Sunday, September 26th, 2010
MALCOLM MOORE, - The Telegraph (U.K.)
Stephan: Few American media ever mention this Chinese policy but it has had an extraordinary effect on China, and is one of the largest social experiments ever carried out.
SHANGHAI — ‘We never planned this, but despite the problems we knew it would cause, we were over the moon,’ he said. ‘How much longer can the one-child policy last, anyway?’
When China introduced its drastic population controls, officials promised that it would lift them after 30 years – an anniversary which falls this weekend. Aware of the resentment the policy would cause, the government said it was a temporary measure in response to China’s high unemployment and food scarcity.
‘In 30 years, when our current extreme population growth eases, we can then adopt a different population policy,’ read the announcement from the Communist Party Central Committee.
But today, the one-child policy remains firmly in place and government officials cannot shake the idea that it has played an important role in China’s economic miracle.
With only one child to care for, parents have been able to save more money, enabling banks to make the loans that have funded China’s huge investments in infrastructure.
Meanwhile, officials claim the policy has conserved food and energy and allowed each child better education and healthcare.
‘We will continue the one-child policy until at least 2015,’ said the National Family Planning Commission earlier this year.
In his home in Beijing, Mr Yang, […]
No Comments
Sunday, September 26th, 2010
Stephan: There is new research showing that Continuous Pressure CPR is better and easier for most people to do in a crisis. I urge you to watch this video and learn this technique.
http://medicine.arizona.edu/spotlight/learn-sarver-heart-centers-continuous-chest-compression-cpr
-- Stephan
No Comments
Saturday, September 25th, 2010
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON, - Tax.com
Stephan: I think part of the problem in our public discourse is that the difference between actual facts, and ideology has become hopelessly blurred. In fact we have the social science now to evaluate what works on the basis of data, not ideology. Here is an example. Unless someone can offer a countervailing body of data, which I think unlikely, I take it that the Bush tax cuts, and the tax cuts being proposed now by Republicans, have been proven to be a failed theory through experimentation. The conversation should move on.
David Cay Johnston is a Tax Notes columnist. The Washington Monthly calls him 'one of the country's most important journalists' and the Portland Oregonian says his work is the equal of Ida Tarbell, Upton Sinclair and Lincoln Steffens. At The New York Times, Johnston received a 2001 Pulitzer Prize for exposing tax loopholes and inequities. He now teaches the tax, property and regulatory law of the ancient world at Syracuse University College of Law and Whitman School of Management. He is the author of two bestsellers on taxes, Perfectly Legal and Free Lunch. His next book, The Fine Print, will be published in 2011.
(Click through to see the actual tables.)
The 2008 income tax data are now in, so we can assess the fulfillment of the Republican promise that tax cuts would produce widespread prosperity by looking at all the years of the George W. Bush presidency.
Just as they did in 2000, the Republicans are running this year on an economic platform of tax cuts, especially making the tax cuts permanent for the richest among us. So how did the tax cuts work out? My analysis of the new data, with all figures in 2008 dollars:
Total income was $2.74 trillion less during the eight Bush years than if incomes had stayed at 2000 levels.
That much additional income would have more than made up for the lack of demand that keeps us mired in the Great Recession. That would mean no need for a stimulus, although it would not have affected the last administration’s interfering with market capitalism by bailing out irresponsible Wall Streeters instead of letting the market determine their fortunes.
In only two years was total income up, but even when those years are combined they exceed the declines in only one of the other six years.
Even if we limit the analysis by starting in 2003, when the dividend and […]
No Comments
Saturday, September 25th, 2010
Stephan: This is going to be a fascinating social experiment. Mayor Booker has a clearly articulated idea of what he wants to do with Newark's schools and, now, he has the money to put it into practice.
My hat is off to Mark Zuckerberg for making this possible. Maybe out of this we can find a way to make the school experience successful for inner city low income kids.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced a $100 million gift to the beleaguered public schools of Newark, New Jersey, to help improve public education in a city he has no connection to.
The billionaire announced the grant on Friday on the Oprah Winfrey television show. He denied suggestions the timing was aimed at deflecting attention from a movie that depicts the 26-year-old in an unflattering light.
‘I’ve had a lot of opportunities in my life, and a lot of that comes from … having gone to really good schools. And I just want to do what I can to make sure that everyone has those same opportunities,’ Zuckerberg told Winfrey about his gift to a city once the backdrop for Philip Roth novels but more recently struggling with crime, corruption and decay.
On a conference call for reporters with Newark Mayor Cory Booker and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Zuckerberg said he chose Newark — a city to which he has no tangible connection — after meeting Booker at a conference this summer.
He said he was simply impressed by the mayor’s plans.
The gift brings together two of the Garden State’s rising political stars from opposite sides of the political divide.
Youthful Democrat Booker is a […]
No Comments
Saturday, September 25th, 2010
ROBERT BARNES, Staff Writer - The Washington Post
Stephan: Speaking as a vet I find this persecution of gay and lesbian service members hurtful to national security -- and just plain bigoted and nasty.
A federal judge Friday ordered the reinstatement of an Air Force nurse discharged from the military under the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy that forbids openly gay service members. It was the latest judicial setback for a law under attack in both the nation’s courtrooms and the halls of Congress.
U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton announced to a packed courtroom in Tacoma, Wash., that evidence at a six-day trial showed former Air Force Reserves Maj. Margaret Witt was an ‘exemplary officer’ who should be ‘reinstated at the earliest possible moment.’
‘Good flight nurses are hard to find,’ Leighton wrote in a 15-page opinion.
In a statement, Witt said she was proud of her career and wanted to serve her country. ‘Wounded people never asked me about my sexual orientation. They were just glad to see me there,’ she said.
Witt was represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, which said it was the first time a judge had ordered a reinstatement of a service member discharged under ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’
Leighton had dismissed Witt’s first challenge to her 2006 dismissal. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit told the judge to reconsider the case under a standard of review that […]
No Comments
