A Short Lesson in World Economics

One of my blog's links is to DanWei.org which provides some interesting news in China. As you might expect, China holds some fascination to me as I have been a frequent visitor to many, many areas of the country.

When Judith and I go for one of our many foot massages, our masseuses who like to practice their English, usually ask us if this is our first time to China. Then we rattle off all the places we have been (it's good practice for longer term memory) and are always impressed. Most Chinese will never see their own country as we have seen it.

Everywhere is China we see construction cranes hovering over cities like giant condors, making the concept of a city skyline having its own beauty rather disturbing. Then there is the considerable air pollution caused by industry, cars/trucks, and geographic conditions. We see people everywhere aggressively trying to sell us something hoping we have no concept of how to effectively bargain the price down to what a Chinese person would expect to pay. We witness hundreds of thousands of small shops (mostly dirty, poorly stocked and in general unattractive). The people who sit idly by eke out a subsistence living causing me to wonder what happens when the K-Marts of China rise from the enterprising fervor driving the creation of hundreds of Chinese millionaires.

So I start to think and read about how China gathers the resources to make all this credible economic expansion continue and the impact it makes and will make in the future. When will China address its environmental problems? How much increased economic freedoms will lead to human rights freedoms?

But here is something I am sure of. China and the United States are married economically and will continue to be in the future, which is a lot better than each leading the single life.

I ran across this YouTube interview from Hans Rosling, Swedish World Health professor, about China. It is very good. Who do you suppose is going to provide the economic support for the bail outs there are/will take place in the United States?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzHRCuT5eDQ

And check out his blog at roslingsblogger.blogspot.com

These should expand some brain cells.