Economist, Aug 10, 2013

choi

There is no need to read the rest of (1), (2) or (6).

(1) Thailand’s economy | The Rice Mountain; An increasingly unpopular government sticks to its worst and most costly policy

Quote:

"This week an opinion poll carried out by Bangkok University found that the government’s approval rating has fallen to its lowest level yet. Most damaging to its reputation is its flagship scheme to subsidise rice. This was the brainchild of Mr Thaksin [Shinawatra, a former prime minister in exile], who dictates most of his sister’s [current PM Yingluck Shinawatra's] policies from afar.

"Two-fifths of Thais work in agriculture, most of them as rice farmers. Ms Yingluck promised that, if she were elected, her government would buy unmilled rice directly from farmers at about twice the market rate, or 15,000 baht (about $500) per tonne.

"other countries have undercut Thailand, whose exports have tumbled (by about 4m tonnes, or a third, in the first full year of the subsidy scheme). India and Vietnam have overtaken Thailand as the biggest exporters. Unable to find buyers, the Thai government has been forced to stockpile 18m tonnes of the stuff and counting—equivalent to nearly half the annual global trade in rice. Buying rice from farmers is ruinously expensive, costing the Thai government $12.5 billion in the first year of operation. This year the cost is expected to rise to about $15 billion, or 4% of GDP. Storing the rice also carries administrative and logistical costs, and demands expensive new warehouses.

Worse: "Criminal gangs and bent officials [in Thailand] are said to have smuggled in thousands of tonnes of cheap grain from Cambodia and Myanmar in the hope of profiting from government largesse [by selling to Thai government as Thai rice]. This rice has got mixed in with Thai grain [so stored rice has poor quality and commands low price, which Thai government would have to sell at a big loss but would not or could not]

choi

(2) The Israel Defence Forces | Taking Wing; Israel’s armed forces are shifting emphasis from mechanised warfare toward air and cyber power.

Quote:

“Israeli defence spending remains the world’s fifth highest per person and young Jews continue to do up to three years of military service [except Orthodox members]. * * * As Israel has boomed, military spending has fallen from 17.7% of GDP in 1991 to around 6% today.

“One of the reasons behind Israel;s new order of battle is the Arab spring. The armies in the largest neighbouring countries no longer represent the conventional threat they once did. * * * ‘We’re surrounded by failed states,’ declares a [Israeli] minister.

My comment:
(a) Israel–United States relations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isr ... ed_States_relations
("The main expression of Congressional support for Israel has been foreign aid.[1] Since 1985, it has provided nearly $3 billion in grants annually to Israel, with Israel being the largest annual recipient of American aid from 1976 to 2004 and the largest cumulative recipient of aid since World War II. Seventy-four percent of these funds must be spent purchasing US goods and services")
(b) Economy of Israel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Israel
(GDP $235b (PPP), $245b (nominal); GDP per capita $31,005 (PPP), $32,298 (nominal; all IMF's 2011 estimates)
(c) In contrast to Israel's getting money (from US) and submarines (from Germany) for free years after year, Taiwan declined US grant in 1960s.

Charles HC Kao. The American Economic Review, 57: 943-945
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10 ... ;sid=21102552464773
(book review on Neil H Jacoby, US Aid to Taiwan; A study of foreign aid, self-help, and development. Praeger, 1966; "During the period 1951-65, Taiwan received a total of $1,465 million in US aid, amounting to about $10 per capita per year and to 6.4 per cent of Taiwan's GNP over the entire aid period")  

choi

(3) Italian manufacturing | A Washout; Years of crisis have reinforced the pressure on Italy’s once-envied industrial base.
http://www.economist.com/news/bu ... strial-base-washout

Quote:

"Italy has long been Europe’s second-biggest manufacturing power, beaten only by Germany. It still is, just about, but its production base is being jeopardised by competition from abroad and the downturn at home.

Since 2008: "Italy’s makers of luxury clothing and accessories have done fairly well, boosted by strong demand from the emerging world’s new rich. But producers of low-price fabrics and clothes have been badly hit: overall, the textile industry’s output is down by 35%. Production of electrical goods has fallen by a similar proportion, and carmaking is down by 45%. [Ditto industries of electrical goods]

"The picture is also grim in domestic appliances, another area of manufacturing in which Italy used to be a world leader. * * * All the leading appliance-makers were established or made their names between 1945 and 1965, when 'white goods,' as they used to be called, epitomised Italy’s post-war economic miracle. Today the production figures paint a picture of an industry under siege.

