April 22nd-28th 2023 Ukraine’s game plan
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- Shutting out Chinese carmakers would be bad for drivers and the planet Great wheels from China
| Wheels, not walls
Chinese firms are racing to improve autonomous cars, and to make riding more pleasurable with softwareenhanced big screens, mood lighting and other goodies. Just as it was foolish to try to keep out Japanese and South Korean cars, it would be foolish now to erect road blocks against Chinese ones. n Shutting out Chinese carmakers would be bad for drivers and the planet Great wheels from China Carmaking At the same time, smaller banks are at risk of losing the regu latory advantages they now enjoy. When calculating their regu latory capital, banks with less than $700bn in assets typically do not have to mark to market even the securities that they class as “available for sale” and which are meant to be a source of quick cash in an emergency. Those smaller than $250bn are exempted from the strictest liquidity rules, stress tests and failure plan ning. This lighttouch regulatory regime is now being reviewed by domestic and international regulators. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, which writes the global rulebook, is studying the lessons to be learned from the failure of SVB , whose depositors were bailed out even though it was too small and do mestically focused to be subject to the strictest rules. In Wash ington, an easing of the rules for midsized banks by Congress and the Fed in 2018 and 2019 is under fresh scrutiny. The most important changes to the market’s structure are likely to be among banks which are close to significant regulat ory thresholds. There are 20 banks which are between $100bn and $250bn in size. If the penalty for crossing the $250bn thresh old is reduced, many may find it advantageous to merge. Doing so would allow them to spread the growing costs of complying with regulation over a bigger business, while making it even more likely that their depositors would be bailed out in a crisis. Regulators would probably look favourably on tieups that swal lowed up zombie banks which might otherwise “gamble for res urrection” by taking big risks—a tactic that made the S&L crisis in the 1980s much worse. If so, then the latest crisis will provide the latest impetus for banks to get bigger. n 012 The Economist April 22nd 2023 16 Letters The business of economics The Free exchange column on why economics does not understand business stated that “economics likes to see itself as a foundational discipline, like physics, not a practical one, like engineer ing” (April 8th). In their quest to be physicslike and evidence based, economists are prone to a form of selection bias by focusing on problems where data are relatively abundant. In doing so, they tend not to study problems where data are necessarily scarce. Often when studying firms that are leaders in adopting technology or innovative business models we can only analyse small samples, or even a sample of one in the case of a pioneer. Studying small samples means obtaining qualitative information and inferring logically causal processes about management decisionmaking, organisa tional governance, culture and politics within and across firms as they strive to innovate and remain competitive. Such approaches are well developed in cognate disciplines such as management, sociology and politics, among others. Adopt ing such approaches by work ing collaboratively with such disciplines can only strength en the toolbox of economists and contribute to a better understanding of business. Economics may still continue to be a foundational discipline, but it has the poten tial to become as practical as engineering. Chander Velu Professor of innovation and economics Department of Engineering Sriya Iyer Professor of economics and social science Faculty of Economics University of Cambridge The column concluded that “economics has little of practi cal use to say about what makes a successful company.” I must defend the profession. In the consultancy firm where I was a partner I was, despite being chief economist, also at various times head of strategy and head of international privatisations. We were not there to advise only on GDP trends or interestrate policy. If things have changed we need to get our act together to reverse the trend. It is impor tant to encourage the young to study economics as a degree and then apply it in practice, whether in the private or pub lic sector. As I discovered repeatedly during my career, strategies done in a vacuum without proper analysis and understanding of what makes an economy and an industry tick rarely work. Vicky Pryce Former joint head of the UK Government Economic Service London Rice and climate change “The global rice crisis” (April 1st) could be solved with new but proven methods of cultiva tion. These agroecological approaches require fewer chemicals and less water, but increase yield and reduce greenhousegas emissions. Crops are not only more resil ient, they draw carbon down from the atmosphere into soil and root systems. One example is the System of Rice Intensification ( SRI ), one of the most costeffective climate solutions identified in 2017 by Project Drawdown, a nonprofit organisation. SRI involves the wider spacing of plants and careful manage ment of seedlings and water. Research shows that water consumption and emissions, mainly methane, can be halved. With 80% less seed, farmers’ yields consistently increase, often doubling or more. Smallholder farmers across Asia and Africa have already adopted these practic es. Innovative farmers in Pakistan and Arkansas have shown that SRI can be mechanised and scaled. SRI is practised in over 60 countries, but still accounts for only 510% of global pro duction. Helping farmers change their