The Trifecta

To make up for lack of incidents on my trip to work yesterday, I saw three accidents on my way home from downtown Wuxi this afternoon. I first saw that a car had hit a tricycle at a cross walk. I then saw a policeman taking measurements at an accident scene involving a Mazda and a pedestrian? Finally, I saw a jeep and semi truck both with smashed windshields after a collision in which the big truck had to have been trying to make a u-turn in a strange spot.

With my son on my shoulders, I danced and grooved to footage of the punk band the Jam in concert. Previously, we had been swinging to a Sinatra TV special but the DVD suddenly went wonky much to my dismay.

Riding through the suburbs of Wuxi and Jiangsu in general, you see buildings, rubble, canals, monolithic apartment blocks, smoke stacks, dilapidated houses, potholes, highways, garbage, maniac drivers, men and women pushing carts, fields for growing food, and people, people, people.


Is the Economic Crisis a moral failure? Certainly, for many people were trying to live beyond their means, and forgot simple dictums like if you want something, you are going to have to work for it. There is also something to be said for the argument that the West, in not having children, is living for the moment and not giving a tinker's tuss for the next generation except by falling for the bogey of global warming. Moral failures are often intellectual failures. The idea that you buy a house as an investment instead of a place for a family has lead to great financial rot. But despite the problems people have with Capitalism, you are never going to find a better way in which to organize society so it can create wealth for itself.

And there is no denying that the market is amoral in many instances. There are thriving markets for porn and pop music and drugs for instance. It is this amorality that makes otherwise excellent men like the Pope wish the market would disappear or at least be subject to control by moral authorities. But we know that this control only creates the poverty that oftentimes breeds the moral amorality of Socialism. What do I suggest that the Pope do?

The first thing one should realize the market is that all the values are subjective. Something is worth whatever you think it is worth. The problem is getting other people to think this something is worth as much or less as you think it is. No one is wrong in the market about their values. The errors come from trying to know what the value the others place on a thing or things are. The Pope's problem is not the market; the Pope's problem is trying to convince people in the market that the world is as valuable as he thinks it is.

Politics and Economics are enemies. Of this there can be no doubt. That is why the politicians were trying to save the big three automakers. There was a man running for President, who saw the current economic crisis coming and his name wasn't Obama or McCain. He was Ron Paul. If he wasn't so dumb on foreign policy, he would have been up a stronger showing in the Republican primaries. But on economics, he was the only candidate with any sense. But in these times, common sense is thrown out the window as people panic.


Tony and I in the apartment all afternoon while the wife went shopping. She will be home soon. I am hoping the wife doesn't say that he was freezing under my watch. She always does except when all the windows are open in the morning to let fresh air in.


I was able to ascertain from Chinese radio that the first direct flights from Taiwan to Shanghai recently happened.


Thanks Ma and Pa for the parcel. We received it last night. Jenny likes the underwear you bought her.


Product idea: KLJs: the underwear that doubles as a dress pant.

Another product idea: AKIC sponge cake: the sponge cake that tastes more delicious after you use it to wipe the supper plates.