IS CHINA REALLY BITING ITS ECONOMY’S BULLET?
China’s leaders have brushed aside warnings of an incipient credit crunch in the Chinese economy, determined to purge excesses from the financial system despite falling house prices and the deepest industrial slowdown since the Lehman crisis.
Industrial production dropped 0.4% in August from a month earlier, a rare event that highlights how quickly China is coming off the boil. The growth of fixed asset investment fell to record lows.
“It is a shockingly sharp deceleration,” said Wei Yao, from Societe Generale. “What is surprising is the calm response from Beijing. The new leadership’s tolerance for short-term pain seems to have jumped by another big notch.”
Electricity output has dropped 2.2% over the past year as the authorities continue to force dinosaur industries into closure, chipping away at excess capacity.
New credit has fallen 40%, and there has been an outright contraction of trust loans and undiscounted bankers acceptances over the past two months, the result of a clampdown on parts of the shadow banking nexus.
Premier Li Keqiang has so far refused to blink, determined to drive through deep reforms and wean the economy off exorbitant levels of debt before the damage becomes irreversible. “We are restructuring instead of expanding the monetary supply,” he said last week, warning markets not to expect easy money to ignite a fresh boom this time.
But will he and his fellow Communist Party leaders keep not blinking?
OBAMA’S IRAQIZATION OF AMERICA
When it comes to Iraq, Obama lectures the Sunnis and the Shiites on getting along and forming a government that won't exist for the sole benefit of a single group at the expense of the other. But in America he runs exactly that sort of government. Al Sharpton, Obama's close political ally, and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, his mentor, are familiar types in Iraq. You can find a thousand Jeremiah Wrights on any given Friday screaming about killing the Shiites or the Sunnis. You can find a million Al Sharptons community organizing local hatreds until they explode. Those are the ugly tribal politics that Obama has brought to America. Instead of repairing the economy, he focused on wealth redistribution. Instead of bringing Americans together as one nation, he calculatedly tore them apart around manufactured crises of race, gender, class and religion. He pitted blacks against whites, liberal Protestants against Catholics, the poor against the middle class and the cities against the suburbs. Obama promised us a united America and gave us a divided America. He has shown that he is a slicker and more polished version of Al Sharpton. After coming to prominence with a vision of "There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America," he shrugged off helping Americans as a whole and instead championed narrow tribal interests. Just-ousted Nouri al-Maliki wasn't the Prime Minister of Iraq. He was the Prime Minister of a Shiite Iraq. Obama isn't the President of the United States. He's trying to be the President of Black America, Gay America, Latino America, Asian America, Transgender America and a thousand other Micro-Americas. At no point in time has he been the President of the United States of America.
HERE’S HOW PUBS CAN GO POSITIVE WITH VOTERS
If you were a campaign manager for Republicans running for the Senate or House in November, what policy positions would you advise them to take? The Republican Party has been under a lot of criticism for running a campaign of "Not Obama" rather than presenting a positive agenda -- and much of this criticism is valid. That being said, it is far easier for those of us who are with policy organizations to give advice about what a candidate ought to say -- because we don't take the direct hit if our policy ideas don't resonate with a majority of voters. As a result, too many candidates resort to the banal -- "I am in favor of a strong national defense, lower government spending, and tax reform." Years ago, I occasionally advised political candidates from the congressional to the presidential level, and so I have some understanding of why candidates are less policy-pure and specific than we would like them to be. So here's how GOP candidates can run a positive issues-oriented campaign that a majority of voters can agree with, yet can substantially advance freedom and prosperity.
BAMBOOZLING THE BOOBS OF THE DEMOCRAT BASE
It's easy to bamboozle the boobs who comprise the base of the Democrat Party, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid evidently thinks. Hilarity broke out on the Senate floor a week ago Monday (9/8) after 25 Republicans joined 54 Democrats in voting to begin debate on a constitutional amendment proposed by Sen. Tom Udall, D-NM, to overturn the Supreme Court decision which threw out limits on campaign contributions. By voting with Democrats to advance consideration of a Democrat-sponsored measure, Republicans were "stalling" and "obstructing," charged a flummoxed Sen. Reid. Yes, he actually claimed that. That's because he knows most of his voting base really are idiots. He's right and here's why.
THE MYSTERY ADVENTURE
This is a first. An opportunity for an extraordinary adventure has just arisen. Ordinarily, I'd tell you all about it. But I can't - that's what makes this a Mystery Adventure. I can tell you the dates: November 7 to 19. That's leaving the US and return, door-to-door. I can tell you the cost: $6,650. That's everything except international airfare. But I can't tell you where. Except to say that when you get back, it will blow your every friend's mind. "You went where!?" they'll all ask in jaw-dropping amazement. I can't tell you the itinerary. Except to say that once you see the pictures, you will be astounded that these places exist. I can tell you that we'll be safe and secure. I can tell you that there is now a window of opportunity during which the welcome mat has been laid down for us. This is why we must carpe diem, seize the day and opportunity, for who knows when it might arise again. Thus far, I have only told a few friends about this who have traveled with me often before. They understand why I cannot make this public. Yet, being TTPers themselves, they have suggested that I tell all TTPers about it, however elliptically. This is because I have three spaces left and I'm running out of time. There are no special requirements, as the Mystery Adventure is not physically rigorous, you only need normal good health. There is no camping -- we'll stay in the best hotels and dine in the best restaurants in the country. It is for men and women, couples and singles. This is an adventure of thousands of years of culture and history, and as timely as current events get. It is one of breathtaking natural beauty and eye-opening wonder at how friendly and pro-American people on the street are. It is an experience you will never ever forget. Here's the deal. I'll send you a Powerpoint PDF of the Mystery Adventure - it's a big 5.8MB file due to the photos - if you personally request it and provide your TTP bonafides. Like how long you've been a TTPer and why. Frankly, I have to be very sure of who I bring with me. Let me know at [email protected] or Miko at [email protected]. Please, though, don't make the request unless you're sure you can make the dates - November 7-19 - and the cost -- $6,650. Yet if you can handle both, better let me know right now. There's no time to spare.
