A Plague of Willful Ignorance
Trump has empowered America’s anti-rational streak.
By Paul Krugman
In the early 20th century the American South was ravaged by pellagra, a nasty disease that produced the “four Ds” — dermatitis, diarrhea, dementia and death. At first, pellagra’s nature was uncertain, but by 1915 Dr. Joseph Goldberger, a Hungarian immigrant employed by the federal government, had conclusively shown that it was caused by nutritional deficiencies associated with poverty, and especially with a corn-based diet.
However, for decades many Southern citizens and politicians refused to accept this diagnosis, declaring either that the epidemic was a fiction created by Northerners to insult the South or that the nutritional theory was an attack on Southern culture. And deaths from pellagra continued to climb.
Sound familiar?
We’ve known for months what it takes to bring Covid-19 under control. You need a period of severe lockdown to reduce the disease’s prevalence. Only then can you reopen the economy — while maintaining social distancing as needed — and even then you need a regime of widespread testing, tracing and isolation of potentially infected individuals to keep the virus suppressed.
Most advanced countries have gone down this route. A few countries, like New Zealand and South Korea, have largely or completely defeated the coronavirus. The European Union, comparable in population and diversity to the United States, continues to record new cases of Covid-19, but at a far slower rate than at the pandemic’s peak in late March and early April.
But the United States is exceptional, in a very bad way. Our rate of new cases never declined all that much, because falling infection rates in the New York area were offset by flat or rising infections in the South and the West. Now cases are on the rise nationally and surging in such states as Arizona, Texas and Florida.
And no, reported infections aren’t rising just because we’re doing more testing; contra Donald Trump, we can’t solve this problem just by testing less. Other indicators, like the percentage of tests coming back positive and hospitalization rates, show that the Covid-19 surge is real.
It’s true that deaths are still falling for the nation as a whole, although they’re rising in some states. This reflects some combination of the way that deaths lag infections, better precautions for the elderly, who are the most vulnerable, and better treatment as doctors learn more about the disease.
But we’re still losing around 600 Americans per day — that is, we’re experiencing the equivalent of six 9/11s every month. And many people who aren’t killed by Covid-19 are nonetheless debilitated by the illness, sometimes permanently.
Why are we doing so badly? A lot of the answer is that many state governments have rushed to return to business as usual even though only a handful of states meet federal criteria for even the initial phase of reopening. Epidemiologists warned that premature reopening would lead to a new wave of infections — and they were right.
Beyond that, in America, and only in America, basic health precautions have been caught up in a culture war. Most obviously, not wearing a face mask, and hence gratuitously endangering other people, has become a political symbol: Trump has suggested that some people wear masks only to signal disapproval of him, and many Americans have decided that requiring masks in indoor spaces is an assault on their freedom.
As a result, social distancing has become partisan: self-identified Republicans do less of it than self-identified Democrats. We all saw how this plays out in Tulsa, where a large (if smaller than expected) crowd gathered, mostly without masks, in an indoor setting custom-designed to spread the coronavirus.
And the next Trump rally, on Tuesday, will take place in Arizona, where Covid-19 is exploding, but where the Republican governor not only refuses to require mask-wearing but refused until a few days ago to allow local governments to impose their own rules.
The moral of this story is that America’s uniquely poor response to the coronavirus isn’t just the result of bad leadership at the top — although tens of thousands of lives would have been saved if we had a president who would deal with problems instead of trying to wish them away.
We’re also doing badly because, as the example of pellagra shows, there’s a longstanding anti-science, anti-expertise streak in American culture — the same streak that makes us uniquely unwilling to accept the reality of evolution or acknowledge the threat of climate change.
We aren’t a nation of know-nothings; many, probably most Americans are willing to listen to experts and act responsibly. But there’s a belligerent faction within our society that refuses to acknowledge inconvenient or uncomfortable facts, preferring to believe that experts are somehow conspiring against them.
Trump hasn’t just failed to rise to the policy challenge posed by Covid-19. He has, with his words and actions — notably his refusal to wear a mask — encouraged and empowered America’s anti-rational streak.
And this rejection of expertise, science and responsibility in general is killing us.
Thanks for posting PK’s columns. While I really like to hear his thoughts, I have no desire to pay one penny to the NYT. Some of their writers are simply repulsive to me, and their “bothsiderism” reporting is depressing.
Quite frankly their constant concentration on Clinton throughout the campaign was a major factor in the low Dem turnout in 2016. In that, they share a responsibility for trump. Just as they do for their coverage of the Iraq War.