practices mainly requires nonfinancial support such as training, demonstra tion and access to equipment. The payback to farmers and governments in productivity, food security, water savings and greater resilience to cli mate stresses will be measured in months. This is the kind of initiative that should be a priority at COP28 , to be held in Dubai later this year. Dr Adam Parr Business fellow Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment University of Oxford Psychological warfare The commander of Britain’s National Cyber Force, James Babbage, revealed that Britain’s “doctrine of cognitive effect” has only recently adopted the principles of aiming for long term results in offensive cyber (“All in the mind”, April 8th). That involves targeting elites rather than the masses and emphasising content based on truth rather than intentional falsehood, as being appropri ate for a liberal democracy. These are the same princi ples identified and practised by Charles Masterman’s fam ous warpropaganda bureau at Wellington House during the start of the first world war. Regrettably, they are so con trary to conventional military thinking and culture that they have had to be rediscovered in every war since. Stephen Badsey Professor of conflict studies University of Wolverhampton Cycling in London We agree that improving road safety means focusing on road junctions and improving vision for lorry drivers (“Zero tolerance” April 1st). Transport for London has indeed made changes at more than 40 junc tions, but many of these rede signs retain what are known as “critical issues” that the UK Department for Transport’s junctionassessment tool and T f L ’s own Healthy Streets check for designers highlight as objectively dangerous. For example, some junctions continue to allow heavy flows of leftturning vehicles across the path of cyclists. Moreover, T f L has routinely weakened or delayed progress on rolling out safety measures, primarily it seems to avoid impacting busjourney times. The stark reality of dangerous junctions, particularly in urban areas, is that any improvements for safety must come mostly by reducing motortraffic capacity, which means cities being clear about their priorities to stop serious road collisions. It is possible to cut busjourney times and collisions, but to do so means reducing privatevehicle traffic significantly. Bank Junction in the City of London is a good example of this. Unless T f L and London’s boroughs tackle dangerous junctions with far more clarity, the mayor’s strategy for “Vision Zero”—no road deaths or serious injuries—will remain unachievable. Simon Munk Campaigns manager London Cycling Campaign Let me tell you how it will be Your article on the mistakes made by Richard Beeching when he reshaped Britain’s railways in the 1960s reminded me that not everyone in that decade disapproved of his parsimony (“The great train robbery”, April 1st). Beeching also had his admirers. By the late 1960s the Beatles’ record label, Apple Corps, was out of control financially and losing so much cash that John Lennon decided that one sol ution was to meet Beeching in the hope he would take control of the business and apply his famous costcutting skills. The meeting did not go well. Beeching told Lennon to “stick to making records”. Chris Drake Director H&D Leicester Letters are welcome and should be addressed to the Editor at The Economist, The Adelphi Building, 111 John Adam Street, London wc 2 n 6 ht Email: letters@economist.com More letters are available at: Economist.com/letters 012 17 Essay Artificial intelligences A mong the more sombre gifts brought by the En lightenment was the realisation that humans might one day become extinct. The astronomical revo lution of the 17th century had shown that the solar sys tem both operated according to the highest principles of reason and contained comets which might conceiv ably hit the Earth. The geological record, as interpreted by the Comte de Buffon, showed massive extinctions in which species vanished for ever. That set the scene for Charles Darwin to recognise such extinctions as the motor of evolution, and thus as both the force which had fashioned humans and, by implication, their possible destiny. The nascent science of thermo dynamics added a cosmic dimension to the certainty of an ending; Sun, Earth and the whole shebang would eventually run down into a lifeless “heat death”. The 20th century added the idea that extinction might not come about naturally, but through artifice. The spur for this was the discovery, and later exploita tion, of the power locked up in atomic nuclei. Cele brated by some of its discoverers as a way of indefinite ly deferring heat death, nuclear energy was soon de veloped into a far more proximate danger. And the tan gible threat of imminent catastrophe which it posed rubbed off on other technologies. None was more tainted than the computer. It may have been guilt by association: the computer played a vital role in the development of the nuclear arsenal. It may have been foreordained. The Enlightenment be lief in rationality as humankind’s highest achieve ment and Darwin’s theory of evolution made the pro mise of superhuman rationality the possibility of evo lutionary progress at humankind’s expense. Artificial intelligence has come to loom large in the thought of the small but fascinating, and much writ ten about, coterie of academics which has devoted it self to the consideration of existential risk over the past couple of decades. Indeed, it often appeared to be at the core of their concerns. A world which contained entities which think better and act quicker than hu T H E AG E O F P S E U D O C O G N I T I O N B E R K E LE Y A N D B E R LI N Yüklə 5,71 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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