GDP is an ill defined quantity, for it counts cars produced, official credit ratings produced, and regulators producing regulation. With the best will in the world, it is hard to say how it is changing, and lately we have been seeing some pretty bad will. Attempting to calculate GDP is worse than adding apples to oranges, it is adding apples to moonbeams. Supposedly GDP is growing, and growing fast – …
“ethicsâ€
The Washington post complains about unethical science in China. Zhao is turning his attention to a topic Western researchers have shied away from because of ethical worries: Zhao plans to study the genes of 1,000 of his best-performing classmates at a top high school in Beijing and compare them, he said, “with 1,000 normal kids.†Politically incorrect science is “unethical†Today western science is stagnant for the same reasons as …
Financial Reform
TheMoneyIllusion nicely summarizes the financial reform legislation. He misses, however, the biggest failure of the financial reform legislation – that the NRSROs are still in business, rather than in jail.
Palin still in charge
Looks like Republican party activists listen to Palin, and rank and file republicans listen to party activists. The next test of Palin’s power is Lisa Murkowski against Joe Miller.
Green Jobs
Abengoa SA was offered a $1.45 billion loan guarantee by the U.S. Department of Energy to build a 250-megawatt solar plant in Arizona, and Abound Solar Manufacturing was offered a $400 million loan guarantee toward two plants where thin-solar panels will be manufactured. The guarantees through the Recovery Act and other measures are expected by the awardees to create more than 5,000 jobs, according to a statement from the White …
The weak horse
Mark Steyn brilliantly skewers our Afghanistan policy. He primarily blames Obama, though the rot set in under Bush. Why would Putin, Ahmadinejad or the ChiComs take Barack Obama seriously when even a footling client such as Hamid Karzai can flip him the finger? … The toppling of the Taliban was an operation conducted with extraordinary improvised ingenuity and a very light U.S. footprint. Special forces on horseback rode with the …
It is the past that changes
The future is certain, it is the past that changes. Moveon had a web page demonizing General Petraeus as General Betray Us Obama appoints General Petraeus in charge of Afghanistan, whereupon the page not only instantly disappears from Moveon.org, but also instantly disappears from Google’s cache. When the past changes, Google’s spiders are quicker of the mark than they are for normal updates, suggesting human intervention to correct the past …
China continues moving to the free market
The greatest limitation on the economic liberty of Chinese was capital controls. Recently the party took a big step away from capital controls by allowing ordinary Chinese to buy and sell gold as an investment. As Europe and the US moves towards capital controls, the party continues to move away from capital controls. The Central Bank of China has announced: Starting from July 21, 2005, China has moved into a …
Doomsday postponed for a short time
As I write this, Spain just ran out of money. Presumably the European central bank is going to print up a whole lot of fresh money and bail them out, if it has not done so already. If they are not swiftly bailed out, there will be a run on the Spanish banks, and the Spanish deficit will be instafixed as the government loses the ability to pay most people. …
If Jews bleed, it does not lead
The biggest story of the last few days has been Israel’s interception of peace activist ship to Gaza, in which they killed nine peace activists. Here is a picture of some peace activists holding down a soldier at knifepoint, with what appears to be a pool of blood on the bulkheads. When the the picture gets carried at all in the mainstream media, the knife and the blood gets cropped. …