Category Archives: Essays

China has a College Problem

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If you read certain conservative sources, you will often read allegations that China is secretly supporting this or that ideology in order to weaken America. But there is one idea that is as American as apple pie that is doing its bit to destroy China. And that is the idea that every good little boy or girl will go to college and get a white collar job. This insidious American idea (you could argue it is more an Anglo-Saxon one but I think America should take credit) is making China’s demographic problems a lot worse.

The basic demographic problem that China faces is that its working age population is dropping like a rock while the number of retirees soars. China’s work force has shrunk by 40 million in the last 3 years. That is like losing the entire population of Canada if Canada was solely populated by people 16 to 59 years old.

With people falling out of the work force at an accelerating rate, you would think that it would be a great time to be a young person in China looking for a job. But you would be wrong. In June of this year, the youth unemployment rate in China hit a record high of 21.3%. China promptly fixed this problem by no longer reporting this number so we have no idea how bad it is now.

How is it that China can have a demographic crisis that is crashing their working age population while at the same time having a high youth unemployment rate? The answer is simple. All those only children born as result of the one child policy were pushed to go to college by the same government that mandated that parents only have one child.

From the Council On Foreign Relations…….

For decades now, the Chinese government has encouraged university enrollment, pushing the number of students in higher education from 22 million in 1990 to 383 million in 2021. During the pandemic, it pressed even harder, expanding graduate-school capacity. Master’s-degree candidates rose by 25 percent in 2021. China’s Ministry of Education estimated that 10.76 million college students would graduate in 2022, 1.67 million more than in 2021—and it expects a further large rise in 2023.

383 million collage students currently enrolled in higher education is greater than entire population of the United States. Even for a nation as big as China, that is massive share of its young people to push through higher education. And for what? Do you need a collage degree to work on factory floor? Do you need a college degree to build a building? The point is, China is not producing near enough jobs that need college degrees (even taking an American HR departments view of what jobs “need” a college degree) to absorb all those college graduates.

The result is predicable. As the South China Morning Post delicately puts it….

Manufacturers and others are pointing to a growing mismatch between the jobs young people are looking for and the jobs that are in dire demand.

So the bottom line is that people with skills that China desperately needs can’t be found while at the same time a bunch of young people educated to sit at a desk can’t find a desk to sit at.

Anecdotally this problem is made worse by China’s culture. In America, it is common for young people to get a worthless degree and then go get a job in something that has nothing to do with that degree. They are not happy about it, but that is what they do. But in China it seems that going to school and being the first one in your family line to get a college degree makes it very shameful to then go work in a factory. So China’s collage graduates (often with the support of their families) seem very reluctant to face the fact that the degrees they got have no economic value and they have to look at jobs that they thought would be “beneath” them.

As was noted in the beginning, a lot of people focus on the bad things being imported from China to America. But it is a two way street and lot of bad ideas in America work their way into China and it seems like ideas that are bad in American seem to have an even worse impact in other countries. Overinvestment in higher education certainly seems to be an example of this. It is a big problem in America but it seems like an even worse problem in China.

But the more you look at China, the more this seems to be the rule rather than the exception. A lot of China’s problems stem from looking at what “success” looks like in other countries and deciding to copy that at an insanely rapid pace. They are now reaping the results of that in everything from demographics to skills gaps to overinvestment in real estate.

Looking back at my first “internet” essay

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When I was in my early 20s and bored out of my mind, I created an essay website. The first essay that I put up on the website was called “Pondering the Battle of Bicocca” in which I noted how success lead to overspecialization and speculated a little bit on how that might apply to the US Air Force. I thought it might be interesting to revisit that essay now in light of the Ukraine war.

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Scho-Ka-Kola

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Lately, my source of caffeine at work has been Scho-Ka-Kola. Half a tin of this stuff gives you a little more caffeine then a cup of coffee. If taken first thing in the morning, it can make a bad day a lot better. Since I try not to get too hooked on caffeine, I limit myself to two times a week (i.e. one tin). I am a little ashamed of this given the cost but I have not got up the willpower to kick the habit yet.

