OK, I wanted to avoid belaboring the politics here, but you asked for it. My response is, How many Tibetans are there in President Obama’s cabinet? Answer: as many as in China’s politburo.

The question Twofish raised was the likelihood of a Tibetan becoming a major politician in China versus the U.S. My answer was and still is “about the same either way”. In other words, the chances in either case are minimal but not zero.

There are indeed lots of Tibetans in the Communist Party. You probably didn’t know this because people in the U.S. have been so heavily brainwashed that they have no idea of the true situation. The vast majority of Tibetans actually support the Communist Party because they remember how cruel the former government was.

The Communists who ousted the former rulers of Tibet may not be angels but they are vastly kinder and more enlightented than the Dalai Lama and his cronies were, and the people know it. The ancien Tibetan regime was literally a slave state, and most of the people are vehement about not wanting their former owners back. The Tibetans you hear from most loudly are of course those very owners, or their descendents in exile, who naturally dream of their former cushy lives. Existence is so much more comfortable when one is served at all times by cringing slaves.

You probably remember the riots in Tibet last year, just before the Olympics. What the propaganda outlets in the West have concealed from you is how small those were: a few dozen agitators, at the very most, were involved; the vast bulk of the Tibetan population was completely uninterested. The Communist Party has been doing a good job in China, Tibet included, and the people recognize that.

If you thought the Dalai Lama has renounced slavery or he wouldn’t have been Nobel laureate for Peace, you would be wrong. He has not because he cannot. If he ever spoke out against slavery, he would instantly lose the support of all the other former slaver masters — which is practically all the important people in his government-in-exile. And regardless of his stance on slavery he would have trouble holding onto power if he ever became the supreme ruler of Tibet once more. The Nobel Peace Prize will not make the ordinary Tibetan forget the slave whippings.

Do you understand now?

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“National trade balances are very important because they tell us what share of the product consumed in a country is produced overseas.”
—Remind me again why we care where our T-shirts are made? Personally, I prefer $3 shirts to $30 shirts, but maybe I’m the exception. As for your Toledo worker (representing a massive 7% of the US population), I didn’t quite catch why (s)he has the right to drive down the standard of living of the other 93%. Is it some a laborers-are-sacred kind of thing?

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Oh, and simple point of information: Nike, Dell, Disney and Microsoft don’t have production facilities, in the US or elsewhere. What they have a massive value-generating machines that produce products the world wants to buy. What they don’t have is a bunch of dirty, dangerous factories. Not a one.

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Beans,
Can you name two Tibetan’s in the Chinese Communist Party politburo? How about in the Central Committee.

Trick question: there aren’t two in either body.

I am less worried now that we have a President who will recommend to Congress a decrese in defense spending and taxation on those whose income is over $250,000.

Of course, any taxation scheme cannot do much in one year. It has taken us decdes to get in this mess. BUT, this is the only President in my memory who aims to add to revenue and reduce spending – as soon as the emergency is over.

Keyenes did not recommend what the U.S. has been doing for the last 3 decades. He said the Central government should return to a surplus as soon as the depression was over.

In thirty years of a fiscal surplus, the huge debt can be whittled down to size – despite all the demands placed upon the government.

I went to engineering school right after the Arab Oil Embargo. Alt energy was a popular subject at the time and I even took a couple courses in it.

The theoretical conversion efficiency of a silicon solar cell back then was 15%. It still is. There have been cost reductions in manufacture(plastic film substrates), but the actual conversion efficiency they get is 5%-8%.

Not much else has changed since, either.

The only large scale, low or zero carbon solution is nuclear power.

I would not go that far. The U.S. and China are not quite so different as you seem to think: each is ruled by a small group of people. Democracy in the U.S. is only a façade; the same plutocrats continue to rule, regardless of the party nominally in power. In practical terms there is really not much difference between the two systems of politics.

Twofish wrote: “Some of the politicians are idiots, but the US political system is far, far more idiot-proof than the Chinese one is.”

I would not go that far. The U.S. political system is more “idiot-proof” than China’s only because the U.S. is wealthier: it has more room for error. In theory, a democracy should be more resilient, but in practice the U.S. doesn’t really have a democracy.

Twofish wrote: “It has the world best research universities, some of the world best companies. It has an extremely open immigration system. An extremely influential and powerful cultural production system. Some of the most efficient factories in the world. That not even getting into the 12 carrier battle groups and 2500 nuclear bombs.”

These are all characteristics of wealth, and they can vanish. Ask the Arabs, the French, and the British. All of them have had at one time or other the best universities, the most influential cultures, and the strongest militaries.

Twofish wrote: “Who do you think has a better chance of being President? A Tibetan kid in Lhasa or a Tibetan kid in New York City?”

I would say both have about the same chance: minimal. Believe it or not, there are lots of Tibetans in the Chinese Communist Party.