china

If you have purchased fuel in the last week or so, you’ve seen prices steadily climbing with apparently no ceiling in sight. You’re experiencing that not-so-slow boil, as you pay more and more while making less or nothing at all. The jobs report being bleated about by the DeMarxists just ain’t that hot, brother.

If all the government’s magic math is taken into account, figuring in the huge number of people who ‘have stopped looking’ and those who are living in the new ‘underground cash’ economy, then unemployment is at 20% or more. Any progress towards an improving economy and job growth is going to be sucked out of the air by out of control energy prices.

It’s just what he wants… It’s what he’s wanted all along… No one can say that he didn’t tell us exactly what he intended. We have it on tape, Obama, and we’re not forgetting.

This is one of the prime assaults on America. This attack goes all the way back to the emergence of the environmental movements and their campaigns of misinformation. Rachel Carson produces a work of virtual fiction, based on poor and incorrect research, and millions of African people die unnecessarily from malaria.

It’s incredible how the left consistently makes judgments based on emotion. They perceive only the prevailing political wind and how it can be ideologically manipulated. Invariably, such thinking has disastrous results.

We can’t look at the energy war against America without identifying the players. Unfortunately, weakness and lack of principle is nothing new to our nation’s politicians, nor are nefarious dealings galore, as we have had so vividly illustrated with the blatant grifting of the Obama presidency.

There’s been much written about China’s monopoly on strategic rare earth minerals. Why is this? I mean, why is it that they have this monopoly? Is China the only land blessed with these materials? The short answer is no. Where is one of the planet’s world-class rare earth deposits? It’s right here. The Chinese knew it and they didn’t like the competition.

Remember the late Senator Alan Cranston and the ‘California Desert Protection Act’? Well, that was back in 1992. A close friend and political ally of Senator Cranston was Dianne Feinstein, who took up his mantle of ‘desert protection’, effectively greatly restricting prospects for new rare earth deposits in the desert areas that Feinstein and her environmental radical friends have restricted.

The area has proven deposits of these and many other minerals important to industry and the economy. The Chinese undercut the world price of rare earth back in the early 90s. That, and the insanely restrictive policies set in place by politicians in the pay of the environmentalists, effectively closed the one operating rare earth mine here in California.

Oh, did I mention that Dianne Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum, was one of the early big players in China? Let’s see… Chinese… Richard Blum… rare earth… Dianne Feinstein… desert… deal… Locking away our own arguably strategic resources…. The Chinese really hate competition….

A US Senator working directly against the best interests of her country and using the environmental lobby to mask her true relationship to the Chinese through her husband, who is at least as culpable as she is. It wasn’t the last time that Dianne got caught with her hands in the pot either… sweetheart deal after sweetheart deal for Blum and his partners.

This is just one example of the way the left and their allies have acted in a manner clearly detrimental to our security. My ‘conspiracy’ theory is beginning to sound all too feasible. More later…

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2011

Not one that Huxley would have envisioned… but plenty close enough for most of us, thank you very much! Trying to quantify the challenges facing this nation is a daunting task in itself. Especially with a country still largely in the grip of the greatest recessionary period since the great depression. A populace still raw from the economic collapse of 2007-2008.

I know I’m not alone in saying that these days I think things over several times before spending anything. It’s just become second nature. You’ve heard of the ‘bunker mentality’? Well, we have a ‘bunker’ economy. Despite the reassurance of having a somewhat stable tax picture for the next two years, individuals and most especially companies are intensely careful with expenditures. There is a tendency to hoard resources, an entire nation like squirrels before the first snow.

The economy is showing signs of life. It’s not out of the woods… not yet… not by a long shot. But the stock market has been showing growth… manufacturing is beginning to stir… what manufacturing hasn’t been forced overseas, that is.

We are being invaded through our southern border and we have a federal government which stubbornly refuses to do one of the only constitutionally mandated responsibilities it has. We’re fighting terrorism around the world and we’re fighting two wars.

Our one ally in all of the middle east is herself on the brink of conflict. Israel’s border with Lebanon has become the focal point of tension as Hizbollah continues to solidify its hold over that country. The border on the Lebanon side is said have a series of fortified villages linked by tunnels. They have amassed an astounding 40-50 thousand rockets and missiles.

Everywhere we look there is the potential for conflict. Venezuela’s communist adventuring will have to be dealt with eventually. North Korea continues its bellicose demands and threats. China is the greatest ultimate threat to this country and the one we least understand.

Aldous Huxley wouldn’t recognize our Brave New World. We, as Americans, have got to keep our eyes on the goal we have set for ourselves and our party… a return to Constitutional law and government… a limited government with less job-stifling regulation on business.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2011

As is known the liberty choking deficits will continue to rise during the Obama administration and well after as the Social Security and Medicare schemes enter their terminal stages.  Added to the after effects of the Great Depression and the Great Society are of course the new wild eyed spending of the Great One himself.  Deficits and government debt will soon eclipse the ability of the economy itself to pay for them.

What to do?  

My advice is simple--first, what has caused the rise in spending?  Is it a matter of helpless citizens who require government intervention for the sweet pap of sustenance?  Unlikely, altough at this point there are many debilitated by their long association with that noxious entity known as the welfare state.  

No, the real cause in the increase in government spending will always be not the weak, not the poor, not the ill, not the poorly educated, no, but rather those who seek power, money, prestige and security for themselves through the otherwise legitimate purposes of government.  

