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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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 Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 10:29 am Post subject: |
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| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
Kuros curiously concluded:
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| No, a policy needs to be repealed: the insane one-child policy. |
Yeah, I see. Better that they follow the Indian policy, which has allowed that nation's population to exceed one billion and will surpass China's within the next decade with even more limited resources. |
I'm not arguing we exchange one madness for another. But China is having less than two children/couple. That's below replacement level. That its affecting the gender balance as well is all the more reason to change it. |
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Ilsanman
Joined: 15 Aug 2003
Location: Bucheon, Korea
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| Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 3:04 pm Post subject: |
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Pretty much all of Europe, Canada, Australia, NZ, and many other countries are also below replacement level. America is about 2.01 last I heard (2.1 is replacement I think). You don't hear much of killing female fetuses there, do you?
In fact, many people I know prefer girls. As do I.
| Kuros wrote: |
| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
Kuros curiously concluded:
:
| Quote: |
| No, a policy needs to be repealed: the insane one-child policy. |
Yeah, I see. Better that they follow the Indian policy, which has allowed that nation's population to exceed one billion and will surpass China's within the next decade with even more limited resources. |
I'm not arguing we exchange one madness for another. But China is having less than two children/couple. That's below replacement level. That its affecting the gender balance as well is all the more reason to change it. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 3:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Ilsanman wrote: |
Pretty much all of Europe, Canada, Australia, NZ, and many other countries are also below replacement level. America is about 2.01 last I heard (2.1 is replacement I think). You don't hear much of killing female fetuses there, do you?
In fact, many people I know prefer girls. As do I.
| Kuros wrote: |
| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
Kuros curiously concluded:
:
| Quote: |
| No, a policy needs to be repealed: the insane one-child policy. |
Yeah, I see. Better that they follow the Indian policy, which has allowed that nation's population to exceed one billion and will surpass China's within the next decade with even more limited resources. |
I'm not arguing we exchange one madness for another. But China is having less than two children/couple. That's below replacement level. That its affecting the gender balance as well is all the more reason to change it. |
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Right, but here's what often happens in China: if a couple has a child, and its a boy, they stop having children. If they work for the government, they have to stop even if they have a girl, or they will be fired. If a couple does not work for the government, they will have another child if their first was a girl, and pay the taxes. |
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stevemcgarrett
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 9:18 pm Post subject: |
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Ilsanman:
First you were comparing traditional Chinese practices to Korean; now you're onto comparisons with the U.S. It's all apples and oranges, oh novice in forensics.
Still haven't countered my rebuttals, bed-wetter.
Kuros:
| Quote: |
| But China is having less than two children/couple. That's below replacement level. That its affecting the gender balance as well is all the more reason to change it. |
Sorry, but I'm not buying it. First, China could benefit from population reduction (although its population is projected to increase over the next two decades). Second, most of the gender balance isn't attributable to the inability to try for another girl.
As for madness, it's easy for you to judge; you don't have to deal with it on a daily basis. Most urban Chinese I know support the policy, although it's a bitter pill to swallow.
You can thank Mao for this problem; the population skyrocketed in the 1950s because he encouraged large families. He did so out of the antiquated belief that more people meant national survival in the event of war. It was his first really lame national plan and the Chinese are still paying for it. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 9:37 pm Post subject: |
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There is no need to limit this discussion of China's sterling human rights situation to gender imbalance.
From Wiki:
"Even by the "official" numbers, the rate of executions in China (0.07 per 100,000 people) is still higher than the United States (0.02 per 100,000) and Pakistan (0.05 per 100,000), though Iran (0.25 per 100,000) executes more prisoners per capita.
"Of 1,591 confirmed executions in 25 countries worldwide, at least 1,010 people were executed in China during 2006...Amnesty International declares that the true figures were higher; they estimate that China executed between 7,500 and 8,000 people in 2006, hoping to reach the 10,000 landmark by 2008."
Bizarre use of the word 'hope' there, but anyway. China executes people at the rate of 2.76 a day. |
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Ilsanman
Joined: 15 Aug 2003
Location: Bucheon, Korea
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| Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 12:05 am Post subject: |
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Including the health minister if China has a scandal involving the safety of their food products....
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
There is no need to limit this discussion of China's sterling human rights situation to gender imbalance.
