The Liberty of Addiction

Troubled Spirits and Weak Flesh

by Theodore Dalrymple        

Celebrities do not interest me, in part because I often do not know who they are. Not having had a television for forty years, and having survived quite happily without one, people apparently world famous are to me completely unknown, either by sight or sound; while those figures whom I consider important are often comparatively obscure and unknown to millions. I count myself lucky: there is evidence that those who interest themselves in the lives and doings of celebrities are unhappier than those who do not, though in which direction the causative relationship, if any, lies I cannot be certain.

However in the modern world, unless you are a complete hermit, celebrities, or rather news about celebrities, will come to you regardless of your wishes or interest. And even I, who have neither radio nor television, could not altogether avoid some knowledge of the current trial in England of two Italian sisters, former servants of Charles Saatchi and Nigella Lawson, who are accused of having defrauded the couple of $1 million by the unauthorized use of the couple’s credit cards.

Mr Saatchi was an advertising magnate, now art collector and dealer, and his wife is a famous television cook and author of best-selling cookery books. Evidently they lived in a world in which $1 million can go missing without anyone really noticing.

The defense case of the two accused is that Nigella Lawson knew and approved of their use of the credit cards, on condition that they did not tell her husband of her use of cocaine, which they claim was heavy and persistent. She spent several hours in the witness box being examined by the lawyer for prosecution and cross-examined by the lawyers for the defense.

One of the latter asked her whether she has ‘a drug problem,’ to which she replied that she had ‘a life problem.’ The lawyer asked her whether that is what she wanted to say under oath, to which she replied that it was.

I am glad that she stuck to her guns, for to have admitted that she had ‘a drug problem’ would have been to imply that the problem was with the drug rather than with the person taking it (or them). And this would have been to get everything exactly the wrong way round. It is not the drug that takes the person but the person that takes the drug. Therefore Nigella Lawson was being absolutely honest when she said she had a life and not a drug problem.

Currency War Means Currency Suicide

There is one country that is speaking out against this madness: Germany

by Patrick Barron

What the media calls a “currency war,” whereby nations engage in competitive currency devaluations in order to increase exports, is really “currency suicide.” National governments persist in the fallacious belief that weakening one’s own currency will improve domestically-produced products’ competitiveness in world markets and lead to an export driven recovery. As it intervenes to give more of its own currency in exchange for the currency of foreign buyers, a country expects that its export industries will benefit with increased sales, which will stimulate the rest of the economy. So we often read that a country is trying to “export its way to prosperity.”

Mainstream economists everywhere believe that this tactic also exports unemployment to its trading partners by showering them with cheap goods and destroying domestic production and jobs. Therefore, they call for their own countries to engage in reciprocal measures. Recently Martin Wolfe in the Financial Times of London and Paul Krugman of the New York Times both accuse their countries’ trading partners of engaging in this “beggar-thy-neighbor” policy and recommend that England and the US respectively enter this so-called “currency war” with full monetary ammunition to further weaken the pound and the dollar.

I am struck by the similarity of this currency-war argument in favor of monetary inflation to that of the need for reciprocal trade agreements. This argument supposes that trade barriers against foreign goods are a boon to a country’s domestic manufacturers at the expense of foreign manufacturers. Therefore, reciprocal trade barrier reductions need to be negotiated, otherwise the country that refuses to lower them will benefit. It will increase exports to countries that do lower their trade barriers without accepting an increase in imports that could threaten domestic industries and jobs. This fallacious mercantilist theory never dies because there are always industries and workers who seek special favors from government at the expense of the rest of society. Economists call this “rent seeking.”

A Transfer of Wealth and a Subsidy to Foreigners

As I explained in Value in Devaluation?, inflating one’s currency simply transfers wealth within the country from non-export related sectors to export related sectors and gives subsidies to foreign purchasers.

French Industrial Output Drops Unexpectedly, As Usual.