Sad what has happened to journalism in the US and the world. I blame Murdoch, and the reaction of other news outlets to Murdoch.
BeiDou Navigation Satellite System: Three generations of excellence
The last satellite of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) was successfully sent into space from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China’s Sichuan Province on Tuesday, marking the completion of the country’s domestically developed BeiDou constellation – one of the four global navigation networks alongside the United States’ GPS, Russia’s GLONASS and the European Union’s Galileo.
Three phases of BDS development
China began constructing its navigation system, named after the Chinese term for the Big Dipper constellation, in the 1990s and started serving the Asia-Pacific region in 2012. In more than 30 years, BDS has achieved a range of goals, such as shifting from active to passive positioning and expanding its service coverage from China to the Asia-Pacific region and eventually the globe.
The first phase involved building the BeiDou-1 system, which officially began in 1994.
Two geosynchronous equatorial orbit (GEO) satellites were launched in 2000, and the BeiDou-1 system was completed and put into operation. A third GEO satellite was launched to further enhance the system’s performance in 2003.
The completion of BeiDou-1 made China the third country after the U.S. and Russia to have a satellite navigation system. In 2013, the BeiDou-1 satellite was decommissioned.
The second phase involved building the BeiDou-2 system, shifting from active to passive positioning, and launching the regional navigation technology services for the Asia-Pacific region.
Construction of the BeiDou-2 system started in 2004. A network of 14 satellites was completed in 2012, which includes five GEO satellites, five inclined geosynchronous orbit (IGSO) satellites and four medium-earth orbit (MEO) satellites.
The BeiDou-2 system added a passive positioning system, which means user devices don’t have to send signals and location can be determined just by receiving the signals. The completion of the BeiDou-2 not only serves China but also provides users in the Asia-Pacific region with positioning, speed measurement, timing and short message communication services.
The third phase involved the development of the BeiDou-3 system, which meant setting up “crosslink” and realizing global networking.
The construction of the Beidou-3 system started in 2009 and completed in 2020. The network comprises 30 satellites, including three GEO satellites, three IGSO satellites and 24 MEO satellites.
The BeiDou-3 system features both active and passive positioning, and solves the problem of global stationing for global networking utilizing “crosslink” or satellite-to-satellite connection “dialogue.”
It serves global users with positioning, navigation, timing, short message communication and international rescue services, and also provides Augmentation System, Precise Point Positioning (PPP) and regional short message communication services in and outside China.
BDS application and market potential
BDS and its derivative devices have offered services to millions of users in the fields of transportation, maritime affairs, electricity, civil affairs, meteorology, fishery, surveying and mapping, mining and public security.
Its market value hit 345 billion yuan (48.58 billion U.S. dollars) in 2019, up 14.4 percent from the previous year, according to an annual industry report.
Vertical markets related to the development and application of the satellite navigation technology, including chip, algorithm, software, data, end devices and supporting infrastructure reported 116.6 billion yuan in output value, accounting for 33.8 percent of the industry’s total.
The completion of the Beidou-3 constellation, along with China’s “new infrastructure projects” with focus on smart technologies, will be a major engine driving growth in the BDS market, the report said.
Trump Suspends Visas Allowing Hundreds of Thousands of Foreigners to Work in the U.S.
The move is fiercely opposed by business leaders, who say it will block their ability to recruit critically needed workers from countries overseas.
By Michael D. Shear and Miriam Jordan
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Monday temporarily suspended new work visas and barred hundreds of thousands of foreigners from seeking employment in the United States, part of a broad effort to limit the entry of immigrants into the country.
In a sweeping order, which will be in place at least until the end of the year, Mr. Trump blocked visas for a wide variety of jobs, including those for computer programmers and other skilled workers who enter the country under the H-1B visa, as well as those for seasonal workers in the hospitality industry, students on work-study summer programs and au pairs who arrive under other auspices.
The order also restricts the ability of American companies with global operations and international companies with U.S. branches to transfer foreign executives and other employees to the United States for months or yearslong stints. And it blocks the spouses of foreigners who are employed at companies in the United States.
Officials said the ban on worker visas, combined with extending restrictions on the issuance of new green cards, would keep as many as 525,000 foreign workers out of the country for the rest of the year.
Stephen Miller, the White House aide and the architect of Mr. Trump’s immigration policy, has pushed for years to limit or eliminate the worker visas, arguing that they harm employment prospects for Americans. And in recent months, Mr. Miller has argued that the economic distress caused by the virus has made it even more important to turn off the spigot.
