FE Archive Volume 9, Number 12

Volume 9, Number 12
9/28/2006
Edited by John L. Petersen
johnp@arlingtoninstitute.org

Subscribe to the FUTUREdition
See past issues in the Archives

In This Issue:

TAI Presents - A public lecture with Daniel Pinchbeck
Future Facts - From Think Links
Think Links - The Future in the News…Today
A Final Quote

A Note To Our Readers: We would warmly encourage you to attend the upcoming TAI lecture event, featuring Mr. Daniel Pinchbeck. who will explore the likelihood of sudden, rapid changes within both humanity and our environment. For more information, please see the 'TAI Presents' insert below.

At The Arlington Institute, we believe that to understand the future, you need to have an open mind and cast a very wide net. To that end, FUTUREdition explores a cross-disciplinary palette of issues, from the frontiers of science and technology to major developments in mass media, geopolitics, the environment, and social perspectives.

TAI PRESENTS:

DANIEL PINCHBECK
Author of
2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl
October 4th – 3PM
at
The Arlington Institute

The Arlington Institute is pleased to announce the second lecture in its TAI PRESENTS series related to different aspects of big global change. Acclaimed author of 2012 – The Return of Quetzalcoatl, Daniel Pinchbeck, will join us on Wednesday October 4th at 3pm, for a public presentation.

Mr. Pinchbeck will be speaking on the thesis of his latest book: We seem to be in the midst of an accelerating evolution of consciousness, and that this evolution has been predicted by the prophetic thought-streams of different traditions, particularly the Classical Mayan civilization. He will offer a series of hypotheses about this process, and discuss how it is linked to our immediate future as a sentient species on this planet. The severe ecological and social crises now facing us require a new mindset and a pragmatic approach to global problem-solving. If the number of individuals who can step beyond old paradigms and factionalisms reaches a critical mass, we have the potential of utilizing the current "tipping point" to create a compassionate planetary civilization within the next few years.

This promises to be a thought-provoking – and probably unconventional – exploration of the basic underpinnings of the increasing uncertainty that is growing around us.

Daniel Pinchbeck has written features for The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Wired, Harper's Bazaar, The Village Voice, Salon, and many other publications. He is one of the founders of Open City, an art and literary journal, and an independent book publisher. He was a 1999 - 2000 Fellow of the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University. He has also been a columnist for The Art Newspaper of London, and an editor at Connoisseur Magazine.

Pinchbeck’s widely acclaimed first book, Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism, explored shamanism via ceremonies with tribal groups such as the Bwiti of Gabon and the Secoya in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Please RSVP for this lecture at Ken@arlingtoninstitute.org

The Arlington Institute is located at 1501 Lee Highway in Arlington, Virginia. Parking is available in the building. 1-703-812-7900

FUTURE FACTS - FROM THINK LINKS
DID YOU KNOW THAT...

A mole is an incipient cancer that halted in its tracks.
Millions of Americans have life expectancies typical of those found in developing countries.
In laboratory, solar cells have been created with 30% energy efficiency.
Within the U.S., Americans are more likely to die from hernias than from terrorist acts - by a factor of more than 5:1.

THINK LINKS – THE FUTURE IN THE NEWS...TODAY

INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE

Why Fly When You Can Web Conference
Philanthropy Google’s Way: Not the Usual

Why Fly When You Can Web Conference -- (NY Times -- September 18, 2006)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/18/business/businessspecial2/18whygo.html?
ex=1159243200&en=9bcefb9672f20ba7&ei=5070&emc=eta1
Driven by technological developments in telecommunications, web-conferencing is getting a further boost from the troubles afflicting airline passengers. All it takes is a broadband connection - now present in nearly every office and about 40 percent of American homes - along with an $800 laptop and, perhaps, a $30 Webcam.

Philanthropy Google’s Way: Not the Usual -- (NY Times -- September 14, 2006)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/14/technology/14google.html?
ex=1159243200&en=c2ca0e351b6852d1&ei=5070
The founders of Google have created a philanthropic organization, giving it seed money of about $1 billion and a mandate to tackle poverty, disease and global warming. However, unlike most charities, this one will be for-profit, allowing it to fund start-up companies, form partnerships and even lobby Congress. One of its maiden projects reflects the philanthropy’s nontraditional approach. Google.org plans to develop an ultra-fuel-efficient plug-in hybrid car engine that runs on ethanol, electricity and gasoline.

