Feb 05 2009
Randoms Thoughts from News
1. 农民发明家拿到营业执照 成首个潜艇制造个体户 A tale of a peasant who is obessed with building submarines having trouble turning his passion into business. Also other stories of “山寨” inventions: like someone turned a minivan into a mini-locomotive.
Thoughts: Innovation is an organic human behavior; Chinese culture may not encourage it but doesn’t mean it is in short supply. The challenge: needs money, insurance, policy support and more in order to transform ideas into productivity gain. Also, compare that to Boeing’s early days … need more research.
2. Stimulus Brings Out City Wish Lists Lists some ridiculous projects proposed by local governments to be included in the stimulous package. The irony: the stimuluous package is approaching $1 trillion. The politicians have brought out their “nuclear weapons” (grandstanding, name-calling, etc.) b/c of its size. Still, the local governments feel it is prudent to dump local projects onto the federal government:
Some localities are using a kitchen-sink strategy. “Our approach has been to list everything, because we don’t know what the final guidelines will be or what the final dollar amount will be,” says Greg MacLean, public-works director in Lincoln, Neb.
It is a fascinating example of the down side of decentralized democracy in a market economy. There is not a bit of ”governmentality” in mind. In China, it is the opposite: people may run for self if a movie theater catches fire. But when it comes to economic rescue, I doubt provincial heads dare to fight for the loot in such a naked manner. It is not just that they may lose their jobs, I am sure they feel sincerely that doing so would be very “irresponsible”.
Ha. Fascinating.