the fetility rate needed to simply replace their current population, which is 2.1 births per woman. In America, the fertility rate in 2020 was 1.64, well below the replacement line. Many countries are so far below that rate that they will commonly see years like Michigan in 2020, where deaths outnumber births. And that trend will create clear social and economic problems in those counties, going far beyond the presence of “ghost cities” in China–like the one shown above–because there just aren’t enough people to fill them. The problems are very basic. If most of your population is aging and retired, who is going to work and produce the income that produce the taxes that support the retirement social apparatus? And who is going to care for all of those older people?

The “why” of this development is impossible to figure out. Are people having fewer children because they are concerned about bringing new lives into a troubled world? Or do they think that having a large family will be an impediment to their lifestyles? Or are they more focused on living virtual lives through their computers, or concerned at the impact that humans have had on the world and its environment? Deciding whether to have a family is an intensely personal decision, and there are undoubtedly a huge range of reasons for the decline in birth rates, but what’s interesting is that it seems to be happening everywhere, in virtually every culture, at the same time.

What does it mean for us? It means immigration becomes a lot more important as a means to fill the worker gap caused by the falling birth rates. It means that states like Michigan are going to have to figure out how to lure workers from other states if it wants to survive long term. And it means that robotics are going to become an increasingly common way of replacing the human workers who just aren’t available. Over the next few years it seems likely that we’ll see a shift to a much more automated, machine-oriented world because there just won’t be any choice. That’s not exactly the future people were expecting.

The U.S. Space Force

Earlier this week, Congress approved the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act.  Among its other provisions, the legislation has officially created the U.S. Space Force, which will become the sixth branch of the U.S. military — after the Navy, Army, Marines, Coast Guard, and Air Force.

Although the legislation authorizes the creation of the U.S. Space Force, it does so in a cautious way.  The U.S.S.F. will initially be created under the Department of the Air Force, and it won’t be able to start hiring new service members.  Instead, to reduce redundancy and maximize efficiency, no new “billets” are authorized, which means that the U.S.S.F. will use existing personnel from the Air Force Space Command to staff the new branch.  That means that, at least initially, the U.S.S.F. will have a very strong Air Force feel to it.  During its first year, the Space Force will establish a headquarters, and the President is empowered to appoint a Chief of Space Operations, who will report to the Secretary of the Air Force and be a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

What, exactly, will the U.S. Space Force do?  The legislation identifies its core functions as follows:  “protect the interests of the United States in space; deter aggression in, from, and to space; and conduct space operations.”  That’s a pretty broad mission.  You can read one recently retired Air Force General’s view of the case for the Space Force, the need to seize the “high ground” of space, and the need to counter actions by the Chinese government in space, here.  His remarks also indicated that significant new technology has already been developed, and is currently being developed, that will help the U.S.S.F. fulfill its broad mission.  We can expect to see some advances in satellites, spacecraft, communications, space transportation, robotics, and life support technologies, among others, as the U.S.S.F. gets underway in earnest.  And don’t be surprised to see contracts awarded to SpaceX and other private space technology and exploration companies.

When the creation of the U.S.S.F. was first suggested, some people made fun of it as a silly Buck Rogers adventure, and others bemoaned the official militarization of space as inconsistent with the notion of space as the peaceful final frontier.   Congress, however, clearly saw a strategic need for a new branch of the service to focus on space, and the legislation approving the creation of the Space Force passed by overwhelming, bipartisan majorities.  The U.S. Space Force is here, and it signals a new era in the “Space Race.”  Exactly what that new era will look like will be sketched out in the next few years.

Messing Around With Genes

Since 2015, Congress has included language in its funding bills to prevent the Food and Drug Administration from approving any application to create in vitro fertilization children from embryos that have been genetically modified.  Because the prohibitory language has been included in funding bills that have expiration dates, it needs to be renewed every year.  The House of Representatives just passed legislation that includes the renewal language, as part of an effort to fund certain governmental activities like food stamps and drug approvals.