Granted, it's not acceptible at this point in history, with bald face, to expect the populace to tend to your aristocratic drive for all the good things this world has to offer at minimal expense to oneself.  Needless to say, those drives have not been exteminated from the human soul, no, but they have become modulated and recast--a compensatory masquerade--as charitable concern for others.  That is, when one seeks well remunerated employment in the pursuit of aleviating the suffering of others, then one can exercise the baser drives always found in those attracted to governance--but this time with a clean, modern, enlightened conscience.  Superiority even.  What a perfect circle!  My life is to improve the lot of my inferiors, which act makes me superior, which fact guarantees that my secure job will never be done.  Therefore taxes must be levied in perpetuity!

Sad but true.  There are available to us but two ways to short circuit this vicious circle.  One, we could all demand to join this Great Effort and thereby speed it's collapse by depriving it of any honest human beings to exploit for its upkeep.  This is the scenario currently playing out in Greece, et al. in Europa where a majority work for the "public interest."  Or we could take the opposite tack--not the wholesale jumping into a sinking ship--and thereby insure that some civil society, some operation of a free economy is vestigially present before the coming dissolution of the Great Government, since that freely operating society is in fact what we truly rely on for human existence (I refer to free contract, association and speech).  

No, to rid ourselves of the burden of a government which has become the thing not agreed to (the ultimate perversion of the only valid role of govenment, namely, to protect one from the what has not been agreed upon)  then we must rid ourselves of the individuals mentioned above, that is, government workers  

Hence, to free ourselve of the deficit I suggest we as a nation sell all government workers to China as slaves in exchange for the outstanding US debt held by that nation.  Not only do we free ourselves of the source of increased government spending, not only do we enjoy a windfall to eliminate a good portion of the outstanding debt, but we also adress decisively the trade imbalance with that fast growing economy.

Which government employees do we sell?  It's simple, all who do not require a gun to do their jobs and therefore do not risk their lives to earn their pay will be culled for the slave galleys to China.  This is a very sensible distinction on all grounds.

Now, many will pause at such an act--do we really want to take a step backwards in history towards the abomination of slavery?  This is well thought.  Do we?  Is not the idea of servitude towards another human being completely loathsome to us all?  The lack of consent or written agreement?  The prospect of one generation born to shackles paying an obligation made long before they were born?  

All these things are repellent.  Utterly and definably repellant.  Repulsive.  Hideous.  Sickening to one's very soul.  Such is slavery.  And yet each and every one of these things will soon be upon us; as each free individual is cowed to the superior power and demands of an unaccountable government; as each is made to pay and lose his labour to another's interest, one generation after another born without freedom of movement or self-determiniation.  Shackled by the arrangements of the past.

Slavery is upon us, the only question is who will serve? 

Well, if there will be slavery who is better suited to it?  Those who would chose fewer guarantees, who choose to take care of themselves without complaint, who are willing to risk all to make their freedom worthwhile?  Or those, the "public servants," who have opted for comfort over challenge?  It is obvious who the slavish in our society already are.  It is merely a matter of bringing the horse to the cart and sending it down the road.  

We owe trillions to China.  China has no objection to slavery, let them be paid in flesh.  We can rid ourselves of a noxious government in an appropriate way, pay off our debt, remove the impetus for future spending and provide China with cheap labour so that they can continue to send us affordable products.  Every benefit can be realized with the simple sale of government employees.  

Let your conscience rest easy, gentle reader, this government has been for sale for a long time, here we are merely broadening the product line .

It seems like events are rushing to greet some sort of an event horizon. There are just too many disparate potential flash points not to be completely realistic. The Middle East region is a sizzling hot spot that could have a region wide conflict start from any of a half-dozen different sources.

North Korea is the next most obvious subject, with a very unstable government and internal power issues. They have been increasingly bellicose and tensions are sky-high between the two Koreas, since rumors still persist that the South Korean naval corvette ‘Cheonan’ may have been sunk by a north Korean torpedo.

Obama bows to China's Hu Jintao.

China is another factor, they have already taken the measure of Barack Hussein Obama and found him to be foolish and naive. They will use his indecisiveness to initiate some ‘incident’ over the island republic of China called Taiwan. China has been drooling over Taiwan for a very long time. China has also increased the number of missiles and artillery facing Taiwan from the mainland. With a timid Barack Obama at the helm, the Chinese may feel the time has come for a little adventurism.

Obama has a miserable record of insulting one ally after another and, as in the case of Israel, withdrawing arms, munitions and spare parts, in the face of increasing threats and a potential regional war. It doesn’t take these folks very long to realize that this President, this government, not only cannot be trusted but will actively work for the benefit of their enemies while feigning friendship to them.

Russia is very cozy with some other influences that will have to be dealt with. Iran and Venezuela. Iran’s increasing bellicosity cannot be ignored. They have gone from threatening Israel to direct threats towards the United States as well. There were a whole bunch of people around who should have known better when Hitler published Mein Kampf, too. Words have meaning. These are real potential adversaries that we have to be prepared to deal with.

Venezuela is not now a military threat and Chavez’ Socialist Nirvana ain’t, so the plebes aren’t cozying up to Hugo. Like any dictator, he deserves close scrutiny. I just don’t think Obama has the stones for the job. Worse, much worse, I still can’t figure out who he’s working for.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

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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