Criminals 3 Kidnappers in Government

(Note: the original title of this paper was "When government is breeding ground of criminals". I changed the title to reflect a new discussion series on "Crime and Rule of Men".)

The hostage-taker-criminal in the tourist bus incident yesterday, Rolando Mendoza, was a former police captain. He was dismissed last year because of charges of robbery, extortion and grave threats filed against him and 4 other police officials by an employee of one hotel in Manila.

He was angry, so he has to resort to terrorism, by taking a bus full of tourists from Hong Kong, used the foreign visitors as his hostages to impose his demand -- that he should get back his past position as a police official. Whether he was unjustly charged or not, hostage taking is never a sensible solution to assert one's demand, personal or political.

After aboout 12 hours of negotiations, watching, monitoring, drama, 8 HK visitors were dead, the hostage taker was also dead.

The focus of public discussions was how the Philippine National Police (PNP) handled the crisis -- why it took them 12 hours to end the crisis, why so many dead hostages, why a lot of questionable, if not idiotic actions were commited prior to the storming of the bus, etc.

As expected, many potential foreign tourists, especially from Hong Kong and mainland China, cancelled their trip to the Philippines. The HK government even issued a "black" travel advisory to their citizens not to visit the Philippines.

A number of blogs in China had some angry and satirical comments against the Philippine police. Some negative comments were directed at the "monkey" Filipinos. See this popular blog about China and Chinese people for non-Chinese-speaker readers, http://www.chinasmack.com/2010/stories/philippines-hostage-crisis-ends-many-dead-chinese-netizen-reactions.html

The big issue is that the criminal, the hostage-taker-killer, is a former government personnel, armed and dangerous. He's got government-issued armalite and ammunitions, government-conducted training. Such deadly combinations when used to threaten ordinary civilians is very dangerous.

I think the criminal was angry that while he was charged (convicted?) as a police extortionist, he knew that many PNP officials are also extortionists. But those guys kept their positions, some were even promoted, so why was he singled out? To get back his position and to become a future criminal in police uniform, he has to do a criminal act of using foreign visitors as his hostages to pursue his personal agenda.

And true to being a criminal, he killed some of his hostages and fought it out with policemen in active duty.

His death though, will not end a bigger danger: the government as breeding ground of criminals in uniforms. Those criminals are not many, they may be few, but even one criminal -- an extortionist, a murderer, a kidnapper, a carnapper, etc. -- is enough to taint the image of the PNP as an institution.

So long as government people do not fully appreciate 100 percent, the importance and value of the "rule of law", the temptation to use their position to perpetuate the "rule of men" will always be there.
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See also:
Criminals 1: Killings in Thailand and Military Crackdown, April 16, 2009
Criminals 2: Pakistan, the Criminal state, August 17, 2010

Transport Econ 3: Brand Competition Among Jeepneys and Buses

A friend, Benson Te, posted a good article today, Can Government Prevent Disasters? It's about his reaction to new government moves to further regulate buslines and bus drivers in order to "prevent future accidents."

Benson observed that

regulators are obsessed with rules and NOT with pleasing the consumers. Yet rules don’t and won’t incorporate everything that is known for the benefit of society. The fundamental premise of which anew is the Knowledge problem and of the interest of diverse groups involved in shaping the laws.


So instead of looking for the welfare of their clients or the consumers, industry providers will be forced to pay attention FIRST to comply with the web of laws.

And he made this concluding statement,

you don’t need more government intervention, what you need is more competition and judicious facilitation of tort laws.

I agree with many points that Benson wrote, especially on the role of allowing more competition among more industry players. But I will suggest that we specify and qualify the term competition: that there will be brand competition.

Jeepneys, tens of thousands of them in the Philippines, compete with each other on various routes, but they have no corporate brand, they compete as individual units. Thus, they can be reckless and discourteous (like stopping in the middle of the road) and they risk not losing any credibility or brand reputation.

