Lama Surya Das: The Dragon, the Elephant, and Regulated Capitalism: Sober Reflections on the Awakening of the East in the New Mi

Gene Smith
At other monasteries, up and down the remote hillsides and the steep valleys, Mr Smith made a present of portable Hard Drives. A bulky, jacketed figure among the swarms of shaven heads, making an untidy namaste with his chunky Western fingers, he handed over devices, no bigger than the palm of a hand, which contained 10,000 books. Where for centuries monks lifted their pecha texts from decorated bookshelves and read the loose leaves across their knees, they now stare into Laptops, contemplating ...

Chua and Democracy Promotion
In all earnestness, please consider the premises of Chinese parenting as laid out in Chua’s own words: a) Children are not allowed to 1) play any instrument other than the piano and violin, 2) not play the piano and violin, 3) choose their own extracurricular activities. (Even Socialist Realism permits greater freedom of expression.) b) Children owe their parents everything (as do citizens to the State). c) Parents know what is best for their children and therefore override all their childre...

India 'mixed' on WTO Doha talks: US (AFP)
Geneva (AFP) – China has been disappointing and India has been taking "one step forward, one step back" in Doha negotiations for a global Free Trade pact, the US Envoy to the World Trade Organisation said Thursday. Michael Punke, who is also the US deputy trade representative, warned that plans to conclude the long-stalled talks this year would be torpedoed if Member States failed to step up and engage immediately in substantive negotiations. "We were somewhat disappointed...

Global growth to 'slow in 2011'
The Global Economy will slow this year, with Developing Countries such as India and China providing a greater share of growth, the World Bank has predicted. But these rates would not be enough to reduce Unemployment in the hardest-hit economies, it said. The bank warned that "serious tensions and pitfalls" persist. These included the Eurozone Debt crisis and the risk of large amounts of capital flowing from low-interest developed economies to higher-interest Emerging Markets, which cou...

In other words. . .
Darned writers! Where does Mark Twain get off, calling African-Americans the N-word? Who does he think he is? Kanye West? The hot news in Literature World is NewSouth Books’ Controversial decision to publish the classic novel “Huckleberry Finn’’ minus the 219 occurrences of the derogatory term for blacks, which was current in 1885, when the book first appeared. The word “slave’’ will stand in, immediately rendering the novel palatable to the bluestockin...

Oh. No. He. Didn't. Chris Matthews blames the Tucson shootings on... the strident tone of Mark Levin's voice
Not that you needed more proof that Chris Matthews has lost all command of his faculties, but tonight's diatribe should confirm what we all knew. The Tingle-Master -- which is the term he prefers, I hear -- assailed constitutional attorney and radio host Mark Levin this evening in what must be an all-time record for IQ mismatch. I liken it to a toy poodle attempting to mount Marmaduke. Chris Matthews, joined by two liberal Talk Radio hosts on Tuesday's Hardball, essentially blamed...Mark Levin f...

Brazil prepared for global trade war
Source: Macau News Brazil has said there is likely to be a currency war, brought on by manipulation by China, the US and others. Finance Minister Guido Mantega has stated Brazil will now prepare moves to raise the issue at the World Trade Organization and the G20 group of rich and Developing Countries. Speaking to the Financial Times newspaper, he said a currency war had turned into a Trade War, with Brazil’s trade with the US slipping from an annual surplus of about $15 billion to a Deficit of ...

Kerry on civility
Senator John Kerry in a Speech today will tie the Giffords shooting -- for which no evidence of a normal political tie has emerged -- to the national political conversation: Speaker Boehner was right to suspend the House's usual business. The question now is whether we're all going to end business as usual in the United States Capitol. Because even before this event shook us out of our slumbe...

Giving Globalization a Bad Name
Chrystia Freeland has written an excellent piece in The Atlantic about the rise of the new global economic elite. Andrew Sullivan has pointed out a short piece by Carl Pope in Foreign Policy that reflects some of the concerns listed in the Freeland article. Pope’s article includes the following passage: Many have observed that countries whose boundaries happen to include large deposits of oil, diamonds, tropical timber, or some other valuable commodity tend to have miserable populations ...

Why True Libertarians Critique Corporatism
James Joyner’s explanation of why Libertarians don’t care about corporate power, which DougJ links below, falls short. Joyner says “Libertarianism, by any definition, is concerned about intrusion on individual liberty by the government”. Using that definition, he argues that wondering whether modern Libertarians don’t write about corporate abuses of power is like wondering “why NARAL doesn’t spend more time advocating for the plight of stray cats.̶...

Starbucks inks pact to enter India, source beans
Mumbai (Reuters) - Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O), the world's largest coffee chain, unveiled a tie-up on Thursday that could bring its iconic cafes to Asia's third-largest economy, where western-style Coffee Shops are increasingly popular. The Seattle-based chain signed a pact with India's Tata Coffee Ltd (TACO.BO), part of the Tata group conglomerate, to source coffee in India and explore opening retail stores in the country, the two companies said in a statement. Starbucks will likely open its firs...

