Many poor countries can learn from the History of the Japanese Economic Miracle (Toyota, Honda, Fuji, Sony, Panasonic, Yamaha, NGK,) where the Government of Japan invested heavily into STEM education with a focus on manufacturing investment & tax breaks for the manufacturing of export goods to improve the fiscal position of emerging manufacturing or Made in Japan companies, factories & trade operations with ships & cargo shipping logistics, building on a long history of trading with the Dutch for Salt & Tobacco for example. Global trade enabled Japan to build & maintain a vibrant economy & very high HDI or human develop index. In other words the standards of living increased significantly because the government invested in infrastructure & intensive education.
Without a significant source of crude oil or petroleum within Japan, decisions were made to invest in nuclear energy, value added manufacturing, and export focused economy, when fuels & raw materials would be imported, intelligence applied to turn those resources into value added goods for export, and in doing so creating $ trillions in ongoing revenue over many decades starting in the 1950's. Prior to this time Japan was a relatively poor country.
State Planned Economies Do Not Work
Human nature means that some people are more driven & passionate than others. Some people are more curious or intelligent than others. Some people are more creative & artistic than others. Everyone has different strengths & weaknesses. So a one size fits all solutions for life basics does not work well as all poor state planned economies have well demonstrated.
Look at the FEZ or free economic zones created in China that virtually multiplied the size of the economy after they were implemented because those foster value added industry & applied intelligence that give rise to vibrant economic growth via an export industry, noting the Made in China became so pervasive that China became known as the world manufacturing hub, though even many companies from China are now outsourcing since its become more expensive due to rising standards of living to operate in many large cities in China, so they operate factories in Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar & other poor countries where labor & land still very cheap or low cost. Significantly in the past the CCP state planned economic system in China did not produce wealth or prosperity in a diffused way to benefit the average Chinese citizen.
Liberalized economies are not without faults. Mass manufacturing indeed mades new products more affordable, but over production creates waste & excess consumerism like fast fashion creates a lot of pollution in the form of microplastics & factory emissions, waste water creation, toxic dye emissions, and other chemicals used to make & color fabrics, shoes, purses, & other products.
Thing-i-verse. To make one of something for all human people, billions have to be made. Consider the production volumes, supply chain & factories needed to make billions of anything. Honda broke records selling 100 million Super-Cubs, a moped that's been in continual production since the 1960's. Toyota has sold more than 50 million Corolla automobiles over 12 generations of redesigns since the 1970's. But these numbers are way less than 1 billion & there are nearly 8 billion people alive in the world today.
Consider the Swiss watch industry tool use to make mechanical & automatic watch movements, metals cases & metal bands. When Quartz watches were first commercialized there was a fear widespread in the Swiss watch industry that mechanical & automatic geardtrain spring powered classical watches of higher cost & higher profits would disappear, destroying a gem of the Swiss Economy, epitomized by ROLEX transitioning away from making working class durable watches to making watches that cost more than my Yamaha MT-03 motorcycle.
There is no free lunch in Physics. Something cannot happen without a cause. This means people have to deliberately collaborate to make any advanced products like an automobile exist. Today most common things are part of a global supply chain of mining, manufacturing & trillions of investment. Combining materials with intelligence, skill & machinery, means that mass manufacturing of value added goods possible. In China many emerging automakers are trying to satiate the CDM Chinese domestic market for new automobiles, but as the head of GM manufacturing in China said, we will run out of iron ore & steel resources before we can made enough cars to sell to every Chinese person that wants to buy a new car, referencing the economic boom that Made in China created in FEZ liberalized free economic zones where many factories making goods for nearly all sectors setup 30 years ago. China proved that intensive education combined with heavy investment & industrialization creates incredible shared wealth & prosperity. Now the middle class of China has more people than the total population of America.
Subaru automobiles are a sub-project of Fuji Heavy Industries of Japan :) Lexus is the luxury performance brand of automobiles made by Toyota, often Made in Japan. Our 2022 Toyota Corolla & 2010 Toyota Prius III Made in Japan :) I went to Japan to visit my friend June & his family back in 2010 & went to Toyota City & got to see their manufacturing process as they gave me an all day tour :)
The Japanese employees of Toyota have a good work ethic, focus on doing everything well, keeping everything clean, its really aerospace like and I live that clean factory idea. This is why I only buy vehicles made in Japan, that quality focused mindset of the employees & clean factory translates into higher reliability automobiles made by Toyota and Made in Japan by Japanese autoworkers :)
Clean spaces remind me of good mental health, physical fitness, a sound mind & good ideas. What is a good ideas, and idea when applied that improves something. Speaking kind words & blessings over others or to them for example can improve moral or social connectivity or mindsets, something any good leader wisely applies to their discourse with employees or customers.
Notice something about poor countries, unemployment levels too high, wages too low, and there is not a lot to do. It seems like a spirit of sloth, lazy stupidity, but who can blame them since the local government keeps all the money & does not invest in education. To make an advanced high value added economy the people in the economy have to be highly educated, that way some of the most intelligent ones will create businesses that employ other people.
I find it sad or upsetting that I even have to write to share & explain these things, since anyone with functional brain cells & internet access could easily arrive at the same conclusions & start upgrading the economies of these poor countries, so they could have electricity, water, internet, a microwave, oven to bake with. They would be able to stop cutting down the local tress for wood to burn for heat to cook, move to using Solar PV, Hydro, Nuclear Fission, Bio-gas, Natural Gas & Coal power systems hooked into homes & businesses with electricity, so they have electric cooking options that are clean inside the home.
When everyone cooks with coal bricks at home, it makes nasty toxic indoor air pollution in a drafty poorly insulated weak home easily destroyed by flooding or earthquake or even strong storms. This is why poverty makes people more easily harmed by natural hazards & disasters, they can't make roadworthy homes & buildings of good structural integrity because doing so costs too much.