France Finance Minister in Complete Denial

By Mike "Mish" Shedlock

I am in a near-constant state of amusement regarding what economists and analysts expect vs. what happens. A perfect example came up today.

MarketWatch reports French Industrial Output Drops Unexpectedly. 

 French industrial output dropped unexpectedly in October for the second month in a row, data from national statistics bureau Insee showed Tuesday, providing a further indication of a weak start to the final quarter of 2013 in the euro zone.

Industrial production in the currency bloc's second largest economy fell 0.3% in October from September, when it also fell 0.3%, Insee said. Analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires had expected a 0.2% rise in October.

The October decline confirms a steady shrinking of output in industry. Over the three months through October, industrial production was 0.6% below the previous three months, Insee said.

The disappointment comes after separate data showed Monday that German industrial production dropped 1.2% in October from the previous month.

Why Was This Unexpected?
This decline should have been completely expected. I can give you three reasons.

1.  On December 2, the Markit France Manufacturing PMI final data showed "France PMI sinks to five month low as output and new orders fall at sharper rates".

2.  On December 4, the Markit France Services PMI final data showed "French service sector slips back into contraction in November".

3.  On December 4, the Markit Eurozone Composite PMI final data showed "Eurozone growth slows further as France and Italy suffer renewed contractions".

If you are looking for a 4th bonus reason, please pencil in "Francois Hollande" and all the socialist ministers in his government.

The State Causes the Poverty It Later Claims to Solve

The paper money system is at the center of the growing income inequality and expanding poverty rates

by Andreas Marquart

If one looks at the current paper money system and its negative social and social-political effects, the question must arise: where are the protests by the supporters and protectors of social justice? Why don’t we hear calls to protest from politicians and social commentators, from the heads of social welfare agencies and leading religious leaders, who all promote the general welfare as their mission?

Presumably, the answer is that many have only a weak understanding of the role of money in an economy with a division of labor, and for that reason, the consequences of today’s paper money system are being widely overlooked.

The current system of fractional reserve banking and central banking stands in stark opposition to a market economy monetary regime in which the market participants could decide themselves, without state pressure or coercion, what money they want to use, and in which it would not be possible for anyone to expand the money supply because they simply choose to do so.

The expansion of the money supply, made possible through central banks and fractional reserve banking, is in reality what allows inflation, and thus, declining income in real terms. In The Theory of Money and Credit Ludwig von Mises wrote:

The most important of the causes of a diminution in the value of money of which we have to take account is an increase in the stock of money while the demand for it remains the same, or falls off, or, if it increases, at least increases less than the stock. ... A lower subjective valuation of money is then passed on from person to person because those who come into possession of an additional quantity of money are inclined to consent to pay higher prices than before.[1]

All The Plans We Make For Our Futures Are Delusions

We love to tell ourselves how smart we are. It’s time we walk that talk.

by Raúl Ilargi Meijer 
What worries me most about the world today, in the last weeks before Christmas and New Year’s Day 2014, is that all the plans we make for our futures and more importantly our children’s futures are DOA. This is because nobody has a clue what the future will bring, and that’s more than just some general statement. Is the future going to be like the past or present? We really don’t know. But we do exclusively plan for such a future. And that’s not for a lack of warning signs.

One might argue that in the western world over the past 50 years or so, we’ve not only gotten what we hoped and planned for, but we’ve even been to a large extent pleasantly surprised. In a narrow, personal, material sense, at least, we’ve mostly gotten wealthier. And we think this, in one shape or another, will go on into infinity and beyond. With some ups and downs, but still.

While that may be understandable and relatively easy to explain, given the way our brains are structured, it should also provide food for thought. But because of that same structure it very rarely does.

The only future we allow ourselves to think about and plan for is one in which our economies will grow and our lives will be better (i.e. materially richer) than they are now, and our children’s will be even better than ours. If that doesn’t come to be, we will be lost. Completely lost. And so will our children.

