EP 630 Can You Trust China to Tell You How Well Its Economy is Really Doing?
When we read about China’s miracle economy, in large part, it is a myth. Politics, Communist style, trumps economics and the growth numbers you see heralding its economic output are likely unrealiable, partial or distorted for political purposes. Private business ownership as we know it does not exist there. The banks and major industries are subsets of the state apparatus that is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Chinese Communist Party. People, or shall we say, party members can accumulate much wealth in China, but like Jack Ma, of Alibaba, if you get too big the Party may bring you down, just as it once raised you up. In China it is said that the state is rich, but the people are poor. Regardless what we may envision, the standard of living for the average Chinese citizen has not risen in what are perceived as heady times for China. In his newest book,”China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower” internationally renowned historian, Frank Dikotter, one of the leading China scholars in the world, debunks many myths we have about how things are going in China. Our complex relationship with China should not cloud our understanding that the CCP’s goal was never to join the democratic world, but to resist it-and ultimately defeat it.
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The First Amendment and freedom of speech allow us to say what we want, but: we can’t yell “fire!” in a crowded theater; we can’t incite a riot; and since the nation’s founding, there have always been some types of political and obscene speech that could send you to jail. Professor Dennis Baron’s timely new book, “You Can’t Always Say What You Want: The Paradox of Free Speech” points out these exceptions, the “free speech, but”-what happens when the right of speech runs up against the government’s efforts to control it, and what types of threats to speech we will face in the propulsion of commentary on the internet. Free speech is a much more nuanced topic when you realize that the First Amendment pertains only to the government not making laws to limit it. Your boss or family members can ascribe whatever limits they choose. Even the government has limited speech when it might be injurious to a war effort or an enemy like, Soviet Communism in much of the 20th century. And today we see self-described free speech absolutist, Elon Musk, throwing people whose opinions he does not like off of Twitter. We will try to untangle a complex issue on this podcast.
When the internet was a shiny new object, it was understandable that we did not take security that seriously. But today it is home to most of the important information in our lives, including our financial records. The same holds true for corporations and nations, including delicate information that can affect our national security as well as our critical infrastructure. At the same time, the ability to hack the internet is not only possible by malevolent nation-states, but also bad actors and hacker gangs who do it for a range of reasons, including large ransoms. Unlike in the analog world there is no cyber–Coast Guard that is going to come and bail us out if we lose our data. Yet, to date evidently, the penalty for going unguarded seems to be seen by most entities as less than the cost of putting up strict cyber walls against incursion. In his book “The Unhackable Internet”, Attorney Thomas Vartanian, with long experience in the financial and banking sector, suggests we are playing with fire and a cyber- Pearl Harbor is inevitable unless we take a number of steps that he lays out in the book.
In America we play hail to the founder and the brilliant chief executive who started a company from scratch, though we realize that whether it’s Elon Musk or Jeff Zuckerberg, they have their feet of clay. The spoils go to them and outside shareholders who invest in the company, which has led to a yawning wealth gap in America. Wages, less and less, can cover the bills and social trust is eroding, There are ongoing debates about what to do, but one key solution is rarely discussed. Why not spread business ownership around and let workers benefit from the capitalist dreams they have helped to create? In the book, “Ownership: Reinventing Companies, Capitalism, and Who Owns What”, our guest, Corey Rosen, founder of the National Center for Employee Ownership and his co-author, John Case. explain why so many companies end up being owned by Wall Street shareholders or private equity firms–and why that kind of ownership encourages a focus on short-term profits rather than long-term sustainability. The heart of the book takes us inside the concept of employee ownership as a concept and how to expand it in America. Given the bipartisan support for the concept, it seems like an idea whose time has come.
When the Covid-19 pandemic first hit the United States in 2020, it affected nearly every aspect of our daily lives, hitting even the biggest businesses and corporations. The meat industry was no exception. While the illness and new regulations for distancing and masked slashed the workforce and led to supply shortages, it also sharpened our focus on the awful conditions of slaughterhouses and meat packing factories. Add to this the fact that meat production is one of the greatest culprits in our battle to avoid the worst impacts of climate change and near monopolistic practices brought about by years of consolidation and you have an industry worth reporting seriously on and being concerned about. That’s exactly what Chloe Sorvino does in her expose titled “Raw Deal: Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed, and the Fight for the Future of Meat”. She joins us to unpack the story.