The issue of genetic modification of embryos has some special urgency these days, with the recent news that Chinese scientists have announced the birth of the first genetically modified children — twin girls whose genes allegedly have been altered to supposedly make them specially resistant to HIV.  The Chinese scientists used a protein to edit the genes on a “CRISPR” — a stretch of DNA.  Some people question the validity of the Chinese claim about these so-called “CRISPR babies,” but there is no doubt that genetic manipulation of human beings is moving from the realm of science fiction to the reality of science fact.

The bar to such activities created by Congress ensures that efforts to genetically modify humans are not going to be happening in America — at least for now.  Is that a good thing?  The FDA Commissioner has said:  “Certain uses of science should be judged intolerable, and cause scientists to be cast out. The use of CRISPR to edit human embryos or germ line cells should fall into that bucket. Anything less puts the science and the entire scientific enterprise at risk.”  Others argue that Congress has taken a “meat axe” approach when it should be crafting a more nuanced policy that recognizes that some genetic manipulation could be beneficial.

It’s hard to know what’s right.  Scientists have been involved in the reproductive process for years, and their work, through processes like in vitro fertilization, has allowed people who are struggling to conceive to realize their dream of having children.  But I think the notion of scientists tinkering with genes to create “better” human beings crosses a line in several ways.  First, I’m not entirely confident that scientists know what they are doing and that there won’t be unintended, negative consequences from the removal of the genes the scientists snip out.  Anyone who has read about the history of science knows that scientists have been wrong before, and its reasonable to think they might be wrong again — only this time, their errors wouldn’t just be about the impact of certain foods or the properties of atoms, but would directly affect specific human beings.  Second, where do you draw the line in genetic manipulation?  Modifying DNA sequences to try to avoid diseases or debilitating health conditions is one thing, but what if scientists want to edit genes to create humans who are smarter, or more athletic, or taller?  Do we really want to permit the creation of “designer people” — like Khan Noonien Singh, that memorable Star Trek character who was genetically modified to be a kind of superhuman?  And finally, as this article points out, the whole issue brings up uncomfortable memories of the eugenics arguments of the early 20th century, where certain ethnic groups and traits were considered superior and others inferior.  If “improved” humans are created, where does that leave the rest of us?

In my view, this is an area where a sweeping rule makes sense — at least initially.  I think we need a lot more evidence, and a lot more thinking, before we should allow scientists to go messing around with human genetic material.

Bracing For The Weirdest Summit Ever

According to news reports and a tweet from President Trump, there will be a summit meeting in the next two months between President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un.  The agreement to set up a meeting was brokered by the South Korean government, and the place and time of the summit is currently being determined.  In the meantime, North Korea has agreed that it will not engage in any more missile testing until after the summit occurs.

Whenever and wherever it happens — if it happens at all — the meeting promises to be the weirdest, most closely watched, most unpredictable summit in history.

Viewed solely from the standpoint of normal diplomacy, this meeting will be highly unusual.  North Korea and the United States have no diplomatic relations of any kind, and no American President has ever met a North Korean leader.  In fact, the United States and North Korea technically remain in a state of war, because the Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.   Even President Nixon’s famous trip to China, which reopened relations between America and China, was built upon a prior period of thawing relations and more diplomatic prep work than would occur before this summit.

Add to that the fact that President Trump and Kim Jong-Un have been trading venomous barbs about each other and engaging in lots of saber-rattling talk until now, and are two of the most unpredictable leaders in the world besides, and you have to wonder what the talks between the two of them will be like.  The diplomats and underlings who will be present, from both sides, will no doubt be desperately hoping that Kim Jong-Un and President Trump follow whatever scripts their respective sides have prepared — all the while knowing that history teaches that they probably won’t.  And the media, which carefully analyzed a handshake between President Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin when they first met, will have a field day examining and breathlessly reporting on every wink, nod, and offhand comment.

North Korea has long been a problem that has been ignored by world leaders, hoping it would just go away — but the provocative, destabilizing conduct of North Korea has gotten more and more dangerous as it has worked to develop nuclear weapons and tested long-range missiles.  Something needs to be done to get North Korea off the path of confrontation and into more normalized relations with the United States and the rest of the world.  Will The Weirdest Summit Ever be able to achieve that?  The world will be watching the weirdness, and holding its breath.

2016’s Rocky Start

It’s only the first official workday of 2016, and already the year is off to a very rocky start.

