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San
José, Costa Rica, Monday, Aug. 31, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 171
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Solís
praises 2016 budget for tiny increase
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
President Luis Guillermo Solís said Sunday night that the 2016 budget would only be a half of a percent higher than this year's. The president made the statement on his Sunday night television segment, the cadena national, which some major stations did not run. Instead, there was soccer and a movie. Solís used the budget message as a vehicle to promote passage of his proposed value-added tax and the increases in income taxes for higher-earners. The president did not give numbers to explain what the budget would look like if these taxes were not approved. The tax proposals face heavy opposition in the legislature. Solís noted that his tax plan included returning sales tax expenses to the poorest 40 percent of the country. But that expenditure is not in the budget, even if the value-added tax is passed. The proposed law gives the government two years to return the money. The Costa Rican national budget for this year is $7.7 trillion colons or about $14.5 billion. Solís said that the government has to maintain a minimal investment to avoid affecting the services that the citizens required. He praised the budget as the one with the smallest increase in 10 years. He said the goal was to prepare a budget that did not cause cuts in education, health, security or in fighting poverty. The government budget has been financed for years with borrowing, and recent budgets contain nearly 50 percent of borrowed funds. Consequently debt service is a big budget item. He said the new budget reduces expenses for advertising by 36 percent, overseas transportation by 17 percent, overseas per diems by 30 percent and consultants by 7.5 percent. He said that the proposed budget includes cuts of 384.7 billon colons or about $745 million at the current exchange rate. However, he did not say if these were actual cuts or reductions in the wish lists presented by the various ministries. He did say that 99.7 percent of the cuts were within the budget for the executive branch. Budgets for the legislatures, the judiciary and the election tribunal were basically untouched. The president's message did not include any mention of selling off government property to apply to the national deficit. Last year Solís presented a budget that was 12 percent higher than the previous year, and that generated extensive discussions in the legislature. Finally, the executive branch was forced to make substantial cuts. Vice president chose private health care By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Another high government official has chosen private medical care over that offered by the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social. Casa Presidencial reported Friday that Vice President Helio Fallas is recovering after an operation on his achilles tendon at Hospital CIMA. He is the last of a long line of public officials who chose Hospital CIMA or Hospital Clinca Biblica for care even though they are insured via their jobs with the Caja. Fallas also serves as finance minister. He will be wearing a boot to immobilize his left leg for eight days, Casa Presidencial said. In the last 12 years only Abel Pacheco, when he was president, chose Caja care. He was admitted to Hospital Calderón Guardia. In addition to being president, he is a physician. Two bar
owners face trafficking charges
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Judicial agents claim that two bar owners smuggled women from the Dominican Republic into Costa Rica to work as prostitutes at their establishments. The bars are in Zapote and Guápiles. The bar operators were detained late Friday. The women came into the country through the porous northern border with Nicaragua, said the Judicial Investigating Organization. Judicial investigators said they received a confidential tip two months ago.  Ministerio de Seguridad Pública
photo
Fuerza
Pública officers, traffic police and the Escazú
PolicíaMunicipal checked out these motorcyclists as part of a sweep Saturday in search of stolen vehicles. Of 150 cyclists checked out, 12 got tickets, four lost their license plates and one motorcycle was confiscated. Results were similar in a sweep in Cartago. Bolivia criticized for using ads as weapons Special to A.M. Costa Rica
The Inter American Press Association has criticized the government of Bolivia for using official advertising as a tool to put pressure on news media, in particular those that criticize the South American country’s president, Evo Morales. On this occasion the press association criticized discrimination levied against the Catholic radio network Erbol, which is facing a serious financial situation after the government denied it official advertising, punishing it for its critical and independent editorial stance. It complained that several of its private sector advertisers had stopped advertising out of fear of reprisals from the government. Erbol recently opened a bank account to raise funds and thus alleviate the lack of advertising revenue. However, the ministry of works reacted with threats to contributors, the station said. On its Web site the ministry warned that those contributing to the campaign would be subjected to controls on “money laundering and financing terrorism,” arguing that such