Peak Oil

I just wanted to talk about another topic that interests me and I believe is important for all of us to know about. Peak oil is something that the media will not talk about because of its frightening ramifications, and because their corporate sponsors want let them. I suggest that everyone read about it online and learn about it for yourself. I just felt like bringing this topic up, since oil prices are going up again, and probably will keep moving up with what is happening in Asia especially Indonesia, which is a major oil exporter.

Plight of Christians in Iraq

A few days have now passed since many have celebrated Christmas, and I thought that this was a good time to talk about the plight of the Christians in Iraq. Iraq had an estimated 800,000 Christians before operation Enduring Freedom began. Now there is an exodus out of Iraq due to the constant harassment that the Christian minority suffer at the hands of their "peaceful" Muslim neighbors.
Where is the international outrage, where is the UN with their condemnations of human right abuses. When Israel liquidates a murderer of innocent women and children the world is up at arms, yet when thousands of Iraqi Christians are being attacked every day there is not one word of protest from the world community. I am just baffled how the same Christian organizations, the Vatican for example, that condemn the Americans for giving freedom to millions of Iraqis are silent as their Christian brethren have their liberties and lives threatened by the Iraqi insurgents.

Prayers for Asia

I had planned on posting some things about Iraq and China, but all that can wait as I send out my deep felt regards to all those who have suffered the effects of the destructive tsunami that hit Asia, my prayers go out to you and your families.
In the latest news the death toll is probably heading over 50,000 people. These figures are regrettably not suprising if you consider how strong the quake was. The strength of the quake was strong enough to disturb the rotation of the Earth, which by the way means that you should turn back the clock 3 milliseconds. On a positive side maybe this disaster will create peace between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil tiger rebels.
Again I wish to tell everyone who has been affected by this disaster that my prayers as well as hopefully the prayers of all the readers go out to you.

China Sale: Part II

Here is a good article on the company that bought the IBM personal computer division. This article provides a good summary on the head of the company, and even shows his ties to the Chinese government.

The posts will be shorter and less frequent over the next week and a half do to the Holiday brake, but keep on checking in I will try to update as much as I can.

China and freedom

For all of you who think that it is inevitable that freedom will follow free trade into china read about how American news on google is being blocked by China. At the same time the entire world gets to see the state run Chinese news, which acts as propaganda to promote China and harass the West. Ignoring the lack of freedoms the whole world is now giving China a free pass and letting it continue its policies of suppressing freedoms in Tibet, Hong-Kong, and other regions (especially Western). Now Europe is even thinking of lifting a fifteen year weapons sale ban on China, which was imposed after the Tienaman Square massacre.

Russian Oil in China

Today the President of Russia Vladimir Putin had hinted that China might be allowed to help develop the recently sold off Yukos oil assets. The Russian state owned Gazprom will talk with the Chinese state run China National Petroleum Corporation on a joint venture to develop the vast Yukos oil assets that were just sold off to a mystery buyer, Baikal Finance Group (most likely a front company for the Russian government). Russia after finishing off the largest privately owned enterprise in the country, and its owner who was a political opponent of Mr. Putin is now trying to alian itself with China.
As a former soviet national I have to say that the Russian democracy is now dead and that Russia will soon have a new czar under the name of Putin the Magnificent. As an American I am very worried that a former foe is now joining with a current and future opponent in a deal that will greatly benefit both countries. Russia will get badly needed funds, while China will get the oil that it so desperately wants. In the end the big looser is America, for it lost a democracy and watched a rival get stronger.

Do we want to fight a war?

Today America is engaged in a war that it is fighting like it's a police action. The people we are fighting in Iraq are not criminals, but are soldiers of private armies funded by foreign countries. Iraq is a war zone and not a crime scene. The US military by acting as peacekeepers instead of as peace bringers has let itself be caught in a conflict that it cannot win.
There is only one way that we can now get out of this conflict without loosing our face. We have to make every Iraqi citizen responsible for security in his country. We should partition roads into sectors that are the responsibility of the nearby communities. If there is any terrorist act on a sector of that road the community responsible for the sector would be responsible. This would mean that we kick all the Iraqis out of that community, and bomb and bulldoze the community to the ground. I emphasize that we let the people leave, after all we do not want to kill any unarmed civilians. I guarantee this would happen five times and then all terrorist actions in Iraq would stop. The citizens of the communities would start catching the terrorists by themselves, and only then will Iraq be prepared to become a democracy. In my view this is the only way that America can force the Iraqis to be responsible for their security, and thus the only way that we would be able to win in Iraq and save our face.
Of course I know that this will never happen because America is too concerned with what the world thinks of its image. We as Americans should stop caring and instead realize that we are the ones that create the perception of what the world thinks is right. After all we are the beacon on the hill that shines light onto the entire world. If we Americans believe that what we are doing is in the end right then the rest of the world will start thinking that. Until we realize this we will always be at the whim of world public opinion and that will be one of the major things that will help to bring us down from superpower status.

