Chinese Could Build MHS Gym in Two Days

If Madison does build a new gym, maybe we could hire these Chinese guys who built the 15-story Ark Hotel in Changsha last summer in six days:



Pre-fab parts make building like playing with big Legos. The Chinese say no one was injured on the job site, either. Wow!

That Darned Stimlus: Boon for South Dakota Wind Power

The stimulus is working. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act isn't just about creating immediate jobs, ending the recession, and restoring confidence... although South Dakota unemployment is sliding back down, the economy has grown every quarter since Q3 2009, and rural bankers' confidence in the economic outlook for the next six months has risen over 11 points since August. The stimulus is also about laying the groundwork for long-term jobs and economic growth.

Consider wind energy. Mitchell Technical Institute just announced their receipt of $1.17 million in federal money to buy into a wind turbine on the White Lake PrairieWinds site. The state also kicked in stimulus dollars in the form of bonds to the Mitchell School District, which oversees the technical school. MTI students will get to train on that turbine. Those students, including a cadre of Native American students mandated by the federal money, will come out of MTI better equipped to compete for jobs in the growing wind energy field.

The stimulus also kept a lot of American wind energy jobs alive by saving the renewable energy tax credit:

At a time when the Great Recession threatened some 40,000 American wind construction, manufacturing and other jobs, the 1603 tax credit program included in the Stimulus legislation passed by the Congress restarted stalled projects and preserved these jobs. This year, a study by Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory (LBNL) found that the 1603 tax credit supported shovel-ready projects and over 50,000 American jobs. The 1603 program led to a record-breaking year of 10,000 megawatts (MW) of new wind in 2009 [Mike McDowell, "Tax Credits for Renewable Resources Must Be Renewed," HeartlandCPD Blog, 2010.10.15].

Protecting those jobs doesn't just keep tens of thousands of workers buying groceries and paying the mortgage. Protecting those jobs keeps the momentum going in renewable energy. Without the stimulus, we would have fallen further behind China and other forward-looking countries in the race to get our economy oriented toward the energy of the future.

And about China: Republicans are trying to trick you into believing that the stimulus only boosted wind energy in China. Ha!

• According to data from the International Trade Commission (ITC) China currently represents less than 5% of the imported value of turbine components for the U.S. market.
• Today, only 3 out of 33,000 (0.009%) wind turbines installed across the U.S. were sourced from China while there are American wind turbine manufacturing facilities coming online including brand new facilities beginning operation is several states
• U.S. International Trade Commission states: “Overall, imports peaked as a share of the market in 2006 and U.S. production in 2008 and 2009 was significantly higher than in 2005, indicating a growing role for domestic producers. If planned U.S. manufacturing plants come online in the next few years, U.S. production capacity will continue to expand” [McDowell, 2010.10.15].

Remember, if wind-energy jobs are going to China, you can't blame the stimulus. Blame Senator John Thune and Republican obstructionists.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has helped the American wind energy industry weather the economic storm. It is laying the groundwork for students like thoe at Mitchell Tech to get the skills they need to compete in the new-energy economy that's only going to grow in the next five, ten, twenty years.

The ARRA stimulus has helped the recovery. But we're going to be seeing the Reinvestment portion of that legislation working through our economy for much longer.
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Update 2010.10.24 09:33 CDT: More forward-looking stimulus investment helping South Dakota: Governor M. Michael Rounds cheers another $3.8 million in ARRA money to support a broadband mapping project that will gather data vital to improving South Dakota's information technology infrastructure.

China Eats 2.4M U.S. Jobs, 5200 SD Jobs Since 2001

Shout out to Thad Wasson: Stateline.org points us toward an interesting analysis of the jobs the United States has lost to China over the past decade. Robert E. Scott of the Economic Policy Institute calculates that more open trade with China displaced 2.4 million American jobs between 2001 and 2008. That's a big part of why the 2000's saw zero job growth instead of the double-digit-percentage growth of the previous six decades. (Also to blame: Ronald Reagan, deregulation, and monopolization.)

66% of those lost jobs were in manufacturing. The Chinese fueled their century-opening boom building factories that serve as a foundation for continued competitive production. We Americans fueled our economic bubble on consumption, including building big houses that now sit empty. Oops.

Every state shared in the job loss. South Dakota didn't come out as bad as some others: Scott's math attributes the loss of 5200 South Dakota jobs to China, 1.28% of our workforce. That's a little better than the national loss of 1.71% of the workforce. Minnesota came out worse, losing 2.17% of its workforce to China. North Dakota came out better, losing 0.92%.

GoDaddy Joins Google in Resisting China Censorship

I buy domain names from GoDaddy.com. I have my misgivings about their objectification of women in advertising, but they've also provided reliable web service at a decent price.

