Chart of the day: US farm income to be highest in 4 decades

WSJ story.

Despite last year's drought, net farm income in US (128B projected) will be highest since 1973 (adjusted basis).

Why?

Higher prices for livestock and poulty and "a continued boom in the farm belt initially fueled by rising global demand for grains" + that idiotic conversion into corn ethanol.

The big danger?  Great Plains enters the season way too dry - still.

So we see here the interplay between two dominant global dynamics in this century: rising global middle class and rising global temperature.

Chart of the day: globalization vastly improves death

NYT story.  Simply fascinating.

There's no arguing this:  over the last 20 years, or the apogee of globalization's rapid expansion, more babies live into childhood, more children live into adulthood, and adults live longer.

So much for globalization impoverishing everyone and making their lives more miserable.

Check it out:  communicable yields to lifestyle diseases.

The tough work for any global progressive effort is already done.  Now it's all about living that much longer - primarily - because we'll eat that much healthier.  Obesity feeds all the major lifestyle diseases.

Overall, striking evidence that globalization has improved lives the world over:

The shift reflects improvements in sanitation, medical services and access to food throughout the developing world, as well as the success of broad public health efforts like vaccine programs. The results are striking:infant mortality declined by more than half from 1990 to 2010, and malnutrition, the No. 1 risk factor for death and years of life lost in 1990, has fallen to No. 8.

At the same time, chronic diseases like cancer now account for about two out of every three deaths worldwide, up from just over half in 1990. Eight million people died of cancer in 2010, 38 percent more than in 1990. Diabetes claimed 1.3 million lives in 2010, double the number in 1990.

“The growth of these rich-country diseases, like heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes, is in a strange way good news,” said Ezekiel Emanuel, chairman of the department of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania. “It shows that many parts of the globe have largely overcome infectious and communicable diseases as a pervasive threat, and that people on average are living longer.”

The truth is good.

Saudi America

Title of the WSJ's lead editorial on Tuesday.

Two charts displaying the tectonic shift afforded by fracking technology.

This, plus fiscal constraints, makes for a new definition of US superpower-dom.

Let the debate begin ...

Greece: how bad does it get?

Malaria still existed throughout much of the US in the 1930s/40s.  Since then it has gotten much warmer throughout the US.  But malaria is basically gone now.  Why?  Rising incomes.

So the point on global warming is, it'll create real problems wherever states and societies don't have the money to deal with the challenges - such as insect migration.

Now take a look at this chart from the WSJ and realize what happens when incomes fall - and how quickly.

Recently, Wikistrat ran a sim where we discussed the possibility of states making sovereign land sales.  Several analysts said that, while that happened in previous centuries (note how most of America was acquired), nobody would consider that now.

My comeback was, if the financial situation gets bad enough, countries will sell just like people get rid of an underwater house.

Greece is looking pretty bad, and I think it's a harbinger of massive debt issues to come for a demographically aging West.

The discussion we had was about the Arctic and the possibility of some Arctic Council members selling out to non-members so as to tap the finance needed for exploitation of opportunities.  After all, the US bought its seat at the table - aka, Alaska.

Where I would expect Chinese to be right now - and reasonably so

 

WSJ story on snapshot of Chinese attitudes about things and their own lives by Chinese polling firm:

The vast majority of Chinese people believe their country is heading in the right direction, according to a Pew Research Center survey, although there is rising discontent over issues from corruption to food safety—and a growing fondness for U.S.-style democracy.

One of the more surprising findings of the survey of Chinese attitudes by Washington-based Pew is that as public confidence in Chinese institutions— from government bureaucracies to the health-care system—deteriorates, appreciation for other systems of government is building.

Some 52% expressed a positive view of American-style democracy, with approval levels highest among the urban educated elite. However, affection for U.S. policy-making and President Barack Obama has cooled since he took office.

Overall, domestic confidence is higher in China than anywhere except Brazil, according to the poll conducted by Beijing firm Horizon Research Consultancy Group. In all, 82% of those surveyed said they are satisfied with the way things are going, and 83% said China's economic situation is good or very good, while 70% said their family's lot has improved financially over the past five years.

But attitudes in key areas have soured since Pew asked many of the same questions in 2008. Half of those polled said official malfeasance is a very big problem, worse than the 39% who said so in 2008, while another 35% termed it a moderately big problem.

