Does China's government serve its citizens better than ours does?

I know. What in the world is the matter with me...

Consider, it is well known and reported that the government of China is terrified of its citizens. The commnist party is 17% of the population. That leaves 1,079,000,000 Chinese to rebel against the ruling party, which beats down and controls them. The unwritten deal between the rulers and the citizens is that the ruling class can continue with their ridiculous, oppressive, old-timey communism as long as the people have enough free market that they are able to climb up to the level of prosperity of the free world. (They have a way to go. GDP per person is less than $3,500 per person per year, so incomes are even less. Just for comparison, our GDP per person is over $43,000.)

China is not only 83% non-communist and mostly very poor, but also already has a lot of demonstrations and unrest, and has 300 MILLION migrant workers who restlessly move around the country for work. The government has to create 25,000 new jobs each day just to keep up with new workers entering the workforce. How do you say powderkeg in Chinese?

Consequently, China's leaders are highly motivated to keep people fat, happy, and hopeful about the future, since they rule at the whim of everyone else. So, besides the recent explosion of money and lending that may cause them a burst bubble like we are going through, they generally do a very good job. The entire future of communism in China depends on it.

So, what about our government? It certainly was set up to be very responsive to citizens, but let's look at their record recently. The federal government is about to impose socialized medicine on a country that is 64-70% against, depending on the poll (a fringe group of kooks and nazis according to the perpetrators of it). Cap and trade is set to befall us next, which is about 60% against (Did I mention that's the largest tax increase in the history of the world?), and illegal alien amnesty, which is over 80% against. There were the bailouts, 80% against, and TARP, over 70% against. Stimulus I think was 60+% against.

Stopping the overwhelming tsunami of debt is the top priority of three-quarters of Americans, obviously the three-quarters who are not part of the federal government. They just passed another $1.1 TRILLION dollar mountain of pork and raised the debt ceiling. In fact, this administration is set to spend more money than the federal government has spent in the past 230 years COMBINED.

I believe our congress and president are serving the people who matter most to them, but who is that? Chinese leaders serve well economically because they are running scared. With approval of congress at 20%, the most unpopular early-term president in US history and an election next year, why aren't they scared? Maybe if they were, the well-being and will of the average American would factor into their calculations from time to time.

If fear of the citizenry hit Washington DC, we could probably be better served than the Chinese, because our systems and form of government are better for that. For now, we get a program of take-overs that about 500 people in the whole country want, and with a budget that is sustainable until about a week from next Tuesday.

Fun and games with unemployment

How can the unemployment situation be slowly improving, when the cost of unemployment claims is skyrocketing, setting new records all the time? There are three things going on:

1. The number of people who have gone off normal unemployment (so now don't count, though they are on emergency unemployment extension) is greater than the number on unemployment.

2. The number of people who have been unemployed so long that they no longer get any benefits (and therefore don't count) is a record number.

3. Our trusty government started a new, wrong way of calculating the number of unemployed last summer. When it was discovered by citizens, they said oops about the overcount, and said they would correct it over the next few months. In other words, they overcounted 182,000 when the numbers were bad anyway, and have them in their back pocket to adjust the numbers by 50,000 here and 100,000 there when they need a different result.

It's all good fun being able to pick and choose whom you'll count and when to be able to come up with numbers you like. I'm sure they don't mean anything by it. It's not like they're cooking the books. Well, it's LIKE they're cooking the books, but not EXACTLY like it.

A little explanation of the situation by guru John Mauldin:

“Today's employment report was just terrible. The headline said we lost 85,000 jobs. That is from the establishment survey, where they call up larger businesses and ask them about their employment. They also do a household survey, where they survey about 400,000 households. That report reveals a much worse situation.
Last month, single women who are heads of households saw their unemployment ranks rise by a massive 127,000. The number of employed men fell by 214,000. The total number of unemployed in the survey rose by an enormous 589,000. Those classified as not in the work force (due to the fact that they did not look for jobs) rose by 843,000! That now means that in 2009 3.5 million people were dropped from the potential labor force count because they were discouraged.”

By: John_Mauldin
2010: A Year of Uncertainty "Rocking Even Me" Prisoners of Our Preconceptions The Statistical Recovery The Great Experiment Whither the Fed?

