On October 1 last year, China's Communist Party celebrated the country's National Day, marking the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic. As they did ten years before, senior leaders put on a military parade of immense proportions in their majestic capital of Beijing . Like the Olympic Games in 2008, the parade was a perfectly executed and magnificently staged spectacle, but instead of international fellowship, the theme was the power of China 's ruling organization and the rise of the Chinese nation.
But did Beijing need two hundred thousand soldiers and school children to demonstrate its strength or ascendancy? The dominant narrative about China today is that it will, within a few short decades, become the preeminent power in the international system. Its economy, according to the conventional wisdom, was the first to recover from the global downturn and will eventually go on to become the world's largest. Geopolitical dominance will inevitably follow.
How did this notion of Chinese supremacy gain hold? The answer is nothing more profound than statistical extrapolation. China was destitute when Deng Xiaoping grabbed power in December 1978. Since then, the country has averaged, according to official statistics, a spectacular annual growth of 9.9 percent.
This rate, if carried forward, gives China the world's largest economy in a few decades-2027, to be exact, according to a now-famous Goldman Sachs estimate.
So will ours be the Chinese century? Probably not. China has just about reached high tide, and will soon begin a long painful process of falling back. The most recent period of China 's fast growth began with Deng's Southern Tour in early 1992, the event that signaled the restarting of reforms after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Fortunately for the Communist Party of China, this event coincided with the beginning of an era wherein political barriers to trade were falling and globalization was kicking into high gear, which set the table for a period of tremendous wealth generation.
#2
He gets one thing right. China was the big winner from globalization. Although he, like most, doesn't consider the other side of the globalization coin - exporting a lot to other countries means holding a lot of other countries debt.
Globalization won't unwind due to trade restrictions. It will unwind on sovereign debt defaults. No one will want to exchange goods for worthless paper (which is what China is doing now).
#3
China can continue to sell goods for worthless paper, but at some point today's Chinese workers will get old, the young will be stuck with too many old people to support and won't remember poverty as did their parents, and will get impatient with the rate at which their standard of living increases. None of these are a problem today. I'd give the Chinese 10-20 years before things fall apart.
The European Central Bank joined the international rescue of Greece, saying it would indefinitely accept the country's debt as collateral regardless of its country's credit rating, underpinning gains in the bond market.
For the uninitiated this means that the ECB will accept DEFAULTED Greek debt instruments, should it come to that.
More bluntly, if Papandreou's dog drops a deuce in a box and he presents it to the ECB claiming that it's worth $10 billion, the ECB will in fact issue $10 billion in real, honest-to-God Euros against that box - no matter how badly it smells.
That prompted Christoph Rieger, co-head of fixed-income strategy at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt, to say today's announcement leaves a sour taste with regards to the ECB's long-term credibility.'
The ECB has no credibility to lose at this point as it has now documented that the Euro is worth nothing at all as a currency, since it may be debased at will by Greece through the offering of worthless debt instruments into the ECB's clearing and margining system.
The Euro is now free to descend toward zero, targeting in the intermediate term my Par price-point .vs. the dollar, and likely headed for well below that.
Congratulations Europe, you have now demonstrated that your central bank is and has been issuing dog turds disguised as Euro bank notes.
If Germany has an ounce of sense they will withdraw from the Euro and return to the Deutche Mark post-haste.
it appears that a third of the bailout will come from the IMF. the U.S. taxpayer use to finance about 40% of that or in this case the US will borrow $15B from the chicoms to help pay for the Greek union members pensions.
#2
The ECB's acceptance of worthless Greek debt instruments is on a par with the Federal Reserve's acceptance of worthless mortgage-backed securities. Both are part of the modern shuck-and-jive global economy.
#3
If Germany has an ounce of sense they will withdraw from the Euro and return to the Deutche Mark post-haste. Easy to write, not easy to do. Several German banks have already been nationalized. Before the Greek crisis became acute, German banks were already holding a lot of Greek (and other PIIGS) debt of doubtful value. Withdrawing from the Euro wouldn't change that situation. Withdrawing from insolvency & undergoing deflation are both very painful.