GoDaddy is demonstrating admirable virtue in their dealings with China. In response to China's new invasive identification requirements for all individuals pruchasing domain names, GoDaddy just announced it will no longer register domain names in China. GoDaddy notes that the Chinese government was retroactively requesting additional information on existing domain registrants. GoDaddy general Counsel Christine N. Jones says the company has also seen an increased number of attacks on Chinese customer sites that carry content on the Tiananmen Square massacre, human rights, and other topic Beijing finds objectionable.

Worth keeping in the file for next year if South Dakota legislators resurrect the Blog Control Acts:

Arvind Ganesan, business and human rights director at Human Rights Watch, said China's new rules are yet another example of the country tightening its censorship policies and undermining the ability of U.S. companies to operate freely.

"The underlying intent is, if you're engaging in political speech, we want to know who's engaging in it and what Web site is behind it," Ganesan said. "This is a way the Chinese government can send a chilling message to people that they shouldn't speak freely online. It's forcing us companies to be both the censor and the spy on behalf of the Chinese government."

..."We decided we didn't want to be agents of China," [Jones] said [Ellen Nakashima and Cecilia Kang, "In response to new rules, GoDaddy to stop registering domain names in China," Washington Post, 2010.03.25, p. A13].

GoDaddy and Google appear willing to stand up to China on freedom of expression. I look forward to seeing whether this private economic sanctions effort wins more support and effects change in China.

Google to China: No More Censorship

I love Google. The company found Chinese hackers were targeting companies and Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Google is now considering some hard-line foreign policy:

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered--combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web--have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China [David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, "A New Approach to China," The Official Google Blog, 2010.01.12].

Google vows to do no evil. If Google follows through with this statement, it will be doing some active good on behalf of human rights.

I wonder: is Google's announcement the first step into a geopolitical era when private corporations will be able to impose effective sanctions on nations? And if other Internet companies follow Google's lead (as some rights groups hope), could withdrawal of Internet services affect modern nations the way OPEC squeezed America with the oil embargo in the 1970s?

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Update 21:25 CST: Glyn Moody suggests the Chinese will just shrug and clamp down even more. Moody sees more possibility that Google's move may provoke other Western companies (and countries?) to consider putting principle over profit in dealing (or not) with China.

Big Stone II Transmission Still Humming... But Wind Kills China?

As always, things are complicated....

An eager reader sends this story from the People's Republic of Minnesota Public Radio saying that we greenies may have our cake and eat it too. The Big Stone II coal-fired power plant is dead (yes, I'm still gloating), but the utilities behind the failed project are still see building 225 miles of power lines, from Big Stone City to Morris and Granite Falls, as a potential money-maker:

Last month, the Big Stone power plant group sent a letter to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission. The utilities told the PUC that even though they will not build the coal plant, they would still like to see the power lines go up. For the partners' it could be a way to recoup some of the investment they just abandoned.

"We have easements and a route siting permit in place that they could use," said Mark Hanson, Big Stone's spokesman. "Another entity could purchase those."

...The price tag to build the lines is estimated at about $230 million. That's a lot of money, but advocates say the payoff could be even bigger.

"Well, it's got huge potential benefits," said Patrick Moore, executive director of CURE, an environmental group based in Montevideo. "The wind that blows over this region is a potential wealth generator for the local people."

...The proposed transmission lines were so potentially valuable they led to a wind-energy gold rush in the area. By one estimate, at least 1000 megawatts of wind energy are in the planning stages in the region. That's enough power to serve more than 300,000 homes.

And, it's more than double the electricity the Big Stone II coal plant would have generated [Mark Steil, "Crucial Power Lines Meant for Big Stone II Still an Option," Minnesota Public Radio, 2009.12.16].

Hmm... not only did capitalism save us from another big dirty coal-fired plant, but capitalism might also build those power lines after all. The market is a wonderful thing....

...But not everyone is so eager to see wind power expand. Another eager reader sends this report from the PBS NewsHour, which finds us greenies wrecking Chinese water supplies with our insatiable hunger for green-power magnets:

Lindsey Hilsum: Green campaigners love wind turbines, but the permanent magnets used to manufacture a 3-megawatt turbine contain some two tons of rare earth. The head of China's Rare Earth Research Institute shows me one of those permanent magnets. He's well aware of the issues.

Zhao Zengqi, Baotou Rare Earth Research Institute: The environmental problems include air emissions with harmful elements, such as fluorine and sulfur, wastewater that contains excessive acid, and radioactive materials, too. China meets 95 percent of the world's demand for rare earth, and most of the separation and extraction is done here. So, the pollution stays in China, too [Lindsey Hilsum, "Are Rare Earth Minerals Too Costly for Environment?" PBS NewsHour, 2009.12.14].

Just you wait: the oil industry and GOP naysayers will now adopt environmentalism—save the Chinese forests!—to fight... environmentalism.

