I have been thinking, do you think that the United States will be the dominant power in the world during this century? This is the last month of the first decade of that century. If you do, have you considered that we are now entering a phase where another will challenge our system of government? The Chinese system of Authoritarian Capitalism vs. American Democratic Capitalism. The first such ideological face off since the end of the Cold War. The outcome may be different this time.
The Chinese have tweaked Soviet communism and made it much more effective as far as economic activity is concerned. After all, the Soviets couldn't keep up economically. That's what beat them. The Chinese economy has been experiencing double digit growth for years before the world wide economic crisis. Since the crisis it has emerged in better shape than almost every other. How things have changed since the last administration when we would lecture China. The president's recent trip there was telling. Even if you discount for President Obama's style of respect, he was somewhat in the position of a delinquent borrower going to see his banker. That's not good for our side. There is the issue of human rights and the environment but as we all know, money talks. Maybe you could work that stuff out.
You know what else bothers me about the face-off? The Chinese, unlike the Japanese, aren't interested in buying Rockefeller Center or some other iconic piece of Americana. They want resources. From Africa to Latin and South America they are spending the money we owe them to make sure they have what they need to keep their economy growing. They also are making huge investments in alternative energy projects and research. Are we? The biggest disadvantage I see is that we seem unable to make a decision and when we finally do make one it, becomes an exercise in appeasing so many disparate factions, many of which have nothing to do with what's best for the country and it's citizens. The 2074 page health care bill is a case in point. Maybe it's a good bill and will insure most Americans and bend the cost curve the right way, but it's not the optimal bill, too many lobbyists.
The president's decision on Afghanistan also makes our problem clear. Although it took a large amount of political courage for him to make the decision he made, how many people voted for Obama thinking he would escalate the war, everyone knows it was a delicate balancing act.
The Chinese have a clear top down decision-making operation. They want something done, they do it. Can we ever get together and compete with that. Not sure. By the way the audience for the president's town hall meeting with 400 Chinese college students points to a bit of the difference in culture. Jake Taper of ABC news reported that it was a spooky event. The students were loaded in an hour and a half before the president got there. They sat in total, stone silence the whole time and when they finally did speak up, the questions did not stray from the party line. Imagine 400 American college students in the same situation. That might be one argument the Chinese students might make when the president spoke about human rights. They might say we are ascendant while you and you human rights are where you are. Taper added one other anecdote, he said, "they spy on you when you're in a communist country." He said he was in the hotel room of a colleague when the phone rang; it was for him. I'll keep an eye on this for you.
On a totally different front, I saw a new MTV reality show called "Jersey Shore". Being that I am doing a reality show I find myself even more sensitive to the pejorative that reality TV has become. This new show is the perfect combination of titillation and humiliation to make it a big hit. What bothers me is not that it is a horrible depiction of Italians. Bad enough, but this is a grotesque pornographic display of bad behavior that is being foisted on our kids so some execs at these huge multi-national companies can get rich.
How do you tell a kid that good behavior pays off when he sees the opposite paying off on TV? In case you are wondering, MTV is CBS is Viacom. ComCast just bought NBC and Universal. Pretty soon there will be just one big company that doesn't care about anything but the bottom line instead of the few we have now that don't care about anything but the bottom line.
See Ya.
T
