Economy in crisis; Obama rebounds

Well I sure feel a little silly.

After leading in expectations and polls all summer long, Obama spent the last two weeks trailing McPalin in the polls. Nervous nellie Democrats like me got our panties in a bunch over the dreaded "Sarah Palin effect", convinced that Americans had become stupid with delusion and that the election was over for Obama.

Not so fast. There's nothing like a good old financial crisis (nay, crash?) to shake up an election. I'd rather that it didn't take a trillion dollars of evaporated wealth to wake people up, but at least there are more important things for people to worry about now than lipstick on pigs and sex education for kindergartners. Not to get too confident, but things sure don't look good for McPalin now.

An entire career towing the conservative ideological line on deregulation, and suddenly, after 26 years, McCain has decided that he's an anti-Wall Street populist? Um, yeah...

I don't want to sound like a cheerleader for this crisis. It's disastrous. It's frightening. I have money in the stock market and I just lost a lot. Dow Jones declined to a point it was at in 1999 yesterday. Nine years undone. Nine wasted years. well, we pretty much knew that already, what with what this country has accomplished in those nine years: adding 10 trillion dollars of debt, squandering global good will for our country, and the wars.

During those nine years, there were some good years on Wall Street. 2003-2007 looked really good. But we know that that that so much of that growth was an utter fraud, built upon misleading profits, a financial house of cards without a solid foundation. This is going to cause a lot of people a lot of harm, but maybe it's for the best. This house of cards couldn't keep going forever. Something had to give. Maybe this will be the crisis that shakes up the system and brings people back down to earth.

I don't think this is going to spell ruin for the entire economy. There are still plenty of companies that have sound business models, right? The financial sector may be in a mess but it can't drag everything down with it, can it?

The thing is, no one really knows. Because never before in our history has the financial sector been so huge and so intertwined with everything else, all around the globe.

They say that 47% of the work-bound graduates from my class at Harvard went straight to investment banks and management consulting firms. I had absolutely no interest in such jobs when I was at Harvard. In fact, for most of my time there I hardly knew what investment banking was. Now, it seems, I'm glad for that. I wonder what all my i-banker classmates are going to do now.

Wall Street got so very greedy. Now investors who put their trust in the smarties on Wall Street and the taxpaying public are paying the price. Obama has got to drive home the fundamental attack that the Republican conservative ideology of laissez faire economics and deregulation is what got us into this mess, and John McCain's hands are dirty. He cannot let McCain off the hook on this.

And now, some of the better articles on this crisis I've read in the last 24 hours:

Scrambling to clean up after a Category 4 Financial Storm, Washington Post

The monumental greed of Wall Street CEOs, Nicholas Kristoff, New York Times

Editorial page of the Financial Times

History provides little comfort, Financial Times

This greed was beyond irresponsible, Forbes

Modern history's greatest regulatory failure, Financial Times

Why I dislike it when liberals compare our "aging infrastructure" to China's

I agree with the general argument that the United States, once the richest and most powerful nation in the world, is on the decline. Evidence of this decline abounds: the decline of the dollar, the expanding trade deficit, rising economic inequality, the decline of our prestige in the world community, our enormous debt, our appalling health care system, the growing unaffordability of college, our lack of investment in alternative energy sources, the obesity pandemic, the soul-crushing blandness of our exurban built environment, and the fact that half our population is still intent on reliving the culture wars, looking backward rather than forward.

But there is one line of argument that often gets grouped in with the aforementioned evidence that I would like to question. It is that of our "crumbling infrastructure". For the most part, I thought Roger Cohen's recent op-ed in the NY Times, was dead-on. But when he got to talking about our "collapsing bridges, crawling trains, dilapidated airports, potholed roads" something he said rubbed me the wrong way. He writes:

We’ve been spending too much on fear while others spend on the future. And now J.F.K. looks like LOTH — Lagos-on-the-Hudson — while the Hong Kong airport shimmers the way American promise once did.