Chinese this year categorized as very big problems many issues they described as only moderately bad in 2008, such as food safety, air pollution, education, worker rights, income inequality and the health-care system. While 13% said quality issues related to manufactured goods were a very big problem in 2008, for example, that figure shot to 33% this year.

Rising prices registered as a problem for 92% of respondents. 

That, my friends, is a nation poised on the edge of a progressive era/democratization. 

I'm not predicting it for tomorrow.  My favorite window for the big push is 2025-2030, but I am guessing I am being too pessimistic.

Global inequality: before America ruled and when America ruled

No question we're heading for a globalized "progressive era" to match what America experienced at the end/turn of the 19th/20th centuries.  Been talking that one for about five years now, and it was THE major theme of "Great Powers" back in 2009.  Now the Economist joins in.

But this historical chart is interesting.  Note the rising inequality across Europe's long colonial age (let's say 1800 to 1950) and then look at what happens when US-style globalization kicks in (1950-now):  It slows, despite the ginormous wealth creation globally, and even flattens out and peaks across the period of its truest expression (1990-now).

To be sure, the 1% are slicing off too much wealth - just like during America's Gilded Age, thus my long-standing prediction of a necessary progressive era on a global scale led by coastal megacities (like NYC led ours and re-attempts to do so today with Bloomberg). But an interesting difference between how Europe ran the world and how we've managed to do it.

Chart of the day: US-China economic ties deepen across Great Recession

Click smaller image for larger version.

Go here for interactive one you can peruse in depth.

BusinessWeek post by way of Craig Nordin.

Some basics:

• Both imports from, and exports to, China grow since 2008.
• Chinese investment creates 8,000 US jobs in 2007 and now 27,000 in 2012.  "If investment from China remains on track, Chinese businesses will employ 200,000 to 400,000 Americans by 2020."
• Applications for enterpreneur visas to US:  About 500 Chinese in 2008 equals about 40% of total, and almost 3,000 Chinese applications in 2011 = about 80%.
• Chinese students in US up 135% since 2008 (84,000 --> 197,000).
• Chinese holdings of US Treasuries up 158% since 2008.
• Patent applications: 4-5,000 Chinese applications in US in 2008 and 10-11,000 in 2011; and US applications in China 24-25,000 in 2008 and 28-29,000 in 2011.
• Top 10 US exports to China are power generation equipment, oil seeds and fruits, electrical machinery/equipment, vehicles, aircraft and spacecraft, optics and med equipment, plastics, pulp and paperboard, copper, organic chems.
• Top 10 US imports from China are electrical machinery/equipment, power generation equipment, toys-games-sports equipment, furniture, footwear, apparel, plastics, iron and steel, vehicles.

It is dismaying to listen to the crude level of discourse in this presidential election regarding China.  Something to remember when we blame domestic Chinese politics on similarly crude behavior/talk from the Beijing.

Yes, the clever wags will point out that we've outsourced more jobs to China than they've created over here.  But the interesting point is that China is already creating jobs over here and that that number is growing rapidly. That tells you how quickly that worm has already begun turning. Moreover, while some of those jobs will invariably return as China's wages rise, most will simply continue their long-term global migration to the next great sources of cheap labor - as they should (unless you believe America should, for example, attempt to become the most expensive manufacturer of low-cost, low-tech items in the world).

Culprit #2 for U.S. coal industry: China's economic slowdown

From a WSJ front-page story.

The U.S. coal industry wants you to believe its slowdown is caused by Washington's "meddlesome regulations," but as I noted earlier, the big killer is the cheap price of U.S. natural gas, which is displacing domestic use of coal for electricity generation big-time (25% down in a recent quarter).

Culprit #2 is the Chinese economic slowdown, which is really the culprit, along with Europe's problems, for the slowdown in general global economic activity.

Pretty amazing times, when you think about it.  Remember when the U.S. economy was all you needed for a global expansion?

Charts of the day: the US "oil recovery"

Alas, our inevitable "Mad Max" future a bit . . . modified.

From a WSJ interview with Daniel Yergin.

Production up (25% since 2008), drilling way up (didn't Obama and the Dems sabotage all that?), and imports falling.  US demand relatively flat - like Europe's, so the rising production means a substantial drop in import share.  Was 60% in 2005, now 42%, and expected to be roughly a third by 2035 (though I think it happens MUCH earlier).

Of course, now we'll never have to fight a war overseas . . .

Chart of the day: globalization - that great reducer of fertility

From great Gerald Seib WSJ column.