Of course, the issue here may be not so much the environmental impact—China doesn't have the strongest environmental regulations to start with, and many of the problem mines are operating illegally—as Chinese domination of the market. We might kick our addiction to Middle East oil only to end up addicted to Chinese rare-earth deposits.

Ah, but the difference here: we import oil, burn it up, and have to buy more. As we buy up wind turbines and iPods and Prii, we accumulate a huge stockpile of neodymium, lanthanum, and other rare-earth metals. Pretty soon, as those products start to turn over, we will have a massive supply of recyclable rare earth metals. Recycling won't meet all of our needs, but it will make it easier for us to fill the gap with rare-earth metals from other suppliers, just in case the Chinese decide they don't like doing business any more.

Of course, if you're really worried about China controlling the rare-earth market, you should get on board with ACESA and other energy security initiatives that will drive demand for green technology and make it more profitable for American companies to create mining and manufacturing jobs right here in the U.S.A.

China: Car Sales Up, Gas Sales Flat

Folks who disagree with me on the need for strong energy security legislation. This year China has indeed seen its people buy lots more automobiles, but gasoline sales in China have remained flat. Some folks have floated a conspiracy theory, that the Chinese government is buying cars and stockpiling them, just to make it look like the economy is humming. As usual, the reality is less X-Files-y and more mundane:

Kevin Wale, the president of General Motors China, said that automakers knew who was buying their cars and saw no evidence of a car-buying conspiracy. Sharp improvements in fuel economy — partly because of government mandates and partly because of a shift to smaller cars — help explain the slow growth in gasoline sales, he said.

A series of recent increases in regulated fuel prices may have also discouraged some driving, he added [Kevin Bradsher, "An Oddity in China: Car Sales Leap, but Not Gas Sales," New York Times, 2009.12.09].

Check that out: the Chinese are able to increase their economic activity and improve their standard of living (if you consider adding car payments, maintenance costs, and parking fees to your life an "improvement") without a massive increase in realted energy consumption. The Chinese have the will to use technology and regulation to do more with less. Do we Americans?

Pass ACESA II: The New China Syndrome

[Part 2 of a series based on my conversation with the gents from Repower South Dakota and the Environmental Law & Policy Center.]

In previous conversations about the American Clean Energy and Security Act, I've heard some people suggest that we'd be silly to hamstring our economy with more environmental regulations while China and our other global competitors chug along with their old polluting energy sources. There's debate about whether ACESA would hamstring our economy (Paul Krugman doesn't think so), but I posed the global question to my friends at RSD and ELPC: Can we afford to impose regulations like ACESA on ourselves in a global market where China, India, and other countries can keep pumping out CO₂?

Pass ACESA
a Madville Times series

1. Cap and Trade Works
2. The New China Syndrome
3. Market Solving Already?
4. Techno-Hope
5. Perfect vs. Good
6. Smart Grid
7. The Big Picture

Read H.R. 2454, The American Clean Energy and Security Act

The simple answer: we can't afford not to.

ACESA creates incentives, through carbon cap-and-trade and other policies, to spur invention and innovation in energy creation and energy conservation.

China may wait for the U.S. and other developed countries to act on carbon emissions, but it won't wait to make a buck and take the lead in high-tech clean energy manufacturing. China is investing in solar and building it cheaper than the U.S.; China already makes six times more solar cells than we do. China is becoming a leader on clean-coal technology. The Chinese don't need climate-change arguments to convince them to push for alternative energy. The Chinese see alternative energy technology as a solution to the problems of a bigger population, much worse pollution (including 750,000 preventable deaths each year due to air pollution alone), and fewer natural resources than the U.S. They also see dollar signs:

Moreover, Beijing – just like US President Barack Obama – sees renewable energy as an economic boon. Building out a new global energy industry over the next half century will generate more business than any other sector, Chinese officials predict, and they want a hefty chunk of that business. “This gives us an opportunity to develop a new area for a new industry” says Professor Li [Junfeng, deputy head of energy research at China’s top planning agency]. “It’s good for our long-term development.”

...“China sees [green technology] as an enormous market that is not claimed or controlled by any one nation, and there is an opportunity for them to do it,” says [China Greentech Initiative's Ellen] Carberry. “The combination of urgency; the enormous needs; a focused, systematic planned government; an army of engineers; and access to capital may define China as the platform for the green- technology industry globally” [Peter Ford, "China's Green Leap Forward," Christian Science Monitor, 2009.08.10].

New energy technology is where we will find the jobs and economic growth of the 21st century. The country that takes the lead in producing and using energy more cleanly and efficiently will be the next generation superpower. We do not want to let a tech gap develop between us and China. Remember the S in ACESA: Security. We don't have energy security now with 30% of our crude oil coming from OPEC. We won't have energy security if our solar panels and other low-carbon energy tech are stamped "Made in China."