But the directive, which has been expected for several weeks, is fiercely opposed by business leaders, who say it will block their ability to recruit critically needed workers from countries overseas for jobs that Americans are not willing to do or are not capable of performing.
“This is a full-frontal attack on American innovation and our nation’s ability to benefit from attracting talent from around the world,” said Todd Schulte, the president of FWD.us, a pro-immigration group supported by technology companies.
“Putting up a ‘not welcome’ sign for engineers, executives, IT experts, doctors, nurses and other workers won’t help our country, it will hold us back,” said Thomas J. Donohue, the chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “Restrictive changes to our nation’s immigration system will push investment and economic activity abroad, slow growth and reduce job creation.”
Administration officials said the president’s order would not affect people outside the United States who already have valid visas or seasonal farm workers, whose annual numbers have ranged from a low of about 50,000 to a high of about 250,000 in the past 15 years. There will also be a narrow exception for certain medical workers dealing specifically with coronavirus research, officials said.
The order will ban au pairs who come to the United States to care for children, though officials initially told reporters they would be exempt. Later, two senior administration officials said parents could seek waivers to the ban on a case-by-case basis, with no assurance that they would be approved.
In the order, Mr. Trump described suspension of the visas as a way to ensure that Americans are first in line for scarce jobs — an assertion that immigration advocates say does not reflect the reality of a dynamic and changing work force.
“Under the extraordinary circumstances of the economic contraction resulting from the Covid-19 outbreak, certain nonimmigrant visa programs authorizing such employment pose an unusual threat to the employment of American workers,” Mr. Trump wrote in the order.
The effort to restrict entry from foreigners into the United States was at the heart of one of the president’s key promises during the 2016 campaign and is certain to play a central role as Mr. Trump seeks to energize his core supporters during his re-election campaign this year.
While the president’s pledge to build a “big, beautiful wall” to prevent illegal border crossings has attracted more attention, his efforts to slow down the flow of legal immigration have been even more effective and potentially long-lasting….
More Mind Reading as Washington Post Pushes Another Round of Pandemic Checks as Stimulus
By Dean Baker
For some reason reporters feel it is part of their job to read politicians minds. We got another taste of this in a Washington Post news story * pushing the idea of sending out another big check as a stimulus. The piece begins by telling readers:
“President Trump has told aides he is largely supportive of sending Americans another round of stimulus checks, believing the payments will boost the economy and help his chances at reelection in November, according to three people aware of internal administration deliberations.”
Of course the Post has no idea what Trump believes about the economic impact of stimulus checks. It knows what he says about the economic impact. If Trump “believes” that the checks will boost his re-election chances then he is likely to say that he thinks they will boost the economy, regardless of what he really believes.
As a practical matter, these checks are likely a very poor form of stimulus. The point of another round of spending is first and foremost to help the people who have lost their jobs or in other ways have been hurt by the pandemic. The vast majority of people getting another round of pandemic checks will not be in this category.
The other motive for a stimulus is to increase demand in the economy. Sending checks to people who have not lost their jobs or seen a large decline in their income is likely to have little impact on spending, as shown by the record saving rate seen in April. The saving rate will be lower in May, but likely still extraordinarily high. Many potential check recipients are hesitant to spend money because they are worried about the pandemic, not because they don’t have it.
Incredibly, the Post does not give the view of any economists who have this perspective, even though they would not be hard to find. The only reservations about another round of stimulus mentioned in the piece come from Republicans concerned about the size of the budget deficit.
The New York Times Doesn’t Like It When Workers Have Job Security: The Case of Japan
By Dean Baker
The New York Times had a fascinating piece * pointing out that Japan’s unemployment rate has barely budged in response to the pandemic recession, even as the U.S. rate (adjusted for measurement issues) has topped 15.0 percent. But the piece comes with an important warning:
“Critics say it makes companies reluctant to take risks in hiring new employees, reducing options for the country’s young workers. It may also make it more difficult for businesses to retool their work forces to adapt to changing conditions, making them less productive and hurting their ability to compete in the global economy.”
There actually is little evidence for the unnamed critics’ assertion. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, since 2005, U.S. GDP per hour worked (the broadest measure of productivity) has increased at an annual rate of 1.1 percent. By comparison, Japan’s productivity has increased at a rate of 0.7 percent. This is a notable difference over time, but does not imply that the U.S. is seeing a hugely different picture. In terms of international competitiveness, Japan has a trade surplus of roughly 3.5 percent of GDP, while the U.S. has a trade deficit of 2.4 percent of GDP.
