The "retreat" from assimilation isn't all that it's splintered up to be

WSJ story.

Recent study suggests that Hispanics are less often marrying non-Hispanic whites, hence the fear of lessening assimilation.

The trend of past decades for both Hispanics and Asians immigrants was that successive generations married outside their race in ever higher percentages.  So are we seeing a reversal!

Clearly, social taboos on interracial marriage have faded dramatically over my lifetime (almost 5 decades), but here’s the trick with the last two decades seeing a serious upsurge in Asian and Hispanic immigrants:  now there’s a lot more of them available in the marriage pool, so, what was assimilation in the past due to limited choice, is now lessened. 

As a “retreat from intermarriage” goes, this one is fairly defensible and hardly anything to get worked up about.  I mean, Hispanic women now marry outside the pool in the range of 15-20% (2000s) versus 20-25% (1990s).

The benefits seem clear enough for the individuals in question: 

The massive influx of new immigrants from Latin America and Asia has not only fueled the opportunity to marry one’s co-ethnics, but also revitalized ancestral and cultural identity.

So says a researcher.

Meanwhile, we’re told that the rate of Asian women marrying white men “stagnated” at 40% between 1980 and 2008.  Oh my!

Long-term, though, experts expect plenty of inter-marrying.  Why? Workplaces are far more integrated than in the past.

Still, plenty of anti-immigrant feeling post-9/11 and with the hard economic times, so the current “retreat,” such as it is, underwhelms me.

Core-Gap thinking in Nick Reding's "Methland"

Noted by my cousin Paul (career "Mad Man").

The brief description of the book from Publisher's Weekly:

Using what he calls a "live-in reporting strategy," Reding's chronicle of a small-town crystal meth epidemic-about "the death of a way of life as much as... about the birth of a drug"-revolves around tiny Oelwein, Iowa, a 6,000-resident farming town nearly destroyed by the one-two punch of Big Agriculture modernization and skyrocketing meth production. Reding's wide cast of characters includes a family doctor, the man "in the best possible position from which to observe the meth phenomenon"; an addict who blew up his mother's house while cooking the stuff; and Lori Arnold (sister of actor Tom Arnold) who, as a teenager, built an extensive and wildly profitable crank empire in Ottumwa, Iowa (not once, but twice). Reding is at his best relating the bizarre, violent and disturbing stories from four years of research; heftier topics like big business and globalization, although fascinating, seem just out of Reding's weight class. A fascinating read for those with the stomach for it, Reding's unflinching look at a drug's rampage through the heartland stands out in an increasingly crowded field. 

The reference to "heftier topics" is explained in a reader review (Gaetan Lion):

"Fast Food Nation" meets "The Pentagon's New Map", September 28, 2009

This is a very good book that reads like a thriller. Reding, the author, covers the advent of meth throughout the rural Midwest through several related angles. 

First, he covers this topic by following the firsthand experience of several key individuals attempting to keep the social fabric of a small town (Oelwein) in the midst of a meth epidemic. These include the mayor, the main primary physician, the chief of police, and the local district attorney. Their narratives describe how desperate the situation is until two of them are able to turn things around (the chief of police by cracking down onmeth dealers and the mayor by raising financing to invest in a new commercial complex to generate jobs). Reding also follows the life of several meth addicts in various stages of either recovery or deterioration. 

Second, Reding studies the history of meth that was at first deemed a legitimate miraculous drug that could cure 33 different ailments ranging from weight gain to schizophrenia. In 1939, a Harvard sociologist warns about side effects including sexual aggression, violence, hallucination, and insomnia. His warnings are ignored as the drug is still used extensively during WWII to maintain the energy and focus of soldiers (on either side) during stressful sleepless nights. Also, medical records suggests Hitler was ameth addict which explains his madness. 