Bus lines compete on brand: Victory, Five Star, Philtranco, Penafrancia, Dagupan, Ceres, Jam, other local bus lines. When just one bus of any of those bus lines meet an accident, especially involving death to many passengers, the whole brand or the entire bus company is affected. Passengers would shy away from that busline, thinking that drivers of that bus company maybe over-worked and over-fatigued, or underpaid and have low morale, or the company hires undertrained and underqualified drivers, and so on.

With competition among buslines that keep their brand reputation, internal control among bus companies become strict. The pressure to bus drivers not to be involved in any accident -- zero accident goal -- is high. And this protects passengers.

Zero government regulation will be needed there as self-regulation is strict and efficient.

Back to jeepneys. I think either we abolish the Land Transport Franchising Regulatory Board (LTFRB), or we change its mandate to promotional, not regulatory, of transpo franchises. All jeepneys should belong to a jeepney corporation or cooperative, they should belong to a particular jeepney brand. A jeepney brand, say brand A, will have a distinct corporate or coop entity, will have one design, and can field jeepneys in various routes. Operators and owners of individual jeepney units will pay to the jeepney corporation or cooperative, the brand, and the brand will provide various services to the jeepney operators. Like continuing driver education and training, good maintenance of units, advertising the brand to attract more passenger loyalty, etc.

Passengers will remember the brand -- more courteous drivers, they don't over-charge, they follow traffic rules, they don't stop in the middle of the road, more comfortable units, drivers don't overload their jeepneys, etc. Those brands that have ugly record and have no reputation will go bankrupt. Or they will be forced to improve their services to regain passenger loyalty.

There is practically zero government role to improve the services of jeepneys. Government comes in only in disputes like accidents and there are casualties. Government enforces the rule of law -- laws to protect passengers' right to life, right to safe travel.
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* See also:

Transport Econ 1: Public Transpo Regulation, December 19, 2007

Transport Econ 2: Small-Scale Monopolies, April 22, 2010

SST plunge and high SW reflection

Today, Dr. Roy Spencer released an update in sea surface temperature (SST) both global and Nino 34 region (east Pacific Ocean). The plunge in SST is deep especially for Nino 34, at the -1.5 C temperature anomaly, very much following the 2008 global cooling. Data as of August 18, 2010.

But what is even more interesting, is the high shortwave (SW or sunlight) reflection last month and this month, as shown in this graph. Dr. Spencer posited 3 possible explanations, plus his observation of the role of "negative feedback" of clouds over whatever surface or oceaning warming:

(1) the ocean cooling is being driven by decreased sunlight, or (2) negative feedback in response to anomalously warm conditions, or (3) some combination of (1) and (2). Note that negative low-cloud feedback would conflict with all of the IPCC climate models, which exhibit various levels of positive cloud feedback.

Dr. Spencer is a former NASA scientist, currently a practicing climatologist at the Univ. of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). All important data that he and his university use, are from NASA satellite data, especially NASA's Aqua satellite and its AMSR-E instrument. Such data include (a) SST, (b) tropospheric temperature (about 8 kms. above sea level), (c) oceaning SW reflection like the above graph, among others.

Such NASA satellite data produce more independent, hard to tweak data, and such data show either a warming-cooling-warming-cooling cycle, and more recently, a cooling trend. But NASA is known for being among the frontline climate alarmism camp. Why?

It's the Goddard Insitute for Space Studies (GISS), an agency under NASA and headed by Dr. James Hansen, that is actually associated with the warming and alarmist camp, not the entire NASA. And GISS is using (land) surface temperature data collected by thousands of surface thermometers from many stations around the world. Such instruments are known for having warming bias -- like temperature measurements just a meter or 2 away from an air-con exhaust, or situated in car parking lots and affected by reeving car engines and hot asphalt, or situated in airports and their hot plane engines and hot concrete tarmac and runway.