At least when coal or trash are burned at a big power plant with combined heat & power 70% efficiency recuperated turbine systems with high & low pressure generators to recover even more electric energy from the heated steam stream created by burning coal & fan pressurized clean burning system equipped with a soot capture emissions control system that's impractical to implement in a domestic coal stove, but very cost effective and practical to use at a GW scale coal power plant.
I use coal power as an example because coal is the cheapest fuel per unit of energy for a large power plant, even though I hate coal power, it offers a bridge to developing economies to get a power grid online, to build schools & hospitals with LED lighting and information networks, cell towers, gateways, servers, streaming services, hosting websites so that local companies can start selling goods internationally to generate the start of an export value added wealthy generating economy.
Industrialization means billions of people can have advanced all electric homes, hybrid electric, plug-in hybrid & battery electric vehicles of all kinds. An advanced economy needs electrical power 24/7 all year, rain, snow, ice, wind, in all weather conditions, when Solar PV does not make good power during dark winter storms, and really only works well in very clear sunny conditions for a few hours per day, meaning PV has low capacity factor & low uptime, so PV needs to be paired with expensive grid power storage batteries, capacitors or pumped hydro or similar energy storage technology to make PV energy available 24/7 & the same can be said of Wind Power & other intermittent renewables.
If you think my writing too intellectual, I try to make it so that any educated 10 year old in America can make sense of what I post. I try to use accessible language & write in a way that's easily intelligible for anyone fluent with reading English.
When the Tsunami hit the coast of Japan, the coastal location Nuclear Power Plants in Fukushima were flooded, causing chaotic failure of those Fission Reactors. A cost saving measure by Tokyo Electric Power Company or TEPCO meant that the backup power generators at those reactors were not located on the roof as General Electric told them would be the safest location, since putting the diesel backup generators on the roof would cost more, so TEPCO chose to put them on ground level, when they were flooded.
This is why GE told TEPCO during the design phase & construction to put the diesel backup generators on top of the structures, to keep the generators from flooding during an emergency storm. Diesel engine generators have to take in atmospheric air for the oxygen content to enable the pressurized 25:1 compression ignition of diesel fuel, which cannot burn even when lit with a match or lighter or torch in open air. A typical gasoline engine by comparison has a compression ratio of 10:1 while higher efficiency & high performance engines have a 13:1 compression ratio. When water enters and engine it block the combustion from happening, effectively flooding the engine with water in the cylinders and water cannot be compressed easily, so it jams the engine.
Many people are killed during winter storms by operating backup generators inside their homes. One of the main problems of combustion engines, especially carbureted engines typical in low cost consumer backup generators of under 10kW, that combustion of rich gasoline mixtures with poor mixture control because of the carburetor crude functionality vs precise fuel injection, means HC or hydrocarbon fumes are present in the smelly exhaust, along with CO which becomes neurotoxic if inhaled in sufficient concentration. Most backup generators sold to the public have many warning stickers about CO poisoning & to only operate the generators outside or in well ventilated areas. In flooded areas, backup generators covered in water are usually nearly impossible to get working until all the water is drained & starting fluid used to get the engine going.
Starting fluid a pressurized can of dimethyl either with some synthetic oil, to help start engines. Also known as DME it can be used in retrofitted commercial diesel engines, like they do in South Korea. DME can be made for less than $1/ gal too, and filled into steel or aluminum or composite pressure tanks like Propane, and if the Diesel Engine & fueling system retrofitted with DME, then the vehicle becomes much cleaner in terms of tailpipe emissions, cheaper to operate with the lower cost fuel, and because DME very clean burning it makes the engine oil last longer. DME systems are also pressure sealed which keeps dust, water, and other contaminates out of the DME pump, metering & injector system, similar to propane conversions on gasoline fueled Automobiles, a low operating cost popular mod for many passenger cars in some parts of Germany, since locally propane sells for 1/2 or %50 of the price of gasoline.
Since fueling costs often dominate a vehicles TCO or total cost of operation, any reduction in fuel prices makes the vehicles more economical or cheaper to operate. Propane conversions save many German people thousands per year that they would have wasted buying overpriced gasoline. Germany, like many other socialist countries in Europe applies many taxes to gasoline sales to discourage the wasting of fuel. Higher fuel prices also cause the automakers to sell vehicles that get better fuel economy. Our 2022 Toyota Corolla Hybrid for example has the same drivetrain as the 2010 Prius III, but gets 20% better fuel economy because it's around 650 lbs less vehicle mass & smaller & more aerodynamic. Locally gasoline prices peaked about a year ago at $5.40 USD2023 per US Gallon, or about $1.44 per liter.
Gasoline & diesel fuels are expensive in Japan, but many rail networks in & around Tokyo enable many millions of Japanese citizens to live dynamic lives without owning a car. So most of the vehicles Made in Japan are exported to car crazy countries like America :) America started the everyone owns one or more vehicles craze after WWII when shared wealth and prosperity made a huge middle class in America during the 1960's when the US Economy peaked.
Today America is running on fumes, the US dollar having lost a lot to its value since the 1960's. I am sadly reminded of the Weimar Republic in Germany after WWI & the local currency that lost nearly all of its value. All fiat currencies are subject to hyperinflation & most have failed historically. There is no reason to think that the US dollar will survive long term, but Gold will remain valuable in all countries for all of history. Gold had about the same buying power when Jesus Christ was a person on Earth as it does today, for a single ounce of Gold worth about $2200 USD2023 and can buy a nice set of shoes, nice suit, nice firearm, and wrist watch today, and did about the same for hand made leather sandals, fancy robes, a hand forged sword & similar in the time of Christ Jesus.
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