#4
From another article today found on Yahoo:
--"There is no faith in what the EU and the IMF have proposed for Greece," said Dean Popplewell, chief currency strategist at OANDA, a foreign exchange brokerage in Toronto.
"Capital markets are betting on a Greek default, as Greece's own populace is not going to accept the terms of this rescue, and contagion is a real concern hurting the euro," he said.
--"These government measures are destroying my life," said Panagiota Katsagani, a 25-year-old part-time school teacher who was marching in Athens on Tuesday. "I was planning my future, now I have to go back and live with my parents."
-- Some newspaper editorials said the bailout was more a rescue for European banks holding Greek debt than one of ordinary Greeks.
#7
The EU is not bailing out the Greeks, they are bailing out themselves. Most of the money is owed to European banks. If Greece defaults, the banks go under and the European bourses all tank.
They'll cough up money to bail out Greece now, and then when things quiet down, they'll kick them out of the Euro zone.
My sister e-mailed this to me with the note calling it "a more balanced view, and even if ca-ca, no different than the ca-ca" I send her. I found the original article at the author's blog, and though y'all might find the perspective interesting. The author wrote an excellent book Keeping Faith--A Father-Son Story About Love and the United States Marine Corps, so I give him credit for that. By Frank Schaeffer
Before he'd served even one year President Obama lost the support of the easily distracted left and engendered the white hot rage of the hate-filled right. Good thing no one here is hate-filled, Frank.
But some of us, from all walks of life and ideological backgrounds - including this white, straight, 57-year-old, former religious right wing agitator, now progressive writer and (given my background as the son of a famous evangelical leader) this unlikely Obama supporter -- are sticking with our President. Why? - because he is succeeding.
We faithful Obama supporters still trust our initial impression of him as a great, good and uniquely qualified man to lead us. It's just that the number of the faithful is still declining. They're just becoming more selective, as in Spinal Tap ...
Obama's steady supporters will be proved right. Obama's critics will be remembered as easily panicked and prematurely discouraged at best and shriveled hate mongers at worst.
#3
I hereby withdraw this tool's "Frank Card". He is now Francis. Talk about delusional. Obama dropped from the heavens, absent of sin, or even a prior voting record or church attendance history. I sense another Andi Sullivan: "I'm a reichwinger who woke up and saw the light".
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/04/2010 8:40 Comments ||
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#4
Hey, get out of the way! I saw the CoolAid first.
#9
after the economy is booming and new industries are burgeoning, (they will be) -- only if a huge gold meteorite with a creamy nougat core of light sweet crude falls on a joint session of Congress.
#10
I read Keeping Faith when it came out and was mostly impressed, but I hadn't kept up with him since. While reading it I got a sense that his conservative convictions weren't very deep and were mostly an emotional reaction to his son's deployment.
Having undergone a major worldview realignment myself, culminating after 9/11, I can empathize with such changes, but he seems to be something of a weather vane. Myself, I can't envision ever going back to my old worldview.
#11
# An ideologically divided country to the point that America was really two countries.
What Frank really means by "ideologically divided" is that a large portion of their followers no longer believe the liberal lies.
# Two wars; one that was mishandled from the start, the other that was unnecessary and immoral
Frank failed to note the last US military offensive in Iraq ( AKA The Surge ) essentially won the war for America ( AKA Forces for Freedom )
# America's standing in the world at the lowest point in history
Frank's right. US won the war in Iraq; that would certainly cause our standing to decline in the eyes of the transnational socialists
# A country that had been misled into accepting the use of torture of prisoners of war
Franks skips merrily passed the truth. Captives were not POWs but illegal combatants..
# An educational system in free fall
Frank's right. After billions of dollars, and an industry predominated by statists and liberals, the education system is in freefall. Let's dismantle it.