Islam, hugely fertile throughout history (a sign of high infant/child mortality), starts losing fertility big-time once globalization kicks in.

You know my Core-Gap map.  You're looking at the Gap highlighted there and numbers are dropping rapidly as globalization creeps in.

Discard the Nordic and US references.  Those are tiny numbers in absolute terms.

Point is, Islam responds to global connectivity/globalization/ modernity like everybody else: fertility drops.

Remember that when somebody tells you that Muslims are going to take over the world because of their incredible fertility.

Cancer to go global - along with globalization and the rising income reality it creates

From FT story about advances in cancer treatment.

Me?  I see a fairly scary map that says higher cancer frequency is sure to spread rapidly over next couple of decades as massive global middle class comes online in emerging and developing markets.  

What this map tells me is high rates of cancer come with economic advance, meaning we're looking at a vast global industry within a generation.

Chart of the day: World greatest aid flow keeps getting greater

WSJ story noting that:

Migrant workers abroad sent more money to their families in the developing world last year than in 2010, and they are expected to transfer even more cash home this year despite the economic uncertainly gripping the globe.

You can see the divot created by the financial crash in 2008, but note how the trajectory resumes like it never even happened.

The number is staggering:  $372B last year.  World Bank predicts almost half a trillion will flow in 2014.

Key bit:

Remittances remain a key source of hard currency for developing countries, often outstripping foreign direct investment and foreign aid.

It can "immunize" your country from downturns, so sayeth a new WB book on the subject.

Both intra- and inter-regional flows are rising in same manner, with key technological enabler being how cheap it is for ordinary people to wire money.  

One of the biggest players in this realm at about 1/7th of global market?  Western Union.

How's that for a frontier metaphor?  Back then it was all about telegraphs.  Now it's all about remittances.

Sign of the times: Morsi's first big foreign stop = China

Nice WSJ story on this seminal example of south-south ties.

The "bamboo network effect:  Increase your trade with China and you increase your trade with China's network and the world at large.

But the trick for an Egypt:  awfully hard to follow in China's wake, so you tend to import more from China than you sell it.

China's challenge:  demographic aging means it needs to shift some portion of manufacturing (within overall processing trade network) to cheaper labor sites as China's labor gets more expensive.

Some of that shift China wants to direct inward to its interior provinces.  Some will go to SE Asia, experiencing a big demo dividend.  Some will go to India, which experiences an even bigger one.  Some to Middle East - still more, and some to Africa - the biggest demo dividend out there.

You say it's international corps that will make all these decisions, and that's true, but increasingly those corps are Chinese.  Plus, think about who's got the cash in the system for that FDI.

If you're developing and want to emerge in globalization today, you're reaching out to China - not the West.

The amazing - and continuing - drop in crime in US

Economist story about how "big city" PDs around US using Compstat (a data management system that allows crime stats to be worked in-depth for deeper understanding and response patterns) and how most cops feel like it's been a huge tool in the plummenting of crime rates across the US for the past 20 years - a trend that is absolutely amazing.

Yes, I know some think "three strikes and you're out" accomplished much, but many professionals say the key is big data, effectively wielded through better policing tactics.

Other theories abound, but to me, this is a sign of what happens when big data is worked: the whole complexity-out-of-control meme just isn't true.  The growth of networks is fundamentally freeing - not enslaving, and it offers more control over environments - not less.

Point being, if you believe that America is avatar of modern globalization, this is proof that growing connections and technology handles growing complexity much better than we - in our enduring fears - imagine.

Orwell continues to be one of the most stunningly incorrect futurists, but this is the plight of all dystopians.

Chart of the Day: Water and Food in Mideast

Close the Straits of Hormuz, says the WSJ, and you shut down more than oil flow.  Ninety percent of food in the PG is imported.

Water is perhaps the most complex of the region's resource-security puzzles.  Gulf countries have some fo the lowest rainfall rates and smallest water resources in the world.  Gulf countries satisfy demand by desalinating seawater, but that leaves them vulnerable if their desalination plants malfunction or are attacked.

Fascinating achievement of US foreign policy: Iraq outcranks Iran on oil

You have to credit Bush the Elder on the northern NFZ after Desert Storm because that set in motion the KRG we know today.  You also credit Bush on the surge and Obama on the latest sanctions strategy, because it's collectively a significant restructuring of the correlation of forces in the region - a dynamic obviously driven by the ability to export oil (FT says Iran's exports = 1/2 gov revenue and 80% of total export value).  Iraq hasn't outproduced Iran since their mutual war in the late 1980s.