contribution was “an act of confrontation” that sought to apply soft blows against the government. Association President Gustavo Mohme called on the government of Morales “to stop using official advertising as a means of reward or punishment.” Mohme, editor of the Lima, Perú, newspaper La República, added, “Press freedom requires there to be transparency and clear rules and the use of equitable methods and techniques for the application of public resources in the investment of official advertising.” Claudio Paolillo, described as “misappropriation of public funds and an abuse of political power the arbitrary discrimination in the placement of official advertising.” Paolillo, editor of the Montevideo, Uruguay, weekly Búsqueda, said that “this case moreover has the aggravating circumstance that the government is threatening with reprisals anyone who voluntarily wishes to support a fundraising campaign.” He is chairman of the association's Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Both the association and Bolivia’s national press association have been denouncing that in recent years there has been an increase in the policy of discrimination in the placement of official advertising, violating established principles. |
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Aug. 31, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 171 | |
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| Solís signs decree prohibiting major hydro projects
on two rivers |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
President Luis Guillermo Solís has issued a decree protecting the Río Pacuare on the Caribbean coast and the Río Savegre, which empties into the Pacific. Solís signed the document at a fiesta during his tour of the Caribbean coast this weekend. The decree prohibits the construction of hydro projects of more than 500 kilowatt generating capacity for 25 years. The decree also orders the Dirección Nacional de Aguas and the Secretaría Técnica Nacional Ambiental to shelve any pending |
requests
for permits. However, Casa Presidencial said without
clarification that existing rights would be protected. The Pacuare has its headwaters in the Talamanca mountains and then runs 108 kilometers (about 67 miles) to the Caribbean. The Savegre has a 41-kilometer (25.5 miles) course that runs through Dota, Tarrazú, Pérez Zeledón and Quepos. A number of firms have filed applications to build small generating projects along Costa Rica's rivers. The applications are being contested by environmentalists and also the established state power generator. |
Festival goers admire one of the elaborate carpets of flowers that was part of the 2014 festival. |
 Cámara de Comercio de Cartago photo
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| Festival de La Pasada will be this weekend in Cartago's Plaza Mayor | |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The celebrations in Cartago do not end with the annual pilgrimage to the basilica there. The tenth annual Festival de La Pasada is coming up this Saturday and Sunday. The unique aspect of this festival is that the faithful construct carpets of flowers for the procession that brings the small statue of Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles back to the basilica. The statue has been on display at another Cartago church, the Catedral Nuestra Señora del Carmen, since Aug. 3, the day after the end of the pilgrimage. The festival may be just 10 years old, but the procession has been going on since the end of the 18th century. |
Now the
festival is two days with the procession over the floral
carpets coming Sunday. The Cámara de Comercio, Industria,
Turismo y
Servicios de Cartago and the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo
sponsor the festival. Some 60,000 persons are expected to attend, and
75
Cartago businesses will be displaying their wares, said the chamber. The festival is in the Plaza Mayor of Cartago at the Ruinas del Templo de Santiago Apóstol. Tents will be set up for vendors. There will be food, dancing, performances by well-known Costa Rican bands, mascaradas, cimarronas street bands, plus the religious procession Sunday. Creating the carpets of flowers is a contest, and the chamber gives prizes to the three best, it said. |
| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Aug. 31, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 171 | |||||
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 Yale Collection of Western Americana,
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, slide
Hand-colored slide of
Indians on horseback accompanied a 1936 lecture. |
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| Photographer captured the Blackfoot culture at turn of the
20th century |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The son of a wealthy Pittsburgh carpetmaker, Walter McClintock became entranced by the American West after traveling there in 1895 to recover from a serious case of typhoid fever. In 1896, he traveled West again as a photographer for a federal commission investigating national forests. While there, he came into contact with the Blackfoot community in northwestern Montana and began a life-long interest in them. Over the next 20 years, the Yale graduate took several thousand photographs of the Blackfoot Indians, a name thought to have been acquired because of the black color of their moccasins, which were painted or darkened with ashes, and their culture. McClintock believed Indian communities were undergoing rapid, dramatic change. Fearful that their traditional culture would be lost, he wanted a record of their way of life before it completely disappeared. He wrote books and gave lectures based upon his experiencesinteracting with the Blackfoot people. |