NEW REALITIES

Humans Strange, Neanderthals Normal
Seeing the Teenager in the Brain
Sea Water Agriculture

Sea Water Agriculture -- (September 2006)
http://www.arlingtoninstitute.org/library/related_writings_05.asp
Dr. Dennis Bushnell, Chief Scientist at NASA Langley has done some interesting thinking about how to utilize deserts to produce energy, food and other beneficial byproducts by tapping the world’s essentially unlimited source of seawater. You can review his PowerPoint presentation at this link.

Humans Strange, Neanderthals Normal -- (Live Science -- September 8, 2006)
http://www.livescience.com/othernews/060908_humans_odd.html
When compared with our common ancestors, modern humans have roughly twice as many uniquely distinct traits as Neanderthals. In other words, Neanderthals are more like the other members of our family tree than modern humans are. In the broader sweep of human evolution, the more unusual group is not Neanderthals, whom we tend to look at as strange, weird and unusual, but it's us, modern humans.

Seeing the Teenager in the Brain -- (BBC -- September 8, 2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5327550.stm
Science now knows why the typical teenager storms off in a huff after being told to tidy their bedroom. Adolescents do not put the part of the brain that considers others' feelings to full use - new studies have found that our neural decision-making processes mature quite slowly, and researchers think this might help to explain typical teenage behavior.

GENTICS/HEALTH TECHNOLOGY

The Tumor That Isn’t: Blocking a Path to Cancer
New Diabetes Drug Gives Double Punch
Where You Live Linked to Life Expectancy
Swallowable Sensors
A Cheaper Way to Zap Tumors
To Fight Stuttering, Doctors Look at the Brain

The Tumor That Isn’t: Blocking a Path to Cancer -- (NY Times -- September 19, 2006)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/19/health/19pros.html?ex=1159329600&en=
9d677a7bd86912fa&ei=5070&emc=eta1
For those with dozens of moles, the spots on our skin seem no more significant than freckles. But it turns out, each mole is a tumor of pigment cells that started on a path to cancer and then stopped. The cells do not divide again. And moles may not be the only tumors like that.

New Diabetes Drug Gives Double Punch -- (MSNBC -- June 13, 2006)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13297532/
An experimental diabetes drug dramatically improved blood sugar levels and lowered weight in type 2 diabetes patients in a mid-stage clinical trial. The drug, Liraglutide, proved effective as a standalone therapy without incidents of hypoglycemia, making the drug a so-called potential 'blockbuster' drug, due to its groundbreaking successes.

Where You Live Linked to Life Expectancy -- (ABC -- September 12, 2006)
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=2422979
Where you live, combined with race and income, plays a huge role in the nation's health disparities, differences so stark that some researchers contend it's as if there are eight separate Americas instead of one.

Swallowable Sensors -- (MIT Technology Review -- September 7, 2006)
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17470&ch=biotech
Swallowable wireless sensors are now ready to begin monitoring the human body. The electronic pill is meant to be ingested by a patient; it then gathers information about the digestive system as it travels through it, transmitting the information to a receiver worn by the patient. The newly approved device is the size and shape of a large vitamin pill.

A Cheaper Way to Zap Tumors -- (MIT Technology Review -- September 5, 2006)
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17418&ch=biotech
Half of all cancer patients in the United States require radiation to combat their tumors. A form of radiation that uses protons, rather than X rays, to zap tumors causes fewer side effects to healthy tissue and may prove more effective.

To Fight Stuttering, Doctors Look at the Brain -- (NY Times -- September 12, 2006)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/12/health/12stutt.html?ex=1159243200&en=5a734d9b5aa7d0d2&ei=5070
Consensus is growing that stuttering is a neurological condition, though its exact nature is not clear. Brain imaging studies have shown that the brains of people who stammer behave differently from those of people who don’t when it comes to processing speech. In people who don’t stutter, speech processing is largely handled in the brain’s left hemisphere. With stutterers, there is an unusually large amount of activity in the right hemisphere.

NANOTECHNOLOGY

Dialysis Unplugged
MIT Materials Scientists Tame Carbon Nanotubes

Dialysis Unplugged -- (MIT Technology Review -- September 13, 2006)
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17493&ch=biotech
Nano-pore membranes could enable dialysis to be miniaturized into implantable devices that provide round-the-clock clearance of toxins, untethering dialysis patients from bulky pumps and clinics. The devices could filter at least 30 milliliters of blood per minute at average blood pressures--about one-third of normal kidney function.

