china

What have the Chicoms seen about Barry Hussein that the moon-eyed crowd here, those that are left,  haven’t been able to get through their observedly addled craniums? Of course, in China they are used to a very heavy-handed government approach to life in general, so Mr. Obama really looks like the inexperienced lightweight that he is. If  he thinks he is going to negotiate anything out of them he’ll have to find another soothsayer, because the Chinese wrote the book on it thousands of years ago and Barry just doesn’t have what it takes, or even close to it, and neither has anyone in his administration.

It’s amazing how when things get a bit dicey at home, El Presidente always manages to prance off  in absentia when the criticism starts to fly. Maybe it’s because his teleprompters were made offshore, to jobs lost here in this country and therefore work best on foreign soil. Truth is, he just doesn’t want to be here to answer pointed questions, or as pointed as they ever get from 98% of that pandering White House news corps, or the equally DOA fringe media.

The two latest gorge spilling events have had to do with his Muslim Jihadist Army Major, massacring thirteen of our US Army troops ON AMERICAN SOIL, then having to listen to Barry and his spin doctor apologists in the Army itself, in his administration, and in the forever babbling fringe media, trying to turn this murdering scumbag into some sort of victim of ‘American’ oppression and harassment.

Meanwhile, the entire US Muslim population gears up to play the poor oppressed minority to a ‘T’, while many of their mosques preach hatred and  their charitable organizations pump money into terrorist jihadist organizations and causes. Hey Barry, what madrasa was it you attended when you were traveling in Pakistan on an Indonesian Muslim passport? You know, the one that showed you as an Indonesian citizen at a time when travel to Pakistan was barred to holders of an American Passport? Wish somebody would explain that one to me. I’ve got it! Must have been part of Barry’s Muslim outreach program.

Then there’s Eric Holder and the firestorm that has been ignited by the announcement that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and friends are being brought here for trial in a NewYork Federal Court. Let’s see, these are really creepy people… the kind that would set a little girl on fire to teach her father a lesson. Fact folks…that’s how these dudes operate over there. We are taking them away from military tribunals where they belong. Remember, these people don’t even rate the protection of the Geneva Convention.

Obama, because IT IS OBAMA, can’t distance himself from this one. He can’t travel far enough to be able to say, “Why, it’s my Attorney General just doing his job”. It won’t work Barry…your sheets have been pulled on this one too. It’s what you and Holder promised all along to your left wing Marxist kooks…to expose our intelligence operations through Soviet style SHOW trials here in the US. That’s plain to see.

What we also see, Mr Hussein Obama, is that you place our nation, our intelligence community, our armed forces personnel and the citizens of this country at great risk. You sir, abrogate your Oath and the Constitution of this country every time you open your lying mouth.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2009

 At 9:18 Friday night, I got an alert from the Washington Post. Barack Obama had slapped tariffs on imports of Chinese tires. Barack Obama's handling of this issue shows several things. First, it shows a real contempt for China, trade policy, and his international relationships more broadly. As one of my liberal friends likes to point out, this action demonstrates how the Democrats really cannot be taken seriously as the internationalist party.  And it shows the implicit contradictions in much of Obama's economic policy.

Let's start with the time of its announcement: 9:18pm. Really? Saturday morning in China? This tells us who the audience for this policy was: the United States. It tells us that Obama is willing to subordinate trade policy -- just before the G-20 meeting no less -- to domestic politics that he is embarassed about. Why else release this late on a Friday night?  (note that by statute, he didn't have to release a response to International Trade Commission recommendations until the 17th. He picked this timing)

By Saturday afternoon, China issues scathing remarks. By Sunday, they announce counter-tariffs against US chickens and auto-parts. We have a full scale trade war.  And Asian and European markets open the week down. Thanks Barack...

So Barack Obama started a trade war for entirely domestic reasons, jeopardizing the recovery, and is afraid of the headlines here, why he doesn't care about international opinion. How does that sound?

Now, why chickens and auto parts? I don't immediately understand the chickens, although I suspect it is a pretty good business for us, but I understand auto parts. 

US auto parts are made by the United Autoworkers, the same union that Obama bailed out when he bailed out GM and Chrysler, two companies that had becoming wards of their union pension funds. In addition to hurting the unions, this could hurt the auto manufacturers themselves, which Obama owns and which opposed the tire tariffs because it will raise their costs. First he screwed the car companies for the UAW, now USW. Perhaps this is a lesson for when he takes over the health care sector. 

