Keynesians and most economists confuse money (fiat money in our case) with wealth. Wealth is only created from what is called “real savings” which means money derived from productive activity which is saved and not consumed. The more real savings we have, the quicker the economy will recover because real savings are the capital needed to fund future economic activity. If it were any other way, then countries like Zimbabwe would be wealthy. You can’t print your way out of a recession/depression.

China should not always be compared to the perfect world but rather to the world it only recently emerged from. The White Lotus Rebellion (1796-1804), two Opium Wars (1840, 1860), the Taiping Rebellion(1851-1864), the Sino-Japanese War(1895), the Boxer Rebellion(1900), the fall of the Qing Dynasty (1911), the Japanese invasion and WW II (1937-1945), the Chinese Civil War (ending 1949), the Great Leap Forward (1958), the Cultural Revolution (1966-1978)—the history of China over the last two hundred years has been one of bloody internal revolts, lost wars and disruptive social experiments. All this in a country that from its still influential Confucian past places great emphasis on social harmony and obedience to authority. Nobody knows what the average Chinese really thinks about restrictions on the internet since taking surveys on this question undoubtedly is not permitted. The older generation might have a different opinion than the younger. But my guess would be that most Chinese do not want to risk a return to the chaos of the recent past and perhaps reluctantly are willing to accept restrictions on the internet so long as prosperity and stability continue. And I also believe that the majority of Chinese – though clearly not all—will regard Google’s departure as another arrogant assertion of Western moral superiority.

Simple Keynesian economics holds that raising taxes or cutting government expenditures amounts to the same thing. Wrong. Raising taxes to pay for bloated and unproductive government expenditures and entitlements is a huge negative for productivity and economic growth. Only government spending cuts make any economic sense. One reads endless tut tutting about how tax evasion is a national pastime in Greece. I would ask why would productive citizens in the private sector willingly submit to a confiscation of their incomes to finance a bloated public sector? What’s in it for them? Macroeconomic policies that ignore microeconomics are recipes for disaster.

George Bernard Shaw long ago observed, “Do not do unto others as you would have them do unto you. They may have different tastes.”

Meanwhile, in church this morning, one of our ministers prayed for “the health of our ecosystem.” It makes sense that churches should be turning their attention to the environment, now that sin is no longer a problem.

I think one should view the actions of the US Government (or governments in general) as one views meteorological events. The US Government as well as the atmosphere is not really a part of you and doesn’t care what you think, nor can you really get away from it. The best thing to do is keep an eye on it and try to get out of its way when it is behaving ominously. One should respond more like ‘Darn, it looks like a big storm is coming, should I hunker down or should I flee)’ to Obamacare, rather than trying to declare a pointless war against the forces of nature.

Here are the 10 factors that Chancellor flags. They suggest China’s boom will go bust. Each item starts by referencing a specific classic bubble indicator, and follows with the specific China variant (in parens). China Bubble? 1. Great investment debacles generally start out with a compelling growth story (The China Dream) 2. Blind faith in the competence of the authorities The Communist Party of China We Trust) 3. General increase in investment (Chinese investment Boom) 4. Corruption (rampant in China) 5. Easy money (Money supply grew by nearly 30%, interest rates maintained well below nominal growth rates). 6. Fixed currency regimes (Chinese currency, the renminbi, is pegged to the U.S. dollar) 7. Rampant credit growth (new bank lending increased by nearly RMB 10 trillion, a sum equivalent to 29% of GDP) 8. Moral hazard (China’s leading banks, among the world’s largest by market value, are seen as too big to fail) 9. Precarious financial structures (Chinese banks are particularly reluctant to report problematic loans). 10. Strong credit growth and rapidly rising property prices (a widespread belief that the property prices can only go up)

Don Boudreaux reminds us that when the stimulus was sold it was with a promise that 90 percent of the jobs created or saved would be in the private sector. Before anyone can focus on the outlandish claims made for the stimulus, we now have the outlandish claims made for the health bill. No doubt we are about to hear outlandish claims for the financial regulation bill

I argue that government’s size and centralization were inconsistent with the increased dispersion of knowledge. With knowledge now highly specialized and dispersed, we need power to be dispersed also, or we will see more catastrophes like the financial meltdown. This Administration instead is trying for more centralized control.