In short, while it is clear that Japan’s workers enjoy much greater employment security than workers in the United States, it is not clear that the country is experiencing the negative outcomes of which the article warns.
Thinking some more about the trade war. I've never considered it anywhere close to the most important bad thing Trump is doing, but the markets seem to care about it a lot. So it's worth noting that there are good reasons to expect a new confrontation 1/ https://t.co/gZXwu6vzyq
Thinking some more about the trade war. I’ve never considered it anywhere close to the most important bad thing Trump is doing, but the markets seem to care about it a lot. So it’s worth noting that there are good reasons to expect a new confrontation 1/
White House trade advisor Peter Navarro denies saying that China trade deal is ‘over’
“My comments have been taken wildly out of context,” Navarro said in a statement from the White House after the Fox News reported that he said the U.S.-China trade deal was “over.”
1:19 PM · Jun 23
There are some things Trump really believes in. One is racism; another is protectionism. He has a completely wrong view on what trade is about, but nobody will persuade him different 2/
Steve Inskeep @NPRinskeep
Page 290: Bolton says he “scoffed” at Trump’s failure to understand what a trade deficit was. Trump saw it purely as a profit and loss statement, when trade deficits and surpluses are far more complex.
On the other hand, Trump has a pattern of being a patsy for dictators who offer him headlines about big deals, which he hopes will benefit him politically, then default on what they promised — e.g., North Korean nukes 3/
In the case of China, Trump made much play of an announced deal — which the Chinese aren’t remotely close to honoring 4/
Trump’s reaction has been all over the place. On one side, there’s the “kung flu” desire to demonize China. On the other, reluctance to admit that he’s been had and residual hope that Xi will somehow help him in November 5/
But the political calculus will, I suspect, change as the election gets closer. It will become impossible to deny that the deal was a bust; also, the chance for China to do him an electoral favor will evaporate. What if he goes into October still way down in the polls? 6/
One likely answer: scream about Chinese betrayal and go all in on trade war. It probably wouldn’t work — the public has never been behind Trump here (see below). But when you’re way down, you go for the Hail Mary pass 7/
Again, the likelihood of an intensified trade war is far from the worst of what I expect to be multiple attempts to generate an October surprise. But it will probably be one of them 8/
Trump has a pattern of being a patsy for dictators who offer him headlines about big deals, which he hopes will benefit him politically, then default on what they promised — e.g., North Korean nukes
[ This is John Bolton and this is entirely false since repeatedly the president has chosen to break agreements with other governments or international institutions. Bolton’s pattern was trying to stop any foreign policy negotiation that was not coercive – e.g., North and South Korea, as the South Korean government has just insisted. ]
George Packer The Atlantic Failure Is a Contagion The blunders of the president and his ideological attorney general are destroying any illusion of control.
A partial rendering of the article:
Last Friday night, Barr claimed, falsely, that Berman had resigned. Jay Clayton, a golfing buddy of Trump’s who is the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, would be the nominee to replace Berman, Barr said; in the interim, the job would go to Craig Carpenito, the U.S. attorney for New Jersey. But Berman replied that he had not resigned and would not resign. Because the attorney general has no power to get rid of a court-appointed U.S. attorney, Barr had to backpedal and enlist the president’s help. On Saturday, Barr announced that Trump was firing Berman at his request. Trump tried to sidestep the mess:
“I’m not involved,” he told reporters.
As the president and his attorney general passed this bag of waste (form your own wording) back and forth, their plan for the Southern District fell through. Because Berman is court-appointed, his interim replacement has to be his deputy, Audrey Strauss, the first assistant U.S. attorney. Strauss is a veteran prosecutor, respected by her peers, thoroughly versed in the cases that threaten Trump, and—though it should be irrelevant—a Democrat who donated to Hillary Clinton in 2016. Trump and Barr are stuck with her. It isn’t clear that either of them understood or foresaw this. The administration’s actions have always reflected a mix of malevolence and incompetence; these days, the balance is shifting toward the latter.
A president who conspired with an ideological attorney general to exercise greater authoritarian power over his government is stumbling into blunder after blunder destroying any illusion of control and with it the grounds for fearing him. The triple crisis of the spring of 2020—the coronavirus, unemployment, protests—and the elusive basement campaign of his Democratic challenger have Trump swinging wildly and connecting with his own face. A masterful setup and follow through by Berman as he exits the door leaving behind a veteran prosecutor, respected by her peers, thoroughly versed in the cases that threaten Trump, and who is (though irrelevant) a Democrat who donated to Hillary Clinton in 2016. Trump and Barr are stuck with Audrey Strauss.