Remember also that, in a broader analysis, America's reliance on imports is part of why the economy went to heck in a handbag last year. For several years America has made less and imported more; countries like China and Germany consumed less and exported more. China, Germany, et al. thus had growing pots of money saved up in the bank. Those savings became relatively cheap sources of investment capital for riskier and riskier Wall Street games... and those of you with stock portfolios and IRAs know how that turned out. At their meeting in Pittsburgh last week, the G20 leaders talked about exactly that problem and agreed the U.S. needs to consume less and produce more to lower its trade deficit, while other countries need to rely less on exports and buy more stuff.

If we sit back and let China take the lead in building solar panels and other new energy tech, we're asking for more of the same problem that put us in our economic hole. As Constant Conservative's Andrew Tople might say, if you're in a hole, step 1 is to stop digging... and pass ACESA!

China is perfectly relevant to a discussion of the American Clean Energy and Security Act. But far from a reason to oppose ACESA, China is exactly why we should pass ACESA. If you like being #2, go ahead, block ACESA. Let China take the lead. Leave America prone to further economic meltdowns. But if you prefer the top of the heap (and I certainly do), then keep America strong by supporting ACESA.

Bush:China::Obama:Iran? No One Said Foreign Policy Was Easy...

Twenty years ago when the Chinese Communist government slaughtered thousands of its own youth in Tiananmen Square, I wanted President George H.W. Bush to drop some serious hammer on China. Kick out their ambassador, cut off trade, maybe even stand a battleship or two off the coast.

What did Bush Sr. do?

First, the president and his administration rushed to perpetuate, in a new era, the notion that China's geopolitical importance should outweigh American concerns about political repression in the PRC. The perceptions of China's overriding significance had, of course, been based on the Soviet threat to the United States, and now this threaet was disappearing. Did that mean America would now condemn China's Leninst regime in the same fashion as the Soviet Union or the Communisat governments of Easertn Europ? The Bush administration's answer was no: Despite the end of the Cold War, China remained of great strategic importance to the United States....

The second element in Bush's response to the upheavals of 1989 was the policy of "engagement." Although Bush had announced in public a freeze on high-level contacts between American and Chinese officials, he secretly sent Scowcroft to Beijing for talks with Deng Xiaoping in July 1989 and again five months later. After the visits were criticized, Bush explained that he didn't want to isolate China. He wanted, instead, a "comprehensive policy of engagement" with China. The choice of words was surprising, because the Reagan administration had only a few years earlier used the term constructive engagement to describe its policy of dealing with South Africa's apartheid government [James Mann, The China Fantasy, Viking: 2007, pp. 79–80].

I was disappointed with the Bush policy.

I was 17.

Today President Barack Obama faces the question of how to respond to internal political upheaval in Iran. As Ken Blanchard points out in an exaggeratedly titled "Defense" of the president, Obama faces a no-win situation. If he plays it too aggressively, he becomes a foil for Ahmadinejad and the loyal ayatollahs, who can claim the protestors are just tools of the scheming Great Satan. If he plays it cool, he gives Republicans the opportunity to trot out the old meme of feminizing Obama, portraying him as "timid" and "passive."

Timid and passive? What do you want, air strikes?

Senator McCain suggests we need a tougher, more Cold-War-like response to the Iranian government's oppression of its people. But for political oppression no worse than that perpetrated by our good friend and loan shark China, here's where Iran stands currently in U.S. foreign policy:

• U.S. purchases of only $104 million in Iranian goods (a laughable 0.005% sliver of our $2.1 trillion in imports in 2008; 0.03% of the $337 billion we buy from China; a tenth of the purchases we make from authoritarian Belarus; about the same as we buy each year from the thugs in Zimbabwe)
• economic sanctions extended by President Obama this March
• no official diplomatic ties since 1979
• flanking of the country by 168,000 American ground troops (138,000 in Iraq; 30,000 in Afghanistan) and a half-dozen U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf

I'd say the United States is in about as aggressive a posture toward Iran as it can be right now without ordering our Baghdad garrison to redeploy to Kabul... in an overland march. We're certainly already playing harder ball with Iran than we did with China in 1989 or even in 2001, when China forced down one of our surveillance planes, ransacked it for sensitive equipment, and held 24 of our military personnel captive. Bush Junior responded to the latter crisis with the following language: "I am troubled by the lack of a timely Chinese response to our request..."—a passive voice sentence with the timid word request.

