Thursday, May 26, 2005
Dr. Paranoia is sincerely tired of bafflegab
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The good Dr P. writes:
I’ve had it with bafflegab Governments must lie to move their objectives, but they should not do it to the point of making themselves and us their patient subjects look ridiculous. The neocons can talk about spreading democracy through the Middle East, but they cannot afford to do so in the 22 dictatorships constituting the Arab League, because any democratic election will bring to power radical Islamists who will deny us their oil and destroy all Western economies. Washington talks about reducing gasoline prices, but the oil magnates close to the government have no intentions to do so, the profits are too sweet. Rather, they would keep exploring in the ANWR and the Gulf of Mexico, and make money off the misery of the consumer. The tax cutters chop the obligations of their millionaire supporters and blab about downsizing government, meanwhile chuckling about the vast increases state and local legislatures impose during this real estate boom on homeowners – that’s 70% of Americans – to pay for education and protection that the Feds no longer can afford to cover. The free traders set economic reality upside down, by letting imports vastly exceed exports, letting good jobs go abroad, watching American manufacturing industries employ NAFTA maquiladores and chep Chinese labor, and praying that the new capitalist countries invest their surpluses in dollars, while the latter are slowly sinking in value. When a few of the new economic mighties decide to dump their US Treasuries, we will experience the mother of all recessions.
But that’s old news, you all know these complaints, we have learned to ignore them, else we’d all go crazy with worries. Denial is therapeutic; we can always turn on the tube and watch sports ‘round the clock. Let’s go to something real.
I have had it with American claims of technological superiority. My Timex Triathlon watch permits me to take split times of athletic feats and judge my running, climbing, swimming etc progress over fractions of any course I should dream of mastering. A superb product of American technology, although a bit tricky when changing time to summer and back. Bought right here in T&V Country, it proves Thomas “The Earth is Flat” Friedman’s Ricardoan theory that we have to be just a bit better technologically than the Chinese to retain our comparative advantage. The only problem is that the plastic wristband of the great US-made timepiece has deteriorated and broken, and no store carries spare parts, 14th to 23rd Streets. I cured the breaks twice, with staples and Scotch tape (good American products) but now it has split again. Removing the band was tricky – more American ingenuity to overcome – but henceforth I can hang my watch on a string around my neck and pull it out as required. Someone suggested that I cut down and retrofit the strap of a Chinese 99-cent watch that I have been shamefacedly using as the emergency replacement, and it may come to that.
More real stuff, sneaker category. The shoe magnates claim to have special design foe each sport or hiking category, but I cannot get Nike, Reebok or other major brand footgear that cost and look like they are worth the $100 price. This is because the makers who pay sweatshop wages to their Southeast Asian laborers cannot afford to stock other than medium, D width footwear in all the myriad color-coordinated styles they need to lure the young to buy. Tough, I have to satisfy my extra-wide footgear needs with old-fashioned basic unendorsed MacGregor gear, for a measly $20 at the K-Mart, down the avenue by St. Mark’s Place. There is also a Chinese brand, on 14th Street. Give Ricardoan points to MacGregor’s and the Chinese, and the back of my hand to the big-brand bozos. If you think that’s bad, consider that GM the SUV pusher gets no Ricardoan points at all.
So there. If you hope, with Tom Freedman (this was also preached by Robert Reich, Clinton’s Secretary of Labor), that the US people will retain a comparative advantage over the Indians, who do software, and the Chinese who handle manufacturing and engineering, and produce the cheapest consumer and industrial products, think again. If you expect that we can lock up the raw materials, with our control over the Gulf Sheiks and the Americas, note that the Chinese have bought a multi-$B stake in the Alberta oil sands, contracted with the Venezuelan US-haters for conventional oil, and with the Brazilians, to have their Amazon farmers steer their crops into ethanol production. But we have Afghanistan in our corner, at least the outskirts of Kabul (the rest, warlord-controlled, is a narco nation), and the Baghdad Shias, getting decimated daily. Sweet Laura Bush (standing by her man on stem-cell research, although there’s Alzheimer’s in her family), is going out there to tell the Moslems that flushing the Koran down is a myth and the killing of prisoners an aberration. I sincerely hope that her people-to-people diplomacy has impact, and sincerely pray that she does not get attacked. We all need to set politics aside and bail, as fast as we can.