My comment:
(a) washout (n)
Online Etymology Dictionary, undated
http://www.etymonline.com/index. ... &search=washout
(b) Reguarding quotation 1. No wonder I seldom hear of industrial might of France or United Kingdom.

choi

(4) 3D printing with paper | Print Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia; A new, low-cost way of making things.
http://www.economist.com/news/sc ... head-alfredo-Garcia
("Staples, an office-supplies company, has introduced it at its store in Almere in the Netherlands. And the layers their machine prints are made of a substance that Staples has in abundance: A4 sheets of paper. The process was invented by Conor MacCormack, an Irish aerospace engineer, and his brother Fintan [whose company is Mcor Technologies])

Note:
(a)
(i) Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bring_Me_the_Head_of_Alfredo_Garcia
(a 1974 American film; section 1 Plot)
(ii) I do not think the film showed the face--or figure--of Alfredo Garcia, because in the plot he had already died when pursuit of him began. And I can not find trace of him in the Web. Most likely, the head in the Economist article is a parody.

(b) paper size
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_size
(A4: 210mm × 297mm or 8.27 inch × 11.69 inch
(c)
(i) Mcor Technologies
http://www.mcortechnologies.com/
(video clips)

is based in
(ii) County Louth, Ireland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_Louth
(The official spelling in the Irish (Gaelic) language (Lú) * * * is derived from Lughbhaidh - the Celtic pagan god Lugh)

choi

(5) The photographs of Mathew Brady | History on Film; A portrait of a man who captured a nation in flux.
http://www.economist.com/news/bo ... n-flux-history-film
(book review on Robert Wilson, Mathew Brady; Portraits of a nation. Bloomsbury USA, 2013)

Note:
(a)
(i) Matthew (name)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_(name)
(Translations in other languages: Mathew in English and Welsh)
(ii) Meaning of the Irish surname Brady is "not clear."

(b) "IN 1860 a little-known lawyer travelled to New York to deliver a big speech about slavery and the constitution to the Cooper Institute. A photograph taken a few hours before shows him dressed in black, his waistcoat rumpled, his shirt collar awkwardly arranged around his long neck, his left hand resting on a stack of books. Some years later, after Abraham Lincoln (pictured) was elected president of the divided United States, the photographer, Mathew Brady, was introduced to him as if they had never met. But Lincoln recognised him right away, declaring 'Brady and the Cooper Institute made me president.' Or so Brady claimed."
(i) The way the paragraph is written, which places "(pictured)" behind "Abraham Lincoln" AFTER he was elected, gave me the impression that the photo of Lincoln above the Economist book review was taken following the election. BESIDES the photo was a bit too dark, unable to show details of his "crumpled" waistcoat. However, the Economist photo was taken Feb 27, 1860 all right. See next.
(ii) Cooper Union speech
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper_Union_speech
(section 5 External links: Text of the speech)
(iii) Cooper Union
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper_Union
(Founded in 1859, and inspired in 1830 when [American industrialist] Peter Cooper learned about the government-supported École Polytechnique of Paris [established during the French Revolution in 1794 by Gaspard Monge, a French Mathematician; tuition-free for French nationals]; as of April 23, 2013, due to financial concerns, that policy [of full-tuition scholarship, "a landmark in American history" (this Wiki page)] has been eliminated beginning with the class entering in the Fall of 2014)
(iv) In the photo, President Lincoln wore a waistcoat underneath frock coat (both black).
(A) waistcoat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waistcoat
(commonly called a vest in American English)
(B) frock coat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frock_coat

(c) "As striking as his portrait of Lincoln is one he took of the defeated General Robert E Lee just after the Confederacy’s surrender in 1865. Brady perfectly captured Lee’s steady, sad gaze. Studio portraiture in those days was a slow business, of long exposures and iron frames to hold heads still."
(i) Robert E Lee and Mathew Brady. History Replays Today, Apr 1, 2012 (podcast).
http://www.historyreplaystoday.c ... d-mathew-brady.html
("He [Lee] reluctantly agreed to the meeting with Matthew Brady four days later on April 20, 1865")
(ii) About Mathew Brady. Son of the South, undated (blog)
http://www.sonofthesouth.net/lee ... 0Mathew%20Brady.htm
("Mathew Brady Photograph of [a standing] Robert E Lee Taken just days after the end of the Civil War[.] Brady took six photos, five of which survived")
(iii) There was also this photo of a sitting Lee (flanked by his son and an aide), in a slightly different pose than the one in (i).  
(iv) photography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography
(section 2.2 First camera photography (1820s): Invented in the first decades of the 19th century * * *In March 1851, Frederick Scott Archer published his findings in "The Chemist" on the wet plate collodion process. This became the most widely used process between 1852 and the late 1860s when the dry plate was introduced)

(d) "Rather unusually, he [Brady] often included himself in the wings of his photographs. With his distinctive little glasses and broad-brimmed hat, he acted as a proxy for the viewer’s gaze."
(i) Mathew Brady
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathew_Brady
(c 1822-1896)

shows him in glasses.
(ii) Mathew Brady ~The father of Photojournalism. Anthony Luke's Not-Just-Another-photoblog Blog, May 26, 2011.
http://anthonylukephotography.bl ... ther-of-modern.html

Photos 3 and 4 has him with and without a hat.

choi

(6) Obituary | Wu Denming, environmental activist, died on July 19th, aged 73.

Note: 吴 登明