Today’s links to interesting news and analysis…
- India’s hidden role in the Af-Pak War: “Afghanistan: The Forgotten Conflict in Kashmir“, Pankaj Mishra, blog of the NY Review of Books, 8 December 2009
- Pro-war extremist collides with actual expert on Iran (results are illuminating, but not pretty): “Explaining the concept of ‘learning curve’ to Jeffrey Goldberg“, “Hillary Mann Leverett, Race for Iran, 8 January 2010
- Provocative analysis of the Left’s political apathy: “Symposium“, E. J. Dionne, Jr., Dissent magazine, Winter 2010 — “In a democracy political engagement is an act of patriotism, a declaration of faith in the judgment of one’s fellow citizens and thus, ultimately, in one’s nation … truly effective social critics are embedded in their societies and operate at least as much out of love as from alienation.”
- Amazing: “Israeli general Brigadier-General Uzi Eilam denies Iran is nuclear threat“, The Times, 10 January 2010
- Review of Paul Berman’s 2003 book Terror and Liberalism, by Joshua Micah Marshall at Washington Monthly, May 2003
- Far away but of great importance to America: “Leverage and China’s Property Market“, Patrick Chovanec (Asoc Prof at Tsinghua U’s School of Economics and Management in Beijing), blog of the Financial Times, 7 January 2010
- Chovanec also wrote “The Nine Nations of China“, interactive map at the website of The Atlantic, 5 November 2009
Quote of the Day
Much of the world faces not the leftist nirvana of zero population growth, but negative population growth. Effective contraceptive for women has changed the world. Effective contraception for men (the men’s pill) will change it even more (and it’s coming, eventually). Japan is the pioneer, but much of the world follows their path:
- “Population probably shrank even more in 2009“, Japan Times, 1 January 2010 — Another year, fewer people in Japan.
While the effect on the world’s ecology might be beneficial, the effect on the world’s economies might be painful. As seen in this quote:
“In an era of declining population, demand tends be below what is expected and a state of over-supply is less easily corrected. Thus a pessimistic atmosphere may issue; and although at long last pessimism may tend to correct itself through its effect on supply, the first result to prosperity of a change-over from an increasing to a declining population may be very disastrous.”
— John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, 1936 (hat tip to Bruce Krasting)
