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• Survey: 'Internet love' big for university students' emotional needs

  2007-12-28

  BEIJING, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- About 90 percent of Chinese university students regard "Internet love" as an effective way to satisfy their emotional needs, according to a survey by Northeast China Normal University.

      The survey by the Changchun-based institute in the northeast Jilin Province, polled 4,811 students at 10 universities across the country. It found that 18.4 percent of respondents admitted they had at least one Internet lover, the China Youth Daily reported. In addition, 38 percent revealed people around them were having on-line love affairs.

      "Life is full of troubles. If there is someone on the Internet I can turn to, why not?" the survey quoted an anonymous student assaying.

      "We have to face too many pressures when falling in love in the real world, but the inner-emotional needs can be better relieved through Internet relationships."

      One out of five students thought on-line love was a good thing. More than half thought they might develop such a relationship when they were helpless, depressed or emotionally hurt.

      In addition, 38 percent thought it was possible to develop a realistic relationship out of a virtual one.

      "The Internet is becoming a much more popular medium for young people to express their feelings and satisfy their emotional needs," said Sun Caiping, a Northeast China Normal University professor.

      While more than half remained indifferent to the issue, only 11.6 percent showed a negative attitude toward it. Their main reason was that Internet love didn't reach a good ending and made people lose a sense of responsibility.

      The survey found boys were more likely to focus on appearance while most girls took talent, moral qualities and other characteristics into account.

      The survey defined Internet love as an "emotionally-interdependent relationship two people develop through the medium of the Internet, including on-line relationships and real-life relationships that have evolved from virtual ones."

      "Many university students are experiencing Internet relationships with worries and questions. If the issue is not properly handled, it may have negative effects on them," said Sun.

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• Harvard says no more student loans, grants only

  2007-12-20

  BEIJING, Dec. 11 (Xinhuanet) -- Harvard University announced Monday a major expansion of financial aid that will reduce tuition bills by thousands of dollars.

      The university said it would replace all loans with grants and spend up to 22 million U.S. dollars more annually on aid, most of it going to middle- and upper-middle class students. Families earning under 60,000 dollars a year already pay nothing to attend the world's richest university, with an endowment of nearly 35 billion dollars.

      Now, parents earning between 60,000 dollars and 120,000 dollars will pay a percentage of their income, rising to 10 percent. Families with incomes between 120,000 dollars and 180,000 dollars will have to pay 10 percent of their incomes.

      Harvard also said it would take home equity out of its wealth calculation in financial aid, which should provide a greater boost for students and parents. Overall, Harvard said a typical family earning 120,000 dollars would pay about 12,000 dollars next year, down from 19,000 dollars under current award policies. For a typical family earning 180,000 dollars, the bill would drop to 18,000 dollars, from more than 30,000 dollars.

      About half of Harvard students receive some form of aid, including students from about 100 families who earn more than 200,000 dollars.

      For those who pay full tuition, room and board, the price is 45,620 dollars.

      That compares with an average of 27,317 dollars at all private, four-year institutions, according to the latest 2006 figures from the Department of Education. The figure is 12,108 dollars for in-state students at public colleges and universities.

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• Shenyang teacher pursues patent for same-sex buses

  2007-12-12

  A man in northeast China has spent 2,300 yuan (about 315 U.S. dollars), two-thirds of his monthly pay, seeking to patent his idea for separate-sex rush hour buses, which he believes can help solve "unhappy phenomena" like sexual harassment.
  
  Liu Zhenguo, 57, who hails from Shenyang city, Liaoning Province, said he got the idea from his five years studying bus routes. His investigation convinced him that rush-hour bus rides were "nightmares" for women forced into close contact with male commuters.
  
  The middle school teacher, who has spent 35 years as a bus commuter, interviewed more than 100 people in busy downtown areas. He said his idea was widely applauded, especially by women.
  
  But not everyone saw any benefit to sex-segregated buses. Xiao Yu, 30, a male engineer, said it was an absurd idea that would do nothing to solve a bigger problem. "It is of no benefit to ease traffic jams," he said.
  
  Wei Youwei, an official at the provincial legislature, said that Li's suggestion had some theoretical value but would be hard to implement.
  
  Li remains confident. "I wish I take the men-only bus before I retire," he said. He has eight years left to fulfill his goal.
  
  Source: Xinhua

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• China Will Eat Our Lunch

  2007-12-11

  Dec 3, 2007 Issue

  By Peter Schiff
    
  Most economists attribute the recent spike in Chinese inflation (6.5 percent in October) as an inevitable consequence of rapid growth. Few question why a country that has made tremendous gains in productivity, and that is responsible for lowering prices around the world, cannot deliver lower prices at home. In contrast, similarly rapid industrialization in the United States in the 19th century produced sustained price declines for more than 100 years.

  The truth is that high prices in China, and the rest of the world for that matter, are a direct result of low prices in America. When the Chinese government, and their counterparts in the Middle East and Latin America, finally move to snuff out local inflation, a massive realignment of global purchasing power will ensue, with Americans on the losing end.

