China wants to own the road

It has been clear for some time that the People’s Republic of China intends to displace the United States as a hegemonic power. But Western leaders have been unwilling to recognize the failed strategy of integration and make the badly needed adjustments.

Seduced by the conceit that the fall of the Soviet Union heralded the triumph of a liberal world order of free trade and interdependence, the U.S. and other liberal countries invited China to join the World Trade Organization, believing that China would happily accept the tenets of a liberal economic order and “play by the rules” of that order.

Unfortunately, the hope that China would liberalize as it was integrated into an ever more connected world has been dashed on the rocks of geopolitical reality. Instead, Beijing has emerged as an economic and military rival while remaining unwaveringly committed to authoritarianism. And it does so all as it exploits the global system to improve its position at the expense of liberal states, most notably the U.S.

It’s not as though it’s too soon to understand China’s strategy either. China has refused to play by the economic rules, employing massive government support for Chinese firms and atrocious environmental and labor standards to upend global markets. It has pulled one key American industry and supply chain after another into its orbit, eliminating millions of U.S. jobs along the way. It is garnering the privileges of a system without practicing any of its responsibilities to the other participants of that system.

There are, finally, promising signs of change. The Trump administration has refused to acquiesce to China’s economic predation. In Congress, bipartisan support is building to stop the further erosion of critical American industries and to reinvigorate others that have been allowed to atrophy. The supply chain shock of the pandemic has served as a much-needed wake-up call. Overreliance on China and Chinese-controlled supply chains has become a major problem.

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The Long Road to Israel’s Very Good Month

The Jewish state has become too valuable to the Arab world to be treated as a pariah.

Hunter Biden’s MASSIVE Chinese Cash Dump | Riding the Dragon: Chapter One

California Is Coming for You

Its energy, tax and regulatory failures are the Democrats’ ideal for national policy.

I didn’t have to read the entire Democratic Party platform, let alone the spend-tasmagoric Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force recommendations. Sitting here in California, I’m already living it. If polls are to be believed, left-coast policies are coming to you soon—and you’re not going to like it. California is an early glimpse for the rest of the country of a blackout-rolling, water-deprived, tax-hiking, spending-spiking one-party state longing for its old incandescent glow.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom: Time to ‘Sober Up’ About Green Energy’s Flaws

A reality check on electric cars: Arithmetic required

During the Obama Administration a regulation was passed requiring all automobile manufacturers to achieve an average efficiency for all their vehicles of 54 miles per gallon by the year 2025. President Trump recently canceled the ordinance recognizing such a requirement could never be reached without sacrificing the safety of the drivers which we will attempt to explain. A simple tutorial requiring a little arithmetic follows, and the fallacy of the benefits of electric cars will slowly dissolve.

The energy in gasoline is not appreciated. An automobile that gets 40 miles per gallon uses only six tablespoons of gasoline traveling each mile. As good as that sounds, cars cannot be perfectly efficient. There must be friction resistance just to get them going and there is no avoidance of aerodynamic resistance.  Sports cars tend to have smoother machined parts that does reduce friction and account for the greater cost. This is true in bicycles as well. On a bicycle your body will feel the difference between a $500 bicycle and a $2500 bicycle.

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