From Wiki:
"Even by the "official" numbers, the rate of executions in China (0.07 per 100,000 people) is still higher than the United States (0.02 per 100,000) and Pakistan (0.05 per 100,000), though Iran (0.25 per 100,000) executes more prisoners per capita.
"Of 1,591 confirmed executions in 25 countries worldwide, at least 1,010 people were executed in China during 2006...Amnesty International declares that the true figures were higher; they estimate that China executed between 7,500 and 8,000 people in 2006, hoping to reach the 10,000 landmark by 2008."
Bizarre use of the word 'hope' there, but anyway. China executes people at the rate of 2.76 a day. |
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Ilsanman
Joined: 15 Aug 2003
Location: Bucheon, Korea
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| Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 4:04 am Post subject: |
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The debate with you is over. Unless you present some new evidence on your own behalf, you have lost this debate. Everyone on this board knows it but you.
| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
Ilsanman:
First you were comparing traditional Chinese practices to Korean; now you're onto comparisons with the U.S. It's all apples and oranges, oh novice in forensics.
Still haven't countered my rebuttals, bed-wetter.
Kuros:
| Quote: |
| But China is having less than two children/couple. That's below replacement level. That its affecting the gender balance as well is all the more reason to change it. |
Sorry, but I'm not buying it. First, China could benefit from population reduction (although its population is projected to increase over the next two decades). Second, most of the gender balance isn't attributable to the inability to try for another girl.
As for madness, it's easy for you to judge; you don't have to deal with it on a daily basis. Most urban Chinese I know support the policy, although it's a bitter pill to swallow.
You can thank Mao for this problem; the population skyrocketed in the 1950s because he encouraged large families. He did so out of the antiquated belief that more people meant national survival in the event of war. It was his first really lame national plan and the Chinese are still paying for it. |
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stevemcgarrett
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 9:09 am Post subject: |
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Ilsanman:
Since you're so confident you won the "debate," tell me precisely where you won it. Otherwise you're just talking out of your azz as usual.
YataBoy cited:
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| at least 1,010 people were executed in China during 2006 |
Yeah, and China has 1.3 billion people. So what, Slim?
You're grasping at straws, wahine.
I'm in favor of capital punishment in general. While I'm sure some of those put to death in China did not deserve to die, I do think we should adopt their policy of making the families pay for the bullets used.
And reduce the time on death row to a year (especially now that DNA evidence can be introduced in court0 so that taxpayers aren't footing the bill for so long. They've already done enough damage to society. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 9:30 am Post subject: |
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| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
Kuros:
| Quote: |
| But China is having less than two children/couple. That's below replacement level. That its affecting the gender balance as well is all the more reason to change it. |
Sorry, but I'm not buying it. First, China could benefit from population reduction (although its population is projected to increase over the next two decades). Second, most of the gender balance isn't attributable to the inability to try for another girl.
As for madness, it's easy for you to judge; you don't have to deal with it on a daily basis. Most urban Chinese I know support the policy, although it's a bitter pill to swallow.
You can thank Mao for this problem; the population skyrocketed in the 1950s because he encouraged large families. He did so out of the antiquated belief that more people meant national survival in the event of war. It was his first really lame national plan and the Chinese are still paying for it. |
Mao's population growth at any cost was foolhardy. Let's just get that out of the way.
Demographics are important to economic health. Right now China's birthrate is 1.75 children/couple. This is not as painful as Korea's 1.2 children/couple, but its not exactly a healthy birthrate.
This article, in the context of pensions, talks about the dependency ratio.
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The key to understanding the pension business is something called the "dependency ratio," and dependency ratios are best understood in the context of countries. In the past two decades, for instance, Ireland has gone from being one of the most economically backward countries in Western Europe to being one of the strongest: its growth rate has been roughly double that of the rest of Europe. There is no shortage of conventional explanations. Ireland joined the European Union. It opened up its markets. It invested well in education and economic infrastructure. It's a politically stable country with a sophisticated, mobile workforce.
