China Stimulus Package:
Below is an excerpt from a NYT article on the Chinese govt.'s stimulus package. It is in the main true that just about all the pundits in the U.S. see China as the holder of one of the trump cards for rescuing the world's economy in general and that of the U.S. in particular. It is interesting to observe how China is shaping its stimulus package. It is obvious that it is full of "pork" according to the definition of the very outspoken critics of the Obama plan. Maybe China knows something our knee jerk right wing ideologues don't.

Think about this for a minute. The free market mantra of the far right obviously works for the rich all the time. This is why they are unwilling to even consider alternatives. They cry foul if asked to pay even the smallest incremental tax and are completely oblivious to the fact that taxes on the poor increases daily because of the very nature of poverty. Observe the Chinese plan through the prism of the right.

Mr. Wen said that the central government would significantly increase spending on schools, hospitals and clinics, low-income housing, environmental programs and other projects aimed at improving people’s lives.
He also reaffirmed plans to raise subsidies to farmers, old-age pensions and income grants to China’s poorest citizens, and said spending on “social safety net” programs would jump 17.6 percent, or about $6.4 billion.

If such a thing as sin exists there is but one sin: Greed. In America more than anywhere else on earth greed is enshrined in the pantheon of success as the single most necessary quality for achieving success. Typically it is never called by its real name but by covers like "smarts", "balls", "chutzpah", even "genius". But under any cover it is still what it clearly is: greed. As our current economic crisis clearly proves it is the root of all our evils and the de facto cause of our ongoing seemingly intractable dilemma. And truth be told it is even now being displayed by the same callous people who brought the "free market" to its very knees. Of course the venerable "free marketeers" disagree whole heartedly and in the most crass inanity of my life they now are trying to blame the new president for the disaster he inherited and is trying with all his might to address intelligently.

Ironically the Chinese govt. is now prodding its citizens to moderate their penchant for saving as under current conditions the intensive saving habits of the Chinese population is hazardous to any plan to effectively address the current economic crisis.