It is going to get interesting in The Southern District NY.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/opinion/coronavirus-trump.html
June 22, 2020
A Plague of Willful Ignorance
Trump has empowered America’s anti-rational streak.
By Paul Krugman
In the early 20th century the American South was ravaged by pellagra, a nasty disease that produced the “four Ds” — dermatitis, diarrhea, dementia and death. At first, pellagra’s nature was uncertain, but by 1915 Dr. Joseph Goldberger, a Hungarian immigrant employed by the federal government, had conclusively shown that it was caused by nutritional deficiencies associated with poverty, and especially with a corn-based diet.
However, for decades many Southern citizens and politicians refused to accept this diagnosis, declaring either that the epidemic was a fiction created by Northerners to insult the South or that the nutritional theory was an attack on Southern culture. And deaths from pellagra continued to climb.
Sound familiar?
We’ve known for months what it takes to bring Covid-19 under control. You need a period of severe lockdown to reduce the disease’s prevalence. Only then can you reopen the economy — while maintaining social distancing as needed — and even then you need a regime of widespread testing, tracing and isolation of potentially infected individuals to keep the virus suppressed.
Most advanced countries have gone down this route. A few countries, like New Zealand and South Korea, have largely or completely defeated the coronavirus. The European Union, comparable in population and diversity to the United States, continues to record new cases of Covid-19, but at a far slower rate than at the pandemic’s peak in late March and early April.
But the United States is exceptional, in a very bad way. Our rate of new cases never declined all that much, because falling infection rates in the New York area were offset by flat or rising infections in the South and the West. Now cases are on the rise nationally and surging in such states as Arizona, Texas and Florida.
And no, reported infections aren’t rising just because we’re doing more testing; contra Donald Trump, we can’t solve this problem just by testing less. Other indicators, like the percentage of tests coming back positive and hospitalization rates, show that the Covid-19 surge is real.
It’s true that deaths are still falling for the nation as a whole, although they’re rising in some states. This reflects some combination of the way that deaths lag infections, better precautions for the elderly, who are the most vulnerable, and better treatment as doctors learn more about the disease.
But we’re still losing around 600 Americans per day — that is, we’re experiencing the equivalent of six 9/11s every month. And many people who aren’t killed by Covid-19 are nonetheless debilitated by the illness, sometimes permanently.
Why are we doing so badly? A lot of the answer is that many state governments have rushed to return to business as usual even though only a handful of states meet federal criteria for even the initial phase of reopening. Epidemiologists warned that premature reopening would lead to a new wave of infections — and they were right.
Beyond that, in America, and only in America, basic health precautions have been caught up in a culture war. Most obviously, not wearing a face mask, and hence gratuitously endangering other people, has become a political symbol: Trump has suggested that some people wear masks only to signal disapproval of him, and many Americans have decided that requiring masks in indoor spaces is an assault on their freedom.
As a result, social distancing has become partisan: self-identified Republicans do less of it than self-identified Democrats. We all saw how this plays out in Tulsa, where a large (if smaller than expected) crowd gathered, mostly without masks, in an indoor setting custom-designed to spread the coronavirus.
And the next Trump rally, on Tuesday, will take place in Arizona, where Covid-19 is exploding, but where the Republican governor not only refuses to require mask-wearing but refused until a few days ago to allow local governments to impose their own rules.
The moral of this story is that America’s uniquely poor response to the coronavirus isn’t just the result of bad leadership at the top — although tens of thousands of lives would have been saved if we had a president who would deal with problems instead of trying to wish them away.
We’re also doing badly because, as the example of pellagra shows, there’s a longstanding anti-science, anti-expertise streak in American culture — the same streak that makes us uniquely unwilling to accept the reality of evolution or acknowledge the threat of climate change.
We aren’t a nation of know-nothings; many, probably most Americans are willing to listen to experts and act responsibly. But there’s a belligerent faction within our society that refuses to acknowledge inconvenient or uncomfortable facts, preferring to believe that experts are somehow conspiring against them.
Trump hasn’t just failed to rise to the policy challenge posed by Covid-19. He has, with his words and actions — notably his refusal to wear a mask — encouraged and empowered America’s anti-rational streak.
And this rejection of expertise, science and responsibility in general is killing us.
Anne,
Thanks for posting PK’s columns. While I really like to hear his thoughts, I have no desire to pay one penny to the NYT. Some of their writers are simply repulsive to me, and their “bothsiderism” reporting is depressing.
