Josh Mandel, a Ohio Senate candidate, is anti-Afghan refugees despite the fact that his grandparents came to this country as refugees.  He calls the Afghan refugees "alligators".  I guess that means if you take them in, eventually they will eat you.  He said there are terrorists among them, that they will bring COVID here, and there will be many child brides.  As if we don't have domestic terrorists, lots of COVID cases and many teenage single moms ourselves.  He said there should be zero refugees allowed in.

When confronted with the fact that his grandparents came as refugees on a military ship in 1949, his campaign doubles down and say that it is "nonsense" and "degrading" comparing Holocaust refugees to the refugees of today.   Well, yes, in 1949 the Nazis were out of power and couldn't kill the Jews anymore.  The Afghan refugees, many of whom worked for the U.S., are in grave danger if left behind because the Taliban is in power today.  We defeated the Nazis but we lost Afghanistan back to the Taliban.  So I think it is degrading for Mandel to call these refugees terrorists and want to leave them in Afghanistan to die.

All of us in this country are either immigrants or have ancestors who are immigrants.  So to be anti-immigrant or anti-refugees is to be anti-American.  I think Mandel's grandparents would be turning over in their graves if they know their grandson's stand.  But Mandel is far from the outlier, there are many in this country who think like him.  But prejudice is not confined to any race.  I know of Asians and Latinos who are anti-immigrants.  Shame on those people.

 Woke up this morning with the news that the Dow is down more than 600 points.  The main reason being that the Chinese giant real estate company Evergrande maybe defaulting on its debts.  This sends shock waves through the financial world.  But I don't think this will trigger a 2008 like financial crisis in China and spread to the rest of the world.

Real estate companies like Evergrande have been rising in China for couple of decades.  With a rising middle class and constant stream of people moving from rural to urban areas to work, building of houses and apartments were going at neck breaking pace in China.  With money to invest but not a great deal of confidence in the Chinese stock market, the people were putting their money in real estate.  Some people were buying two or three apartments, putting down money before the apartments were built.  Sometimes their life savings were invested in buildings that were still on the drawing board.

Evergrande was doing great in real estate but was branching out to other businesses.  They own the biggest soccer team in the country, building the biggest soccer stadium, investing in pig farms, bottled water, solar energy etc.  They accumulated a lot of debt.  The real estate surge in china has slowed.  Most people who were going to move to urban areas have already done so.  There is a very low birth rate in China which may not change in the future.  So the confidence of people and the banks on Evergrande has decreased.  

Evergrande, which is listed in the Hong Kong Exchange, has seen its price gone down almost 90% in recent months.  This has the effect of bringing down other real estates companies in China.  This in turn affect foreign investors who have positions in these companies.  The idea that a large Chinese company would default scares the rest of the world.  They have always said that when America sneezes, the rest of world gets a cold.  This applies to China today as well.

I think ultimately Evergrande won't go out of business completely.  It has property assets it can sell.  China will help in some way although not necessary a direct bailout.  It may push banks to lower the interests that Evergrande is due to pay.  Evergrande, like many U.S. companies in 2008, may be too big to fail.  China has been wheeling in some companies who have made big money but were taking more risks.  This will make China put on brakes on some capitalistic practices that have made money for China.  Regulations are sure to follow.  The regulations will be much more strict than those the U.S. put in after 2008.  They will be even more restrict than Elizabeth Warren wanted!

 In the three days I was in Portland, I observed a few things.  While it is much smaller than LA and much less diverse (there were very few minorities that I came across), the homeless population and the graffiti reminds me of LA or New York.  There were also a lot of businesses in downtown that were boarded up.  I was told it was due to the protests and the vandalism in the past year.  

It is interesting that with a relatively small minority population, Portland was the site of many and lengthy protests and counter protests.  The left and the right squared off in this city.  I have not study this so I won't have much to comment.  But I do sense that there are a lots of liberals around the city and a lot of conservatives in the rural parts of the state who don't like anything going on in the city.

Unlike LA where it takes a good half hour or more to get out to the suburbs, it takes only a few minutes to leave Portland.  But in those few minutes, the world changes dramatically.  I find out that the price of homes been surging in the suburbs.  I wonder if the people who live in these nice homes think about the homeless problems of the city.  Here in Southern California, the city of LA seems like very far away.  But in Portland, the distance is not that far but is the reality closer to the minds of the suburbanites?  In either case, when is the gap between the haves and have nots explode in our faces?