I get his point, and I agree that we've been wasting billions of dollars on so-called "security" instead of shoring up our built infrastructure to prepare for a future in which oil will be increasingly expensive and scarce. But does he have to call JFK "Lagos on the Hudson"? That strikes me as crass. I understand the dramatic impact of comparing New York City to Lagos, Nigeria. He's saying: "We're the US. We're supposed to be the best. Instead, we're becoming like a third world nation, like Nigeria" and that's supposed to be a wake-up call, a shocker, because Cohen is relying on the supposed hierarchy that places the United States far above Nigeria. I say: can't we leave Nigeria out of it?! I actually don't know what's so wrong with JFK. Space-wise I'm sure it could benefit from expansion. But it seems like he's talking more about its aesthetic value, its veneer. When Hong Kong and Beijing and Dubai and other cities in the so-called "third world" are building "shimmering" 21st century airports, I can see how Americans might feel jealous. But I'd rather invest our money in utilitarian infrastructure, such as public transit systems, than pretty airport terminals.

Which brings me to another general point about our "crumbling infrastructure". I actually like old buildings. I think the variety of housing stock in America's cities is one of their selling points. I'm all for people keeping their buildings in good shape, but I don't mind the occasional shabby-looking building. It's shabby-looking buildings that allow people of varying incomes to live in the same communities, and I think that's a good thing. Not that I'm suggesting that the dilapidated urban landscape of a city like Detroit is worth aspiring to. Just that, I wouldn't keep using the "crumbling infrastructure" line permeate the main argument about why the United States is slipping and needs to change. I think we have more important things to deal with first before we try to renew our national housing stock. Things like fixing health care, schools, and investing in alternative energy and public transportation. By all means, where new development is going in, make it shimmer with mixed use, green design features, and a modern (or postmodern) aesthetic. But stop wasting resourced on "redevelopment", condemning buildings that are a little "crumbling" but provide affordable housing. A little wear is fine. It shows character. We have a lot of reasons to be embarrassed as a country right now. A few cracks and some peeling paint shouldn't be among them.

"Struggling in the US? Move to China!" I review a terrible book.

I made an impulse purchase at the Chinese Cultural Bookstore in a Chinese mall in Chicago earlier this summer. I was driving across the country and thought it might make good reading material. The title of the book? "Move to China!" by David A Williams. I should have known better. I should have immediately been turned off by the subtitle preceding the main title: "Struggling in the U.S? Move to China!"
It makes it sound as if people who can't make it in America should instead head to China, and, indeed, that is exactly what happened with Mr. Williams, who was stuck in a dead-end engineering job in Los Angeles when what he really wanted was to be an "actor" and "model" and be the center of attention. What follows are his claims of how he accomplished just that in China, where, as he tells it, being a good-looking Měiguórén (American) goes a long way.

Move to China is perhaps the most poorly written book I have ever had the unfortunate experience to read. Nevertheless, I read it cover to cover, because, despite how utterly bad and juvenile it was, I was fascinated by this book, the fact that it had found a publisher, that there was apparently a market for books like this, and as a case study of what not to do when I, myself, make the proverbial "move to China".

Mr. Williams would certainly not be the first American to move to China and take advantage of the opportunities that are available to Westerners there. The expat community in China is a fast growing one, and I predict it will swell in the wake of the Olympics and global attention to China of late. But whereas many of the expats head to China with a job already lined up, to spend a year or two in their company's China office, or as a planned exercise in professional or cultural development tied into their careers back home, Mr. WIlliams adopts more homespun, do-it-yourself tactics. He arrives without any contacts or jobs lined up, and with minimal language background, and proceeds immediately to land part time jobs, network intensively, and gain fluency in Mandarin (or so he claims). For that, I don't begrudge him. In fact, his claim to have become "fluent" in Chinese in just nine months is one of his more impressive accomplishments, and one from which I take some heart, because when I move to China I will already have a small leg up in that I'm taking formal Mandarin language courses this fall and should arrive in China being able to read and write several hundred characters.

