How to solve our problems (updated)

1.       We consume more than we produce. Cut down on consumption, applied to both citizens and government. Our false prosperity depends too much on consumer spending. It has created all imbalances including Federal deficit and trade deficit.

Raising the interest rate would reduce consumer loans and investment loans at the expense of the stock market, building industry and big-ticket sales. We have to bit the bullet before it is too late.

2.       We borrow more than we save. US saves about 2% while China saves about 15%. Save more and do not max out our credit cards. We cannot postpone our debts to next generations. Once-the-richest country borrows from the once-the-poorest country to support our spending.

3.       We are not as competitive as we were in the 50s and 60s. Do not give out money generously to foreign countries. When the government spends more in paying dividends of our gigantic national debts, we have less money to invest in infrastructure, education... that would boost our competitive edge.

4.       The expenses of endless wars should go to investment for our future such as infrastructure. Why we protect Japan, NATO countries and some countries that are wealthy?

We no longer depend on oil from Middle East, so we do not need to use military force to protect our oil route.

Does Vietnam today threaten us? Why we have to force the world to follow our way of life?

We need to concentrate on cyber security that could collapse our financial systems and expose our secrets / technologies.

5.       The world is more competitive (esp. China) and it looks like it is getting worse. Do better negotiation with our trade partners. Trade war is not the solution but taking out trade barriers to our products is. We have to understand why we are not competitive.

6.       We need to give up some sectors such as those that are labor- intensive and/or environmentally harmful - evaluate benefits and losses.

7.       We need to motivate our able welfare recipients to work to take up the jobs currently performed by illegal aliens. Our generous welfare encourage folks not to work. If they work, they would lose all the subsidies. They are lazy but not stupid.

8.       We need MORE (not less) H-1B visas to attract top scientists, engineers... to remain in our competitive edge. However, only let immediate children come. Many of their parents come here and collect welfare to further burden our entitlement system.

9.       We need to balance the budgets, cut down entitlements, fund research, fund infrastructure (including security to protect our IP)...

10.   We need to be doers instead of talkers. While we talked about the high speed rail (HSR) in California (that may not be useful here), China has over 60% of the global HSR. To start, get the two parties to sleep in the same bed. They disagree with each other if the idea is not from their own party.

11.   Our children cannot compete with Chinese, Japanese and Koreans. They spend too much time in enjoying life. If you believe they will achieve the same in life, you believe in fairy tales. Education starts at home. When we have too many single parent families and teenage mothers, do we have a future? We need to protect our youths from shootings and drugs.

12.   The military might should be supported by a strong economy but not in our case. If we were a company, we have been bankrupted with debts and entitlements. We have to put our priority and effort in improving our economy and be competitive.

Realistically, most proposals above cannot be executed by politicians. They are more long- term solutions that the politicians are not interested in. The voters want to have the maximum benefits with least taxes. We are a nation of free loaders.

We are still leading the world in many sectors. We still have top-notch universities and profitable multi-national corporations. Do not live in denial that we are not declining. Check out any top-notch college or any big high-tech corporation, and you can find many foreign faces compared to 30 years ago. Most are new immigrants and their children.

We may be following the footsteps of the great British Empire. Our technology revolution since WW2 may collapse like the British Industrial Revolution. Our reserve currency could follow the British pound in losing the status. Hopefully we will make corrections to reverse the trend. If the trend does not reverse, hopefully it is not in my life time.

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The above is from my book "Can China Say No?". Click here for more info in Amazon.com.

Pictures on Canadian Rockies

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Canadian Rockies

It is beautiful and should be in everyone’s bucket list. We traveled from Vancouver to Calgary taking train in the first part of the journey.

·        FlyCanada in Vancouver is breath-taking. We all enjoyed the virtual reality of flying over the beautiful scenery in Canada.

·        We had 3 or 4 times of shark fin soup. It is banned in many states including my home state. It may be good to strike a balance as sharks could be over-populated. Do not know whether it is true or not.

·         Chinese contributed a lot to railroad building in US and Canada without recognition. You do not see any yellow faces in the pictures taken in every milestone of the project. The tour guide told us that there were about 50,000 Chinese to connect the last part of the railroad in Canada. Many Chinese died due to assigning the riskiest tasks such as using primitive explosives. It happened to be the toughest part of the project. Next year will be the anniversary of the “Golden Spike”.

