Economist, Sept 2, 2017

choi

There is no need to read the rest of any of these.

(1)
(a) Traditional Chinese medicine  l  State-Sponsored Quackery. China is ramping up promotion of its ancient medical practices. That is dangerous. (in the Leaders section -- as an introduction)

Quote:

"The number of Chinese hospitals offering rose from about 2,500 in 2003 to about 4,000 by the end of 2015. In the past six years, the number of licensed practioners in China has increased by nearly 50%, to more than 450,000.

"Mao was an avowed fan of traditional Chinese medicine [TCM], * * * (In private, Mao confided to one of his doctors: 'Even though I believe we should promote Chinese mediicne, I personally do not believe in it.' )

(b) Traditional Chinese medicine  l  Health Care with Chinese Characterics. Traditional medicine is booming in China. But is it good for public health?
("If only there were proof [section heading; boldface original] But evidence that TCM works is scanty")

(2) Indentured labour  l  100 Years Since Servitude; A century after India stopped sending migrants to work in European colonies, how have their descendants fared. Economist, Sept 2, 2017
https://www.economist.com/news/i ... s-diaspora-building

Quote:

"DOOKHEE GUNGAH, born of Indian migrants, began life in 1867 in a shed in Mauritius and worked as a child cutting sugar cane. By his death in 1944, he was one of the island's richest businessmen. He is a notable example of how some indentured labourers prospered against the odds.  Between the 1830s and 1917 around 2m migrants signed up for ten-year terms (later cut to five) in European colonies (see chart on next page). Most were from India, with smaller shares from China, South-East Asia and elsewhere.

" 'Slavery under a different name” is how The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society described the indenture system in 1839. It had a point.

"The indentured labourers’ fortunes varied from place to place, according to their numbers, who else lived there, and laws about land tenure and race. But a shared post-colonial identity is now emerging * * *

"Indo-Mauritians are among the richest and most politically powerful of those descendants. As a British colony, Mauritius took the greatest share of indentured migrants: some 450,000. Their descendants are now two-thirds of the island’s 1.26m inhabitants. Many of the largest businesses are owned by Franco-Mauritians whose ancestors dated from the earlier French colonisation, though they make up just 2% of the population. But Indo-Mauritians dominate the public sector.

"Indentured labourers in Trinidad and Guyana (formerly British Guiana) were also granted land. That was less generous than it seems: much of it was ill-suited to growing sugar cane. The Indians, however, discovered it was perfect for rice.

(3) Naspers  l  A Dime's Worth; Africa's most valuable company is worth less than its stake in Tencent.

The first two paragraphs:

"SOUTH AFRICA'S stockmarket has Naspers largely to thank for its recent record highs. Shares in the media and internet group have soared by 45%this year, even before then it was Africa's most valuable firm. * * *

"The source of good fortune for Naspers lies about 7,000 miles (11,265km) away. In 2001 Koos Bekker[, Naspers's then boss,] made a brilliant investment of $32m in a little-known Chinese technology firm called Tencent. Today its 33% stake is worth $130bn, as measured by Tencent's value on the Hong Kong stock exchange; that dwarfs the $100bn valuation of Naspers itself on the Johannesburg stock exchange. Shares in the latter rise and fall on news from Hong Kong. In its last financial year, the firm's share of profits from its Tencent holding in effect represented all of the group's trading profits; the 'rump' of the business, which [the current boss] has control over, lost money.

choi

(4) Paul Samuelson  l  Practical Theorist.
(book review on Roger Backhouse, Founder of Modern Economics: Paul A Samuelson; Volume 1: Becoming Samuelson, 1915-1948. Oxford University Press, 2017)

Quote:

Harvard professor of economics "Joseph Schumpeter [1883 – 1950; born in present-day Czech Republic; Harvard professor since 1932; one of 2 thesis advisors of Samuelson] described him [Samuelson] as 'the most gifted graduate we have had these many years.' * * * [Upon graduating from Harvard] Samuelson joined the economics department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). At the time, the department's purpose was to offer engineering students a little background in economics. The faculty published few articles, and the department did not even have a PhD programme. While there, Samuelson revolutionised economics, bringing mathematical methods from the fringe to the centre of economic theory. * * * And he attracted talented academics and students to the MIT economics department, helping to turn it into the powerhouse it is today.

"The first volume of Roger Backhouse's biography describes Samuelson's life up to 1948, the year he published [a book] 'Economics; An introductory analysis.' * * * When Samuelson started out, debates over economic theory were predominantly verbal rather than mathematical; in 1940 70% of articles on economic theory in the American Economic Review did not include any maths. Consequently, different schools of economic thought flourished, each with its own complex ideas.  Samuelson realised that the use of complicated mathematics could clarify ideas and unify different fields under a common framework. * * * Samuelson was able to apply this method of analysis to several different fields, including consumer preference theory, the economics of trade and labour economics. * * * Ironically * * * [Samuelson's textbook in economics for college students] is not maths-heavy.

"He understood that mathematics could help resolve debates that had been obscured by too much jargon. He also knew that plain, interesting writing was necessary to explain economics to the public. Today, when difficult maths can obscure economics for the uninitiated, economists would do well to keep the latter point in mind.

Note:
(a) Paul Samuelson (1915 – 2009; Jewish, parents from Poland; entered University of Chicago at age 16, during the depths of the Great Depression)  en.wikipedia.org

Having received MA (in 1936) and PhD (1941) from Harvard University, he won Nobel prize in economics in 1970 (not shared).
(b) The "jargon" is a mass noun.
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/jargon