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The Obama Campaign has done many things that are groundbreaking. It has focussed on big events, not the smaller, more private ones of past year’s campaigns. It has focussed on internet giving to swell its fund base. It has pushed hard for people to vote early. Why? Is Mr. Obama afraid that voters might find out about him before election day and he wants to bank all the votes he can get before they find out? Or is it just that Mr. Obama is a product of Chicago politics where people are encouraged to vote early and vote often?
I think that eventually, the major market media will have to report on the $800,000 his campaign has contributed to ACORN for a get-out-the-vote drive, that has him worried. If it is not that, it must be the investigation into the Campaign’s acceptance of prepaid credit card donations (which allow anonymous donations thus letting one individual give all he or she wants without abiding by contribution limits). Or maybe Mr. Obama doesn’t want people to have time to figure out that they could someday end up on the wrong side of his “fairness” and “redistribution-of-income” plans.
It makes me think of the slick Timeshare Salesman who offers a bonus of $10,000 worth of travel if you buy in the next hour (before you have time to check out his claims and promises). The only reason for the time limit is that the salesman knows that you won’t buy when you have time to figure out the truth about what he is saying.
The polls, one week out from the election, show the Presidential Election to be a race.
The surprise? With the press and the broadcast news fawning over Mr. Obama for the past 3 months, we still have a horse race.
We have been told that Mr. Obama will be our next President by Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, The Washington Post, The L.A. Times, etc. in print. On Television we have been told by ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC that Mr. Obama’s lead is so big that Mr. McCain should lose all but about ten states. They continue to talk about the critical issues that the ‘presumed winner’ Mr. Obama will face upon his inauguration. We are told he has twice the money to spend that Mr. McCain has. How, with all these advantages, is it possible that he is not polling with two or three times his current lead?
Gallup shows Obama 49-46 on its traditional poll. It’s new “expanded poll” has Obama 51-44. The expanded poll factors in guesses at how many of the newly registered will vote and what people say is their intention.
Rasmussen today showed Mr. Obama leading 50 – 47.
Zogby/Reuters/CSPAN has Mr. Obama ahead 49 – 44.
Research 200/DailyKos has Mr. Obama by 50 – 44.
GWU/Battleground has Mr. Obama by 49 – 46.
How can it be this close? Could Mr. Obama actually lose?
The answer to the latter question is “yes”. Most polls show Mr. Obama with his smallest lead in over a month and with the gap closing. Most of the polls show no winner if you factor their assumed margins of error. (If you haven’t read my post below on polls, it is worth the time.)
Mr. Obama’s lead as suggested by the polls is so small, in my opinion, due to the following:
1. Mr. Obama is still an unknown. That is uncomfortable for many people. Is he anti-Israel? Is he a closet Socialist? Why has he not allowed the release of his college transcripts? Etc. What does he have to hide?
2. Mr. Obama has repeatedly dodged, ignored, or disingenuously answered the questions about his relationship with Reverend Wright, Tony Resko, William Ayers, etc. This has many fence-sitters worried and uncomfortable. It is sinking in that Mr. Wright is a racist and for 20 years he really was Mr. Obama’s mentor. It is becoming clear that Mr. Ayers was a much closer friend and advisor than Mr. Obama admitted. People begin to wonder if Mr. Resko bought special favors by ‘helping’ Mr. Obama buy a house at under the market price. All these things are cast off by the true believers, but, they give serious pause to people who have not yet been sold.
3. Mr. Obama continues to claim he can offer programs that will help everyone and cut taxes on all but the “rich” and not increase our budget deficit. Many see this as naive or disingenuous.
4. Mr. Obama’s promises are being shown to differ from his votes in very significant areas and people are beginning to learn more about his actions not just his rhetoric. This is bad for Mr. Obama.
5. Large numbers of people who were earlier swayed by Mr. Obama’s eloquence now find him just a bit too slick and even slippery on the questions regarding the economy, taxes, his record. How can he be the candidate of change and the one who will cross the aisle to get things done when he votes with his party 95% of the time?
6. Mr. Obama, himself, acknowledges the closeness of the race by buying 30 minutes of national prime time TV tonight. Had Mr. McCain done this it would have been portrayed as a “desperate move.”
