China inflation monster

A quick search on China's XinhuaNews reveals four recent stories related to inflation.  If inflation is a problem in China, it is not going to be alone.  With gas and food prices on the rise across the globe, and massive quantitative easing in the U.S. and a number of other countries over the last couple of years, Chinese inflation will only exacerbate the potential for a global inflationary spiral.  So what's going on in China?

Korean War II?

Click to enlarge.

I haven't had a Dictator Watch posting in quite some time, but I probably should have been a little more attentive.  The threat of international pariahs like Kim Jong Il do not just go away because the United States and other Western economies have turned a blind eye.  Being busy with a faltering economy and being preoccupied with a midterm election does not stop foreign despots from busying themselves with suppressing their own people or aggressively attacking nearby nations.

No.  In fact it encourages them to do so.

Lessons for America from China and Greece

China: The New Economy.  The next economic superpower.  Maybe not.

America's Payday Loan

Payday loans are an insidiously seducing possibility. When you're short on cash and you need to make it through to your next paycheck, a payday loan seems like a great way to bridge the cash shortfall gap. America's current economic downturn is analogous to the same situation, with President Obama as the corrupt lender.

Ask about our Never Pay Plan.

Jonah Goldberg points out the arrogance of the Obama spending spree.

Obama has surely helped set the tone for the unfolding riot of liberal hubris. In his effort to reprise the sort of expansion of liberal power we saw in the ’30s and ’60s, Obama has — without a whiff of self-doubt — committed America to $6.5 trillion in extra debt, $65 billion for each of his first 100 days, and that’s based on an impossibly rosy forecast of the economy. No wonder congressional Democrats clamor to take over corporations, tax the air we breathe, and set wages for everybody.

$6.5 trillion! It's deceptively seductive. No worry for you, we'll help you out. We'll borrow from China, we'll borrow from your children and grandchildren, we'll even spend the money for you. No worries for you, we've got it covered.

There's no free lunch. If you think there is, you're one of those suckers born every minute. There's no get rich quick. America has to wake up to it's fiscal realities, both personally and nationally. And it wouldn't hurt for states like California to pay attention.

This is America's Payday Loan. Don't sign the papers if you still can avoid it. Just walk away.

Obama presiding over your doom.

Massive debt on the horizon, hyper inflation even closer. You don't ever want to think the boat is inevitably going to sink or you stop bailing water. And in stormy seas, the lifeboats are but a delay in the eventual outcome. I'm not an alarmist generally speaking - I tend to think in terms of everything being cyclical.  There are boom and bust periods.  Nations rise and fall and rise again.  Political parties political fortunes surge and regress.  Ideologies ebb and flow.  You do your best to promote what you think is right - free markets, personal liberty, etc.  But the tides are the tides. If things are shifting leftward right now, fighting back is no more than trying to mitigate the damage it will cause. It's still worth it - I'm still trying to help bail water. But things will balance out eventually.

The question is how far will things go before they start to correct?  If it goes too far, it doesn't become an American ebb and flow cycle, it becomes the decline of another civilization in the global ebb and flow.  That can be a dead end for America.  China recovered, Rome didn't. Japan recovered.  Mongolia didn't.  Greece didn't.  Germany recovered, France not so much.  Russia probably won't.  Spain and Portugal didn't. History is replete with examples of losers, and winners are few and far between.

It's wonderful to think that America is above such ebbs and flows or a rise and fall.  It's not.  Not when the citizens have become complacent and feel a sense of entitlement not only to their liberty but to things like health care.  When you're on top, it's easy to rest.  It's easy to think you're invulnerable.  You're not.  And now is no time to rest and dream Utopian dreams.

The videos below point out the troubles ahead on the horizon for the ship of America.  They are alarmist.  But they are not necessarily wrong. America needs to be shaken awake.  The Tea Parties are a way to do this.  But they need to go hand-in-hand with an explanatory message - the country cannot afford the Democrats.  The costs are too high - the debt is unsustainable.  And the trajectory is simply wrong.  This message needs to break through the clutter of messages at the Tea Parties (mostly good messages, but too disparate), and the mainstream media.  The message that Americans who do not pay close attention need to understand is that there is no such thing as a free lunch!

