29 November 2017

2017 President Xi Jinping, Speech, APEC Summit, Da Nang, Vietnam



Taking the translated speech transcript, the words economy, growth, global, and development are highlighted and the remainder sentences that didn't includes these words are discarded. Since this was an economic speech, these highlighted words tended to show up often. There was no mention of debt and tax, which tends to be very prominent in US Presidential speeches. China is in a massive growth development mode, full steam ahead economy, headed towards a conclusion of global proportions. Here are the results:


WordItOut



10 Nov 2017, Da Nang, Vietnam

Xi Jinping, President of the People's Republic of China
APEC CEO Summit

Our region, the Asia-Pacific, has the biggest share of the global economy; and it is a major engine driving global growth. The business community is a primary contributor to growth, as it keeps exploring new ways of development. That's why during the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting over the last several years, I have always taken time to meet business leaders and discuss with you approaches and measures to address the challenges we face.

It has been 10 years since the international financial crisis broke out. Over the last decade, the international community have worked in concert to steer the global economy back to the track of recovery. Thanks to our efforts, the global economy is improving. Despite risks and uncertainties, global trade and investment are picking up, people are more optimistic about the outlook of financial markets, and confidence is growing in all sectors.

Development is a journey with no end, but with one new departure point after another. An ancient Chinese philosopher once observed, "We should focus our mind on the future, not the past." We live in a fast changing world, and the global economy is undergoing more profound changes. We must therefore closely follow the trend of the global economy, identify its underlying dynamics, keep to the right direction, and, on that basis, take bold action.

-- We are seeing a profound change in growth drivers. Countries are turning to reform and innovation to meet challenges and achieve growth. The potential of structural reforms is being unlocked and its positive impact of boosting growth of various countries has become more evident. A new round of technological and industrial revolutions is gaining momentum. Digital economy and sharing economy have registered rapid growth. New industries as well as new forms and models of business are flourishing. As a result, new growth drivers are being created.

-- We are seeing a profound change in the model of global growth. As time advances, development has taken on profoundly richer implications. The vision of innovative, coordinated, green and open development for all is gaining increasing public support. To achieve more comprehensive, higher quality and more sustainable development has become the shared goal of the international community. To implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and adapt to climate change and other challenges of a global nature has become an important international consensus.

-- We are seeing a profound change in economic globalization. Over the last few decades, economic globalization has contributed greatly to global growth. Indeed, it has become an irreversible historical trend. Against the backdrop of evolving global developments, economic globalization faces new adjustments in both form and substance. In pursuing economic globalization, we should make it more open and inclusive, more balanced, more equitable and beneficial to all.

-- We are seeing a profound change in the system of global economic governance. The evolving global economic environment demands more from the system of global economic governance. We should uphold multilateralism, pursue shared growth through consultation and collaboration, forge closer partnerships, and build a community with a shared future for mankind. This, I believe, is what we should do in conducting global economic governance in a new era.

Faced with the profound changes in the global economy, should we, the Asia-Pacific economies, lead reform and innovation, or just hesitate and proceed haltingly? Should we steer economic globalization, or dither and stall in the face of challenge? We must advance with the trend of times, live up to our responsibility and work together to deliver a bright future of development and prosperity for the Asia-Pacific.

First, we should continue to foster an open economy that benefits all. Openness brings progress, while self-seclusion leaves one behind. We the Asia-Pacific economies know this too well from our own development experience. We should put in place a regional cooperation framework that ensures consultation among equals, wide participation and shared benefits, build an open Asia-Pacific economy and promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation. We should make economic globalization more open, inclusive and balanced so that it benefits different countries and people of different social groups. We should proactively adapt to the evolving international division of labor and actively reshape the global value chain so as to upgrade our economies and build up new strengths. We should support the multilateral trading regime and practice open regionalism to make developing members benefit more from international trade and investment.

We should continue to pursue innovation-driven development and create new drivers of growth. The current global economic recovery is, to a large extent, the result of cyclical factors, while the lack of self-generating driving forces remains a nagging problem. To avoid the risk of the global economy entering a "new mediocre", we must sustain growth through innovation.

