I thought that Philip Pilkington made a very good point in a piece at UnHerd. Maybe China’s economy is doing just fine and the Western press is continuing to print the story that the Chinese economy is flagging when the evidence doesn’t actually support that conclusdion:

Open a Western business newspaper and one would probably come away thinking that the Chinese economy is doing poorly, or perhaps even on the verge of collapse. While it is true that the country’s economy continues to suffer from structural problems, this perception is not just wrong but risks undermining the credibility of Anglophone publications and the capacity for our policymakers to make rational decisions.

Last week Chinese price data showed mild deflation, a data point out of which the Western financial press made hay. “China’s deflation worsens as economic pressures mount”, read the Financial Times headline. Bloomberg ran with “China’s consumer price drop worsens, fuelling deflation fears”. The mild deflation that is taking place in China does indeed stem from structural problems in the economy — especially the fact that it is overly reliant on investment spending and insufficiently reliant on consumer spending. But, at a certain point, the negative press becomes outright misleading.

Two other data points were released last week which show the Chinese economy growing robustly. The first came from the private sector Caixin Services Purchasing Managers Index survey, which showed stronger than expected growth in the very sector about which bearish commentators have raised concerns.

Interestingly, the private sector surveys of the Chinese services sector show it expanding quicker than the official Chinese government studies which showed a mild contraction in November. Those who accuse the Chinese of inventing economic statistics would do well to explain why government surveys are more conservative than their private sector equivalents. Whatever way one looks at it, the Chinese services sector is now expanding.

Then there is Chinese export data, which showed exports expanding for the first time in seven months. Combined with the service sector data, this shows a broad-based expansion of the Chinese economy. Not a veritable economic boom, it must be stressed, but continuous growth that is consistent with the IMF’s own projections. These show that Beijing will comfortably meet its 5% growth target this year — a projection China bears seem to ignore when they pass judgement on the economy.

I wish the Chinese people well but I don’t actually care whether China’s economy is growing, shrinking, booming, or collapsing and I don’t honestly know how we could tell. I think we need to formulate policy based on U. S. needs and U. S. interests rather than on what may or may not be happening in China. Furthermore, I think those needs and interests tell us that we need to buy less from China not more and we should take steps to accomplish that regardless of the state of the Chinese economy.

At 1945 Michael Rubin raises an interesting point—is the United States holding Israel to a higher standard than it has held itself?

The Islamic State did not level Raqqa; American bombardment did. Syrian Kurds fought alongside U.S. troops, going block-by-block to rid the town of the Islamic State.

Because of their sacrifice, life had started to return to Raqqa. A youth soccer team scrimmaged in the stadium that just a couple years previously the Islamic State used as a prison and torture center. Some stores in the market had opened, selling falafel and fruit, wedding gowns, toys, and school supplies.

Mosul was in bad shape, too. Again, it was not the Islamic State that destroyed the city, but rather the urban fighting necessary to liberate it. Aerial bombardment, artillery barrages, and door-to-door fighting destroyed more than 130,000 houses. The Islamic State was ruthless. Several houses bore the telltale signs of suicide bomber detonation.

At the height of the Battles of Raqqa and Mosul, civilians trapped in both cities suffered. Food and water were in short supply. There was little medicine. Electricity was out for days. Neither residents nor the international community demanded the Syrian Kurds, Iraqi Army, or their American partners stand down to allow international organizations to establish humanitarian corridors. Momentum mattered. To allow Turkey to ship emergency supplies would mean helping the Islamic State at the expense of the civilians the group terrorized. Even a cease-fire would allow the Islamic State to regroup, reorganize, and seize human shields.

I don’t know the answer to his question. I’m more concerned with the reluctance of some people in the U. S. or the United Nations to hold Hamas to any standard at all.

I agree with Gary M. Galles’s conclusion about the state of the Social Security trust fund:

It is time we realized that there is no fair way out from government Social Security commitments that exceed the funds available. A history of overpromises means everyone has a plausible fairness claim on their side. Yet something must give. The closest we can come to being fair is to avoid making any new over-commitments, to search for ways to make the program more sustainable (to reduce future unfairness problems), and to look seriously at the contentious issue of which of the options will minimize the adverse impacts of unfairness that cannot be avoided altogether.

and the urgency of reform in his post at American Institute for Economic Research although I suspect we agree on little else. What puzzles me about his analysis is that he doesn’t seem to recognize a simple reality: the Social Security program is suffering severely from a failure of its assumptions. I’ll just present one simple example of that here.