When I learned about this, I also shook my head, along with others. NASA is known for space research, not land surface research. But GISS is relying on land surface temperature data, and not on NASA satellite data.

That's how politics work in science. And NASA is a government and political creation, so it is impossible for that office to avoid politics and political pressure.

Illusion of conflict bet material economy and services sector

(Note: this is my article today at http://www.thelobbyist.biz/perspectives/columns/back_to_personal_responsibility/886.html)

Improvement in productivity in the agriculture and industry sectors will necessarily spur the growth and expansion of the services sector. The latter not only provides the transportation and financial infrastructures for the growth of the former, it also creates new sub-sectors that expand the market for more agricultural and industrial production.

Some people though keep selling a lousy idea of conflict or contradiction between "Physical economy" and the Services sector. That the reason why poverty is high, why many economies are so crisis-prone, is because of the “stagnating physical economy with ballooning services sector.” Thus, government should further regulate the services sector and government should support and subsidize further the agriculture and industry sectors.

There is zero contradiction between the two groups of the economy. People in the education, health, media, consulting, and other sub-sectors of the Services sector; produce zero electronic product like a circuit or cell phone or laptop. But they create the demand for more new cell phones, new laptops, new iPods, etc. as these electronic products are among the main “means of production” of these people in the services sector.

The car manufacturing industry can grow only if the service economy that uses those cars also grows: taxi, rent a car, company car, hotel and tourism car, and personal car. There are banks and financial intermediaries that allow the car buyers and users to purchase those cars. Through bank financing and related schemes, the car manufacturers have the peace of mind to produce and sell those cars to people who only have a fraction of the money needed to buy the whole new car, and expect to be paid in full after sometime.

As the recent global financial turmoil is not yet over, certain groups and sectors in society keep blaming free market capitalism as the main source of the crisis. But look again: hundreds of millions of people use web-based email addresses and online networking like Yahoo and Yahoogroups, Google and Googlegroups, MSN, Facebook and Tweeter.

Users of such facilities pay zero tax or zero registration fees. Such facilities are 100 percent a product of free market capitalism. Yahoo is fighting hard with Google, Facebook, Multiply, and other online networking companies. So all of them, all without exception, are giving free use of their facilities to the public, and make money somewhere.

It is not entirely free lunch, of course, as those online networking sites and search engines keep some personal information for their own corporate purposes. But people enter on a voluntary basis. They were not coerced to sign the agreement; they were only interested in having free email address, in having access to quick group messaging, and so on.

When the poor complain of expensive dress, expensive shoes, expensive food, expensive-everything in the malls or other shopping areas, they do not go to Malacanang or DTI or other government agencies to demonstrate and demand that government will impose dress price control, shoes price control, food price control, etc. No. Only socialists and statists always think of running to the government to seek for more state intervention and more state regulation.

The poor go to Baclaran, Divisoria, Quiapo, tiangge-tiangge, and seek the cheap dress, cheap shoes, cheap food, that they need. There is zero politics, zero street demonstrations needed. And they go home happy that somehow they were able to buy something. And they work again to save and go back to buy cheap commodities the next time. And there is order in society.

How can the poor be pacified in such a way? By free market capitalism. The expensive retailers are not in Baclaran or Divisoria; they are in Greenbelt, SM, Robinsons, etc. There is a place for everyone.

People just do not realize it. Without free market capitalism, life is lousy and idiotic. See North Korea for instance.

Drug price control: 1 year of failure

(Note: This is my article for People's Brigada News this week, submitted last August 11, 2010)

This August 15, the drug price control policy will turn exactly one year old. The government, through the Department of Health (DOH), imposed a 50 percent mandatory price reduction for many branded drugs that it deemed were essential but expensive. Let us see some results of the policy.

Medium-sized chain MedExpress and Manson drugstores reported some chilling sales data. From August-December 2009, all the price-controlled drugs suffered a 3.4 percent decline in volume and 34.3 percent decline in sales value, compared to August-December 2009. Comparing January-May 2010 with January-May 2009, sales volume of the price-controlled drugs has managed to post an average of 7.3 percent, but sales value has declined by an average of 65.4 percent.

