A Chinese Industrial Evolution

On my Sunday Read session today (4 Feb 2024), I came across a simple story on Quora (an Internet place where you can ask questions and get answers from various people of sundry and various expertise around the world; you will have to gauge or verify the answers yourselves - by the weight or number of upvotes people who read the answers give).  The title of this story is  (you can click either of the below)

In the past, why did China face ridicule for its inability to manufacture ballpoint pen tips, and why is it still considered a difficult task for only three countries, one of which is China, to achieve commercial viability in producing them? 

https://www.quora.com/In-the-past-why-did-China-face-ridicule-for-its-inability-to-manufacture-ballpoint-pen-tips-and-why-is-it-still-considered-a-difficult-task-for-only-three-countries-one-of-which-is-China-to-achieve-commercial 

It is about the making ballpoint pen tips (commonly called BIC pen บิคเพน in Thai) and the investment that China had put into it. They suffered humiliation and ridicules for many years for their R & D in this industrial development. But in the end, they succeeded and guess who is laughing now?   

Bic ballpoint pen tip  image credit Wikipedia

You may like to look up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballpoint_pen for more info.

I am sharing this story because of another reason, not to praise their efforts nor their ingenuity but to stress that return of investment in any national budget or spending must be seriously included in considerations. Nations advance on ability to make better things that the world want and use.     

Digital Wallet Give-away does not probably serve to advance national abilities but wastes and destroys resources to make good a seemingly improvising election speech. Lots of money would be spent (flooding markets and upping prices) and in six month time the money would evaporate from hands of receivers (into the hands of a few rich people up the supply chains, leaving perhaps a stench of corruption and money laundering behind).  [Edited 13:24h, 4 Feb 2024; an example of money laundering is bartering digital money for cash at a discount with bogus that are allowed under the rules of the give-away as objects of transactions. These transactions are though detectable later, it would be far too late to stop the transactions or to recover the money in the transactions. ]

But, it's a Sunday read for you. You take away whatever you think the story fits you. Otherwise, just enjoy another short story or blog – have a laugh ;-)