7. People are beginning to realize that more taxes, even if only on the rich, and more government programs can’t help the economy. The people who vote want jobs and opportunities not more government handouts.
8. Large numbers of people who were Hillary supporters moved into Mr. Obama’s column two months ago. No such move happened with the Republicans. Until just the past week, large numbers (many who listen to The Savage Nation, Rush Limbaugh, etc.) held off on backing Mr. McCain because he was not conservative enough. Now they are looking at the difference between an extremely liberal voting record from Mr. Obama vs. a moderate voting record from Mr. McCain and Mr. McCain is looking better. It may be the ‘lesser of two evils’ for many of them, but it still translates to votes for Mr. McCain.
9. The press may be cheerleading for Mr. Obama, but, people have other sources of news today and more people are questioning the credibility of the “mainstream media.”
There may not be a November Surprise for Mr. Obama but I wouldn’t bet on it.
If you disagree or have other reasons in mind as to how it is possible that Mr. Obama could lose, post a comment. Thanks.
The following letter entitled, “Dear Red States” has been making the rounds of emails and blogs. I thought it might make sense for the Red States to reply so I took the liberty. Here is the original letter as I received it and the Red States’ reply.
Dear Red States…
We’ve decided we’re leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we’re taking the other Blue States with us.
In case you aren’t aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.
To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. We get Intel, Apple and Microsoft. You get Enron and WorldCom. We get Harvard. You get Ole’ Miss. We get 85 percent of America ’s venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama and Arkansas. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue; you get to make the red states pay their fair share.
Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition’s, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.
Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we’re going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they’re apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don’t care if you don’t show pictures of their children’s caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we’re not willing to spend our resources in Bush’s Quagmire.
With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80% of the country’s fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 % of the nation’s fresh fruit, 95 % of America’s quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90% of all cheese, 90% of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus
Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.
With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92% of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 % of the hurricanes, 99 % of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 % of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.
We get Hollywood, Yosemite, and the Adirondacks , thank you. Additionally, 38 % of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 % believe life is sacred unless we’re discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53 % that Saddam was involved in 9/11, and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.
Peace out,
Blue States
Dear Blue States,
We appreciate your letter and think you make some good points, some that we should take to heart.
We do, however, think you’re decision to leave us is just a bit hasty. Maybe we should seek counseling and see if we can’t find common ground and stay together. At one point, we all agreed that we were good together and did great things as a team. Throwing all that away just because we are a bit at odds with each other right now seems a bit rash and emotional. It could be a decision that we live to regret.
We don’t want to take the time to do the research to prove or disprove any of your points or ours. That would be counterproductive if we are serious about getting together again. We are serious and hope you will at least humor us by sitting at the table for us to discuss our differences and how we might once again work together as one team.
We need to point out a few things to you that we should consider when we get together with a counselor: Your group would might find that all that food you enjoy is grown, in large part, by Republicans, whether they live in “Red or Blue” states. You might also discover that your states have a much bigger crime problem with its attendant costs.
Saying things like “…you crazy bastards believe you are people of higher morals than we lefties” is cute but neglects a lot of the little things. Take for example your feminist wing dissing Sarah Palin as ’stupid and unqualified’ in the same sentence in which they say they know nothing about her; your candidates saying they want education reform and change, yet they take huge donations from and give complete backing to the NEA which has done more to hold back education reform than any group in our country.
Maybe you want to think about whether it is more important to place blame than to achieve solutions. There is plenty of blame to go around and no party will win that game. We think it is shameful that most of our politicians on both sides have chosen to fight negative campaigns. It is our fault though. We both encourage it and are swayed by it.
In brief, I think we all need to come together, not split apart. We hope that the best man wins each of the elections before us in the next few days. Once the people have voted, let’s start talking and find our common ground. Let’s become the graceful winners and the loyal opposition. Let’s see how we can pull together to solve problems and lead productive lives.
Last we checked, calling one another names serves only to throw salt in a wound and make it that much harder for it to heal.
Hoping to be United again,
The Red States
By far and away the best discussion I have ever seen on polls and how they are used and abused in this political season is located on Wizbang. DJ Drummond has done a great job of looking at the issues that impact polls reliability, etc. I highly recommend it even though it is long and has many comments.
One of the interesting items in his post are the 20 questions you should ask about every poll (and which the reporting media rarely divulge). This list of questions was developed by the National Council on Public Polls (NCPP) and it can be seen here.