The sales value decline is bigger than the 50 percent forcible price reduction because there are other mandatory discounts that the government has imposed on drugstores on top of the 50 percent mandatory price cut, like 20 percent mandatory discount for both senior citizens and persons with disabilities (PWDs).

There are a number of reasons why the drug price policy failed. Four reasons stand out.

One, the policy was driven mainly by politics and not by any national health emergency. A former Senator running for President but lagging in Presidential surveys pushed hard the issue some 12 to 13 months before the May 2010 elections. A very unpopular President serving the last of her 9 years in office rode on the emotional popularity of the measure.

Two, competition among innovator drugs and generic drugs was already dynamic prior to the price control measure. Take amlodipine molecule for anti-hypertension. The most popular drug was Norvasc 5mg, selling for P44 a tablet. Then it became P22. But the cheapest generic available prior to price control was selling for only P8. The poor who buys the latter drug finds the P22 still a lot more expensive and hence, will not buy it.

Three, the policy has the unintended consequence of hitting the local pharmaceutical companies that produce the competing generic drugs. They were pushed to further bring down their already low prices.

Four, some small and independent drugstores were forced to further cut their personnel and other cost of operations just to survive, or close shop altogether. Which contributed to more unemployment in the country.

It is important that the government should focus on encouraging competition among various drug manufacturers, among importers, drugstores and hospitals. The new President should signify that the government will not entertain another round of drug price control in the next six years of its term. This will help improve the investment environment in a country that badly needs more investors and job creators.

Climatism! A book review

That's the title of the new book by a new friend, Steve Goreham. Steve briefly defines Climatism as "the belief that man-made greenhouse gases are destroying Earth's climate."

Steve sent me a "For Review Only" copy of his book last February. I was amazed at how clear the author has presented the various topics, from science to engineering to economics and politics of climate issues. I thought that Steve was a scientist, but turned out that he's an (American) engineer-businessman who got tired of all the alarmism and lies that were spreading around. He enclosed himself for several months, read the various books, papers he accummulated, plus various online research, and came up with his book.

Last May, during the Heartland Institute's 4th International Conference on Climate Change (4th ICCC) in Chicago, I have met Steve in person. The man is a giant, he should be about one foot taller than me. In this picture, two big Steves are with me. From the left is Steve G, then another Steve, Steve McIntyre, a Canadian statistician and owner of Climate Audit, and me.

The book is thick, 466 pages including Index. Here is the general outline of the book:

PART 1: Global Warming Alarmism Debunked

Chap. 1, A Tsunami for Global Warming Alarmism
Chap. 2, The Thin Science for Man-Made Global Warming
Chap. 3, Carbon Dioxide: Not Guilty
Chap. 4, Climate Change is Continuous
Chap. 5, The Sun is Our Climate Driver
Chap. 6, Global Warming Disasters Debunked

PART II: Climatism and "Snake Oil" Remedies

Chap. 7, The IPCC and the Road to World Delusion
Chap. 8, Climatism: The Ideology Behind Global Warming Alarmism
Chap. 9, The Beliefs, Objectives and Tactics of Climatism
Chap. 10, The Science is Not Settled
Chap. 11, Snake Oil Remedies to "Save the Planet"

PART III. Renewable Energy "Solutions"

Chap. 12, Energy: The Lifeblood of Prosperity
Chap. 13, Renewable Energy: Reality Far Short of Promises
Chap. 14, Chains for the Developing Nations
Chap. 15, Climatism in Action: Debacles Around the World
Chap. 16, Energy Nonsense for the Good Old USA
Chap. 17, Common Sense and the Future

In Chapter 2, Steve showed this graph, the Vostoc Ice Cores, Antarctica, from a study by JM Barnola et al. in 1987. Steve wrote,

If there was no human industry to emit carbon back in history, how did the atmospheric CO2 increase? The answer is that the CO2 increases are from natural causes, primarily out-gassing from the oceans.

