ChinaWatch: Land Of Opportunity

Welcome to ChinaWatch, WMB’s digest of news from the country with the world’s second largest economy and our chief rival to global dominance.


Fat Growth Forecast

China is on course for another five years of robust growth, but inflation threatens social stability and must be tamed, Premier Wen Jiabao says.

Wen, in China's version of a “State of the Union ’’ address to the annual parliamentary session, says the top priority this year is to curb price rises hurting ordinary people in the world's second-largest economy, Reuters reports.

Laying out a plan for the next five years, Wen says the drivers of China's meteoric economic rise remain firm.

“There is huge potential demand in the market, the supply of funds is ample, the overall scientific and educational level of the people is rising,” Wen says in his report to the National People's Congress .

He vows to boost spending on education, health care and public housing, initiatives intended to narrow the chasm between the rich and poor in China that has stirred resentment.

A huge police presence in the capital and a rare public warning against protests underscored the government's sensitivity to even the faintest whiff that the unrest roiling the Middle East could spread to China.

Building a fairer society has been a core goal of Wen's premiership, but the income gap has widened during his eight years in power and he is trying to lay the groundwork for improvement before a leadership reshuffle in late 2012.

“As Deng Xiaoping said, the first step is to make a part of the people rich and the next step is to make everyone rich,” says Shen Jianguang, economist with Mizuho Securities, referring to the Chinese leader who launched market reforms in the late 1970s.

They’re Too Busy

With single young men at the heart of Arab world revolt, China might seem a country ripe for uprising. But while it’s got millions of single young men, they don’t appear interested in amassing a movement for change.

China now has at least 20 million young men with no chance of ever finding a female partner, according to population experts. In short, there are too many men.

Demographers predict the gender gap will grow to 35 million by 2020.

The reason: China’s one-child policy and a culturally ingrained preference for male children, along with a rise in accessible ultrasound technology and sex-selective abortion, led to a staggering surplus of young men born in the 1980s and 1990s.

The overall trend is beginning to change for new families, but there remains a bubble of young men that can’t be reversed or repaired. So why aren’t they rising up and causing trouble for the authoritarian regime of China? In short, they’re too busy.

Andrea den Boer, co-author of the 2005 book “Bare Branches,” an in-depth investigation of surplus males and related potential security issues in Asia, says China’s situation is different than that of Egypt, which suffers from what is know as a “youth bulge.”

China has the millions of single young men, but what it’s missing is massive unemployment and economic decline. With the world’s fastest-growing large economy, opportunity is abundant.

Development has reached every corner of the country and work opportunities have begun taking tens of thousands of young Chinese men to Africa and other parts of the world.

ChinaWatch

Health Reform: Cure Vs. Care

There’s a new twist in the health care debate: cure or care? Which do you think is going to cost less and is preferable: a cure for cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, or caring for people after they are diagnosed with these illnesses?

It’s better medical and public policy to direct more resources toward finding a cure for diseases that cost a lot to treat, instead of relying on government insurance programs, such as Obama Care, which seeks mainly to help pay bills for people after they become ill.

This is a no-brainer, especially in a recession-drained U.S. economy struggling to increase employment, drive down debt, maintain services and improve the quality of life for Americans.

But many politicians are locked into an “old school” paradigm that focuses too much on hospitals, doctors and prescription drugs and too little on medical research and preventative care, so people will not need hospitals, doctors, or drugs.

Obviously, we need another prescription for true health care reform.

Change Status Quo

As syndicated columnist Cal Thomas notes, the pursuit of cures as a priority will be thoroughly explored in “Serious Medicine Strategy,” a forthcoming book by James Pinkerton, a former senior advisor to the Mike Huckabee for president campaign.

Pinkerton, a former Newsday columnist , asserts it’s not a failure to fund research to cure diseases that ends lives prematurely but, rather, it’s absent the commitment by political leaders to make research a priority in their speeches and policy statements.

More than 50 years ago, political and medical communities rallied and led the public to a cure for polio and the elimination of the need for “iron lungs.” This feat was the medical equivalent of walking on the moon.

One has to wonder why we can’t develop a united front to find cures for diabetes, Alzheimer’s, cancer, and other major illnesses.

Pinkerton says it’s because of the “baneful influence of the (U.S.) Food and Drug Administration and trial lawyers.

Reforms We Need

WMB believes that if the government would protect the ability of entrepreneurs and scientists to create products without the risk of being sued into oblivion, capital would come pouring into the pharmaceutical sector from global investors.

WMB suggests opponents to Obama Care pick up on this strategy of cures before care. Instead, most politicians almost are singularly focused on repealing the entire health care “reform” law.

The health care package should be repealed, or at least experience an extreme makeover; Obama Care law doesn’t cure anyone of anything. Finding cures for diseases helps people live longer, and it’s cost-efficient for our society.

Consider all the money that has been saved by no longer having to treat victims of polio, smallpox and tuberculosis. Imagine the savings when a cure is eventually found for cancer!