# A global environmental crisis of history-altering proportions (about which the Bush administration and the Republicans had done nothing)
The only thing thing history-altering about global warming is that global warming is now a bad joke
# An impasse between culture warriors from the right and left
There's no impasse. The left won. The right no longer partakes in the sh*tty garbage known as culture.. The business of culture is in irreversable decline. Enjoy the win.
# A huge financial deficit inherited from the terminally irresponsible Bush administration...
Lest we fergit, 1990's CLINTONISM >"AMERICA/US MUST BE RESTRAINED, CONTROLLED, ETC" > As per our SAMERICAN = AMERIKAN NATIONAL COMMUNISM, GOOD LOYAL FASCIST DECADENT CAPITALIST MALE BRUTES DEMAND TO BE ATTACKED AND DESTROYED.
Wehell, AMERICA = AMERIKA was indeed attacked on 9-11 [among Other e.g. OKC Bombing, 1993 NYC] - AS FOR BEING "DESTROYED", WE'LL SEE SOON ENUFF CIRCA 2012 OR VERY SHORTLY AFTER WHEN IRAN, RADIC ISLAM + MILTERRS FORMALLY DECLARE THEY POSSESS NUKES-WMDS [Rise of Islamist-led Nuclear Militancy-Terrorism agz US-World].
If you were listening to Geraldo on Sunday night (okay, I apologize), you would have thought the would-be Times Square bomber was either the illegitimate son of Timothy McVeigh or an evangelical minister overdosed on steroids looking for an abortion clinic. Geraldo was practically fulminating at the mouth -- it's a white man, it's a white man -- in nostalgia for the good old days when the true enemy was some evil Ku Kluxer waving his hangman's noose.
Well, it wasn't. At least the man currently under arrest, Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American, is no evangelical Christian and wasn't seeking vengeance against our federal government. I'm willing to bet right now he is a believer in jihad and, if he's seeking vengeance against anything, it's Western Civilization -- our way of life.
Yet only months after the Ft. Hood massacre, our government and leaders refuse to name our enemy. In fact, as a recent PJTV video reminds us, they are running the other way. Words like "jihad," "Islamic fascism," etc. -- the very ideologies cited by the 9/11 Commission as the causes of September 11 -- have now been expunged from the lexicon of our government and even our military.
Times Square reminds us how dangerously self-destructive that is. Were it not for our concerned citizenry and smart law enforcement, our civilization would be on its way out. Many of our leaders are evidently ready to hand it over. AoS at 1620 CT: 2nd graphic deleted despite the interesting juxtaposition.
#3
Many of our leaders are evidently ready to hand it over. They don't even believe there's anything here worth protecting, except their own individual sorry a***s.
Whenever something goofy happens bomb in Times Square, mass shootings at a US military base, etc. there seem to be two kinds of reactions:
a) Some people go, "Hmm. I wonder if this involves some guy with a name like Mohammed who has e-mails from Yemen."
b) Other people go, "Don't worry, there's no connection to terrorism, and anyway, even if there is, it's all very amateurish, and besides he's most likely an isolated extremist or lone wolf."
Unfortunately, everyone in category (b) seems to work for the government.
To the traditional who-ya-gonna-believe-me-or-your-lyin'-eyes cliches, Mayor Bloomberg has now added the inspired line that the amateurish loner with no connection to terrorism "didn't like the health care bill". I do hope they ask Faisal Shahzad his views on the individual mandate.
Any moment now, Janet Napolitano will announce that effective immediately it will be illegal to remove your sweat shirt in a public place.
By the way, there are so many of these isolated extremists and lone wolves, they surely belong to the United Amalgamated Union of Lone Wolves and Isolated Extremists. So their cadillac health care plan probably has an Obamacare opt-out anyway. Very odd.
Why do public officials so reflexively dissemble and misdirect every time? In the end, all they're doing is undermining confidence in the integrity of their own institutions. That doesn't seem a smart move.
#1
In the end, all they're doing is undermining confidence in the integrity of their own institutions.
It seems to be an article of political faith that calling problems by their proper names-- islamist terror, importation of a Mexican underclass, etc-- runs the risk of a "racist backlash." And that that risk trumps everything: national security, border security, avoiding government bankruptcy, whatever.
