The Economist, reviewed

Holiday Double Issue.

First of all, get a better binder. I had several sections of pages fall out, mostly in the middle. The staples which are normally adequate for one single issue don’t appear to work well for double ones.

However, the contents were well worth reading. Here we go!

“The World This Year” was a decent roundup of what happened, including, of course, the ever-present President Trump, Turkey’s slide toward total dictatorship, Li’l Kim in North Korea, so long to Mr. Mugabe in Zimbabwe, the fact that Kenya has elections decided by a court system too, the flood of sexual harassment complaints which have already changed a great deal (though nobody knows for how long), Theresa May’s election miscalculation, the fire that showed that Britain is still the Two Nations spoken of by Disraeli, more elections (Shinzo Abe and new French president Macron), and of course, bitcoin. (sings “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” on that one). The roundup also includes London’s reaction to terrorism (“Hold my beer, I got this”), the decline of the Islamic State, more trouble for the Kurds, more American mass shootings, Spain vs. Catalonia round 590 or thereabouts when you look at history, Myanmar’s disgraceful treatment of Rohingya Muslims (Can the Nobel committee take prizes back?), hurricanes x 3 in the US (and yes, Puerto Rico is part of the US. Will someone tell President Trump that?), and electric cars coming to a future near you. Then there’s Amazon vs. Wal-Mart, and lastly, United Airlines and their spectacularly horrible treatment of passengers (which meant nothing, the UA flight I was on this year was sold out. Prices still win…).

I was delighted by the Hurricane Harvey article. We discovered that liberals actually care about the offenders in their midst (sorry, Senator Franken, but that was really a dick picture), and that Republicans don’t seem to nearly as much. However, people who didn’t like Roy Moore didn’t turn out to vote for him, either. Perhaps the Republican leadership ought to notice this? Oh, wait, they don’t.

But there will be a backlash, I’m sure, and women will be back to having to dodge the main offenders at their place of work same-o same-o this time next year. After all, working class women need to eat, and despite what’s been said about the job market, it’s not always easy to find a new one as Ivanka Trump recommended. I would like to say things will be different, but down in the trenches where most women live, I suspect they won’t be.

There are several articles about Trump, and no surprise. Wherever he goes, he sucks up all the oxygen (I have said that if Hillary did a strip tease, the only headline would be TRUMP THINKS SHE’S JUST A 2). The Economist is right to view him with alarm.

However, that being said, there are good reasons for many Americans to have voted for him (though I’m sure a few people regret that now). Trump said that the American worker was getting a raw deal and that too many jobs were being shipped overseas, and that too many immigrants were getting American jobs. Given that Disney forced US citizens to train their foreign replacements as they were getting fired, you can see his point. Of course, the irony here is that Trump said, “American workers are paid too much”, has all his factories overseas, and hires immigrants to work at Mar-A-Lago, claiming that nobody wants to work there from the US. Mmmm…that’s actually a lie, according to the employment bureaus of Florida. Oops.

Trump also said that we were in too many wars (and given that we actually still *are*, he has a point. Admittedly, keeping us in Afghanistan, and noting the failed raids in Yemen and in Niger this year, kind of makes you wonder why that isn’t being investigated eight times. But I digress). However, the working class people who voted for Trump are the people that most of our military is drawn from. They are the ones who have to wait for the coffins to come home. This is the price of globalism, and lots of people are tired of paying. Again, we have the irony that Trump is perfectly all right with wars as long as he thinks they are good ideas, but the people who voted for him in 2016 heard that he cared, whether he actually did or not. And let’s not forget his draft dodger status.

Trump is a symptom, not the disease. So is Brexit—the Two Nations of Britain are still quite divided, and let’s face it, the Tories still aren’t paying any attention. The first tool, and the last, in their chest is ‘austerity’, which generally means cutting the safety net. Anyone here remember the People’s Charter? Didn’t think so.

The letter section continues to be of interest. As for the gentleman who didn’t think Disraeli lamented the Two Nations, I don’t think he read SYBIL all the way through, or the Moneypenny and Buckle biography. Being a Tory used to mean protecting the worker bee against the moneyed interests, but alas, that’s clearly obsolete these days.

I never thought an article about elevators could be interesting, but “Higher Still and Higher” managed it rather nicely. (I recall an incident at the 1986 World SF Convention where one elevator was overloaded and slid down slowly to the basement—someone made the t-shirt “I survived the Elevator in ‘88 Bid Party”).

