Session #2 - March 5

[Cheryl Watson]

Margaret, you made an excellent point about providing relevant visuals for students at all ages. It is also important to teach kids to recognize inconsistencies within graphics, so I use visuals from various primary and secondary sources.

In other words, graphics and visuals can be used to teach students critical thinking skills.

[Cheryl Watson]

Margaret,

I have seen firsthand in my humanitarian work (in a few of the poorest countries in the world) how teaching simple literacy skills such reading and writing can mean the difference between working as a maid in a place with little or no prospects for advancement, or becoming a trained professional. It can be used as an incentive to help students understand the importance of mastering the most basic of academic skills.

[Brett Kier]

The real question regarding Chinese hyperinflation is: "Can China maintain the domestic and foreign demand (consumption rates) that is fueling its economy?" The answer to that question is, to some degree, answered by the success of OBOR, as well as the growing domestic consumer debt bubble. You concern about the lack of safeguards is well-founded. On some level, it is hard to see the creation of the consumer debt bubble as anything other than intentional, unless they are just trying to play musical chairs until the music stops and hope that the crash will not be catastrophic. Pro-cyclical economic policies always benefit someone. A good question to ask is cui bono? And if we can answer that question we may find out who is pushing this economic policy. Although, as "they" often say, never attribute to careful planning what can be attributed to incompetence. A good article discussing the hyperinflation phenomenon can be found here:

https://seekingalpha.com/article/724301-29-hyperinflations-in-the-last-100-years-is-the-biggest-one-coming

It is safe to say that there are some China Hawks in the West that would like to facilitate such a hyperinflationary event, but this could have disastrous consequences for the global economy, not just China.

Regarding FANG and US intelligence, mainstream news outlets have been covering this relationship for a number of years (DARPA's creation of the internet has even been fictionalized in television series' like The Americans). Three examples of mainstream news sources that have written extensively on this subject include the New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Intercept (more recently). The Snowden leaks were also a watershed moment for the release of information linking FANG with the US intelligence establishment.

[Brett Kier]

China's move towards greater efficiency is a positive development. However, the carbon wars should be understood from a number of perspectives. Besides the often discussed hypothesis of the dangers of carbon by the scientific orthodoxy, it is worth observing that major energy companies are committing themselves to a transition to green energy (however they define this squishy term). If history is to be our guide, we should know that these companies are not moving in this direction out of any form of altruism or civic responsibility, wherein they cede market share, pack up, and go quietly into that good night because Mother Earth simply demands it be allowed to survive. They are positioning themselves to create and control the next generation of technologies that will power the world; and they will seek to create scarcity whenever they can, in order to construct a market that most benefits their interests (OPEC, et cetera). Electric power is no different. Recall the often paraphrased conversation between J.P. Morgan and Tesla, when the latter explained that he had created a freely available energy source that was pollution free, and J.P. Morgan responded by saying that if he could not put a meter on it, it was of no value to him.

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