China's Coming Ascendancy

The United States occupies a prominent position in global affairs chiefly because of the period of laissez-faire that began in the early 19th century and ended in the 1950s at the latest. Much of the twentieth century's innovation, including today's wireless technology, continued to feed off 19th century breakthroughs. As laissez-faire ended, technological change slowed. Today what passes for technological change is trivial junk like hand-held computers. Major innovations such as television and air travel were the product of late nineteenth and early twentieth century innovation.

China could duplicate this process and exceed the US technologically just as the US exceeded Britain and Britain exceeded Holland. The requirement for technological innovation is limited government intervention, the winner takes the spoils, and private property whereby long term experiments can proceed multi-generationally and innovators can be rewarded.

The chief inhibitor of innovation is credit allocation by Soviet-style central planning bureau. America has adopted the central banking system, which is not qualitatively different from the central planning agencies of the Soviet Union and other communist states. The central bank makes one foolish error after the next, just as Gosplan did. The result is that credit is misallocated to foolish endeavors, sub-prime real estate, cornering the silver market and the like,

America has taken advantage of its reputation for a stable currency by outprinting all other nations' currencies. The reason for the dollar's reputation goes back 70 or 80 years, and in the past decade the dollar has fed off its past reputation even as the Fed has printed money at the clip of the Continental Congress, the modern inventor of paper money inflation. Those looking to the dollar for safety are like those who swam back to the Titanic.

So far, the Chinese and other US dollar holders have eaten the long term effects of dollar depreciation. This has been limited recently because of the dollar's rise. However, short term market manipulation and fluctuation cannot stop basic supply-and-demand relationships. If you triple the Federal Reserve Bank credit then you reduce the value of the dollar, maybe by less than three quarters, but maybe more.

Since China, Japan and Europe will suffer from dollar depreciation, it would seem that they would now be considering a currency alternative to the dollar. China advocated this at the G20 summit. If China decides to pursue this strategy, it has a chance to become the world's dominant power, just as Oswald Spengler predicted in his book "Decline of the West". Spengler did not look to monetary inflation as the cause of the west's decline, but that is the operating mechanism.

If China decides to pursue a hard money strategy coupled with a limited government approach, permitting grass roots innovation just as Andrew Jackson did in the 1830s, then China will become the leading technological nation. However, if China opts for central bank capitalism then it will just reassert the communistic central planning approach it has pursued so far. In that case it will not become so important a power.

In either case, if China does choose to adopt an alternative currency and can convince the rising eastern nations to follow it, the United States is in trouble. That will be the first leg of a major dollar decline as the world's dollar holders put a run on worthless dollars. As the dollar declines, the US will see its military power diminish. Consumers will suffer and there will be political unrest. But the third world factories can move back to the US, and US citizens can regain the jobs now held by Mexicans and Indonesians.

Protest Bill Ayers' Speaking Engagement at Brandeis

I just received this missive from legendary blogger Doug Ross. Note that while Kitco and Miss USA ban people who oppose gay marriage, Brandeis University welcomes left wing murder advocates like Obama-colleague Bill Ayers. The left's version of free speech: "Free speech for us, they may be silent":

Apologies for the mass email... feel free to just copy the post. We need to stop this radical in his tracks. Best Regards, Doug

RED ALERT: Terrorist Bill Ayers Scheduled for College Speech
Brandeis College in Boston has scheduled our favorite terrorist, Bill Ayers, for a speech. Brandeis is a typical liberal institution and -- apparently -- uses the appellation "College" loosely.

And Brandeis takes its role as a bully pulpit for terrorists seriously.

"This is about freedom of educational opportunity," said Brandeis spokesman Dennis Nealon. "The university has made it clear that it is not going to bar the talk despite the controversial nature of the speaker."

Apparently Hitler was unavailable.

What Ayers has to do with 'freedom' in any form is a mystery for anthropologists of the future to figure out, as Ayers and his wife are very vocal and quite open about their Communist leanings.

Due to vocal opposition, Ayers' recent trips to speak at Naperville High School in Illinois, an indie bookstore in the same town and at Boston College have all been canceled.

By the way: does it seem like Ayers is trying to get out of house a lot these days?

But if you were married to the despicable shrew Bernadine Dohrn, you'd be heading out on weekly road trips too.

Let's get out the word: here's some contact information for the relevant parties:


Dennis Nealon, Executive Director, Media and Public Affairs
(781) 736-4205 nealon@brandeis.edu

Jehuda Reinharz, President, Reinharz@brandeis.edu

Joanna Gould, Assistant to the President
781-736-3001 gould@brandeis.edu

Dr. John Hose, Executive Assistant to the President and Assistant Secretary of the Corporation
781-736-3005 hose@brandeis.edu

Max Pearlstein, University and Media Relations Specialist
781-736-4206 maxp@brandeis.edu

Charles Radin, Director of Global Communications & Operations
(781) 736-4210 radin@brandeis.edu

Call or email... and politely express your opposition to the likes of Ayers indoctrinating our youth with despicable and anti-American leanings.