The ability of the common (wo)man to think about the consequences of a future that doesn’t include perpetual growth and perpetually improving lives (whatever that may mean), is taken away from her/him on a daily basis by ruling politicians and “successful” businessmen and experts, as well as the media that convey their messages. It’s all the same one-dimensional message all the time, even though we may allow for a distinction between on the one hand proposals, and their authors, that are false flags, in that their true goal is not what is pretended, and on the other hand ones that mean well but accomplish the same goals, just unintended.

This all leads to a nearly complete disconnect from reality, and that is going to hurt us even more that reality itself.

We extrapolate the things we prefer to focus on in today’s world, with our brains geared for optimism, into our expectations for the future. But what we prefer to focus on is, by definition, just an illusion, or at best a partial reality. We don’t KNOW that there will be continuing economic growth, or continuing sufficient energy supplies, or continuing plenty food. Still, it’s all we plan for. Not every single individual, of course, but by far most of us.

Obamacare Is Dead. Long Live Obamacare!

Squaring the circle

By Victor Davis Hanson

In the next 90 days, the Obama administration will have to declare victory and then abandon most of Obamacare. 

The legislation defies the laws of physics—more and broader coverage for more people at less cost—as well as logic: Young people, on average as a cohort with higher debt and less employment, will pay more for coverage they do not use much to subsidize others, often better off, to pay less for coverage they use a lot. It will be interesting how the administration pulls it off, given its past record of often being successful at this sort of dissimulation.

The “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”—despite the euphemistic name, the legislation has caused millions to lose their coverage and upped the costs for millions more—is a stone around the necks of Democratic congressional candidates, and something political will have to be done within the next year to address it. The Obama administration’s first impulse will probably be haphazard and periodic non-compliance with the law in the manner of its treatment of the employer mandate, and, for that matter, all sorts of other “settled” legislation that, for political reasons, it simply chose not to enforce, from pre-election border enforcement and the Defense of Marriage Act to the contractual order of the Chrysler creditors. In that regard, the administration might table the individual mandate or administratively change the wording of required insurance protocols to let people keep their old plans that were recently dismissed as “bad apples” or “junk.” Maybe they could call all that “pro-choice,” or “good apples.”

Johnny took his (imaginary) gun

Quivering in Place

By Mark Steyn

Further to the unarmed man who went on a shooting rampage, we now have the schoolboy suspended for bringing an imaginary weapon to school:

A fifth grader in Pennsylvania has been suspended for shooting an imaginary arrow at a classmate. The 10-year-old also faces possible expulsion.

The Rutherford Institute, which is defending Johnny Jones, says he was told he violated the school’s zero tolerance policy on weapons.

Little Johnny had, in fact, zero weapons, but that’s no reason for imaginary educator John Horton not to destroy the l’il tyke’s life:

Principal John Horton contacted Ms. Jones soon thereafter in order to inform her that Johnny’s behavior was a serious offense that could result in expulsion under the school’s weapons policy.

It would be interesting to fire an imaginary arrow at Principal Horton’s crotch and see whether he hops around howling in agony. But, for the students terrorized by this insanity, these stories are not funny: A man who’d do such a thing really shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near children. 

‘You Must Be Sodomized’

You can't make this thing up

By Jonah Goldberg

Now, at first I thought this was a hoax. But it appears it isn’t. Apparently a fellow writing into a Jihadi chat show wants to do “martyrdom operations.” The sheikh he talked to says they’ve got a great new technique to blow up infidels. We hide explosives up your butt. There’s just one hitch. You’ve got to be repeatedly sodomized in order to be able to accommodate the explosive. So, the questioner wants to know if it is permissible for him to be regularly rogered, if doing so makes his posterior more amenable to hiding explosives. The fellow on camera, Shiite cleric Abdallah Al-Khilaf, says that even though sodomy is forbidden if it is necessary for jihad, well, then it is required. Because jihad is the highest obligation.