The new round of technological and industrial revolutions is unfolding before us. Digital economy and sharing economy are surging worldwide, and breakthroughs have been made in new technologies such as artificial intelligence and quantum science. We in the Asia-Pacific cannot afford to be just onlookers. What we should do is to seize the opportunity, increase input in innovation, change the model of development and nurture new growth areas. We should promote structural reform, remove all institutional and systemic barriers to innovation and energize the market. We should implement the APEC Accord on Innovative Development, Economic Reform and Growth adopted in Beijing, deepen cooperation on the internet and digital economy and strive to be a global leader of innovative growth.

Third, we should continue to enhance connectivity and achieve interconnected development. Interconnected development is the best way to achieve mutual benefit and win-win outcome. We the Asia-Pacific economies are closely connected, and our interests are interlocked. Such an interconnected development will both open up new horizon for our own development, and create driving force for us all to achieve common development as partners. We should boost the real economy through the building of connectivity, break bottlenecks to development and unlock potentials. With these efforts, we can achieve coordinated and interconnected development.

In May this year, the Belt and Road Initiative calls for joint contribution and it has a clear focus, which is to promote infrastructure construction and connectivity, strengthen coordination on economic policies, enhance complementarity of development strategies and boost interconnected development to achieve common prosperity. This initiative is from China, but it belongs to the world.

We should continue to make economic development more inclusive and deliver its benefits to our people. The current headwinds confronting economic globalization is mostly generated by the lack of inclusiveness in development. Hard work is still needed if we are to bring the benefits of development to countries across the globe and people across our society, and thus turn our vision into reality.

Over the past few years, we have actively explored ways to promote inclusive development and have built strong consensus about it. We should deepen regional economic integration, develop an open and inclusive market and strengthen the bond of shared interests. We should make inclusiveness and sharing a part of our development strategies, improve systems and institutions to uphold efficiency and fairness, and safeguard social equity and justice.

As an old Chinese saying goes, a commitment, once made, should be delivered. Boosting development in the Asia-Pacific requires real actions by all of us members. As the world's second largest economy, China knows fully well its responsibility. Over the past five years, we have taken proactive steps to adapt to, manage and steer the new normal of China's economy and deepened supply-side structural reform. As a result, China's economy has maintained steady performance, and we are pursuing better-quality, more efficient, fairer and more sustainable development. Over the past four years, China's economy has grown by 7.2% on the average annually, contributing over 30% of global growth. China is now a main driver powering global growth.

We have worked hard to remove systematical institutional barriers that impede development through comprehensive reform. We have sped up efforts to build new institutions of the open economy and transform models of foreign trade and outbound investment to continue the shift from quantitative to qualitative improvement in trade.

We have advanced theoretical, practical, institutional, cultural and other explorations to unleash new impetus for growth. From infrastructure to various economic sectors, from business models to ways of consumption, innovation is leading the way.

We have pursued a people-centered philosophy of development to make our development more inclusive and beneficial to all. Individual income has registered sustained growth, outpacing GDP growth for many years. Significant advances have been made in pursuing green development, resulting in considerable reduction in the intensity of energy and resource consumption and marked improvement in the ecological environment.

The poverty headcount ratio has declined, and per capita rural income in poor areas has maintained double-digit growth.

China's development is an evolving historical process. Last month, the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China was successfully convened in Beijing. Responding to our people's desire for a better life, the Congress formulated a guide to action and a development blueprint for China in the new era.

It is envisaged that by 2020, China will turn itself into a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and by 2035, China will basically realize socialist modernization. By the middle of this century, China will become a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally-advanced, harmonious and beautiful. Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, the Chinese people will embark on a new journey.

First, this is a new journey of deepening reform across the board and unleashing dynamism for development. We will develop a set of institutions that are well conceived, fully built, procedure based, and efficiently functioning and achieve modernization of China's system and capacity for governance.