Third, Reding studies the biochemistry of meth. The attractiveness of meth is multi-dimensional. On one hand, it has the libido benefit of Viagra. On another, it has an antidepressant effect similar to Prozac. On another, it is the equivalent of a smart pill that gives you unparalleled mental focus. It is also like a caffeine booster giving you the ability to perform at top level without sleep. Overall, it provides an incredible feel-good feeling. This is because like many drugs it reduces the uptake of dopamine (the satisfaction hormone). But, unlike other drugs it actually squeezes dopamine out of presynaptic cells. The resulting unparalleled flow of dopamine through one's system triggers a feel-good feeling that even sex does not match. On the other hand, the long term side effects are really nasty. Those include bleeding skin-sores, internal organs shrunken from dehydration resulting in liver and kidney failure, weakened hearts and lungs, brains depleted of neurotransmitters. A person is literally falling apart from the inside. Also, it has all the already mentioned nasty behavioral side effects. Reding states there are thousand of stories about meth associated with hallucinogenic violence, morbid depravity, and extreme sexual perversion. Reding provides a few choice examples throughout the book. 

Fourth, Reding maps out the socioeconomic and policy factors associated with the meth epidemic that includes the convergeance of several forces: 
1) the advent of Big Pharma that lobbied to weaken any law regulating the import and sale of meth ingredients found in cold medicine;
2) Big Agriculture taking out small farms in the Midwest and employing a rising flow of low cost illegal Mexican immigrant workers. This part reads like Fast Food Nation; 
3) the emergence of the five major Mexican drug trafficking organizations (the DTOs) distributing their drugs using the same Mexican immigrants. By 2003, 85% of all illegal drugs sold in the U.S. whether meth, cocaine, heroin, were controlled by the five DTOs.; 
4) Globalization and NAFTA making border control between the U.S. and Mexico more challenging. 

Fifth, he leverages Thomas Barnett analytical framework described in The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-first Century. Where Barnett divides the World into two sets of countries, the functional ones that follow the Rule of Law (the core), and the rest consisting of failed states that live in chaos (the disconnected ones). Reding makes the connection that even within the core countries such as the U.S. there are expanding pockets of disconnected regions such as the Midwestern towns falling pray to meth. He adds that when small towns are vulnerable to social implosion, larger towns may not be far behind. As a proof, he tracks the route of the meth epidemic that reaches to the big cities such as New York and Los Angeles . . .

Needless to say, I'm intrigued.  Know such small-town life very intimately.  Also know what it's like to indulge in that venue and the reasons why such escape are so appealing (even if, life-wise, I felt like a tourist because all my older siblings had moved up and out and so I knew I would too).

Being able to extrapolate the continued pockets of Gap inside even the most advanced Core is a pronounced jump to graduate-level analysis of my stuff that a lot of cops, social workers, mayors, etc. instinctively make.  I know, because they've sought me out over the years.  I don't particularly develop it in the books; it's just there in a latent sense, and they fill in their own blanks better than I could.  

I will definitely seek out the next time I'm in a book store.  Naturally, I admire anybody who pulls thinking from other realms--the ultimate in horizontal thinking.  Examples are always to be coveted.

Divisions within PRC over DPRK?

Clinton with South Korea's president last week.

NYT story on perceived divisions within China over how to respond to latest NorKo shenanigans.

While China’s decision-making on core foreign policy issues tends to be secretive, American officials said they had picked up hints that there was some disagreement within the leadership about how to respond to North Korea’s behavior, pitting civilian party leaders against the military.

The debate surfaced last year after North Korea tested a nuclear device, American officials said, and has accelerated since the attack on the South Korean ship, the Cheonan. Chinese civilian leaders have expressed growing puzzlement and anger about the North’s behavior, these officials said, while military officials tend to see the North’s moves as more defensible given the threat North Korea perceives from the United States.

Unsurprising split.  Just interesting that it's becoming apparent to outsiders.

Balancing in Asia: no effort required

WSJ story, latest in a long line regarding China's rise/NorKo/etc. Anything that unsettles Asia makes darn near everyone there was to keep America's friendship--and its military in region: South Korea over the crisis, naturally; and Japan over the bases; but also Malaysia and Vietnam, says the piece.

Your globalization $ at work: CA start-up, PRC tech, OH factory, US jobs

WSJ story.