In the Middle East, tensions are high because Saudi Arabia — where Sunni Muslims predominate — recently executed a prominent Shiite Muslim cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, for terrorism-related offenses.  That angered Iran, the Shiite power in the region, with protesters in Tehran setting fire to part of the Saudi embassy there.  Saudi Arabia has now given Iran two days to withdraw its diplomats from the Kingdom.  So, in a Middle East that is already aboil because of ISIS, fighting in Syria and Iraq, and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian disputes, we layer on a conflict between Saudi Arabia, the money power and home to Islam’s most holy sites, and Iran, the revolutionary religious state that has long sought to be the leading Muslim power in the area.  And that dispute will not only increase the political turmoil in the region, it also might affect the world’s oil markets, which have been plunging recently.

But that’s not all.  In China today, stocks tumbled 7 percent, triggering a premature end to trading.  It’s not entirely clear why China’s markets have plunged — China’s economy is a black box, and many of China’s economic decisions seem the product of manipulation, rather than the workings of the law of supply and demand — but signs point to the fact that the Chinese economy is headed for the rocks.  Given the size of the Chinese economy, that’s bad news for the rest of the economically interdependent world that seems to be teetering on the brink of another recession, and other Asian stock markets also fell today.  We’ll see whether European and American markets follow suit.

So, even more contentiousness in the war-torn, terrorism-addled Middle East powder keg, and bad signs from one of the world’s largest economies and a principal engine of growth in recent years.  What about America?  Oh, yeah — it’s a presidential election year, which means we’ve got a lame duck President, and according to the polls the two currently leading candidates to replace him are a blow-dried bumptious buffoon and a dissembling also-ran who couldn’t comply with basic email security rules.  And we’ve got months, and months, and months of electioneering and campaign commercials in our future, too.

You know, 2015 really wasn’t that bad.

One Child, Two Child

Imagine living in a society where the government strictly dictated how many children you could have, and imposed crippling fines if your family exceeded its limit.  It is an Orwellian concept, the kind of repressive, intrusive, Big Brother/Big Government run amok plot line that has given rise to countless movies and books about soulless future societies.

Except that such a government and policy actually exists, and has for decades — in China.  Since the ’70s, China has limited families to one child, in an effort to curb its population growth.  China’s leader at the time, Deng Xiaoping, instituted the policy so that “the fruits of economic growth are not devoured by population growth.”  That decision was applauded by some advocates who were urging governments to take aggressive steps to control overpopulation; indeed, the United Nations Fund For Population Activities actually gave China an award for its decision.

As the New York Times reports, China’s one-child policy has had brutal consequences that include forced abortions, infanticide by rural farming families that prefer boys over girls, and a resulting lopsided imbalance in males and females in the Chinese population.  And now China is changing its policy — not because it was inhuman and indefensible in the first instance, but because China realizes it has miscalculated.  As a result of the one-child policy, China’s birth rate isn’t sufficient to support its rapidly aging population, so now China is declaring that couples can have two children.

There’s skepticism, however, about whether China’s abrupt policy change will work.  Even if couples of child-bearing age decide to have a second child, those offspring won’t be part of the Chinese workforce for years.  What’s more, China’s population has now been conditioned to accept one-child families, and couples are very sensitive to the economic and emotional costs of having a second child.  And even if the birth rate increases as a result of the policy change, China’s population will begin to decline and the imbalance of young workers versus old pensioners will continue to grow.

Those who advocate aggressive government decisions to address perceived social problems would do well to consider China’s one-child policy, which shows that governments not only can be brutal, but they can also be dead wrong.  And if you were an older member of Chinese society, how comfortable would you be with your position in the face of bad demographic statistics and the economic burdens of supporting a growing number of retirees?  Would a government that enforces a one-child policy in an effort to control its economy hesitate to take steps directed at the other end of the age spectrum to restore what it considers to be a proper balance to its population?

Death Drivers Of The Orient

It sounds like a bad urban legend, but apparently it isn’t:  in China, there are recorded instances of a driver striking a pedestrian, then backing up to run over the fallen victim again and again to make sure they are dead.  In two of the more appalling cases, drivers ran over a little girl, and a grandmother, multiple times.