Median individual income in the United States in 1970 was around $8,740. Now it’s around $31,000. $8,740 is around $68,000 adjusted for inflation which, coincidentally, is right around the median household income. Nowadays the majority of households have more than a single income and many of the remainder consist of single women head of households. Additionally, today the majority of women work outside the home. Those are not the contours of the society envisioned by the framers of the Social Security program. Their assumptions have failed.

I should add that the phenomenon of people working at two or more full-time or near full-time jobs concurrently is another factor distorting policy.

I don’t know how Social Security should be reformed to suit it to the society we have now but I’m convinced that the present mismatch is part of our problem.

I have just performed some maintenance tasks I have been putting off for a long time. I have backed up my site and upgraded to the latest supported version of PHP.

Given the age of the site (more than 20 years) backing up was a nailbiter for me as was the version upgrade. Everything seems to be working but you never can tell.

Over the last month or so I have received some feedback of problems posting comments. I am hoping that this upgrade resolves that issue.

Update

One of the problems that has been bedeviling me for some time now seems to have been resolved. I was unable to use some of my blog categories. After the PHP version upgrade I now appear to be able to use categories I could not use before the upgrade. That gives me hope for the comments problem.

In a recent post James Joyner observes at Outside the Beltway that the United States is practically alone in its undeviating support for Israel:

To the extent Israel’s war aim of eliminating Hamas is just—and I believe it is—it remains unclear to me what more they are supposed to do to protect civilians given the circumstances. Gaza is a tiny, highly urbanized area, and Hamas militants are illegally hiding among the civilian population. Egypt has sealed its borders, meaning safe areas—which the IDF is taking great pains to announce, complete with color-coded maps—are likely the best of bad alternatives.

Whether Israel’s war aims are achievable, alas, is a different question altogether. Two months in, it’s hard to know how close the IDF is to destroying Hamas. And it remains unclear what the end state is. A Palestinian zone in Gaza run by someone (who?) other than Hamas? An Israeli-occupied Gaza?

Regardless, it’s undeniable that the result is civilians, including children, being killed in astonishing numbers. World opinion has largely turned against Israel as a result. And, while some of this can surely be explained by hatred of the Jews, it’s clearly much more than that. After all, the US was joined by France, the UK, and Japan in voting against the October 16 ceasefire resolution. Less that two months laters, France and Japan are on the other side and my strong guess is that the UK abstained only to avoid voting against its strongest ally.

To cast a little more light on the subject consider this statement by the leader of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, quoted by the editors of the Wall Street Journal:

The tune hasn’t changed, even from the leaders pressuring President Biden. Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), celebrated Oct. 7 at an American Muslims for Palestine convention on Nov. 24. A damning excerpt was publicized Thursday by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

American Muslims for Palestine then took down the full video, and Mr. Awad now claims a “hate website selected remarks from my speech out of context and spliced them together to create a completely false meaning.” But we got the video before Mr. Awad’s ally hid it, and here’s what CAIR’s leader had to say:

“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege, the walls of the concentration camp, on Oct. 7. And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, that they were not allowed to walk in. And yes, the people of Gaza have the right to self-defense, have the right to defend themselves. And yes, Israel, as an occupying power, does not have that right to self-defense.”

Israel stopped occupying Gaza in 2005. Indeed, his entire statement is only tangentially related to verifiable fact although I’m sure he believes it. Contrary to his statement Hamas’s attack was at best murderously criminal contact and unjustified and the Israelis are completely justified in defending themselves.

While I’m on the subject, what is meant by the slogan being chanted “From the river to the sea Palestine must be free”. Much is said about the “river to the sea” part but little attention is paid to the “free” part. For practical purposes there is no such thing as a liberal democratic country with an Arab majority with the possible exception of Iraq and not only did we impose that government on it but Iraq continues to persecute its minority populations. Most countries with Arab majorities proclaim themselves a part of the “Arab nation” despite the presence of substantial indigenous populations subject to discrimination if not outright genocide in most of them. The Amazigh (Morocco, Algeria, Niger, Libya, Tunisia, etc.), the Kurds (Turkey, Iraq, Iran), the Yesizis (Iraq), the list goes on. The Druze are freer in Israel than they are in any Arab country.

