Its not a coincidence that Obama starts repeating the Chinese Communist Party’s line on America’s debt while visiting Communist China.

Too bad that he doesn’t mean it.

You only need three years of 10% inflation to cut our debt to Communist China in half.

Our Third World Country

The economy may never recover from decisions of the late Bush Administration and the early Obama Administration.

Our pundit class does not think we are the future.

Our Administration is making up employment numbers.

Our voting machines are easily hackable, unlike in mature democracies, such as Brazil.

AIG’s bailout succeeded… in transferring billions from the government to banks in no-strings-attached, never-pay back loans.

Under the late Bush and early Obama administrations, the U.S. transformed into a state that acts like a third-world country.

No wonder China shut Obama off. We don’t offer free TV time to the President of Uruguay, either.

I have been told the general manager of Great Plains is out of town. If so, it would explain how this series of events could happen.

1. I dropped by car off on a Wednesday, and indicated (using their forms) I wish daily status updates
2. The same day, Great Plains provides a PDF (generated with pirated software — they are using a non-commercial, trial PDF creator software as production equipment to send estimates) to me, of an estimate of the damages
3. No updates are forthcoming
4. On Monday, I call for an update, and am told they lost my information
5. Great Plains informs me my insurance adjuster is unreachable
6. I call my insurance adjuster, and am told Great Plains has never attempted to contact, and has not used the standard web application for submitting an estimate
7. My insurance company calls Great Plains, and requests a loaner vehicle for me
8. GP states to my insurance company they do not provide loaners
9. I call up GP to verify, and am told they do provide loaners, but that the person who can grant one is out of the office. I am hung up on.
9. The next day (Tuesday) the insurance company sends someone to the office, to physically observe the submission of the estimate
10. I inquire by email for the cause of the delay. This email is not answered.
11. I call by phone to again request a loaner. I am told they provide them, but I must call a different number.
12. In the same call, I inform them of their use of pirated software. I am hung up on.

Great Plains took six days to submit an estimate to my insurance company, they have “lost” my information, attempted to blame the insurance company, stated they do/do not have loaners available, etc. This has been an extremely frustrating experience. I will never do business with Great Plains Auto Body again.

Shannon Lov at Chicago Boyz has two posts attacking the upcoming trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, “KSM,” who, according to himself, is the most dangerous terrorist in the history of civilization. The titles, “The Worst Kind of Trial” and “How Obama is Bringing Martial Law to America,” gives you a taste of the tone.

Of course, the trial is a circus. It is designed to be. It is designed to get people to pay attention to it.

Becuase the real objective is the introduction of regular and systematic military trials for terrorists we capture oversees. While the far-right, far-left, and media machine pay attention to the circus, the United States Government grants the military universal jurisdiction for crimes against the United States.

This is a huge deal. It would be controversial if it was talked about. So it won’t be.

Pay attention to the circus instead.

Video from Corn Nation

Also Corn Nation looks forward to next week’s Nebraska – Kansas State game, which will determine the champion of the Big 12 North

I received an email from the publisher of Nimble Books, which is the company that is producing the The Handbook of 5GW: A Fifth Generation of War? for sale.  Currently there are around 21 forthcoming Nimble Books, with the Handbook in place # 8.  Nimble averages actually publishing (getting out for sale) four-to-six books a month, meaning that the Handbook is expected (knock on wood!) by Christmas.

The same day that Catholicgauze reports the good news that governments can’t sell public records, a town in New York wants to sell public laws.

Me, November 18, 2008

The best justification for keeping a large Leviathan is to end conventional war. Essentially, the US can use its military power to make the cost of waging aggressive war against another sovereign state unacceptable. This provides the global public good of security, because when states do not have to defend themselves, or spend funds appeasing dangerous neighbors, they can concentrate on economic growth.