And note the cycle in global temperature -- warming, cooling, warming, cooling. Just another proof that climate cycles happen, that "unprecedented warming" is a joke.

In Chapter 4, Steve showed this graph, a roller-coaster ride of warming-cooling-warming-cooling since the last Ice Age some 10,000 years ago. It shows in particular, the Holocene, Roman and Medieval warm periods, and the Little Ice Age (LIA) just prior to the Industrial Revolution in 1800s. Data is from oxygen isotope analysis of ice cores in Greenland.

In Chapter 5, the author showed a graph similar to this, with labels of the (a) Maundeer Minimum between 1650 to 1700+, (b) Dalton Minimum in 1800+, and (c) Modern Maximum from 1850 to the last century.

The two minima coincided or represented the LIA. Where there was a period of weak and few sunspots, that was also the period of global cooling. And where there was a period of strong and plentiful sunspots, that was the period of global warming.

In Chapter 6, Steve showed these 2 graphs, among others. The first is seaice anomaly (or divergence from the average) in the Arctic. This graph though is more updated, as of August 17, 2010, but taken from the same source as Steve's graph. It is true that seaice extent in 2010 is lower than the average for 1979 to 2008 by -1.23 million sq.km. Source of graph is http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png

But look at seaice anomaly in Antarctica, the 2010 seaice extent is +1.59 million sq.km. larger than the average for 1979 to 2008. The statement by many climate alarmists of "ever-melting polar ice" is idiotic. Seaice extent is a cycle, growing-melting-growing-melting, every year, every decade, every century. Again, this graph is more updated (as of August 17, 2010) from the graph in Chapter 6 of the book, but taken from the same source that is updated daily, http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png

In Chapter 14, the author showed this satellite picture, "Africa at night". Note the bright lights to the north of Africa -- Middle East and Europe. The time zones are similar so evening in Africa is also evening in Europe, so no "camera trick" in this picture.

Climatism barks at heavy energy use by modern societies, especially electricity coming from "dirty and non-renewable" sources like coal, natural gas and other hydro-carbon sources. For many climate alarmists, they would rather see more darkness and underdevelopment if a modernizing economy cannot source its electricity from "clean" but expensive, taxpayers-subsidized renewables.

This picture is not in Steve's book but it is similar to the "Africa at night" picture above. This is a satellite picture of North and South Korea at night.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) campaigners of their annual "Earth Hour" should be jumping with joy if they were in continental Africa and North Korea. Why? Houses and offices there do not turn off their lights for one hour per year only. Instead, they turn off their lights many hours per night for 365 nights a year. Less electricity from non-renewables, less carbon emission, less "man-made global warming", more joys for their climate religion.

The book is a powerful tool to understand the many natural factors that Al Gore, the various bodies of the UN like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the UN Environmental Program (UNEP), have deliberately ignored.

Many people thought that the IPCC is a scientific body. No, it is not. It is a political, government body, that is why it is called "Intergovernmental Panel". The officials of IPCC are non-scientists but appointed bureaucrats. The IPCC head, for instance, Mr. Rajendra Pachauri, is an economist from India.

To see the contents of the book more, check http://www.climatism.net/

Steve just emailed me this week saying that he has just accepted the post as Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America.

Congrats Steve! It's a well-deserved position and there are lots of work and challenges that a serious researcher and public intellectual like you can take on.