MIT Materials Scientists Tame Carbon Nanotubes -- (MIT Press Release -- September 15, 2006)
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/nanotubes.html
Based on a new theory, scientists may be able to manipulate carbon nanotubes -- one of the strongest known materials and one of the trickiest to work with -- without destroying their extraordinary electrical properties.

GLOBAL EPIDEMIC

Banned Pesticide Backed for Malaria Control
Scientists Reveal How H5N1 Kills
Bird Flu Outbreaks in Four Countries

Banned Pesticide Backed for Malaria Control -- (Guardian -- September 16, 2006)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1873735,00.html
DDT, a pesticide banned in the developed world, should be used to spray houses in all countries where people suffer from malaria, the World Health Organization said recently, 30 years after it phased the practice out.

Scientists Reveal How H5N1 Kills -- (BBC -- September 11, 2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5327204.stm
Scientists have discovered a potential reason to explain why the H5N1 strain of bird flu is so much more deadly to people than standard human flu viruses. It was found that the patients infected with H5N1 had much higher viral loads in the throat than those patients infected with the human flu virus. And the markers of viral load were highest in the H5N1 patients who had died. The virus could also frequently be detected in the blood of H5N1 patients, but, again, only in those who died.

Bird Flu Outbreaks in Four Countries -- (Mid East Times -- September 7, 2006)
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20060907-090456-4879r
Avian-influenza outbreaks in birds have surfaced in four countries in September, with Egypt, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Vietnam all reporting incidences of H5N1 infection. In its first reported infections in two months, Egyptian officials announced that avian flu had been found in four birds, all part of domestic flocks.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Electronic Voting Machines Highly Vulnerable to Hacking
A Projector the Size of a Sugar Cube

Electronic Voting Machines Highly Vulnerable to Hacking -- (Princeton Study Release -- September 2006)
http://websrvr20.audiovideoweb.com/avwebdswebsrvr2143/news_video/ts-voting512K.mov
A group of university students have demonstrated the ease with which current electronic voting machines could be hacked - manipulating elections and leaving no trace, whatsoever. And rigging a machine takes just a couple of minutes.

A Projector the Size of a Sugar Cube -- (Physorg -- September 12, 2006)
http://www.physorg.com/news77299952.html
No larger than a sugar cube, this new video projector contains just a single mirror which can be rotated around two axes instead of the conventional microarrays. This makes it smaller, lighter and handier by far than traditional projectors.

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

Polar Bears Drown, Islands Appear in Arctic Thaw
Study Acquits Sun of Climate Change
Drastic Shrinkage in Arctic Ice
Destructive Insects on Rise in Alaska
Humans Causing Stronger Storms
Climate Change Cited in Siberian Landscape Shift
Winter Arctic Sea Ice in Drastic Decline

Polar Bears Drown, Islands Appear in Arctic Thaw -- (Reuters -- September 15, 2006)
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyid=2006-09-
15T152557Z_01_L15434366_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENVIROMENT-ARCTIC.xml&src=rss&rpc=22
Polar bears are drowning and receding Arctic glaciers have uncovered previously unknown islands in a drastic 2006 summer thaw widely blamed on global warming. Signs of wrenching changes are apparent around the Arctic region due to unusual warmth.

Study Acquits Sun of Climate Change -- (CNN -- September 15, 2006)
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/09/15/global.warming.sun.reut/index.html
The sun's energy output has barely varied over the past 1,000 years, raising chances that global warming has human rather than celestial causes. Researchers found that the sun's brightness varied by only 0.07 percent over 11-year sunspot cycles, far too little to account for the rise in temperatures since the Industrial Revolution.

Drastic Shrinkage in Arctic Ice -- (BBC -- September 8, 2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5344208.stm
A NASA satellite has documented changes in Arctic sea ice cover between 2004 and 2005. The extent of "perennial" ice - thick ice which remains all year round - declined by 14%, losing an area the size of Pakistan or Turkey. The last few decades have seen summer ice shrink by about 0.7% per year.

Destructive Insects on Rise in Alaska -- (Live Science -- September 11, 2006)
http://www.livescience.com/environment/060911_ap_insects_alaska.html
Destructive insects in unprecedented numbers are finding Alaska forests to be a congenial home, and climate change could be cause. Warmer winters kill fewer insects. Longer, warmer summers let insects complete a life cycle and reproduce in one year instead of two, the forest ecologist said. Warm winters also can damage trees and make them less able to fend off insect attacks.

