Hey Mcconnell, Deficit Spending Much?

Despite Mitch Mcconnell's terribly convincing ranting about Obama's unsustainable growth of the national debt, it seems he's been up to a little deficit spending himself. According to reports, the honorable Senator from Kentucky still owes $2 million from his 2008 campaign. Something about charity begins at home... oh wait, maybe he could ask Obama.

We've got a black president, so it's cool to go after Thomas...

no commentary, just sayin'
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/us/14bar.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=clarence%20thomas&st=cse

A slightly less modest proposal...

Frankly, I thought the question of overpopulation and all it's Malthus-obsessed prophets of doom had been satisfied by Mr. Swift's classic treatise on the matter, but it seems many in the U.S. are still concerned with the matter. More importantly, they (like so many) are reveling in blaming the immigrants (at least according to this slick new campaign).

But perhaps (say it ain't so!) their ire is misplaced. There's a right-quick way to tamp down population growth (which, were one to do so, it would only serve to exacerbate the growing fiscal crisis that is medicare, medicaid, and social security) and raise more tax revenue for the shit-storm it would create (see last parenthetical note):

Stop subsidizing children.

Why should families get paid $3500 to have a kid? Once the cost of child ownership goes up, people will be less inclined to have them (or so the strictures of neo-liberal economics would insist), and production will decline. It's just like corn and gasoline.

In any case, illegal immigrants come into the country at prime working age, unsubsidized, often pay into social benefits without ever receiving them, and in many ways prop up the country without taking very much besides a chance for a better life from it. Plus they constitute an essential part of our national ethos (unless we choose to abandon it before they can get here).

Happy Tax Day, Everyone!

Transgenerational means...

"We do not want the old to be sharper than we. It is bad enough that they were there first and got the best things." (from Burr)

Oh, Gore Vidal, how you would love us to believe that you were young once, too...

If anyone tells you a Carbon Tax is more efficient...

Sorry I've been so blog-irregular recently, but I swear I'm putting together a great piece on Dandong. Instead, I've read a few rants recently about how a greenhouse gas Cap-and-Trade scheme is the height of democrat-interfere-in-the-market-edness, and how a carbon tax would provide a much simpler solution. I disagree with this idea ferociously, but won't go into it now. Rather, take a gander at this paper by an MIT lab I'd love to work for: http://globalchange.mit.edu/pubs/abstract.php?publication_id=992

Qu DanDong

In a few hours I'm leaving to Dandong for a few days. I should be pretty incommunicado, but if no one hears from me by Thursday the next I could very well be locked in a North Korean detention center eating congee and kimchee.

Just kidding, they would never give me their kimchee.

Lobotomy or Appendectomy?

As you may know, at least a part of why I've undertaken this trip to China rose out of an interest in discovering how an economically and culturally dynamic society can coexist with a politically repressive government. I've had many suspicions, but I still hadn't gotten down to the nuts and bolts of it with a real Chinese student until meeting a guy named Jack yesterday.

The first thing to know is that the government is very popular. More popular than Obama. That's not skewed polling, and it's not propaganda, the communist party is extremely popular.

And they have an excellent reason to be. Every person in China has seen the material conditions around them vastly improve in their lifetime. Jack was ready to jump into this discussion, as I didn't even ask when he explained, "Most westerners think that china is not democratic, because we have this one-party system, but what most don't realize is that we want the communist party." This from 21-year-old Business Administration student.

Indeed, China has grown into every other aspect of a (until-recently) fast-developing economy. Local media is huge, the night-life is almost indistinguishable from many other places I've been, with the exception that I can afford cabs (even if the environment can't). Saturday morning, young folks stroll through the park to watch the old folks dance. People go about their daily lives, working, shopping, eating.

In the west we are afraid of fear. We have been ever since FDR declared fear our mortal enemy. And life in fear--the Stalin years or the Mao years or the Hussein years or the Nazi years--these are our demons. But people do not live in fear here. How is this possible? It is still common (if you look in the right places) to read of excessive repression of free speech in China. Indeed, there are still many awful instances of brutal, violent, and frightening human rights abuses. But the vast majority is in an entire generation of politically-anesthetized Chinese.

There are plenty of instances of politically-active Chinese citizens, and there are plenty more citizens with some opinion or another, but 'the situation on-the-ground'--as a presidential candidate might say--is a people that have learned to live and enjoy life and otherwise ignore politics all together. And frankly, it's not half bad...

The problem may come when an otherwise politically infantile opposition gains power. But hell, that's years down the road.

This is a topic I hope to continue to develop in the future, so let me know your thoughts in the comments.