I would disagree with the stay out of policy but the rest is totally true. They're are a couple things that are stunningly clear. Especially in China, the "data" academics and tankies dealing with is so old and top level as to be worthless stale and moldy. Any academic 1/n
Paper on China is probably five years out of date from release. The data quality academics and tankies use is really really poor. It is policy papers, official data, and top line data. This effectively makes "censorship" part of the data set. Academics and tankies are 2/n
Censoring on behalf of their funders or they are relying on effectively censored data to conduct studies. The sad part is they either don't understand this or they don't care. If you want to understand China watch ONLY how people behave. Words are very very poor signals 3/n
Professors and tankies also have awful understanding of what is actually possible or the secondary problems which creates resistance. Take property tax in China which I did a long thread on earlier. Ask the Galaxy Brains have been pointing out a property tax is better 4/n
Which as I said was true but we're entirely puzzled why it wasn't done and never considered the second order risks which of course every policy maker and home owner in China understands but it's totally lost in book readers who only visit the Four Seasons Beijing 5/n
Consequently when they attempt to make proposals about how to solve a problem their "solutions" are generally tossed in the circular file as completely unworkable for a reason obvious to anyone actually working on the problem or in the field. Professors and tankies have 6/n
Close to zero understanding of how things actually get done and what policy will work out get done. If you'll notice, 99 times out of a hundred they will make Hare Krishna sounding recommendations like "cooperate more" which is totally worthless. Try pinning them down 7/n
In SPECIFIC TANGIBLE recommendations and they'll either stumble over their words or have no answer. They don't understand what tools the government has as its disposal or whether it is an executive or legislative issue. So yes, I sympathize a lot with the guys professors thoughts

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More from @BaldingsWorld

21 Oct
You've heard me say that the Galaxy Brains dealing with foreign policy are simply deeply unserious people and thinkers that if not for their influece should be ignored. Let me explain the reasons I say this. First, it is obvious their minds have been made up and no evidence 1/n
Or facts are going to change their mind. Pick any topic surrounding China and they cannot argue factually or empirically relying on data. So no matter what data or evidence you provide them, it is dismissed for increasingly creative reasons because facts don't matter 2/n
Second, their thinking is entirely inconsistent chasing straw men. Like theNYT Oped, "free market purists" will never be content with China. There is zero that the Chinese economy has been centralizing and shutting down markets. It is an invented straw men by a research firm 3/n
Read 9 tweets
20 Oct
Since real estate tax in China has people buzzing let me explain why virtually everything you're reading is thimble deep & missing the enormity of the importance and risks it is exacerbating. This may be a long thread. I will try and include links and will use simple examples 1/n
Let's start by positing that as a method of financing government revenue a yearly tax based upon some pre-defined measure say assessed value of the property is a much better method than land sales. So I have no disagreement with others who say it is. It is. But..... 2/n
People are saying this should be done have really given no thought to a variety of the problems, complications, and risks. This is why they stand around looking puzzled why this wasn't done years ago. So let's try to lay out as many of these secondary issues as possible 3/n
Read 32 tweets
19 Oct
I'm sitting in an airport with random observations and thoughts. Here we go:
1. Having driven across the US and having hit some major cities during that time, Manhattan is far and away the worst of the bunch I've seen. So many empty store fronts seeking tenants 1/n
2. "Infrastructure" problem in the US is generally confined to a couple of places

3. I'm so happy to be in airports again, they are calming and cathartic

4. I ordered bibimbap. The Asian man gave me a fork. As I took chopsticks I wanted to yell racism. I didn't. I'm normal 2/n
5. I find it unnaturally infuriating when Asian restaurants in the US serve the wrong type of rice for whatever food they are serving. I shouldn't get that cheesed

6.7. Media and social media wildly overstate problems. I witness people of all colors and creeds work together 3/n
Read 6 tweets
12 Oct
So let's return to China energy and journalism and what is really the problem with journalism is that by providing bad information it provides distorted understanding of how to solve the problem. When the China energy issue first started coming out the two issues mentioned 1/n
Were this was because of Xi's deeply held environmentalism (ok little embellishment here) and those freaking Australians. Why those two? Well they were in the news and vaguely had some link to the problem so let's mention them as the reason why even though any basic 2/n
Research would have shown that Australia coal plays a tiny part of Chinese energy and the environment well let's not go down that smog lined road but that what journos said it was. Why does this matter? It provides a very distorted really false or inaccurate picture of the 3/n
Read 9 tweets
5 Oct
There's famous Biblical parable where a master goes away for sometime and leaves talents to his servants. The last servant returns upon the masters arrival and says here is the talent you gave me. The master asks what did you do with it while I was away. The servant responds 1/n
I buried it. This seems like a perfect analogy for the first year of the Biden administration foreign policy focusing on China and generally the world at large. The closest thing there would be to a significant new movement is AUKUS but that was instigated by Australia 2/n
Everything else is just nibbling at the edges backwards or forwards of everything Trump. Biden policy on China to date is just Trump. That's it. Period. Couple minor steps forward and a couple minor steps back but basically nothing. What is even more astounding 3/n
Read 9 tweets
4 Oct
There is an important aspect to understanding how money, ideas, universities, and think tanks work. When donors give money to a university or think for let's say a "China Center" (though pretty much applies to anything else) everyone involved is smart enough to avoid the 1/n
Paper trail in litigation that would wreck them. By that I mean the public statements and private contracts will all say the right things about respecting academic freedom, no strings attached to the money, that allows them to claim no influence from donors 2/n
Put another way, I've personally never witnessed nor heard credible evidence of an academic or think tank publishing something because they were told what to say or were contractually obligated. However, that does not absolve universities or think tanks because what happens 3/n
Read 12 tweets

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