China To Build Its Own Large Jetliner

Hugh Pickens writes "China's domestic airlines will need to buy an estimated 4,330 new aircraft valued at $480 billion over the next two decades to meet demand in commercial aviation. Now the LA Times reports that the Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China expects to begin producing its 156-seat C919 by 2016, competing with the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320. China has staked billions of dollars and national pride on the effort but what may surprise some Americans worried about slipping US competitiveness is that some well-known US companies are aiding China, putting US and European suppliers in a tough spot: Be willing to hand over advanced technology to Chinese firms that could one day be rivals or miss out on what's likely to be the biggest aviation bonanza of the next half a century. 'If they launch a commercial aviation industry, you've got to be part of it,' says Roger Seager, GE Aviation's vice president and general manager for China, whose company has garnered contracts worth about $6 billion for the C919. 'You can't take a pass and come back in 10 years.'"

Comments

Re:Don't let actual facts slow down a good rant

[benjamindees]

it is REALLY hard to accurately model human behavior.

No it isn't. It's amazingly easy to model human behavior: Humans destroy and consume. You can model humans the exact same way you would model a catalyst, because, in reality, that's what we are: mobile protein-catalyst-containing vessicles.

The fact that economists can't even get this right, and instead think that humans create value, is the basic fallacy upon which all the rest sits.

For example, take cities. Cities arise around concentrations of exploitable resources: energy deposits, minerals, fertile soil, stable climate, fresh water. Humans move in, reproduce, and catalyze the destruction of these resources. In the process, the city expands, consuming the resources of surrounding areas. What's left in the middle is a burnt-out husk of end-products, a lot fewer humans, and relatively little economic activity. You can model this the same way you model a brushfire or any other chemical reaction. In fact the end products are even mostly the same in both processes, a bunch of oxides and salts: iron oxide, calcium carbonate, carbon dioxide, carbamide, etc.

the guys who run banks are very very bright

They would all be bankrupt today if they hadn't been bailed out. All of them. You must be a real idiot if you think they're all geniuses.

I am a certified accountant

Oh.

Anything tangible or intangible that can be owned or controlled to produce an economic benefit is an asset.

How are those mortgage-backed-securities working out for you?

Gold only has value because people believe it does.

Wrong. Gold has value because of it's relatively high energy-equivalence, making it an excellent currency. Put a small layer of gold on the windows of a commercial building and save millions of BTUs of energy. Put gold-plated solar collectors in the desert and produce huge amounts of thermal power. Use gold electronics or instruments and develop technology to displace energy-consuming human workers. Gold is relatively rare, easy to work and lasts thousands of years without corroding, making it an energy investment that pretty much breaks the models of economic valuation.

You will of course be providing your own ever so insightful solution to all the worlds economic problems?

Sure, here's my solution, in three words: ELIMINATE NEGATIVE EXTERNALITIES. Limit thermodynamic resource consumption to the amount that can be perpetually recycled using only renewable energy sources and excluding human labor. Create barriers (real or legal) around states that produce net migration; impose a one-child-like policy on them until they return to sustainability. Restrict the rest of the world to no more than replacement-rate procreation. Hold individuals responsible for their actions. Punish theft and fraud, including money-printing central banks. Allow prices to fall, work to be automated, and abundance to return.

Oh, and solve the immediate energy crisis by breeding a giant genetically-engineered hamster on a wheel and feeding him economists.*

*Not my idea originally but I still think it's a good one.

Then how does the US still have the largest economy of any single country in the world?

Lots of resources per capita + brainwashed workers + financial fraud + our tendency to invade and subjugate the competition.