The Great Missile…er…Engineering Gap…

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An article in the Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 20, 2005, suggests that data-manipulation abounds in tech rivalry between countries. Our geeks beat yours, is the 21st century version of saber-rattling:

“India provides the clearest example of how the numbers can be interpreted differently. The 350,000 engineers that it supposedly graduated last year is almost certainly false. After publishing that number in October, the National Academies revised it downward to 200,000 in a note issued last month. The Duke study pegs the number at 215,000, but it also points out that nearly half of those are three-year diplomas – not the four-year degrees counted in the US.

More four-year diplomas than India

Last year, the US awarded bachelor’s degrees to 72,893 engineering students, according to the American Society for Engineering Education. But using India’s more inclusive definition, the Duke study finds the US handed out 137,437 bachelor’s degrees last year, more than India’s 112,000. The US number is far more impressive in rela-tive terms, since India has more than three times as many people.

China’s numbers are more problematic because its government does not break them down. In its revised figures, the National Academies reduced the Chinese total from 600,000 to 500,000. The Duke study pegs the total at 644,106, as reported by the Chinese Ministry of Education. But the study also points out that, as with India, the Chinese total includes engineering graduates with so-called “short cycle degrees” that represent three years or less of college training.

“China includes in its count a lot of graduates – including auto mechanics – who would not be included as engineers in the US or many other nations,” says Gary Gereffi, a coauthor of the study and a professor of sociology who directs Duke’s Center on Globalization, Governance, and Competitiveness.

A press spokesman of the Chinese embassy in Washington declined comment, and its education office there did not respond.

China still graduated 351,537 engineers with four-year degrees. That’s 2-1/2 times the US total (although China has four times the US population).

For its part, the National Academies stands by its report, even after its revisions. “I don’t think we believe at all that these new numbers change the ultimate recommendations we have,” says Deborah Stine, of the National Academies. “The US is well behind other countries.”

Back toward 1986 graduation peak

The number of US engineering graduates peaked in 1986, fell back, then has slowly built back up since the late 1990s, says Daniel Bateson, of the Engineering Workforce Commission.

While US numbers don’t approach China’s, some experts say the quality of US graduates remains superior. A McKinsey Global Institute study last summer found that only 10 percent of Chinese engineers and 25 percent of Indian engineers were capable of competing for outsourced work.”

My Comment

We love the land of our birth dearly, but stereotypes have a reason for existing. My countrymen – and I know every variety of them — are not always as self-critical as they should be. Many call them arrogant…

Satyameva Jayate is the national motto: Truth Always Triumphs.

But Satyam (Truth) Computers found that with Big Four Accounting Firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) signing off on them, cooked books can also triumph…at least until the market collapses.

Indian cricket teams, in terms of sheer talent possibly the best in the world, are nonetheless notorious for snatching defeat out of the mouths of certain victory. They tend to rest on their duffs, when they  should keep their heads down and put their money in their shoes.

True, there is a strong professional and entrepreneurial class. But remember, this is a country of a billion and a third, where nearly a billion people live lives of bare subsistence.

There’s universal corruption. The Corruption Perception Index 2009 by Transparency International has ranked India as the 85th most corrupt country, among 180 countries in the world. It is 19th on the bribery index.

There’s mind-numbing bureaucracy  The Hong Kong-based political and economic risk consultancy group (PERC) reports that Indian civil servants are the least efficient among 12 Asian counterparts: Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam, China, Philippines, Indonesia and India.

India, Thailand, and Malaysia face the worst political and social risks, adds PERC.

In some states, the courts and police are feared worse than criminals.

Indian society is often sickeningly color and status-conscious.*

India is a good long-term bet for investment, if you’re careful and monitor your positions. But it’s a  sure-fire disaster for cocky, blind-folded speculation.

Update (March 17, 2010):

*I add a quote from an inter-racial couple:

“My partner is white and I am black, facts of which the Indian public reminds us daily. Bank associates have denied me chai, while falling over to please my white friend. Mall shop attendants have denied me attentiveness, while mobbing my partner. Who knows what else is more quietly denied?

“An African has come,” a guard announced over the intercom as I showed up. Whites are afforded the luxury of their own names, but this careful attention to my presence was not new. ATM guards stand and salute my white friend, while one guard actually asked me why I had come to the bank machine as if I might have said that I was taking over his shift.”

Celente: Report Shows JPMorgan, Citi Helped Push Lehman Under

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Gerald Celente: JP Morgan and Citi acted like mobs bosses in torpedoing Lehman.

Note: the bankruptcy examiner’s report shows Lehman cooking its books to look less levered than it was, but the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) (Mr. Geithner, that would be you) abetted it. So did the SEC, and JP Morgan and Citi acted like cannibals (or street gangs…or mob bosses), as they tried to wipe out their rival.

Well, we said so at the time, in a post called“Statistics Don’t Back Panic Mongers” (October 2008).

And even before that.

Except for the fact that the Wall Street gang uses money, ratings, and other “adult” world paraphernalia, they’re not much more than hooligans who didn’t get toilet-trained right.

Let’s see:

Finger-pointing: He did, teacher, I didn’t (Politicians to voters, voters to politicians)

Avoiding responsibility: But you told us we could (Wall Street to Main Street, home-owners to lenders, managers to accountants, lawyers)

Succumbing to peer pressure: Everyone does it ( Book-cooking managers, lazy reporters, colluding speculators)

Blaming the victim: He deserved it (Corporate raiders, naked short-sellers, media shills)

The Draconian Senate Bill 3081…

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Another terrifying piece of legislation is in the works. The Senate Bill 3081, “Enemy Belligerent Detention, Interrogation, and Prosecution Act of 2010,” has been introduced by Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Senator John McCain (R-AZ), says Gary Barnett at Lew Rockwell.