I first discovered this heavily caffeinated dark barely sweetened (the description calls it bitter but I think that is over-selling it) while searching for a source of contingency caffeine. The idea was to find something that I could take when I had been dragged through 20 miles of the high peaks by people younger and in better shape then me only to leave long past bedtime with nobody in my vehicle who could stay awake enough to drive. Being a history nerd, I thought that chocolate that the Germans issued as part of their “Iron Ration” might fit the bill but who still made that?

A quick internet search indicated that the stuff was still made but at first my research indicated that it is way to expensive for anything other then a novelty. On Amazon it sells for $9.96 a can. But for some reason Varusteleka (a company in Finland of all places and the link at the start of this post takes you there) can sell it for $3 a can if you buy 10 at time. At first the goal was only to try some to see if it was worth keeping around for contingencies but I got hooked on it and so now it has become a twice weekly habit. The primary advantage for me stems around how lazy I am and the fact that I don’t like coffee.

What would happen before Scho-Ka-Kola is that I would try to make myself a cup of tea. Odds are, I would not be able to do that first thing in the morning because I would be too busy. Then I would get some time to heat up some tea in the microwave and then I would get busy again. The microwave would be forlornly beeping at me and annoying the office assistant who was closer to the microwave then I was. Eventually I would get the tea and work on it between crisis. Most of the time I would drink the bulk of my tea cold and often later then when I wanted to get my caffeine in me.

With the Scho-Ka-Kola, I can wolf down half a tin down while reading emails and in a few hours my whole day will be better (I don’t metabolize anything fast). Varusteleka will tell you that it is “Not recommended for children, pregnant women, or those with a high sensitivity to caffeine” and I normally consider myself highly sensitive to caffeine. But if you drill down into the numbers, a tin of Scho-Ka-Kola has 200mg of caffeine in it. According to my sources, an average cup of coffee has 95 mg of caffeine in it. So if you only eat half a tin per day you are barely getting more caffeine then by drinking 8 fluid ounces of coffee. In other words, Varusteleka is overselling the caffeine just like they oversell the bitterness of the chocolate. That is all right for me. I don’t need it any stronger then it is. But I suspect that people who drink a couple of cups of coffee a day would find that it is pretty lame fare.

For my purposes, Scho-Ka-Kola is pretty much perfect except for the price and the tins. At a $1.50 a day, there are much cheaper ways of getting the same amount of caffeine. As for the tins, they are awesome but it seems like a shame to throw them out. And if you use a can a week, soon you have so many cans you don’t have much choice. I would rather it come in a cardboard box and be cheaper over all then come in the tin. But these issues have not been a deal breaker for me so far and I suspect that I will keep buying it until it gets so expensive I can’t stomach it or the supply dries up. It just works so much better for my life and tastes buds then all the alternatives that I am aware of.

