Random comments on current events

 

The End of the Petrodollar?

China is the major country to import oil, not U.S. any more. They can trade oil with the Middle East countries using Chinese currency or the digital Chinese currency. That is why we have to take actions on China.

 

Wealth gap and aging

Ours is getting wider and wider. China’s is narrowing with the poverty alleviating program. As a senior citizen even from U.S., I have free public transportation in China and many museums and attractions are free to me.

 

The cheap transportation is also a way to narrow the wealth gap. China does have to reduce health care for the poor; China does have good public health system judging from her way to handle this pandemic.

 

The aging problem in China can be fixed substantially by moving up the retirement age from the average of 55 to 65. Today even a 65 citizen is healthy enough to work for a few years.

 

Middle East

Most of us do not understand the fighting between Israel and Palestine. Hope no other countries participate to lead to a bigger war. My high school teacher told me that WW3 would be started in Middle East. According to the Bible, Israel will be surrounded by hostile neighbors. Israel depends on her advanced weapons, which are especially effective in desert.

 

Population

Egypt and Iran have about 1,000 years of civilization earlier than China. How come China have far larger population. It could be due to wars, famines and diseases.

 

Most developed countries have decreased birth rates (less than 2 per couple and more unmarried folks). China controls the population well with the ‘one-child’ policy, but Chins will face the aging problems.

Joke of the day. With the increasing population, will the heaven be over-crowded?

 

Pipeline

Being the most advanced country, how come we still suffer from these cyber attacks? Why we yell at China in stealing our secrets instead of protecting our secrets? It is like a sexy lady jogging in the high-crime area at night? Paying ransom encourages similar future acts, and we should not this event uninsurable. We feel the pain of the EU in the second pipeline from Russia.

 

Poor government

 

Our leaders do not know how to fix our problems. They only have two tricks.

 

1. Excessively printing money. It will raise inflation, make us less competitive (due to servicing the debts), and shake the status of USD as a reserve currency (most central banks would lower the reserve of USD as it is depreciating fast). Generous giving money discourages folks to seek work; the politicians buy votes.

 

2. Blame others such as China on our problem. Why we spend our resources (such as military expenses) on internal problems such as infrastructure and education first? Why we care about Hong Know while we have our own riots? Why we care about genocide in Xinjiang while we have same with native Indians? The list is endless.

 

Education

Recently I have a Zoom session with my other 8 high school classmates living in U.S. We have 3 Ph.D. degrees including one from M.I.T., one medical doctor and one pharmacist; I am the black sheep of the class with other 2 with M.S. degrees. Most of our classes were 45. Many teachers were not certified, and sometimes there were no teacher. The reason we studied hard is we would be a nobody if we did not. No one would bail us out, and this is our problem in today’s U.S., not in the class size and the quality of teachers.  

 

Super inflation

If inflation is 100% and your stock appreciates 50%, you are losing 50% buying power. The government still has the gut of asking you to pay taxes on the 50% gain. Who is the winner and who is the loser?