China Buys Back IPhones...Illegally?

China has come a long way economically in the past couple decades. Being the top manufacturer of Apple's newest IPhone, China ships the products to be sold in the United States. The American way of life is the carrot in front of the rising, Chinese middle-class, and they want more, even if that involves some smuggling. Through closed-container shipping and airline manipulation, the spread of blackmarket sales is imminent. 

“These trading networks have been around for a long time,” Professor Wei said. “They have recently become a lot more pervasive due to rising incomes in China — partially as a result of exports to the U.S.”

 The trail leads back to economical advantage, and China is ready to sink its teeth. If Apple sold the phones much more expensive there, they would probably make a larger profit than they will on Saturday, because the middle men are taking the cut. This surge in demand can be used for the U.S. benefit.

“It’s all about connections and channels,” said one seller at the Sleepless Mall, a big electronics market in Shanghai where wholesalers distribute phones to sellers in small stalls. “Once you have good relationships with customs and airline companies, you can ship whatever products you like. We smuggle it both by air and by boat.”

Writer, Nick Bilton, points out that the smugglers' actions have created some racial profiling, according to one Asian-American woman, but overall, it could be a good thing for Apple. Also, if the IPhone is desired so much because of its rarity, then maybe this is the first example of how America can get more of its products sold.

The Recession is Objective?

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The Recession Is Over
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Jon Stewart gives humor to the recession, but the everyday American questions how stable the White House cabinet will be, if the all the current members are "abandoning ship". Listening to "research groups" and seeing results are completely different things, and feeding false hope to Americans won't solve the problem. 

Muslim Discrimination on the Rise

Since the presidential appointment of President Obama, America was believed to reach a higher acceptance of one another. The facts today point in the opposite direction with Steven Greenhouse's article on religious discrimination. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission receives complaints of job loss, degrading slurs, and unsatisfactory conditions for Muslims. 

“There’s a level of hatred and animosity that is shocking,” said Mary Jo O’Neill, regional attorney of the E.E.O.C.’s Phoenix office. “I’ve been doing this for 31 years, and I’ve never seen such antipathy toward Muslim workers.”

How can America be called progressive, if Americans live in the shadow of prejudice against those of a certain religion? The general public cannot hide behind the fact that the president is black and give the overall sentiment that Muslim prejudice is okay because the offense is minor. When a radical person, such as Terry Jones, presumes that the country is behind him on an outlandish proposal, America reflects intolerance.

“In America right now, there are intense concerns about many issues — immigration, the faltering economy, the interminable wars” and the erroneous belief, held by many Americans, that the first nonwhite president is Muslim, said Akbar Ahmed, a professor of Islamic studies at American University.

Whatever the reasons may be, the attitude must change if the population can work together to face bigger challenges on the horizon. Although religion and race make individuals different, the instinct to move forward and to be a shining example for the world, is American. 

China Takes the Green

Although China is already known for its industrial output, a bigger product is on the rise, solar panels and wind turbines. Friedman warned that "it" would be done to us, if we did not act first. Guess what? It is happening right now. Now that China is leading the frontier in green, is America going to sit back and relax? I hope not. America's chance at redemption is slipping away, and there will be consequences. I am not suggesting that China shouldn't manufacture clean energy products, but America is no longer the shining example that we had hoped it would be.

Now, Changsha and two adjacent cities are emerging as a center of clean energy manufacturing. They are churning out solar panels for the American and European markets, developing new equipment to manufacture the panels and branching into turbines that generate electricity from wind. By contrast, clean energy companies in the United States and Europe are struggling. Some have started cutting jobs and moving operations to China in ventures with local partners.

China’s expansion has been traumatic for American and European solar power manufacturers, and Western wind turbine makers are now bracing to compete with low-cost Chinese exports. This year, BP shut down its solar panel manufacturing in Frederick, Md., and in Spain, and laid off most of the employees while expanding a joint venture in China.

Not only will the American, clean energy companies suffer, but it is possible that after the last drop of oil is gone, America might become more reliant on China. Begging the question, can America settle its debt? There is no doubt that China's government is one of the main reasons for their success. American policies have hindered its clean energy production and lack of taxes has dwindled funding. The Chinese green company, Sunzone, could not have said it better:

“Who wins this clean energy race,” Mr. Zhao of Sunzone said, “really depends on how much support the government gives.”

