Eye of Modok

My friend percussionist Larry Mahlis sent me a link to a wonderful site that I think has the potential to change lives, and, perhaps, even the world. The Story of Stuff is the brainchild of Annie Leonard, and I must say, I like her brain.

Here’s a description from the site:

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

One of the things I enjoyed most about the presentation is the way it call attention to the fact that even if we decide to move our dirty, stinking, toxic polluting factories overseas, it does not make us any less culpable for the damage thus caused. It’s all too easy for the media to get up in arms about lead paint in toys from China, yet neglect to comment at all about the toxic damage done to the workers and the environment in “the factory of the world.” Christine Lu has some good comments on the subject.

Please stop what you are doing and watch this video, and then tell all of your family and friends about it!

Ladies and gentlemen, may I draw your attention to the curtain over here, to where the beautiful Miss Wong is standing … Now watch carefully… I am now going to make US$4 trillion magically disappear!!

OK, while it may not have been that dramatic in the execution, that is in effect what the World Bank recently did when they published updated statistics on the economic output of 146 countries, utilizing a method called “Purchasing Power Parity” (PPP) leading to a revised estimate of China’s GDP to $6 trillion. This is down from previous statistics which had it pegged at $10 trillion.

From the World Bank website:

In a report ranking the world’s economies for 2005, the World Bank said its updated survey using ‘purchasing power parity’ (PPP) shows a much smaller value for China than earlier estimates…The [International Comparison Program] study carried out by the World Bank and other partners was ‘the most extensive and thorough effort to measure the relative size of 146 economies using the PPP method which strips out the effect of exchange rates…

So, what impact can be expected by such an evaporation of trillions of dollars? Well, China is still the number two economy in the world, but the point at which it can be expected to overtake that of the US would certainly appear to be pushed back a few years. And the domestic problems it faces due to widespread poverty may begin to seem a bit heavier a burden.

In an article in the Los Angeles Times, Walter Russell Mead summed it up like this:

For Americans, the new numbers from the World Bank bring good news and bad. On the plus side, U.S. leadership in the global system seems more secure and more likely to endure through the next generation. On the other hand, the world we are called on to lead is poorer and more troubled than we anticipated.

While its true that China is one of the largest investors in the house of cards that is the US economy, it may very well turn out that as this century progresses, the rest of the world might start investing more and more in China, and Chinese currency, and less and less in the US dollar. The Chinese yuan may even become the preferred currency in the world. Still, $4 trillion vanishing into thin air must certainly be having a chilling effect in Beijing this New Year’s, beyond that which the cold Siberian wind blowing down from the north brings .

China’s first lunar probe has successfully performed a crucial breaking maneuver at perilune and entered lunar orbit this morning. According to Wang Yejun, chief engineer of the Beijing Aerospace Control Center (BACC), the braking was performed in order to decelerate the probe, enabling its timely capture by lunar gravity to become a “real” circumlunar satellite.

This remarkable accomplishment is a real feat for the budding Chinese space program, and places them one step closer to achieving the ambitious goal of reaching the moon before the scheduled 2020 return by the US. A physical presence on the moon would likely guarantee China lands a decent chunk of lunar real estate when the real divvying up begins later this century. Whether as platform for delivering space solar power or to provide a lunar station for space-based asteroid mining operations, it’s clear that moon plays an important part in China’s present and future security considerations.

I wonder if NASA might not be getting a few more dollars thrown its way in the coming years…