Conservative columnist George Will expressed on ABC's latest This Week the frustrating but sensible reality of President Obama's response to Iran:

The president is being roundly criticized for insufficient, rhetorical support for what’s going on over there. It seems to me foolish criticism. The people on the streets know full well what the American attitude toward the regime is. And they don’t need that reinforced [George Will, quoted by Ben Armbruster, "Will calls right-wing attacks on Obama’s Iran response ‘foolish criticism.’", ThinkProgress.org, 2009.06.21]

U.S. News's John Aloysius Farrell reminds us of long-standing Iranian suspicion of American meddling, notes the absence of U.S. flags or mock-ups of the Statue of Liberty amid the green banners of Tehran's street protests, and calls criticism of Obama's current tack "self-indulgent and silly." And Henry Kissinger says Obama is doing the right thing.

My sentimental and dramatic heart still craves grand gestures and sweeping victories. Foreign policy, alas, has always been more complicated than that. But even if you think we can and should do more to show our solidarity with the young people demanding honest democracy in the streets of Tehran, you face a hard question: what should we do? We already isolate Iran. We are one misunderstanding at an Iraqi border post away from bullets flying.

To suggest that the President is being "timid" and "passive" is clear domestic political gamesmanship. it also ignore the political and historical realities of how you actually run foreign policy.

Anecdotal: China Beating U.S. on Alternative Energy Innovation

A little note for my Policy friends debating the alternative-energy resolution: Thomas Friedman's latest NYTimes column provides an illuminating anecdote on international competitiveness in putting alternative energy to work. While attending the Energy and Resources Institute's climate conference in New Dehli, Friedman is propositioned by two American women half his age (tell me you wouldn't want to be Thomas Friedman) who offer to drive him around New Dehli in their plug-in/solar car:

We head off down Panchsheel Marg, one of New Delhi’s main streets. The ladies want to show me something. The U.S. Embassy and the Chinese Embassy are both located on Panchsheel, directly across from each other. They asked me to check out the rooftops of each embassy. What do I notice? Let’s see ... The U.S. Embassy’s roof is loaded with antennae and listening gear. The Chinese Embassy’s roof is loaded with ... new Chinese-made solar hot-water heaters.

You couldn’t make this up.

I wonder if the Chinese have a translation for "Drill, baby, drill!" They probably don't need one.

Exports Drop; Depression on Tap for China?

We're in a recession. The U.S. has a trillion-dollar deficit. The South Dakota state budget is toast (unless Gerry Lange can save it!). You're running out of room to throw the latest six inches of snow over the huge piles that have been there since December. Could things be any worse?

Well, yes. You could be China.

I've grumbled occasionally on our reliance on imports from China, wishing that America could keep manufacturing jobs here and make more of its own cheap plastic junk.

But now China is seeing the flip side of running a big trade surplus. For years China has counted on our seemingly boundless acquisitiveness to support its roaring double-digit growth and political stability. Now that the mortgage collapse, high energy prices, and other jitters have helped us rediscover frugality, the Chinese are left without buyers for all their exports.

As Michael Mandel of BusinessWeek points out, an American recession may trigger a Chinese depression. Mandel points out that in 1929, the U.S. ran a big trade surplus with Europe. When folks stopped buying, the U.S. took the biggest hit in industrial production and real GDP. The Depression was worse for us than the countries that had been buying our stuff. (But Germany ended up with Hitler... hmm....)

Do check out the comments to Mandel's post; they include lots of intelligent arguments in both directions, saying Mandel overstates and understates the impact our recession will have on China. With no ill will toward China (well, maybe to its dictators, but not to the other 1.3 billion folks), I incline toward Mandel's assessment. China has based its growth on America's overconsumption of resources. If we learn from this recession and stop buying so much unnecessary disposable junk, China will need to find a whole 'nother business model. it won't be easy, but it will be good for China and the rest of us.

Robert Reich Recommends Economic Stimulus Target Infrastructure...

...and China does it!

I've been wary of the rising talk of the need for another economic stimulus package. Lots of folks behaved sensibly and used that first batch of free money from Uncle Sam last spring to pay off debts or actually boost their savings. Unfortunately, such rational behavior doesn't do much good in an economy based on irrational and excessive consumer spending. Thus, the spring stimulus didn't save us (or John McCain's candidacy) from economic crisis. With more job losses, folks are even more inclined to take any stimulus checks and save them to ride out whatever trouble may be coming rather than spending them on consumer goods. Another round of tax rebates or tax cuts would likely miss the mark as badly as the first round.

So what can we do to jump start the economy? One of my favorite eggheads, Robert Reich, says pour on the stimulus—$600–$700 billion worth—but don't give it to folks to buy Big Macs and Wal-Mart junk. Pour it into something that will last: infrastructure!

The answer to the second question [what to spend the stimulus on] is mostly "infrastructure" -- repairing roads and bridges, levees and ports; investing in light rail, electrical grids, new sources of energy, more energy conservation. Even conservative economists like Harvard's Martin Feldstein are calling for government to stimulate the economy through infrastructure spending. Infrastructure projects like these pack a double-whammy: they create lots of jobs, and they make the economy work better in the future. (Important qualification: To do this correctly and avoid pork, the federal government will need to have a capital budget that lists infrastructure projects in order of priority of public need.)