One of
McClintock’s favorite images was of a Blackfoot
lodge glowing
from within, “emanating a warm, radiant incandescence,” according to
author and historian Sherry L. Smith, who says the photographer “tried
his best to enter that lodge and explain its interior life to other
Americans”. During the early part of the 1800s, the Blackfoot numbered approximately 20,000 people. However, ravaged by diseases brought by white settlers, starvation and war, their population was reduced to fewer than 5,000 by the turn of the century. Today, there are about 16,000 registered Blackfoot Indians living on the Blackfoot Reservation in northwestern Montana along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. A lantern slide is a positive print of a photograph on a glass slide that is often hand-painted to be more visually appealing. In McClintock’s case, the slides also represent an idealized version of a vanishing culture at the dawn of the modern age. |
Here's reasonable medical care
Costa Rica's world class medical specialists are at your command. Get the top care for much less than U.S. prices. It is really a great way to spend a vacation. See our list of recommended professionals HERE!amcr-prom
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Aug. 31, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 171 | |||||||
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| Another senator announces he will back the Iran deal By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Another U.S. senator, Democrat Jeff Merkley from Oregon, declared his support Sunday for the international accord to bar Iran from building a nuclear weapon. Merkley became the 31st senator to say he will vote next month in favor of the pact, moving President Barack Obama closer to a mathematical certainty that the deal will take effect. The deal, brokered by the United States and five other world powers, calls for international monitoring of Tehran's nuclear program, while United Nations and Western sanctions that have hobbled Iran's economy would be lifted. The U.S. Congress, with both chambers controlled by Obama's Republican opponents, is set to vote on the pact in mid-September. No Republican has voiced support for the deal, and analysts are predicting the House of Representatives will vote to reject it. In the Senate, however, the vote is closer, with the 54-member Republican majority needing six Democrats to oppose the deal in order to secure the required 60-vote supermajority in the 100-member chamber to defeat the deal. So far, only two Democrats have announced their opposition. If both the Senate and House reject the deal, Obama says he will veto the measure, forcing both houses to muster two-thirds majorities to override the veto. In the Senate, 34 votes would be enough to sustain a presidential veto, and with Merkley's support, Obama is now three away from that figure. Obama's Democratic supporters in the Senate are trying to win even more support for the deal, from at least 41 senators, which would eliminate the need for him to veto a rejection. Merkley said he thinks the deal has significant shortcomings, but that it is the best path to blocking Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. "Because of these shortcomings, many have argued that the United States, instead of implementing the agreement, should withdraw from it, persuade our partners to set the agreement aside and work together to negotiate a better deal,'' Merkley said. ``However, the prospects for this are slim. All of our partners ... believe that the current deal in regard to its central goal of blocking Iran's pathways to a nuclear bomb is sound. They have committed the good faith of their governments behind the agreement and intend to honor the deal as long as Iran does likewise, with or without the United States.'' Obama plan to tell Alaskans they can be climate leaders By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
President Barack Obama is traveling today to Alaska to meet with residents and deliver an address at a conference where U.S. and foreign officials, scientists and locals are gathering to discuss the effects of climate change on the Arctic region. The goal of the GLACIER conference, according to the White House, is to boost awareness of how the effects of higher temperatures in the Arctic are affecting the rest of the world and what people can do in response. The issue was the focus of Obama's weekly presidential address, during which he said Alaskans are experiencing more frequent and extensive wildfires, deteriorating glaciers, some of the fastest shoreline erosion in the world, and higher storm surges as sea ice melts. The U.S. State Department is hosting Monday's conference, and said that while it has no direct relation to U.N. talks later this year to try to create a binding plan for addressing climate change, the talks will help drive political will for ambitious action. Sessions will include issues of science cooperation, renewable energy, strengthening emergency responses and preventing unregulated fishing in Arctic seas. Obama said Saturday that he looked forward to meeting with Alaskans to talk about how the country can be the global leader on climate change and help a collective effort to meet the threat