Quite frankly their constant concentration on Clinton throughout the campaign was a major factor in the low Dem turnout in 2016. In that, they share a responsibility for trump. Just as they do for their coverage of the Iraq War.
Sad what has happened to journalism in the US and the world. I blame Murdoch, and the reaction of other news outlets to Murdoch.
for anyone who’s interested, i’ve excerpted an important section of my weekly oil & gas post & posted it at the Economic Populist:
Global oil output surplus was at 8.6 million barrels per day in May, despite OPEC cut of 6.3 million bpd
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-06-23/BeiDou-Navigation-Satellite-System-Three-generations-of-excellence-Ry4yOKUH84/index.html
June 23, 2020
BeiDou Navigation Satellite System: Three generations of excellence
The last satellite of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) was successfully sent into space from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China’s Sichuan Province on Tuesday, marking the completion of the country’s domestically developed BeiDou constellation – one of the four global navigation networks alongside the United States’ GPS, Russia’s GLONASS and the European Union’s Galileo.
Three phases of BDS development
China began constructing its navigation system, named after the Chinese term for the Big Dipper constellation, in the 1990s and started serving the Asia-Pacific region in 2012. In more than 30 years, BDS has achieved a range of goals, such as shifting from active to passive positioning and expanding its service coverage from China to the Asia-Pacific region and eventually the globe.
The first phase involved building the BeiDou-1 system, which officially began in 1994.
Two geosynchronous equatorial orbit (GEO) satellites were launched in 2000, and the BeiDou-1 system was completed and put into operation. A third GEO satellite was launched to further enhance the system’s performance in 2003.
The completion of BeiDou-1 made China the third country after the U.S. and Russia to have a satellite navigation system. In 2013, the BeiDou-1 satellite was decommissioned.
The second phase involved building the BeiDou-2 system, shifting from active to passive positioning, and launching the regional navigation technology services for the Asia-Pacific region.
Construction of the BeiDou-2 system started in 2004. A network of 14 satellites was completed in 2012, which includes five GEO satellites, five inclined geosynchronous orbit (IGSO) satellites and four medium-earth orbit (MEO) satellites.
The BeiDou-2 system added a passive positioning system, which means user devices don’t have to send signals and location can be determined just by receiving the signals. The completion of the BeiDou-2 not only serves China but also provides users in the Asia-Pacific region with positioning, speed measurement, timing and short message communication services.
The third phase involved the development of the BeiDou-3 system, which meant setting up “crosslink” and realizing global networking.
The construction of the Beidou-3 system started in 2009 and completed in 2020. The network comprises 30 satellites, including three GEO satellites, three IGSO satellites and 24 MEO satellites.
The BeiDou-3 system features both active and passive positioning, and solves the problem of global stationing for global networking utilizing “crosslink” or satellite-to-satellite connection “dialogue.”
It serves global users with positioning, navigation, timing, short message communication and international rescue services, and also provides Augmentation System, Precise Point Positioning (PPP) and regional short message communication services in and outside China.
BDS application and market potential
BDS and its derivative devices have offered services to millions of users in the fields of transportation, maritime affairs, electricity, civil affairs, meteorology, fishery, surveying and mapping, mining and public security.
Its market value hit 345 billion yuan (48.58 billion U.S. dollars) in 2019, up 14.4 percent from the previous year, according to an annual industry report.
Vertical markets related to the development and application of the satellite navigation technology, including chip, algorithm, software, data, end devices and supporting infrastructure reported 116.6 billion yuan in output value, accounting for 33.8 percent of the industry’s total.
The completion of the Beidou-3 constellation, along with China’s “new infrastructure projects” with focus on smart technologies, will be a major engine driving growth in the BDS market, the report said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/us/politics/trump-h1b-work-visas.html
June 22, 2020
Trump Suspends Visas Allowing Hundreds of Thousands of Foreigners to Work in the U.S.
The move is fiercely opposed by business leaders, who say it will block their ability to recruit critically needed workers from countries overseas.
By Michael D. Shear and Miriam Jordan
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Monday temporarily suspended new work visas and barred hundreds of thousands of foreigners from seeking employment in the United States, part of a broad effort to limit the entry of immigrants into the country.
In a sweeping order, which will be in place at least until the end of the year, Mr. Trump blocked visas for a wide variety of jobs, including those for computer programmers and other skilled workers who enter the country under the H-1B visa, as well as those for seasonal workers in the hospitality industry, students on work-study summer programs and au pairs who arrive under other auspices.
The order also restricts the ability of American companies with global operations and international companies with U.S. branches to transfer foreign executives and other employees to the United States for months or yearslong stints. And it blocks the spouses of foreigners who are employed at companies in the United States.
