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RedditThere has never been anything like it--not in business, at least. The Chinese work their tails off earning billions of dollars and then, instead of spending their profits, Mao Zedong's grandchildren lend us Americans back the dollars we've paid them so that we can buy yet more stuff from the commie-capitalists. We buy their baby booties and television sets, and they take the money and lend it back to us. It's like getting the contents of your local Super Wal-Mart for free, but in Washington this strange circularity has been the cause of nonstop bitching and moaning for years.
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Raging Inflation
Nicholas von Hoffman: Our paychecks are disintegrating as we drive them to the bank. Forget hope and change: why aren't the candidates talking about inflation?
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The 2008 Student Loan Blues
Nicholas von Hoffman: Some 200,000 college students won't qualify for loans in September, and millions more will pay higher interest rates. Can they count on Obama to help them out?
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The Bear Stearns Conspiracy
Nicholas von Hoffman: Americans know all the details of the John Edwards affair. But they remain in the dark about a scandal that affects the livelihoods of millions. Who orchestrated the fall of Bear Stearns?
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The Politics of Pandering
Nicholas von Hoffman: Until they come up with real solutions to our current economic crisis, Obama and McCain should stop trying to buy votes with fuel rebates.
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A Devil's Dictionary of Politics
Nicholas von Hoffman: With millions of first time-voters expected to go to the polls in November, never has an insane political system been more in need of explanation. You won't find much help here.
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Obama's Challenge to America's Parents
Nicholas von Hoffman: He has taken black parents to task for failing to inspire their children; it's a message that needs to be addressed to white America as well.
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How Wall Street Wrecked Your Retirement
Nicholas von Hoffman: The architects of America's disfunctional financial system allowed Wall Street gamble with our retirement savings--and now they appear to have lost it.
Washington did not gloat that commie pinkos might have been hornswoggled into paying too high a price for Unocal. The sound of gnashing teeth and thumping breasts reverberated through the nation's capital. Warnings against a nightmarish color combination of red economics and yellow peril filled the air. Irresistible pressure was put on Unocal's board not to sell out to Sino-collectivism or communists in capitalist clothing.
We have been there before.
In the 1970s the air was heavy with "woe is us" when the Arabs, flush from a big jump in oil prices, were thought to be about to buy California and ship it to Saudi Arabia. Instead, those Arab guys trimmed their beards, threw off their djellabas and hit on our women.
In the 1980s it was the Japanese who were giving editorial writers hissy fits. Even though they wore suits and were good at math, they scared the hell out of the policy-wonk community when it was learned that they were using the profits gained from selling us superior automobiles to snap up Pebble Beach Golf Course and Rockefeller Center. In the end, they lost their kimonos on both deals.
The Unocal board of directors caved to the political clamor. The company is being sold to the lowest bidder. Elsewhere Canadians, who prefer profit to principle, quickly made themselves a heck of a lot of it by selling PetroKazakhstan, an oil company in the country of more or less the same name, to another Chinese outfit. Unocal stockholders looked on as they suffered a billion-dollar cash loss and they still have to pay for the Cristal.
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