CA start-up Coda Automotive is set to build factory in Ohio with 1,000 jobs, using Chinese technology to make lithium-ion batteries for an all-electric vehicle.

Batteries are too heavy to ship, so Coda wanted a US-based factory.  Until it's up and running, a previous JV set up in Tianjin will make the initial batteries.

The gap between our deep econ-network relationship with China and our paltry pol-mil bond

Been saying this for years: the connectivity skyrockets, but the cooperation does not keep pace.  Politics lags behind economics and security lags behind networking, and the widening gaps are dangerous to all involved.

Pacific Command boss Admiral Robert Willard noted China's "assertiveness" in its regional waters, as captured in an FT story prior to the recent Strategic and Economic Dialogue:

Adm Willard said the US viewed China's growing influence in Asia as positive. But Beijing needed to be more transparent, not only with the US but also with its neighbours.

Adm Willard was speaking ahead of talks with Ma Xiaotian, deputy chief of general staff of the PLA, the first meeting between senior US and Chinese military officers since Beijing suspended bilateral military-to-military dialogue in January after US arms sales to Taiwan.

"US-China military dialogue is officially still in suspension," said Adm Willard, who visited Beijing at the invitation of Hillary Clinton, secretary of state, in the context of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, the bilateral exchanges that concluded yesterday.

But he interpreted the fact that Beijing had agreed to his presence as a sign it viewed some high-level exchanges as beneficial.

"What was very striking yesterday was my impression of the very advanced, sophisticated and mature dialogue that's occurring across a wide range of subjects between China and the US," he said.

"That is in contrast with a very immature military-to-military relationship."

I would say the admiral hit the nail right on the head.

Great piece by Peggy Noonan on the American character

Great WSJ op-ed by Peggy Noonan, whose smart-ass style (look who's talking!) is softened by her beautiful writing style.

The closer:

Here is a fanciful example that is meant to have a larger point. If you, complicated little pirate that you are, find yourself caught in the middle of a big messy scandal in America right now, you can't go to another continent to hide out or ride out the storm. Earlier generations did exactly that, but you can't, because you've been on the front page of every website, the lead on every newscast. You'll be spotted in South Africa and Googled in Gdansk. Two hundred years ago, or even 100, when you got yourself in a big fat bit of trouble in Paris, you could run to the docks and take the first ship to America, arrive unknown, and start over. You changed your name, or didn't even bother. It would be years before anyone caught up with you.

And this is part of how America was born. Gamblers, bounders, ne'er-do-wells, third sons in primogeniture cultures—most of us came here to escape something! Our people came here not only for a new chance but to disappear, hide out, tend their wounds, and summon the energy, in time, to impress the dopes back home. America has many anthems, but one of them is "I'll show 'em!"

There is still something of that in all Americans, which means as a people we're not really suited to the age of surveillance, the age of no privacy. There is no hiding place now, not here, and this strikes me as something of huge and existential import. It's like the closing of yet another frontier, a final one we didn't even know was there.

A few weeks ago the latest right-track-wrong-track numbers came out, and the wrong-track numbers won, as they have since 2003. About 70% of respondents said they thought the country was on the wrong track. This was generally seen as "a commentary on the economy," and no doubt this is part of it. But Americans are more interesting and complicated people than that, and maybe they're also thinking, "Remember Jeremiah Johnson? The guy who went off by himself in the mountains and lived on his own? I'd like to do that. But they'd find me on Google Earth."

I get the angst, but Noonan's description of America's DNA is dead-on, so I also get the reasonable pushback. Toss in a good court system, and I think that, not only will we be fine, but we'll reach the right balance of rules faster and better than anybody else--without prying any guns off anybody's cold dead fingers!

Chart of the day: Crime drop defies multiple predictions for rise

Back in 2004, when I was at the Naval War College, a major metro police chief from New England visited me to talk about Core-Gap dynamics in the seam between the inner city and the suburbs, a topic that still gets presented to me from those quarters.  His prediction struck me as entirely sensible:  all the 3-strikes and tougher sentencing of the 1990s was finally coming home to roost in that America was on the verge of starting to expel more ex-cons than new criminals being sentenced (something like 600k ex-cons hitting the street each year while 500k go in).  Naturally, the prediction was that all of these ex-cons would step right back into the Gap-like conditions of their old neighborhoods and lapse back into criminal behavior.

