Peak growth rate yes; total peak no. China failed to emulate Japan, Taiwan and South Korea's rapid acceleration. They will continue to grow at a faster rate than already wealthy nations but not at double digit speed and nowhere near the speed of Japan. It took Japan 30 years to go from poor to second largest economy. China "opened" in ~1980 and has failed to come close to that rate in 40 years. And as you say there is a time limit on rapid growth because it slows down as the country ages. China is aging too fast to maintain double digit growth which it has already lost for some years now IIRC.
A simple way to verify this is to observe that common mirrors also tend to be green, showing that the other colors are absorbed more by the mirror. If you face two mirrors towards each other you will see a lot of green.
The common mirrors have the metal on the back side, so their reflectivity is diminished by the absorption in the glass.
The better mirrors, which are used e.g. in telescopes and some other optical instruments, have the metal on the front side, but that limits the metal choice to aluminum, because silver is tarnished quickly by the sulfur compounds present in the air.
The common mirrors have been using aluminum for a long time.
I do not know when aluminum has replaced silver, but it was probably not a long time after WW2.
The silver mirrors had the advantage that the metal could be easily deposited from a water solution, anyone could make silver mirrors at home, if desired.
The aluminum mirrors use a vacuum deposition process, which requires very expensive equipment, but the cost per mirror is much less.
yes. A white surface scatters the photons and a reflective one keeps them in the same position relative to the others. If you make a surface smooth enough it starts becoming partly reflective. There is also scattering of photons that happens in object itself
Just questioning the causality link between the bombings in the cities and the rise of SD.
These people for the most part don't even like city dwellers. The president of the party doesn't even live in a major metropolitan area.
Why are they so worried about gangs and bombings when those are for the most part urban problems?
>Fun(?) fact: in the US, about 1,000 per year are killed by police [3], which amounts to about 0.3 per 100,000. An American is about as likely to be killed by police as a Japanese person is to be killed by a murderer.
This is a direct result of the larger population of armed murders in the US. "An American is about as likely to be killed by police as a Japanese person is to be killed by a murderer" is only true when you include armed robbers and murderers in the data.
Do you mind explaining what you are referring to? I'm a bit ignorant of this era of US history. I thought the east coast was the "original" US - that is, the thirteen colonies. Specifically New York was most definitely "made" by this point, even before the US was a thing. The New York stock exchange was founded in 1792, just 16 years after the country was founded. And trade was always big in New York. I don't know much about the rest of the east coast so I may be missing some larger historical context here but I was under the impression that NY was the most important sate by far on the east coast and continues to be so.
>the entire welfare system is in real trouble unless the proportion of young people isn't inflated somehow
>The generation born in the '50s and '60s is retiring now, and it's much larger than subsequent generations. Retirement age is 67. Their healthcare and pension is paid for by the working population, who hope the next generation will pass on the torch.
Are you suggesting it is a good idea to replace the native population to support the Swedish welfare system? Additionally, the article states that many of these immigrant are themselves using the welfare system. Wouldn't it be better to bite the bullet and let the country reach its carrying capacity naturally even if it results in some pain? I don't think this can be explained from an economic perspective.
I think the aging population simply acted as an allowing factor that made the discussion viable politically. But I think ultimately it happened as part of liberal immigration ideology itself. From that standpoint, the immigration policy is still largely a success. If all life is equal and everyone deserves the human rights, then from that prospective, even if the policy has issues, those issues do not outweigh the total net gain of humanity. Even if it comes at a cost for some people.
>But the other option isn't pretty either.
Can you explain what the other option is and why you think it would be pretty?
> Are you suggesting it is a good idea to replace the native population to support the Swedish welfare system?
"Replace" certainly seems like loaded language. I believe the intent is to bolster the younger cohorts to try to avoid too heavy a generational imbalance.
perhaps that was the wrong word to use. I used the word native and replace in terms of demographic tendencies. If the natural tendency of the Swedish population is to decline, then adding more people to the population would be very counterintuitive. What I mean is that if the Swedish population is declining then it should be left to reach the right population and let the demographics "solve itself" rather than to continually go in the opposite direction. For example we wouldn't try to increase the birth rate native population of Sweden either as that is simply trying to go back to a demographic situation which is not sustainable.
> Are you suggesting it is a good idea to replace the native population to support the Swedish welfare system? Additionally, the article states that many of these immigrant are themselves using the welfare system. Wouldn't it be better to bite the bullet and let the country reach its carrying capacity naturally even if it results in some pain? I don't think this can be explained from an economic perspective.
I'm not suggesting it's a good idea, I'm suggesting it's an idea.
> Can you explain what the other option is and why you think it would be pretty?
One other option is to go the route of Italy or Greece, run the welfare system at a massive imbalance, and make up for it with public debt.
