Education, Health: The Costs Are Supposed To Go Down, Dramatically

The costs for education and health are supposed to go down, dramatically, like the prices on computers have gone down over the years.

All educational materials can be digital and free. The education framework that America uses not even Henry Ford could recognize. There is a need for a fundamental update.

Lifelong education means you should be able to plug in any time, anywhere.

Universal high school education means putting the material out there and letting all seven billion people access it.

That also applies to community college and vocational training and college itself. All the way to cutting edge research.

These are not arguments against teachers and learning communities. We need many many more teachers. But these are teachers who fully embrace digital. They are in person but they can also be online.

Advances in robotics and artificial intelligence will mean creativity and people skills are now more important than ever before.

There is a need for a fundamental rethink on how education gets served. Broadband and education are the new infrastructure. Pouring 500 billion dollars into concrete and steel because some white guys decided to buy into racist venom is going backwards in time. But 50 additional billions into education would be nice.

You could put 10 billion into a basic Universal Basic Income program. That would be cheaper than 500 billion into concrete and steel.

Infrastructure has to be built. But for infrastructure reasons. Not as a job creation program. Not jobs of yesterday. The same folks could be absorbed into jobs in solar power. That would be legitimate infrastructure.

Health has to start with wellness. Then the free basics. And that would be the way to keep the costs down in an otherwise exploding sector.

But instead of wellness you have capitalism run amok. Nutrition is in poor shape. There is much unhealthy eating. Exercise, yoga and meditation are in short supply. America should import as many Indian yoga instructors as it has software engineers.

Access to credit has to reach the lowest income brackets. Right now the barriers are largely racial and irrational.

Donald Trump For Political Target Practice

I have begun to tune into the US election a little more. I have not liked the early September tightening of polls. It might still smell like a Hillary victory but I am not going to be happy about anything but a landslide.

And so I have decided to take Donald Trump for political target practice. The guy is a feather weight political boxer. That is my reckoning.

The Mexicans just got lucky.

The first black president has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams on the race relations front. Men of Trump's worldview used to run empires. Eight years of Barack Obama and Trump is a caricature. The guy is a total clown.  

The Truth About "Illegal Aliens"

The 11 to 16 million hard working undocumented workers are the underbelly of the American economy. They are the precise reason why America is not Japan. America has needed a steady flow of immigrants through its history to keep chugging along.

Immigrants also come to the very top. Stop immigration and America is no longer an entrepreneurial country. Only the enterprising bother to come to America. It is by definition.

And so anti immigrant bigotry and hate speech is nothing but ungratefulness.

America always has been a country of immigrants, period. Immigration is the very definition of America.

Send Donald Trump to Antarctica. He does not belong in America.

China's Only Future Is Political Reform

Barack Obama Deliberately Snubbed By Chinese

The best course is - - best as in best for the Chinese Communist Party - - that the CCP takes steps towards political reform. That means enshrining free speech and religious freedom into the Chinese constitution. Chinese nationalism is 100% in the mind. The Chinese also have a soul, just like everyone else. Then the CCP could offer two candidates for all major offices like president, governor and mayor and the people would vote and choose. So far so good. The CCP is still the only political party.

Otherwise the pressure will keep building. The Soviet Union was invincible and impenetrable until seemingly overnight it no longer was.

God has created human beings with free will. The human soul longs for the basic freedoms. It might or might not be in America's powers to see that to fruition beyond American shores. But God has Total Power. With God all things are possible.

But so far the indication is the CCP does not have the slightest intention to go in the direction of fundamental political reforms. It is wedded to the status quo. It feels like a till death do us part scenario.

In that case the pressure keeps building up until there is an explosion or implosion. The forces at march are to do with technological innovation. The Chinese can engage in only so much social media and ecommerce, only so much in global travel, only so much in rise in income before the spiritual thirst takes over. It is the most powerful force in all creation.

Barack Obama is not a weak black president Senate Republicans act racist towards. America has not seen a more powerful president, because America has never been in a more powerful position in absolute terms. The Chinese per capita income is seven times smaller with zero chances of achieving parity because you can't compete with free speech with lack of free speech. But the CCP doesn't care. With its political monopoly it only cares about the absolute GDP. It feels like it has swung past America. Warning: speed breakers ahead.

Senate Republicans and Donald Trump be damned. If Barack Obama could run for a third term he would easily win.

The American political system is a work in progress. There is campaign finance reform to do. Race and gender relations can be much better.

But the worry in China is a better state citizen relationship. How about no oppression? How about freedom? How about just being able to talk?

A tarmac insult is not something China can afford. A big chunk of China is still a Third World country.

Barack Obama could not have been elected president if he did not have street fighter political instincts. He has been a once in a 50 years kind of president. The Chinese should not underestimate this guy, not now, not a year from now, not 10 years from now.