Mr. Williams has been able to use his tall, blonde-haired good looks to land a number of modeling jobs and bit parts in movies and TV commercials. Its not exactly high caliber artistic work, but it pays well enough that Mr. Williams can afford to live side by side with American businessmen living in China. It's safe to say that, whereas Los Angeles has a million men and women just like Mr. Williams competing for the same jobs, the available pool of Western actors in China is more limited, and this has benefited Mr. Williams. As I tuned into CCTV-9 (The Chinese state-run television corporation's English-language channel) during the Olympics last month, I watched numerous advertisements by various provincial tourism authorities, narrated by canned-sounding generic white voices. I could just imagine that one of these voices was Mr. William's.

Mr. Williams is clearly enraptured by China, to the point that his admiration becomes almost farcical and any semblance of objective, impartiality is thrown out the window. There's nothing wrong with liking China. I like China, too. But the things he credits China with border on farcical and, at times, are downright naïve, if not ignorant. I tend to believe that stereotypes and sweeping generalizations are always best avoided, even when they are "positive stereotypes" rather than negative ones. But Mr. Williams relies heavily on such positive stereotypes, asserting that "China is easier and more fun than America", "China is a wonderful place to pursue your dreams and have a fulfilling life", "Chinese people treat foreigners like royalty", "Things in China are a fraction of what we pay in America" (apparently, he's never been to a Chinese Starbucks!), "China is much safer than America".

Mr. Williams presses the case that there is more freedom in China than in America. For instance, "in America there are laws for everything" such as the prohibition of drinking for under-21's, which Mr. Williams thinks "is just an example of too much legislature". China has no such law against underage drinking. Therefore, he argues, China is more free. He makes the standard-issue claim that Chinese people have more personal freedoms today than ever before, which I am inclined to agree with. No mention is made, however, of the millions of Chinese for whom such freedoms (e.g. the freedom to watch uncensored movies on one's DVD player, the freedom to dress in fashionable clothes) are elusive because they at the bottom end of a growing economic divide. Mr. Williams associates mostly with other Beijing actors, models, and the businessmen who hire him as a "spokesperson", which might explain his narrow view of "freedom" and well-being in contemporary China.

While Mr. Williams at times attempts a nuanced cultural relativism, some of his claims are clearly from his ethnocentric (not to mention class and race-biased) position as an American, and hinge on the downright ignorant and obnoxious. "Financial freedom," he writes, "is one of the first things I noticed when I arrived in Beijing. China's cost of living is much lower than America's is." Umm....listen buddy....China's cost of living may seem lower to you but that's because you're still thinking in dollars. The lifestyle you live in Beijing is far beyond the means of most Chinese. And inflation over the last year has made that lifestyle even more expensive for everyday Chinese. Without any sense of self-awareness, Mr. Williams writes that "America is fun, and is a great place to live, if you have money. But, for those who are middle income or struggling financially, America has become too expensive." Replace the word "America" with "China" and this statement applies equally well, if not more so.

Mr. Williams feels that developers and builders in China have more "freedom from red tape" unlike in America, where they are saddled by "burdensome" environmental regulations. While I can accept that regulations between the countries should differ, and that China has greater need to develop its urban infrastructure as it seeks to expand its middle class, I'm not so sure if China's lack of red tape is such a good thing in the long run (witness the ramifications of the shoddy schools that collapsed in the Sichuan earthquake earlier this year). Mr. Williams doesn't seem to know anything about the politics of development, which, in fact, may remove red tape for those with deep pocketbooks and political connections, but which, in fact, create red tape for traditional landowners, farmers, and citizens who are often the victims of unscrupulous developers.