Here's another great article from Bloomberg that explains that the huge number of people giving up on job hunting makes the unemployment numbers look steady instead of constantly rising. Also, the deliberately uncounted help give us rosier numbers. The real percentage of unemployed is currently about 18%, depression-era levels.

www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHA4PMI1G2ks

And one from top guru Nouriel Roubini about how unemployment is much worse than reported and still getting worse:

www.roubini.com/us-monitor/258246/the_bad_job_numbers_and_the_secret_second_stimulus

Pointed questions for the global warming political movement

1. Don't you find it odd that after 55 years, over half a century, of trying to link carbon dioxide to climate cycles, they have had to admit there still is no workable scientific model? Let's not even talk about the complete lack of evidence that human activity has an effect on climate. They're light years away from having that.


2. Don't you find it odd that the global warming political movement has managed to get a few dozen actual scientists on board, but 34,000 scientists including many of the living Nobel laureates have signed statements saying there is no man-made global warming, yet they claim a consensus?

3. Don't you find it strange that we were told for years that it would just get hotter and hotter, then in 1999 the climate started cooling, with record lows and record snowfall now posted all over the world every winter?

4. Don't you find it strange that global warning scientists consistently refuse to let anyone look at their original (unaltered) data, and algorithms, even though that IS the scientific method?

5. Isn't it strange that these same "experts" first told us in 1975 that carbon dioxide had "without question" brought about a new ice age, then told us we would all starve due to overpopulation, then told us we would all burn due to an ozone hole, then told us it was global warming, and now we have had a pretty ugly cool-down?

6. Don't you find it strange that global warming scientists tried to erase the typical natural cycles from history, claiming they didn't exist, but now when we have had a decade of cooling the explanation is that it's just part of a natural cycle?

7. I won't even get into the most glaring stuff, like them trying to make the Medieval Warming Period go away, even though it's 500 years of well established history. Did they think we wouldn't miss 500 years of recent history? Also, it would be too easy to beat them up over the fact that carbon dioxide levels historically rise 800 years AFTER warming cycles, not before. Also, I guess it would be too much of a cheap shot to point out that the best information we have says that that 24 million degree ball of fire in the sky has the most to do with the temperature (who could have guessed?), not a trace gas that is .0037 of 1 percent of our atmosphere. Non-global warming scientists (the 95% of regular scientists who are not part of the political movement) think the whole idea of carbon dioxide killing the planet is "absurd" and "unsupportable."
8. Don't you find it strange that the main global warming booster is Elmer Fudd Gore, of all people? How many times have top scientists said they have no idea what he's talking about? I've lost count.

9. Isn't it strange that the people who are really selling this idea are leftist and socialist politicians, who by some strange coincidence happen to want all of the things that real global warming would require, eg. massive control of citizens, high taxes, huge government, one-world government (see paragraphs 36 and 38 of the Copenhagen Treaty draft for more on that), redistribution of everything, punishment of profit-seeking businesses, etc? That's a freaky coincidence.

10. Should I find it weird that Elmer Fudd Gore is the main one saying the sky is falling, and is the first sky-is-falling billionaire, and flies around in a private jet that uses thousands of gallons of fuel per trip, and has a mansion with a $30,000 a year electric bill? He says if I use a light bulb he doesn't approve of I have just murdered a polar bear, but he can use $20,000 of jet fuel to go give a speech about reducing our carbon footprint and that doesn't hurt anything???

11. What about the fact that Elmer Fudd hasn't allowed a question at one of his appearances for over four years, and if someone tries to ask why his data is inaccurate or something they are roughed up and detained by security? Is that odd? What about all of the scientists who have offered to debate him over the years and he has run away? We know he's a very good debater; what is he afraid of? Why are we not allowed to ask questions anymore, but are just told the debate is over, although 6.4 billion people still don't believe it, as well as at least 34,000 scientists who have publicly opposed it. That is hardly over. If someone refuses to answer questions or allow debate, it normally means they have no answers or are untrustworthy. What would be so wrong with open debate head to head in a public forum???

12. Why is it that the climate cycle the warmists say is so significant was only 19 years (from 1979 through 1998, by their own admission) and that's a huge deal, but the current cooling cycle that has been 10 years so far and keeps getting worse is "just a natural cycle?" Since both are well within normal bounds in terms of amount of warming or cooling, how is 19 years life and death, but 10 years so far just "natural?"

13. For that matter, the cooling cycle they told us was "without a doubt" the beginning of a new ice age due to carbon dioxide was 31 years (1947-1978). Isn't that cooling more significant than the 19 years? Why not? By the way, they said they had that magical "consensus" about the ice age too. The "ice age" ended three years later. Oooops!

I could go on, but I'm starting to feel like a bully. But it's their fault for getting those few dozen scientists tangled up in their political movement, which means it will then have to make sense scientifically and logically.