Hong Kong Fed's Epiphany: Is Bernanke Wrong About Everything? | ZeroHedge

Well, some common sense from Hong Kong's famous bureaucrats! Wow, you mean that central planning and collectivism does not work and that the same from a central bank has risks too? Who would have thunk it?

Hong Kong Fed's Epiphany: Is Bernanke Wrong About Everything? | ZeroHedge

An Epiphany.....

A few years a go when I was working in West Africa, a friend of mine, Luca, invited me out to lunch with a few of his friends that had just returned from Bangui, Central African Republic. If you know a little about Africa, you probably know almost nothing about this place. If you know a lot about Africa, you still probably know very little about this place. The Central African Republic is landlocked, has a population of pygmies and is largely a subsistence agricultural nation. As per the CIA World Factbook...

The former French colony of Ubangi-Shari became the Central African Republic upon independence in 1960. After three tumultuous decades of misrule - mostly by military governments - civilian rule was established in 1993 and lasted for one decade. President Ange-Felix PATASSE's civilian government was plagued by unrest, and in March 2003 he was deposed in a military coup led by General Francois BOZIZE, who has since established a transitional government. Though the government has the tacit support of civil society groups and the main parties, a wide field of affiliated and independent candidates will contest the municipal, legislative, and presidential elections scheduled for February 2005. The government still does not fully control the countryside, where pockets of lawlessness persist.

The problem with the country is that there are periodic flare-ups of civil unrest and as I understand it, at least at that time, several years ago, there was an ongoing civil war.

So my friend, Luca, these young and enthusiastic workers for the United Nations and I sat down to lunch. I was very much looking forward to hearing their experiences in the wilds of the Central African Republic [CAR]. So, my questions came fast and furious and they answered them with the enthusiasm and aplomb that I expected.

I learned that they worked for a refugee agency at the UN [as I recall now]. I think that it is UNHCR and their role was too assist the refugees in the civil war there to live more comfortable and healthier lives. And this was way out in the boonies of the CAR. So I asked them about their day-to-day lives out in wilds of the jungle. They laughed. They explained to me that since there was a military curfew and since the site was more than 12 hours away from Bangui, CAR, that they never got to the site....in the whole 6 weeks that they were in CAR.

Hmmmm. I thought about this. So I asked, "What did you do for the 6 weeks that you were there?" They told me that thy spent the 6 weeks in the hotel, bored out of their skulls, watching TV, drinking excessive amounts of alcohol, swimming, sunbathing and just generally doing what 25 year olds do when they are bored and cooped up in such a place. So, these dedicated enthusiastic bunch of people, spent 6 weeks in some hotel, partying on the UN's dime, without doing an iota to help the people in Africa that were in desperate need of assistance, probably starving to death and dying of all kinds of awful jungle diseases. And believe me all of this is not cheap. The half-dozen-or-so UN employees get their 1st class [actually not first class as we know it, 1st class there, but never-the-less, not cheap] hotel accommodation paid for and a daily stipend that could keep any of us fat, happy and liquored up for quite a period of time. And why did the UN sent these kids to do a job if it was obvious that they could never get to the site? Isn't someone that sits around at the UN and asks in these civil-war torn places like CAR, can the aid get to the people? I guess no-one did the calculus or no-one really cared.

Then I had an epiphany. It struck me like a ton of bricks. We don't really assist Africa since they need it, in this case they never received the assistance. We do all of this and hire our young sons and daughters to go on adventures to exotic places and party. We do this for ourselves so we can feel like we are doing something altruistic. We give money to the needy but it is spent on useless boondoggles for our children! So that they can come home one day, they can say that they did something for the oppressed and needy of the world and they can tell all kinds of exotic stories to their friends and family and we can fawn all over them and tell them that we were so worried while they faced the dangers of wild Africa.

I quit my job in West Africa later that year. I will never again work for a multilateral aid institution.

Where The Heck Is The Recession?

Although I have noticed that liberals and Democrats are a morose bunch, always seem to see how bad things are, all the deep problems in the world and love to blame ourselves or Republicans, I had a epiphany of sorts on my last trip back to the US; Democrats are whiners and live for moaning, complaining and are looking under every rock and in every utterance for some form of victimization.

And of course, I heard a constant droning on-and-on about the horrible economy and the suffering masses and all of the liberal talking points trying to justify socialization of any risk that faces a human today. This is not my nation.

My nation is this:

I put my faith in people not in the crude machinations of blundering governments

-Milton J. Madison, August 2008

So, with unemployment at a staggering 5.7% (huh?) and starving people everywhere wandering around the streets of the US looking for scraps of food, I am curious why is it that the revision of GDP for the second quarter showed growth of 3.3% up from the initial Commerce Department estimate of 1.9%. Where is the recession for all of these liberal Democrats? I am sure that they see the recession, though, maybe I can say that they are living in their own depression (ha ha ha).

Now for a little Adam Smith lesson. Despite the growth, much of it came from stronger exports. Exports, just of themselves, add nothing to the wealth of a nation. The goods actually leave the country and the utility provided from these goods is enjoyed by others. Yes, the growth is a balancing of the imports that we enjoy (since imports are not include in GDP) and that we used to enjoy without having to work for them. Kind of a gift from the rest of the world to Americans. I guess that they really do love us!

But in the extreme and to illustrate as an indulgence of thought, imagine a nation that exports 100% of what they produce. They wouldn't last long since they would starve since all the food is exported to other countries and the people would live in the elements without clothes or homes. A nation with only money and no goods is a nation that has no wealth. Lots of money but no pockets to put them in and no goods to spend it on. Imagine the converse nation that imports 100% of what they need. They would enjoy the utility of these imported goods without the need to work for them. Citizens would be able to enjoy 100% of their time as leisure and have everything that they need. So what nation would do this transaction where they ship goods to a country without receiving something in return? How about China?

Remembering William Safire....

Back in my good old liberal days, when I was young and stupid, I happily read the dishonest New York Times, regularly. I loved reading William Safire's sprightly Sunday column, On Language, that focused on grammar, usage, and etymology of the English language.

Also, he was a regular commentator on 'Meet the Press.' In one particualry memorable discussion, where I remember that some of the commentators were exasperated by the blatant dishonesty of MIT economist Paul Krugman and his use of false and deceptive statistics, William Saifre came to his defense explaining that Krugman was not a reporter but a pundit and that pundits are not bound to rules to write the truth but only to support one's column position. This epiphany and the reality that columnists and opinion writers are not bound by holding to the truth or covering multiple facets of an issue but can actually say anything in support of their positions is something that people need to understand and digest whenever reading any editorial or op-ed