A common theme among all manufacturers we met this trip in China, Malaysia and Thailand is the scarcity of labor.  Multiple factors contribute to this situation — increases in the standard of living, more job competition giving workers more job choices, more capitalized production methods requiring more trained labor  — over time, factors like these reduce the differential cost of labor between less and more developed countries.  Low priced foreign goods to American markets, to the extent price is influenced by cheap labor, will become more expensive through natural economic trends.  The currency intervention proposed by the Obama administration to make Asian goods more expensive to Americans by fiat is unnecessary and will only further dislocate real value from monetary value.

Another theme we heard from the Thai and Malay is they do not rely upon governmental solutions to support their private market activities.  They see reliance on government by private industry as at best a pointless exercise, and at worst a necessary evil.  This differs from the views given by the Chinese state newspapers.  Their official propaganda reads more like the New York Times and the Washington Post which see government as the primary initiator of economic activity.

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Commuting across the Chao Phraya river in Bangkok

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Social network sites, western google, ability to post to blogs, etc., all available in Kuala Lumpur.  Our last couple hours in Guangzhou, China we had no facebook or twitter, and no ability to post to blogs or upload email.

China Daily opinion of March 20-21, 2010 wrote it this way:

Google in wrong game

Chinese netizens did not expect the Google issue to snowball into a political minefield and become a tool in the hands of vested interests abroad to attack China under the pretext of internet freedom.

China’s regulation to censor the content that Google provides to Chinese Internet users has become interpreted as a breach to freedom in the virtual world.  In some extreme cases, the vested interests have described the legitimate right of the Chinese government to regulate companies and control pornographic and related content as “spying” on its own people.

The magnitude of this absurdity is beyond comprehension and the motivated attacks, intolerable.

The attacks cannot be justified even if seen from Western perspective.  Many countries censor the Internet to protect the interests of innocent users.  Also, it goes without saying that a foreign company should abide by the laws and regulations of the country that it is operating and making a profit in.

The Chinese are enjoying unprecedented freedom in the country’s more than 5,000 years of history.  All the country’s newly found wealth has been created by the hands of the ordinary Chinese. The country would not have been able to perform an economic miracle if its people were unhappy with their administration and the social and political conditions.

So if the vested interests’ accusation that the Chinese government censors the Internet to spy on its own people does not originate from ignorance then it is a white lie and a malicious attack.

It will not do any good to Google either.  And by linking its exit from China with political issues, Google will certainly lose its credibility in a country that has the largest number of netizens.

With the many assorted fallacies in this analysis, I find it not at all persuasive.

The Obama media blitz to sell government health insurance to the American people, as if “sales” is an appropriate metaphor for coercion at the point of a gun, and as if the sales job ever paused for a moment, only deepens the tragic farce national politics under the left have become.  At the moment you thought it couldn’t get any more ridiculous, the propaganda freight train finds a still lower gear to shift into without a breath of hesitation.  The nightmare that was the American dream keeps devolving as we try to pinch ourselves awake.

The tea partyers had better have their electoral fun now because, come November, if they do anything other than to join a monolithic block to unseat these batty leftists currently in power, all the building anger against the destructive left will shift to them.

We’re incredibly lucky to see these sights and spend time with our gracious hosts.

BTW, add revaluing the Yuan to make Chinese goods more expensive for Americans in order to spur investment in American jobs to the list of idiotic and naive ideas to come out of the Obama administration.  Yeah, let’s have Americans pay artificially high prices for foreign goods to remove marginal capital from their pockets, while we increase their taxes to pay for the socialized health care we shove down their throats, so they feel like becoming entrepreneurs to create jobs that the feds can regulate to death and suck out more funding for the welfare state.  Just who’s going to buy these proposed American goods that are expected to cost more?  Let’s see, in Obamanomics, comparative advantage means the privilege of paying more for less.  I guess we’re all supposed to feel so good about our new socialism that we’ll just overlook our own impoverishment.