But, as the Harvard economists David Bloom and David Canning suggest in their study of the "Celtic Tiger," of greater importance may have been a singular demographic fact. In 1979, restrictions on contraception that had been in place since Ireland's founding were lifted, and the birth rate began to fall. In 1970, the average Irishwoman had 3.9 children. By the mid-nineteen-nineties, that number was less than two. As a result, when the Irish children born in the nineteen-sixties hit the workforce, there weren't a lot of children in the generation just behind them. Ireland was suddenly free of the enormous social cost of supporting and educating and caring for a large dependent population. It was like a family of four in which, all of a sudden, the elder child is old enough to take care of her little brother and the mother can rejoin the workforce. Overnight, that family doubles its number of breadwinners and becomes much better off.
This relation between the number of people who aren't of working age and the number of people who are is captured in the dependency ratio. In Ireland during the sixties, when contraception was illegal, there were ten people who were too old or too young to work for every fourteen people in a position to earn a paycheck. That meant that the country was spending a large percentage of its resources on caring for the young and the old. Last year, Ireland's dependency ratio hit an all-time low: for every ten dependents, it had twenty-two people of working age. That change coincides precisely with the country's extraordinary economic surge.
Demographers estimate that declines in dependency ratios are responsible for about a third of the East Asian economic miracle of the postwar era; this is a part of the world that, in the course of twenty-five years, saw its dependency ratio decline thirty-five per cent. Dependency ratios may also help answer the much-debated question of whether India or China has a brighter economic future. Right now, China is in the midst of what Joseph Chamie, the former director of the United Nations' population division, calls the "sweet spot." In the nineteen-sixties, China brought down its birth rate dramatically; those children are now grown up and in the workforce, and there is no similarly sized class of dependents behind them. India, on the other hand, reduced its birth rate much more slowly and has yet to hit the sweet spot. Its best years are ahead.
The logic of dependency ratios, of course, works equally powerfully in reverse. If your economy benefits by having a big bulge of working-age people, then your economy will have a harder time of it when that bulge generation retires, and there are relatively few workers to take their place. For China, the next few decades will be more difficult. "China will peak with a 1-to-2.6 dependency ratio between 2010 and 2015," Bloom says. "But then it's back to a little over 1-to-1.5 by 2050. That's a pretty dramatic change. Thirty per cent of the Chinese population will be over sixty by 2050. That's four hundred and thirty-two million people." Demographers sometimes say that China is in a race to get rich before it gets old.
Economists have long paid attention to population growth, making the argument that the number of people in a country is either a good thing (spurring innovation) or a bad thing (depleting scarce resources). But an analysis of dependency ratios tells us that what's critical is not just the growth of a population but its structure. "The introduction of demographics has reduced the need for the argument that there was something exceptional about East Asia or idiosyncratic to Africa," Bloom and Canning write, in their study of the Irish economic miracle. "Once age-structure dynamics are introduced into an economic growth model, these regions are much closer to obeying common principles of economic growth."
This is an important point. People have talked endlessly of Africa's political and social and economic shortcomings and simultaneously of some magical cultural ingredient possessed by South Korea and Japan and Taiwan that has brought them success. But the truth is that sub-Saharan Africa has been mired in a debilitating 1-to-1 ratio for decades, and that proportion of dependency would frustrate and complicate economic development anywhere. Asia, meanwhile, has seen its demographic load lighten overwhelmingly in the past thirty years. Getting to a 1-to-2.5 ratio doesn't make economic success inevitable. But, given a reasonably functional economic and political infrastructure, it certainly makes it a lot easier.
This demographic logic also applies to companies... |
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Barking Mad Lord Snapcase
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
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| Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 2:20 pm Post subject: Re: THOSE MAGNANIMOUS MUSLIMS & THEIR LYING MACHINES |
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| bacasper wrote: |
| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
As for myself, I would not ever consider going to teach in any society where I would have to watch my every move for fear of offending some religious zealot and landing myself in prison, or worse. Indeed, I wouldn't deign to even consider applying to teach in a country whose people weren't likely to welcome me and treat me as a guest (which is one of the reasons I'm leaving Korea).
