Links I Think You Should Follow

There are a number of articles that I read and some I think should be discussed more broadly; toward that, I submit the following headline links:

• 'Orphan Works' Copyright Law Dies Quiet Death from Wired's "Threat Level"

I firmly believe that copyright law in the U.S. is going to hold a primary role in the economic and political power development of the United States in the world in the next century

• Know-alls from The Economist

This is a decent introduction to Data Mining and the increasing importance the U.S. and other governments are giving this form of spying. I'd suggest that data mining and copyright are going to become inextricably intertwined in the future.

• What Does This Novel Tell Us About Japan's Labor Force Today? from The Mainichi Daily News

This Q&A gives some flavor of the Japanese Labor Market today and suggests rising domestic tensions, particularly in the young. This seems an important demographic to keep in mind: unemployment is up, the family model is shifting (largely because young people aren't getting married), the food supply is regularly seen as vulnerable, and the economy just won't pick up after over a decade of slow growth.

• Speaking of food security, Japan's Environment Ministry Deep-Freezing Seeds also from The Mainichi Daily News

I mention this because it reminds me of Norway's Global Crop Diversity Trust

• Time for Geoengineering? from The Japan Times

Did you know that the largest reserve of methane (more dangerous than CO2 in the Global Warming crisis) is in the Arctic? Did you know that there are techniques such as introducing seawater into low-lying marine clouds that could reduce the amount of sunlight entering the lower atmosphere? I didn't, interesting read.

• Blame China for Our Economic Problems? from the Council on Foreign Relations

Brad Setser is putting forward in this lil' ditty and in the comments a lot of trash about why it's the Chinese that are at the root of our economic policy problems we are facing.

If I've got Setser right, we should blame China for the mess we're in because they were buying lots of agnency bonds during what we now call the housing boom and so interest rates were made lower than they should have been.

But that's absurd: it's because deregulation in how American investment banks that individuals were told to sell more loans to more potential consumers. Why were there so many potential consumers? Not because we experienced some kind of population boom of people in need of houses, but because wages in the U.S. have continued to sag during the last ten years.

We've had an unsustainable economy operating for nearly 15 years and I'd say it's probably more like 20 years. Works like NAFTA created this situation, where what is important about America in the world economy is not the strength of its innovation nor its production, but its good name. The recently rejected bailout was intended to restore America's good name, and so get lending occurring again, not to actually address the problem: that America has too much debt at every level, micro and macro.