After Obama Visit, Assessing U.S.-China Relations
Fresh Aire - Terry Gross interviewing Oville Schell
November 19, 2009
While President Obama was on his recent diplomatic visit to China, journalist Orville Schell was also there, observing and reporting. A China expert at the Asia Society, Schell joins Fresh Air host Terry Gross for a conversation about the changing relations between the U.S. and China in light of Obama's visit — and how the fates of the US and China are connected. The protectionist policies of the past, he argues, are no longer viable.
Schell is the author of nine books on China. His work has appeared in several national publications, including The New Yorker, the China Quarterly, and The New York Times.
He is the Asia Society's Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations in New York and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also a Fellow at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University and a Senior Fellow at the Annenberg School of Communications at USC.
[ Hear original NPR broadcast or read the original transcript ]
TERRY GROSS, host:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guest, Orville Schell, was in China this week during President Obama's visit. Schell has witnessed immense changes in China over the decades. Now, he says, as governments across the West have become increasingly bogged down, trying to fix a broken economy, China is veritably humming with energy, money, plans, leadership and forward motion, while the West seems paralyzed. He warns that Americans need to understand how China has changed if we want to understand their impact on our economy and on climate change.
Schell has written nine books about China and used to cover China for the New Yorker. He's the former dean of the graduate school of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. Now he directs the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York, where he's focused on issues of energy and global climate change. Yesterday he went to the NPR bureau in Beijing to record our interview.
Orville Schell, welcome back to FRESH AIR. What do you think was the most interesting outcome of the summit?
BOOK REVIEW: The Limits of Power: Andrew Bacevich on the End of American Exceptionalism
Currently reading this book and am impressed by the detail and historic threads he brings to the what could easily be the biggest issue of our times. While some of the dots he connects could be argued, taken in its entirety, it hard to ignore the facts as Bacevich lays them out in his recent book. Highly recommended reading.
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Excerpted from An interview by www.democracynow.org
Andrew Bacevich is a conservative historian who spent twenty-three years serving in the US Army. He also lost his son in Iraq last year. In a new book titled The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, Bacevich argues that although many in this country are paying a heavy price for US domestic and foreign policy decisions, millions of Americans simply continue to shop, spend and satisfy their appetite for cheap oil, credit and the promise of freedom at home. Bacevich writes, “As the American appetite for freedom has grown, so too has our penchant for empire.”
Andrew Bacevich, Retired colonel who spent twenty-three years in the US Army. He is professor of history and international relations at Boston University and writes for a wide spectrum of publications including The Nation, Foreign Affairs, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative. He became a staunch critic of the Iraq war and Bush’s foreign policy and is the author of several books, including The New American Militarism. His latest book is called The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism.
[ Read full transpcript of the interview ]
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Excerpted from An interview by www.democracynow.org
Andrew Bacevich is a conservative historian who spent twenty-three years serving in the US Army. He also lost his son in Iraq last year. In a new book titled The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, Bacevich argues that although many in this country are paying a heavy price for US domestic and foreign policy decisions, millions of Americans simply continue to shop, spend and satisfy their appetite for cheap oil, credit and the promise of freedom at home. Bacevich writes, “As the American appetite for freedom has grown, so too has our penchant for empire.”
Andrew Bacevich, Retired colonel who spent twenty-three years in the US Army. He is professor of history and international relations at Boston University and writes for a wide spectrum of publications including The Nation, Foreign Affairs, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative. He became a staunch critic of the Iraq war and Bush’s foreign policy and is the author of several books, including The New American Militarism. His latest book is called The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism.
[ Read full transpcript of the interview ]
Here is an interesting view on Richard Florida and the creative cities movement he has given shape to. I'm not sure all the claims are true but its an interesting perspective and worthy of a read by anyone who prefers to hear both sides of any debate.
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January 4, 2010
Alec MacGillis
The Ruse of the Creative Class
Cities that shelled out big bucks to learn Richard Florida's prescription for vibrant urbanism are now hearing they may be beyond help.