Now, what I find hilarious here is that it never occurs to anyone that there might be some kind of technological work-around short of repeated sodomy. You know, maybe there’s a device or a technique, something that is a little less unpleasant, inconvenient or forbidden than straight-up buggery? Nope. Gotta go with the sodomy. The Saturday Night Live skit writes itself.

Jihadi: What if we make the bomb smaller?Sheikh: What? That’s crazy. Sodomy is the only way.Jihadi: Couldn’t I use replica of a male, well, you know. In private like . . .Sheikh: Shh!  Let’s not even discuss it.Jihadi: What if I’m willing to tolerate a lot of discomfort when it comes time for the martyrdom operation? I mean, it’s my choice. I am blowing myself up after all. What’s a little discomfort?Sheikh: You’re not hearing me. This is the way it has to be. Don’t you want to murder infidels?

The Dark Side of Human Equality

Everyone should suffer just as much as me!

By Theodore dalrymple

It has long been my opinion that all notions of human equality, other than that of formal equality before the law, are destructive of human intelligence and sensibility. My opinion was confirmed recently when I read an editorial in the Lancet, one of the two most important general medical journals in the world.

The title of the editorial was “Equity in Child Survival.” I could have written the editorial myself from the title alone, so utterly predictable was its drift:

Although Indonesia has reduced child mortality by 40% during the past decade, data from 2007 show that children in rural areas were almost 60% more likely to die than those living in urban ones, while those in the poorest 20% were more than twice as likely to die as those in the richest 20%, and girls were 20% more likely to die than boys.

Note here that even if inequality were the same as inequity, there is nothing in these figures to show that inequity had increased in Indonesia during the decade, or to show that it had not actually decreased; and if equity in this sense were an important goal in itself, it would matter little whether the health of the poorest improved, or the health of the richest deteriorated.

In a country the size and complexity of Indonesia, with hundreds of inhabited islands, some of them very remote, it is hardly surprising that there should be quite wide geographical variations in health, wealth and productivity. It is no more inequitable that there should be these variations than that the French should have so much better health than the Americans, or for that matter than the Bangladeshis.

France’s crocodile tears for sex workers

Crocodile tears for the victims disguises the fear of uncontrolled immigration

By JULIAN LAGNADO

Last Wednesday, the French Assembly voted for a law to penalise men who frequent prostitutes. Any clients who are caught in the act of procuring sexual favours will be fined €1500. However, they may be presented with another option: taking a course that will sensitise them to the plight of women they are helping to ‘enslave.’ Cutting across divisions between left and right, the vote was 268 for, 138 against, with 79 abstentions. The minister for women’s rights, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, celebrated this as a preliminary victory - the bill still has to be passed in the Senate.

There has been very little debate about this proposal and the bill has been rushed through in the past few months. Opposition voices notably include feminist philosopher Elisabeth Badinter, who said this was a declaration of hatred against men and the state had no right to intervene in private sexual affairs. At the end of November, in Le Monde, she said: ‘Penalisation is prohibition and not abolition, it is wrong to equate prostitution to slavery.’

Historically, France has been tolerant of prostitution. Towards the end of the Ancien Regime, the Lieutenant General in Paris initiated a clampdown on brothels, but this was because the aristocracy were concerned about the debauched lives their sons were leading. After the 1789 Revolution, this form of commerce became informally regulated, but legislation was avoided, on the basis that it would taint the legislator. Prostitution was seen as a necessary evil, keeping the lid on the social pot. If wives refused sex with their menfolk, the possibility of obtaining sex elsewhere meant there would be no riots on the streets.

South Africa’s War Against Capitalism

Nelson Mandela’s Battle Against Unionism, and Interventionism

By Thomas DiLorenzo

“Workers of the world unite, keep South Africa white.”

–Slogan of early twentieth-century South African Labor Unions

“South Africa’s apartheid is not the corollary of free-market or capitalist forces.  Apartheid is the result of anti-capitalistic or socialistic efforts to subvert the operation of market (capitalistic) forces.”

