The Americans have not had to deal with a true economic rival since the British more than half a century ago. America today is as unaccustomed to global economic competition as the British were at their apex. The U.S. often seems lumbering and ill-suited to the demands of economic rivalry.
The only way to avoid Britain's fate and meet the challenge of China is to reinvigorate economic life. This is a multiyear endeavor that must be done primarily through innovation, not legislation. America needs to retool its domestic economy to build on the global success of many U.S. companies. It must focus on inventing new products and generating new ideas, rather than defending the rusty industries of yesterday. Fights over health care and climate change are the cultural equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns.
China thrives because it is hungry, dynamic, scared of failure and convinced that it should be a leading force in the world. That is why America thrived a century ago. Today, such hunger and dynamism seem less evident in American life than petulance that the world is not cooperating.
The U.S. is in danger of assuming that because it has been a dominant nation on the world stage, it must continue to be so. That is a recipe for becoming Britain.
#2
It must focus on inventing new products and generating new ideas, rather than defending the rusty industries of yesterday.
We do. Then the designs are then promptly shipped to China for manufacture. Invention is not the problem, it's cutting out Americans of the rest of the value chain that is the problem. The 2% that do the inventing can't carry the 98% that don't. Add the value of another 20% of jobs that could manufacture (and export) the products invented here and that could be the basis for a vibrant economy.
Posted by: ed ||
10/13/2009 12:35 Comments ||
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#3
America these days has an economy less dependent on making things and more dependent on legal concepts like intellectual property. Go ahead, try to write some software - you're going to infringe on someone's patent, somewhere, and six months after release you'll get a lawyer's letter informing you that your business is now over.
IP infringment is an industry in the United States.
#4
Mr. Karabell is the author of "Superfusion: How China and America Became One Economy and Why the World's Prosperity Depends on It,"
Of course, the difference with Britain is that they had political and military control over their trade empire. Supply of goods/materials could only be stopped by another nation going to war against them. Very far from the current USA/China situation where China could just stop shipping any goods it chooses, as it has just done with 30 minerals it deemed strategic.
The insurance industry, sensing the fix was in with all the dumb attacks made by democrats this summer against the insurance industry, decided to respond with just the facts.
And the White House won't challenge the facts, just attack the messenger.
From TFA:
The article contains links to the original PWC report in PDA form, all 26 pages of it, for those of you with a fondness for original documents.
A major new report confirms the worst fears of many: Health care reform will raise the costs for most Americans--by about 18% on average. That is on top of existing inflation of health coverage.
Once the plan is fully phased-in (by 2019), a typical family of four would pay an extra $4,000 each year.
When combined with existing inflation, costs would rise from today's $12,300 annual average to $25,900. Of that 111% increase, $9,600 is due to existing factors uncorrected by the legislation, and $4,000 due to additional costs created by the legislation.
For single persons, the differential is projected at $1,500 a year. Premiums would rise from today's $4,600 a year to $9,600 overall.
Prepared by Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC), the new analysis was requested by AHIP--America's Health Insurance Plans. It focuses on the leading plan pending in Congress, sponsored by Sen. Max Baucus (D, MT), which is scheduled for a Senate Finance Committee vote on Tuesday. The PWC report can be read here.
The PWC projections track what The Heritage Foundation and many others have said about the legislation: It does not save money. It simply taxes those who have health coverage and uses the money to give care to others.
#1
The insurance companies waited just long enough before letting this out, well thought out PR. They see what the government has done to the auto industry and it is their best interest to fight this.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
10/13/2009 8:00 Comments ||
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#2
They're probably BOTH wrong.
Watch out for a corporatist "hybrid" muckup, that bleeds both customer and taxpayer.
If Iran gets the bomb, other regional powers will pursue nuclear programs--if they are not already doing so.
If I recall correctly, Egypt has been for decades, and Dr. Al-Baradei, now of the IAEA, was involved in the effort.
Inevitably in a region as volatile as this, there will be a few small-scale nuclear catastrophes, probably rulers targeting their own people. Saddam gassed the Kurds and slaughtered the Shiites, Hafez Assad massacred the Sunnis of Hama, and mass graves throughout the region testify to the willingness of Arab rulers to kill their own people--in their hands, a nuclear weapon is merely an upgrade in repressive technology. Still, it's extremely unlikely the regimes will use these weapons against their regional rivals. Remember, the main reason these states support nonstate terror groups is to deter one another and thus avoid all-out war.
Little Israel has demonstrated not one of them is any good at all-out war. Perhaps Iraq will reach the stage of competence at some point, but I imagine they'd turn their sights on Iran first.
However, the prospect of states transferring nukes to so-called nonstate actors is a nightmare for the United States, which does not fare well against such tactics. Consider that our response to 9/11 was to use our armed forces to democratize the Middle East. Also, consider that the most convoluted reason for making war against the Taliban is to keep the nukes of a neighboring country out of the hands of its intelligence service's dangerous elements. That is to say, we cannot even deter Pakistan, our ally. more at link
#1
Not only would it be a catastrophe. It would be an avoidable one. Future generations will ask why Iranian ICBMs are aimed at the US homeland. Enough of the rhetoric bombs.
Don't forget that during Iran's democracy riots early in the year, Hussein Obama saw fit to put US-Iran relations in context of the 1953 coup, and clearly indicted his own country. In spite of infantile bragging by retired CIA personnel, the agency had little to do with same. Obama is the first anti-American, American president.
The health of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ...has turned critical as was reported to our Central location at 11:30 last night (near midnight) by one of our influential supporters. It stated that the overall health of the Supreme Ruler Seyed Ali (Khamenei) ...has become critical.