Then you add in the financial/economic woes since mid-2008, and that seems like a recipe for a big spike in crime, yes?

But instead we get substantial drops in lots of major metros across 2009, with the biggest declines happening in the biggest cities (over one million population).

The credit?  Better policing techniques across the board, plus some staffing help due to the stimulus package.

As a rule, we are told that it takes years for a crime drop to register in the minds of the public.

Then there's concern about chronic long-term unemployment + the end of the stimulus money.

So not all sunny, even as we celebrate this counterintuitive trend.

Long-term unemployment in America: the new nasty twist

Scary piece by Clive Crook in the FT noting how the long-term unemployed share of total unemployment is unusually high by historical standards--almost 5m out for 6 months or longer.  They account for something like half the unemployed right now, also something not seen in decades.

Americans have always lost their jobs more frequently than their European counterparts, but we've also tended to find new ones faster while the Euro govs tend to offer better retraining and cushier benefits.

It would seem we enter a new period, hence the need for some new rules on how to handle it.

What's good for China is good for globalization

chart here

An FT op-ed by the president of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation and the chairman of the Center for America-China Partnership, timed to the recent Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Beijing.

Nice summary of China's thinking regarding our bilateral economic relationship:

America is used to having it all its own way.  In 1972, as the US opened diplomatic relations with China, it abandoned pegging the dollar to gold.  That enabled it--through its monopoly on printing US dollars--to create huge trade and investment advantages.  Its economy grew strongly as it managed the value of its currency at the expense of other nations.

Washington has not always fully acknowledged that from 2000, the year China joined the World Trade Organization, to 2008 the US dollar declined against many currencies, while from 2005 to 2008 Beijing gradually increased the US dollar exchange rate of the renminbi by 21 percent.

The US stimulus plan increased America's debt and deficits and will decrease the value of the dollar. China increased its holding of dollars as America's other trade partners reduced theirs.  As the US financial crisis loomed, China pegged the renminbi to increase stability and exert a positive influence on its economic recovery.  It will keep a relatively stable renminbi exchange rate to ensure its economic growth is steady rather than uncontrollable, which would harm all nations. Currently, China is providing stability as the largest holder of US government debt and US dollar-denominated reserves.

China-US relations changed when the world learnt that America's financial system would collapse unless the government saved insolvent US-based global banks, insurance companies and carmakers.  The bail-out turned the US government into the largest shareholder of formerly privately-owned companies, subsidizing their commercial failure.  Laissez faire theories, which US policymakers still demand that China adopt, were suddenly replaced by massive US government control of market forces.

The US often pursues policies that are "win-win" for itself alone.  Its policymakers would undermine China's vital national security and economic interests while seeking China's help in protecting America's vital interests.  But the reality is that the policies America proposed are implementable and sustainable only if they are beneficial also for China.  The Strategic and Economic Dialogue should focus on new US policies instead of trying to change China's policies, which are essential for global economic recovery.

An excellent and hard-to-refute summary argument.  Our success in encouraging China's rise is such that it can now legitimately claim to be working on behalf of global economic security as much or more than America. In short, it can make the claim that "what's good for China is good for the world," an argument to which only America could lay serious claim in past decades.

This is why we've never going to war with China; the codependency on globalization is profound.

Krugman: our fear of deficits may doom us to a Japanese-style "lost decade"

Pic/graphic here

Krugman argues against our popular instinct not to see our government get insanely in debt, saying:

But the truth is that policy makers aren’t doing too much; they’re doing too little. Recent data don’t suggest that America is heading for a Greece-style collapse of investor confidence. Instead, they suggest that we may be heading for a Japan-style lost decade, trapped in a prolonged era of high unemployment and slow growth.