Humans Causing Stronger Storms -- (BBC -- September 11, 2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5335362.stm
Increases in hurricane intensity are due to humanity's greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new analysis. Scientists calculate that two-thirds of the recent rise in sea temperatures, thought to fuel hurricanes, is due to anthropogenic emissions.

Climate Change Cited in Siberian Landscape Shift -- (NPR -- September 18, 2006)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6098974
Siberia is melting. Vast tracts of Russian tundra, frozen for tens of thousands of years are starting to thaw. Many experts say the process is taking place so fast, they can only attribute it to the effects of global warming.

Winter Arctic Sea Ice in Drastic Decline -- (New Scientists -- September 14, 2006)
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10072?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=dn10072
The amount of Arctic sea ice is shrinking not only in the summer but in the winter as well - and researchers are linking the change directly to global warming. In 2005 and 2006, the extent of winter ice was about 6% smaller than the average amount over the past 26 years. The retreat is significantly larger than the long-term decrease of 1.5% to 2% in winter ice cover observed per decade over the same time period.

ENERGY DEVELOPMENTS

Biofuels Look to the Next Generation
Powering Up
Ultrasound Scans for Hidden Oil
Going Deeper for More Oil
Tiny Fuel Cell Might Replace Batteries in Laptop Computers, Portable Electronics
Redesigning Crops to Harvest Fuel
Flying-Car Firm Releases Simulator, Takes Deposits

Biofuels Look to the Next Generation -- (BBC -- September 18, 2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5353118.stm
Biofuels are being hailed by politicians around the globe as a salvation from the twin evils of high oil prices and climate change. The boom in biofuels in the US stems from President Bush's drive to reduce dependence on imports of foreign oil; in Europe it has a more environmental dimension.

Powering Up -- (Economist -- September 29, 2006)
https://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7905292
Solar cells remain prohibitively expensive, in part, due to their reliance on the relatively expensive silicone. Non-silicone cells traditionally had less than 20% of the efficiency of the metal solar cells, rendering them unmarketable. A new generation of plastic cells may revolutionize the playing field, increasing the efficiency of the new cells by up to 400%.

Ultrasound Scans for Hidden Oil -- (Wired-- September 28, 2006)
http://www.wired.com/news/wireservice/0,71773-0.html?tw=wn_index_4
The technology resembles the ultrasounds used by doctors to inspect a woman's womb. But a team of scientists are using it to map rocks deep below the Earth's surface to hunt for oil and gas. The potential payoff is huge. The United States has an estimated 254 trillion cubic feet of gas from these formations, enough to satisfy U.S. demand for 11 years.

Going Deeper for More Oil -- (Technology Review -- September 11, 2006)
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17487&ch=energy
The largest oil discovery since Alaska's Prudhoe Bay in 1968 has occured in the Gulf of Mexico, and it is almost entirely due to recent advances in exploration technology. The drill bit went to a total of 28,175 feet, and the test also set records for operating conditions: tools and fittings worked under 15,000-20,000 pounds of pressure

Tiny Fuel Cell Might Replace Batteries in Laptop Computers, Portable Electronics -- (Physorg -- September, 2006)
http://www.physorg.com/news77300946.html
Chemists have created a tiny hydrogen-gas generator that they say can be developed into a compact fuel cell package that can power computers and other electronic devices -- from three to five times longer than conventional batteries of the same size and weight.

Flying-Car Firm Releases Simulator, Takes Deposits -- (CNET -- September 6, 2006)
http://news.com.com/Flying-car+firm+releases+simulator%2C+takes+deposits/2100-
1008_3-6112862.html?tag=sas.email
The Transition, a plane that can also be driven as a car, won't come out for a few years, but you can try a flight simulator. Potential buyers can also now plunk down $7,400, or 5 percent of the anticipated $148,000 purchase price, for a deposit on a Transition. The planes will come out in late 2009. A fully operational prototype is expected to come out in 2008.