Government should also spend on health care and child care. These expenditures are also double whammies: they, too, create lots of jobs, and they fulfill vital public needs [Robert Reich, "The Mini-Depression and the Maximum Strength Remedy," TPM Café, 2008.11.09.

Guess who else thinks that kind of economic stimulus is a bang-up idea: China. They still have 9% economic growth, but they're not waiting to follow America down the recession crapper. China plans to pump $586 billion into ten areas: low-cost housing, rural infrastructure, new railways, new roads, new airports, health, education, environmental protection, high technology, and disaster recovery projects.

Reich says such a stimulus package will actually cut deficits by putting people to work and "moving the economy to fuller capacity." He also says putting Americans to work will do much more good than just handing them money to spend on doodads made mostly overseas.

Put people to work, build things we really need, and take care of kids and the sick to boot. Sounds like a plan to me! I hope China finds that the Robert Reich stimulus plan works... and I hope, if America has to try another stimulus package, that we follow the same plan.

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Update 16:15: Nobel laureate Paul Krugman argues that FDR's short-term economic stimulus efforts during the Depression floundered not because they were too bold, but because they were not bold enough. Krugman's advice to Obama: "figure out how much help they think the economy needs, then add 50 percent." Gulp!

Krugman also gives this quote from Rahm Emanuel: "You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste."

Study Hard, Serve Your Country, Shoot for the Stars

In Friday's debate at Ole Miss, Senator Barack Obama mentioned the Chinese space program as one reason we need to invest more in science, technology, and education. Said Obama, "We've got to make sure that our children are keeping pace in math and in science. And one of the things I think we have to do is make sure that college is affordable for every young person in America."

So what's the big deal about a couple of Chinese guys poking their heads out of a space capsule, waving a plastic flag, and doing a couple Mr. Wizard experiments? Well, same thing that was a big deal about two American guys planting an American flag on the Moon. It's an adventure, an expression of human courage and dreams.

But for a more specific answer, watch this video of Chinese television coverage of the first Chinese spacewalk. Forward to timemark 7:30 and listen to the American commentator (he sounds like one of our veteran astronauts, but I can't place him yet):

Chinese commentator: This project... actually can inspire many youth to join in science and math. As I just watched the presidential debate... Obama said that China is catching up... the United States should educate, should inspire its children to be joining in math and science education more.

American commentator: This is a real problem in the United States right now. Many young people are reluctant to work hard enough to become scientists or engineers—

Chinese commentator: Because science is hard—

American commentator: —because science is hard and because getting a job in a service industry is easy. A lot of brainpower is being wasted because of that and because of the fixation simply on making money rather than contributing to the betterment of mankind.

Science is hard. It takes time. But I'm not quite ready to blame my generation and the one coming up for laziness. When you come out of college already $20K in the hole and need to buy your own health insurance, you don't feel like you have a lot of time to explore career options that might not pay off as quickly as a job in insurance or banking (although maybe the mortgage meltdown will change that).

Math, science, and engineering are hard (well, not for regular commenter Tony, but he's a mental machine! ;-) ). As a nation, we can encourage young people to pursue careers in those fields by supporting great endeavors like returning to the Moon (returning? heck—try colonizing!). We need to build respect and enthusiasm for science and learning to face the challenges of the future.

Gee, maybe having a President who sounds "professorial" is exactly what we need in the 21^st century.

Bring on the professors, the eggheads, and the dreamers: they're the ones who'll get us to the stars.

Olympics Remind Us Chinese Are Tyrants

The Beijing Olympics are over. Thank goodness.

I watched very little of the Games. Not because I'm anti-sports: I happened to see the men's 5K last night, and I was riveted, watching a dozen-plus men engaged in perhaps the simplest, most elegant sport (captured most aptly by Montrose track coach Ken Greeno in four words: "Go hard, turn left").

For all the grace and power of world-class runners, I'd still rather go for a run myself than watch others doing it. And I'd rather not give any of my time to a PR campaign orchestrated by a totalitarian regime. No, not NBC—China. You know, the dictators who have been happy to take advantage of the Olympics to make themselves look good while crushing dissent.

This morning's case in point: The Chinese government's offer of three public spaces in Beijing for peaceful demonstrations during the Games was really just a ruse to lure protestors to apply for protest permits. Over 70 applications were submitted. The Chinese government approved none of them. Instead, the Chinese government used the applications to track, detain, harass, and even arrest and punish potential troublemakers.