In Nepal the Chinese have shown they don't know how a multi party democracy works. It is possible the Chinese "intelligence" is clueless about the idea of a US president in the final months of his office. The American democracy can look like a mess. It is by design. That is what free speech looks like. But the American state is as organized as any state can be at this point in time.

The Chinese people might be able to overtake America but that will never happen under the CCP monopoly, by definition. But the Chinese state itself has a shelf life of max 35 years. Before 2050 all world will have become one country. And yes, it will be a democracy.

But in the meantime we face a reality where China is a major trading partner to all major countries. That means there will be no major war. But the ideological tussle is very real and it is playing out most visibly in the South China Sea.

Authoritarian regimes, if they were to not make outlandish territorial claims, would collapse from within. Democracies have safety valves. If you are in power and you mess up, the opposition will blame you. But in an autocracy, that mechanism is missing. And so those in power project and create external threats. So the masses can vent their anger from time to time. That explains South China Sea.  

And Arunachal Pradesh.

America and India now are what America and Britain used to be. But this is a temporary arrangement until all world is one country.

Barack Obama might have a tarmac problem, but looks like the CCP has existential anxieties as a political entity. The Chinese people will see through it all soon enough.     

You do not end up in Barack Obama’s position from where he started, in Hawaii, without a birth certificate (source: Donald Trump), unless you have street fighter political instincts. It is not possible Obama got slighted and did not even notice. What the "secular" Chinese might not have noticed is the "Christian" Obama forgave, because he kept his eyes focused on the big picture. The big picture is global warming. And he decided to be "his brother's keeper." That is also the reason he brought up democracy and human rights. A democratic China could surpass America, the CCP political monopoly has a self imposed glass ceiling. So, obviously, he is not worried China might some day surpass America. Because he is "his brother's keeper." That happens to include the Chinese.

To a lot of people who work or spar with Obama, he comes across as "smarter." It is not biology. It is that he is higher up on the spiritual ladder. He simply sees more. By the grace of God.

Forgiveness is the turf of the strong, and I don't mean big defense budget strong.

You will know the Chinese "got" religion when they forgive the Japanese and the British.

China’s handling of the president’s arrival has created a narrative that the Chinese snubbed him. The reality, American officials say, is both simpler and more complicated.

Xi Jinping Cancels Nepal Visit

Assad Is Responsible For Syria Tragedy

When the people of Syria came out to peacefully protest in large numbers, Assad went after them like Hitler was going into Poland. It was like the Iranian regime in 2009. The response was so vicious, so cruel, so large scale. Armies are supposed to fight external wars.

Assad is responsible for the Syria tragedy. But he does not feel it because Syria is not a democracy.

Rajan Is Right

Raghuram Rajan, India's Departing Central Banker, Has a New Warning 

2008 was a wasted crisis. It was a crisis that could have helped the world take one big leap towards a knowledge economy. The world had an opportunity to shape globoeconomics, a new third dimension to the traditional micro and macroeconomics. Some new global institutions were needed. America needed a three trillion stimulus with much of that money ending on Main Street, but instead ended up with a much bigger monetary stimulus with all the money ending up on Wall Street, pretty much free.

If the interest rates stay at near zero for long enough, it is no longer a tool, is it? But what if that has been your only tool? Then you have no available tool the next time a big crisis hits.

Separation Of Nationalism And State

Just like the church state separation was enacted, there is a need to put in place a separation of nationalism and the state.

The nation state itself has to be reimagined.

The 2008 crisis was first and foremost a failure of the governments of the world. You can not globalize finance and not create a world government. Just like no government connected the computers of the world to the internet, finance globalized itself, spreading like a forest fire.

The kind of productivity gains that humanity has been fantasizing about for as long as there has been humanity are finally about to materialize and people are getting alarmed by it, because political and economic theory lag far behind the impending developments.

The heads of states of the world don't even have the political consciousness of the black marchers of the 1960s when they sought political equality.

Country after country across America and Europe are sprouting demagogues who are making all the wrong noise.

Political and economic theorists have to take the primary blame. And then the political leaders of the world.

The political landscape has to be thought anew. Global finance has to be reimagined. The world has been writing off trillions for lack of the right theoretical frameworks. Real lives are being impacted.

The political institutions are to meet political needs. A currency can't be a vehicle for nationalism either.

Nationalism is to do with culture, language, heritage, history, myths. It is not for political and economic institutions to meet those needs.

And, no, racism is not nationalism. Racism is racism. Racism is a heart disease, spiritually speaking. Racism is Satan saying hate each other.

God says love one another.

I vouch for separation of nationalism and state and separation of racism from the state. There should be zero tolerance for racism in the public sphere.

Donald Trump has a heart disease. He is a racist.

Hillary And The Idea Of Confronting Sexism Head On

Trump is boorish. The guy is a clown passing for a presidential candidate. I take one look at Trump and think America perhaps is a sliding power. This guy would be a joke as the Independence Party nominee.

Should not the woman wanting to be the first woman president take Trump’s sexism head on?