Mr. William's over-generalizations reach a crescendo when he describes the "character" of "Chinese people": "Chinese people are more respectful", "Chinese people always put their family first". When he gets to talking about Chinese women in particular, he falls back on all the worst stereotypes popularized in the West: "Not only are Chinese women beautiful and slender, but they are also kind, sincere, and loyal." He then goes on to extol the virtues of "traditional" Chinese women over "modern", more "Westernized" women, because, he claims, they are "more loyal" and "more beautiful". Mr. Williams boasts of his exploits with various "beautiful women", but also boasts of his myriad "friendships" with both men and women. In his outgoing approach to China and Chinese people I have no complaints. It's great that he makes such an effort to meet new friends and that he only speaks Chinese and makes a point of avoiding English as much as possible. But I wonder how many of his hundreds of "friends" are really friends, not just networking acquaintances. And I am skeptical, to say the least, when he so cocksuredly proclaims himself an "Old China Hand" after his one year in the country. Unlike the other expats who just speak English and hang out at the same foreigner bars, he actively seeks out "the real China" and "real Chinese culture". Sound familiar? I spent a large chunk of my thesis deconstructing the myth of traveler authenticity.

I'm intrigued by the whole idea of China being the new "land of opportunity", a magnet for immigrants, kind of like the United States was for most of its history. It's telling of America's decline in economic and cultural power that Americans are now pursuing the "American dream" in places other than America. And that, I'm afraid, is exactly what Mr. Williams is doing in China. Although he has adapted facets of Chinese culture (he speaks Chinese, he eats Chinese food) he is still living a very pursuing the same dreams he had in America: becoming rich, sleeping with beautiful women, and finding success as a model and actor.

I don't want to get too deep into how much of other facets of contemporary economic-cultural pursuits are "American" or "Western" as some commentators have done. The fact is that Chinese people who can afford to are moving into single family homes in suburbs far away from the city center and buying SUVs just like their American counterparts have done now for decades. The nouveau riches of China flaunt their wealth with luxury consumer goods and fashions, which is why there are now more Gucci outlets in China than the United States. I'm not crazy about this trend. I'm just not crazy about over-consumption, or unsustainable suburban development, regardless of what country it's in. And while it is tempting to look back at China's recent (and not-so-recent) history and decry all these new trends as evidence of a nefarious "Americanization" at odds with "traditional Chinese culture", I think that characterization is a cop-out. Some of the development under way in China resembles things seen in the United States, while some doesn't (some is much more impressive). I think greed, vanity, and narcissism transcend geopolitical, and geocultural, boundaries.

I said I was intrigued by the idea of China being the new land of opportunity for the David Williams of the world. But I'm also wary of it. To me, Mr. Williams is something of a gadfly and an opportunist. He was a loser in the United States, and he went to China to be cool. I don't want people like him giving foreigners a bad name. In some correspondence I've had with people in China, there is definitely a perception that some of the foreigners are there because they were washed up in their own countries and decided to take advantage of a rising China. I don't think these kinds of foreigners get much respect. Open displays of disrespect are uncommon in China, which is why Mr. Williams may think he's so popular, but I bet a lot of his "friends" don't think so fondly of him behind his back.

Finally, my biggest complaint about the book is that Mr. Williams writing is mediocre at best, and juvenile at worst. He has the vocabulary of a middle-schooler, and at times sounds like a Hallmark greeting card. His writing style is not just colloquial; he constructs sentences in a conversational voice that is grammatically atrocious when read on paper.

His chapter titles are hilariously dumb:

1. Seven years of frustration
2. Then I found out about China
3. I must move to China

8. Chinese people are more respectful
9. I love Chinese food
10. So many Chinese holidays
11. Beautiful, kind, caring Chinese women

16. Everything in China is BIG

Bottom line, "Move to China!" is a painful read that made me cringe often. It wasn't all bad, and I have to credit the author with his achievements in China (especially learning the language so quickly). But my overall reaction was that this was a perfect example of what I do not want to be when and if I move to China. Much of the book is given over to inane descriptions of his various modeling and acting gigs and Mr. William's incessant name dropping, always appended by pointless adjectives ("my beautiful ex-girlfriend Miao", "my kind friend Li"). As for any actually useful tips he gives, they are generic and can be found in any other book about foreigners living in China. I would recommend this book only for novelty value.