the chinese century and you can take it with you

Watching the opening ceremony for the 2008 Olympics one could only be thoroughly impressed with the Chinese. It was a truly incredible and moving show, but it also showed us a lot about the Chinese we did not know.

There has been a lot written about the 1.3 billion people in china. Our biggest corporations have gambled a lot of time and money to the Chinese market. The old joke was that a billion people would need a lot of deodorant. Ha Ha.

Well after seeing the technology and the huge number of people who all performed flawlessly in the opening ceremony's. It is clear while we have been selling them right guard they have been developing technology way beyond anything we have, and organizing into a country that can meet the goals it sets for itself. It all began in the 1980s when we started building factories in china to build our computers. It would appear that they kept a few computers for themselves. Of course it was the height of American arrogance to think the Chinese would stay our manufacturing slave colony forever.

The 21 century belongs to china. One important reason is her enormous population. It is historical fact that for a country to prosper it needs a large, healthy, and educated population. While America has refused to consider universal care and has dumbed down public education and made Private education so expensive it has turned into a survival of the fittest scenario. The Asisn countries have done the opposite and have prospered. Perhaps instead of figuring out new ways milk every last drop of equity out of anything possible and leave only debt in our wake. We should try putting America back on track with that quaint old fashion idea " Made In America "

On a totally different subject. There has been a subtle population shift in America. As more suburban homes have gone into foreclosure. more and more of these homes have been rented to section 8 people. This has resulted in a rise in crime in what used to be expensive suburban communities. Which has resulted in lowering already falling home prices.

The main motivator in this is the federal section 8 program. Which subsidises 60% of the rent for the poor people in the program. It has the unfortunate effect of putting the local police in position of having to deal with big city crime that never would have occurred if it had not been for a federal program that gave people something they did not earn. It also puts the local school districts in a position where these districts have to deal with problem students, and more of them.

The interesting part is that the federal government has from forced busing to forced integration now to forced housing imposed programs on the states and municipalities. That only move the problems from the inner cities to the suburbs. The question " is this fair to anyone involved and has it worked " This is an issue that is at the heart of the racial problems in this country. Is this they way to solve this problem?