“The Perils of Polygamy” illustrates a lot of problems. It’s true that a few men with many wives often results in many men with no wives. Ask China how that is working out for them (and I understand India is starting to have that problem, too, due to sex-selection abortions and less favorable treatment for female babies). High bride-prices don’t always have to mean unmarried men, though, if a gentleman is willing to share, though—I understand that a woman can marry more than one husband at a time in Tibet. But I suspect there’s little willingness to adopt that expedient. Yet. I did enjoy the discussion of breakaway Mormon sects who enjoy putting together their own little Branch Davidian compounds. Still, there could be a push to make polygamy legal in the US (would love to be a mouse in a corner when the Utah Legislature discusses it, too). There would have to be very good enforcement of legal age, however, and valid ways for women, and some men, to become divorced without too many barriers. But is polygamy bad for children because of the culture of rivalry, or bad because of the society not having any other safety net for them?

Some of the articles are clearly included because of the double issue, and delightfully so, as well. “Taking the B Train” urges us to enjoy the felicity of life around us, while “Universe in a Jar” reminds me of why I don’t eat sauerkraut, but love pickles. I enjoyed the retrospective about the Crystal Palace, which appears to have started the whole World’s Fair thing (say, when is the next one, anyway?). The article about the Opium Wars (which has two sides, not one) reminded me of the flood of Chinese-manufactured fentanyl now in the US which is creating such havoc. Sadly, the best way to combat this is on the demand side.

The article about Roy Moore and black voter turnout failed to mention Moore waxing nostalgic about slavery in the closing days of his campaign. Gee, you think that might have had an effect? As for US prison food, yes, there are problems. So, what is British prison food like?

Now, for the foreign news…I should care a great deal more about it than I actually do. It is a surprise that Venezuela is still standing, though they have been circling the drain for quite some time. I am surprised that one of the major oil companies hasn’t just moved in and put it under new management. As for Canada, apparently they aren’t immune from right-wing whining, even if they have to make up a cause.

China and India are well worth watching, though. Border areas like Nepal are getting to be the ball in the game, and are sort of enjoying being bribed by both sides, if truth be known. However, not making a decision of which side to back may well have a greater cost if either party becomes too impatient. Cambodia is turning nasty again—one has to wonder how much of that is Chinese influence (as President Xi cracks down on China’s own society).

Vietnam wasn’t always a Chinese pawn—they used to be great buddies with Russia, if I recall. But ‘it is glorious to be rich’ is still popular in Vietnam, apparently. Still, President Xi apparently isn’t happy till everyone in their orbit is as strict as Xi wants China to be. As for China itself, there’s nothing like state-based accounting (a term that covers all the maneuvers required to make various quotas and to look good to the Party).

And as we see, nationalism is good when it causes someone to break away from the EU, and not so hot if Putin decides to swallow a few more bites. Oops.

The Swiss whistleblower article wasn’t a bit surprising, as I recall how the guy who discovered all that Nazi money that belonged to Jews found out how well his work was received. I hope Mr. Elmer does collect from the IRS, since they are likely to reap rich rewards from his information.

The article about oil and hydrocarbons was highly informative. I suggest that people who are interested in learning more start subscribing to Peak Oil Review on www.resilience.org –it comes out about once a week, with some slippage, and is good about US rig count, with a roundup of world incidents over oil.

I very much enjoyed the article on “Inefficient equilibrium” though I am not terribly surprised. Given that in the hard sciences, an article by a putative male author is almost always considered more important than the exact same article by a putative female author, it isn’t a rude shock to discover that much the same is true in economics as well. Of course, pay rates change in a profession depending on how many women are in them—note the drop in pay for accountants and whatnot once too many women become them. One also notes the raise in pay for nurses as more men join it, too.

As for computers replacing article writers for the Economist, that writing is already on the wall—AI programs already replace much of technical writing, while one program generates readable sports articles right now. The example given may offer assurance to the contributors of the Economist; but it’s only a matter of time. One recalls the All-Purpose Stories that used to be published in MAD Magazine (inserting words into various slots)—but the computer programs used are considerably more sophisticated now.

So, Russian leaders no longer venerate Lenin?  Then again, why should they, now that they have Putin to adore? At least that’s what all the polls say, comrade!

Neat article about Christine Keeler, though. And the cover for the new magazine 1843 looked exquisite, and I can tell right now that I’m not in their targeted demographic. Delish pearls, though.

There were lots of articles I didn’t specifically address, such as the tiger problem and Iceland’s language, but which were still interesting and informative.

All in all, a very good issue. Well, except for the falling out pages.