HALF-FULL REPORT 09/12/14
Can't resist starting this HFR off with Red State's Erick Erickson's comment on Zero's Nothingburger speech to the nation Wednesday night (9/10): "This speech is what I imagine you'd try to say to your mom if she walked in on you playing with yourself. It was awkward and we've caught the President with his pants down." Amidst a lot of dumb stuff, Zero's dumbest claim of all was: "ISIL is not ‘Islamic.' No religion condones the killing of innocents." The Koran does just this and repeatedly. A quartet of samples from a myriad... A perfect example of what we discussed in 9/11 and the 10th Commandment - emerged this week in Oklahoma. Leave it to a Marine, State Rep. John Bennet, to provide it. You'd think that John Bennett would be a lay down for HFR Hero of the Week. Problem is, there's a trio of other contenders... Actually, however, there is good news in the Islamic world this week. Disgusted and enraged by ISIS barbarism in the name of their religion, Moslems all over the world are partaking in their version of the "ice bucket challenge" craze - the ISIS Flag Burning Challenge. I particularly like the topless Femen feminist flag burners. Good for them all.
DISGUSTINGLY VILE DEMOCRATS
"Rand Paul, who will likely run for President as a stay-at-home Republican, went to Guatemala recently and performed eye surgeries as a means of displaying his foreign-policy bona fides," wrote New Yorker Editor and Obama hagiographer David Remnick. "Was Bashar al-Assad, Syria's ophthalmologist-in-chief, impressed?" Since the mid 1990s - long before his election to the Senate in 2010 - Sen. Paul has been going to Guatemala to provide free surgical care to poor people in desperate need of it. He's never claimed his charitable work is a foreign policy credential. It's kosher to criticize Sen. Paul's foreign policy views; to suspect expediency motivated the recent shift in them; to consider his inexperience in foreign affairs a handicap. (I have, I do, and I do.) But to attack him for his charitable work is unspeakably vile. Here are more examples of how disgusting Democrats and their toadies can be.
9/11 AND THE 10TH COMMANDMENT
Any adult in America knows where they were 13 years ago today. In the days following the Moslem Atrocity of 9/11, if someone had predicted 13 years hence that instead of having wiped Islamic Terrorism from the face of the earth, we'd still be cowering in fear of its threat, they would have been thought deranged. Yet we are. How is this possible? Let's ask another question. In his TTP column this week, Richard Rahn contrasted "aspirational societies" where productive work and success are not punished, with societies consumed by envy. He sums up America's crisis with one devastating observation:
"The United States used to be an aspirational society, but has increasingly become an envious society."
How did this happen? It turns out that these two questions - among the most critical questions we can ask of our country today - have the same answer. The answer starts with our society's failure to follow the 10th Commandment of Exodus 20:17 -
EGYPT’S EXTRAORDINARY PEACE PROPOSAL TO THE PALESTINIANS
Something extraordinary has happened. On August 31, PLO chief and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told an audience of Fatah members that Egypt had offered to give - give, as in cede sovereignty to - the PA some 1,600 square kilometers (625 square miles) of land in Sinai adjacent to Gaza, thus quintupling the size of the Gaza Strip. Egypt even offered to allow all the so-called "Palestinian refugees" to settle in the expanded Gaza Strip. Then Abbas told his Fatah followers that he rejected the Egyptian offer. On Monday (9/08), Israeli Army Radio substantiated Abbas's claim. According to Army Radio, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi proposed that the Palestinians establish their state in the expanded Gaza Strip. In his speech to Fatah members, Abbas said, "They [the Egyptians] are prepared to receive all the refugees, [and are saying] ‘Let's end the refugee story.'" "But," he insisted, "It's illogical for the problem to be solved at Egypt's expense. We won't have it." In other words, Sisi offered Abbas a way to end the Palestinians' suffering and grant them political independence. And Abbas said, "No, forget statehood. Let my people suffer."
THE GOP WAVE ON THE HORIZON
A Republican "wave" has yet to emerge in the midterm elections, which is causing angst in some conservative circles. This should shake any Republicans out of their complacency, but isn't a cause for alarm. For as they look out to sea, bigfoot analysts Stu Rothenberg and Charlie Cook think they spot it on the horizon rolling in to wash Democrats out of office on Nov. 4. 36 races for governor and all 435 House seats are up, but far and away the most important are the 36 races for the U.S. Senate, where the GOP needs a net gain of six to take control away from Dirty Harry Reid. Analysts concede GOP pickups in Montana, South Dakota, and West Virginia. What's causing the angst is that every other race in which Republicans expected to be competitive is rated a tossup, or the Democrat has a lead. So let's scan the horizon and see just how big this wave could be.