Alan Keyes Fears Obama Tyranny

Stephanie Turner of AC2C Revolt Parties quotes Alan Keyes (h/t Nancy Razik):

>Alan Keyes: Government Will Stage Terror, Declare Martial Law

Former Presidential candidate gives most dire warning yet about Obama agenda
Alan Keyes: Government Will Stage Terror, Declare Martial Law

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Former presidential candidate Alan Keyes has given perhaps his most dire warning yet, saying that the Obama administration is preparing to stage terror attacks, declare martial law and cancel the 2012 elections, which is why they are demonizing their political enemies as criminals and terrorists.

Keyes is best known for his performance during the 2000 Republican presidential debates, when he was accredited by many media outlets as being the clear winner during a series of debates with George W. Bush and John McCain.

“It’s obvious that they will stop at nothing,” Keyes told attendees of a reception in Fort Wayne, adding, “We may wake up one day and there’s a series of terrorist attacks, the economy is paralysed…martial law will be declared everywhere in the United States and it won’t end until the crisis ends.”

Keyes said that Americans should be thankful if they even see another election in 2012, stating, “If we don’t wake up and work to see that it happens, we will not see another election.”

“The minute they think they can get away with it, they will end this system of government and that is their intention,” added Keyes, noting that everyone acting as if the time we are in was just “business as usual” reminds him of the attitude of politicians in the Weimar Republic when Hitler was rising to power or eastern Europe when the Communists were taking over after the second world war.

Keyes said that because the majority of people are decent-minded, they believe others will play by the rules when this simply isn’t the case, warning that this attitude will allow evil to take over before we can do anything about it.

“It is so clear that we have now put a faction in place - they are not playing by the rules and they don’t intend to play by the rules - if they were playing by the rules they wouldn’t have tried to identify their opposition as criminals,” added Keyes, making reference to the recent controversy surrounding the release of the MIAC and Homeland Security reports, which implied that Americans who exercise and are knowledgeable about their constitutional rights are a threat to law enforcement and potential domestic terrorists.

Keyes said that the only solution was from the bottom up because our leaders “are so gutless that they won’t even ask that the Constitution be enforced for clear, plain, absolutely unequivocal requirements,” and respond meekly with “their lips shut and their hearts terrorized.”

Keyes also warned of Obama’s agenda to create a civilian security force and said it was part of the ultimate agenda to disarm American citizens and create a police state.

Keyes has been a vocal critic of Obama, warning that he is a radical Communist who is determined to destroy America, and that if his agenda is not stopped then the country as we know it will cease to exist.

CITI Training and the Common Rule

I just sent the following e-mail concerning the CITI training program concerning Institutional Review Boards also known as IRBs and human subjects committees. These committees are required for colleges that seek funding from the Department of Health and Human Services. They are supposed to check for abuses of research subjects under a regulation called the "common rule". The common rule stretches the definition of threat to human subjects beyond recognition. If an economist does a survey of consumption habits, the common rule subjects the survey to review by an Institutional Review Board or human subjects committee. The committee can say, for any reason, that the research cannot be done. The grounds for abuse are obvious, especially in America's politicized universities. However, the CITI training, which is run by the University of Miami, Donna Shalala, Queen of Political Correctness, president, took upon itself to say that research findings that are offensive or harmful to the interests of a group constitute a violation of the human subjects rules. That is a lie. My e-mail to a Brooklyn College committee that is aiming to find resources to support faculty research follows:

Dear K---: I just filled out the survey but I wanted to add something. The human subjects committee has had a research document that I provided them on March 1 and has not responded. If the college wishes to support research in the social sciences area, it should consider limiting the scope of IRB review to human subjects issues that go beyond mere surveys of adults. There is no need for such review.

Moreover, I would add that the CITI training module provided by CUNY is deceptive. In particular, it suggests that it is based on the common rule and that research that could potentially find something that is not advantageous to a particular group is subject to restrictions by the common rule. In fact, such a restriction would be a violation of the First Amendment. To question this claim, I went in person to the DHHS in Maryland two years ago and interviewed the people responsible for overseeing regulation of the common rule. They indicated that the claim in the CITI training is untrue. In other words, the CITI training engages in the sort of deception and manipulation that advocates of IRBs claim needs to be stopped in generalizable research. There is no reason for CUNY to tell researchers that if some activist or other finds a research finding objectionable, the researcher violated the common rule and the IRB needs to squelch it. That is a lie in which CUNY currently engages by utilizing the CITI training program.

I would urge CUNY to discontinue the CITI training, which is unethical and deceptive in claiming that research findings can constitute a human subjects issue, and replace it with a training that is honest and truly reflects the regulatory requirements of the DHHS. Not that I agree with that either, but lying, deception and the use of the DHHS regulation to potentially suppress speech and research is inconsistent with a valid research program.