At around 8 p.m. when his health failed, three of his treating physicians...were summoned to his bedside. On their arrival into his private room, everyone including his family were told to leave the room. After the three physicians examined Khamenei for about 45 minutes and emerged, they instructed that only immediate family members (wife and children) were to enter his room and not even his staff to provide him with reports.
As has been reported in various newsletters and publications, some three days ago Khamenei issued his last will and testament in which he asked people to pray for him and to ask Allah to forgive him his sins, including those which he may have inadvertently committed and does not remember.
Something about ordering attacks on the protesters and acquiescing to their vile treatment upon imprisonment? Yes, he'll want forgiveness for those.
#4
Wait and see. These guys tend to die six or seven times. I think Qadaffy had terminal cancer and six months to live in 2002.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/13/2009 8:32 Comments ||
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#5
Apparently, Khamenei has outlived expectations because of his longstanding colon cancer.
This also points out the nagging fact that because of a peculiarity of Shiite Islam, homosexuality is seen as meaning oral sex, not anal sex, and between the clerical predilection to sodomy, and the widespread use of intravenous drugs in Iranian society as a whole, the country has a terribly high rate of HIV and AIDS.
And once AIDS sets in, it opens the door to a whole raft of other diseases, from TB to, you guessed it, colon cancer.
Let's see.... There is Ali Sistani - already very influencial in Iran, Rafsanjani, Sharoudi?
I do not know where or even if Ahmadinejad falls into bloodline, and he is already ranked by rafsanjani. I doubt Mousavi qualifies either.
In either case, the IRGC (revolutionary Guard) will be pulling some rank, and have influence over the position.
One of the things discussed during the election - and this kind of came from Sistani was to eliminate the position totally to give the counsel more power. (http://en.rian.ru/world/20090622/155318054.html)
It shall be another interesting time in Iran.
Count on Sistani to be lead weather in that position or not.
#7
"Precisely because there are no obvious successors to Khamenei, the prospect of the
supreme leadership being replaced by a shura (consultative) council is discussed with
increased frequency. The idea is not new and was considered after Khomeinis death, since
many believed the supreme leadership was a robe designed only for Khomeini. As president,
Khamenei himself once told a Western reporter that no one individual could ever replace
Khomeini as Supreme Leader, predicting instead a council of three or five religious leaders
would have to rule.
Who would be selected to compose the shura council is the key question. Constitutionally
the selection process falls under the jurisdiction of the Assembly of Experts, an 86-cleric karim sadjadpour body headed by Rafsanjani and composed largely of septuagenarian, conservative clerics.
Reformists talk about a triumvirate composed of Rafsanjani, Khatami, and Mehdi Karroubi,
a moderate cleric who served as speaker of the parliament and narrowly lost to Ahmadinejad
in the first round of the June 2005 elections. This would be unacceptable to hardliners, who
would prefer conservatives like AyatollahsMesbah Yazdi, Shahroudi, and Jannati, a member
of the Guardian Council, who are equally unacceptable to moderates.
Aside from the difficulties of reaching a consensus regarding the makeup of the shura
council, the replacement of the Supreme Leader with a shura council is currently impeded
by the Islamic Republics constitution, which states specifically that the Leader be an individual.
But political expediency trumps the constitution in the Islamic Republic; a constitutional
amendment adjusting the requirements for Supreme Leader is precisely what enabled
Khamenei to become Leader.
While the fight for succession is highly unpredictable and could get fierce, in some ways
Khameneis weakness has ironically been the Islamic Republics strength; if his reign has
proven one thing, its that the Islamic Republics stability is not contingent upon having a popular,
charismatic Leader. The predictions frequently made during the Khomeini erathat
the Leaders death would bring about the regimes demiseare no longer made with regards
to Khamenei."
#8
no one individual could ever replace
Khomeini as Supreme Leader, predicting instead a council of three or five religious leaders
would have to rule.
It seems to me the Romans tried that after the murder of Julius Caesar. As I recall, one died quietly, Mark Antony retired briefly to Egypt as a guest of his friend, Queen Cleopatra, and the future Augustus Caesar swept the board. Only, lots of people were killed to accomplish that, some of them innocent bystanders.
Last week I was in Las Vegas attending a banquet honoring retired intelligence officers, many of whom once worked for the CIA. Some of the guests were still active. Others currently work for the Department of Defense. There were four of us from the press.
I got to chatting in a three-way conversation with a former U-2 pilot and a current defense contractor who frequents the Pentagon (and therefore asked to remain anonymous).
"What's going to happen if al-Qaeda gets their hands on WMD?" the pilot asked.
"They already have," the defense contractor said. Then he told the story of how, just last January, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) had bungled a WMD experiment using bubonic plague. "None of you press wrote about that," the man said, eyeballing me.
They were testing interesting things in Afghanistan, too, before they and their hosts were kicked out following 9/11.
I had to correct him because I did write about that story -- for Pajamas Media. My article cited two papers, the Sun and the Washington Times; I couldn't locate any firsthand sources with access to the information. "How do you know that the information was correct?" I asked my fellow banquet guest.
"I was at the military briefing," he said. Then he added that the briefing was not classified and included several members of the press.
The arrested nuclear scientist, a 32-year-old Algerian-born French man named Dr. Adlene Hicheur, was being described by France's Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence as a "very high-level" operative with AQIM. That's the same group who'd been experimenting with bubonic plague earlier in the year. Adlene Hicheur had attended Stanford University, in California, in 1999 and 2002.
Not quite the same as a bumbling wannabe. More at the link, including a link to the writer's story about the plague.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
If Iran gets the bomb, other regional powers will pursue nuclear programs--if they are not already doing so. 
The health of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ...has turned critical as was reported to our Central location at 11:30 last night (near midnight) by one of our influential supporters. It stated that the overall health of the Supreme Ruler Seyed Ali (Khamenei) ...has become critical.