TERRORISM, SECURITY AND THE FUTURE OF WARFARE

Fish Used to Detect Terror Attacks
The ID Chip You Don't Want in Your Passport
One Million Ways to Die
Why Men at War Will Pull Together
The Missiles of August
US report on Iran misleading: IAEA

Fish Used to Detect Terror Attacks -- (NY Times -- September 19, 2006)
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Terror-Fish.html?
ex=1159243200&en=bf536a15335e4d99&ei=5070&emc=eta1
A common type of fish is being enlisted in the fight against terrorism. Big cities are using bluegills - also known as sunfish - as a sort of canary in a coal mine to safeguard their drinking water. Small numbers of the fish are kept in tanks constantly replenished with water from the municipal supply, and sensors in each tank work around the clock to register changes in the breathing, heartbeat and swimming patterns of the bluegills that occur in the presence of toxins

The ID Chip You Don't Want in Your Passport -- (Washington Post -- September 16, 2006)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
2006/09/15/AR2006091500923.html?referrer=emailarticle
In many countries, including the United States, passports will soon be equipped with RFID chips. RFID stands for "radio-frequency identification." Passports with RFID chips store an electronic copy of the passport information: your name, a digitized picture, etc - and current technology is incapable of safeguarding this information: a strong possibility exists that hackers could gain easy access to the information via the RFID chip.

One Million Ways to Die -- (Wired -- September 11, 2006)
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71743-0.html?tw=wn_index_19
How likely are you, statistically speaking, to die from a terrorist attack? Comparing official mortality data with the number of Americans who have been killed inside the United States by terrorism since the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma reveals that scores of threats are far more likely to kill an American than any terrorist -- at least, statistically speaking. In fact, your appendix is more likely to kill you than al-Qaida is.

Why Men at War Will Pull Together -- (BBC -- September 12, 2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5333794.stm
Having a common enemy brings out the best in men, a new study has shown. Psychologists created an economics game, asking groups of volunteers to decide whether to keep money for themselves or invest in a group fund. The men in the study were much kinder to groupmates if they thought that other groups were competing with them.

The Missiles of August -- (MIT Technology Review-- August 16 & 29, 2006)
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17314&ch=biztech
and http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17374&ch=biztech
The events of September 2001 disproved the assumption that only a state could make war on another state. Now Hezbollah's confrontation with Israel has provided further education about how the world is changing. Hezbollah's campaign is a clear sign of how the democratization of missile technology -- cruise missile technology, in particular -- is reshaping global realities.

US report on Iran misleading: IAEA -- (ABC -- September 15, 2006)
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2006/s1741981.htm
Questions are again being asked about whether the Bush administration is again trying to build the case for the invasion of a Middle East enemy, by distorting the facts about the extent of the threat it poses. The world's atomic watchdog has labeled a US congressional report on Iran's nuclear capability as outrageous, dishonest and misleading, saying its claims that Iran is well advanced in enriching nuclear material for weapons are simply wrong.

ECONOMIC TRENDS

A Kinder, Gentler Mr. Market
Foreclosures Spiked in August

A Kinder, Gentler Mr. Market -- (John Mauldin -- September 15, 2006) (An interesting opinion piece on the future of China's economy)
http://www.2000wave.com/article.asp?id=mwo091506

China is stepping on the economic brakes, but it will be interesting to see if they actually work. There are 2,600 major construction sites in Beijing and over 200,000 capital construction projects nationwide. Manufacturing capacity has been doubling every 3 to 4 years, accompanied by constant price destruction in many sectors.

The Chinese economy is growing in the 10-12% range and perhaps more, as much activity probably goes unreported. There is nothing wrong with strong growth, but there is legitimate concern about growth that is not actually market-based. The Chinese government is concerned about too much capacity in too many industries, as well as real estate speculation.

Every local government has had access to cheap money. So, they build more factories with little view to markets and profits. As Simon Hunt notes from a recent rip to China: "In our travels around Shandong Province we came across a prime example. A local government company decided in 2000 to construct a power station and a copper tube plant. We cannot comment on the feasibility of the power plant, but it was quite clear from our visit that the ACR tube plant with a capacity of 60kt/a will never make a decent return on capital, let alone will lenders ever get to see their money back. Not content with one white elephant, the company is building a sheet/strip plant with a capacity of 100kt/a and a capital expenditure of US$250 million, using all imported equipment, just to add to the circa 1.5MT/a of new capacity being built in China. Our discussions also showed that they had not undertaken a rigorous market study prior to starting to construct. Power stations, tube and sheet/strip mills have all been fashionable projects, and China is a land of fashion followers."

