Hard Choices Ahead...

The kind of political leaders the world needs to thrive in the future, from Thomas Friedman:

We are leaving an era where to be a mayor, governor, senator or president was, on balance, to give things away to people. And we are entering an era where to be a leader will mean, on balance, to take things away from people. It is the only way we’ll get our fiscal house in order before the market, brutally, does it for us.

In my book, the leaders who will deserve praise in this new era are those who develop a hybrid politics that persuades a majority of voters to cut where we must so we can invest where we must. To survive in the 21st century, America can no longer afford a politics of irresponsible profligacy. But to thrive in the 21st century — to invest in education, infrastructure and innovation — America cannot afford a politics of mindless austerity either.

Confucian Ethics and Chinese Kindness

I read a couple of interesting opinion pieces in the Straits Times today. One was by Chris Patten, Chancellor of Oxford University and former governor of Hong Kong, who wrote on the positive role of religion in society. He closed by saying "we should listen to the core messages of all these great religions, above all the Confucian golden rule that we should never do to others what we would not like to be done to us."

I find that Westerners regularly prefer to elevate the morals of non-Western societies and religions above the dominant religions and cultural norms of the West. It was curious to me that Patten chose to elevate the Confucian "golden rule" above every other religious teaching. And it struck me that the message boiled down to the Google motto of "Do no harm."

In contrast to the Confucian teaching, the Christian "golden rule" taught by Jesus in the Bible is to "Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you."

Also in the Straits Times today was an article by Ho Ai Li entitled "Hard to be kind in China," in which she talks about the Chinese cultural norm of not offering help to people in public, even to those who are injured. She contrasts this with the American preference for volunteering to help strangers in need.

How do her observations relate to the Confucian and Christian teachings in their societies? Whereas the Confucian teaching is a matter of restraint, not acting in a certain way, the Christian teaching is a matter of activism, acting in a certain way. Christians, and the societies with strong Christian influences, are taught to actively reach out to do good to people, especially people in need. That emphasis is not as strong in societies with Confucian influences, which tend to emphasize minding your own business and not getting involved in other peoples' (or countries') affairs. We can see this in Chinese versus Western foreign policy as well as in individuals' social behavior.

I wonder if Chris Patten sees a correlation, and would prefer above all that individuals and societies stay out of others' lives?

Social Networking Revolution

I read today that Facebook has changed the way people relate to each other more than anything else since the introduction of the post office.

Do you think that is true? How has Facebook changed the way you relate to others?

An editorial in today's Straits Times by Robin Dunbar of Oxford University stated that "Emotional closeness declines by around 15 percent a year in the absence of face-to-face contact, so that in five years someone can go from being an intimate acquaintance to the most distant outer layer of your 150 friends."

How does Facebook affect that dynamic? I know it occasionally reminds me of my distant friends, but I am not sure it actually brings many of them closer to me. Maybe if I was better at broadcasting what I am thinking and feeling and doing, it would help others feel more emotionally connected to me. But I have to face it, I am not a broadcaster by nature. I am more interactive and inquisitive in relationships, not a pacesetter or opinion sharer.

Where to Retire in the US?

Not the best places, but the WORST states to retire in listed here:

Illinois, California, New York, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Ohio, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Nevada.

States with the highest cost of living in the third quarter of 2010 were, in order, Hawaii, Alaska, California, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland, Vermont and New Hampshire, according to a Missouri Economic Research and Information Center analysis. The District of Columbia also makes the list.

States with the greatest tax burdens after New Jersey were New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Hawaii, California, Ohio, Vermont, Wisconsin and Rhode Island, joined by the District of Columbia.

Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin joined California as the 10 most fiscally troubled states.

In a related survey, USAA and Military.com announced this week that Waco, Texas, tops the first-ever "Best Places for Military Retirement" list. In its report, USAA and Military.com focused on U.S. communities that offer "a high quality of life and help maximize military retiree benefits as service members manage their 'first retirement' from the armed forces and begin planning their 'second retirement' from civilian life." Other places on that list included, in order, Oklahoma City; Austin, Texas; College Station, Texas; Harrisburg, Pa.; San Angelo, Texas; Madison, Wis.; Pittsburgh; New Orleans; and Syracuse, N.Y.

Concentrate to breed happiness

“We see evidence for mind-wandering causing unhappiness, but no evidence for unhappiness causing mind-wandering,” Mr. Killingsworth says.

What psychologists call “flow” — immersing your mind fully in activity — has long been advocated by nonpsychologists. “Life is not long,” Samuel Johnson said, “and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.” Henry Ford was more blunt: “Idleness warps the mind.” The iPhone results jibe nicely with one of the favorite sayings of William F. Buckley Jr.: “Industry is the enemy of melancholy.”

Secret Ingredients to Happiness

Well, they're not really secrets.

But with the way people ignore them, you would think nobody believes in the importance of sleep, diet, and exercize.

I mean, really, how many people do you know who take really good care of themselves? If they are, then they must not be working very hard, are they? And if they aren't busy getting ahead, how can they be happy?

Come to think of it, I know a lot of busy and unhappy people. Maybe they should read this article from Gallup Management Journal.

Not OK to be a bigot

From Christianity Today:

David Gushee of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good said politicians who were using the mosque issue for political gain "deserve neither our sympathy nor our acquiescence, but only our condemnation." His words for Christians who opposed the mosque were just as pointed.

"For those mainly conservative Christians who are responding to this and other mosque projects with open expressions of anti-Muslim hatred, and open rejections of the principles of religious liberty from which Christians themselves daily benefit, shame on you! As a fellow Christian, I say that you bring dishonor to the name of Jesus Christ, you directly disobey his command that we love our neighbors, and you drive the watching world even further away from any interest in the Gospel message!" said Gushee.