In April 2006, the Richard Florida show arrived in the Southern Tier of Upstate New York. It was only one of the scores of appearances this decade by the economic-development guru, whose speaking fee soared to $35,000 not long after his 2002 book The Rise of the Creative Class made him a star on the lecture circuit. Cleveland, Toledo, Baltimore, Greensboro, Green Bay, Des Moines, Hartford, Roanoke, and Rochester were among the many cities that had already shelled out to hear from the good-looking urban-studies professor about how to get young professionals to move in.
Of course, none of these burgs has yet completed the transformation from post-manufacturing ugly duckling to gay-friendly, hipster swan. But middling results elsewhere did not keep people in the greater Elmira area from getting excited about Florida's visit. They listened as, in his stylish suit and designer glasses, he related his blue-collar upbringing outside Newark before segueing into his secrets of urban success in the 21st century: the "three T's" of technology, talent, and tolerance. If cities could make themselves appealing to the Web designers, architects, biomedical researchers, and other innovators who are now the drivers of economic growth, then they would also attract the businesses that want these footloose pioneers to work for them. "If we do all of the above," reported a columnist with Elmira's Star-Gazette who attended the speech, "we can be creatively chic without having to move to Boulder, Colo."
[ Read full original article ]
America: Sink or Swim?
Here is a clear-eyed article that provides a good deal of historical context on which our current problems can be viewed. Its a long but worth the read if you need more than just a gloom and doom vision of the future. The aritcle is nicely balenced and foot noted while not soft pedling the real issues we face. Well woth a read.
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The Atlantic
By James Fallows
How America Can Rise Again
By James Fallows
How America Can Rise Again
Since coming backto the United States after three years away in China, I have been asking experts around the country whether America is finally going to hell. The question is partly a joke. One look at the comforts and abundance of American life—even during a recession, even with all the people who are suffering or left out—can make it seem silly to ask about anything except the secrets of the country’s success. Here is the sort of thing you notice anew after being in India or China, the two rising powers of the day: there is still so much nature, and so much space, available for each person on American soil. Room on the streets and sidewalks, big lawns around the houses, trees to walk under, wildflowers at the edge of town—yes, despite the sprawl and overbuilding. A few days after moving from our apartment in Beijing, I awoke to find a mother deer and two fawns in the front yard of our house in Washington, barely three miles from the White House. I know that deer are a modern pest, but the contrast with blighted urban China, in which even pigeons are scarce, was difficult to ignore.
Putting the Naughties Into Perspective
The Big Zero
Maybe we knew, at some unconscious, instinctive level, that it would be an era best forgotten. Whatever the reason, we got through the first decade of the new millennium without ever agreeing on what to call it. The aughts? The naughties? Whatever. (Yes, I know that strictly speaking the millennium didn’t begin until 2001. Do we really care?)
Maybe we knew, at some unconscious, instinctive level, that it would be an era best forgotten. Whatever the reason, we got through the first decade of the new millennium without ever agreeing on what to call it. The aughts? The naughties? Whatever. (Yes, I know that strictly speaking the millennium didn’t begin until 2001. Do we really care?)
It was a decade with basically zero job creation. O.K., the headline employment number for December 2009 will be slightly higher than that for December 1999, but only slightly. And private-sector employment has actually declined — the first decade on record in which that happened.
It was a decade with zero economic gains for the typical family. Actually, even at the height of the alleged “Bush boom,” in 2007, median household income adjusted for inflation was lower than it had been in 1999. And you know what happened next.
Last and least for most Americans — but a big deal for retirement accounts, not to mention the talking heads on financial TV — it was a decade of zero gains for stocks, even without taking inflation into account. Remember the excitement when the Dow first topped 10,000, and best-selling books like “Dow 36,000” predicted that the good times would just keep rolling? Well, that was back in 1999. Last week the market closed at 10,520.
So there was a whole lot of nothing going on in measures of economic progress or success. Funny how that happened.
Much To Do About Bankers
WHILE supply-side catechism insists that lower taxes are a growth tonic, the theory also argues that if you want less of something, tax it more. The economy desperately needs less of our bloated, unproductive and increasingly parasitic banking system. In this respect, the White House appears to have gone over to the supply side with its proposed tax on big banks, as it scores populist points against the banksters, too.
Getting To the Bottom of Banking
These incisive questions quickly cut to the heart of the matter regarding what happened and what we need to do about the banking regulatory fabric. Oddly enough (or not) few of these questions made it to the Senate Chamber, shuffled instead to the back of populist and political posturing.