But the truth is that policy makers aren’t doing too much; they’re doing too little. Recent data don’t suggest that America is heading for a Greece-style collapse of investor confidence. Instead, they suggest that we may be heading for a Japan-style lost decade, trapped in a prolonged era of high unemployment and slow growth.

If that isn't a vigorous enough statement, consider this:

I strongly suspect that some officials at the Fed see the Japan parallels all too clearly and wish they could do more to support the economy. But in practice it’s all they can do to contain the tightening impulses of their colleagues, who (like central bankers in the 1930s) remain desperately afraid of inflation despite the absence of any evidence of rising prices. I also suspect that Obama administration economists would very much like to see another stimulus plan. But they know that such a plan would have no chance of getting through a Congress that has been spooked by the deficit hawks.

In short, fear of imaginary threats has prevented any effective response to the real danger facing our economy.

I will admit:  as much as this scenario scares me, I am still more scared by the crowding-out phenomenon associated with that massive federal debt.  I sense that we'd be better off facing tough challenges in the shorter-run than assuming recovery of government revenues for a long-enough stretch to make good on all this debt.  That just strikes me as too optimistic, given our demographics and love of medical technology and our enduring commitment to fielding a large military--all of which will have to give.  I also agree with Krugman's suspicion that more stimulus is a political non-starter.

US Coast Guard: "Technology has outrun the current regulations"

WSJ piece that says oil rig blowout in Gulf "has prompted scrutiny of the U.S. Coast Guard's ability to carry out even its limited role in preventing disaster on rigs."

CG naturally replies that it's short on resources.

Title quote comes from Lt. Cmdr. Michael Odom, who--career-wise--is just the right age to offer that judgment (been in long enough to spot the rule-set gap, and with enough of a career ahead of him to take it seriously).

The facts:  USCG regs for the massive moving regs date back to 1978, when they were smaller and operated mostly just offshore.

Even when the USCG does get involved, it's mostly paperwork, because the regulation of the rigs lies with the Interior Dept's Minerals Management Service.

Most experts argue to revisit this regulatory split in light of the recent disaster.

But here's the hitch, just like with ships, most of the rigs are under foreign flags, meaning the nation of registry is responsible for oversight.

The Transocean rig that went to the bottom was registered under the Republic of Marshall Islands, which in turn hired a private contractor to do any inspections--a common industry practice for such states.

When the USCG shows up to any rig, the difference in review shows:  foreign rigs get the hours-long treatment but US-registered rigs get the days-long review.

Underlying tone:  2007 independent assessment by fmr USCG Vice Admiral found that, once the USCG got sucked into the Department of Homeland Security, safety maintenance work went out the window in favor of c-terrorism.

The Gulf blowout makes Canadian oil sands look more acceptable

The gist from NYT story:

Oil sands are now getting more scrutiny as the Obama administration reviews a Canadian company’s request to build a new 2,000-mile underground pipeline that would run from Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast and would significantly increase America’s access to the oil. In making the decision, due this fall, federal officials are weighing the environmental concerns against the need to secure a reliable supply of oil to help satisfy the nation’s insatiable thirst.

The gulf accident adds yet another layer of complexity. Regulators and Congress are weighing new limits on drilling off the coastline after the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, increasing the pressure to rely more heavily on Canada’s oil sands. At the same time, political consciousness of the risks has grown.

Canadian oil sands are expected to become America’s top source of imported oil this year, surpassing conventional Canadian oil imports and roughly equaling the combined imports from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, according to IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm.

In a new report, it projects that oil sands production could make up as much as 36 percent of United States oil imports by 2030.

I recently was harassed, congenially enough, by an older guy from the investment world (after a talk) who was convinced the US imported 19mbd and that 9-10 came from Saudi Arabia alone, therefore the PG was THE source of US oil.  I run into such ill-informed notions all the time, when the truth is the PG ranks after Africa after LATAM after NORTHAM after the US (or 5th place overall).

The Chinese have announced more investments in the Canadian sands fields, making you wonder if the US isn't eager to lock down a certain amount of access while the getting is good--and the enviro damage is "over there."