·         It may be not that interesting to most tourists on how they solved the problem of compensating for the huge height drop in the railway before digging a tunnel thru the mountain. The railroad goes back to the mountain via another tunnel at a lower slope. I thought it might be better and cheaper to have the railroad slopping down before the tunnel. They must have their reasons.

·         Canadian Rockies is beautiful with fresh air and clean water. It reminds us the best things on earth is free if we maintain them without pollution.

·        Canadians are environmentally conscious. Canada stops building many pipelines due to the potential environmental damages. It exports oil but imports gasoline. Most likely they will relax some restrictions and/or build refineries; money always talks louder than senses.

·         The sudden interest in lumber is due to Trump talking about 50% on lumber from Canada. US has a lot of lumber but needs a lot of imported lumber to build houses. Canada may consider shipping them to China. We would protect the loggers but consumers will pay more.

·        Canada has a lot of pine trees. Lumber has many different grades depending on the tree and part of the tree. The lowest grade is good for making paper. The better grade the tree such as cedar, the longer it lasts and the more expensive it is. Pines in southern California are lower grade due to the tendency to split when nailed.

·        I saw many trees that were burnt down. I guess they are Lodgepole pine. The tour guide told us it was good for the forest to rebirth as the heat makes the bearing cones open.

·        Why not cut them down selectively such as one in every four? It would bring some income, protect the environment (less carbon dioxide during burning and having enough trees for the birds)... They must have reasons that I do not know (see my friend’s explanation next).

·         From my friend:  “Forest ecosystems are complex and the science of forestry is not nearly as simple as most people seem to think.

Selective logging is widely practiced, and can be ecologically less damaging than clear-cutting, but neither method benefits the forest the way fire does. Logging is agriculture, extracting nutrition and energy from the ecosystem, whereas fire is a recycling process.

It's a lot easier to assign economic value to timber products than to ecosystem values, which is why forest fires are almost universally characterized as destructive.”

When you’re rich, you can be kind to the environment. Or, let nature take care of herself.

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Travel, 
  A taste of Ireland, Baltic Cruise   

Random thoughts

Trump’s first pardon

I believe the punishment on the lady is too harsh, which was based on the frustration of the failure in stopping drugs. Now, Trump has to pardon similar cases and many potential offenders may believe it would not be in jail forever in pushing drugs.

Next Congress

From the mid-term elections, I bet the Congress will be controlled by the Democrat and Trump will have a hard time to pass his bills.

G7 summit

It will be G6 without Trump or G1 with Trump alone or G8 with Russia in. Trump will be sitting in the kids’ table all alone (a joke). EU depends on us on our trade and our contribution to their NATO. We have to find out why we’re not as competitive as before and ask them to take out unfair barriers to our products.

Cheats

For every disabled here, how many pretend to be disabled? Even a famous politician with blonde hair and blue eyes pretended to be a native Indian to get the goodies for her college education and career.

Nice to be poor?

With the food stamps / free food from soup kitchens and other subsidies, how can you starve? Last week I paid $2 for a pizza for two for lunch. The super market and BJ offer cooked chicken for $5 that can feed four.

In Mass. health care is free for low-income folks. If the disease is addiction to alcohol or drugs, the state should help them but they have to help themselves first.

Kill one and warn millions

Singapore’s punishment on any crime is tough; you will be punished for not flushing in public places. The result is reduction in crimes including drugs.

China has a death punishment for having sex with minors. You do not hear this crime committed since. On the opposite end, India with less punishment has been experiencing the same crime quite often. The worst is having sex with babies and it has happened many time.

Teach the poor how to fish

It is better to teach the poor how to fish instead of giving them fish for the rest of their lives.

There are teenage mothers of 5 generations under the same roof. They set up poor example for the next generation. They need to break the cycle. Generous welfare is not of them but teaching them to work skills.

My x-coworker did his share for teaching the low-income kids. The result is deplorable. Sometimes the kids did not show up. He told me some kids' parents were prostitutes or disability cheaters or in jail. These kids need good examples from their parents.

My part

I have done my part in my own practical way. My taxes last year are many times the averages. I do mind spending my money on wars and helping the poor the wrong way. I hope to train them skills so they will not depend on it forever. Welfare should be a temporary safety net to able recipients.

Africa

A lot of donations to Africa will be as harmful as no charities. The local farms cannot compete with freebies. The major problem is too many births per woman. How can Africa feed her explosive population? Need education, public messages... They have to know no one will bail them out and charities are not forever. The corrupt officials benefit most by stealing money from the donations, so they encourage more births.