Officials said the ban on worker visas, combined with extending restrictions on the issuance of new green cards, would keep as many as 525,000 foreign workers out of the country for the rest of the year.
Stephen Miller, the White House aide and the architect of Mr. Trump’s immigration policy, has pushed for years to limit or eliminate the worker visas, arguing that they harm employment prospects for Americans. And in recent months, Mr. Miller has argued that the economic distress caused by the virus has made it even more important to turn off the spigot.
But the directive, which has been expected for several weeks, is fiercely opposed by business leaders, who say it will block their ability to recruit critically needed workers from countries overseas for jobs that Americans are not willing to do or are not capable of performing.
“This is a full-frontal attack on American innovation and our nation’s ability to benefit from attracting talent from around the world,” said Todd Schulte, the president of FWD.us, a pro-immigration group supported by technology companies.
“Putting up a ‘not welcome’ sign for engineers, executives, IT experts, doctors, nurses and other workers won’t help our country, it will hold us back,” said Thomas J. Donohue, the chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “Restrictive changes to our nation’s immigration system will push investment and economic activity abroad, slow growth and reduce job creation.”
Administration officials said the president’s order would not affect people outside the United States who already have valid visas or seasonal farm workers, whose annual numbers have ranged from a low of about 50,000 to a high of about 250,000 in the past 15 years. There will also be a narrow exception for certain medical workers dealing specifically with coronavirus research, officials said.
The order will ban au pairs who come to the United States to care for children, though officials initially told reporters they would be exempt. Later, two senior administration officials said parents could seek waivers to the ban on a case-by-case basis, with no assurance that they would be approved.
In the order, Mr. Trump described suspension of the visas as a way to ensure that Americans are first in line for scarce jobs — an assertion that immigration advocates say does not reflect the reality of a dynamic and changing work force.
“Under the extraordinary circumstances of the economic contraction resulting from the Covid-19 outbreak, certain nonimmigrant visa programs authorizing such employment pose an unusual threat to the employment of American workers,” Mr. Trump wrote in the order.
The effort to restrict entry from foreigners into the United States was at the heart of one of the president’s key promises during the 2016 campaign and is certain to play a central role as Mr. Trump seeks to energize his core supporters during his re-election campaign this year.
While the president’s pledge to build a “big, beautiful wall” to prevent illegal border crossings has attracted more attention, his efforts to slow down the flow of legal immigration have been even more effective and potentially long-lasting….
Krugman’s columns are also available at https://leaders.economicblogs.org/category/krugman/
https://cepr.net/more-mind-reading-as-washington-post-pushes-another-round-of-pandemic-checks-as-stimulus/
June 23, 2020
More Mind Reading as Washington Post Pushes Another Round of Pandemic Checks as Stimulus
By Dean Baker
For some reason reporters feel it is part of their job to read politicians minds. We got another taste of this in a Washington Post news story * pushing the idea of sending out another big check as a stimulus. The piece begins by telling readers:
“President Trump has told aides he is largely supportive of sending Americans another round of stimulus checks, believing the payments will boost the economy and help his chances at reelection in November, according to three people aware of internal administration deliberations.”
Of course the Post has no idea what Trump believes about the economic impact of stimulus checks. It knows what he says about the economic impact. If Trump “believes” that the checks will boost his re-election chances then he is likely to say that he thinks they will boost the economy, regardless of what he really believes.
As a practical matter, these checks are likely a very poor form of stimulus. The point of another round of spending is first and foremost to help the people who have lost their jobs or in other ways have been hurt by the pandemic. The vast majority of people getting another round of pandemic checks will not be in this category.
The other motive for a stimulus is to increase demand in the economy. Sending checks to people who have not lost their jobs or seen a large decline in their income is likely to have little impact on spending, as shown by the record saving rate seen in April. The saving rate will be lower in May, but likely still extraordinarily high. Many potential check recipients are hesitant to spend money because they are worried about the pandemic, not because they don’t have it.
Incredibly, the Post does not give the view of any economists who have this perspective, even though they would not be hard to find. The only reservations about another round of stimulus mentioned in the piece come from Republicans concerned about the size of the budget deficit.