So what are we, Americans as a whole, willing to do to turn the tables back in our favor?

More Power! Germany Says Nuclear is the Way to Go

Germany plans to extend the life of their nuclear plants and register new zones for the growing demand. Like China, the government has taken the reigns for the best direction for Germany. How do you get the money to pay for super expensive nuclear plants? Tax the company of course!

New taxes levied on utility companies as part of the deal will be used in part to help develop renewable energy sources, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday. But she said Germany could not afford to get rid of nuclear power as planned because the amount of renewable energy available would not be sufficient to fill the gap.

“Nuclear energy is a bridge,” she said.

Desperate times, call for desperate measures, and Germany's answer is to satisfy the energy need with nuclear, for now. This is one way to combat the "heat" described by Friedman's Hot, Flat & Crowded. It seems the rest of the world has gotten over China Syndrome and are ready to do whatever it takes to stay afloat in the future.  

Bill Gates Breaks down the Basics of Reusable Energy

In comparison to Friedman's work, Bill Gates presents some specific examples about how we can give the world cleaner energy. The rise of poorer countries is also a key contribution to the energy problem, so in order to help people in third world countries, their future source of energy must be considered.

Any analysis needs to consider middle-income and poor countries whose energy demands are increasing as people move out of poverty leading to increased CO2 emissions. For the poorest, more expensive energy reduces their access to energy-driven services like increased use of fertilizer, vaccine refrigeration, reasonable transportation, and many other things that can improve the conditions in which they live. Poor people need energy that is both cheap and clean – which only R&D advances can provide.

Thanks to the increase in funding of R&D from Gates and others, new ideas can be put to work. Having conferences and videos like this, allows the public to be better informed.

Not Enough to Go Around the Dinner Table

Living in America, most of the population is accustomed to having more than enough. Discussing the escalating world population and the rise of the middle class, Julian Cribb's book, The Coming Famine, gives unsettling facts that can change the ideal America.

Most important are what he calls “the two elephants in the kitchen”: population growth and overconsumption. A projected 33 percent growth in population in the next 20 years, combined with increased consumption of meat as the global middle class grows larger, means that food production must grow by at least 50 percent in that same period.

Maximizing every square foot of land on the earth for resources is no longer enough, and if America wants to continue to eat meat, the cost will become greater.

We also need more land, as much as “two more North Americas” to produce the fodder needed to meet projected demand. Yet existing land is being degraded by a variety of factors. (Mr. Cribb provides a nicely horrifying quote from some older Chinese farmers: “When we were young, we had trouble seeing the cattle in the grassland. Now we can see the mice.”)

The sentiment that is taken from the article is that worldwide hunger will have nowhere to go, but up. Cribb suggests dietary change and taking advantage of compost. To make an impact, the movement must be global, but is America ready to be a front-runner for fresh food?

Taking the Air We Breathe for Granted

With a comedic twist to the problem of global warming, Hong Kong's Clean Air Network posted a video six days ago about how drastic air pollution might become. The video addresses the necessity for people to take action in the "hot" category of Tom Friedman's Hot, Flat & Crowded.

No wonder. Pollution is a perpetual bane in Hong Kong — because of both roadside pollution and fumes produced by factories across the border, in mainland Chinese cities like Shenzhen. The Clean Air Network estimates that the city’s air is three times more polluted than New York’s and more than twice as bad as London’s.

A majority of Americans are aware of the air pollution because of footage from the last summer Olympics, but many fail to see that China's problem is our problem as well. The amount of particulates and debris from coal processing affects the population health in China, which is known to cause cancer and other diseases. That same air accumulating there, has already traveled here to California. The makers of the video saw a problem at home that needed fixing.

‘‘We’re trying to reach younger people, who are in a way our pivotal audience, but whose apathy can be harder to break through,’’ said Joanne Ooi, the group’s chief executive. ‘‘That’s why it was important to have a celebrity and to use humor — to try a whole new angle.’’

It becomes easy for this generation to stand aside while the grownups handle the problem. Joanne Ooi has a point that they needed a new method to make younger people see the world in which we live. American society cannot wait for a necessity, like air, to become a luxury, before drastic actions take place.