before it is too late. Scientists have warned that letting global temperatures rise more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels will bring extreme weather and rising seas that would affect populations all over the world. The U.N. talks in Paris will run for nearly two weeks beginning Nov. 30 with a goal of crafting a plan to keep temperatures at a manageable level with specific goals laid out for each country to accomplish. That plan, if agreed to, would go into effect in 2020. Obama has increased his attention on the issue this year with executive actions and policy proposals. He announced in early August plans to make power plants cut carbon dioxide emissions by 32 percent below 2005 levels while also boosting the amount of power they generate using renewable resources. Carbon emissions have been a big target of efforts to contain the rise in global temperatures, which this year have been the highest on record. Biden is still on the fence as Mrs. Clinton loses ground By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A big question mark remains on the list of U.S. presidential hopefuls: Will Vice President Joe Biden enter the race on the Democratic side, joining former secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders? The answer could come any day now and put an end to weeks of speculation and intrigue in Washington and beyond. Biden has an extensive political resume: vice president for nearly seven years after 36 years as a U.S. senator. Plain-spoken and long-winded, Joe Biden is no stranger to the campaign trail. “We will not go back to the 50s in social policy, to the Cold War in our foreign policy, or to the policies of the last administration in our economic policy,” Biden said. But Biden isn’t saying whether he will mount his third campaign for president. The possibility seemed remote months ago after the death of his son, Beau, and as Hillary Clinton dominated the Democratic field. But with Mrs. Clinton now mired in controversy over her use of a private email account as secretary of State, and with Sen. Sanders drawing enthusiastic crowds, some political observers see an opening for Biden should Mrs. Clinton stumble further. President Barack Obama is staying neutral. “What I would say is that both Joe and Hillary are wonderful people, great friends. Joe’s been as good a vice president as I think we’ve seen in American history, been at my side in every tough decision I’ve made,” said Obama. "Hillary Clinton was one of our best secretaries of State.” And Mrs. Clinton is choosing her words carefully, too. “I just want him to reach whatever he thinks the right decision is,” she said. But some Republican presidential contenders are weighing in. “I think he sees a vulnerability in Secretary Clinton," said Sen. Lindsey Graham. 'So I don’t know what Joe’s going to do, but if he’s ever wanted to run, now’s his best chance.” Most presidential aspirants of both parties laid the groundwork for their bids a year or more ago and have already spent months on the campaign trial. Should Biden run, he would have to play catch-up in forming and financing a campaign. Prepaid cards are an option for Cubans using Internet By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States has opened the door to better access to the Internet on the island, where only 5 percent of the population has full entry to the World Wide Web. The new options are "a possibility that has been given to the people, to connect to the world and communicate with their friends," said Roberto Gonzalez, a wireless Internet user. "I think this is a positive development." Gonzalez and his wife, Tania Enriquez, hope more people will connect now that the Cuban authorities have approved the use of prepaid cards to access the Web. The government-owned telecommunications company ETECSA sells a limited number of cards daily. For about $2 U.S., Cubans can buy 30 minutes in cyberspace. "Not everybody knows how to do this," said Michel De Armas, an Internet user. "It's a little difficult for some people. For others, it's easy." Thirty-five wireless points have been set up across Cuba, and although the prepaid cards can be used in any cellphone, laptop or tablet, there are restrictions. "It is time to open the doors and communicate," said Joe Arriola, Miami's former city manager. "It’s time to see how the two countries benefit. And I think that the two countries have opportunities to benefit." The Cuban government says that because of the U.S. embargo, Internet service is provided only by satellite. But many expect that the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with the U.S. will allow tech companies to start building a more robust infrastructure. Selling prepaid cards is the first step in this new process that might soon include more transmission towers, fiber-optic cable and iPhone sales. Most hackers now doing it for profit and not as a game By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Sophisticated hackers are taking advantage of a regulation vacuum and a shortage of cybersecurity experts to turn stolen data into a lucrative business, with little fear of being caught. “For $200, you can set up a business,” said Al Berman, president of New York’s Disaster Recovery Institute International. Hackers used to flex their muscles in cyberspace just for fun. “If you look in 1997, IBM did a survey and about 85 percent of the hackers were cyber joyriders, people who just did it for the challenge of it,” he said. “When you look at it today . . . almost 