* https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/23/trump-stimulus-checks-second-round/
https://cepr.net/the-new-york-times-doesnt-like-it-when-workers-have-job-security-the-case-of-japan/
June 22, 2020
The New York Times Doesn’t Like It When Workers Have Job Security: The Case of Japan
By Dean Baker
The New York Times had a fascinating piece * pointing out that Japan’s unemployment rate has barely budged in response to the pandemic recession, even as the U.S. rate (adjusted for measurement issues) has topped 15.0 percent. But the piece comes with an important warning:
“Critics say it makes companies reluctant to take risks in hiring new employees, reducing options for the country’s young workers. It may also make it more difficult for businesses to retool their work forces to adapt to changing conditions, making them less productive and hurting their ability to compete in the global economy.”
There actually is little evidence for the unnamed critics’ assertion. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, since 2005, U.S. GDP per hour worked (the broadest measure of productivity) has increased at an annual rate of 1.1 percent. By comparison, Japan’s productivity has increased at a rate of 0.7 percent. This is a notable difference over time, but does not imply that the U.S. is seeing a hugely different picture. In terms of international competitiveness, Japan has a trade surplus of roughly 3.5 percent of GDP, while the U.S. has a trade deficit of 2.4 percent of GDP.
In short, while it is clear that Japan’s workers enjoy much greater employment security than workers in the United States, it is not clear that the country is experiencing the negative outcomes of which the article warns.
* https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/20/business/japan-unemployment.html
Paul Krugman @paulkrugman
Thinking some more about the trade war. I’ve never considered it anywhere close to the most important bad thing Trump is doing, but the markets seem to care about it a lot. So it’s worth noting that there are good reasons to expect a new confrontation 1/
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/23/white-house-trade-advisor-peter-navarro-denies-saying-china-trade-deal-is-over.html
White House trade advisor Peter Navarro denies saying that China trade deal is ‘over’
“My comments have been taken wildly out of context,” Navarro said in a statement from the White House after the Fox News reported that he said the U.S.-China trade deal was “over.”
1:19 PM · Jun 23
There are some things Trump really believes in. One is racism; another is protectionism. He has a completely wrong view on what trade is about, but nobody will persuade him different 2/
Steve Inskeep @NPRinskeep
Page 290: Bolton says he “scoffed” at Trump’s failure to understand what a trade deficit was. Trump saw it purely as a profit and loss statement, when trade deficits and surpluses are far more complex.
On the other hand, Trump has a pattern of being a patsy for dictators who offer him headlines about big deals, which he hopes will benefit him politically, then default on what they promised — e.g., North Korean nukes 3/
In the case of China, Trump made much play of an announced deal — which the Chinese aren’t remotely close to honoring 4/
[ https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EbNqwc7WkAAacL2?format=png&name=small ]
Trump’s reaction has been all over the place. On one side, there’s the “kung flu” desire to demonize China. On the other, reluctance to admit that he’s been had and residual hope that Xi will somehow help him in November 5/
But the political calculus will, I suspect, change as the election gets closer. It will become impossible to deny that the deal was a bust; also, the chance for China to do him an electoral favor will evaporate. What if he goes into October still way down in the polls? 6/
One likely answer: scream about Chinese betrayal and go all in on trade war. It probably wouldn’t work — the public has never been behind Trump here (see below). But when you’re way down, you go for the Hail Mary pass 7/
[ https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EbNrzSvWkAA56YV?format=png&name=small ]
Again, the likelihood of an intensified trade war is far from the worst of what I expect to be multiple attempts to generate an October surprise. But it will probably be one of them 8/
Paul Krugman:
Trump has a pattern of being a patsy for dictators who offer him headlines about big deals, which he hopes will benefit him politically, then default on what they promised — e.g., North Korean nukes
[ This is John Bolton and this is entirely false since repeatedly the president has chosen to break agreements with other governments or international institutions. Bolton’s pattern was trying to stop any foreign policy negotiation that was not coercive – e.g., North and South Korea, as the South Korean government has just insisted. ]
George Packer The Atlantic Failure Is a Contagion The blunders of the president and his ideological attorney general are destroying any illusion of control.
A partial rendering of the article:
A president who conspired with an ideological attorney general to exercise greater authoritarian power over his government is stumbling into blunder after blunder destroying any illusion of control and with it the grounds for fearing him. The triple crisis of the spring of 2020—the coronavirus, unemployment, protests—and the elusive basement campaign of his Democratic challenger have Trump swinging wildly and connecting with his own face. A masterful setup and follow through by Berman as he exits the door leaving behind a veteran prosecutor, respected by her peers, thoroughly versed in the cases that threaten Trump, and who is (though irrelevant) a Democrat who donated to Hillary Clinton in 2016. Trump and Barr are stuck with Audrey Strauss.
It is going to get interesting in The Southern District NY.