Growing Chinese investment in US economy takes new turn

WSJ story:  China's Anshan Iron & Steel Groups says it will invest in as many as 5 US production mills owned by a Mississippi company.

It's a small move by a big (#6 in world) player, "but the deal appears to carry political overtones, coming as Beijing puts emphasis on outbound investment as a spark for economic activity elsewhere."

That's the lesson Japan had to learn years ago, and China appears to be moving in this direction with much faster speed.  It's a real credit to them and a good sign overall.

I've told this story on China for a couple years now in the brief: Japanese cars used to be keyed in Indiana parking lots years ago. Why? This is Big 3 production territory. It doesn't happen today. Why? Toyota and Honda have IN plants now.

Read this from the print story:

Last week, a government official in Beijing suggested China's steelmakers could learn from Japanese auto makers, which in the 1980s responded to complaints about their imports by opening U.S. plants.  Jia Yingson, of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said Chinese steel production in the U.S. would help the industry sidestep rising trade barriers . . .

And from the online version:

In the 1980s, Japanese car makers faced the kind of political and popular resentment about imports in the U.S. that much of Chinese industry is up against today. To ease some of the tension, Japan engineered a considerable higher yen exchange rate while companies such asToyota Motor Corp. built U.S. plants so their cars could be labeled "Made in America, by Americans."

Our pushback forced Japanese companies to evolve from national flagships to truly globally integrated enterprises (IBM CEO Sam Palmisano's term).  No doubt the same learning curve happens here.  Bigger question is whether Africa can do the same vis-a-vis China.  But even there, I remain optimistic.

Again, very pleasing to see.  You go around spouting this stuff for years, wondering when it'll happen or if you'll be proven "naive," and then the economics shapes the political decision-making and even deeper economic connectivity and evolution results.

And everything old is new again. 

India-US car makers: warming up to each other's markets

Mahindra & Mahindra aims to become the first company to sell an Indian-made truck in the U.S.  (factory pic-->).

Meanwhile, GM is doing boffo business in India:

Sparks fly and robotic machines buzz and hum. Assembly-line workers in coveralls, the sons of peanut and rice farmers, seal windshields and weld doors. They're making zippy little cars called Beat and Spark in the gleaming new General Motors plant here -- and they're making boatloads of money.

The iconic American carmaker went bankrupt last year, but its Indian operations have never been busier, evidence of India'sbooming economic growth and the rising prosperity of middle classes that are increasingly demanding first-world trappings in one of the fastest-rising countries.

"The new generation wants to hold the steering wheel in their hands," said Prabhjot Singh, manager of a driving school who said young Indians who used to go to him to learn how to drive scooters are now flooding in to learn how to drive cars.

GM builds for Indians in India.  Mahindra plans on doing the same as soon as possible.

I like GM's chances better.  America's truck market is stuffed, while there is only 10 cars per 1,000 Indians (America's numbers are more like 830-40).

But great to see the connectivity and ambition moving in both directions.

How big the shift with this election?

Trio of WSJ pieces

Joe Sestak ends Spector's long career that goes all the way back to the Warren Commission (and please people, stop calling it the "magic bullet" theory, because the latest computer modeling shows that it wasn't magical in the least!), exploiting the current anti-incumbent mood.

I knew Sestak as an admiral and I've testifed in from of him.  He is as slick as they come, and I mean that in a good way. Outsider? Definitely fresher than Spector, let's say.

He's definitely a liberal, holding a 100% rating from NARAL on being pro-choice.  We also share a bond:  both our first-born girls survived cancer in childhood.

Sestak is also incredibly smart, in my opinion, so he'd be one to watch in the Senate, just like he was in the House.

So with all this talk of voter shifts, what does this latest batch of primaries say?  We should see a lot of new faces in Congress next January, and this is good.  Place is too easy for incumbents as a rule, and we should take pride in moving new brains into the mix.

But you have to remember, midterm primaries are the stuff of the party loyalists.

It's the changing mix of loyalists that bodes well for the GOP.