80 percent of them are in the business for profit.” By Berman’s estimates, that market is worth at least tens-of-billions of dollars,” given the sheer volume of stolen data. But Carnegie Mellon University’s Nicolas Christin, assistant research professor of electrical and computer engineering, said more reliable figures place the annual global costs of online crime at around $3 to 4 billion. “It may be a bit conservative,” he said in an email, “but I believe in the right order of magnitude.” Not all hackers make good money, said Christin. Those who do are skilled enough to identify large numbers of targets at once. Connections, skill, experience and luck all play a role in shaping the hacker’s fortune. “Operating a botnet very successfully may allow the operators to make a couple of millions at most,” he said. “But between direct and indirect costs, that botnet may cost orders of magnitude more to society.” Nevertheless, once hackers learn how easy it is to sell stolen data, they are “attracted quickly to a lucrative six-figure career stealing identity, credit cards, and reselling them on the ‘dark web’ anonymously from the comfort of their own PC at home,” said cybersecurity expert Scott Schober, president and CEO of Berkeley Varitronics Systems. Hackers can find all kinds of free resources and hacking tools on the dark web, a gritty underbelly of the Internet inaccessible to regular users, but commonly frequented by people on both sides of the law keen on hiding their identity. “The deep web is not indexed by the normal search engines we are accustomed to using,” said Schober in an email interview. “It requires the free Tor browser software so specific URLs can be entered.” Tor provides hackers with anonymity when they buy and sell illicit items in this underground world, home to more than 10,000 known illicit web sites whose URLs change frequently so they cannot be taken down. While small businesses are often prime targets, Schober, author of "Hacked Again," said hackers typically look for easy targets, which are “less complicated and pose less of a chance of getting caught. So it’s usually not about the biggest score but rather, the fastest and easiest one.” The price of stolen data depends on how recent the hack is, whether it has been discovered, the amount of available information, and supply and demand. “If there is a sudden influx of millions of available credit cards on the black market, then the demand is somewhat diminished,” said Schober. “Another important factor is how fresh the credit card is. A freshly acquired stolen credit card can fetch from $26-$45. In comparison, stale, older compromised credit cards may only fetch $8-$28 each.” The anonymous nature of hacker transactions and the lack of regulations make tracking the thieves challenging, if not impossible. There are no international laws to help authorities go after these hackers, said Berman; and “lawmakers are way behind what’s going on in the industry.” Most hackers, according to Schober, are “groomed out of Russia, Romania, China, where it may be somewhat challenging for an individual to land a well-paid job.” And the laws are such, said Berman, that “there’s no right of extradition. And then, in a lot of places, it’s not even a crime.” “It’s risk-versus-reward if the real risk of getting caught is very small … and the reward is so great it’s – and I hate the analogy – but it’s like being a drug dealer,” he added. Meanwhile, hackers are getting smarter, not even touching their loot, but storing it on hacked servers in different regions so that it is even more difficult to trace. That environment has created what Berman calls the Wild, Wild West in cyberspace. Not surprisingly, this has contributed to a booming cybersecurity job market, with much sought-after ethical hackers earning as much as $200,000 a year in some parts of the United States. But there aren’t enough of them. According to Berman, some studies show that only 75 percent of the needed ethical hackers will be in the workforce by 2019. To fill the gap, tech companies like Cisco are training cybersecurity personnel while colleges churn out the next batch. And more recently, Internet security firm Symantec teamed up with the National Association of Software and Services Companies to train cybersecurity personnel in India, some of whom will receive internships and placements. U.S. said preparing sanctions for Chinese computer hackers By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The United States is preparing to respond to China's cyber espionage by levying sanctions against individuals and companies who have benefited from the theft of trade secrets, The Washington Post reported late Sunday. Citing unnamed officials in President Barack Obama's administration, the Post said the U.S. has not yet decided whether to issue the sanctions, but that a decision is expected soon. Obama signed an executive order April 1 authorizing the Treasury Department, in consultation with the attorney general and secretary of State, to freeze assets of and block transactions with anyone responsible for hacking of U.S. entities or receiving that information for financial gain. The issue has been a focus of his administration this year, including the creation in February of a new federal agency to analyze threats to the nation's cybersecurity, and another executive order encouraging companies to share more information about hacking threats with the government and each other. China has long been the focus of accusations of hacking against American companies and government targets. In May, the U.S. charged five Chinese military officers with conducting economic espionage against American companies. China rejected the allegations. Issuing sanctions would be a different kind of response by the U.S., one that an administration official quoted by the Post said was part of a comprehensive strategy to confront such actors. The official said those steps also include diplomatic efforts, trade policy and law enforcement, and that taken together they would show China that certain behavior will have costs to U.S.