I particularly liked one comment to Drummond’s point about the questions asked and the order of the questions. You often see polls, this year, asking a question in the negative about the Bush Administration immediately followed by a question about Mr. McCain or Mrs. Palin. You rarely ever see a poll with a question about Ms. Pelosi or Mr. Reid and their failed Congress followed by a questions about Mr. Obama.
In a nutshell: the biases are many but mostly left liberal; the press tends to use the polls to tell the story they want to tell (lying with statistics) rather than to add facts to a story; they are manipulated to create the desired results. Like the major newspapers and broadcast ‘news’ you should have deep suspicion about the “fact” reported.
On 10-27, I removed the poll. It was really just another attempt to see how polls work. In case you wondered, only 4 people chose to participate and all four agreed that Polls are biased.
In the previous post, we talked about Energy Independence and the two Candidate’s positions. Those who weighed in on the subject seem to agree that: 1) this is important; 2) neither campaign is giving enough priority to it; and 3)neither campaign has it exactly right.
JSV suggested a budget of $200 billion a year (taken from DoD budgets) as a place to start to truly attack the issue of sustainable energy including alternative fuels/true renewables. I think this would be both physically possible and politically possible and I like the idea a lot. From my experiences in the military and selling product to the government, we could ‘find’ $200 billion in efficiencies/priority changes. Politically, except for the backlash from bureaucrats whose jobs would be threatened by such ‘efficiencies’ the base of taxpayers would applaud a well defined and well communicated plan for Energy Independence. So how would we spend the $200,000,000,000? I have a couple of suggestions:
1. Contract with GM, Ford, and Chrysler to produce an electric automobile that would have a range of 200 miles plus, a recharge time of 15 minutes or less, and a lifetime of 100,000 miles without engine or battery replacement. The target price for the car would be $25,000 per unit. Each of the three companies would be given $10 Billion per year for two years to have the vehicle ready for the road. An independent panel would be chosen to evaluate and choose the winning design. The winning design would be awarded a contract for two years to supply 80% of the planned purchases of sedans by the Federal Government. That is somewhere in the area of 150,000 cars, at $25,000 each is a contract for two years of$7.5 Billion. If the terms of the contract were that all cars would have to be manufactured in the USA from a minimum of 75% USA components (by value). This would have the side benefit of helping to ‘rescue’ the USA auto industry and would create or save a lot of private sector jobs.
2. Solicit Proposals for the award of two contracts to compete similar to the above in the area of wind power generation. The goal would be to produce a demonstration windpower generation station of at least 100 MW that could be replicated on a grander scale for a cost (exclusive of land and power distribution infrastructure) of per $0.025 per KWh. Each contract would be for approximately $5 Billion per year for two years with the prize being the opportunity to build and operate on Federal land a Gigawatt Energy Farm.
3. Do number 2 above for solar power production.
4. Do the same thing with wave energy but at a lower cost – instead of a $5 Billion contract to two companies, make it 3 companies at $2 Billion each.
5. Contract with 3 companies for $5 Billion each to produce an electricity storage device (battery) sized no larger than 3 cubic feet, nor heavier than 200 pounds and capable of replacing current battery systems for automobiles (200 mile range, etc.). Etc. Etc.
6. Offer a similar contract for point-of-use, residential, power generation capable of 5KW that would sell for $3,500 per KW plus installation. This could be wind, solar, chemical or something we are not now considering. The purpose would be to eventually decentralize power generation/distribution. The contracts would be for $500,000,000 each and would be available based on evaluation of the proposal/business plan. There would be 10 such contracts available per year.
Consider a prize for development of a Top-of-telephone-pole wind generation system capable of tie in to the grid. Similarly a prize for batteries for hand tools with 4 times the current capability for the same size and weight. This could go on for a long time without reaching our $200 Billion per year limit.
Each of these contracts/prizes would have restrictions on the source of the labor and materials to concentrate the expenditures (minimum 75%) in USA companies and physical in-USA production. The Federal Government would have to step in and grease the permitting process on numbers 2, 3, and 4 to allow them to reach their targets in two years from contract date.
None of this (with the possible exception of the point-of-use 5KW systems) addresses the infrastructure/centralization problem with much of our power production and use. Let’s save that for a future post.