Why?  Because the tort and criminal system in China provides a financial incentive to make sure that the victim of a hit-skip incident is dead.  The one-time compensation to be paid to the family of a deceased victim typically ranges between $30,000 and $50,000.  If the victim is seriously injured and requires ongoing care, however, the driver has to pay for the care for the rest of the victim’s lifetime — which obviously could run into considerably larger sums.

Hence, the death driver scenario.  In the split-second after an accident, Chinese drivers have to decide between their pocketbook and their humanity and decency — and for a number of drivers, the pocketbook wins out.

It’s discouraging to think that money could turn a distressingly large percentage of drivers into cold-blooded killers, but perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised.  The historical record consistently demonstrates that people respond to economic incentives and disincentives — just ask anyone who lived in the old Soviet Union.  The Chinese death driver example simply shows how far economic incentives can go in influencing decision-making and behavior.  It isn’t a pretty picture.

At The Whim Of Immense Forces Beyond Your Control

Trying to save for your eventual retirement these days can be a pretty wild ride.  Everything we read tells us that we simply cannot count on our chronically underfunded Social Security system to provide the principal source of our retirement funds, even though we have been contributing to it for decades.  So, you need to “save and invest” to provide an alternative, supplemental source of funds.  But where to invest?

Bonds and other debt instruments offer only a modest return these days, and no bank pays much in the way of interest on savings accounts anymore.  That leaves investing in the stock markets — where, unless you are an insider, for the most part you invest your savings on a wing and a prayer and often feel that your money is out there at the whim of immense forces beyond your control.  It’s not exactly a warm, confident sensation.

The last few weeks have brought this ever-present feeling up to gut-punch level.  The U.S. indexes have dropped like a stone, shedding a significant chunk of their value, and the end of trading day stories about the declines can only offer speculation about why — and whether more declines are in the offing.  Then this week China surprisingly decides to devalue its currency, which has roiled the markets even more and caused more declines in global stock values.

Why has China done this?  Who knows?  China’s regulation of its economy remains a black box, and it seems clear that, when it comes to China, geopolitical factors beyond simple market forces like the law of supply and demand are influencing its economic decisions.  When China’s stock market experienced some sharp declines recently, one news article mentioned that a sign of the underlying issues was that the stock market hadn’t increased, as expected, on the Chinese Premier’s birthday.  When trading on stock markets is expected to be influenced by politician birthdays, you know you’re not exactly operating in the kind of world conceived by Adam Smith and his invisible hand.

So, what should the non-insider individual investors do in the face of these massive forces whose inexplicable decisions threaten to slash the value of their nest eggs and crush their dreams of a warm retirement some day in the future?  In a world where there aren’t many good alternatives, you can only do what you always do when you find yourself on a wild ride — hold on tight, don’t panic, and hope that it ends sooner rather than later.  Who knows?  Maybe the Chinese antics will cause the global money interests to conclude that the regulated U.S. stock market, where politician birthdays don’t affect buy-sell decisions, is a good, safe place to invest, and thereby trigger a new bull market in the U.S. of A.

The Doctor’s Park

Vancouver’s Chinatown has probably seen better days.  It’s right next door to the street where there are throngs of homeless people, vagrants, beggars, and other vaguely menacing types, and many of them apparently wander over to the Chinatown district — giving it a distinctly seedy, low-rent feel.

There is, however, a small oasis of peace, quiet, and beauty in Vancouver’s Chinatown.  It’s Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Park.  With its water lilies, small pagoda, bamboo shoots, and picturesque trees, it is a fine place to sit.  Dr. Sun — who helped to overthrow the Qing dynasty and found the Republic of China — no doubt would be proud.

Documenting The Axis Of Evil

In his 2002 State of the Union speech, President Bush described Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as parts of an axis of evil in the world. He was criticized by some for not engaging in constructive dialogue with those entities, but now a detailed United Nations report shows just how extraordinarily evil the North Korean regime really is.

The 400-page report was released by a specially appointed UN Commission. It compares the crimes being committed in North Korea to those that occurred in Nazi Germany, and for once the conclusion is apt rather than reckless hyperbole. Through interviews with refugees and victims, the report documents the starvation, torture, discrimination, and repression that are key elements of the North Korean regime. It describes how North Korea operates a system of unspeakably cruel labor camps and prisons, where inmates are starved, murdered, raped, and subjected to forced abortions; escapees described prisoners being forced to drown their own children and dig their own graves before being murdered by guards with hammers.

