Smart argument on handling America's water advantage

Smart op-ed in WSJ.

America is sending over huge amounts of alfalfa to China.  Alfalfa is a VERY water-intensive crop.  China uses it to feed their cattle which produce beef and dairy products.

Point of the article:  why not send beef and dairy to China instead and reap the better profit margin for our valuable water?

That's how New Zealand does it.  Its highest-value export is powdered milk, notes the authors of the piece.

The culprit?  America's antiquated and byzantine water-regulation practices - especially in the West.

Wikistrat briefing on China slowdown (part 1 of 4)

In March of 2012, Wikistrat ran a multi-week simulation that explored the possible future pathways for China as its encounters various developmental "walls" surrounding its attempted shift from extensive growth (more inputs) to intensive growth (more productivity) and thus avoid the so-called middle-income trap (i.e., it's far harder to shift from medium to high income than it is from low to medium). 

Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett Discusses the results and take-away insights from the simulation.

Part 1 of 4

Wikistrat report on "democratic peace theory" simulation

This report, compiled by Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett, Wikistrat's Chief Analyst, presents the top insights from Wikistrat's latest simulation. The simulation featured over 90 experts from around the world.

Immanuel Kant’s theory of a democratic peace imagines a world without war and—as a precondition—without dictators. In contrast to the Hobbesian requirement of a dominant, system-taming Leviathan, Kant’s vision relied on the self-restraint of societies that rule themselves. In humanity’s historical journey from Thomas Hobbes’ realism to Kant’s idealism, historians have noted that mature democracies fight with one another far less frequently than authoritarian governments fight with other states but that immature democracies tend to be the most warlike of all.

Stipulating that historical record, the massively multiplayer online consultancy Wikistrat recently conducted a week long crowd-sourced brainstorming exercise to plot out a plausible range of caveats to the conventional wisdom that is the democratic peace theory. In this summary, we propose six categories of conflict dynamics that can elicit democracy-on-democracy war—to include pluralistic systems both mature and immature/transitional . . .

Go here for this de facto executive summary.

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.