Additionally, the retirement age could easily be raised since older people could work longer and live more vigorous and productive lives. More tax-generating citizens can help fuel the economy.

Sure, there are many promising research programs under way, ranging from stem cell research to genetic engineering. Researchers need to focus on diseases we are closest to curing and prioritize accordingly.

The question remains: Would you rather be healthy and fit and live a long life, or be taken care of in your illness by a government health system that sees you as a burden and is constantly trying to reduce care and lower costs?

The problem is that once a nation has made a wrong turn, it is difficult, if not impossible, to reverse the course.

WMB believes America still has time to make the right choices and move in the direction of cures. Now, all we need is decisive political leadership to provide the pathway for a much more productive society, with a better quality of life for its citizens.

This post is by TechMan, WMB co-author who blogs about trends, issues and ideas affecting business, industry, technology and consumers. If you like this post, please share it.

Reform Talk Doesn't Add Up

The good news is employment rose in April by 290,000 jobs – the largest gain in four years, but the bad news is the unemployment rate moved up to 9.9 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

While some see the job generation as a step in our economic recovery, a one-month report hardly constitutes a pattern of positive growth. The impact of the financial meltdown is far from over, and those who claimed they’ve changed their free-spending ways haven’t proved a thing except: Talk is cheap.

Still, many folks long discouraged by the lack of available work since the recession began in December in 2007 are once again seeking jobs, the bureau reports, noting an uptick in the labor force. This boosted the unemployment rate, from 9.7 to 9.9 percent, with the total number of unemployed standing at 15.3 million.

Jobs were added in manufacturing, professional and business services, health care, and leisure and hospitality. Federal government employment also rose, reflecting continued hiring of temporary workers for Census 2010, the bureau reports.

Jobs were axed in state and local governments, which are grappling with budget issues; transportation and warehousing firms; and information companies, mostly telecommunications firms.

The number of underemployed individuals, those employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) remained unchanged at 9.2 million in April, according to the bureau. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

Another sobering statistic was the number of long-term unemployed -- those jobless for 27 weeks or more hit 6.7 million. Nearly half (45.9 percent) of all unemployed people have been jobless for 27 weeks or more, the highest percentage since the bureau began tracking that indicator in 1948, according to Rachel Kaufman, blogging for MediaJobsDaily.

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for whites (9 percent) edged up in April, while the rates for adult men (10.1 percent), adult women (8.2 percent), teenagers (25.4 percent), blacks (16.5 percent), and Hispanics (12.5 percent) showed little or no change, the bureau reports. The jobless rate for Asians was 6.8 percent, not seasonally adjusted.


"Companies feel more comfortable that growth in the economy and in their own sales is here to stay and that they can start preparing for the future and add to their payrolls," Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors, told the Associated Press.

The unemployment rate rose as 805,000 people without jobs entered the labor force in April to search for work.

"Individuals are gaining confidence in their ability to find a job and are now throwing their hats into the ring," John Challenger, CEO of outplacement firm, Challenger, Gray & Christmas, told the AP.

Many economists predict the unemployment rate will continue to rise as people who had given up on finding a job feel better about their prospects. The labor force includes employed people and people actively seeking work -- not those who have stopped looking.

President Barack Obama called April's job growth "very encouraging news" but said much remains to be done to put more Americans to work, according to the AP.

Obama, since taking office, has pegged U.S. economic recovery to health care reform, which the president and a bitterly divided Congress approved after a highly partisan debate that left most of the American public upset, confused and worried.

Some on both sides of the aisle, as well as independents, continue to insist job creation should have taken center stage, not health care reform in the middle of the worst recession America has seen in decades. They argue: What good is health care if one does not have a job to pay for it?

It’s true U.S. officials, during Obama’s tenure and under the previous Bush administration, pushed through so-called stimulus packages and a variety of “tax relief programs” – George Bush urging us to all shop and Obama giving us more in our paychecks (only to repay at end of the year in higher federal income taxes).

But neither Bush nor Obama provided any long-term gains for the middle class, with the notable exception of bridge, road and highway improvement projects. The orange road-work signs have sprouted this spring like dandelions and, to their credit, officials are wasting no time in making use of available federal funds. If you’re lucky enough to have a job, at least your commute will be on smoother roads and safer bridges!

Bush, a Republican, and Obama, a Democrat, urged us to spend our way to economic health. Remember, Bush and Obama are opposite sides of the same coin – the tax-and-spend crowd. Party labels are meaningless, except for the extreme right and left in partisan politics, a position We Mean Business firmly defends.

Here’s a novel idea for our leaders: exercise some fiscal restraint, purchase only what we really need, not necessarily what we want, and stop passing debt onto generations not yet born. Imagine if they had used that strategy right along? We might not be hearing “years” in the time it may take for a full recovery.

As for me, I practice what I preach at writenowworks.com.