–Walter E. Williams, South Africa’s War Against Capitalism

During the twentieth century the worldwide socialist movement attempted to criticize capitalism by associating it with Nazi Germany since the Nazis did not nationalize many industries as the Russian socialists had done (they allowed ostensibly private enterprises that were nevertheless regulated, regimented and controlled by the state).  The truth is that the roots of Nazism or “national socialism” were thoroughly socialistic.  The Nazis were “national” socialists, whereas the Soviets claimed to be international socialists.  The Nazis and the communists were ideological clones who considered the ideas of classical liberalism (free-market capitalism, limited government, low taxes, private property, the rule of law, peace), and those who espoused them, to be their mortal enemy. 

Similarly, the international socialist movement has long attempted to associate another kind of socialist movement – the former South African Apartheid laws – as some kind of abuse of capitalism.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Government-imposed discrimination against black South Africans was instigated by white labor unions associated with various Marxist and communist movements.  It was a pervasive system of government regulation, regimentation and control.  This of course is the exact opposite of free-market capitalism.

It was this form of massive government interventionism that the late Nelson Mandela battled against in his youth, and for which he was imprisoned for twenty-seven years by the South Africa government.  (Unfortunately, Mandela himself was a socialist and a covert member of the executive committee of theSouth African Communist party who idolized such totalitarian monsters as Fidel Castro.  He apparently never understood that it was a version of Castroite socialism that had victimized him and the black population of South Africa, and that what South African blacks needed the most was the economic freedom and opportunity provided by free-market capitalism).

What Was South African Apartheid?

Two books are indispensable to understanding the system of government-imposed, institutionalized discrimination against South African blacks known as “Apartheid.”  They are The Colour Bar by William H. Hutt, and South Africa’s War Against Capitalism by Walter E. Williams.  Both were published before the final collapse of Apartheid.

Pope Francis and the morality of Free Markets

The opposite of tyranny is freedom.  Capitalism is the practical and constructive expression of freedom.

By John Hayward          

Pope Francis had some criticism for “unfettered capitalism” in his Evengelii Gaudium, and public statements he has made in concert with release of the document.  My first inclination in response is to wonder where he believes this unfettered capitalism might be found, because there most certainly is no such thing in the Western world.

That’s not a minor quibble, nor is it meant as a snarky comeback.  State control over private industry is a dominant fact of life around the world.  There are very few places that come anywhere near the capitalist ideal of a limited government equally enforcing the property rights of all.  That is the necessary – indeed, indispensable – role of government for any true capitalist.  Theft and fraud have no place in a free market, because they are infringements against economic liberty, as well as disrupting the efficient allocation of resources.  Capitalism is all about voluntary commerce.  The victims of thieves and swindlers do not act of their own volition.

Government power is also an offense against economic liberty, when exercised for purposes beyond securing the equal rights of all.  This is where I find myself in disagreement with key elements of the Pope’s critique.  It’s not quite that broadside against free markets that opportunistic leftists made it out to be, and it’s risible to treat it as an endorsement of the stale and corrupt Big Government racket venerated by American liberals.  The Pope was pretty tough on the welfare state and government debt, as well as capitalist excess.  But the portion of his pronouncement quoted by the Wall Street Journal merits a response from anyone who would defend not only the superior accomplishments, but superior morality, of capitalism over its grim and oppressive alternatives:

Using unusually blunt language, he sharply criticized the market economy. “Just as the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality,” wrote the pontiff in the 224-page document known as the apostolic exhortation.

“Such an economy kills,” wrote Pope Francis, denouncing the current economic system as “unjust at its roots” and one “which defend(s) the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation.” Such a system, he warned, is creating a “new tyranny,” which “unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules.”

We have to say “thou shalt not” to “an economy of exclusion and inequality?”  Thou shalt not what?  What verb would come at the end of this new commandment?