Alarmist, yes.  Possible? Yeah, it is.  With today's speed of financial transactions, perhaps the Depression of the 1930's could happen so quickly that the recession came and (mostly) went already and the solution will be what kills the patient.  The spending has to stop

Disingenuous quotes

According to a report in the NY Times China spent much of the first quarter trying to diminish the risk of it's exposure to US Treasury Bonds (perhaps as part of an effort to destabilize the US further for it's own geo-political advantage, perhaps as an effort to limit it's own risk exposure, or perhaps both).

Asked about the balance of financial power between China and the United States, one of the Chinese government’s top monetary economists, Yu Yongding, replied that “I think it’s mainly in favor of the United States.”

He cited a saying attributed to John Maynard Keynes: “If you owe your bank manager a thousand pounds, you are at his mercy. If you owe him a million pounds, he is at your mercy.”

Perhaps he's being disingenuous in his quoting of Keynes. After all, China would much rather be in a position of holding American debt than the reverse.

The other question you have to ask yourself, is that if communist China is quoting Keynes, shouldn't you reconsider holding him out as an economic theorist you want to base your own prosperity on? Next thing you know, China will be quoting Paul Krugman.

Top 10 Obama Quotes

The Top 10 Barack Obama Quotes caught on video.

[Note to Feed subscribers - please visit the site for videos]

#10 My Uncle Liberated Auschwitz: Was your uncle a Russian?



#9 Clinging To Guns and Religion: The TelePrompter is the real brains of the operation.



#8 57 States: Isn't that supposed to be Heinz 57 Varieties Steak Sauce?



#7 Health Care For Veterans: Dumber than soup.



#6 Spread the Wealth: You get what you vote for.



#5 Selma Marches: Faulty Memory or prenatal memory?



#4 On AIG, pre-election: All over the place except specifics



#3 Various Babblings: Just slow down and catch your breath.



#2 Fallen Heroes in the Audience: Obama Sees Dead People



#1 Bank of China Credit Card: Brutal hypocrisy.

UN - Ditch the Dollar / Save the Planet

Part 1 of 2

If the United Nations ever displayed it's hostility towards the United States more blatantly than it has in the last 48 hours I don't recall the occasion. They also have managed in the same 48 hours to display their latent stupidity.

Shortly after the Reuters report came out saying that the UN was looking for a $750 Billion oil tax to create a "Green New Deal" (a tax that would no doubt significantly hit Americans, and is egregiously ill-timed), they follow it up with the idea of dumping the American dollar as the world's reserve currency. Honestly, I'd encourage the United States to take a "not if I ditch you first" attitude on all of this garbage.

Stepping back to the Green Deal idea for a second, Reuters quotes the head of the U.N. environment agency, Achim Steiner as saying;

"The opportunity must not be lost...If, for argument's sake, you were to put a five-year levy in OECD countries of $5 a barrel, you would generate $100 billion per annum. It translates into roughly 3 cents per liter, it would be almost, if not totally, unnoticed by the consumer," he said, especially since oil prices have fallen from more than $140 a barrel at mid-2008 peaks to about $40.

Where to begin?

(1) What freaking OPPORTUNITY??!? During a major global recession he wants to increase oil taxes? Of course this guy is an environmentalist and knows less than zero about economics. This is NOT in any way shape or form an opportunity to levy more taxes. Unless of course you subscribe to the Emmanuel school of 'don't waste a crisis' panic management.

(2) 3 cents per liter equates to about 11.4 cents per gallon. Depending on the size of the vehicle gas tank, that's anywhere from $1 to $3 extra per fill up. Not to mention impacts on other industries - construction, aviation, plastics, manufacturing, transportation. Furthermore if the United States consumes 25% of the world's oil, it will therefore absorb 25% of that $100 billion per year. True that's peanuts compared to all the money President Obama's putting towards recovery, health care, mortgages, bailouts, etc. But it just might be the straw to break the camel's back.

(3) Global warming is still complete bunk. It doesn't matter what Al Gore says, he's out of touch with reality - he won't even debate except to say debate is over. Tell that to the thousands of scientists who think global warming is not a man-made phenomenon.

(4) The article claims the idea for a Green New Deal was inspired by Roosevelt's New Deal that supposedly ended the Great Depression. Except all it did to end the Depression was to move the end date out by a few years, thus prolonging the depression. Great idea Achim.

This had to be the stupidest idea ever. At least for a few hours until the next UN stupid idea came along shortly afterwards.

(See Part 2)