Add all this up and you spend less than $80 Billion a year to start (hardly enough to bail out a couple of Wall Street Financial Houses). I think this would stimulate a great deal of that famous US ingenuity and we would have solutions instead of hot air. If this fails we just give a $100 Billion prize to the entrepreneur who can show us how to harness for a useful purpose all the hot air generated by politicians each year.
Let me know what you think of these thoughts.
I will defer to JSV who is far more knowledgeable than I on the subject and who wrote the following in a comment to my post “Why Vote for Obama?”
“ENERGY: In my opinion, by far and away the most important issue facing individuals, Americans, and the world is our impending energy crisis. While it may be temporarily overshadowed by financial headlines, it is both one root cause of these troubles and the hurdle that must be crossed before our economy can ultimately be set back on track for the long haul. It is a challenging issue because, in my opinion, the right solutions are neither the easy nor the short-term solutions. It is also inextricably tied into our health, quality of life, type of political order, and sustainability of our environment. On the energy front, neither candidate fits well with my ideal set of solutions: 1) radical reduction in the amount of work consumed (note: this is different than conservation, which leads only to a slippery slope by not addressing the question of physical work), 2) immediate and intense investment in renewable generation capacity, 3) a focus on re-localization and decentralization of select economic processes (while continuing to globalize in the energy non-intensive realms of information processing, communicaitons, etc.) to build resilience and true energy self sufficiency.
- Evaluation of Obama’s energy platform: He supports rapid investment in true renewables, though he is still too wed to the biofuels industry (which is the wrong approach), and his investment program is too timid (I’d like to see $200 billion per year, taken from the defense budget, not additional spending). His distance from nuclear is acceptable as the Energy-Return on Energy Invested due to declining ore quality will rapidly become a problem. I like that he shuns the easy, but false, hope of the “drill here, drill now” crowd.
- Evaluation of McCain’s energy platform: He also supports rapid investment in renewables, though more timid than even Obama and more wed to biofuels. His unfortunate alliance with the “clean coal” fantasy is roughly on par with Obama, so I don’t count that as a + or -. His push for nuclear energy is more aggressive than Obama’s, and I think that makes it more of a mistake. However, what I find most problematic about McCain’s platform is his promise of an easy fix, including the “drill here, drill now” speaches and the push to open up offshore drilling (which, buy the way, I think is fine but irrelevant in the big picture). This suggests to me one of two things: either he fundamentally doesn’t understand our energy crisis or how the oil industry works if he thinks that “drill here, drill now,” to include all of the OCS and Alaska, will have any impact, or he is pandering with the promise of an easy fix and won’t be able to later reverse course and tell people that they need to sacrifice for the difficult solutions that are actually viable.
SCORE: While I’m not crazy about his platform, Obama’s platform–and what I think he will realistically be able to accomplish with a Democratic Congress–look far more positive to me than what I think will happen under McCain.”
I would add to the JSV comment my disagreement with the overall choice. JSV picks Mr. Obama but is not thrilled by either. My difference with him is minimal in that I agree neither has a great policy nor will either be able to get done half what they want if they continue to relegate this issue to a low priority. Where I differ is based on my test of words vs. deeds. Mr. McCain has mostly voted what he is saying on the campaign trail. Mr. Obama, on the other hand, has voted consistently for subsides for corn ethanol. He avoids mention of it on the campaign trail unless he is in farm country. I think this is predictive of the fact he will bend with the wind from the strongest interest group. I think far more than most politicians, he has voted with his party and his interest groups but promised what will get him elected.
If it is not obvious yet, I, like most people in the country like much of what Mr. Obama says. My problem with him is that the more I read, and the more I learn of his past actions, the more I see what he will actually do if elected and it is not what he is promising.
Has the Media hidden Mr. Obama’s faults from us while they are out there in plain view? Watch the following short video (I first saw it on Stratfor) and then answer a few questions.
1. Does Mr. Obama’s voting record in the Senate prove that he has no interest in change except in a change of who is President? Numerous sources confirm that he has voted with his party over 95% of the time he has been in the Senate. Does the major market media report this or do they give the head-fake by building up all the political promises for change?