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New York Times
Today, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which Congress established last year to investigate the causes of the financial crisis, is scheduled to question the heads of four big banks — Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, John Mack of Morgan Stanley and Brian Moynihan of Bank of America. The Op-Ed editors asked eight financial experts to pose questions they would like to hear the bankers answer.
1. Bankers are dealers in money. The Federal Reserve is a creator of money — since the crisis began in August 2007, it has conjured up $1.1 trillion. Given the ease with which these dollars are materialized on a computer screen, how can they be worth anything?
2. The Federal Reserve’s setting of its benchmark federal funds rate at nearly 1 percent in 2003 to 2004 was a primary cause of the housing and mortgage debacle. Yet, in an attempt to nurse the economy back to health, the Fed has set that rate at nearly zero percent. So what’s the next bubble, and how do you intend to profit by it?
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2. The Federal Reserve’s setting of its benchmark federal funds rate at nearly 1 percent in 2003 to 2004 was a primary cause of the housing and mortgage debacle. Yet, in an attempt to nurse the economy back to health, the Fed has set that rate at nearly zero percent. So what’s the next bubble, and how do you intend to profit by it?
The Decade Ahead: A Prognostication by Kazys Varnelis @ varnelis.net
An interesting and thought provoking extrapolation of current trends. There is much here to agree with, much to fear, perhaps some to look forward to but overall, it paints a pretty grim picture. I like to think I look at things pretty clearly, factually and realistically, and oddly enough, I have arrived at many of the same conclusions as articulated in the article below. Take a read, take a breath and se what you think. Caution: not for the faint of heart or the unaware.
The Decade Ahead
by Kazys Varnelis @ varnelis.net
[ Read original article ]
It's time for my promised set of predictions for the coming decade. It has been a transgression of disciplinary norms for historians to predict the future, but its also quite common among bloggers. So let's treat this as a blogosphere game, nothing more. It'll be interesting to see just how wildly wrong I am a decade from now.
In many respects, the next decade is likely to seem like a hangover after the party of the 2000s (yes, I said party). The good times of the boom were little more than a lie perpetrated by finance, utterly ungrounded in any economy reality, and were not based on any sustainable economic thought. Honestly, it's unclear to me how much players like Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson, and Larry Summers were duplicitous and how much they were just duped. Perhaps they thought they would get out in time or drop dead before the bubbly stopped flowing. Or maybe they were just stupid. Either way, we start a decade with national and global economies in ruins. A generation that grew up believing that the world was their oyster is now faced with the same reality that my generation knew growing up: that we would likely be worse off than our parents. I see little to correct this condition and much [1] to be worried about.
The Decade Ahead
by Kazys Varnelis @ varnelis.net
[ Read original article ]
It's time for my promised set of predictions for the coming decade. It has been a transgression of disciplinary norms for historians to predict the future, but its also quite common among bloggers. So let's treat this as a blogosphere game, nothing more. It'll be interesting to see just how wildly wrong I am a decade from now.
In many respects, the next decade is likely to seem like a hangover after the party of the 2000s (yes, I said party). The good times of the boom were little more than a lie perpetrated by finance, utterly ungrounded in any economy reality, and were not based on any sustainable economic thought. Honestly, it's unclear to me how much players like Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson, and Larry Summers were duplicitous and how much they were just duped. Perhaps they thought they would get out in time or drop dead before the bubbly stopped flowing. Or maybe they were just stupid. Either way, we start a decade with national and global economies in ruins. A generation that grew up believing that the world was their oyster is now faced with the same reality that my generation knew growing up: that we would likely be worse off than our parents. I see little to correct this condition and much [1] to be worried about.
Common Sense and Healthcare
This is a concise and coherent summary that puts much of the recent health care debate into an easily digestible context.
The New Yorker
The Financial Page
Fifth Wheel
by James Surowiecki
January 4, 2010
Reforming America’s health-insurance system was never going to be an easy task, given people’s natural aversion to change (not to mention Republicans’ aversion to doing anything that might help Barack Obama). But what’s made the task even more difficult is that American politicians—as well as American voters—have a confused, and often contradictory, set of beliefs about how health insurance should work. The wayward, patchwork plan that we seem likely to end up with is probably a good reflection of the wayward, patchwork opinions that most legislators have on the subject.