Criminals 2: Pakistan, the Criminal state

I did not invent that statement. It was my friend, Dr. Khalil Ahmad, the founder and director of the only free market think tank in Pakistan, Lahore-based Alternate Solutions Institute. With all the political instability in Pakistan due to the fight against the Taliban and other armed fundamentalist groups, Khalil is a very brave man to write his paper, Pakistan -- A Criminal State

In his paper, Khalil bravely wrote,

Who is to deny that from day first most of the individuals, from top to bottom, associated with the state of Pakistan and its institutions and the government were somehow having criminal record, or they were patronizers of criminals, or they directly or indirectly help promote crimes and criminals, or they let crimes and criminals flourish by not letting law take its course. In the first half, not by giving the nation a constitution under which they were to be ruled, and in the second, not by adhering, in letter and spirit, to the dictates of the constitution, the said elites committed crimes of the highest order.

More than that, they used public money as if it was booty looted from an enemy in time of war. It seems these elites, who behave quite like merciless parasites, in the form of public exchequer found a gold mine to fulfill from their minor needs to their choicest luxuries. Throughout they proved to be the worst thieves and merciless robbers, if not to dub them as the worst marauders.

I have written several papers in this blog or in the MG website pointing out how shameless many Filipino political leaders and bureaucrats are, but if I read Khalil's description of Pakistani politicians, military leaders and bureaucrats, I begin to think that perhaps Philippine government corruption is still a "mild" one.

But Khalil is very consistent in his arguments: it is the non-promulgation of the rule of law in Pakistan that causes the various problems of underdevelopment, corruption and political instability. The absence of the rule of law means the monster rule of men, the rule of non-accountable political elites and the various business groups and interests that benefit from such rule of men in Pakistani society.

Given the boldness that Khalil exhibits when he writes and the occassional bombings, massacre and other acts of terrorism happening in Pakistan, I sincerely wish for his safety.

There is a huge price in asserting freedom and liberty. Khalil and other friends in the liberty and free market movement in Asia and other parts of the world are perfectly aware of that. A struggle to expose a criminal state is a struggle worth fighting for.
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See also: Criminals 1: Killings in Thailand and Military Crackdown, April 16, 2009

China Watch 8: World's Largest Economies in 2010

China will be the 2nd biggest economy in the world starting this year. It overtook Japan's economy by 2nd quarter of this year. This was reported today here, China Passes Japan as Second-Largest Economy

I checked the IMF's World Economic Outlook (WEO) recent database to see the actual numbers, and also the ranking of other countries. Below is what I got.

Country Gross Domestic Product (GDP), current prices, 2000 (1st column) and 2010 (2nd column)
in US$ billion

1. United States, 9,951.5 / 14,799.6
2. China, 1,198.5 / 5,364.9
3. Japan, 4,667.4 / 5,272.9
4. Germany, 1,905.8 / 3,332.8
5. France, 1,333.4 / 2,668.8
6. United Kingdom, 1,480.5 / 2,222.6
7. Italy, 1,100.6 / 2,121.1
8. Brazil, 644.3 / 1,910.5
9. Canada, 724.9 / 1,556.0
10. Russia, 259.7 / 1,507.6
11. Spain, 582.4 / 1,424.7
12. India, 461.9 / 1,367.2
13. Australia, 400.7 / 1,193.0
14. Mexico, 628.9 / 995.9
15. Korea, 533.4 / 991.1
16. Netherlands, 386.2 / 797.4
17. Turkey, 266.4 / 710.7
18. Indonesia, 165.5 / 670.4
19. Switzerland, 249.9 / 512.1
20. Poland, 171.3 / 479.0

21. Belgium, 233.0 / 471.8
22. Sweden, 245.6 / 443.7
23. Saudi Arabia, 188.7 / 438.0
24. Norway, 168.3 / 433.3
25. Taiwan, 326.2 / 418.2
26. Austria, 191.8 / 391.6
27. Iran, 96.4 / 360.0
28. Argentina, 284.3 / 344.1
29. South Africa, 133.0 / 329.5
30. Greece, 127.6 / 325.1
31. Denmark, 160.1 / 313.8
32. Venezuela, 117.2 / 301.0
33. Thailand, 122.7 / 297.9
34. Colombia, 94.1 / 268.1
35. United Arab Emirates, 70.2 / 252.7
36. Finland, 122.1 / 240.1
37. Portugal, 113.0 / 226.0
38. Hong Kong, 169.1 / 223.7
39. Ireland, 96.9 / 216.1
40. Egypt, 99.2 / 215.8