Trump is so incoherent and haphazard I am not sure it is even sexism. It is, but it is so much more. The guy is a sinbag. A bag full of sins.

When you get into a fight with the pig, you get dirty and the pig loves it. Going insult for insult would not be any meaningful fight against sexism.

Hillary is fighting. She is running for president. That is the fight. It is a daily grind, there is a fight every hour.

Putting one woman in the White House will not end the sexism. But 160 million women waking up will.

America is a democracy. The power is with the individual citizens, not the president.

Trump’s PVZ

Deng Xiaoping established something called SEZs in China, special economic zones.

Donald Trump has a PVZ, a policy vacuum zone. That would be his head, his skull. There is nothing going on there.

He also has a DVZ, a dollar vacuum zone. That would be his pocket. His net worth is four billion. His debt is 11 billion. The guy is swimming in the negative zone.

If you were in his position, would you release your tax forms?

The dude is proposing a 500 billion dollar "infrastructure" spend. It is not to create construction jobs for the people he insults by calling "the poorly educated."

He wants him and all his construction industry friends to go on corporate welfare. Trump’s corporate welfare for his cronies is going to exceed America's defense budget.

CWZ, corporate welfare zone, Trump’s proposed budget is CWZ.

Paths To A Clinton Landslide

"But the theory behind “fundamentals” models is that economic conditions prevail because most other factors are fought to a draw. In a normal presidential election, both candidates raise essentially unlimited money and staff their campaigns with hundreds of experienced professionals. In a normal presidential election, both candidates are good representatives of their party’s traditional values and therefore unite almost all their party’s voters behind them. In a normal presidential election, both candidates have years of experience running for office and deftly pivot away from controversies to exploit their opponents’ weaknesses. In a normal presidential election, both candidates target a broad enough range of demographic groups to have a viable chance of reaching 51 percent of the vote. This may not be a normal presidential election because while most of those things are true for Clinton, it’s not clear that any of them apply to Trump....... At various points, polls have shown Clinton drawing within a few percentage points of Trump — and occasionally even leading him — in states such as Utah, South Carolina, Texas, Alaska, Kansas and even Mississippi."

What A Clinton Landslide Would Look Like | FiveThirtyEight

Trump’s Wall

From: The Economist
The US-Mexican border stretches 1,989 miles, but the wall itself needn’t be as long thanks to the preponderance of natural borders like Rio Grande. Assuming a length of 1,000 miles (1,600 km) and a height of 40 feet (12 metres), Bernstein reckon that the wall would require $711m of concrete and $240m of cement. Including labour, the total cost of $15bn-$25bn is a bit more than Mr Trump's suggested $10bn. (Bernstein’s estimates presumably do not factor in Mr Trump’s construction expertise.)

Trump’s Full Speech On Immigration

Anyone with a skimpering knowledge of Politics 101, Economics 101, Geography 101, Wall Construction 101, Benefits Of Globalization 101, Productivity Gains Through Technological Innovation 101, No To Hate 101 will tell you Trump’s Wall is a wrong, hateful proposal. But the wall already exists. The Berlin Wall against inevitable globalization already exists in Donald Trump's mind.

In the modern era America started the trend of globalization. By now all world is on the bandwagon and rightly so.

But Donald Trump's hate is completely unhinged from facts and logic. He says Mexico will pay for it. How? Mexico runs a trade deficit with America "so we will use that money to get Mexico to pay for the wall." This guy obviously has no clue how trade deficits work.

That is like saying Obama is my pal, and he is going to pass a three trillion budget, and so I am going to get him to buy me Necker Island.

This dude actually sent people to Hawaii to do "research" on Obama's birth details.

Hate is its own fact. Hate is its own logic. Hate is its own reality. Donald Trump is proof.

In immigration speech, Donald Trump spurns softened tone and threatens Republican future - LA Times

Mexican president calls Trump's ideas 'a threat to the future of Mexico' - LA Times

Trump's Mexico visit stirs outrage: 'We don't want him' - LA Times   The anger crossed political lines. Members of the conservative National Action Party were as vociferous as people on the left. Margarita Zavala, a possible 2018 presidential candidate for the party, said Mexicans “have dignity, and we repudiate his speech of hatred.”......... Mexico City's local parliament declared Trump a persona non grata...........   “It feels like an insult,” said Elisenda Estrems, 41, an artist who was eating breakfast Wednesday morning at a Mexico City cafe. “The whole city will be up in arms. I hope they throw him out.”  ......... Mexican shops now specialize in yellow-haired Trump piñatas, ready to be smashed to bits. And the candidate is mocked in running jokes on social media and even in song......  Peña Nieto has been critical of Trump in the past, saying there is “no way” Mexico will pay for a border wall, and even comparing Trump to Adolf Hitler........  Some people suggested  Peña Nieto extended the invitation to both Trump and the candidate’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, but did not expect either to accept. It’s a tradition in some parts of Mexico, a kind of false hospitality that allows people to seem welcoming even when they’re not.