Russia’s invasion of Georgia is a great (perhaps fatal) challenge to America’s role in keeping the peace. By allowing that Saddam Hussein with a slavic name to occupy Georgian territory, we make every state think twice about the “peace” that the world loans us so many billions to uphold

Tom Barnett, November 13, 2009

For some American economists and politicians, a weak dollar signals a weak American economy. “Duh,” you say? Well, their larger argument is worth considering: By acting like just any weak economy (deficit spending plus currency devaluation), we speed up the world’s movement toward a post-dollar era that, once reached, will never be reversed. Take away America’s ability to float debt cheaply, and you take away much of our ability to play globalization’s Leviathan, both kinetically and diplomatically.

The counterview, of course, is to insist that America has taken that role about as far as it can go historically, meaning we can’t get any more over-leveraged as an economy or more over-stretched as a military power. So while, yes, it would be nice if Obama could correct all our excesses of the past couple of decades while preserving our preeminence, it’s just not going to happen. The sad truth is that America is finally acquiring the financial discipline that we’ve sorely lacked in the post-Cold War era, in large part because our enormous success in spreading globalization — especially to our new banker China — made our loss of self-control all the more feasible.

2008 was one of the worst years in American history. The one-two punch of Russia’s Invasion of Georgia and Wall Street’s Raid on the Treasury may have permanently ended America’s ability to keep the peace in the world of globalization. While some bloggers called such a view “hysterical” last year, now they repeat it as if it is an original idea.

Until Deng Xiaoping, there had been no wise Chinese leaders in the 20th century… only misguided idealists.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair sums it up well (h/t Tom Barnett)

Prior to 1949, China was a deeply riven and unequal society. There was a reason for the civil war and the multiple invasions of foreign powers. There was a reason for the upheaval of 1949. In the first 30 years came the completion of the revolution and the establishment of the People’s Republic

When you read about the Army-Parties in Iraq, and satirical pieces about “Afghan Presidential Election A Celebration of All Forms of Government,” one reads headlines that could have come from China in the 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, or 1940s.

The great men in China before Deng Xiaoping accomplished a lot, but may have destroyed even more

Sun Yatsen smashed the apartheid Qing dynasty, and replaced a slowly modernizing force for peace with political chaos and famine. Sun was never able to hold power, due to…

Yuan Shikai, who may have been the most able leader of the century. Originally the Imperial Governor of the capital district, Yuan negotiated the transition from the Empire of the Great Qing to the Republic of China. Using the Vatican City-State as a model, the Imperial Household obtained foreign head-of-state status in Beijing, with the Forbidden City and Summer Palace as sovereign territory. Yuan proceeded to throw all his contributions away by declaring himself emperor. The national ourage replaced revolutionary chaos with warlord barbarism. This was ended by…

Chiang Kaishek, who abolished the warlords system, largely at the price of redefining “loyal” warlords as general. Throughout World War II he acted as he was — the most powerful warlord among many — and kept of a de jure resistance against Japan while primarily struggling against the Communist insurgents and his generals (neither an exhaustive or a discrete set of adversaries). Chiang’s misrule lead to the collapse of his armies and the success of…

Mao Zedong, who lead three popular revolutions, only the first of which was good for China. In the Democratic Revolution (began in 1949), the one-party dictatorship of the KMT was replaced by “New Democracy,” in which a multiparty, corporate system of government would exist under the hegemony of the Chinese Communist Party. Using loyal subordinates, Mao pacified the countryside and brought the first peace China had known since Sun Yatsen. Mao immediately threw this way, first in 1950 with the Korean War (which singlehandidly sunk hopes for an early reunification with Taiwan), then with the Socialist Revolution in 1952 (in which “New Democracy” gave way to a clone of Sovietism), and then the Cultural Revolution (when Mao wisely recognized the unpopularity with Sovietism, and replaced it with “great chaos under heaven.”)

Following all these men, Deng Xiaoping took power, and introduced market reforms along with law and order.

I write this not only because Obama will soon be visiting China, but because, under Obama’s leadership

1. We have destroyed the market-price system in this country
2. We have begun checking with China before Obama meets with prominent human rights advocates

Market reforms and the rule of law brought China to greatness.

Obama’s destruction of the market-price system, and his advocacy of the Chicago way, threaten to seriously injure America.