China Becomes World's Second Largest Economy

China continues phenomenal growth, but as it becomes more developed, that will be harder to sustain. It is much easier to grow 10% when average income is $3,600 (China's) than when it is $46,000 (US's). Look at how the predictions of Japan's ascendancy fizzled. I do not believe there are the cultural pre-requisites in either Chinese or Japanese society for allowing their sustainable rise to the top. Good Q - what would those cultural characteristics be?

Tokyo said that Japan’s economy was valued at about $1.28 trillion in the second quarter, slightly below China’s $1.33 trillion. Japan’s economy grew 0.4 percent in the quarter, Tokyo said, substantially less than forecast. That weakness suggests that China’s economy will race past Japan’s for the full year.

Experts say unseating Japan — and in recent years passing Germany, France and Great Britain — underscores China’s growing clout and bolsters forecasts that China will pass the United States as the world’s biggest economy as early as 2030. America’s gross domestic product was about $14 trillion in 2009.

“This has enormous significance,” said Nicholas R. Lardy, an economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “It reconfirms what’s been happening for the better part of a decade: China has been eclipsing Japan economically. For everyone in China’s region, they’re now the biggest trading partner rather than the U.S. or Japan.”

For Japan, whose economy has been stagnating for more than a decade, the figures reflect a decline in economic and political power. Japan has had the world’s second-largest economy for much of the last four decades, according to the World Bank. And during the 1980s, there was even talk about Japan’s economy some day overtaking that of the United States.

But while Japan’s economy is mature and its population quickly aging, China is in the throes of urbanization and is far from developed, analysts say, meaning it has a much lower standard of living, as well as a lot more room to grow. Just five years ago, China’s gross domestic product was about $2.3 trillion, about half of Japan’s.

This country has roughly the same land mass as the United States, but it is burdened with a fifth of the world’s population and insufficient resources.

Its per capita income is more on a par with those of impoverished nations like Algeria, El Salvador and Albania — which, along with China, are close to $3,600 — than that of the United States, where it is about $46,000.

How to Change the World

Here is a brilliant story. Go to the link to find the key to creating change.

When Jerry Sternin arrived in Vietnam, the welcome was rather chilly. The government had invited his employer, Save the Children, the international organization that helps kids in need, to open an office in the country in 1990 to fight malnutrition. But the foreign minister let Sternin know that not everyone in the government appreciated his presence. The minister told him, "You have six months to make a difference."

Sternin had traveled to the country with his wife and 10-year-old son. None of them spoke the language. "We were like orphans at the airport when we arrived in Vietnam," he said. "We had no idea what we were going to do." Sternin had minimal staff and meager resources.

The conventional wisdom was that malnutrition was the result of an intertwined set of problems: Sanitation was poor. Poverty was nearly universal. Clean water was not readily available. The rural people tended to be ignorant about nutrition.

That analysis was, in Sternin's judgment, TBU -- true but useless. "Millions of kids can't wait for those issues to be addressed," he said. If addressing malnutrition required ending poverty and purifying water and building sanitation systems, then it would never happen. Especially in six months, with virtually no money to spend.

When Values Replace Ethics

Wow, a spot on analysis from Dennis Prager:

Opponents of the popular expression of conservative opposition to big government, the tea party, regularly note that tea partiers are overwhelmingly white. This is intended to disqualify the tea parties from serious moral consideration.

But there are two other facts that are far more troubling:

The first is the observation itself. The fact that the Left believes that the preponderance of whites among tea partiers invalidates the tea party movement tells us much more about the Left than it does about the tea partiers.

It confirms that the Left really does see the world through the prism of race, gender and class rather than through the moral prism of right and wrong.

One of the more dangerous features of the Left has been its replacement of moral categories of right and wrong, and good and evil with three other categories: black and white (race), male and female (gender) and rich and poor (class).

Don't get a job...

...go on a mission!

Seth Godin writes:

Everyone's model of work is a job

That's the conclusion of a very long essay on startups by Paul Graham, and it's an insightful quote.

The reason you feel most comfortable with a job (unless, like me, you're in the minority--a job would destroy my psyche) is that you've been brainwashed by many years of school, socialization and practice. I pick the word brainwashed carefully, because it's more than training or acclimation. It's something that's been taught to you by people who needed you to believe it was the way things are supposed to be.

The less a project or task or opportunity at work feels like the sort of thing you would do if this is just a job, the more you should do it.

4 Choices for Democrats

I think this article in the NY Times insightfully protrays what has happened in the first year of the Obama Administration, and what the Democrats can now do about it...

Therefore, they counseled, the new administration should move cautiously to rebuild trust before beginning a transformational agenda.

The Obama administration interpreted the political climate in an entirely different way.... the administration interpreted the 2008 election as a rejection of not only George W. Bush-style conservatism, but also Bill Clinton-style moderation. The country was ready for a New Deal-size change. It had a leader in Barack Obama who could uniquely inspire a national transformation.

As happens every four years, hubris defeated caution, and the administration began its big-bang approach.

As always, it backfired. Instead of building trust in government, the Democrats have magnified distrust.

Scary Deficit Numbers

Just how much is the deficit piling up? And how will we ever climb out of the debt hole? This article in Kiplinger's has the sobering numbers...

In fiscal 2009, federal debt held by the public jumped by a third, to $7.8 trillion. At the end of fiscal 2008, debt held by the public measured 41% of GDP. By 2014, it’ll equal a whopping two-thirds of GDP.

The interest payments on the debt will be staggering. They could soar to as much as $800 billion a year by the end of this decade, gobbling up 16% of the total budget. Indeed, servicing the debt may become the single biggest item in the federal budget, surpassing Medicare, defense and Social Security.