Yevgeny Shrago
While markets anxiously watched America’s debt ceiling debate and Europe announced another round of bailouts for Greece in the hopes of saving Greece’s increasingly rickety monetary union, the big news out of China carried a more tragic cast: 32 people died and another 200 people were hurt when one of China’s new high speed trains rear-ended another train that had lost power. This collision culminated months of unreliable service on the main Beijing-Shanghai line.
America’s national sport these days, at least in some quarters, appears to be counting the ways in which China is catching up to or surpassing us. Those who fear China love to worry about our massive trade deficit, China’s burgeoning manufacturing industry or China’s million man People’s Liberation Army. Even those not looking to score political points by railing against China note with envy its ability to spend $120 billion a year on railway construction, while America’s big move toward modernizing it’s rail system ensures that Amtrak’s locomotives will remain obsolete for another 30 years. [Read more…] about All aboard the democracy train