We found out the Lyft driver who took us to Portland airport is from Afghanistan.  He has been in the U.S. for five years but has family that is still in Afghanistan.  Obviously he is worried about their safety.  He said he is making a decent living and is happy to be in the U.S.  But he thinks it was a mistake for the U.S. to go into Afghanistan.  He understands about going after the terrorists after 9/11 but he believes that the military actions of the U.S. have caused more deaths and sufferings in the Middle East than the Muslim extremists like the Taliban.  I would like a woman's perspective on the Taliban.  But I would agree with this driver that you don't advance democracy with guns and bombs.  You just cause more suffering and help the extremists recruit more fighters.

One last thing.  We saw many homeless people in downtown as mentioned.  Many of them had long hair, were unshaved and uncleaned.  Then from a distance a clean cut man with glasses riding a bike was coming toward us.  A "normal" guy, I thought.  But as he passed us, we noticed that he was totally naked!  Well. we hardly saw any police in the area.  I supposed that they didn't want to deal with the homeless.  So I guess this guy didn't think there would be any police stopping him either.

 Just took a trip to Portland.  More on the trip later.  Today I am just going to write about driving to and from the airport.  Trying to avoid going to LAX, which means a terrible drive through the 405, we decided to book a flight from Santa Barbara airport.  The distance is about the same but generally it is about half hour shorter than going to LAX, about an hour normally.  It is also a more pleasant drive passing the Pacific Ocean.

But now there is construction along a big stretch of the 101.  With the Labor Day weekend traveling and a couple of minor accidents, the drive took 3 hours and almost caused us to miss the flight.  On the way back, with multiple construction going on at night and the lane closures and lights shinning in your eyes, it was a very difficult and slow drive.

This makes me think about the infrastructure that we are trying to improve with the new spending bill.  It is a large amount but is not enough and the money is poorly spent.  This stretch of the 101 is going to cost at least 600 million and not all the money is spoken for.  It is supposed to finish in 2026 even though it has been going on for at least 3 years.  The same with freeway 60 near my in-laws house.  All these constructions which I doubt will make a big difference in our traffic situations will cost about a billion and take more than half a decade to complete.

I am think, most of the time the lanes are cut off in these construction zones but there is no work being done except at night where old drivers like me are practically blinded by their lights.  We are talking about a billion dollars for the two projects which will enlarge the two freeways somewhat but I don't see the benefit because the bottleneck areas are not going to be better.  I think they would be better off spending money on fixing bridges which may collapse soon and improving public transportation.

The cost of these works are not justified.  After the Northridge earthquake a big freeway collapsed and the estimate of the repair was several years.  The government agreed to give a bonus of tens of millions if it can be done in a year.  Well, it was done and the company got the bonus.  I think the government overpaid in the first place.  I think in China it would have been done in a couple of months without a bonus.  Or heads would roll, literally perhaps.  While I don't condone execution, I wonder if the mafia runs construction companies.  And is the mafia contributing to the election of public officials?

 Came across a Youtube video by an Australian who used to live in China.  He said that in the past he has seen western media false reporting and commentary on China.  But he never understood why his Chinese friends were so upset about such reporting or commentary.  He told them to just ignore these western media, they have nothing to do with your life.  Why get your blood boil over these idiots?

Now this guy is back in Australia.  Recently Tucker Carlson trashed talk Australia about its lockdown over the Delta variant.  He said things like churchgoers are being called selfish and ignorant, that Australians are back where they started:  a prison colony.  This made the blood of this Australian guy boiled.  Now he understands why his Chinese friends get so upset about people like Carlson.  If people liked Carlson can spread false information about Australia, a friendly country to the U.S., what kind of false reporting and commentary would they say about China?

Our blood should be boiled over people like Carlson.  They are partly responsible for so many deaths in this country.  While he is making fun of Australia, Australia is reopening again.  Their death rates from the virus is miniscule compare to the U.S.  Is Australia becoming a dictatorship like Carlson said?  Or are the Australian leaders more competent than ours?