UnSpecified Chatter

What hath debt wrought?

well after my two week stint in Scotland I can tell you that the dollar is week. Against the Pound, the Euro, you name it. I actually made money buy getting pounds and selling them back … the dollar had dropped in the two weeks we were in the UK. Excessive interest cutting in order to prop up the crappy US economy is the reason no doubt. But now we have another issue to contend with … China.

Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress.

Described as China’s “nuclear option” in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels.

While it’s true that the power house Chinese economy depends on a marginally robust US economy to keep it afloat there is one small thing that makes the threat credible … Chinese politicians don’t have to worry about reelection, pissed off voters, or much of anything really, it’s a totalitarian regime. Kind of gives them a few wild cards in their hand at the showdown.

“China has accumulated a large sum of US dollars. Such a big sum, of which a considerable portion is in US treasury bonds, contributes a great deal to maintaining the position of the dollar as a reserve currency. Russia, Switzerland, and several other countries have reduced the their dollar holdings.

“China is unlikely to follow suit as long as the yuan’s exchange rate is stable against the dollar. The Chinese central bank will be forced to sell dollars once the yuan appreciated dramatically, which might lead to a mass depreciation of the dollar,” he told China Daily.

Now the US could start to impose trade legislation but who is kidding who? We don’t have the stones to pay for shooting wars as we go, let alone a trade war. While this is almost certainly posturing it does highlight how vulnerable we have made ourselves by following a “growth at all costs” trade policy and rushing head long into globalization with countries that don’t really share our enthusiasm for mindless consumerism.

Update: Mr. Anderson makes the reasonable point that the dollar weakening has more to do lately with printing dollars then interest rate cutting which is true. The interest rate cutting has been there of course over the last 6 years in order to “stimulate the economy”. Apparently the tax cuts weren’t enough. Also, it’s worth mentioning, the tax cuts have also contributed to the problem by creating more debt.

With Rudy Giuliani and John McCain as front runners in the GOP presidential race, it’s pretty safe to say that the hard-core Christian fundamentalist wing of the Republican party has been effectively neutered in the upcoming race (something we can all thank the lord for). The social conservative wing does have their man though in the person of Kansas senator Sam Brownback. You might remember that senator Brownback was one of the ones who raised their hand in the first Republican debate when the moderator asked the question “…is there anyone who does not believe in evolution along with Gov. Mike Huckabee and Rep. Tom Trancredo.

Now I understand politics and I also understand that evolutionary biology is a tricky thing, after all who didn’t have trouble figuring out just what the heck Meiosis and mitosis was all about, let alone the finer points of evolutionary science. All it means is that there are three guys running for president who don’t understand science out of ten. Evolution is complex, but other things like the shape of the earth is not. Having said that, there are a small number of people who believe wacky things. Some will tell you that man never landed on the moon or that President Bush masterminded 9/11 wacky stuff sure but hey people have a lot of time on their hands. You would think though that somethings are not controversial like for instance that shape of the earth and for most of us it’s not. But there are those who disagree like the Flat Earth Society.

Now I would think that the Flat Earth Society would be a marginal group anywhere. I would be hard pressed to imagine any group where such beliefs were given safe harbor. Try to think for yourself where could one go where the idea that the earth is flat would be not be dismissed with prejudice but, in fact, enthusiastically embraced.

I present to you Blogs 4 Brownback and the latest post telling us that this earth is a globe non-sense is simply the work of liberal pseudo science.

In an earlier post in which I categorically disproved the time-honored distortion of Heliocentrism, astute readers informed me of the Scriptural evidence that the world is, in fact, not round. Naturally, this piqued my interest, since a strict and literal reading of the Holy Bible is the only correct and proper method of doing so. If one is not prepared to accept the entirety of the Word of God as Truth, one should prepare for damnation. Not only is that good moral advice, that is good science.

Yes you astute readers will also notice that the idea that the earth is the center of the universe is also defended. As I read the blog I found some voices of protest, some folks were actually trying to engage the blog author to explain his views on such nonsense, but the scary thing is that there were as many commenters defending the blog author as there were commenters telling him he was off his rocker.

Again, not accepting evolution is one thing, it is a complex theory and it requires much study and there is so much non-sense out there confusing the discussion that I can see where someone would get confused … but a flat earth? So my question is, is this for real? I’m willing to give this the benefit of the doubt that Blogs 4 Brownback is a brilliantly conceived satire on the followers of senator Brownback. But frankly I just can’t tell. I need you all to read a few of these posts and tell me that this is an elaborate hoax.

Because if it’s not, senator Brownback should be disqualified from running based just on that fact that his constituency is made up primarily from the ranks of the hopelessly psychotic.