  Despite economists' efforts to obscure the obvious, prices are a function of money supply. More money chasing a constant supply of goods pushes prices higher. More goods introduced into a constant supply of money pushes prices lower.

  To sustain its currency peg to the U.S. dollar, China must expand its supply of yuan to purchase the hundreds of billions of excess dollars that it earns annually by selling products to Americans. With few American products to buy, many of these dollars are held by China as currency reserves. This action lowers inflation in the United States by making Chinese goods cheaper for Americans and restricting the supply of dollars globally. Conversely, the supply of yuan expands rapidly and overwhelms the downward price pressures made possible by increased productivity.

  However, as China's inflation problems make the maintenance of the peg increasingly untenable, the day will surely come when the Chinese allow the dollar to fall and their own currency to rise. Most economists fear this will kill American consumption, leading to global recession. My view: while it would sound the death knell for the golden age of American consumption, it would in fact be a boon for China.

  The absurdity of an economic model that credits Americans' insatiable willingness to consume as a prerequisite for global prosperity can easily be understood when boiled down to its basic elements. Suppose five Asians and one American were shipwrecked on an island. To maximize efficiency the castaways devise a plan where one Asian fishes, another hunts, the third gathers fruit, the fourth gathers firewood and the fifth cooks. The American is assigned the job of eating. In the eyes of the modern economist, the American is clearly the engine of this microeconomy; without his heroic consumption, the economy would stagnate.
   
   The truth is that consumption is a movable feast. Americans overconsume because the world props up the purchasing-power of our currency. As the dollar declines, so too will our ability to overconsume. But the purchasing power lost by America will be gained by countries whose currencies rise in relative terms. Factories around the world won't shut down if Americans stopped spending. Without the American to feed, the Asians would simply have more to eat themselves.

  With a per capita GDP of $43,000 the International Monetary Fund currently ranks the United States fourth among all nations in economic output per person. At $7,600 per year, China ranks 86th. However, due to its massive population of 1.3 billion, China already ranks third in total economic output. Most forecasters assume the total size of the Chinese economy will eclipse that of the United States by the middle of this century. But by factoring in the weakening dollar and the inevitable slowdown that drop will inflict on the United States, the changing of the guard will occur much sooner, perhaps in the next five years. In short order, currency realignment could push the United States out of the list of the top 20 nations in terms of per capita GDP, behind such countries as Greece and Singapore.

  My forecast is that as foreigners continue to walk away from dollar assets, the greenback will lose an additional 40 to 50 percent against the U.S. Dollar Index. Given that the yuan has been artificially restrained by the Chinese government for decades, its rise will likely be much steeper, perhaps twice as much as the index itself. Such revaluations would result in China's GDP quadrupling in dollar terms. At current levels, this puts the Chinese economy at nearly $12 trillion and the U.S. at $13.2 trillion. Based on this assumption, it would only take a year or two of oversize expansion in China and modest contraction in the United States for the economic crown to move across the Pacific.
   

  In the current status quo, America plays the role of one of its cultural icons, Tom Sawyer, who convinced his companions that the satisfaction of whitewashing fences (or in this case providing goods on credit) was reward in itself. The day will soon come when China and the other emerging economies decide to tend to their own fences. When that happens, Americans will have to paint for themselves, and perhaps even make their own brushes.

  Schiff is president of the brokerage firm Euro Pacific Capital and author of "Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse."
  

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• China targets key areas for further reforms in 2008

  2007-12-10

  China's top economic planner said Sunday that it would step up reforms in key areas such as the economic system, investment regulation and supervision, resource products pricing and national healthcare.
  
  "We should further deepen reform in 2008," Ma Kai, head of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said at the annual working meeting of economic planners at all levels concluded here on Sunday.
  
  He said a revised edition of "List of Government-approved Investment Projects" would be effective next year. The new list featured "a project recording and evaluating system".
  
  The country will promote the reform of resource products pricing and environment protection charging mechanism in a "controllable and sequential way".
  
  Pricing reforms of oil and gas, whose prices are currently set by the government, will be carried out "steadily".
  
  Further reforms will be carried out in the power generating and supply sectors. Railway, postal and telecommunication companies will continue to deepen their reforms.
  
  The authorities will figure out a blue print of medicine and health care system reform and carry out trial projects steadily.
  
  On Sunday's meeting, the economic planners also addressed development of small- and mid-sized companies, encouraging the establishment of a credit guaranteeing system that will facilitate growth of those companies in regions "with mature conditions".
  
  They called for improvement in legislation on a variety of issues including enterprise investment, bidding, corporate bonds and administrative law enforcement.
  
  Source: Xinhua

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• FIrst day in the blog

  2007-12-09

  This is a wonderful place, this is a  place where we can meet each other and share our happiness and sorrows. Cherish it, I hope.

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