Updated: America: Follow The Chinese & Save!

America, China, Economy

What a disgrace. For the past few days I’ve heard assorted American economists and commentators—socialists all—complain bitterly about the Chinese saver. Yes, the Chinese may have a democracy deficit, as American politicians never cease to remind them, but they don’t believe in debt, personal or national, as do wastrel Americans and their political overlords.

This is one reason why the Chinese economy is exploding: savings, capital accumulation, and investment are the very lifeblood of a healthy economy. Solvency and fiscal prudence are virtuous qualities, and, in the long run, lucrative.

The Chinese save up to 40 percent of their Gross Domestic Product. In fact, they behave exactly like individuals in a truly free-market would behave; they save like there is no tomorrow. Or, more appropriately, like there is no welfare state, which, indeed, the Chinese don’t have. Or if they do have social programs, these don’t meet American standards of socialism.

Or so our leading lights have been claiming throughout the week of President Hu Jintao’s visit: The reason the Chinese save so energetically is because they don’t have an adequate welfare system, the pointy-heads have puled.

Yes, this is the message from the land of rugged individualism: develop more government programs. Of course, these do no good, other than for the bureaucrats that administer them. They are, moreover, based on immoral distribution. Yet this is what we wish on China.

I guess it’s a case of “leveling the playing field”—another expression that is often lobbed at the Chinese. Translated, it means wanting to see one’s rival sapped of his vitality too.

That the Chinese plan their lives as though there were no government hand-outs to rely on has incenses American economists and commentators (at least the ones I’ve had the misfortune to hear this week). They want Bully Bush to put pressure on Hu Jintao to set up some programs for his people, and, by so doing, make them more like us: inclined to spend, because of the knowledge that Uncle Hu will pick up the tab (like Uncle Sam does so magnificently. Think Katrina).

As Henry Hazlitt reminded us in Economics in One Lesson, and as the Austrian, and classical economists before them, taught: “The rational saver, in making provision for his future, was not hurting, but helping, the whole community.” Money isn’t stored under the proverbial mattress, it is invested either directly (by buying securities) or indirectly (via the bank, which lends deposits out), thus creating steady, sustainable growth.

However, even if all Chinese were sitting on their money—a ludicrous proposition—isn’t it theirs to hoard? What about the individual’s right to keep what belongs to him without being punished by central planners and social engineers? Anyone who openly advocates such tweaking has a cheek waving his “Land of the Free” credentials in the faces of foreigners.

Since they must fend for themselves, absent government largess, the Chinese are probably the best barometers as to the true state of our intricately linked global economy. Do as they do!

The Wails Over The Wall

IMMIGRATION, Israel

Another little-mentioned fact has to do with the Israeli security fence—it is the reason there haven’t been any attacks for so long. The wall that separates Israeli from Palestinian territory—and makes liberals, libertarians and plain, old bigots like Bob Novak shriek like stuck pigs—has cut by over 80 percent the number of Israelis maimed and murdered by suicide bombers.

This barrier is not a political border—it can be dismantled. But lives taken by terrorism cannot be reconstituted. Still, mention any security fence intended to prevent undesired or undesirable human acts, and the Kumbaya Crowd launches into maudlin impersonations of the sainted Ronald Reagan, RIP: “… tear down this wall.”

The complete column, “The Wails Over The Wall,” is here.

Terror Under Hamas Vs. Under Abbas

Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Terrorism

The cameras don’t often linger at the site of a suicide bombing in Israel. Most reporters prefer the “territories,” where they can set up shop and await a staged stone-throwing. The Palestinian Authority is the journalist’s one-stop shop for all the fake David vs. Goliath images his heart desires. Simple metaphors for simple, bigoted minds, which is the stuff he traffics in. The Associated Press, ABC, or the Canadian CBC prefer to peddle this phony illusion.

CNN is careful to count the terrorist among the dead. If you tune into that network, take care to subtract one or two (depending on the trash implicated) to arrive at the number of human beings who died.