Canada

Checking my stats I saw that there was a large influx of Canadian traffic, so I thought that I would post a little about our neighbor up north. Canada should remember that its economy is highly dependent on the US both in terms of trade and tourism. The Canadians should know that whatever happens to the US will in the end up happening to them. In addition, the dangers that are faced by the US from China are in some respects even more threatening to Canada. What the US used to import from Canada is now being replaced with goods from China, and in many ways Canadian industry is being hurt by unfair Chinese trade policies.
Another problem our northern neighbors face is unfettered immigration that is helping to slowly bring down the Canadian welfare state, not to mention letting in potential terrorists.
In a more serious issue to the US the Canadians recently said that they would let American soldiers that refuse to serve in Iraq immigrate to Canada. This policy is very damaging to American security, and I would recommend that Canadian citizens inform their representatives in parliament to not let American deserters enter their country.

If you would like me to post some economic numbers about Canada, I will need to do some research and will post it a little later, just put a comment that you would like to see them. This goes for anyone else that wants to see financial data about the threat their respective country faces from China. Finance is my specialty and I will be happy to provide you with information, just post a comment about what you want to see.

Debt problems

For this post I would like to talk about a financial problem that the US is facing as a result of its own doing. If it is not enough that we have external threats that want our economy to fail we have an unmanageable debt that threatens us from within. In 2003 the total debt in the US hit $34 trillion. This debt was made up of:
Federal government: $6.7 trillion
State & Loval government: 1.4 trillion
Social Security Liabilities: 10 trillion
Unfunded Medicare liabilities: 7 trillion
Household debt: 8.4 trillion
Business debt: 7.1 trillion
Financial Sector Debt: 10.4 trillion
Other: 0.7 trillion
I am a person who is not against having a national debt because I believe it insures that others are interested in seeing your country succeed, but even I know when too much is enough. Today's US consumer debt is 333 times larger then it was in 1943. If we in the US don't get a handle on our debt we will not be able to keep our economy growing and will end up at the whim of our international creditors.

If you would liked me to post the debt breakdown in a per capita format or give you more info on a comparison of today's debt to the past just write it in a comment. I'll post more about the debt problem in future posts.

Trade "liberalization"

One of the comments on a previous posts asked whether I thought "maybe the ills of trade liberalization is not felt in the states because the goods that are imported are mostly cottage industry goods"? If I understand it you believe that I am against free trade. Let me tell you that I am a pro free trade person, it is that I am against free trade with a country that has no intention of ever letting there be free trade. China is for free trade when it comes to its exports, but it is against any free trade when it comes to importing from other countries. Its policy is set up to give preference to domestic companies and to foreign companies that are in partnership with domestic companies. This is not how free trade works. It is supposed to be a two way street and if it is, I truly believe that everyone will benefit from it. However, China has no intentions of anyone benefiting but itself. This is what I have a problem with and not free trade.

China on the Move

Now that we have compiled all the numbers for 2003 we can see just how much China has grown last year. Using the number of products traded we can see that China is currently in fourth place closely behind the Japanese. This is according to "currier" (currier) a Russian language American paper. I 2003 China traded $854 billion worth of products, while Japan was at $855 billion. US was first with $2,529.1 billion and Germany was second with $1,636.4 billion. The real staggering number was the growth of the Chinese economy which was 9%. This with the Chinese government trying to cool down the economy. The growth rate is one of the highest in the history of the world, even suppressing that of the Japanese and American economic miracles. At this rate it will be only a few years until China overtakes America as the worlds leading economic power. After that it will not be long until China overtakes America as the lone superpower. Hope these numbers will help wake some of us Americans up to the grave threat that we face today, and unless we take action soon we will not be able to do anything to stop it.

Dentist

Sorry I am not able to post anything more interesting then a rent about a visit to the dentist. I am right now tapering off from 6 novacane shots. I just had 3 cavities done in one night. As the novacane wears off I am in more and more pain, so I will have to make this quick.
As I was driving from the dentist we stopped in CVS and after browsing around for a while I could not find one made in America product. This is the first time this has happened. I usually always find something that is made in the US. However, not this time. I got lucky I was in a drug induced haze or I would have flown off the broom handle.
Actually I stand corrected there were two things that were made in the US: Spam and the cigarettes. By the way Spam is on sale, and it is very good.
O.K. I now feel better I have been able to find something American made I can now go to sleep easy.

In an unrelated matter, why am I not getting any repeat visitors or comments. Common people the fate of the free world rests on your typing and clicking skills.

Intelligence Overhaul

I feel like I cannot sit quietly while we supposedly overhaul our intelligence agencies. The problems that our agencies have is not that they don't have enough higher up to answer too, but that they are scared to take any risks and get their hands dirty.
The solution to the horrible intelligence that we have is that we need to be willing to conduct risky and dangerous operation that can blow up in our face. If they do mess up we need to just brush it off and keep on conducting more operations. At minimum that will make our foes have to look over their shoulder whatever they do, and to instill fear in your enemy is a very good thing.
What the president signed today is a piece of garbage that is not even worthy of being called toilet paper. All this will do is create a new bureaucracy that will end up growing into an unmanageable size.

Keep reading, commenting, and visiting this blog.