MSNBC/WSJ poll on party affiliation changes since start of Obama administration:

• Dems stay at 43%
• GOP goes from 30 to 37%
• That comes out of Independents (20-->16%) and others (7-->3%).

So you have to believe that the Tea Party movement is strengthening the GOP and hardly represents the rise of a viable third party.

Telling Kenya how its constitution should handle abortion

Doves released at a pro-new-constitution rally in Kenya

The gist from a NYT story:

The push to pass a new constitution in Kenya, a cornerstone of the effort to correct longstanding imbalances of power and prevent the kind of upheaval that followed deeply flawed elections here, has attracted some unexpected interference — from more than 7,000 miles away.

Before Kenyan lawmakers had even finished drafting the proposed constitution, American Christians organized petition drives in Kenya against it, objecting to a provision recognizing Islamic courts.

Now that the draft is done, three Republican members of Congress contend that it significantly expands abortion rights, and are accusing the United States Embassy in Kenya of openly supporting it in violation of federal rules.

It is the latest battle in the American culture wars playing out in Africa. Last year, American Christians helped stoke antigay sentiments in Uganda; later, Ugandan politicians proposed the execution of some gay people. That debate is still raging, though it looks as if the Ugandan government is backing down and will not pass the antigay bill after all.

Old theme of mine:  we hamstring ourselves diplomatically and security-wise when we let our strategic choices be unduly influenced by internal social debates like abortion.  Especially sad:  by and large, it's easy to get an abortion across the Core but much harder throughout most of the Gap, where women's rights lag.

I am profoundly pro-choice.  Until you give women control of their bodies, economic takeoff is far harder to achieve.  Development is mostly about liberating women, not men.

Meanwhile, a NYT editorial notes that Core spending for AIDS relief/prevention across the Gap is wavering after the big plus-ups of the Bush era.  Everybody cites the economy.

US-Afghanistan: trying to hold the US-Afghan endgame together

WAPO, FT and Economist stories.

As in Iraq, I don't see the Obama administration doing much of anything to regionalize what comes next.  This remains completely a US/NATO show, as improved as it may be.  And so we are reduced to emphasizing publicly to the world how strong our bond is with the Karzai government--a sure sign that it is weak.

Karzai remains committed to a personality-based rule, because it's what he knows and he knows it's more popular than the Americans.  The Americans remain committed to building up institutions, because it's what we know works best, and yet, as in Iraq, there is this sense of having our eye on the door.

And so we are left with our great faith in the Kandahar campaign and the notion that, as one American general put it, the Afghans will "shura their way to success."

I personally would put more faith in a regionalization scheme that engaged the Iranians, Turks, Russians, Indians and Chinese far more explicitly and deeply.  Instead, we seem intent on relying on the kindness of the Pakistanis going forward--or maybe it's backward.

The NIEO is a' coming!

Samuelson in WAPO by way of David Emery.

NIEO refers to the notion, championed by the South in the early 1970s, of a more equitable global economy (New International Economic Order).

Well, guess who made it happen?  Not the Sovs, and not the South, but the New Deal for the World-cum-post WWII order-cum-the West-cum- the global economy-cum-globalization, dreamt up by the United States (TR), launched by the US (FDR), defended and expanded by a series of presidents (Nixon getting the most credit, in my mind, because he opens up China and caps the Sov threat), and finally now rebalanced by our own success--and excess--in that quest.

The two biggest players in triggering this latest rapid expansion of globalization:  China and India, with Brazil, Turkey, South Africa moving up fast.

According to Subramanian (often in FT) by way of Samuelson, another take on the journey from the Gap to the Core: 

This is classic economic catch-up, as poor countries adopt the products and technologies of rich countries. It's a two-step process, says economist Arvind Subramanian of the Peterson Institute. "First, countries have to cross the Hobbesian threshold" -- that's after philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), who declared that life without strong government is "nasty, brutish, and short." Governments must provide basic security and sanitation, create some rule of law and establish protections for property, says Subramanian. Otherwise, the stability doesn't exist to pursue Step Two: allowing markets to work; practicing standard economic virtues (taming inflation, disciplining government budgets).

