Good reads & charts - November 2, 2023

In this edition: Trade with China, the doomsday 3rd party candidate scenario and Lunchables.

Good reads & charts provides an assortment of interesting articles and data that I have come across recently that do not warrant a full article and might not be related to something I have previously discussed, but I feel are worth larger consumption.

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Art Museum of Fondazione Luigi Rovati - Milano

Source: World Architecture Festival

The project was born of a desire by Fondazione Luigi Rovati to create a museum within the historic 19th century Bocconi-Rizzoli-Carraro Palace for displaying an important collection of Etruscan artifacts. A non-conventional architecture was developed in which references to the Etruscan tombs of Cerveteri evoke that civilization’s lively relationship with the world beyond death. Hypogeum-inspired spaces were inserted under the palace and extended beneath the garden, including three domed rooms that create an atmosphere of mysticism and suspense.

The Art Museum of Fondazione Luigi Rovati is one of sixteen finalists in the ‘Culture’ category of the World Architecture Festival.

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The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) and China

Source: PIIE

On average IPEF countries received more than 30 percent of their manufactured imports from China and sent almost 20 percent of their exports to China in 2021. The United States, however, has seen a 10 percent reduction in China's share of its total manufactured goods imports, mainly due to tariffs originating from Trump's China trade war.

These numbers reflect IPEF average increases in the China share of over 40 percent for imports and almost 45 percent for exports since 2010 (averages exclude Brunei, which is an outlier).

Source: Most IPEF members became more dependent on China for trade over the last decade (Pearson Institute For International Economics)

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Seeing, and being seen

We sometimes talk about democracy as if it’s just about voting, and the stuff that happens in legislatures. But, at its core, liberal democracy is a series of concrete human encounters: persuasion, argument, negotiation, compromise. It’s one viewpoint encountering a bunch of other viewpoints in hopes of finding some positive way forward. For liberal democracy to function, we must be able to understand one another to some degree, to see one another’s viewpoints, to project respect across difference and disagreement. All of this requires humanistic wisdom.

More mundanely, humanistic wisdom matters in your professional life. To work well with others, you have to show that you see them and recognize their worth. In a 2021 study, when the consulting firm McKinsey asked business executives why employees were quitting their firms, the executives said it was to make more money elsewhere. But when researchers asked the employees themselves why they quit, the most common answer was that they didn’t feel recognized and valued by their managers. They didn’t feel seen.

Source: A Humanist Manifesto (The Atlantic)