The other options are all some form of breach of the social contract. Either increasing the burden on the working age demographic past what they'll accept, or the eventual bankruptcy of the pension and healthcare system. Pension levels would have to be lowered to the point where the elderly would have to come out of retirement and re-join the workforce to survive, despite a lifetime of making payments into the system and promises they'll be returned.
>The other options are all some form of breach of the social contract
The thing is a social contract that can't actually exist doesn't matter. If we all agree to not work but still receive benefits we haven't made a meaningful social contract. Breaching that contract is probably the best thing to do. Also, its difficult to evaluate exactly what the contract is here: is it that we all agree to a welfare state (roughly speaking) or is it that in the event that it is possible to have a welfare state then we will have it? I think the latter is more reasonable.
>Pension levels would have to be lowered to the point where the elderly would have to come out of retirement and re-join the workforce to survive, despite a lifetime of making payments into the system and promises they'll be returned.
The way I see it the point you're making here is that since they put in, they deserve to take out, as their input was when the system was still working and the contract thus in place. And that's true to a degree, but people implicitly acknowledge of and take a risk when they contribute to these systems. Did anyone think that in the event of a massive famine (for an extreme example) that they will magically be paid back on their contribution? The decline of the working population is maybe not something they thought about, but it comes implicitly as part of a general acknowledgement that a given system only exists withing a certain interval of environments.
All this said, you didn't explicitly state that you believe this contract should be upheld at all costs, but that seems to be the only case where that point would be relevant in the first place.
The consequence of breaching the social contract is a complete loss of credibility for the state. It's essentially defaulting on its obligations. All democratic societies essentially operate on faith, on the belief that the government will keep its promises. The population's willingness to pay taxes vanishes real fast the moment the deal isn't upheld.
The question everyone at working age will face is why they should put money into a system when what they're getting back is less than they put in. For old times sake?
People may forgive hardships when there is some external factor, but this is something that's been known for decades.
> All this said, you didn't explicitly state that you believe this contract should be upheld at all costs, but that seems to be the only case where that point would be relevant in the first place.
I don't know if there is a good solution to this. I'm not sure what the alternative is. Grab a pointy stick, put a colander on your head and go full mad max?
>The consequence of breaching the social contract is a complete loss of credibility for the state
This is a weak version of "uphold the social contract at all costs" mentality. Rather than uphold it because of the people that enacted the contract, we will uphold it because the people put in charge of upholding it want to stay in charge. Its a much more reasonable idea and if this is really the case then it's an unfortunate situation. That said I don't think its likely that the Swedish elderly are either contributing much to taxes or capable of revolting. The younger generations would actually react positively to it. For example I already have no trust that I will see a meaningful return on my social security "investment." I'd rather see it shut down than wait for the off chance that anything is left in 30 years.
I think democracies move too slowly to make changes like this, however. I don't think there is really any plan at all. I think that is ultimately the issue here. And unfortunately if the article is to be believed the "solution" of voting in what the article has called an extremist party may become reality. I think that's the real issue here. We can debate social contracts all we want but if an extremist party is voted in it shows that Sweden's plan was flawed from the outset.
> That said I don't think its likely that the Swedish elderly are either contributing much to taxes or capable of revolting. The younger generations would actually react positively to it.
You think the younger generations will think their parents getting completely shafted is a positive thing? Especially given many will end up supporting them financially (outside of the pension system)? I'm struggling to see how that would play out.
According to the modern meaning of art, as long as the artist intends for it to be art then it is art. Since it is not the work itself but the artist that defines art then anything that was intended at least in part to evoke some emotional response is art. Therefore under this definition it is highly likely that Neanderthals made art. For example making a shelter look nicer than it had to be. Any rituals would also have to be considered art as they are ultimately intended to evoke an emotional response even if this was not a conscious decision.
not sure why this is downvoted. Chinese companies can definitely make their own search engine. And in fact search engines are not so big in china anyway; everything is an app, and questions are answered on Zhihu. Google's time in China was up anyway and they knew it. It was good PR for them to leave with a bang. Does anyone really thing the CCP would allow Google to collect data on every Chinese person as they do in the US? And without data collection ads become much less profitable (see: facebook). This would also set a precedent of barring Google from data collection which would spread elsewhere. Now its just seen as a domestic Chinese thing only.
Peak growth rate yes; total peak no. China failed to emulate Japan, Taiwan and South Korea's rapid acceleration. They will continue to grow at a faster rate than already wealthy nations but not at double digit speed and nowhere near the speed of Japan. It took Japan 30 years to go from poor to second largest economy. China "opened" in ~1980 and has failed to come close to that rate in 40 years. And as you say there is a time limit on rapid growth because it slows down as the country ages. China is aging too fast to maintain double digit growth which it has already lost for some years now IIRC.