As IF Times

link Lefty Crackpot Theory: Chinese Dictators Funneling Cash into Campaigns for Overseas Jobs.

News for idiots like this guy Papantonio who are pushing this crackpot theory.  Pay attention to the state of the currency and financial markets.  The decline of the U.S. currency in world markets makes the notion that the Chinese need to steal jobs away from Americans moot.  Why fiddle with jobs when their economic clout enables them to buy entire companies!  If a tool and die manufacturer in Guangzhou province needed demand for their output, why not just raise some money and purchase Ford, Chrysler or even GM at these depressed prices?  Voila, instant vertical integration.  If he read something besides the Huffington Post, he’d realize that there’s a whole big world out there that is not plotting to get U.S. jobs.

There was a news item today that stated that the Chinese now claim the world’s most powerful supercomputer.  Apart from political issues, what’s to stop them from buying Motorola, Advanced Micro Devices or perhaps even Intel to vertically integrate their operations?  The low interest stimulative policies being pursued now by the U.S. Fed, amusingly labeled QE 2, are driving down the value of the U.S. dollar which makes all dollar assets cheaper relative to other world currencies.  In addition, since few other nations are as indebted as the U.S., they can afford to take on huge debt to finance purchases. 

At the  moment, there is a literal gold rush occurring for not only that metal but all manner of industrial and commercial resources worldwide, principally by the Chinese to fuel their burgeoning domestic as well as regional economies of Asia.  As these commodities get scarce, Western industries will find it harder and harder to compete for these industrial raw materials. Recently, some alarms were sounded over China’s hoarding of rare earth metals used in many of today’s hot consumer items.  http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=125172 

So the kind of scaremongering by Papantonio is expected for a partisan hack . At the very least he understands that in a global economy, money is very mobile.  If people are insisting on buying IPAD’s and IPhones by the boatload, they’ll have to resign themselves to the fact that they cannot be made in the high cost environment of the US and even Canada.  If that were not the case, all of Apple’s manufacturing and assembly would be in the U.S.  With some of the politicking going on now by many candidates, you’d think that they actually have the ability to bring back lost jobs to their constituents.  With some union jobs at GM commanding anywhere from $40 to $75 per hour including all benefits, these wage levels are as appealing to companies as hoop skirts at a bachelor party.

To illustrate the scale of wealth being created in Asian economies, a recent article noted in bloomberg noted that the Las Vegas Sands owned Marina Bay Casino recently openend in Singapore, pictured above, contributed over $260 million dollars to the bottom line of the parent company…in the last quarter!  They didn’t steal any U.S. jobs.  They made their own.  According to Morgan Stanley, the Singaporean market could generate 7 to 10 BILLION dollars in cash flow by 2012.   Does this sound like they want or need U.S. jobs?   From the Wall Street Journal:

This will happen more and more with the emergence of Asian economies as they begin to vertically integrate basic manufacturing industries.  Politicians had better worry more about keeping their domestic houses in order and figure out why the growth is over there, not over here.

link Scientists Find Liberal Gene | NBC San Diego.

I suppose it’s all possible.  There seems to be a genetic root cause to explain lots of strange behaviour these days. Once this particular affliction is classified as an illness as it should surely be, the next step is to get reparations or supplements from the government for medical treatment.  Predictably, you can bet that another study will determine that only with wine and expensive brie will the condition abate.  I would argue that wine and expensive brie are symptoms of the affliction, but unfortunately, I can’t just make things up.

In our lifetime, many ‘deviations’ from what is considered normal have been diagnosed as having some roots in genetic predisposition, or even classified as a clinical illness.  Recently, there has been a push to classify obesity as an illness, as has been generally accepted for alchoholism.  For years, the notion of attention deficit has been pushed as a disorder requiring pharmaceutical treatment of innumerate young children.   Depression is widely accepted now as having a genetic root and so does promiscuity and excess risk taking personality (though some may argue the last two are the same thing).  There has even been some discussion as to the causes of homosexuality.  Is there a gay gene?  There’s no doubt that hoarding behavior and obsessive compulsive disorders must be a result of  some mental or even biological crossed wires.  What this all really means is that people are different and normal is an elusive notion.

Evolutionists will argue that certain human behavioral characteristics, manifest extremely by some individuals, are present in most people albeit in smaller doses.  Being partial to risk taking for instance may serve well when survival issues are paramount.  This can be the case in the instance of some physical ‘abnormality’.  Certain groups of the population are Thalassemic for example which means that red blood cells are smaller than normal and therefore not as able to process oxygen.  While this may at first seem to be a handicap, people with this condition are better able to survive malaria in areas of the  world where this problem exists.

Liberalism as a pathology is a tricky one.  Not the notion of liberalism itself, at least not its stated principles of tolerance, the acceptance of diverse thought etc etc. That’s a philosophical position.   I’m referring to the behaviour most often associated with liberals, such as intolerance and nonacceptance of differences of thought.   This feature makes it easy to spot people with this sad affliction.  Another glaring symptom is the unwillingness to accept and digest a logical argument in the face of all evidence.  The most insidious aspect of this ‘malaise’ is the need for the afflicted to control others or at least dictate how others should behave.  Most often, sanctimony is a flagrant tipoff symptom of liberal malaise in a person.  Now that a gene has been isolated as a cause, is there a cure?  Perhaps a minor lobotomy procedure is all that’s needed.  If sufferers are lucky, perhaps altered states drugs will help. 

Oh wait!  The big push to legalize pot!!  The penny drops.