Some Thoughts On Hezbollah’s Problem

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1. There are three things that separate a great general from a poor one. The first and most important is that a great general will want to win above all else, a poor general will want to avoid losing above all else. The second is that a great general will know when time is on his side and when it is not where as a poor general is governed by the mood of the crowd and not by the favor of time. And the lastly, the great general will work well with allies and talented subordinates where is the poor general will be a micromanager who does not understand how to bring people to his side.
2. If Hezbollah has a great general, the current situation in Israel must be giving him a headache. All of his choices are bad. By my definition of a good general, he will choose the path that offers victory no matter how dangerous and ignore any path that merely puts off defeat no matter how safe it seems in the short term. But what path offers victory?
3. If we look purely through the lens of what would give Hezbollah the most power, the victory for Hezbollah must be the destruction of Israeli military power. Currently no other regional actor has the power to constrain Hezbollah. The Lebanon’s government is no match for it. The Syrian government is too weak to counter it even if it wanted to. Jordan would be hard pressed to take on Hezbollah alone if it ever came to that. Only Israel could credibly threaten Hezbollah. In other words, even if you throw ideology aside and imagine that institutions are at their core guided by the desire to maximize their own power, Hezbollah has every reason to want to see Israel severely weakened or destroyed.
4. Granting point #3, is this the right time for Hezbollah to try to weaken or destroy Israel? This is not a question of whether Hezbollah “can” destroy Israel or not. Great generals always go for victory even it if seems impossible. Rather, the question if time is on Hezbollah side or not. If Hezbollah will be stronger in a year or two then a great general would wait a year or two. But if Israel will be stronger in a year or two then a great general would strike now regardless of the risks.
5. In the abstract it would be better for Hezbollah to wait for a year or two. Hezbollah has put a lot of work (and rumor has it, suffered a lot of causalities) ensuring that Syria remains ruled by an ally. For the most part it appears that it has succeeded in this goal but Syria is still a wreck. It would benefit Hezbollah if the Syrian state could be given a chance to grow back into a semblance of its former power. Much has been made of Hezbollah’s growing strength but this has been counterbalanced by the great fall in Syria’s power. Back when Hezbollah was weaker, it could count on Syrian help. Now Hezbollah is mighty and has more effective power then Syria but it can’t count on any effective help from Syria. It would benefit Hezbollah to have a stronger Syria to help out Hezbollah.
6. But now Hamas has made its play, can Hezbollah afford to let Israel destroy Hamas? There is always the risk that a newly paranoid Israel will turn on Hezbollah after destroying Hamas. If this is a possibility maybe it would be better attack Israel while Hamas is still in the game.
7. A deeper problem for Hezbollah stems from the nature of its power. Hezbollah’s core strength stems from the fact that it can rally lots of people who are willing to die for it. This is why Hezbollah’s enemies fear them and why their allies give them lots of weapons and money. But this is a double edge sword. Groups whose source of power is money or great numbers can withstand a loss of respect because money and numbers are a source of power all by themselves. But if Hezbollah loses respect, will people still be willing to die for it?
8. In other words, losing respect is an existential threat for Hezbollah. And if Hezbollah does nothing while Hamas is destroyed, it is hard to see how they will not lose respect.
9. Another problem is that Hamas attack has temporarily rallied Israel’s allies. There is a chance that full on Hezbollah attack would bring the US into the fight on Israel side. Is the pain of fighting Israel and the US worth saving Hamas for (who after all are similar in ideology to the people that Hezbollah has been fighting in Syria)?
10. But what is more deadly to Hezbollah, US bombs or losing respect? All of its prestige and support is based around being an effective counter to Israel (or at least, more effective then all the alternatives). Whatever the US does to Hezbollah, it will only increase the respect that Hezbollah has. On the other hand, respect does not do you any good if you no longer have a functioning organization. So can Hezbollah survive the wrath of the US and Israel in enough of functional form to take advantage of this respect?
11. It is true that the US might join in if Hezbollah attacks Israel. But it is unlikely that they will do anything beyond bomb. Hezbollah is used to getting bombed by Israel and what is the US likely to do that Israel has not already done in that regard? Is it really possible for Israel to occupy southern Lebanon and Gaza at the same time like it has in the past? Demographics have been marching on and not in Israel’s favor. That said, a desperate Israel with US support would be deadly. It is an Israel that is off the leash that is more likely to inflict real damage then American air power. But Israel has already tried to take on Hezbollah twice and Hezbollah has only grown stronger. Why should this time be any different?
12. The fundamental problem for Hezbollah is that the fundamentals of good generalship are all mixed up in this fight. There are lots of good reasons for them to want to wait (need to rebuild Syria, the fact that demographics are on their side, the fact that the US is waiting in the wings) but lots of reasons for them to feel compelled to join in (the fact that they can’t rule out that Israel would turn on them after Hamas regardless of what they do and the fact that even if Israel did not do that they would lose respect for sitting the fighting out). A good general does not let the crowd tell him what to do but the respect of the crowds is the core of Hezbollah’s strength and a good general does not disregard the pillars of his strength. So since a good general desires victory above all else, what would a good general do with these conflicting demands?
13. On the balance, I think that a great Hezbollah general would wait until Israel seems maximally committed to Gaza before attacking with full strength. This would make it harder for Israel to just contain Gaza and focus on Hezbollah and it would ensure that there was maximum reason for the world at large to be horrified by what happens when you send a conscript army into an urban area. The goal would be to inflict so much economic damage on Israel that it would not be able to recover from it. At the same time the hope would be that the prestige and support for such an act would help Hezbollah repair its own damage in record time after the war was over.
14. The above presumes that Hezbollah is an independent actor and has a good general. As for the independent actor part, I think it has about as much independence from Iran as Israel does from the US. That is to say, Iran has a lot of influence but is not as controlling as many think. As for Hezbollah having a great general, I don’t know. But throughout my life time it has been growing in power compared to Israel. Hezbollah’s main set back has been Israel’s other enemies have been getting steadily weaker. Syria is no longer a threat to Israel and Egypt is dependent on charity to avoid descending into mass starvation. This means that even though Hezbollah is stronger than it has ever been, it has less chance of anyone coming to its aid than ever before. The one small bright spot has been the fact that Hamas has been growing more effective. That only sharpens the question if Hezbollah can afford to watch them get knocked out.
15. On the other paw, Hezbollah’s leaders are human. And they have to know whatever the abstract calculations are; there is a good chance they or people they care about will die if they take war to Israel. The gloves will come off and it will be very bloody on both sides. Maybe this human fear for their own lives will keep them out of the conflict. But if it does, and Israel succeeds in more or less wiping out Hamas then Hezbollah will be weakened by the resulting loss of respect. And so the question will be, can an organization like Hezbollah that depends on people being willing to give up their lives for it survive a loss of respect?