Free to live under autocracy and engage in genocide?

My views are:

1. Hamas was not justified in attacking civilians in Israel
2. Israel is justified in making war against Hamas
3. I cannot dictate to Israel how to wage war against Hamas
4. Israel is not the 51st state—it is country different from the U. S. and our interests are not in complete alignment
5. The administration’s policy WRT Israel is mistaken

The objectives of the Palestinians and Israelis are no symmetrical. Genocide of the Israelis must be deemed the Palestinians’ objective at this point. I have no idea what Israel’s objective WRT the Palestinians is. I suspect they just wish they would go away and to that end they have no problem with making their lives as miserable as possible and denying them full rights.

At present Israel is probably the most liberal, most democratic country in the Middle East. It cannot remain so with a majority Palestinian population. I have no idea how the Israelis can reconcile their objectives with minimizing civilian casualties in Gaza. Contrary to the administration’s position which is for their to be no space between the United States and Israel, I think in preventing the United Nations Security Council from passing a resolution against Israel, we have exhausted our responsibilities to Israel.

Ruth Wasserman Lande presents what strikes me as a novel proposal resolution of the Israel-Palestine issue in the Jerusalem Post. Rather than an Israeli state and a Palestinian state side by side she proposes Israel, a West Bank state, with Gaza administered by a coalition of Western countries, presumably France, the United Kingdom, and the United States:

Fourth, by no means can the West Bank and the Gaza Strip be seen as one entity. The potential for that had disappeared the day that Hamas had decided to burst the last bubble of hope nurtured by Israelis. Two Palestinian states, both thriving and prosperous and completely independent, yet unarmed and separate, may be established, one in the West Bank and the other in Gaza.

That is, while a coalition of four Western countries govern the Gaza Strip for the first decade, and manage all its civil, logistic, and military aspects. The reason for having three or four such countries, rather than one, temporarily govern the Strip, is to reduce the tremendous weight of this mission from any one particular country. Egypt, not wishing to take that task for itself, despite being offered it many times in the past, may instead be the beneficiary of many of the tenders released for its rebuilding.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain may also have an honorary seat at the decision-making table, along with Israel and the aforementioned three-four Western states. For that first decade, Israel will have veto power over the overall security of the Strip, yet the day to day security will be managed by the aforementioned Western powers rather than Israel itself. That is to demonstrate that despite needing to protect its civilians against any such heinous acts as were perpetrated on October 7, Israel has no wish to either take over Gaza, nor does it wish to take upon itself the weight of governing the Palestinians in any manner whatsoever.

The idea is merely to stabilize Gaza and prepare it for self-rule. Following this “cleansing period,” which may take several years and even a decade, a new, non-radical and forward-looking local leadership may begin to formulate. The existing leading families cannot currently be tasked with this leadership. One must also recall the immense internal strife that still characterizes the Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip, as elsewhere – strife which in the past led, and still leads, to internal Palestinian bloodshed.

Sounds like Western colonialism to me. Let me put it this way. Would you like to “stabilize Gaza and prepare it for self-rule”? I wouldn’t.

At FEE Stories Kerry McDonald points out something distressing—the United States is experiencing an epidemic of dyslexia:

The earliest documented cases of dyslexia, or a language processing disorder that makes it difficult to read, date back more than a century. For decades, it was considered a relatively rare occurrence, but today it is estimated that up to 20 percent of the US population is dyslexic. What is going on?

She goes on to attribute the problem to the “No Child Left Behind” program:

Advances in childhood diagnosis and treatment of dyslexia have certainly led to higher rates, but that is only part of the story. A national effort over the past two decades to push children to read at ever earlier ages—before many of them may be developmentally ready to do so—is also a likely culprit.

A study by University of Virginia professor ​​Daphna Bassok and her colleagues revealed that in 1998, 31 percent of teachers believed that children should learn to read while in kindergarten. In 2010, that number was 80 percent.

The children didn’t change. The expectations did.

Some of that was due to the passage of federal No Child Left Behind legislation in 2001 and its embrace of top-down “standards-based reform” that emphasized rigid, standardized curriculum and frequent testing, applied to ever-younger students. Kindergarten became the new first grade.