Consider the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, which went into effect in November. The law prohibits health insurers from using genetic information to set rates or deny coverage. At the moment, genetic testing for disease is still relatively crude and uncommon. That will change in the future. People who know that they are much more likely to get sick, and therefore much more likely to run up huge medical bills, will be able to get insurance at the same price as those with less risky genetic profiles. Everyone, it turns out, supports this: the bill passed unanimously in the Senate, and nearly so in the House.
[ Read original article ]
The New Yorker
The Financial Page
Fifth Wheel
by James Surowiecki
January 4, 2010
Reforming America’s health-insurance system was never going to be an easy task, given people’s natural aversion to change (not to mention Republicans’ aversion to doing anything that might help Barack Obama). But what’s made the task even more difficult is that American politicians—as well as American voters—have a confused, and often contradictory, set of beliefs about how health insurance should work. The wayward, patchwork plan that we seem likely to end up with is probably a good reflection of the wayward, patchwork opinions that most legislators have on the subject.
Consider the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, which went into effect in November. The law prohibits health insurers from using genetic information to set rates or deny coverage. At the moment, genetic testing for disease is still relatively crude and uncommon. That will change in the future. People who know that they are much more likely to get sick, and therefore much more likely to run up huge medical bills, will be able to get insurance at the same price as those with less risky genetic profiles. Everyone, it turns out, supports this: the bill passed unanimously in the Senate, and nearly so in the House.
[ Read original article ]
My American Friends
Interesting perspective and commentary that warrants attention. Seems he has nailed down that elusive quality that distinguishes Americans and the American experience for Europeans traveling in the U.S.
January 3, 2010
LETTER FROM LONDON
My American Friends
By GEOFF DYER
The first thing I ever heard about Americans was that they all carried guns. Then, when I came across people who’d had direct contact with this ferocious-sounding tribe, I learned that they were actually rather friendly. At university, friends who had traveled in the United States came back with more detailed stories, not just of the friendliness of Americans but also of their hospitality (which, in our quaint English way, was translated into something close to gullibility). When I finally got to America myself, I found that not only were the natives friendly and hospitable, they were also incredibly polite. No one tells you this about Americans, but once you notice it, it becomes one of their defining characteristics, especially when they’re abroad.
January 3, 2010
LETTER FROM LONDON
My American Friends
By GEOFF DYER
The first thing I ever heard about Americans was that they all carried guns. Then, when I came across people who’d had direct contact with this ferocious-sounding tribe, I learned that they were actually rather friendly. At university, friends who had traveled in the United States came back with more detailed stories, not just of the friendliness of Americans but also of their hospitality (which, in our quaint English way, was translated into something close to gullibility). When I finally got to America myself, I found that not only were the natives friendly and hospitable, they were also incredibly polite. No one tells you this about Americans, but once you notice it, it becomes one of their defining characteristics, especially when they’re abroad.
A Lost Decade
December 28, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
The Big Zero
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Maybe we knew, at some unconscious, instinctive level, that it would be an era best forgotten. Whatever the reason, we got through the first decade of the new millennium without ever agreeing on what to call it. The aughts? The naughties? Whatever. (Yes, I know that strictly speaking the millennium didn’t begin until 2001. Do we really care?)
But from an economic point of view, I’d suggest that we call the decade past the Big Zero. It was a decade in which nothing good happened, and none of the optimistic things we were supposed to believe turned out to be true.
Op-Ed Columnist
The Big Zero
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Maybe we knew, at some unconscious, instinctive level, that it would be an era best forgotten. Whatever the reason, we got through the first decade of the new millennium without ever agreeing on what to call it. The aughts? The naughties? Whatever. (Yes, I know that strictly speaking the millennium didn’t begin until 2001. Do we really care?)
But from an economic point of view, I’d suggest that we call the decade past the Big Zero. It was a decade in which nothing good happened, and none of the optimistic things we were supposed to believe turned out to be true.
Europes Enduring Addiction
Europe's agricultural subsidies cost 55 billion Euros and make up nearly half the entire EU budget
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