Baseball

So as not to go crazy thinking of what the future holds for the US, I decided I'll talk a little baseball. More specifically the New York Mets.
What in the world inspires a team to waste huge amounts of money on players that are passed their prime and injury prone? While Pedro Martinez is a proven winner he now has a plethora of arm problems. Have we not learned anything from Mo Vauhn, Pedro Estacio, and more recently Kaz Matsui.
Not only did we sign him for four years we overpaid for him. On the other hand, our cross town rivals keep on making trades and signing the best players in baseball.
I just don't know how long I can take it. The Mets might drive me insane before the Chinese take over. Want that be ironic?

IBM Sale

I know it is a little late, but I would like to bring up the recent sale of IBM's computer producing segment to Lenovo Group Ltd.. Lenovo is a Chinese company that was started in the 80's by a Chinese professor of the state run Chinese Academy of Sciences. As we can guess the company had to be approved by the Central Commission in China, and probably to this day is still supervised by the government. The fact that the Chinese government employs the President of the Lenovo should be worrying to most readers.
From a financial standpoint IBM was loosing money on its computer making division, and had to do something to try to make it profitable. However, my problem is not with the sale of the division itself, but with to whom it was sold. IBM makes some of the best desktops and laptops in the market today; the only problem was they could not compete with the price of computers like those from Dell and HP. Both of these companies moved their production operation to Asia and have been able to cut their prices and in most case their quality as well. Thus IBM had no option left, but to sell the division.
That being said, the IBM sale represents what China has been doing since the late 80's. By buying this computer segment China is not only bringing an industry to its shore while taking it away from another country, but it is also receiving a great boost in its technology. This sale now transfers all of IBM computer knowledge to the Chinese, and lets them jump years in the computer field. What I have not been able to find is whether this deal also sells the supercomputer branch of IBM. This is the branch that builds the computers that track the missiles and the satellites. From what I have read IBM wants to get out of manufacturing and concentrate on consulting and software, so I would assume that it will not be making supercomputers anymore. However, I am not sure of this, I would hope that the US government would stop the sale of any segment that is involved in building supercomputers, but you never know.
Another threat that this sale highlights is the fact that American businesses have no interest in letting the American people see China for the threat it is. While IBM sold the computer-manufacturing segment it will keep 18% share of the division. This will mean that now IBM will not want any government action that might harm Lenovo Group, because its profits will be hurt. This is an example of how the Chinese are slowly working at picking apart our economy while not being seen as a threat.

In the future whenever I will see deals like this happen I will try to post about them and their consequences to America, but what I need you the reader to do is to tell everyone to read this blog and come back to it as often as you can.

Solutions

The first thing that I want to post today is a reply to one of the comments on a previous post. I was asked what I "think can be done about it"? I am pretty sure that "it" is the threat posed by China, and I personally would say that it’s not what I would do about it but what I would say. The first job in defending the US from the Chinese menace is for us the citizens of America to first recognize that we have an enemy that wants us taken down a peg. As we all know knowledge is power, and until we know what we are facing we have no power to act. That is the reason why I started this blog. It is my desire to wake this sleeping giant before it slain where it sleeps. I wish I could have a larger forum from which to shine the light, but I have to work with what I have and with the help of the readers of this blog be able to reach many people.
Hopefully once a majority of the public is informed we can then discuss the threat we face and come up with a good plan of action. This plan would probably involve economic sanctions on China, raised tariffs in specific industries, and subsidies in others. On a geopolitical front we would probably have to allow Japan to arm itself, and surround China with a ring of successful, democratic nations. I will probably put more solutions in later posts so keep reading.

Remember, tell everyone you know about this blog, and tell him or her to come early and often. The more people come and then comeback the more I will post.

Biggest threat we face today

I want to start my first serious post by first telling all the readers that in my opinion the topic I am going to talk about now is in my opinion the most serious issue the world faces today. The Middle Kingdom as the Chinese call China is today making a move to become the most powerful country in the world, and replace the US as the worlds lone superpower.
This of course can only be done, and china realizes this, by either eliminating the US militarily or financial. China is today trying the economic approach while preparing for the military one if America survives the Chinese financial onslaught.
Everyday a Chinese company buys up a segment or entire American company, or even worse a traitorous American company moves most of their operations to China. All this is accomplishing is in moving industry and technology from America to China. The US used to be the most innovative country in the world, not anymore for now all the innovation is happening in Asia in general and China in specific. All this new industry and technology that China is gaining is being transformed into one of the most sophisticated and fastest growing defense industries in the world.
This new and giant complex is being fueled by the money made from all the exports to the US and to a lesser extent Europe. China currently is the largest weapons buyer in the world and it is becoming if not already is the largest exporter in the world. It is the largest current US creditor. The only reason why the US has not yet collapsed financially is because China is financing our debt.
Hopefully overtime I will be able to convince most of you of the great threat that China poses to the US and the whole free world.

Remember to tell everyone you know to read this blog and see the truth!

First Blog

This is my first official blog. Hopefully there will be many to follow. Anyone who reads this please remember that I have an opinion on everything yet am an expert in nothing, so this is what you readers are going to get, opinions. The first topic is how much I love google, this is where I started this blog. It is the greatest site that has ever been created.