She then gets to the meat of the situation:

Relatedly, in 2006, the US Department of Education modified its definition of childhood learning disabilities to the following:

“The child does not achieve adequately for the child’s age or meet state-approved grade-level standards in one or more of the following areas, when provided with learning experiences and instruction appropriate for the child’s age or State-approved grade-level standards: Oral expression, listening comprehension, written expression, basic reading skills, reading fluency skills, reading comprehension, mathematical calculation, mathematics problem-solving…”

The “state-approved” standards for childhood development and reading proficiency changed and if kids weren’t meeting those new, arbitrary benchmarks, they could be labeled with a learning disability like dyslexia. We continue to see the fall-out from these policies today.

I think that’s only the tip of the iceberg. When it has been determined that a child has special needs that allows certain breaks to be given to the child in testing and requires the school to devote additional resources to the child. Some parents change their views towards wanting to have their child determined to have special needs. Anything to get a competitive edge.

As I’ve mentioned before I failed to learn to read in first grade. It wasn’t until the summer following first grade that I, in my mother’s words, hid behind the couch and when I emerged could read at a third grade level. By the time I was in 8th grade I had skipped a grade, going from being the smartest kid in 6th grade to the smartest kid in 8th grade, reading at a college level.

I’m quite sure that, had I been tested at the end of first grade I would have been diagnosed as dyslexic. But I wasn’t dyslexic as should be obvious from the sequelae. I was rebelling against a harsh first grade teacher. When that teacher was no longer in the picture, I began to reach the full potential of my abilities.

I think it’s pretty clear that what we’re doing is not working particularly well or, at least, we are not rising to the challenges facing us. There are two many kids who don’t read, write, or figure at grade level for that. I don’t know what should be done but I doubt it is directly related to spending.

I didn’t want David C. Hendrickson’s post at Responsible Statecraft to pass without comment. In the post Dr. Hendrickson makes the following blunt analysis:

From the beginning of the crisis, the Biden administration’s approach to the war ran closely in parallel with the course recommended by Mort and Walzer. Eliminate Hamas. Do so while sparing civilians as much as possible. Then be sweet to the Palestinians and give them an independent state.

Israel was happy to take the first part of this formula and to contemptuously reject the rest. Meanwhile, alongside these homilies to humane war, the United States has undertaken a vast effort to resupply Israel’s stock of bombs.

Confronting the escalating death toll, U.S. policymakers are dazed and confused. They’re still on autopilot in support of Israel’s war aim, while ineffectually shrieking in horror at the cost to Gaza’s civilians.

The truth is that there is no way to destroy Hamas without destroying Gaza. Contrary to Secretary Blinken’s words (and Walzer’s advice), Israel does not know how to destroy Hamas while minimizing harm to innocent civilians.

While I think that’s probably a fair statement of Israel’s strategy I think it ignores something. There are strategies which would accomplish the objectives (eliminate Hamas, minimize harm to Gazan civilians) and if those strategies have occurred to me they have undoubtedly occurred to the Israelis. The problem with these strategies is that they increase the risks to Israeli troops and, potentially, civilians which is why I think the Israelis have rejected them and are pursuing a course which will inevitably lead to the complete destruction of Gaza with the attendant loss of Gazan civilian life.

That’s the reason for my position which is that given a choice between Israel and Hamas our choice is clear: Israel. However, we don’t have to support them as vociferously and enthusiastically as the administration has been. Let’s not make this horrific conflict about the United States.

As the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor which led to the United States’s entry into World War II draws to a close, I wanted to mention something that I have been thinking about for some time because it’s directly relevant. In the United States although the normal state of affairs is stalemate political change can happen very quickly. That doesn’t happen because people organize movements and push for change but because other people stop pushing against the change that people have been pushing for all along.

In 1941 some Americans had been pushing for the United States to be involved in fighting Hitler’s advance since 1938. Other Americans had opposed that, both on the left and the right. In June 1941 opposition from the left evaporated when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union and then in December opposition from the right ended when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The U. S. then entered World War II without material opposition.

Today there are a number of significant political issues that are at a standstill not because no one is calling for action but because there are people calling for opposing actions.

My message here is that can change overnight if something happens to cause one faction or another to stop pressing their cause. What sort of event could have that effect? I don’t know. As Niels Bohr put it prediction is hard, especially about the future.