41. Nigeria, 46.4 / 214.0
42. Malaysia, 93.8 / 213.1
43. Israel, 124.7 / 199.5
44. Czech Republic, 56.7 / 199.0
45. Chile, 75.2 / 196.5
46. Singapore, 92.7 / 194.9
47. Philippines, 75.9 / 181.5
48. Pakistan, 74.1 / 177.9
49. Romania, 37.3 / 168.6
50. Algeria, 54.7 / 156.8
51. Peru, 53.3 / 146.3
52. Hungary, 47.3 / 145.6
53. New Zealand, 53.0 / 135.7
54. Kuwait, 37.7 / 135.1
55. Ukraine, 31.3 / 127.1
56. Kazakhstan, 18.3 / 126.3
57. Qatar, 17.8 / 110.8
58. Bangladesh, 47.0 / 104.6
59. Vietnam, 31.2 / 103.1
60. Morocco, 37.0 / 94.0

source: International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Economic Outlook April 2010 Database,
http://bit.ly/aJc7EX

Notice how China's economy jumped from only $1.2 trillion 10 years ago to the projected $5.36 trillion this year, or a 348 percent increase. Compare that with Japan's 13 percent jump from 2000 to this year's GDP level, the US's 49 percent increase, Germany's 75 percent increase, and France's 100 percent increase.

Other countries that produced huge increase in GDP size in just 10 years are (1) Russia 480 percent increase, (2) Indonesia 305 percent increase, and (3-5) Brazil, India and Australia which registered 200 percent increase in GDP size.

The Philippines with 94 million people this year has a lower GDP size than Singapore with less than 5 million people. The country is ranked 47th in GDP size this year, higher than Pakistan.

China should continue its fast growth rate. A rich China means a rich billion plus consumers just a few hours from Manila by plane. A rich China also means market diversification opportunity for many other poorer countries that used to rely on exporting their goods and services to the US, Japan and Europe.

And more importantly, a rich China means that freeing markets towards more capitalist competition will unleash more entrepreneurial spirit from tens of millions of big and small entrepreneurs and investors.
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World's Biggest Trade Surplus/Deficit Economies

While Germany was enjoying a trade surplus of $577 million per day in the last 12 months ending June 2010, the United States was draining by $1.62 billion per day in trade deficit also in the last 12 months ending in June 2010.

China's trade surplus is more than 2x that of Japan's. India and Hong Kong are the only Asian countries in the top 10 biggest trade deficit countries.

Below is a list of the world's biggest trade surplus and biggest trade deficit countries.

A. Biggest Trade Surplus (exports larger than imports) latest 12 months, in $ billion

1. Germany, 210.8 (June)
2. China, 174.7 (July)
3. Russia, 152.6 (June)
4. Saudi Arabia, 104.4 (2009)
5. Japan, 81.7 (June)
6. Norway, 55.6 (June)
7. Ireland, 54.1 (May)
8. Netherlands, 53.3 (May)
9. S. Korea, 40.1 (July)
10. Malaysia, 36.6 (May)

B. Biggest Trade Deficit ( exports smaller than imports) latest 12 months, in $ billion

1. US, 592.4 (June)
2. Britain, 135.0 (June)
3. India, 110.2 (June)
4. Spain, 69.5 (May)
5. France, 62.4 (June)
6. Turkey, 52.6 (June)
7. Greece, 43.5 (May)
8. Hong Kong, 41.7 (June)
9. Portugal, 27.6 (June)
10. Egypt, 24.2 (Q1)

source: The Economist, August 12, 2010, http://www.economist.com/node/16793552?story_id=16793552

* See also China Watch 7: Rising Yuan, Economic Bubbles, April 07, 2010