FOR A LIMITED TIME, my The Higher Education Bubble is $1.99 on Kindle. The Kindle version has links and video, too, which the paper version (naturally) lacks. (Bumped).
Archive for 2012
August 13, 2012
TAKE THAT, SEIU: Paul Ryan, heckled in Iowa, said “We’re used to this in Wisconsin.”
Plus: “Speaking of humor, remember that ‘civility’ bullshit?”
And, from the comments: “Mr. President, control your animals, please.”
UPDATE: Reader Dave Mason emails: “He did tell them to punch back twice as hard, and bring a gun to a knife fight. So how dare you to blame him!”
BEARISH ON CHINA: In response to my earlier post, reader Tom Wheatley writes:
After 10 years in China, I am also leaving and taking my wonderful Chinese wife with me back to the US, for many of the reasons described in this article. I simply can’t in good conscience remain in China any longer. This article absolutely nails what is going on in China.
The whole system here is rotten to the core and can’t be sustained. The real estate bubble here is real and insane beyond belief, and when it pops all hell is going to break loose. Municipal governments are drowning in so much debt they make California look like a model of fiscal responsibility. The environment is filthy. Private enterprise is being choked. Corruption is rampant. The legal system is a joke. Property rights are non-existent. Chinese people are getting fed up and can actually connect using social media.
Chinese people like to brag that if they all jumped at the same time the whole world would feel it. Well, we’ll also feel it if they all fall down at the same time. I really hope that our leaders in Washington are preparing for when China implodes, because it’s going to cause an unimaginable amount of human suffering and misery when it does.
Get used to seeing articles like this. Many of my fellow long-term expat friends are planning to leave in the next year to 18 months. Chinese with money are getting dual citizenship and transferring billions abroad. The writing is on the wall.
I’m hoping that China’s bubble-bursting will be a gentle one, like Japan in the 1990s, and not something like the Tai-Ping Rebellion. Meanwhile, note this earlier post.
And if you’ve got a business that requires critical components or supplies that come from China, you might want to maintain a deeper stock, or plan alternate supply sources.
UPDATE: Reader Owen Johnson writes:
I’ve been noting with interest the first-hand articles on the problems in China. As an old China analyst, none of this surprises me in the slightest. Last year, I wrote a blog post on the subject at the request of some interested parties, which you might find interesting if you’d like some background to why China is where it is currently. You can find it at [link].
In closing, I will only note that China has not yet had a soft landing to a crisis in its history. Time will tell how this one plays out.
Well, maybe it’ll be different this time.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Related thoughts from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. “None of this would have been any different if banks had been saints. The forces at work are tidal in power.”
SENATOR BLUTARSKY: Why The Auto Bailout Is Far Costlier Than Treasury Claims.
PROGRESS REVEALED: The 10 Strangest Ancient/Outdated Sex Beliefs.
BLU-RAY DEAL OF THE WEEK: Dexter, Seasons 1-5, $126.45.
Also, up to 67% off on Glee.
JOEL GEHRKE: 2009 stimulus and Obamacare money used in violation of anti-lobbying laws. Will there be any prosecutions?
AND YET TOP OBAMA BUNDLER JON CORZINE WALKS THE STREETS AS A FREE MAN: Peregrine Chief Russell Wasendorf Indicted on 31 Counts.
A MASHUP TOO FAR: Lawsuit over breastfeeding instructional video edited into porn.
THIS WEEK IN THE FUTURE.
ADVICE FOR THE ROMNEY/RYAN CAMPAIGN FROM READER THOMAS PRIEBE:
Get R/R team to make a TV ad with Ryan and his mother.
If 60 Minutes edits out “My mom is a Medicare senior in Florida,” that obviously scares the mainstream media.
Make a reassuring ad with mother and son, perhaps spoofing the “Granny over the cliff” ad, and run it on TV in Florida from now until the election.
The best defense is a disarming mother on offense!!
That just might work.
HEALTH: Loud, Persistent Snoring in Toddlers May Be Cause for Alarm. “Aside from being a nocturnal annoyance, a new study confirms, snoring in young kids can have implications for their behavior later on. Previous research has shown that poor sleep quality in children, including snoring, is linked to hyperactivity. However, little is known about ‘how much’ snoring is too much, and whether the behavioral effects last over time.”
I’m not a toddler, but I recently started using a steroid nose spray for allergies — Knoxville being America’s allergy capital — and not only stopped snoring, but I’ve noticed that I feel a lot more rested when I wake up. Not clear that my behavior has improved, though.
A BRIEF HISTORY of the lawnmower.
NEW AMERICAN ENERGY PUSH could add 3.6 Million Jobs Along With 3% GDP. We’ll need that.
THE NICK GILLESPIE MEME GENERATOR.
AT AMAZON, bestsellers in Science Fiction & Fantasy.
UNEXPECTEDLY: Treasury: U.S. to lose $25 billion on auto bailout. “The Treasury Department says in a new report the government expects to lose more than $25 billion on the $85 billion auto bailout. That’s 15 percent higher than its previous forecast.”
LOWER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Naomi Schaefer Riley: How School Reform Became Cool.
In fact, a whole lot of 20- and 30-somethings across the political spectrum now believe something’s seriously flawed in our public-education system. (You can bet Gyllenhaal wouldn’t have taken the role otherwise.) But why the sea change?
Start by “blaming” Teach For America — which for decades now has placed recent graduates from top colleges as teachers in some of America’s worst public schools.
This year, TFA has 10,000 corps members working in 36 states and the District of Columbia. It has 28,000 “alumni,” more than two-thirds still in education-related fields. But even those who’ve left for other lines of work have had a glimpse of how bad our inner-city schools have become. The incompetence and corruption are hard to forget.
Oh, and they talk to their peers about it, too.
As they should. By the way, I’m going to be doing another Broadside for Encounter on the Lower Education Bubble, tentatively entitled The K-12 Implosion. So if you see interesting stuff on this topic, please send it along!
PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD: So the community organizers Obama n’ Axelrod have sent hecklers to Ryan’s speech in Iowa. Time to mirror them.
In a related vein, reader Joe Hall writes:
I was on the realclearpolitics.com site today and noticed that Obama is having a contest to win “Dinner with Barack” to try and raise money. Then I noticed that you do not have to donate to enter. So I figured why not. I figure if everyone who is planning on voting against Obama signs up we can sit there and make him chew on some things other than dinner during our time together. As the estimable John Blutarsky once said, “Don’t cost nothin’.”
It would be educational for Obama to have dinner with some Tea Party folks. His life is kind of insular. Why not burst the bubble?
Since there were arrests, their names will be public record. Names, backgrounds, and mugshots should be publicized as widely as possible.
COPYCAT? Gunman Taken Into Custody at Texas A&M. “College Station police responding to an ‘active shooter’ situation near the Texas A&M campus said the suspect is in custody. . . . Police scanner chatter suggests that a suspect was barricaded inside a house.”
JOURNALISM: Reporter Who Bashed Chick-Fil-A Patrons Resigns.
THE ART OF DRUDGETAPOSITION:
MARK KITTO: Why I Am Leaving China. “The Communist Party of China has, from its very inception, encouraged strong anti-foreign sentiment. Fevered nationalism is one of its cornerstones. . . . The alternative scenario to a world dominated by an aggrieved China is hardly less bleak and illustrates how China already dominates the world and its economy. That is the increasing likelihood that there will be upheaval in China within the next few years, sparked by that property crash. When it happens it will be sudden, like all such events.”