2. Does Mr. Obama preach a feminist agenda while operating as a sexist? Mr. Obama pays his female staffers 83 cents on the dollar compared to his male staffers and only one of his five key staffers and only 7 of his top twenty are female. By comparison, Mr. McCain pays $1.04 to women for every dollar to men and relies on women: 3 of his top five and 13 of his top twenty staffers are female. You have to wonder about a man who has written two autobiographies and hasn’t written a paragraph about his mother. Is his constant reference to his wife and daughters a head-fake so you don’t see his actual discrimination against women?
3. Does the major market media fail to investigate Mr. Obama’s background while reporting every detail they can find on Mrs. Palin? If you talk long enough about rumors of banning books, you don’t have to answer just how close Mr. Obama was to the Reverend Wright or William Ayers or Tony Resko.
4. The press wants us all to believe that Mrs. Palin is closely tied to the major oil companies but it fails to investigate the close ties between Mr. Obama and the Richard Daley Political Machine in Chicago. Another fake out to hide important information?
5. Why did the press fail to report in 2007 when Mr. Obama endorsed Richard Daley (who had just seen four top aids convicted of corruption) against a true reform candidate and a woman? Did it amount to the hidden ball trick to avoid us seeing that Richard Daley returned the favor by throwing his political muscle behind Mr. Obama and assigned his brother Bill Daley (who ran Mr. Gore’s 2000 campaign) to advise Mr. Obama’s campaign?
The list of questions could go on far beyond your ability to stick with this blog. I’m starting to become more concerned about what we don’t know about Mr. Obama and what he might really be like if elected.
I will combine quite a few of my 30 –30 topics in this one post and wil change the format a bit. I have had less interest in the 30-30 topics than in the posts on individuals involved in the current election races and, I am running out of time to do justice to thirty topics. This post will combine citizen’s rights, health care, social security, and guns, crime and punishment.
Health Care:
My view is that we need to make health plans portable so that the plan follows the person, not the employer. We should have a single payer, 24-hour care model. This would help get the dueling lawyers out of the picture. I really dislike the HIPA law. It is a true sledgehammer approach to a problem that was 10% the size of the problems HIPA has spawned – talk about a bureaucracy builder.
Mr. Obama has proposed a plan aimed at universal health care. He believes that health care is a right of every citizen. He says the funds required to accomplish his planwill be raised by requiring employers to pay a significant portion of the employee’s health care and by taxing ‘rich’ Americans, not the ‘middle class.’ His history of seeking government paid programs of all types for the underprivileged indicates that he would follow through with his plan.
Grade – F - The program is pure and simple Socialism. If he thinks this is fair and important, surely he will next propose free housing and free meals and free transportation for all, paid for by the rich. I would argue that it is far more important to provide free food for the underprivileged than to provide health care. Without food, a person will live only a few days. With out Health Care, who knows, a person who takes care of himself might live 80-90 years. So is a supply of food a right of all citizens? Free housing?
Mr. McCain has proposed a less ambitious plan that is based on tax credits. I’m not in love with it. It is still serious social engineering. At least it is not unadulterated Socialism. I see nothing in his plan that is inconsistent with his past positions. He will likely attempt to get Congress to go alone with him. Good luck on that Mr. McCain.
Grade D - The plan only looks good when compared with Mr. Obama’s.
Citizen’s Rights:
My view is that all citizens should have equality of opportunity, not result. We should protect the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That does not include “rights” like paid health care. I believe we need to treat all citizens in the same way while recognizing that we were not created with equal skills, abilities, and motivations. I don’t believe in preferential treatment in the name of “fairness.” Fairness usually turns out to be a codeword for social engineering.
Mr. McCain is in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act and believes such matters belong at the state level. Mr. McCain is against gun control, period. He says he will consider every proposal to reform and save Social Security. He supports an expansion of the Death Penalty for Federal Offenses. He opposes “abortion rights” but says he would not move for a Constitutional Amendment to ban abortions.
Grades: A - for state’s rights position on Gay marriage, B on Gun control ( I still see no reason not to limit certain weapons). B+ on Social Security – at least he is willing to listen to ways it might be saved. No grade on Death Penalty because I don’t know his history or the details of his stand. I don’t like the idea of abortion but also don’t like my government telling what I can and can not do. I would be more comfortable with the whole debate if the two sides could agree on a definition for illegal abortions (murder) and legal ones (saving the mother, incest, rape, etc.) No grade here either.
