Considerations

Politics, business, religion, and culture by Samuel J. Scott and Jeff Guevin

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Entries Tagged as 'China'

Are Pizza and Soda Elastic?

March 9th, 2010 · 2 Comments · Business, China, Civil Liberties, Culture, Economics, Education, Health, Law, Politics, Science

var fbShare = {url: ‘http://www.samueljscott.com/2010/03/09/are-pizza-and-soda-price-elastic/’,size:‘large’} A team from Uni­ver­sity of North Car­olina at Chapel Hill seems to think so:
U.S. researchers esti­mate that an 18 per­cent tax on pizza and soda can push down U.S. adults’ calo­rie intake enough to lower their aver­age weight by 5 pounds (2 kg) per year.
The researchers, writing […]

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Stratfor’s Top Predictions for the “2010s”

February 24th, 2010 · 3 Comments · Business, China, Economics, Europe, Finance, Globalization, Russia

var fbShare = {url: ‘http://www.samueljscott.com/2010/02/24/stratfors-top-predictions-for-the-next-decade-china-collapse-global-labor-shortages-new-american-dominance/’,size:‘large’} Sam’s always pre­dict­ing gloom and doom for the US econ­omy (often while mys­te­ri­ously tout­ing that of Israel).  So, I thought I’d share STRATFOR’S TOP PREDICTIONS FOR THE NEXT DECADE: China Col­lapse, Global Labor Short­ages, New Amer­i­can Dom­i­nance.
Indeed, the US does face some real issues (not actu­ally men­tioned by Business […]

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Too Many Men

February 7th, 2010 · No Comments · Business, China, Culture, Dating, Economics, Education, Feminism, Politics, Religion, Sex, The Middle East, War

var fbShare = {url: ‘http://www.samueljscott.com/2010/02/07/too-many-men/’,size:‘large’}
Michael J. Tot­ten watches this YouTube video and makes an impor­tant point:
I don’t know much about demog­ra­phy, but Mar­tin Kramer makes a strong case in just a few short min­utes for the idea that a sur­plus of military-aged males is a big part of the Mid­dle East’s […]

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World in 2025

December 27th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Books, Britain, Business, China, Culture, Economics, Education, Energy, Europe, Globalization, Islam, Oil, Politics, Religion, Russia, Technology, The Middle East, War, War on Terror

var fbShare = {url: ‘http://www.samueljscott.com/2009/12/27/world-in-2025/’,size:‘large’} So I recently came across a report writ­ten last year by the U.S. National Intel­li­gence Coun­cil on what the world may look like in sev­en­teen years. Here is a summary:

The whole inter­na­tional system—as constructed […]

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Japanese Culture

December 17th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Business, China, Civil Liberties, Conservative Pundits, Culture, Dating, Economics, Entertainment, Europe, Feminism, Health, Japan, Law, Media, Politics, Sex, Technology, War

var fbShare = {url: ‘http://www.samueljscott.com/2009/12/17/japanese-culture/’,size:‘large’} RISHON LEZION, Israel — Roger Cohen makes some depress­ing obser­va­tions on the land of the ris­ing set­ting sun:
…I’m not aware of any other nation where fan­tasy, escapism and the cyber world have fused with such inten­sity.
Indeed, there’s a Japan­ese word, otaku, denot­ing a whole uni­verse of mono­ma­ni­a­cal geek-like obsession, […]

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The Economic Future

November 10th, 2009 · No Comments · Britain, Business, China, Civil Liberties, Conservative Pundits, Culture, Economics, Egypt, Finance, Law, Liberal Pundits, Politics

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Every Amer­i­can should watch this thirty-minute, non-partisan doc­u­men­tary on the finan­cial apoc­a­lypse towards which the United States is head­ing.
Related: Why My Gen­er­a­tion is Pissed Off and The Upcom­ing Gen­er­a­tional War

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Leading, Lagging Indicators

September 5th, 2009 · No Comments · Business, China, Economics, Europe, India, Israel, Politics, The Middle East

var fbShare = {url: ‘http://www.samueljscott.com/2009/09/05/leading-lagging-indicators/’,size:‘large’} The U.S. unem­ploy­ment rate has inched closer to ten per­cent, but as one ana­lyst notes, there are signs that the worst might be over soon:
The con­tin­ued mod­er­a­tion in the pace of job losses does offer some encour­age­ment on the state of the U.S. labor mar­ket. Nev­er­the­less, with the […]

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A New Dark Age?

