So, What Do I Know?

Not much, to tell the truth. But I do pay close attention, which is a lot more than many others do. When I wrote that the Han Empire of China would start disintegrating around 2016...what do I know?

Not much...but I do have this today:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8544650.stm

China editorials call for end to residency permit rules

By Shirong Chen
BBC China editor

More than a dozen Chinese newspapers have published a joint editorial calling for the abolition of the household registration or "hukou".

This system limits rural migrants' access to services in China's more prosperous cities...

...The hukou system registers every Chinese citizen according to their household origins as either town dwellers or country peasants.

Nowadays it is widely seen as a source of discrimination in terms of access to services like healthcare and education.

Since economic reforms began 30 years ago, many Chinese migrant workers have left the land to contribute to the country's rapid growth and industrialisation.

But they remain registered as rural dwellers and are not entitled to the same welfare as their city counterparts.

This has created social inequality...

...The Chinese Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, admitted on Saturday that the bulk of the country's industrial workforce was now made up of migrant workers from the countryside.

However, it could take years to completely separate the hukou system from welfare provision, and eventually abolish it in the world's most populous country.

That sounds promising.

I admit, however, I don't know much. I have numerous short-cuts to create the "illusion" of being smart. One of my favorite "dodges" is to be contrary to whatever the popular media is celebrating - on the good bet that soon the celebrated thing or person will "come a cropper".

There was Japan, Inc back in the 1980s.

Now we see Japan, Inc. 10 years after the "lost decade" still sort of wandering about with a dazed look, and we see the celebrated Toyota system having led the world's largest auto maker into a situation where one lowers costs by reducing suppliers...then having a problem from the surviving supplier spread throughout their world-wide product line.

Now there's China, Inc.

China's is a great country. However, one thing I know: if the US media love it, if people like Kudlow go into ecstasies over it, it is heading for trouble.

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