Iraq dreams of 12mb by 2017, but the industry pegs 4.5mb as more realistic, according to the article.

By December, analysts say, iraq will have earned more selling its oil than Iran for the first time since Saddam Huessein invaded Kuwait in 1990.

All this is to remind of Zhou Enlai's response to a question concerning his opinion of the French Revolution: "Too early to say."

China's worker-to-retiree ratio will be as bad as West's come 2050

Fascinating chart.  When you run the numbers globally, the worker-to-retiree ratio was 12 to 1 in 1950 and 9 to 1 in 2000.  But when you jump ahead to 2050, it's down globally to 5 to 1.

But then you note the distinctions:

• Old Core West is 2 to 1
• New Core East and South is 5 to 1
• Gap is still 10 to 1.

Now, you look at that and think China's doing okay, but as my research into the mean age by nation shows, China moves from the mid-age cohort (where it exists with US now at about 36 years old) to the old-age cohort (Russia, Europe, Japan) by 2050, when China's mean age will be 47-48 years old and the US will still be just under 40 years old (thanks to higher birth rate and immigration).

Well, this chart confirms how unique China is among the New Core "risers" just as the US is unique among the Old Core great powers.

Among the Old Core powers, the US simply doesn't age like the rest:  by 2050, the US mean age is still a hair below 40 while the rest are all deep into the 40s.

And among the New Core powers, China will suffer a PSR (potential support ratio) come 2050 that's more in line with the Old Core's 2-to-1 PSR instead of the New Core's 5-to-1.

Further proof that China gets old before truly rich, or perhaps better said, by the time it gets rich, it'll be as old as the old West (with only Japan serving as demographic lead goose, as it does today).

And - again - truth be told, China should track Japan as its future, far more than the US should ever feel it should.

Why the special relationship (US-Israel) isn't going anywhere

Fascinating factoid:  80 percent of the world's Jews live in US and Israel (roughly an equal split in numbers).

Then look at the lower right-hand bar charts and realize - Holocaust or no - that the 20th century was the best century the Jews ever had, because of the location of, and population concentration within, the two great safe places in the global system: the Jewish homeland of Israel and the next best thing called America.  The Economist (where the chart is drawn from) notes that the Jewish faith is now stronger and more "alive" than it's been for a very long time.  Naturally, Judaism experiences the same crises of all religious identities in this modernizing world (absolutely nothing "special" about the Jews in that regard, even as they consider themselves "chosen" like every other faith on the planet - the Lake Woebegon effect that all religions suffer ("I get it!  You don't!")), but there's no question it's a powerful and well-placed faith in a world experiencing religious awakening (everywhere but Europe's non-Muslims).

Expats and coreligionists driving US foreign policy constitutes a long and storied tradition in America.  It - for example - essentially defines our special relationships with the Brits and Europe in general.  Is it weird or "unfair" with regard to Israel?  Hardly.  People want to see conspiracies and what not.  But it's the simple - and beautiful -business of money talking.

America is a supremely fair place when it comes to minorities - save African Americans for obvious historical reasons.  But, in general, if you're an immigrant group or otherwise minority, you can make yourself heard and somewhat obeyed in our political system simply by organizing yourself and applying your collective wealth to the system of influence that is our political system.  Many people find this process slimy, but I love that the only color that matters in this country is green, because that's eminently more fair than skin tone. (And yes, the fact that our first African-American president is a genius at raising money in small amounts is highly indicative of this process - thank God!).

Simply put, NOBODY in this country gets what they want until they organize and start donating money (or spending in the market corollary) - i.e., start making their market heft known.  We've seen it with ethnic group after ethnic group over the decades, and we're watching now with Hispanics and Asians - and Indians in particular (who are becoming amazingly adept at it at a rather fast pace).  We likewise watch it now with the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender).

Again, cry all you want, but I like a process where money beats prejudice.  If you want to deny the party in question, then you mount a bigger effort. But, fortunately, people operating on the basis of love for something win out - time and again throughout history - over people operating on the basis of hatred (my personal fave being the early Christians v. Roman empire).  This is why I don't argue over things like gay marriage or America's continued support to Israel:  the connectors always win out over the disconnectors.  May take some time, but it always happens.  

You just can't bet against people wanting to connect. 

Strategy-wise, you just doom yourself to failure.

