Tag Archives: politics

A Different Sort of National Security Threat

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This one demographic; it’s the potential for population collapse in the People’s Republic of China.  Most of the nations of the world outside Africa face population declines, but none seem as severe as the PRC’s is looking to be.

In 2016, after the one-child policy was abandoned, there were 17.86 million births. This dropped to 17.2 million in 2017 and 15.2 million in 2018—the third-lowest rate since the foundation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.

That might be an accelerating drop, although three data points don’t make for a strongly measured trend.

There’s this datum, too, from Yi Fuxian, Senior Scientist in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Medical School Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology:

In China in 2017, the ratio was six workers in the 20-64 age bracket supporting one senior citizen at least 65 years old. This will decline to 2.0 workers in 2039 and 1.6 in 2050.
“No social security net, no family security, and a pension crisis—this will evolve into a humanitarian catastrophe. As women live six to seven years longer than men on average [and are usually a few years younger than their husbands], they will be the main victims of population control,” said Yi.

And this from George Magnus, an Oxford University China Centre Research Associate:

Measured by the proportion of 65+ and the old age dependency ratio, China will age as much in the next 22 years as most Western economies have done in the last 60-70 years—and at far lower levels of income per head, and with a much less developed social security system[.]

It’s unlikely to get better in time to do anything meaningful: the PRC’s fertility rate, the number of children born per woman, as of 2018 is 1.6—far below the 2.1 rate required just to maintain the population at its current level.

But it’s more than just aging women or aging generally.  This is the size of its labor force in absolute terms, too, with its production capacity. The number of Chinese in the labor force is the economic underpinning of the nation and its ability to keep itself armed—to the degree the Communist Party of China and its People’s Liberation Army deem sufficient—and able to face the enemies perceived by the CPC and the PLA.

That economic underpinning also is critical to the nation’s ability to keep its people, including those actively working, fed and housed.

What will a desperate Xi Jinping or Xi-successor do in the face of this crisis?  We need to be prepared diplomatically, economically, and humanitarianly.  And militarily, since neither Xi nor his successor are likely to accept this crisis without resorting to force and invasions to “capture” workers and baby-makers.

“Impartiality Is the Source of a Newspaper’s Credibility”

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That’s the headline of Walter Hussman’s piece in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal.  Impartiality certainly is a contributor, but the Critical Item for a newspaper’s credibility—for any journalistic entity—is integrity.

To set themselves on the path back to honesty, and so to believability—not just credibility—members of the journalism industry must address these items:

  1. identify at least some of their sources
  2. if an anonymous source refuses to be identified, show two things

-the source actually exists
-why the source should be believed

  1. if the anonymous source is a whistleblower, show that the source has exhausted all internal whistleblowing channels before deciding to leak

4. most importantly, journalism used to have a standard that required two on-the-record sources to corroborate the claims of anonymous sources. An editor-in-chief must address the following:

-why his news outlet has chosen to walk away from that standard of journalistic integrity
-explain the standard he currently uses in place of that one.

These questions have been asked before, and journalists continue studiously to duck them.  Interestingly, Hussman, as publisher of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, is among those ducking the questions.

None of this does anything for newspapers’ or other journalistic outlets’ credibility.  After all, merely impartial lying is still lying.

Another Reason

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…not to live in New York.  Aside from there being no place for folks who disagree with the Progressive-Democrats in charge, there’s this travesty.

A New Jersey resident—resident in every sense of the term—owns a vacation home in New York where he spends a few days each year…vacationing.

A state administrative law judge ruled last month that [the resident] owed $527,000 in back New York state income tax because of his upstate home. With interest and penalties, that is more than twice the $290,000 he paid for the house in 2011.

Why?  Because he spent those few days in that home which he owned, and under New York tax law that makes all of his income, regardless of where it actually was earned, subject to New York income tax.

I used to be a resident of Illinois, even as I was stationed—living—variously in Alaska and Florida.  I maintained Illinois residency because I was a supporter of then-Senator Chuck Percy.  My income was earned outside Illinois, and the State taxed none of it.  Had I had income earned in Illinois, the State would have taxed only that part of my total income, not the totality of it.

But New York doesn’t have that sense of integrity.  Pay up, sucka.  Or get outta here.

Distractions

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Recall the hoo-raw the NLMSM is raising because President Donald Trump, in a brief press opportunity, used a dated map of Hurricane Dorian’s path.  The map also had been modified with a hand-drawn additional line that forecast Dorian’s progress into lower Alabama.

Howard Kurtz, Fox News‘ journalism critic, was on the case Friday, and as he often does, he exaggerated some and he missed some.

The exaggeration:

Now there’s obviously a legitimate story here. Who wielded the now-infamous Sharpie?

You bet there is. For grocery store tabloids like National Enquirer, Globe, Star.

The miss:

…the constant back-and-forth over a black squiggle feels like a giant distraction.

Sadly, Kurtz should know better than this, being a maven of the industry, and all. The only ones distracted are he and his fellow pseudo-journalists who’ve made the conscious, deliberate editorial decision to obsess over this, to distract themselves with this non-story.

The rest of us have better things to do, and better focus with which to deal with them.

For Cheating on College Admission

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Prosecutors want a whole month in jail for Felicity Huffman, who’s pled out for trying to buy her daughter’s way into college.  That seems light to me, for what amounts to a bribery beef.

On the other hand, her attorneys

pleaded with a Boston federal judge Friday to spare her jail time after she pleaded guilty in connection with the college admissions bribery scandal and instead give her probation, community service and a fine.

This is an even lighter sentence than the prosecutors are requesting.  Apparently, what amounts to a crime of bribery is no big deal.  Furthermore, the “fine” of $20,000 is an insult.  That’s pocket money for someone of Huffman’s means and income.

On the other hand, I don’t entirely disagree that a year’s probation and community service for a first-time offender make a good framework for suitable punishment.

Let’s have her serve the terms of her punishment, though, like she means it.  Take Huffman out of the environment in which she was led astray, put her under probation in Baltimore, not Los Angeles.

Instead of the 250 hours of community service with at-risk youth that the defense “offered”—a bare six weeks of 8-hour days, although no calendar interval was suggested for those hours—have Huffman do some serious community service with those youth: spend the entire year’s probation working with Baltimore’s at-risk youth, 2080 hours (because she hasn’t earned two weeks for vacation). No dilletantism to fill a court-ordered square; do 52 weeks of full-time work.

And to be sure she understands and faces the environment of that youth population as well as the youths themselves, have her live in an apartment in one of those at-risk neighborhoods, to be verified aperiodically and on a no-notice basis by her parole officer.

Those 20 stacks for the fine? Double it to take some of the sting out of the insult, and have her pay the money to a couple of the NGOs in Baltimore that work with at-risk youth.

Regarding her daughter’s learning disability situation, her husband, who’s not charged with anything, can deal with that.