rating: 4 of 5 stars
I don`t recall seeing the movie and I just read this
book for the 1st time 15 yrs after the fact. Another
great Crichton book. Prophetic. Even though the Japanese
economy has stalled , the unfair trade practices (Japanese
don`t find them unfair) , dumping , intrigue and sabotage
, bribery and gifting, collusion , closing of their
own markets and government sponsored sabotage of our
own have all shown themselves to be true. They still
reap the benefits of decimating American competition
via this methods. Now , its not Japan but the Chinese
who are using some of the various methods listed above
to dominate America`s economy. They are just doing it
chinese style , not japanese style. Similar attack strategies
with some subtle differences such as all-out attack
on intellectual property , not by buying up U.S companies
and their technology but reverse-engineering and black-marketing
everything the US makes. China`s way of dumping and
closing off their market and stealing our technology
all in one fell swoop.
America needs new strategies on dealing with todays
economic realities and it is my hope that our current
administration is less ideological and more practical
in these matters.
November 2008 - Barack Hussein Obama was elected
the 44th president of the United States, as the country
chose him as its first black chief executive.
His acceptance speech alone helped erase 8 yrs of
bitterness both at home and abroad as his upbeat and
hopeful rhetoric was broadcast all over the world.
11/15-2008 - I was up all night facing the economic
challenges of today. I debated liberals and republicans
alike about protecionism and free trade , bailouts
, regulation vs. overregulation vs. NO regulation
and so on. Obviously I didn`t really do all this but
as 3 in the AM hit , every waking moment was spent
musing about he economy and my REM sleep was filled
with dreaming about the economy. If you are unsure
, it was a nightmare
oct 2008 - Quote - Jacob Weisberg - Slate
"Like all true idealogues, Libertarians try
to find a way to interpret mounting evidence of error
as proof that they were right all along. They are
intellectually immature, frozen in the worldview many
of them absorbed from reading Ayn Rand novels in high
school. Their heroic view of capitalism makes it difficult
for them to accept that markets can be irrational,
misunderstand risk, and misallocate resources. They
arementally bankrupt, and this time there will be
no bailout."
2/15/04 -The democratic primaries are underway and
John Kerry according to The New York Times ; Is running
away with it. He has 432 delegates, which is a substantial
lead on Edwards and Dean but.... California and New
York alone, are worth 725 delagates and 2161 is whats
required for presidential nomination. It ain`t over
yet ... Not sure who you would vote for check out
http://www.votebyissue.org/
- My vote by issue test had me picking Edwards
by a landslide.