Pulling back the lens, this is why I don't - in the end - worry about globalization's future.  The fear-meisters will have their days (and revel in them), but history is stunningly clear on the subject - once America rose up and started running the show.

There is a reason why this is the greatest country in the world.  It's not that we're the best at doing this (personally, I would choose Canada or the Netherlands or Sweden or Norway - all very Wisconsin-ish, so it wouldn't be a big change for me), it's that we're right up there with the best AND we have the capacity and will to spread our system across the planet.  Notice how world history improves incredibly over the past several decades?  It's no accident. It's America doing on a global scale what minorities do on a national scale within our country.

Again, money talks . . . and wins over prejudice and tradition and intolerance and hatred and violence and . . ..

Chart of the Day: North Korean mobiles

Kim Jong-Eun is presenting himself in the guise of his grandfather, discounting the military and presenting a "great father of the natio" motif.

Now, with one million-plus phones, and all those portable cameras, the place opens up considerably.

My projection:  KJE is going to try and reform the place in the Chinese way and thinks he can handle the process.

My hope: it spirals out of control in a Gorby manner.

Whatever the mid-term outcome, nice signs and good progress in all of this. I honestly believe that DPRK is off the danger radar in five years.

That way, we can all get jacked about arresting fishermen in the South China Sea, pretending it serves as prelude to a high-tech war with China.

The only solution to our immigration "crisis" that matters

In the 1950s, there was a scare (mostly in NYC) about the seemingly endless influx of Puerto Ricans (you remember "West Side Story" and Leonard Bernstein's attempt to dance the problem away?), but the stream thinned out dramatically when the local GDP per capita reached somewhere in the region of 40% of the US's number.  When it got to that point, all things being equal, PRs preferred staying in PR.

This dynamic is well know and has been pointed out many times before in print.

Point of these charts from WAPO story about how returning migrant workers are bolstering Mexico's middle class is that we are reaching that point on Mexico, where - commensurately and with no surprise - the birth rate falls dramatically.

No, it doesn't end the flow of immigrants from LATAM writ large, but the point is made:  as long as a huge opportunity disaparity exists, they will come.  If you want a more manageable flow, you need to whittle down that delta along the lines I just described.

From the story:

 For a generation, the men of this town have headed north to the land of the mighty dollar, breaking U.S. immigration laws to dig swimming pools in Memphis and grind meat in Chicago.

In the United States, they were illegal aliens. Back home, they are new entrepreneurs using the billions of dollars earned “on the other side” to create a Mexican middle class.

The migrants “did something bad to do something good,” said Mexican economist Luis de la Calle.

Where remittances from El Norte were once mostly used to help hungry families back home simply survive, surveys now reveal that the longer a migrant stays up north, the more likely the cash transfers will be used to start new businesses or to pay for homes, farm equipment and school tuitions.

From Santa Maria del Refugio, a once rural, now almost suburban, community of 2,500 in central Mexico’s Guanajuato state, young men have gone to the United States seeking the social mobility they could not find at home.

Their money, and many of the workers themselves, have since returned, as the U.S. economy slowed in the global recession. For the first time in 40 years, net migration is effectively zero. About the same number of Mexicans left the United States last year as arrived. Migration experts expect the northward flow to pick up again as the U.S. economy improves. It is also possible that as Mexico provides more opportunity for upward mobility, some potential migrants will stay home.

In Santa Maria, dollars scrimped and saved in the United States have transformed a poor pueblo into a town of curbed sidewalks, Internet cafes and rows of two-story homes rising on a hillside where scrawny cattle once grazed.

“Look at this place — it’s practically a city now,” said Roberto Mandujano, 50, who moved back to his home town and opened a hardware store five years ago. “There was nothing here when I left.”

Mandujano is a member of a new demographic in Mexico, the anxious, tenacious, growing middle class who own homes and cars and take vacations. They see the United States more as a model than an exploiter.

Another argument for the US focusing more on amping up growth across LATAM: If we want to grow long-term above what history says we should be restricted to as a mature economy, then the best way to achieve that is for countries in our neighborhood to be experiencing rapid growth. [NOTE: this is ultimately why China will need to cool it on seabed territoriality disputes, but no, this logic does not rule out Beijing's stupid behavior in the meantime - as humans have an unlimited potential for letting idiocy trump logic.]

The resurrection of cheap energy in the US is the lure we should use in such an integration effort, and yes, we should most definitely be thinking about adding more stars to our flag.

You either get busy growing or you get busy shrinking in this globalized world.