The good Dr P. writes:
I’ve had it with bafflegab Governments must lie to move their objectives, but they should not do it to the point of making themselves and us their patient subjects look ridiculous. The neocons can talk about spreading democracy through the Middle East, but they cannot afford to do so in the 22 dictatorships constituting the Arab League, because any democratic election will bring to power radical Islamists who will deny us their oil and destroy all Western economies. Washington talks about reducing gasoline prices, but the oil magnates close to the government have no intentions to do so, the profits are too sweet. Rather, they would keep exploring in the ANWR and the Gulf of Mexico, and make money off the misery of the consumer. The tax cutters chop the obligations of their millionaire supporters and blab about downsizing government, meanwhile chuckling about the vast increases state and local legislatures impose during this real estate boom on homeowners – that’s 70% of Americans – to pay for education and protection that the Feds no longer can afford to cover. The free traders set economic reality upside down, by letting imports vastly exceed exports, letting good jobs go abroad, watching American manufacturing industries employ NAFTA maquiladores and chep Chinese labor, and praying that the new capitalist countries invest their surpluses in dollars, while the latter are slowly sinking in value. When a few of the new economic mighties decide to dump their US Treasuries, we will experience the mother of all recessions.
But that’s old news, you all know these complaints, we have learned to ignore them, else we’d all go crazy with worries. Denial is therapeutic; we can always turn on the tube and watch sports ‘round the clock. Let’s go to something real.
I have had it with American claims of technological superiority. My Timex Triathlon watch permits me to take split times of athletic feats and judge my running, climbing, swimming etc progress over fractions of any course I should dream of mastering. A superb product of American technology, although a bit tricky when changing time to summer and back. Bought right here in T&V Country, it proves Thomas “The Earth is Flat” Friedman’s Ricardoan theory that we have to be just a bit better technologically than the Chinese to retain our comparative advantage. The only problem is that the plastic wristband of the great US-made timepiece has deteriorated and broken, and no store carries spare parts, 14th to 23rd Streets. I cured the breaks twice, with staples and Scotch tape (good American products) but now it has split again. Removing the band was tricky – more American ingenuity to overcome – but henceforth I can hang my watch on a string around my neck and pull it out as required. Someone suggested that I cut down and retrofit the strap of a Chinese 99-cent watch that I have been shamefacedly using as the emergency replacement, and it may come to that.
More real stuff, sneaker category. The shoe magnates claim to have special design foe each sport or hiking category, but I cannot get Nike, Reebok or other major brand footgear that cost and look like they are worth the $100 price. This is because the makers who pay sweatshop wages to their Southeast Asian laborers cannot afford to stock other than medium, D width footwear in all the myriad color-coordinated styles they need to lure the young to buy. Tough, I have to satisfy my extra-wide footgear needs with old-fashioned basic unendorsed MacGregor gear, for a measly $20 at the K-Mart, down the avenue by St. Mark’s Place. There is also a Chinese brand, on 14th Street. Give Ricardoan points to MacGregor’s and the Chinese, and the back of my hand to the big-brand bozos. If you think that’s bad, consider that GM the SUV pusher gets no Ricardoan points at all.
So there. If you hope, with Tom Freedman (this was also preached by Robert Reich, Clinton’s Secretary of Labor), that the US people will retain a comparative advantage over the Indians, who do software, and the Chinese who handle manufacturing and engineering, and produce the cheapest consumer and industrial products, think again. If you expect that we can lock up the raw materials, with our control over the Gulf Sheiks and the Americas, note that the Chinese have bought a multi-$B stake in the Alberta oil sands, contracted with the Venezuelan US-haters for conventional oil, and with the Brazilians, to have their Amazon farmers steer their crops into ethanol production. But we have Afghanistan in our corner, at least the outskirts of Kabul (the rest, warlord-controlled, is a narco nation), and the Baghdad Shias, getting decimated daily. Sweet Laura Bush (standing by her man on stem-cell research, although there’s Alzheimer’s in her family), is going out there to tell the Moslems that flushing the Koran down is a myth and the killing of prisoners an aberration. I sincerely hope that her people-to-people diplomacy has impact, and sincerely pray that she does not get attacked. We all need to set politics aside and bail, as fast as we can.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 6:19 PM 