“Sec. 2. Placement of Suspected Unprivileged Enemy Belligerents in Military Custody.

  1. MILITARY CUSTODY REQUIREMENT.?Whenever within the United States, its territories, and possessions, or outside the territorial limits of the United States, an individual is captured or otherwise comes into the custody or under the effective control of the United States who is suspected of engaging in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners through an act of terrorism, or by other means in violation of the laws of war, or of purposely and materially supporting such hostilities, and who may be an unprivileged enemy belligerent, the individual shall be placed in military custody for purposes of initial interrogation and determination of status in accordance with the provisions of this Act. (all emphasis mine)

In addition, any individual initially captured or who in any manner comes under effective control of the U.S., may be held, interrogated, or transported by any U.S. intelligence agency and placed into military custody. With the establishment of “Interrogation Groups,” which is authorized by this Act, and composed of personnel in the Executive Branch, each person captured or held may be designated as a “High-Value Detainee.” One of the criteria for determining if one is to be designated as “high value,” should the obvious ones fail is: “Such other matters as the President considers appropriate.” This is of course so broad in nature that virtually anyone can be detained if deemed necessary by just one man’s authority. Any individual who is suspected of being an unprivileged enemy belligerent will not be provided Miranda or otherwise be informed of any rights. In addition, they “may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities.” Given that the so-called “War on Terror” may never have an end; this by design, you can see how horrendous this legislation truly is. Add to this other legislation that is already in place, and the probability that with any civil unrest or natural disaster Martial Law could now be not only implemented but “legally” administered; there is a very real and dangerous risk to any of us who won’t submit fully to the state.”

Zerohedge On Regulatory Capture In Lehman’s Demise

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Zerohedge points out what seems to be obvious to all but those whose professional interests lie in not being able to find their nose on their faces:

“Let’s get something straight right off the bat. We all know there is a certain level of fraud sleight of hand in the financial industry. I have called many banks insolvent in the past. Some have pooh-poohed these proclamations, while others have looked in wonder, saying “How the hell did he know that?” Continue reading →

Cryptogon On Everbank Gold Story

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An odd little story today about well-regarded online bank and metals vendor, Everbank, that I came across at Cryptogon.

Apparently, they unilaterally changed the terms and conditions of their ‘metals select’ program recently. Everbank president, Frank Trotter, responded in a letter to Cryptogon author, Kevin Flaherty, that the changes were subsequently deleted. Still, if you’re a client, you might want to be on top of that. From all I’ve heard, they’re a reliable bank, but banks change hands and terms very frequently these days (for eg. BrownCo to Harris Direct to E-trade).

John Gatto On State-Controlled Consciousness

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Toward the end of this video, John Taylor Gatto, the iconoclastic critic of compulsory education and state schools and ardent advocate of “unschooling,” has an especially memorable passage.
He points out that while the state can violently coerce a few people at a time (through arrest and shooting), there’s no way (outside war or genocide, I presume) to coerce large masses of people over time, except through controlling their minds.

Or more accurately, through creating the habits and attitudes that make them obedient to puppet strings in their own minds.

Compulsory schooling by the state, he argues, is a way to colonize the minds of children to make them their own police-force, eager to report other deviants.

[Preparing them to become tax snitches, as I blogged earlier, or political informants, or supporters of  biometric ID legislation].

In “Dumbing Us Down”, Gatto argues that state schooling causes the following in a child’s mind:

1) Confusion, with its jumbled ensemble of tests, memorized and then forgotten

2) Dependence on class position

3) Indifference/apathy

4) Emotional dependency

5) Intellectual dependency

6) Provisional self-esteem that needs the assurance of experts to maintain

7) Habituation to constant surveillance and the denial of privacy

Bastiat On The Virtues Of Misers

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In my view, the moral problem at the root of socialism is actually not envy, as many libertarians contend. I grew up among socialists, and they were, by far, motivated by honorable concerns: a sense of injustice, grief for the poor, compassion.

(I’m not talking here about political activists, some of whom do, in fact, have much baser motives).

The principal flaw in the socialist world view, as I see it, is a too great concern with appearances and an inability to see cause and effect in any complex way. It’s not the ‘materialism’ of dialectical materialism I object to. It’s the lack of ‘mind’ in the materialism. The reasoning is limited, superficial, and inaccurate. It lacks sufficient particularity, as Michael Oakeshott argued in “Rationalism in Politics” (1962).

And as Oakeshott argued there, that can be a problem in Hayek, as well.

Libertarian theorist, Frederic Bastiat, makes much the same point in his acute analysis of the superiority of the miser over the spendthrift, an analysis that would be iconoclastic from the point of view of traditional religious morality, where the miser’s avarice would usually be condemned and the spendthrift’s generosity praised:

Continue reading →

“Powerhouse” India: GDP Figures Versus Reality

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Jayant Bandhari in Liberty Unbound:

“Starting in May 2005, Canada’s National Post, a generally anti-statist newspaper, ran a series of stories on the enormous successes of India’s opening economy. On the first day of the series, most of the front page was occupied by a picture of an Indian rocket taking off. The story said that the Indian government was seriously contemplating a mission to the moon. Continue reading →