Just as a modicum of justice is being meted out to those who ripped a hole through middle America in the opioid epidemic, the same man who awakened the nation to that crisis reveals in his new book that the epidemic is far from over; in fact, it is entering a dangerous new phase: synthetic drugs and a new generation of kingpins whose product is made in Magic Bullet blenders. Sam Quinones, author of the much heralded book ‘Dreamland’ continues his chronicling of pain in America in his follow on book called “The Least of Us: True Tales of America in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth”. He tells us that in fentanyl traffickers found a painkiller a hundred times more powerful than morphine. It is now laced in cocaine, meth, and counterfeit pills to cause tens of thousands of death. His searing accounts of the impact on real lives is remarkable. He joins us today to share his vast knowledge of this most disturbing topic.
While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been simmering, and at times boiling over, for the last 70 years, our understanding of the issues at stake are spotty. It’s complicated and you must go back to Biblical times to really understand it. Our guest echoes the sentiment that both sides are ‘righteous victims’. In this podcast, we touch on the history and then break down the current situation between the parties. While we attempt to touch on the high points, there is no substitute for reading Daniel Sokatch’s accessible, but indispensable, guide to the subject called “Can We Talk About Israel: A Guide for the Curious, Confused and Conflicted.” He walks us through some of the moments of possibility, such as the mid to late 1990’s, when President Bill Clinton and the parties were so close to the elusive two-state solution. Yet, it fell apart and there has not been a serious attempt to reconcile long held contentious positions since. Stay with this one throughout because at the end of the podcast the CEO of the New Israel Fund and author explains the seeming devotion of Evangelical Christians in America and the State of Israel. It’s eye opening.
Hubris seems to have gotten the best of Vladimir Putin. After the near disintegration of the once vaunted Red Army, Putin was determined to rebuild his military into a feared fighting machine. He made a number of much overdue reforms in his fighting force and got engaged in conflicts in Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea and Syria. He understood that national pride had as its cornerstone the ability to project force as a global power. Then came his invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 which may prove to be his Waterloo. Dr. Mark Galeotti is one of the foremost Russian-watchers today. He is author of the new book ” Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine” and he shares his keen observations of the unfolding, perhaps unraveling, story of the Putin era.
Whether it’s the climate crisis arriving, a terrorist attacking or a mass shooter on a rampage, it seems that disasters are becoming more frequent. In her new book, “The Devil Never Sleeps”, Juliette Kayyem, an international leader in crisis management, disaster response and homeland security, explains why we all must become disaster responders on the first line of defense in these times. She offers a new framework to anticipate the many forms the “devil’s” appearance may take and our role in blunting the impact. When we are’ left ‘of the boom we must prepare so that when we are’ right’ of the boom we minimize the consequences of a storm, madman or organized threat. We discuss a range of disasters including responses that are so vivid in regards to the COVID 19 pandemic.
The frequency of and intensity of natural disasters–such as wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and storms–are on the rise, threatening the lives, homes and possessions of so many. While lives are torn apart in the wake of these sudden and unpredictable events, there are things that people can do to better prepare for what daily seems more inevitable in many places, not just America’s coastlines. So how do you insure yourself against at least the property loss? In ‘Understanding Disaster Insurance”, disaster risk expert Carolyn Kousky walks us through the complex process of transferring risk given that many people do not read the fine print of their homeowner’s insurance and may think, in error, that they are covered for things like floods. There are many products you can buy and new ones being developed. With that said, these protections will continue to get costlier and less available when companies see risk where you live moving from possible to certain, as is the case in parts of Florida, California, Louisiana and elsewhere. Governments have been stepping in to provide insurance as a last resort, but their participation may continue to grow as the climate crisis and other factors persist.