Bush was almost as guilty of this as Barry. No difference between 'em. What neither party realizes is that there is a growing movement of Americans who trust neither party, and increasingly few government agencies, and that this movement is only awaiting a set of leaders for it to start realigning our politics for good.
#2
Lex, did you by chance catch Geraldo's antics on Fox Sunday? The midget was all but saying/praying that this was probably the work of some white guy from the midwest, cause it couldn't be anyone else obviously.
Posted by: Jefferson ||
05/04/2010 18:07 Comments ||
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#3
Other people go, "Don't worry, there's no connection to terrorism, and anyway, even if there is, it's all very amateurish, and besides he's most likely an isolated extremist or lone wolf."
Unfortunately, everyone in category (b) seems to work for the government.
Category c also works for the government. People who often refuse to use the word terrorism and never use the word islamic and terrorism in the same sentence. In fact, they try to redefine terrorism as "man-made disasters."
#4
I heard Keith Olbermann interview Richard Clarke last night or the night before. Olbermann tried to slant the questioning in every way he could to support his "white-guy" right-wing extremist militia agenda. Clarke didn't go for it. For the life of me, I don't know why NBC wastes its money on this clown who tries to pass himself off as a news anchor.
#5
Just posted this above before I saw Mark's post. Not sure if this is his website. If it is, it's a handy tutorial on setting up websites.
Also his full name is.. wait for it...Muhammad Faisal Shahzd.
Mark Steyn will be delighted as he will be able to recycle his usual line:
These days, whenever something goofy turns up on the news, chances are it involves a fellow called Mohammed.
*shudder* I imagine the FBI or someone is following home anyone who drops by. (Hi, guys! Welcome to Rantburg!) You may want to think more carefully than I did about checking it out.
For 15 years, from the mid 1970s to 1990, I worked in Detroit, Michigan. I watched it descend into the abyss of crime, debauchery, gun play, drugs, school truancy, car-jacking, gangs and human depravity. I watched entire city blocks burned out. I watched graffiti explode on buildings, cars, trucks, buses and school yards. Trash everywhere! Detroiters walked through it, tossed more into it and ignored it.
Tens of thousands and then, hundreds of thousands today exist on federal welfare, free housing and food stamps! With Aid to Dependent Children, minority women birthed eight to 10 and in once case, one woman birthed 24 kids as reported by the Detroit Free Press--all on American taxpayer dollars. A new child meant a new car payment, new TV and whatever mom wanted. I saw Lyndon Baines Johnson's "Great Society" flourish in Detroit. If you give money for doing nothing, you will get more hands out taking money for doing nothing.
Mayor Coleman Young, perhaps the most corrupt mayor in America, outside of Richard Daley in Chicago, rode Detroit down to its knees. He set the benchmark for cronyism, incompetence and arrogance. As a black man, he said, "I am the MFIC." The IC meant 'in charge'. You can figure out the rest. Detroit became a majority black city with 67 percent African-Americans.
Continued on Page 49
#2
Detroit's descent started well before third world immigration into it. The fault lies in domestic politics and trade policy.
Posted by: ed ||
05/04/2010 9:50 Comments ||
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#3
This has nothing to do with immigration. The welfare state killed Detroit. Sans welfare and food stamps, the kinds of birth rates it encountered would not have occurred.
#4
I was born in Detroit in 1939. Our family left shortly thereafter. The city was a vibrant city with a good economy. I went back on business a few years ago. Detroit was a shock. Parts looked like a war zone.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
If you were listening to Geraldo on Sunday night (okay, I apologize), you would have thought the would-be Times Square bomber was either the illegitimate son of Timothy McVeigh or an evangelical minister overdosed on steroids looking for an abortion clinic. Geraldo was practically fulminating at the mouth -- it's a white man, it's a white man -- in nostalgia for the good old days when the true enemy was some evil Ku Kluxer waving his hangman's noose.