Thoughts on Ukraine in Brief

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1. I think it is safe to say that Ukraine’s offensive has failed politically. Every victory that Ukraine achieved resulted in a boast of support as people on the western street thought that if their country just threw more money at Ukraine they could feel like they were part of the winning sports team (speaking cynically). The lack of news worthy progress has led to a falling off of the desire to give more money to Ukraine all around the world on the part of the everyday Joe.

2. In one sense, Ukraine’s failed offensive is a victory for Russia. Russia seemed determined to make sure that Ukraine had no territorial gains to boast about like they had in the past and they succeeded in that goal. But this goal was archived by experiencing more losses then Ukrainians even though the Russians were on the defensive. As best I can tell, this is because Russia would frantically counterattack anytime they lost ground or even looked like they were losing ground. Moreover, it seems that Russia forced people to stand and die long past the point of their being any military benefit as conventionally understood.

3. In spite of Russia’s bloody minded determination, Ukraine did succeed in creating a small bridgehead into Russia’s defensive lines. Looking at that bridge head on a map, and it looks like the perfect place for Russia to do a pincer attack and put the Ukrainian forces into a pocket or force them to withdraw. But Russia seems to be making no attempt to do this. I am guessing that this is because local Ukrainian artillery superiority prevents them from maneuvering the types of forces needed to do this.

4. Instead, Russia seems to have decided to try to make a surprise attack to take Avdiivka. In once sense this is understandable. If the first surprise attack had worked, it might have been worth it and certainly Ukraine has made similar attempts/errors. But the doubling down and continuing to send columns after columns of armored fighting vehicles to their deaths is truly mind blowing. The conventional wisdom at the moment seems to be that there is no way the Russians can take Avdiivka. I am not sure about that. Russian’s proved at Bakhmut that they can outlast losses that western analysts think should stop them. But by the same token, the price of Bakhmut was the destruction of Wagner as an effective fighting force and the first armed munity of the war. On top of that, Russia gained no discernible strategic advantage from taking Bakhmut. If Russia truly commits to taking Avdiivka at “any cost” it seems likely that the price they will pay will be even greater then what they paid for Bakhmut and it is not clear what advantage they would get from it in a strategic sense.

5. Overall, it seems that Russia failed to use this year to rebuild their combat power. Whatever they managed to accumulate seems to have gotten thrown into one front or another. New equipment has been showing up at the front so we know they are still making stuff. But the overall quality of the equipment in the Russia army seems to be going down. This seems to indicate that they can’t keep up with the losses they are suffering.

