The stock market is in a slump with no end in sight. The Federal Reserve is trying to improve the situation by decreasing the interest rate. It appears to work at least a little as there was a rally in the market on Friday. I doubt the rebound will continue. I think there will be more downward spiral into next year at least. Which brings me to something I never really understood. Why is it that the chairman of the Feds is so revered? Greesnspan attained rock star status in the economic world with his so-called deft handling of the economy for many years. I understand that anyone who becomes chairman of the Feds is a really smart guy. But what do they do anyway? They can only increase the interest rate when there appears to be inflation. If there is a depression looming they can decrease the interest rate. So basically they choose one of 3 alternatives: increase, decrease or do nothing. It seems like anyone who is good at multiple choice questions can do this job. I mean the SAT questions have 5 choices and lots of people get perfect scores. This economic business doesn't seem to be rocket science.

I tell you what is also not rocket science. Lending money to people to buy houses. It does not take a genius to figure out that you don't give risky loans to people with poor credit and without adequate income. Yet large institutions who can hire lots of accountants and actuaries were doing all these subprime loans. These idiotic deals are the main reason the stock market is going downhill right now. Some of these institutions which have made billions in the last few years are now in danger of going bankrupt. Angelo Mozilo is the president of Countrywide Financial, the largest mortgage lender. Mozilo was paid $48.1 million last year! He and others will argue that they deserve what they make because under a capitalist system a person who is most responsible for the profit should be best compensated. It is not surprising that Mozilo arrogantly said that other people in his industry were not as smart as he was because they were giving out risky loans. Yet now Countrywide is in the same situation as others, ie, in deep financial trouble from giving out too many risky loans. But Mozilo has not come out and take responsibilty. He has refuse to be interviewed. He did manage to cash out his stock options before the price went down. If he deserved to be paid that enormous sum when the company was prospering, shouldn't he has to give some of the money back for leading the company toward possible bankruptcy? It is likely that it will be the low level employees who will suffer the most by losing their jobs.

There will be those in the financial and business world who clamor for the government to bail out the mortgage lenders. This is something the government in China would do for their banks, not something our government should do here. Anyone who truly believes in the capitalist system knows that bailouts will only encourage businesses and individuals to make risky decisions. I guess we have not learned from the savings and loan debacle not long ago. Bailouts will make our economy less efficient in the long run. Basically it will be welfare for greedy rich people at taxpayers' expense.

The date 8-8-08 was chosen as the date the Olympics open because of the number 8 is supposed to be good luck in Chinese. So on 8-8-07 the news media all across the nation have articles about China. I have read articles in the LA Times, Time Magazine, and Sports Illustrated. It is like when a book came out about Billy Graham and all of a sudden every newspaper and network talked about Graham and his relationships with presidents. As I wrote in one of the blogs about the trip from China, you have to take the information you get from the media, whether Chinese or Western, with a grain of salt.

One of the common complaints from western journalists is that while China promised to open things up for the press during the Olympics, they still run into obstacles in trying to get interviews from athletes and go to rural areas. This is not surprising. Even coaches in this country have tried to control their athletes. Try interviewing Bob Knight's players without his permission. While Xiang Liu is not allowed to grant interview in China, he is allowed to travel abroad for meets and as SI pointed out he does give interviews in the U.S. Only in the U.S. he is not of any importance to the media while in China he would a symbol of China controlling their elite athletes. As far as traveling to rural area to report the vast difference in conditions between the rich cities and poor villages, these are trite stories that are well-known to anyone who have taken an interest in China. It would be like covering the LA Olympics and try to compare Beverly Hills with towns in Alabama.

There was a picture of a policeman questioning a journalist in LA Times. The article says that the police often intimidated the journalists. Now the picture showed a skinny cop with no weapons talking to a westerner. It didn't look very intimidating. There was a protest about freedom of the press held by westerners in Bejing and the police broke it up. But there was no injury or violence by the police. Contrast that with the LAPD's action on an immigrant march a few months ago where journalists as well as children were injured by the police. Yes, journalists should have the freedom of the press but they should also be fair in their reporting.

There was the obligatory mention of the human rights issues in Tibet and the Northwestern region of China which is populated by Muslims minorities. If I am the president of China I would grant independence to all these areas. The country would be smaller and population less. But so what? These areas are a drain to the country. It costs more to rule them than what they return. While China do abuse the human rights of these areas especially in terms of freedom of religion, it does provide an improvement of the economies of these regions. When there was a one child policy for the majority, the ethnic minorities were exempted from the policy. There was also affirmative action for things like college admission. (The Republicans would be shocked at this.) Holding these regions is just an ego thing and it is bad international public relations. So I would get rid of them. Of course if I am the president of the U.S. I would do the same and get rid of Puerto Rico and American Samoa for economic reasons. Journalists always write about the deculturalization of Tibet by China. The truth is Tibet is extremely poor. If China was to leave, Tibet will have to bring in business to survive. It will be westerners who will come in to exploit the area. McDonalds and other western icons will dominate the place. The deculturalization will go on anyways. Even now monks are skipping prayers to watch World Cup Soccer on t.v. So the purity of these regions has been long gone.

So forget about all the call for the boycott of the Olympics. As you know I am no fan of mainland China but it is not South Africa before apartheid was abolished. It is maybe similar to the U.S. in the fifties where the paranoia about Communism was similar to China's paranoia about Western democracy today. Remember McCarthy calling everyone a communist and Hoover spying on Martin Luther King? It will be many years before China will be free. In the meanwhile if the western press were to bring in democratic activists to complain about China, they should also mention about the history of colonialism by the western nations. This would be what a true free press would do. So my feeling is still the same: China is not as good as the state run media portrays it to be and is not as bad as the western press portrays it to be.

It is hard for me to say it but I actually feel bad for Michael Vick. It is not that I think torturing animals is ok, but I have a lot of problems with people who were protesting against him. He has not been convicted yet but people were already demanding the Falcons get rid of him. Sure if he is found guilty he should be sent to jail. But athletes have committed crimes against PEOPLE and not get that type of protests. Domestic violence and even murders have been committed by athletes and yet nobody protests at their hearings or at their team headquarters. Some of these people bring dogs to the protests. They put clothers on the dogs with signs on them. I never understand people who clothed dogs, esp. in the summer. That seems to be cruelty to me!

Animal rights activists have bombed or burned laboratories doing research with animals. Never mind that these research may someday cure diseases, people cound have been killed during these crimes. A judge recently agreed with animal right groups and put an injunction against the navy from practicing with sonar technology in the ocean. I don't know enough about the science of this to say if the sonar is as a disaster for whales as it is alleged in the lawsuit. But I did not see many people from the U.S. coming to the defense of the Puerto Ricans a few years ago when the navy wanted to use live ammunitions on their islands. I am very leery of people who thinks that animals are more important than people. It is sad that more people worry about what Michael Vick did than what is happening in Sudan.