State-sponsored quackery in China Guatemala’s unfunny president America’s biggest private firm opens up When Ponzi schemes make sense SEPTEMBER 2ND–8TH 2017 How to deal with them PURE AGRIBUSINESS When it comes to growing food and businesses, there’s one state that’s got the perfect climate for both. Michigan. Our weather patterns and soil variety help us grow everything from cherries to Christmas trees. Our food and agriculture industries contribute over $101 billion to the state’s economy. Which makes Michigan a top pick for your agribusiness. michiganbusiness.org/pure-agribusiness Contents The Economist September 2nd 2017 5 7 The world this week The Americas 29 Corruption in Guatemala Leaders If you elect a clown, expect a circus 9 Natural disasters How to cope with floods 30 Bello The skills crisis 10 Corruption in Latin America More tragedy than comedy Asia 10 North Korea 31 Japan and North Korea Stand by Japan A missile scare East-Asian security A missile 11 Protein-rich diets 32 Myanmar’s Rohingyas flying over Japan shows why Feed as well as food Gory days America must stand by its 12 Traditional Chinese 32 Law in India allies: leader, page10. Japan On the cover medicine Courage in their examines how prepared it is to The to-do list for dealing State-sponsored quackery convictions face North Korean aggression, with floods goes far beyond 33 Thai politics page 31. Donald Trump is getting to grips with climate Letters A coup for the generals undermining Asia’s change: leader, page 9. The American-led order. But it may 14 On electric cars, the 34 Banyan unprecedented flooding outlast him: Banyan, page 34 Confederacy, puns An American Hurricane Harvey brought to wrecking-ball? Houston is part of a worldwide trend, page17.A below- Briefing China average monsoon can still 17 Flooding prove deadly, page18. Submerged 37 Traditional medicine Calculating the chances of Health care with Chinese 18 India and Bangladesh disaster, page19 characteristics Hard hit 19 The chances of disaster Middle East and Africa The Economist online Frequency modulation 39 Islamic State Daily analysis and opinion to A state no more supplement the print edition, plus United States 40 After the caliphate audio and video, and a daily chart 21 Politics The next scramble Premier League The English Economist.com Back to school 40 Oman and the Qatar crisis are bad at playing football but E-mail: newsletters and 22 Lobbyists A port in the storm brilliant at selling it. What is mobile edition Washington wizards the secret of their success? Economist.com/email 41 Angola and Congo 22 The states and Obamacare Page 47 A tale of two kleptocracies Print edition: available online by Over to you 41 Public housing in 7pm London time each Thursday 23 Health-care costs Economist.com/print Ethiopia How to twist an arm Audio edition: available online Not for the poor anymore 24 Arizona Republicans to download each Friday 42 Grasscutters Beg your pardon Economist.com/audioedition The challenge of raising 24 Police militarisation rats in Ghana The arms race 26 The 2020 census Europe Count down 43 Turks in Europe 28 Lexington Home and away Volume 424 Number 9056 Mr Trump’s history lessons 45 Germany’s Free Published since September1843 Democrats Guatemala The president is to take part in "a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and Return of the yuppies trying to thwart a UN-backed an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing anti-corruption agency. It our progress." 45 Complex Dutch families Three’s company deserves a stout defence: Editorial offices in London and also: leader, page 10. As the Beijing, Berlin, Brussels, Cairo, Chicago, Madrid, 46 Rural France country’s scandals multiply, Mexico City, Moscow, Mumbai, Nairobi, New Delhi, Into the trees New York, Paris, San Francisco, São Paulo, Seoul, opposition hardens to the Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo, Washington DC investigators who are uncovering them, page 29 1 Contents continues overleaf 6 Contents The Economist September 2nd 2017 Britain Science and technology 47 Football 67 Quantum cryptography A league of their own The early bird 48 Higher education 68 Cancer A costly mistake Zapping tumours 49 Bagehot 70 Medicine May v the managers Heart of the matter 70 How plesiosaurs swam International In a flap 51 Indentured labour Feed and food As demand for Economics brief The last brief Servitude’s centenary Books and arts protein grows, what people in our series on big economic eat matters. So does what gets 71 Mikhail Gorbachev ideas looks at the costs (and fed to animals: leader, page11. Business A good Soviet man benefits) of passing on the bill Can the privately held epitome 53 Cargill 72 Paul Samuelson to the next generation, of Big Agriculture satisfy a Middleman to the world Practical theorist page 59 public that is more questioning 54 Uber’s new CEO 73 Samuel Pepys and John about its food? Page 53 Evelyn Self-driving no longer Subscription service Men, pen and ink 55 Naspers For our latest subscription offers, visit Ten cents’ worth 74 Karl Ove Knausgaard Economist.com/offers Leaves turning For subscription service, please contact by 56 Co-living models telephone, fax, web or mail at the details Rent collective 74 British television provided below: Let them bake cakes North America 58 Schumpeter The Economist Subscription Center Unilever’s experiment P.O. 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Printed by Quad/Graphics, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866 The world this week The Economist September 2nd 2017 7 their forces, avoiding what banning oil imports from jihadists’ last redoubt is likely Politics could have been their most Venezuela. President Nicolás to be the city ofDeir ez-Zor, in serious clash in decades. Maduro directed the constitu- eastern Syria. ent assembly, which has taken A court in India convicted over the powers ofthe legisla- In order to reduce tension Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, ture, to prosecute “traitors” between the country’s the country’s most influential who support the sanctions. Anglophone population and guru, ofrape. As news ofthe its Francophone majority, verdict got out his devotees Assessing the migrant crisis Cameroon’s president or- went on the rampage; at least Emmanuel Macron, the French dered that charges be dropped 38 people died. president, hosted a European- against three English-speaking African summit in Paris. The activists over protests last year. YingluckShinawatra, a former leaders ofChad, Libya and But at the same time the gov- prime minister ofThailand, Niger met their counterparts ernment banned a popular fled the country before a from France, Germany, Italy English-language TV channel, verdict could be announced in and Spain and agreed to fight based in South Africa, which Hurricane Harvey battered her trial fornegligence in smuggling networks across has highlighted human-rights the coasts ofTexas and Louisi- administering a rice-subsidy borders and in the Mediterra- abuses in Cameroon, claiming ana. Downgraded to a tropical scheme.