While that sinks in, here’s some more pics to ponder:

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Shanghai

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Lots of grab-shot images to upload when time permits.  Shanghai environs have changed drastically in two years.  Factories of every sort of fabrication, assembly and manufacture of every item imaginable saturate the land.  We’re either getting used to the frenetic manner of Chinese driving, or perhaps Chinese drivers are settling down a bit.  Still lots of horns, lights, random intersection crossings, near head-on collisions between cycles and cars and various other flirtations with disaster, but the overriding traffic law here seems to be, “No harm, no foul.”  The second law of the Chinese model traffic code would go something like, “Flashing lights and honking horns are simply data and do not carry an emotional message, regardless of how insistently they are employed.”  Twitter and Facebook appear to be blocked at this location in Shanghai though I think they were available in Shenzhen and certainly were in Hong Kong.  Google US is available though the news (CNN) said that Google will pull out of China next month.  I think that refers to the Chinese language Google.cn which I’ve read that the Chinese don’t use much anyway.  I hope English speakers can still access US Google though if US Google is no longer maintained for Chinese references, it would seem to become less relevant over time for English speakers over here.  Conclusion: Mandarin lessons are in order.  Headed to Xiamen this afternoon for a day/night then on to Kuala Lumpur.  Not much time this trip to smell the roses though we’re accomplishing the mission and everyone’s healthy.

Noted item from today’s Shanghai Daily, pg. A9:

“The health care reform program would affect nearly every American and remake one-sixth of the US economy.  For the first time, Americans would have health insurance.”

That sort of misinformation is just not helpful.

The day began today in China (for us) with……Fox News! and the O’Reilly Factor–which works well as a morning talk show!

Fox News.  Communist China.  Go figure.  Maybe it has something to do with Obama and Napolitano both on Fox today?  Nice to see the left venturing outside their comfort zones on CNN and MSNBC.

(Update: Over in Shenzhen this afternoon–crossing the border from Hong Kong to China, we said goodbye to Fox News.  13 years into the 100 year merger of Hong Kong and China, looks like China proper will have to wait a little longer for Fox News.)

We read some illuminating articles in the China Daily (state) newspaper in transit.  In a story about closing down ubiquitous unlicensed health clinics in China, the China Daily noted, “More than half of the rural population of China does not have adequate medical insurance.”  The rural population is around 800 million.  And migrant workers are not reimbursed for health care because people only get insurance reimbursement for fees incurred in the region they are from, not fees incurred in the region where they live and work.  So, the government is trying to shut down market health care alternatives while also using health insurance as a tool to control migration.

On the next page of the 3/16/10 China Daily (page 9), an editorial says, “In the United States, the epitome of Western culture, it is difficult for a person without health insurance or enough money to get medical treatment.  Visitors to the US, especially from poorer countries may be refused access to healthcare.”  Well, this is simply misinformation.  EMTALA guarantees health care to the point of stabilization to anyone who walks into a hospital emergency room.  Moreover, it’s an unfunded mandate. Hospitals don’t get reimbursed for care provided under EMTALA.

It would be more productive for China to focus on health care provision for its uninsured and insured people than to obfuscate their own problems with straw man allegations about the U.S. system, which, though imperfect, is pretty good.

Make it stop! She wants my soul!

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Speeches

State Representative Cindy Acree

State Senator Ted Harvey

Candidate for Secretary of State Scott Gessler

Candidate for U.S. Senate Tom Wiens

Candidate for Governor Scott McInnis

Candidate for Sheriff Brian Wiess

Candidate for U.S. Senate Ken Buck

Note:  After his speech I privately asked Candidate Buck about the strong advertising against Norton that recently began and he said he wasn’t aware of it.  I don’t know whether the report of the Declaration Alliance’s support of Buck is true, however, the negative ad campaign exists on both TV and radio and the candidate’s response to my question did not make sense to me.