By Rajan Menon:
Between
1978, the year Deng Xiaoping’s sweeping economic reforms were launched,
and 2011, China’s GDP increased by an average of 10 percent annually, three times that of the global economy. Now the boom times may be over.
By mid-2013, economic growth had slowed to 7.7 percent.
That’s still a roaring pace compared to the rest of the world.
Europeans, Americans and even Japanese might say about China’s slippage,
“We should all have such problems.” Still, in thirty-five years, the
Chinese polity hasn’t had to handle a prolonged economic slowdown and
one may be in the offing. Hence the debate on what the deceleration
could portend should it get worse and linger.
Is China headed for upheaval? The argument that it is seems
plausible. Eye-popping growth rates and the accompanying increase in
living standards—and of course the state’s massive machinery of
repression—have been critical to maintaining political stability and
public support for the Communist Party. Or is Beijing so skillful, so
flush with foreign-exchange reserves—and hence with the capital needed
for priming the economy and managing financial crises—that slower
economic growth is no big deal? Don’t look to the experts for
enlightenment on which take is true: they see the same data but draw
different conclusions.
St37One: Atheism Plus is incompetent at block listing people. I do not appreciate being ostracized.
Monty Pelerin: Tyranny was a word that was used frequently during the founding period of this country. Its usage is rampant once again.
The word tyranny is thrown around rather carelessly, especially when
politicians invoke it. When Bush was president, it was a popular Democrat
word. With Obama in office, it is used as frequently, but now by
Republicans and rarely by Democrats. Tyranny and accusations of it are
serious. Sadly, politicians use it whenever they disagree with the
policies of the opposing party.
True
tyranny is serious and should not be used as a tool to smear political
opponents. It is a specific condition, one which the Founders found
serious enough to initiate a revolt against England.
Now it is used more as political invective than in its true meaning.
Sadly, the politicians who bandy the word about for advantage are
unaware of true tyranny or that they are guilty of committing it.
Distorting words or misunderstanding them, however, does not alter
the consequences of the acts. It is important to understand the true
meaning of the word itself.
The Onion: Pennington, IL's only African-American family moves to the other side of
town, causing residents to reminisce about the "Black part of town."
By Michael Krieger: The folks at Funny or Die have come up with an ingenuous solution to
render the NSA’s spy program useless. Operation: Everyone Talk Like a
Terrorist All the Time. It makes a lot of sense, especially since the
government already clearly considers everyone with the ability to think
critically a potential “domestic terrorist.” Short video and really
funny. Enjoy! Source
By Madison Ruppert: Thanks to a legal loophole, the National Security Agency (NSA) has a
secret backdoor allowing the agency to search their massive databases
for American citizens’ emails and phone calls without a warrant,
according to a secret document released today.
While some officials anonymously admitted that the NSA collects communications sent or related to overseas targets, the latest document leaked by Edward Snowden reveals that the surveillance of Americans goes far beyond what was previously thought, which is saying a lot at this point.
A rule which previously remained secret and was first reported on the Guardian
on August 9 allows NSA operatives to directly search for the individual
communications of Americans using their name or other identifying
information.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a critic of the NSA, told the Guardian that the law indeed gives the NSA a loophole which enables “warrantless searches for the phone calls or emails of law-abiding Americans.”
The authority behind the loophole was reportedly approved in 2011 and as James Ball and Spencer Ackerman
rightly note, it “appears to contrast with repeated assurances from
Barack Obama and senior intelligence officials to both Congress and the
American public that the privacy of US citizens is protected from the
NSA’s dragnet surveillance programs.”
Julie Borowski: #GOPFAIL - Since the election, lots of people have been talking
about how the GOP can better "reach out to young people." I decided to
weigh in.