Among the threats to Chinese security: two elderly, illiterate Beijing grandmothers, who applied to hobble down the park on their canes and complain about how the city government demolished their homes and never compensated them. The Chinese government's response: sentence the women to one year of "re-education." The government is actually giving them a break: the women can serve their sentence at home, but any more trouble from them, and it's off to a labor camp. Meanwhile, plainclothes cops are staking out their neighborhood, and their neighbors are under orders to watch the old ladies.

And those ladies didn't even mention Tibet. Ugh.

Read more on Chinese oppression:

• Peter Foster, "U.S. Disrupts Olympic Party with Human Rights Attack on China," UK Telegraph, 2008.08.24
• "China Dropped the Ball," Arizona Republic, 2008.08.24
• K.C. Jones, "Chinese Police Arrest Bloggers Covering Olympics Protest, Reports Say," InformationWeek, 2008.08.24
• Ron Judd, "IOC Leader Stands Aside for Oppressive Regime," Seattle Times, 2008.08.22
• Douglas Todd, "China's Stress on 'Harmony' Keeps Tight Lid on Religion," Vancouver Sun community blogs, 2008.08.23

Phrases to Scratch out of Your China Olympic Phrasebook

I may grouse about infringements on free speech in our country, but hey, at least America has a First Amendment.

So, in honor of our Chinese hosts, here's a list of witty things you can say in Beijing that will get you arrested and (if you're a lucky foreigner) sent home from the Olympics faster than a positive drug test or getting beat by Liechtenstein in medal count:

1. "One World, One Dream: Free Tibet."
2. "We want human rights and democracy."
3. "The people of China want freedom from oppression."
4. Protest forced eviction from your home.
5. Try to report on a terrorist attack on Chinese police.
6. "Jesus Christ is king."
7. "End the brutality. To those who are forced to go through forced abortions and have no voice, we are your voice."
8. Or don't say anything new: just be a known critic of the government and win yourself an enforced "holiday," complete with government minders to ensure you don't make a fuss while China has company over.
   

Sources: #1, #2–4, #5, #6–7, #8.

Note that the malcontent spouting #2–3 created a public nuisance by snarling traffic on a busy Hong Kong bridge... but the traffic hassle came from police closing the bridge.

Have fun at the Games!

Unlike Sibby, Corporations Driven by Profit, Not Philosophy

I'm always tickled to make Sibby's headlines. I hesitate to respond, though, since I know a lot of my readers may ask, "What the heck are they talking about?" or, more likely, "Who cares?"

But Sibby is just so wrong this time, I must indulge. Sibby, my response follows. But for those of you who don't care for our little blog-world back-and-forth, here: watch a bit of the cultural bedrock of my own secular humanism, Star Trek (see this episode synopsis for context):



Now Sibby, do you really believe that the problem Naomi Klein points to (and that John W. Whitehead and I amplify is "certain business leaders who adhere to the secular humanist worldview"? No, the problem is that those business leaders don't give a tenth of the damn that you do about philosophy. Those CEOs are not the liberal patsies you envision strolling fuzzyheadedly about Harvard Yard advocating Marxism and denying Christian professors tenure. Those CEOs were too busy treating college as vo-tech for MBAs to even notice the secular humanism the liberal arts crowd espouses.

Klein says American corporations are developing and promoting technology that helps China oppress its people and that will help other governments, including our own, take away citizen liberties. You can't pin that problem on secular humanism or any other worldview windmill you care to tilt at. Corporations have no worldview. They don't value human life the way either Christians like you or secular humanists like me do. They don't believe in God's salvation or man's inherent goodness. Corporations, these artifical entities that our courts blasphemously endow with personhood, are driven by profit, period. Not patriotism, not religion, not truth, nothing but profit.

I would suggest that conscientious secular humanists are as interested as conscientious Christians in fighting human rights abuses in China (and everywhere else), and that both my people and yours are more interested in standing against totalitarianism than the corporations and free-market fundamentalists who say we can't afford to upset the world economy. Don't be fooled: those CEOs defending free trade with China aren't motivated by principle; they're motivated by the very selfish, materialist desire to keep their access to a market of 1.3 billion well-controlled Chinese workers and consumers.

Corporations profit from totalitarianism. That's not secular humanism. That's exactly what I called it yesterday: amoral materialism.

Capitalism at Work: U.S. Corporations Support Chinese Police State

Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.

—Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 1814.

How does an essay opening with that quote get featured on both Huffington Post and Dakota Voice? Maybe by being flat-out right... and those aren't words I use lightly to describe anything Bob Ellis posts.

John W. Whitehead reviews a May essay by Naomi Klein ["China's All-Seeing Eye", Rolling Stone, 2008.05.14] in which she points out that American corporations like IBM, Honeywell, and General Electric are happily making big profits building Big Brother technology that helps China stifle democracy and human rights.