“Exclusion,” and the inequality of opportunity, are sins that can only be committed by criminals and the State.  Armed gangs are noted for excluding people and destroying their opportunities.  So are government bureaucracies.  In fact, they employ many of the same methods.  The State loves to exercise power far beyond the letter of the law through intimidation tactics and unfunded mandates.  They wear business suits and power ties instead of gang cuts, but the basic principle is similar.

Social cooperation and the disintegration of society

The New York Times and Socialism

by James E. Miller

In lieu of the election of Socialist President Francois Hollande and a Socialist Party collision as the majority in France’s Parliament, the New York Times recently asked “what does it mean to be a Socialist these days, anyway?”   According to The Grey Lady, socialism today is “certainly nothing radical” and simply meant the “the emancipation of the working class and its transformation into the middle class” during its heyday.  Essentially the article categorizes the contemporary socialist as one who is a rigorous defender of the welfare state.  The piece quotes French journalist Bernard-Henri Levy as saying “European socialists are essentially like American Democrats.”  It even accuses center-right political parties in the West of being quite comfortable with socialism’s accomplishments.

So is the New York Times correct?  Is socialism just a boogeyman evoked by the “fringes” to scare the public into questioning the morality and efficiency of the welfare state?

Going by the New York Times definition, socialism is just another word for social democracy.  But of course the word socialism never really referred to just welfare entitlements.  Properly defined, socialism is a society where the complete means of production and distribution of goods are solely in the hands of the state.  It is also a system defined by the absence of private property.  According to famed socialist and author Robert Heilbroner

"If tradition cannot, and the market system should not, underpin the socialist order, we are left with some form of command as the necessary means for securing its continuance and adaptation. Indeed, that is what planning means…"

The factories and stores and farms and shops of a socialist socioeconomic formation must be coordinated…and this coordination must entail obedience to a central plan.

If capitalism and private property are the natural state of free men, socialism is the violent overthrow of liberty.  Outlawing of private property and free enterprise is no easy task.  It requires a large amount of enforcement to see to it that nobody trades without the state’s permission.  And it is because of its oppressive nature that it is only through totalitarian dictatorship can socialism be fully realized.  Economist George Reisman explains:

"In sum, therefore, the requirements merely of enforcing price-control regulations is the adoption of essential features of a totalitarian state, namely, the establishment of the category of “economic crimes,” in which the peaceful pursuit of material self-interest is treated as a criminal offense, and the establishment of a totalitarian police apparatus replete with spies and informers and the power of arbitrary arrest and imprisonment.

The internet mystery that has the world baffled

Welcome to the world of Cicada 3301

By Chris Bell

One evening in January last year, Joel Eriksson, a 34-year-old computer analyst from Uppsala in Sweden, was trawling the web, looking for distraction, when he came across a message on an internet forum. The message was in stark white type, against a black background.

“Hello,” it said. “We are looking for highly intelligent individuals. To find them, we have devised a test. There is a message hidden in this image. Find it, and it will lead you on the road to finding us. We look forward to meeting the few that will make it all the way through. Good luck.”

The message was signed: "3301”.

A self-confessed IT security "freak” and a skilled cryptographer, Eriksson’s interest was immediately piqued. This was – he knew – an example of digital steganography: the concealment of secret information within a digital file. Most often seen in conjunction with image files, a recipient who can work out the code – for example, to alter the colour of every 100th pixel – can retrieve an entirely different image from the randomised background "noise”.

It’s a technique more commonly associated with nefarious ends, such as concealing child pornography. In 2002 it was suggested that al-Qaeda operatives had planned the September 11 attacks via the auction site eBay, by encrypting messages inside digital photographs.