Mr. Obama is against the Defense of Marriage Act. This was a change in his view pre 2004. It suggests he made the change for political purposes. What he would do is unknown. Mr. Obama is in favor of gun control. He would leave manufacturers open to lawsuits where their products are involved in crimes and would increase restrictions on firearms in general. He says he will take the cap off of the amount of income taxed for Social Security. He will not consider increasing the age at which a person becomes eligible. He walks the fence the Death Penalty for Federal Offenses, seemingly favoring it or being against it pending the nature of the crowd to whom he is speaking. He favors “abortion rights.” It is safe to assume he would appoint judges who agree with his view.
Grades: C- - He would bow to a strong lobby either way on Gay marriage. He needs the Gay lobby but can’t offend the religious conservatives in his party. D on Gun control He seems to see no problem bankrupting the gun manufacturing industry to make his plaintiff lawyer-friends rich. D on Social Security – He is aware something must be done, but wants to limit options for obvious political reasons. He loves the class warfare of moving the cost to the rich by increasing the cap so they will pay far more than the benefit. Probably a C on the Death Penalty but he wants to micromanage it at the federal level. Mr. Obama is pro abortion rights. Like I said for Mr. McCain, I don’t like the idea of abortion but also don’t like my government telling me what I can and cannot do. I would be more comfortable with the whole debate if the two sides could agree on a definition for illegal abortions (murder) and legal ones (saving the mother, incest, rape, etc.) No grade here either.
Before I start, please know that I am not an expert (or even esxtremely well versed) on China. I have been fascinated by the complex machinations of China’s central government that has appeared to build a great nation from a myriad of peoples. Take the following, once again, as one man’s opinion. It is quite simplistic but I think it represents a theory that will prove true in the next decade. I would love to have someone who is well versed on China help set me straight (like Ronnie did on my capital gains example) if this is not as logical as I think it is.
In the late 80s, the Soviet Union started to fall apart. In 1991 it became official. It was a combination of things, of course. Among the most significant was that a socialist (communist) economy was trying to compete with a capitalist economy. Trying to keep up with our space programs, our military, and our education system put them in a tailspin. Their bureaucracies grew until they collapsed of their own weight.
The reason for the fall of the Soviet Union, that people talk about less, is to me significant and telling of the current situation in China. Moscow lost control of the ethnic states that had nothing in common with lands and people thousands of miles away. They had great value to Russia for their natural resources but their people and cultures were never a willing part of the Soviet scheme.
Fast forward to China today. There are too many differences between China today and the USSR in the late 80s to make the entire Soviet experience a good metaphor for China today. There are a few things, though, that we need to watch from which the Soviet experience will inform us.
China has many nations/cultures/people living under one central government. As long as standards of living continue to rise and people have reasonable employment, the central government keeps its tenuous hold on the outlying regions. Once the central government has to pull in its horns and can’t ensure that everyone is employed, problems arise.
The huge construction projects that transformed Beijing into a marvelous Olympics Venue depended upon literally millions of construction workers. The vast majority of these were from rural areas. The rural citizens are by law second class citizens in China, but for these major projects, they were living and working beside Urban citizens who were paid more and got vastly superior conditions of employment. Now that there are fewer of those construction jobs, the migrant workers are going home. They are taking with them stories of how they were used (and often not paid) by the Central Government. Many are also returning to unemployment where they have time to sit, and think, and spread their discontent.
The current world financial crisis is rapidly looking like it will soon be an economic crisis. The first thing to go will be consumer spending. This will translate to huge job losses in China where a significant portion of the world’s consumer products are manufactured. I’m guessing that a 1% increase in China’s unemployment (1 to 2 million people) will be all it will take to start the fires burning. This could be a rapidly unfolding tale.
McCain? Obama? VOTE NIXON. -October 12 post – a very interesting take on the consequences of this election can be seen at ComingAnarchy.com
The Canadian Solution to the Subprime Credit Crisis – September 27 post – another solution that is better than the current U.S. “Rescue Plan” can be seen at ClubOrlov
Journal: The Descent of the West – October 15 post – interesting future headlines predicted by John Robb This post has one headline that I have been thinking about for quite a while, namely, the breakup of China. It’s a very interesting and significant topic that we should consider in a future post.
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