Klein says our corporations have a keen interest in helping repress freedom in China by monitoring citizens and controlling their communications: they've discovered that "the most efficient delivery sytem for capitalism is actually a communist-style police state." The Chinese government and America's corporations realize that bubbling dissent, not just from Tibetans out in the mountains but from rank-and-file Chinese farmers and workers harboring a lot of anger with China's system, threatens their profits:

This increased unrest — a process aided by access to cellphones and the Internet — represents more than a security problem for the leaders in Beijing. It threatens their whole model of command-and-control capitalism. China's rapid economic growth has relied on the ability of its rulers to raze villages and move mountains to make way for the latest factory towns and shopping malls. If the people living on those mountains use blogs and text messaging to launch a mountain-people's-rights uprising with each new project, and if they link up with similar uprisings in other parts of the country, China's dizzying expansion could grind to a halt [Klein 2008].

And so China uses American technology and investment to install work toward installing three million surveillance cameras in Shenzhen. China uses the "Great Firewall" to limit Internet access to acceptable sites. China plans to acquire and deploy face-recognition technology that will link to a database with images of every citizen.

When I complain about overreaching government surveillance here at home, some commenters tell me, "Well, if you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about." I don't think that response will sit well with Chinese Christians and folks demanding government investigation of shoddy school construction after the May earthquake....

But that's China. Surely America wouldn't succumb to such totalitarianism... right. Our Constitutional freedoms face a powerful opposing force: the profit motive:

The Fourth Amendment prohibition against illegal search and seizure made it into the U.S. Constitution precisely because its drafters understood that the power to snoop is addictive. Even if we happen to trust in the good intentions of the snoopers, the nature of any government can change rapidly — which is why the Constitution places limits on the tools available to any regime. But the drafters could never have imagined the commercial pressures at play today. The global homeland-security business is now worth an estimated $200 billion — more than Hollywood and the music industry combined. Any sector of that size inevitably takes on its own momentum. New markets must be found — which, in the Big Brother business, means an endless procession of new enemies and new emergencies: crime, immigration, terrorism [Klein, 2008].

How does such a damning critique of capitalism—Klein suggests "market Stalinism" is a better term—make it onto the pages of Dakota Voice, which all too often serves as a mouthpiece for faith in the corporate plutocracy? Has Bob Ellis been passing the pipe with another popular West River Bob?

Or might the convergence and cooperation of American profiteers and Chinese oppressors be making even Bob Ellis realize that the greatest threat to human freedom is not the secular humanism of eggheads like me but the selfish, amoral materialism of the corporations?

I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country. —Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, 1816.

The selfish spirit of commerce... knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain. —Thomas Jefferson to Larkin Smith, 1809.

Lies, Censorship, Oppression -- Let's Go to Beijing!

The Olympics start in Beijing next week. Yay. The Chinese government is reneging on its promise to the IOC and the world that foreign reporters would have full access to the Internet to do their jobs during the Olympics.

Permit me to join the ranks of the [sarcasm] vile disruptive websites [end sarcasm] the Chinese won't let reporters (or a billion Chinese citizens) read, sites like the Falun Dafa Information Center, the Tibet Government-in-Exile, and Amnesty International. In honor of our [sarcasm] gracious and forthright hosts [end sarcasm], the Chinese government, here's another post to remind us of the tyranny we play with in sending our athletes to Beijing:

Excerpt from Thirty-Eighth Group Army, People's Liberation Army of China, "Accomplish the mission, conscientiously complete the martial law task," report to the Central Military Commission, June 8, 1989. Published in The Tiananmen Papers, compiled by Zhang Liang, edited by Andrew J. Nathan and Perry Link, New York: PublicAffairs, 2001, p. 391:

The clearing itself began at 4:30 a.m. on June 4. Two thousand soldiers in artillery abrigades and engineering regiments, plus forty-two armored vehicles of the 112th Division, in cooperation with fraternal units, cleared the Square, moving from north to south. Prior to that we captured six rioters—including Guo Haifeng, member of the Standing Committee and secretary general of the AFS—who were trying to burn down the Gate of Heavenly Peace, and we smashed the Goddess of Democracy, which was the rioters' spiritual pillar.

Then, led by foot soldiers, armored cars drove the crowd in the Square southward toward Zhengyangmen and quickly set up a cordon there, thus triumphantly completing our duty to clear the Square. In clearing the Square the officers and soldiers of our army and our fraternal armies maintained the highest degree of self-control from start to finish and did not kill a single person with rifle fire. Throughout the Square-clearing operations, which the whole world was watching, our army not only served the intimidation function that a mechanized army can achieve but also did a good job of displaying the image of a fearless people's army devoted to its duty.

Well, we all know sports and politics don't mix. Athletes should just run and keep their mouths shut... just like the Chinese government made its people do in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. Have fun in Beijing.