Friday Filament

To the “clueless” people (I am being kind in that characterization) who think the Chinese government is wise and fair and just, remember what happened on this day in 1989. From Wikipedia:

 

“The Tiananmen Square protests, known as the June Fourth Incident in China, were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, troops armed with assault rifles and accompanied by tanks fired at the demonstrators and those trying to block the military’s advance into Tiananmen Square. The protests started on April 15 and were forcibly suppressed on June 4 when the government declared martial law and sent the People’s Liberation Army to occupy parts of central Beijing. Estimates of the death toll vary from several hundred to several thousand, with thousands more wounded.”

 

Fast forward to today and the Chinese government is engaged in what I feel will ultimately be a losing battle: to get China to be first-world wealthy before its demographics implode. The government’s recent decision to allow Chinese couples to have a third child is a tacit admission of that reality, although I think it’s too little, too late. The blatant theft of intellectual property is also part of that battle.

I think both nations at the top of the world in total GDP will be radically different 50 to 100 years from now than they are today, but–obviously–I will not live to see the transformation. Maybe the EU and a unified, democratic Korea (hopefully) will be the economic kings of the hill.

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For some reason, this post from last November–The Paradox Of Choice–had a fair number of views yesterday. As the title implies, I wrote about how we can have too many choices, that even choice has diminishing marginal utility. Of course, trying to limit choice to reach the “optimal” level is impossible.

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As a slightly early anniversary present for my wonderful wife, I am going to write about one of her favorite makes of automobiles, Jaguar. I believe that, like Aston Martin, Jaguar has basically never made an ugly car. What about Ferrari, you ask? Well, they made the FF, which I think is hideous, sort of a neither fish nor fowl creation.

My wonderful wife got to fulfill her dream of owning a Jaguar with one of these:

 

 

From motoimg and Vantage Sports Cars a picture of a 2002 Jaguar XK-8 convertible. Unfortunately for my wife, the reality of owning this car did not come close to living up to the fantasy.

She purchased the car used, but with some of the original warranty remaining. As if the car knew, within a month of warranty expiration systems began to fail. The last ten months she owned the car she/we spent in excess of $10,000 in repairs. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the $4,000 bill to replace the ABS module.

Here is a picture of another Jaguar, probably the most famous one in the company’s history:

 

 

It is part of automotive lore that Enzo Ferrari called the Jaguar E-Type the most beautiful car he had ever seen. Whether or not he actually said that, the E-Type is certainly orders of magnitude closer to being the most beautiful than to being the ugliest.

As every regular reader knows, I am very fond of the current Jaguar sports car, the F-Type. Here is a relevant photo:

 

 

Even dirty, the lines of this car are just breathtaking to me, and I don’t mean that in a Seinfeld kind of way. If I publish my Ultimate Garage 3.0, the exercise will have to begin with the acknowledgment that such an endeavor is, for me, basically a beauty contest. More on that later, maybe…

Have a great weekend!

 

 

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