-Chinese relations. Another official quoted in the report said imposing sanctions would both signal to China that the U.S. is going to start fighting back on economic espionage and to U.S. companies that they have the support of the government. The possible sanctions come as Obama prepares to host Chinese President Xi Jinping for a visit and state dinner in September. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's sixth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Aug. 31, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 171 | |||||||||
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There is an
alternative to evil bamboo
Bamboo is a funny little grass. Back in Georgia, we had bamboo on the property, nasty running bamboo, insidious bamboo, bamboo that came up through the driveway, invaded the property next door, and even crossed under the street to sprout in the neighbor's yard. Now I didn't
“But,” you say, “I like bamboo.” Truth is, so do I. What to do? We need to plant clumping bamboo. Clumping bamboo performs beautifully, grows as fast as other bamboos, and stays put. It doesn't run around making a mess in your yard or your neighbor's. Of course, it may occasionally need to be cut back, but I don't think of that as just hacking it down, I think of it as harvesting, because bamboo is beautiful and very useful for building and making decorative objects that last a long time – even centuries. One of our favorite restaurants, Tinajas, is putting up a two story addition. What did they use to start the building process? Bamboo poles held things in place until concrete was added and dried. Then there are bamboo floors, bamboo curtains and room dividers, bamboo cups and place mats, baskets and plant holders. The list just goes on and on. So what kind of clumping bamboo to plant. Do you want a bamboo tree that grows to 30+ meters (100 feet or so) or a bamboo shrub that will be happy at 3 meters (maybe 10 feet). Construction diameter or reed-like. Do you want a golden color, black, or a variegated variety? Here's a hint – bamboo is easy to get started. Just go to your neighbor's yard and ask for a nice piece, take it home and cover it with soil, sit back and wait. It doesn't take long to sprout and, since bamboo can grow several feet in one day (a half meter), it won't take long for you to have bamboo of your own. Or, you can head to Bamboo Costa Rica and see what you can pick up. I plan to.  Plant for the Week If you would like to suggest a topic for this column, simply send a letter to the editor. And, for more garden tips, visit https://www.facebook.com/pages/Arenal-Gardeners/413220712106845 |
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| From Page 7: Investors seek to understand market volatility By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Huge swings in stock prices around the world last week have investors and others wondering what happened, and trying to guess the future direction and strength of markets and the overall economy. Monday saw New York’s Dow Jones stock index fall 1,000 points in a matter of minutes. The next day the Dow rallied more than 400 points, but fell again in the last hour of trading. Wednesday brought a surge of more than 600 points, one of the largest gains in history. Performance on the Shanghai Composite Index was so volatile that a graph of its prices looks like the steepest parts of the Himalaya Mountains. The stock price plunge and partial recovery in China followed a move to cut the value of China’s currency and a disappointing report on that nation’s industrial sector. Many investors interpreted the data as evidence that China’s economy was slowing down more than first thought. China is the world’s second largest economy, and many years of roaring economic growth had made it a huge customer for raw materials, machinery and other goods from around the world. Slower growth in China means less demand for iron ore, crude oil, advanced machinery and so forth. That is why worries about China’s economic growth shook investors on stock and commodity markets around the globe. Many analysts disagree on what caused the chaos on stock markets, and how much impact it will have on the global economy. Nick Lardy, China scholar at Peterson Institute for International Economics, said many outsiders misunderstand what is going on in China. He said the economy is evolving from a focus on industry to expanding the services sector, and economic measurements have not kept pace with these changes. That is why important parts of the economy are not fully counted by some analysts. He said China is on track for strong expansion and job growth this year. American Enterprise Institute economist Desmond Lachman said China is in trouble because of an unsustainable surge in government and private debt over the past six years. Lachman said major debt burdens can fuel an unsustainable bubble in prices that could collapse. |
