patrick.net

I think we have a few economic colonies out there, just not sure how much MORE we can steal from them.

China, for one, is our economic colony. They subsidized their export to such an extent that they can only recoup the incremental cost of production. For example, recently the shipping charges of Chinese companies serving the inbound and outbound China routes are quoting NEGATIVE shipping charges, you heard me right, negative (well, they still charge some port stocking fee). They will pay YOU for keeping their ships running. However, I think we have repetitively challenged their limits of subsidizing our consumption, so I am not sure if we can steal much more incrementally in the upcoming crisis.

Japan, to a certain extent, is also an economic slave of the US. By manipulating their Yen at a "comfortable" bound vs USD, they are essentially subsidizing our lifestyle with their exports. They just didn't build up such an excess capacity as China because at least their stuff can command higher premium. Can we steal more from Japan when we head into crisis? Not so sure, because Japan is apparently ramping up their export share to Europe (perhaps they sense something, huh?).

i suppose there's both economic and cultural imperialism in the form of banana republics as an instance of the former and saturating the world with coca-cola and mcdonalds and hollywood output as the latter...

OO,

China tries to get more export to Europe and Asia, the problem is that the main business drivers are still ethnic Chinese business people out Taiwan and Malaysia. I'm beginning to think that Mainland China will be more resilant than I've thus far given it credit for. They seem to actually comprehend the need to diversify and build up the internal market. The new CCP politburo appears to be a collection of pretty astute people - they might actually make some good economic decisions that'll really show itself in another 5 or 10 years.

But then, I read about the absurd construction projects posed by their water and electric bureau and it's like WTF. Those guys make the army corp of engineers look like genius auditors in comparison.

Time has a very different value for those in the high 6 & 7-figures club.

I saw a GP for a consult the other week, and when he learned I work in IT, asked me how to install Office or similar on his PC at home. I said 'just put in the CD and wait for the setup routine to run and follow the prompts'. He said 'wait a minute. slow down, that sounds a bit complex', heh. Note that children can do this. And 10 years of med training isn't complex? Maybe I should start that PC servicing business over here for doctors... (I should point out I currently do general sys admin work across s/w and h/w, including Oracle, Unix, M$ products, an ERP and so on)

Joe Schmoe, the # of frivolous lawsuits is significant. The mere threat of a lawsuit changes the nature of practice. I have some contacts ( I would hate to call them friends) who are exactly these pitbull malpractice attorneys. They have little to no regard for the medical profession and purely interested in the $. This is a profession? Juries? They routinely poll juries after malpractice cases. Guess what? The jury was either not listening or unable to comprehend the issues. Typical responses from the "jury of our peers": "I just didnt like the way they argued with each other". Does the ABA ever admonish the trial lawyers to bring forth legitimate cases? No. And I know lawyers that are on state legal boards. they couldnt care less about a cases legitimacy. When people tell me "My daughter is in law school", I say "where do you think you went wrong?"