6. Russian fiscal situation is deteriorating. It is hard to tell how badly because they have stopped the release of a lot of information. But they are doing a lot of bizarre things like jacking up interest rates and imposing currency controls even though in theory they don’t have inflation. It is obvious that they are struggling to control the value of the ruble (down in value by about 25% since the start of the war) but this does not explain why they felt compelled to restrict the exports of diesel (which depressed the value of the ruble). It seems by their own figures that revenue is down this year by about 70% compared to pre war figures and they are likely to be close to two trillion dollars in the hole by the end of the year when extra war expenses are taken into account. In spite of all this, Russia does not seem to be depleting it foreign exchange reserves to any great extent even if you only count those that are not frozen. So I remain confused as to just how bad it is for them at the moment beyond the obvious fact that is worse than it was before the war started.

7. A lot of the success of Russian strategy this year will come down to if Biden can get his large aid package for Ukraine through congress. In the end, it does not matter if the average Joe on the street is losing interest if Ukraine keeps getting weapons and ammo. Biden’s package is geared to fund Ukraine through the next election. If Biden gets his package through, then the Russians excessive losses to prevent Ukraine from gaining ground will have all been a waste. It is unlikely that if Ukraine had gained a few hundred extra square miles it would have resulted in a bigger aid package then Biden is trying to give them. But by not being so frantic in the counter attacks and allowing Ukraine to gain more ground, Russia would have allowed Ukraine to spread its own troops out more and preserved more of its own forces to be rebuilt into something effective.

8. Russian military history is full of examples defeats and long defensive campaigns leading to victory. Russian military history is also full of disasters caused by Russian corruption and refusal to adapt to changing circumstances. This current war looks a lot more like the latter.

9. Ukraine is done demographically as nation no matter how long this war takes. And it can’t sustain this war on its own. But as long as the west is willing to fund it, it looks able to keep fighting effectively for another year yet at least. It is true that it is increasingly having to force people to join the army but that has been true of Russia for awhile and not a sign that Ukraine is about to collapse manpower wise. That said, it is a reminder that Ukraine is going down the drain manpower wise but there is a long way to go down that road before Ukraine stops fielding effective military forces.

10. Russian had hoped that the fighting in Israel would pull support away from Ukraine. But Biden (or his handlers) are shrewdly tying aid for Ukraine to aid for Israel and Taiwan and he is trying for a one and done approach so he does not have to come back asking all the time. Since Biden only needs some Republican support to make this work, it is likely to be successful although Republican hardliners are likely to try all kinds of parliamentary style delaying tactics using the rules that are available. And for the most part, the types of military aid that the two nations need will not overlap. Israel does not need tanks or long range strike missiles and Ukraine does not really need the bombs and air to ground missiles because it lacks an air force that can get close to the Russians. The main pinch point will be ballistic missile interceptors (assuming Hezbollah gets involved) as the US also has to worry about China in that regard as well as everything else. Artillery shells will also be an issue as although Israel is unlikely to use much (historically they have relied on their Air Force), anything they do use will really hurt Ukraine as they already have a shortfall in shells. One unknown is how much Iran help to Russia would be impacted by the needs of their proxy forces for things like drones….

The Bottom Line:

I expect that Ukraine will get what they need to fight for another year and I expect they will continue to fight effectively (i.e. in way that is very painful for the Russians). What I don’t have a good understanding of is how well Russia will endure another year of such fighting. It seems that they are starting to feel the fiscal effects and are struggling to maintain an effective military but Russian history has proved they can keep going for a long time in situations where other nations would become demoralized. On the other hand, where other nations tend to pull back before they collapse, Russia has many times pushed past that point……

Why you should panic about the US Deficit

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*Note: This is an informal note that is not directly related to my last essay. The second part of that is still to come.*

Notwithstanding the headline, I don’t really think that panic accomplishes anything useful. But I am amazed that we are looking at a catastrophe and hardly anyone is talking about it. The current situation is the opposite of the “food crisis” that I addressed last year. At the time I talked about how even though there were a lot of bad headlines when you looked into the actual numbers there was no crisis in the immediate near term (it might be different now at least in terms of rice, but I have not really dug into the numbers yet for this year). But in terms of the US deficit, very few people seem to be panicking and yet when you dig into the numbers they are really bad.

So I thought I would write a short informal piece to break down the headlines that I have been linking to and explain why they represent a catastrophe in the making that will directly impact your life. Let us start with a recent CNN story titled “Federal budget deficit expected to nearly double to around $2 trillion.”