Sleepily – it was late, and he had work in the morning – Eriksson thought he’d try his luck decoding the message from "3301”. After only a few minutes work he’d got somewhere: a reference to "Tiberius Claudius Caesar” and a line of meaningless letters. Joel deduced it might be an embedded "Caesar cipher” – an encryption technique named after Julius Caesar, who used it in private correspondence. It replaces characters by a letter a certain number of positions down the alphabet. As Claudius was the fourth emperor, it suggested "four” might be important – and lo, within minutes, Eriksson found another web address buried in the image’s code.

Feeling satisfied, he clicked the link.

It was a picture of a duck with the message: "Woops! Just decoys this way. Looks like you can’t guess how to get the message out.”

Japan Press: "China-Japan War To Break Out In January"

The game of chicken between two great superpowers is about to begin

Following China's unveiling of its air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea, overlapping a large expanse of territory also claimed by Japan, the Japanese media has, as The Japan Times reports, had a dramatically visceral reaction on the various scenarios of a shooting war. From Sunday Mainichi's "Sino-Japanese war to break out in January," to Flash's "Simulated breakout of war over the Senkakus," the nationalism (that Kyle Bass so notably commented on) is rising. Which side, wonders Shukan Gendai ominously, will respond to a provocation by pulling the trigger? The game of chicken between two great superpowers is about to begin has begun.

Via The Japan Times,

Five out of nine weekly magazines that went on sale last Monday and Tuesday contained scenarios that raised the possibility of a shooting war.

...

First, let’s take Flash (Dec. 17), which ran a “Simulated breakout of war over the Senkakus,” with Mamoru Sato, a former Air Self-Defense Force general, providing editorial supervision. Flash’s scenario has the same tense tone as a Clancy novel, including dialog. On a day in August 2014, a radar operator instructs patrolling F-15J pilots to “scramble north” at an altitude of 65,000 feet to intercept a suspected intruder and proceeds from there.

Sunday Mainichi (Dec. 15) ran an article headlined “Sino-Japanese war to break out in January.” Political reporter Takao Toshikawa tells the magazine that the key to what happens next will depend on China’s economy.

“The economic situation in China is pretty rough right now, and from the start of next year it’s expected to worsen,” says Toshikawa. “The real-estate boom is headed for a total collapse and the economic disparities between the costal regions and the interior continue to widen. I see no signs that the party’s Central Committee is getting matters sorted out.”

An unnamed diplomatic source offered the prediction that the Chinese might very well set off an incident “accidentally on purpose”: “I worry about the possibility they might force down a civilian airliner and hold the passengers hostage,” he suggested.

In an article described as a “worst-case simulation,” author Osamu Eya expressed concerns in Shukan Asahi Geino (Dec. 12) that oil supertankers bound for Japan might be targeted.

“Japan depends on sea transport for oil and other material resources,” said Eya. “If China were to target them, nothing could be worse to contemplate.”

When the Prince Flunks Diplomacy 101

What one expects of folks who trumpet their intelligence, and then demonstrate stupidity

by Angelo M. Codevilla

By its handling of China’s claim of a defense zone in international waters, Obama & co. violated diplomacy’s timeless fundamentals. First they loudly declared that America continues to regard the zone as international waters, and sent nuclear-capable B-52 bombers into the area to underline the point. Then they told US airline companies that the US government would not try to protect them in these international waters and advised them to submit to Chinese authority therein. Finally, when the Japanese government asked for US support for its own claims in the area,Vice President Biden told the Japanese to deal with China as best they can – much as the Administration had told US citizens. People who act this way should not be allowed near positions of power. They could not pass a basic exam in the field.

Teaching basic courses in international affairs, I often presented students with the following exam question: Country A claims some exclusive rights over waters theretofore regarded as international. What would you advise the executive of country B to do?” The student could earn a passing grade by answering along any of the following classic lines.

1. Customarily, a government responds only to events of which it chooses to “take note.” Country B is not obliged to respond at all. It can leave country A unsure of what it will have to deal with, and place on it the burden of deciding of whether or not to “take note” of non-compliance with its claim. Alternatively, if country B does comply with A’s claim, it can do so without commitment and without giving the appearance of having bent to a claim that it considers onerous.