So where was the logic in this? He helps his allies, with one hand, but hurts them with the other. He hurts the economy. He hurts the government run companies. And he opens a trade war just in time for the G-20 to create real structural damage to the US economy.

Furthermore, this is how he is celebrating the anniversary of the death of Lehman Brothers. By sticking the knife in the economy.

That's change I can believe in.

The rhetoric about "stimulus" gets more head-spinning every day. As I note in my Galen Institute post today, folks like Heritage's Robert Book have picked up on the insanity of spending more (taxpayer) money where we're supposed to be reducing costs in health care.

Interestingly, we're not the only nation trying to spend our way out of an economic downturn in this area. China has announced it will provide universal health care for all 1.3 billion of its people.

A Chinese study showed "that in government-sponsored health insurance areas, people are spending more" -- and they see this as a good thing!

So, more government financing should strengthen the economy... and raise health care costs, too?

Those who are commenting on the stimulus should call attention to this disconnect in logic.

While you're at it, spread word far and wide about this scary language from the House on comparative effectiveness -- two long words that mean government could decide which drugs and treatments are acceptable. Here you go:

"By knowing what works best and presenting this information more broadly to patients and health care professionals, those items, procedures, and interventions that are most effective to prevent, control, and treat health conditions will be utilized, while those that are found to be less effective and, in some cases, more expensive, will no longer be prescribed."

This is part of the "stimulus."

Read more.

Barack Obama's chief economic advisor, billionaire investor Warren Buffett, unleashed a howler which is a thousand times worse than Phil Gramm's "whiners" remark.

Gramm suggested we stop complaining about economic hardship.

But Buffett suggests that it will be unavoidable and we ought to get used to a permanent level of quasi-recession.

I know Barack Obama thinks pretty highly of Warren Buffett's economic wisdom. The so-called Oracle of Omaha has helped persuade Obama that higher taxes will have no effect on economic growth. Obama mentions it in his book, The Audacity of Hope. And in a recent New York Times interview, Obama said the following: "If you talk to Warren, he'll tell you his preference is not to meddle in the economy at all—let the market work, however way it's going to work, and then just tax the heck out of people at the end and just redistribute it."

But I wonder if Obama also buys into this little bit of Buffettology that the billionaire unleashed at a symposium on the U.S. indebtedness to promote I.O.U.S.A., a new documentary: "Even if we grow at 1 percent per year, we double the GDP per capita in 75 years. The pie will grow enough that everyone will get more of the pie."

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/capital-commerce/2008/8/25/obama-adviser-buffett-to-america-youre-rich-enough.html

One word, Warren : NOT!

James Pethokoukis points out that one inevitable result of accepting such tepid long term economic growth will be the Social Security Trust Fund will be fully depleted by 2030, and as their annual mailer cheerfully predicts, massive tax hikes or benefit cuts will be required at that point.  

Now let's look at the other results herein. U.S. GDP is about $14T/year and China is about $4T/year http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_future_GDP_estimates_(nominal)

In 2013 China is estimated to reach $7T.  Even assuming a slow down over time, let's assume a maturing Chinese economy continues to gain $600B/annually in economic performance. Do the math. The US is outpaced by China within a generation.

Now if the US managed a 4% growth rate, due to our larger existing economy we would stay well ahead of the PRC indefinitely.   Even a 3% rate keeps us well ahead of the PRC over the relevant time horizon. 

Over a 20 year period 4% growth yields a $30T US economy, 3% growth yields a $25T US economy  1% growth yields a $17T US economy. That will be smaller than China's by 2030, with massive and unpalatable geopolitical consequences for the nation.

Perhaps the principal behind the GEICO lizard ought to think about this one again.  With health care inflation running at double digits, what a 1% overall growth rate means is that other sectors of the economy will need to shrink outright to pay for health care. Then, with less investment in infrastructure---educational, public works and industrial----our national productivity goes down, thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What good is it to promise public services when the overall economy will grow so slowly as to make it impossible to pay for them? What good will be open borders if we have a stagnant economy?

Consider this as well; historic U.S. population growth from 1960-2000 averaged about 1% per year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._population#U.S._Population_Growth and this is not expected to abate in the next generation http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/08s0010.pdf

A 1% annual GNP growth coupled with 1% population growth means arithmetically living standards will never improve ( Given the aging population this also means young working people can expect lower wages and higher tax burdens).  

I look forward to the next Obama ad for the swing states in the Rust Belt

"My ecomomic advisor promises to have America be a second tier world power with a stagnant standard of living"  

  .

Crossposted at Right Minds

Posted: July 15, 2008
1:00 am Eastern

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