The latest scene of carnage was “a falafel restaurant in a gritty, working-class section of Tel Aviv,” as The New York Times reported. It was carried out by Islamic Jihad, which hasn’t yet been invited to join the Palestinian government, but enjoys Hamas’ firm support.

The blast killed nine people and wounded 60. There’s something else the networks rarely mention: the injuries caused by these demonic devices. As I have written:

the task facing Israeli medics has become a routine. Surgeons must slice open the victims of these fiendish devices, picking from the flesh and burrowing in the bone for embedded shards of shrapnel, ball bearings and nails. The rat poison is a diabolic touch, intended to intensify internal bleeding. If they survive, victims are left maimed and wracked by life-long disfigurement and pain.

Another little-mentioned fact has to do with the Israeli barrier; it is the reason there haven’t been attacks for so long. The wall that makes liberals, libertarians, and plain old bigots like Bob Novak shriek like stuck pigs has cut by 80 percent the deaths by suicide bombers in Israel proper.

What has changed since the Hamas hit men usurped Mahmoud Abbas’ al Aqsa Brigades in the gangland that is the Palestinian Authority? Not much:

Hamas applauded the attack, calling the April 17 bombing “a legitimate response to Israeli ‘aggression'”; Abbas applauded the attack, stating that “these kinds of attacks harm the Palestinian interest, and we as an authority and government must move to stop it.”

Contrary to MSM prattle, the blast has not exposed a rift among Palestinian leaders; it has exposed a difference in style. Abbas and his goons are of the Arafat school of Taqiyya: they lie in order to make The Community and the Quran look good. Hamasniks don’t beat around the bush. They expect to be loved just the way they are.

Moussaoui Not Mad, Just Bad (And Honest About It)

Crime, Iraq, Islam, Terrorism

According to the Associated Press, Moussaoui said that “it made his day to hear accounts of Americans suffering from the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and he would like to see similar attacks—every day.”

Family members of Sept. 11 victims exited the courtroom adamant Moussaoui should die, his callousness and cruelty having sealed his fate. Had he sniveled, sworn he had experienced an epiphany, or accepted the diagnosis of schizophrenia he was generously offered, victims may have looked upon him more favorably—as a victim too, perhaps (I can just hear the cliché, “We are all victims of this Islamic deadly ideology.”)

But Moussaoui stuck to his guns. Indeed, the Islamic terrorist is perfectly candid about why he kills, or schemes on killing. He doesn’t resort to the-camel-ate-my homework excuses, but tells it like he sees it. He kills us because he hates us.

The common criminals inhabiting Western jails, however, have made an art of using the therapeutic idiom, which they imbibe from their psychotherapist tutors, to work backwards and discover the exculpating “roots” of their behavior. Islamic criminals are different. They haven’t yet learned that “Daddy doesn’t love me” is a sufficient excuse for any crime committed in the West. They don’t need excuses—they are proud of their faith and the ghastly deeds they say it commands. These brutes exhibit not the slightest need to give their barbarism a palatable pedigree. It is Western intellectuals and pundits, not Arabs and Muslims, who developed the root-causes theories of terrorism. This is why Islamic criminals are so much more believable. When they tell us why they kill, we can take them at their word.

The evil Moussaoui also mocked Navy Lt. Nancy McKeown, who wept on the stand as she described the death of two of her subordinates. “I think it was disgusting for a military person to cry,” he snarled. “She is military; she should expect people at war with her to want to kill her.” The sounds of her sniffing meekly in front of him, he said, had made his day.

Here I have to agree with him. A representative of the military crying in front of her assailant exudes mush, not mettle. As I pointed out in “Osama’s Snickering at our Military,” OBL and his ascetic Islamists know full well that “the mentality that pervades the military, including the top brass,” is the “let-it-all-hang-out credo,” and that one is encouraged to parade emotions like one would a Purple Heart. Islamists despise us for it. More importantly, they don’t fear us because of it.

Frankly, I think that in front of the enemy, the military should suck it up.