I once had the chance to teach in Saudi Arabia for the equivalent of 6 million won a month plus wonderfully spacious, free housing and utilities, not to mention a generous relocation allowance, first-rate medical care, and air transport for both my spouse and me. I simply could not justify teaching in such an oppressive society where women are second class citizens, where Filipina guest workers are often physically and sexually abused without the hope of redress and where I would be strongly discouraged from mentioning (much less celebrating) my cultural heritage or societal preferences. This principled position also prevents me from seeking employment in Russia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Venezuela, Serbia, most of the swath of the Middle East, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Somalia, North Africa, Myanmar, Pakistan, Iran, Cuba and North Korea (not that I could teach in either of the latter two anyway).. |
Steve, I'd like to understand you here. So you left America and traveled halfway around the world to look for a place that is just like...America? |
Are you suggesting that America is synonymous with human rights? Because those who use "America" as a punchline are saying something different.
I would feel more comfortable working in a democracy than in a dictatorship. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 2:32 pm Post subject: |
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Um, China is a seriously flawed dictatorship and you sold out for pretty low wages. You aren't just a hypocrit, you are a cheap one. |
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Ilsanman
Joined: 15 Aug 2003
Location: Bucheon, Korea
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| Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 4:55 pm Post subject: |
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When you took the stance that China is NOt a human rights disaster, you lost the argument right there.
| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
Ilsanman:
Since you're so confident you won the "debate," tell me precisely where you won it. Otherwise you're just talking out of your azz as usual.
YataBoy cited:
| Quote: |
| at least 1,010 people were executed in China during 2006 |
Yeah, and China has 1.3 billion people. So what, Slim?
You're grasping at straws, wahine.
I'm in favor of capital punishment in general. While I'm sure some of those put to death in China did not deserve to die, I do think we should adopt their policy of making the families pay for the bullets used.
And reduce the time on death row to a year (especially now that DNA evidence can be introduced in court0 so that taxpayers aren't footing the bill for so long. They've already done enough damage to society. |
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stevemcgarrett
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 8:04 pm Post subject: |
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Ilsanman summarily declared:
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| When you took the stance that China is NOt a human rights disaster, you lost the argument right there. |
Ah, I see now. Well, yes, if you have determined that anything less than a wholesale admission that China is a human rights basketcase means that I've lost the debate, then I prostrate myself before you.
However, you're argument is about as subtle as that of your typical Korean drunk weaving down the sidewalk.
I acknowledged that the government--which I've repeatedly denigrated on this forum in other threads--has a poor record on human rights (although not as bad as some other nations).
BUT THAT IS BESIDE THE POINT
China has made great strides in human rights in the last two decades but still has a long way to go. Any China Hand will tell you the same.
It has clearly defined laws and regulations concerning infanticide and what you ingenuously lable gendercide. Those are enforced at the provincial level quite uniformly but at the district level in rural areas not so well.
Saudi Arabian law, on the other hand, is built on a modern interpretation of Sharia rule and the government makes no effort to codify laws which would elevate and protect the status of women from it.
My original point was that I wouldn't wish to work in a country where the government actively seeks to subject part of its populace.
Now go chew on your cud for awhile until this sinks in.
Ya-Ta Boy toyed:
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| Um, China is a seriously flawed dictatorship and you sold out for pretty low wages. You aren't just a hypocrit, you are a cheap one. |
You mean 'hypocrite,' don't you? Well la-dee-da boy, the fact that I was willing to work for a meager salary might rather suggest my sincere commitment to educational reform for anyone who isn't as cynical or dense as you are. Usually the accusation of "selling out" is reserved for those who reap the benefits of cozying up to dictators, sort of like the French and Russians did with Saddam Hussein and the latter (and India) are doing with Iran--and South Korea is doing with North Korea. |
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endo
Joined: 14 Mar 2004
Location: Seoul...my home
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| Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 8:25 pm Post subject: |
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STEVE!!!!!!!!!
You said you wouldn't teach in such and such country because of their deplorable human rights record, while at the same time having had taught previously in China.
Just be a man and admit you messed up. We all do. But your insistance on maintaining your defeated argument makes me question your failure to understand that yes, sometimes you might be wrong.
It's kind of childish dude.
Give it up. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 12:08 am Post subject: |
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| the fact that I was willing to work for a meager salary might rather suggest |
It might with someone else, but with you it suggests that you are a cheap son of unmarried parents when it comes to selling out.
Just to remind myself:
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| This principled position also prevents me from seeking employment in Russia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Venezuela, Serbia, most of the swath of the Middle East, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Somalia, North Africa, Myanmar, Pakistan, Iran, Cuba and North Korea |
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