The atrocities in the labor camps have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of North Koreans, and hundreds of thousands more have died through starvation as a result of governmental policies that use the supply of food to keep the population under control. The report finds that North Korea also practices discrimination against women and others in a rigid, state-assigned class system, prevents the free exercise of thought, conscience, and religion, and operates a police state in which security forces use violence and cruel punishments to create a climate of fear.

The UN report reminds us of the Holocaust and calls for prompt international action to end the atrocities of an evil government, but that is not likely to happen. North Korea denies all of the allegations of the report. More importantly China, North Korea’s ally and protector, indicates that it will not support any intervention. As awful as the North Korean regime is, and as terrible as the suffering of its people may be, the international community has few options short of invasion — and there does not seem to be much appetite for such a step.

So, we are left with a report that probably will not change the reality in North Korea — but that report nevertheless serves a useful purpose. There truly is evil in the world, and it is important for us to be periodically reminded of that unfortunate fact.

The “New Space” Race

Yesterday, the Indian mission to Mars, called Mangalyaan, fired rockets that caused it to leave Earth orbit and begin a voyage that will see it rendezvous with Mars in September, 2014.  This morning China launched its first moon rover, with a rocket carrying the “Jade Rabbit” on a mission to explore the lunar surface.

India and China are competitors in a new space race.  They are vying to join the United States, Russia, and Europe in showing the scientific and engineering capability to conduct complicated space missions and enhance their international prestige as a result.

In the meantime, the focus of American space efforts have changed.  Although NASA continues to produce amazing unmanned space exploration missions, with the end of the shuttle program the United States government is temporarily out of the business of launching humans into space.  As the Washington Post has recently reported, the torch of manned space flight is being picked up by a number of private companies that are taking a different, more entrepreneurial approach.  Many of the companies are located in the Mojave desert — a location familiar to anyone who has read The Right Stuff and knows the history of the Mercury space program.  The companies feature imaginative business models that forecast how space flight and exploration can become a profitable venture.

As the Indian and Chinese missions show, there will always be a role for government in space.  Many of us regret that the federal government didn’t ignore the naysayers and move much more aggressively into space after the triumphs of the Apollo program with the building of a large, functioning space station, lunar bases, and other efforts.  But the government didn’t do so.  Now those of us who dream of space exploration should be pleased that private enterprise sees opportunities in the heavens.  The history of America has shown that capitalism can work wonders, and competition among companies can spur extraordinary technological advances.  If the same visionary leadership and engineering savvy that produced our personal computer and smartphone revolution can be brought to bear on the commercial development of space, who can say what opportunities might be realized?

Keep your eye on the high desert.  When we start reading more about readily available “space tourism” flights or mining efforts in the asteroid belt, we’ll know that the future envisioned in countless science fiction novels has moved a little bit closer.

Smog Alert

These days, the United States is often compared, unfavorably, to China.  China’s economic expansion and growth statistics are far higher than those in the United States.  Fair-minded people recognize, however, that the economic growth in China comes at a price.

Consider the situation today in Harbin, a northeastern Chinese city that is home to 11 million people.  Today it experienced a smog problem that was unimaginably bad.  An index that measures objects that are 2.5 micrometers reached a level of 1,000 in some parts of Harbin.  By way of comparison, the World Health Organization recommends that daily levels of such particulate matter not exceed 20, and the level of 300 is considered hazardous.  Harbin’s measurements therefore reached points that are 50 times higher than recommended levels and more than three times hazardous levels.

Objects that are 2.5 micrometers in size are like those emitted by forest fires and power plants and give the air a smoky appearance.  Such particles are considered dangerous because they are small enough to be inhaled, pass through the nose and throat, and become lodged in the lungs.  In pictures taken today in Harbin, people look like they are walking through a dense fog or a thick cloud of volcanic ash.  It’s hard to imagine even trying to breath in such conditions.

China’s economic miracle doesn’t seem quite so miraculous when it produces smog that poses such extreme health risks, does it?