How many such projects are there? The central government has laid down rules designed to make it more difficult to build projects which are not economically rational. But the local bureaucrats have ignored the rules. Beijing is starting to crack down. Some 100,000 projects, initiated since the beginning of the year, are under investigation. Forty percent of these violate at least one rule, and 14% are actually illegal. Conveniently for the central government, a large number of local bureaucrats are due to be replaced (through retirement or elections). Look for their replacements to be more loyal to the central government. Beijing is not trying to stop real infrastructure growth. The concern is excess capacity, which leads to deflationary pressure. Directing all this from a central government is a mind-boggling task, and one about which I must admit I harbor doubts as to how it will actually work. But so far...?

The government has stated that its objective is to bring down the growth of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from the plus 30% in the first half of the year to 20% by year-end. Both monetary and administrative measures will continue to be taken until this goal is in reach. That is a big drop and is already being seen in construction activity, according to a report just issued by Jonathan Anderson of UBS. How? Among other things, the government has taken back the ability of local bureaucrats to approve land sales. If you can't buy the land, you can't build the factory. Adherence to the rules is being aggressively pushed, with strong messages coming from the very top leadership. Plus, in the past few weeks we have seen some very difficult new positions. Foreign businesses cannot sell land and repatriate their capital. And limits have been placed on how much (or even if) foreign firms can invest in businesses in certain sectors, some of which seem to clearly violate WTO rules, at least from this side of the Pacific.

That being said, the Chinese government has affirmed they will meet their WTO obligations to open up their banking sector to foreign firms, although the rules they are adopting will make it expensive to do so. All this gives rise to even more protectionist rhetoric from both the left of the Democratic and the right wing of the Republican parties. They demand that China revalue the Renminbi by 30% or so immediately. Such verbal political garbage may play well to the home crowd, but it makes no economic sense. Exactly why do these politicians want Americans to pay 30% more for their Chinese imports? Such a move would cause a deep and severe recession in the US, not to mention China. Let's see if we can really destabilize the world. Idiocy.

The Chinese will continue to do what they have done for years, and that is to act in their own best interests, just as every other nation does. And it is in everyone's interest that they slowly move to a free-floating currency, which it evidently seems they are doing. As strong as the Chinese economy is, it is more fragile than it appears. A shock of a quick 30% adjustment in currency valuations would precipitate a deep recession in China. That is something the world does not need.

It will truly be a miracle if the Chinese can avoid a recession over the next few years, as all economies eventually succumb to the normal business cycle. But unless the government makes a large blunder, it will be just like the next recession in the US. It will pass and then the growth will resume. The Chinese government is managing a very difficult transition, from a centralized socialist economy to a market-driven economy. For all the problems, from this seat I think they are doing better than any of us could imagine 10 years ago. Yes, they have a long way to go, but they have come a long way. If they can continue down the path they are on, it will accrue not only to their benefit, but to the world's advantage.

Foreclosures Spiked in August -- (CNN -- September 15, 2006)
http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/13/real_estate/foreclosures_spiking/index.htm
With real estate markets slowing and mortgage rates well above levels of recent years, times are getting tougher for homeowners - the number of homes entering into some stage of foreclosure is surging. In August, 115,292 properties entered into foreclosure. In absolute terms, that is pretty msall, but it is also 24 percent above the level in July and 53 percent higher than a year earlier.

DEMOGRAPHICS AND SOCIAL CHANGE

Women Graduates Challenge Iran -- (BBC -- September 19, 2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5359672.stm
The number of women graduating from Iran's universities is overtaking the number of men, promising a change in the job market and, with it, profound social change. Over half of university students in Iran are now women. In the applied physics department of Azad University 70% of the graduates are women. It is a huge social shift since the 1979 Revolution: Iran's Islamic government has managed to convince even traditional rural families that it is safe to send their daughters away from home to study.

A FINAL QUOTE...

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. ~Carl Sagan

A special thanks to Hanna Adeyema, Bernard Calil, Ken Dabkowski, Neil Freer, Humera Khan, KurzweilAI, Sher Patterson-Black, Diane C. Petersen, John C. Petersen, the Schwartzreport, Joel Snell and Matthew W. Sollenberger our contributors to this issue. If you see something we should know about, do send it along - thanks.
johnp@arlingtoninstitute.org

Brief About:

TAI Presents - A public lecture with Daniel Pinchbeck

Publication Date:

09/28/2006

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