Now, if you are a typical American redneck, you will see a head line like that and sagely tell whoever is next to you “the politicians are going to bankrupt this country” and then go on with your business without giving the headline another thought. And who can really blame the typical redneck for reacting like that? In 2020 the Federal Government ran 3.1 trillion dollar deficit and in 2021 the feds ran a 2.8 trillion dollar deficit. It is true that in 2022 the deficit was just over a trillion dollars but if the world did not come to end back in 2020 or 2021 then, why should a mere 2 trillion dollar deficit be a cause of panic today?

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The 80 Year Crisis Cycle of The United States

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Life in the United States has changed dramatically every 80 years since the country’s founding. There was about 80 years from the end of the Revolutionary War to the end of the Civil War (81 years 3 months and 25 days if you want to be autistic about it). It was about 80 years from the end of the Civil War until the end of World War II (80 years 3 months and 24 days from the end of the Civil War if you want to be precise). And it has been exactly 78 years (and one day, this essay was supposed to go up yesterday for cool points but I failed) between the end of World War II until the date of this essay going on line. If the 80 year pattern holds, we are on the cusp of a profound change in America.

In the context of this pattern, the profound change is the appearance of something brand new and never experienced before by Americans. Superficially, these changes are obvious. In the case of the Revolutionary War, the brand new thing was the creation of a new country. In the case of the Civil War, there was suddenly no slavery in the United States whereas before it had been a major economic force. And after World War II, America went from being a country that had no “entangling alliances” and a small federal government to being a nation that was embedded in a worldwide network of alliances with a massive federal government. But the superficially obvious changes conceal deeper changes that lay the ground work for the next crisis and attendant profound change.

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Overview Of The Current Status Of The War In Ukraine

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Executive Summary For Those That Don’t Want To Read The Entire Thing: My best guess is that that Ukraine is currently trying to fix into place Russian troops in preparation for a break through. I think that Ukraine is trying to make up for their inability to create strategic surprise by fixing the Russians in place with the idea that Ukraine will be able to shift their attack faster than the Russians can react. The new found aggressiveness of Russian air assets are a significant threat to this plan. Ukraine’s only hope is that weak Russian logistics and shortage of quality infantry will enable Ukraine to push through in spite of this threat.

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End of the Fire Logs: Fire Logs #12, #13, and #14 plus closing thoughts

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When I first started doing these fire logs in the beginning of the year, I said….

“I intend to do one fire a week from the start of January through the end of March. I am not trying to teach myself anything exotic but rather to see how well what I “know” and what I have carries over to fire starting in winter weather. The goal is to try something new either in terms of conditions or in terms of equipment used every week.”

I was reasonably successful in this goal. Once we got into March, I had a harder and harder time finding time to write up the results of what I did, but technically that was not part of the goal. For almost all of the fires, I was able to spin them as some kind of success even if some of them were pretty lame. Only Fire Log #13 was a complete failure.

I had planned for this to end with March in part because I knew I would be getting busier around then. As that is indeed the case (in fact, most of this was written in the first week of April but I am only now finding the time to put it up) I am going to try to do a briefer then normal overview of the fires that I have not already covered to close out this series of experiments.

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Fire Log #11: Three Fires And Three People.

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As a follow up to trying to get the “Bad Girl” to start her own fire, I wanted to see if she retained anything useful and if she could start a fire when she had to gather the wood herself. A good opportunity to do this presented itself in the form of a nephew’s birthday party. The property at which this party took place had more suitable woods then I own (a good part of my property is swamp) and wandering out into them was a good way to burn off some of the sugar high after the presents were unwrapped.

Two of my brothers decided to come along as well. I had thought they were just coming along to add to the pressure on “Bad Girl” but as it turns out, they wanted to try their hand at staring a fire in poor conditions themselves. As a result, there were three people of varying skill levels trying to make fire in the snow with scavenged wood for the first time.

Originally I was going to do something myself while “Bad Girl” was doing her thing, but with so many people to watch I did not really do anything other than set up an alcohol stove using the Firebox Nano stove and light it with a ferro rod. So what follows will just be my observations on the three first time fires in the snow.

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