May 12th, 2009 · No Comments · Boston, Business, China, Civil Liberties, Culture, Europe, Globalization, Israel, Journalism, Marketing, Politics, Religion, Russia, The Middle East, War, War on Terror

var fbShare = {url: ‘http://www.samueljscott.com/2009/05/12/a-new-dark-age/’,size:‘large’} RISHON LEZION, Israel — Parag Khanna pre­dicts a return to a “neome­dieval” world in the near future:
Many see the global eco­nomic cri­sis as proof that we live in one world. But as coun­tries stum­ble to right the wrongs of the cor­po­rate mas­ters of the uni­verse, they are dri­ving us […]

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Geography is Destiny

May 12th, 2009 · No Comments · Britain, China, Culture, Economics, Energy, Environment, Europe, Globalization, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Oil, Palestine, Politics, Russia, War

var fbShare = {url: ‘http://www.samueljscott.com/2009/05/12/geography-is-destiny/’,size:‘large’} Robert Kaplan, writ­ing in For­eign Pol­icy, writes that geog­ra­phy has always laid the foun­da­tions for con­flict through­out the world in the past and present. The arti­cle is your assigned read­ing for today.

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And Now, China

May 6th, 2009 · No Comments · Business, China, Economics, Finance, Politics

var fbShare = {url: ‘http://www.samueljscott.com/2009/05/06/and-now-china/’,size:‘large’} China might come out of the finan­cial melt­down as the world’s number-one eco­nomic power. See here.

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Falling Behind

May 3rd, 2009 · No Comments · Business, China, Culture, Education, Entertainment, Globalization, Music, Science

var fbShare = {url: ‘http://www.samueljscott.com/2009/05/03/falling-behind/’,size:‘large’} Thomas Fried­man is rightly wor­ried about the future of U.S. schools:
Just a quick review: In the 1950s and 1960s, the U.S. dom­i­nated the world in K-12 edu­ca­tion. We also dom­i­nated eco­nom­i­cally. In the 1970s and 1980s, we still had a lead, albeit smaller, in edu­cat­ing our pop­u­la­tion through secondary […]

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Spengler Reveals Himself

April 20th, 2009 · No Comments · Anti-Semitism, Britain, Business, China, Christianity, Conservative Pundits, Culture, Education, Entertainment, Europe, Globalization, Islam, Israel, Journalism, Judaism, Politics, Religion, Russia, The Middle East

var fbShare = {url: ‘http://www.samueljscott.com/2009/04/20/spengler-reveals-himself/’,size:‘large’} David P. Gold­man reveals him­self to be Spen­gler, the most impor­tant colum­nist of our time:
The 300 or so essays that I have pub­lished in this space since 1999 all pro­ceeded from the theme for­mu­lated by [German-Jewish the­olo­gian Franz] Rosen­zweig: the mor­tal­ity of nations and its causes, West­ern sec­u­lar­ism, Asian anomie, […]

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Chinese Worries

March 15th, 2009 · No Comments · Business, China, Economics, Finance, Politics

var fbShare = {url: ‘http://www.samueljscott.com/2009/03/15/chinese-worries/’,size:‘large’} The Chi­nese prime min­is­ter says he is “wor­ried” about the level of U.S. debt held by the coun­try. If I were a per­son who keeps loan­ing money to some­one who is increas­ingly unable to pay it back, I would be wor­ried as well.

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Who Owns Whom?

February 23rd, 2009 · No Comments · Business, China, Economics, Finance, Globalization, Politics

var fbShare = {url: ‘http://www.samueljscott.com/2009/02/23/who-owns-whom/’,size:‘large’} Hillary Clin­ton is plead­ing with China to keep financ­ing the debt of the United States:
US Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton Sun­day urged China to keep buy­ing US debt as she wrapped up her first over­seas trip, dur­ing which she agreed to work closely with Bei­jing on the finan­cial crisis. […]

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When Nations Decline

January 10th, 2009 · 5 Comments · Britain, Business, China, Civil Liberties, Culture, Economics, Energy, Europe, Globalization, Oil, Philosophy, Politics

var fbShare = {url: ‘http://www.samueljscott.com/2009/01/10/when-nations-decline/’,size:‘large’} When­ever I think about the United States, I can­not help but remem­ber the fol­low­ing quo­ta­tion from Scot­tish his­to­rian Alexan­der Fraser Tytler on the pur­ported cycle that all coun­tries and empires go through:
From bondage to spir­i­tual faith;
From spir­i­tual faith to great courage;
From courage to lib­erty;
From lib­erty to abun­dance;
From abun­dance to com­pla­cency;
From […]

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