2. B may choose to inform A quietly that it will not respect the claim and of the measures it is prepared to take to enforce what it considers its own rights. It can also inform its allies and its own citizens of those preparations. Quiet demurral saves A from having to react to a confrontation while leaving no doubt of the gravity of the confrontation, should it choose to enforce its claim. Perhaps A will decide quietly that the game is not worth the candle.

Getting out of hell can be tough

Karina Aspires to be a Successful Prostitute

By Orlando Freire Santana

HAVANA, Cuba, November www.cubanet.org – Karina laments having come rather late to Havana from her native Santiago de Cuba. According to her, if her arrival in the capital had happened five or six years ago, the job of becoming a successful prostitute would have been much less work.

Because the competition here is huge, and the clients increasingly prefer younger girls. However, at 25, Karina still has hopes of being able to find her way through the intricacies of this craft to reach her great objective: hooking up with a “yuma,” as foreigners are called here, and getting out of this hell.

Back in Santiago, Karina left her mother and a five-year-old daughter. As a mid-level food technician, she held a job as an assistant in a seedy State snack bar, with a salary that wasn’t enough to feed her daughter. So Karina, and two other single mothers like herself, decided one day to take a train to Havana, without even knowing anyone in this city that could pave the way for them.

The first few days in the capital were difficult for the three girls, sometimes eating only once a day, and sleeping on benches at the train station. They continued that way until they met a man who sheltered them in his house. And at the end of several weeks, after earning the first fruits of her trade, Karina managed independence. Now she lives along in a rented room in Old Havana that she pays 50 CUC (about 50 dollars) for, and has already been able to send some money to help her family.

And what is more important, Karina has come to understand that she has several steps to reaching her goal. These days, still devoid of the material attributes that make it easier to trap the big game, Karina roams the areas of Havana where the cheapest prostitution is practiced, such as the doorways of stores on Monte Street, or the area around Fraternity Park. In these places almost all the customers are Cuba, and they generally pay five CUC for half an hour of rented love. Still, sometimes she’s lucky, hooking up with guys who offer as much as 10 or 15 CUC. Of course in these cases she has to really put herself into providing the service.

`Doc Shock' On Deck in Obamacare Wars

Expect the fight over doc shock to be bitter and long  

By Megan McArdle 

Come January, when some number of Americans have bought insurance on the new health exchanges and are starting to use the services, you can expect another controversy to arise when many of them find out just how few doctors and hospitals they have access to. Call it “doc shock,” though the biggest outcry will not come when people try to schedule an appointment with their physician, but when someone gets sick and they learn they cannot go to whatever top-notch hospital they want, only to the hospital that is included in their plan.

The problem varies across the country. In Washington, where I live, it basically won’t be a problem at all; exchange policies have mostly the same provider networks as regular policies from those insurers. On the other end of the spectrum, in California, where the exchange put heavy pressure on insurers to keep premiums low, most exchange policies have bare-bones coverage that excludes top-tier hospitals such as UCLA and Cedars-Sinai. The industry calls these “narrow network” plans, but consumers are likely to have some more pungent names for the stripped-down provider offerings.

In those places where insurers are narrowing their networks, it’s likely to become a big issue -- not just a public-relations one, but legal. Seattle Children’s Hospital is already suing over its exclusion from most of the area’s exchange policies.

Over at California Healthline, however, Dan Diamond argues that maybe we shouldn’t be so negative. Sure, if you call them “narrow networks,” that sounds bad. But we shouldn’t lose sight of the reason that insurers are turning to these programs, which is that they control costs. And arguably, done right, they can actually improve the quality of care; after all, one of the things that makes the Mayo Clinic or the Cleveland Clinic so good at what they do is that health-care professionals can manage the entire “continuum of care” rather than forcing a patient to assemble a hodgepodge of providers who never talk to each other.