This is a new journey of moving with the times and exploring new model of development. China's economy is in a transition from a phase of rapid growth to a stage of high-quality development. We will be guided by a new development philosophy, put quality first, give priority to performance and develop a modernized economy. We will pursue supply-side structural reform as our main task, work hard to achieve better quality and higher efficiency performance, and create more robust growth through reform. We will raise total factor productivity and accelerate the building of an industrial system that promotes coordinated development of the real economy with technological innovation, modern finance, and a talent pool. We will endeavor to develop an economy with more effective market mechanisms, dynamic micro-entities, and sound macro-regulation. All these efforts will make China's economy more innovative and competitive. We will promote further integration of the internet, big data, and artificial intelligence with the real economy, and cultivate new drivers of growth in digital economy, sharing economy, clean energy and other areas. We will continue to explore new mechanisms and pathways for achieving coordinated development among regions, promote coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, Yangtze Economic Belt, Xiongan New Area, and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, build world-class city clusters and foster new source of growth.

As China works hard to pursue innovation and higher quality of growth, new forms of business will keep emerging, more innovations will be used, and development of various regions in China will become more balanced. All this will create a more powerful and extensive impact, present more opportunities of cooperation and enable more countries to board the express train of China's development.

Third, this is a new journey toward greater integration with the world and an open economy of higher standards. China will not slow its steps in opening up itself. We will work together with other countries to create new drivers of common development through the launching of the Belt and Road Initiative.

We will adopt policies to promote high-standard liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment. We will endeavor to establish a global network of free trade areas.

In the next 15 years, China will have an even larger market and more comprehensive development.

We will ensure and improve living standards through development and meet people's ever-growing needs for a better life.

No one will be left behind!

We will speed up institutional reform for ecological conservation, pursue green, low-carbon and sustainable development, and implement the strictest possible system for environmental protection.


We are committed to peaceful development and we will remain an anchor for peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. China will, guided by the principle of upholding justice while pursuing shared interests, actively develop global partnerships, expand the convergence of interests with other countries, and work to foster a new type of international relations featuring mutual respect, fairness, justice, and win-win cooperation. Acting on the principle of achieving shared growth through consultation and collaboration, we will get actively involved in reforming and developing the global governance system to make the international political and economic order more just and equitable.

Presidential Speech Series


From the speech transcripts, the words econ, job, grow, tax, and debt are highlighted. Focusing on these highlighted words, these speeches are reduced to their essential economic message, which is basically grow the economy. Grow to what? It doesn’t matter, just grow or perish. Sacrosanct is the growth mantra, reinforced over and over and over, especially in Presidential speeches and debates.



2016 Presidential Debate
Clinton/Trump October Debate
Clinton/Trump September Debate


2012 Presidential Debate
Since this was an economic debate, highlighted the words jobs, taxes, and growth, and discarded the remainder of sentences without these words. Not sure why the global economy was ignored, nor any mention of quantitative easements, but they did talk about jobs, taxes, and growth.

Romney’s speech heavily emphasized jobs, a bit of growth and taxes, no mention ofdebt.

Ryan’s speech emphasized jobseconomic growth, debt, and mentions taxes to pay for Obama Care.

Clinton’s speech emphasized economics, jobs and growth, and a heavy dose of tax anddebt.

Obama’s speech emphasized economy, jobs and taxes, barely mentioned growth and debt. In the 2008 election, growth was the mantra.







02 November 2017

Blinded Elites




Imperial Hubris by Michael Scheuer, 2004, Excerpts

Because of the pervasive imperial hubris that dominates the minds of our political, academic, social, media, and military elites, America is able and content to believe the Islamic world fails to understand the benign intent of U.S. foreign policy and its implementation. When U.S. leaders speak blithely and ad nauseum of building a democracy like our own in Afghanistan or Iraq or Burma or Russia or Liberia or Saudi Arabia, saying that it can be done speedily and on the cheap, they betray ignorance of foreign lands, cultures, and histories as well as the creeds and ambitions of other peoples.

It is comforting to American elites still refusing to see that U.S. government actions in the Islamic world are causing Muslims to attack the United States. And because our elites are so full of themselves, they think America is invulnerable; cannot imagine the rest of the world does not want to be like us; and believe an American empire in the twenty-first century not only is our destiny, but our duty to mankind, especially to the unwashed, unlettered, undemocratic, unwhite, unshaved, and antifeminist Muslim masses. Arrogance because the elites cannot believe a polyglot bunch of Arabs wearing robes, sporting scraggily beards, and squatting around campfires in Afghan deserts and mountains could pose a mortal threat to the United States.