Parts of Africa and Latin America still haven't crossed the Hobbesian threshold, says Subramanian. But elsewhere, many countries have reaped the rewards of moving to Step Two. China and India are the most spectacular cases. Only in recent decades have they relaxed pervasive state regulation and ownership and trade restrictions for more market-based policies.

Now Samuelson's judgment on what must come next: 

So is rebalancing going according to script? Well, not necessarily. It's true that the massive trade imbalances have dropped sharply. The U.S. trade deficit fell from $760 billion in 2006 to $379 billion in 2009; China's trade surplus also dropped. But these changes mostly reflect the Great Recession. The worsening slump caused people and companies to stop spending. Global trade contracted sharply -- and with it the size of imbalances. But as the recovery has strengthened, trade and imbalances are growing again. American imports are increasing faster than exports; this surge could be temporary, suggests economist Richard Berner of Morgan Stanley, as companies replenish depleted inventories.

Still, what's missing is a sizable revaluation of China's currency, the renminbi. Fred Bergsten of the Peterson Institute thinks the renminbi may be 40 percent undervalued against the dollar. This gives China's exports a huge advantage and underpins its trade surpluses. Other Asian countries fear altering their currencies if China doesn't change first. "They'll lose ground to China," notes Hensley. The European Union, Brazil and India all feel threatened by the renminbi. President Obama wants U.S. exports to double in five years. That's probably unrealistic, but it's impossible if the renminbi isn't revalued.

The next best problem to have, no doubt, and I agree with those that say "paid in renminbi" will be the slow route by which China converts its currency (letting more and more of its importers use the yuan, swapped out by China via currency trades).  But as this process matures, it will represent a brave new world for the Chinese as much--or more--than for the US and its dollar.

In short, the catch-up strategy stuff ends and the competition gets a whole lot more real.

The BP disaster in perspective

NASA image by way of ABC News.  Nansen Saleir op-ed in WSJ.  Saleri is president and CEO of Quantum Reservoir Impact in Houston, so an oil man.

Why didn't the oil industry anticipate such a big disaster, asks Saleri.  

The answer may partially lie in the extraordinary safety record of offshore U.S. drilling over the last four decades. The last significant mishap in U.S. waters dates back to 1969, the year of the first lunar landing. A blowout on Union Oil's Platform A, six miles offshore from Santa Barbara, Calif., spilled an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 barrels of crude oil over a period of 10 days. This resulted in considerable environmental damage and loss of wildlife, including 10,000 birds. The ensuing chain of technical and procedural improvements in safety practices worked pretty well. The end result was an infinitesimal spill rate over several decades which in turn led many, including BP, to consider a blowout an inconceivable event.

His solution-process going forward strikes me as solid:

So what now? What is needed is a scientific, thorough and apolitical investigation headed possibly by the National Academy of Sciences and drawing in experts from the oil and gas industry as well as the government agencies involved. The investigation must also evaluate the entire post-accident response effort led by BP in cooperation with local, state and federal agencies.

Some questions that must be diligently probed by investigators are:

1) Why did the blowout preventers—the massive valve assemblies designed to stop an uncontrolled flow—fail? And what are their reliability statistics?

2) Were the redundant safety systems truly redundant? It seems obvious they weren't, but this has to be verified.

3) How well trained was the crew?

4) Were the safety systems and contingency plans in place commensurate with the immense values of the total assets at risk—human, material and environmental?

5) Did operational and cost-cutting practices compromise safety?

What escalated the April 20 incident from a tragic accident to a catastrophe was not the blowout itself but the ensuing inferno that sunk the $650 million BP platform. Without the fire, the oil well leak could have probably been brought under control within a week. Thus it is critical to determine what future designs could best enhance survivability of giant offshore structures even under blowout conditions. Are there lessons to be learned from the airline industry, which has engineered significant reductions in post-crash fires during the last decade?

So treat it like the Challenger disaster, which Saleri notes didn't end the US space program.

The Gulf provides about 1/3rd of US domestic production.