Ten years on, Wikipedia eyes a better world
Jimmy Wales, co-founder of online collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia. Ten... Ten years after its debut as a geeky online encyclopedia, Wikipedia today wants to use its huge, growing popularity and spirit to spread knowledge across the world. In the decade since it was born, the free, non-profit encyclopedia that anyone can edit has profoundly changed the way people access information, becoming almost the default source for quick online references. After a failed attempt to launch a conventio...

US-India group slams new aid package to Pakistan
Stumble This! US-India Advocacy Group USINPAC slammed the Obama Administration’s new Aid Package to Pakistan, denouncing it as counterproductive to US efforts at fighting Terrorism and advancing government accountability in the developing nation. "The U.S. has been trying to get the Government of Pakistan's support in the War on Terror for the last ten years. However, in spite of billions of dollars provided to them, the impact of the aid to the lives of people of Pakistan has been neglig...

WikiLeaks Redactions: Its Not Just the Chinese That Bribe for Oil
Given the past history of how Newspapers have redacted (or not) Wikileaks dumps, I was very interested in an article that reveals what the Guardian (or one of its media partners) redacted in a cable on Kazakh Corruption. The Guardian summarizes the cable this way: Top Kazakh energy official reveals the four principal gate-keepers around President Nursultan Nazarbayev, including Timur Kulibayev, the favoured Billionaire presidential son-in-law. But read more closely, it serves to record Ambassa...

Marshall Auerback: Chinese Trade Policy Must Focus on Social Consequences
By Marshall Auerback, a portfolio Strategist and Hedge Fund manager; first posted at New Deal 2.0 Focusing on currency isn’t going to cut it for America’s workers. You have to have a sense of irony to watch the latest maneuvers on trade with China. Obama continues to turn his administration into “Clinton Mark III”. (Enter Gene Sperling and Jacob Lew, following the revolving door departures of Peter Orszag and Larry Summers). The president continues to turn to many of the very folk

Confucius Shows Up on China's Tiananmen Square
(AP) There's a new face keeping Chairman Mao company on Tiananmen Square. A mammoth sculpture of the ancient philosopher Confucius was unveiled this week off one side of the vast plaza. It's a jarring juxtaposition for a square the ruling Communist Party treats as politically hallowed ground: a mausoleum holding revolutionary leader Mao Zedong's body sits in the middle and his giant portrait hangs at one end. Placing the statue at China's political heart is the authoritarian government's most ...

Luxury cars: The new high Rollers
Rolls’s launch of a new “entry level” model at the end of 2009 is part of the explanation. The Ghost shares the butch looks, huge engine and imposing presence of its Big Brother, the Phantom, but is a snip by comparison. The new “baby” Rolls starts at a little over £200,000 ($312,000); plutocrats must pay a half as much again for a Phantom. The new model has attracted a new set of wealthy motorists: four-fifths of Ghost buyers have never owned the marque before...

Analysis: a year after China retreat, Google plots new growth
Shanghai (Reuters) - Google is reloading its guns in China to focus on display advertisements and the booming export sector a year after a blowout with Beijing over Censorship and hacking all but ensured its demise in the country. The road to recovery will certainly be a bumpy one, but the Internet giant looks to have enough in place to rebuild its presence in the world's biggest Internet market with more than 400 million users. "Do I think they can do it? Yes, the market is still growing very ...

T-Paw Addresses National Press Club
Minnesota GOPer speaks in D.C. about political agenda. "Just because we followed Greece into Democracy, doesn't mean we have to follow them into Bankruptcy." Bam "pulled the rug out" from under Czech Republic, Poland on reversing 43's support for anti-missile defense shield. 44 did a "fine job" at Tucson memorial. T-Paw: Bam should be pushing for Free Trade with SK, Panama, Colombia and more. Pawlenty on U.S.-China relations: "You give up your moral authority" by relying on lender. Get The Page ...

Ratigan: Thanks to Corporate Communism, $24 Trillion Is Being Sucked Into A Broken Banking System At Our Expense
If you allow weak, outdated players to take control of the government and change the rules so they are protected from the natural competition and reward systems that have created so many innovations in our country, you not only steal from the citizens on behalf of the least worthy but you also doom them by trapping the capital that would be used to generate new innovation and, most tangibly in our current situation, jobs. We are losing the opportunity cost of all the great ideas that should be ...

STOCK MARKET WATCH, Thursday, January 13, 2011
Source: DU Stock Market WATCH, Thursday, January 13, 2011 AT THE Closing Bell ON January 12, 2011 Dow 11,755.44 +83.56 (+0.72%) NASDAQ 2,737.3320.50 0.75% S&P; 500 1,285.96 11.48 0.90% 10-Yr Bond... 3.3550% Market Conditions During Trading Hours Euro, Yen, Loonie, Silver and Gold Handy Links - Market Data and News: Economic Calendar Marketwatch Data Bloomberg Economic News Yahoo! Finance Google Finance Bank Tracker Credit Union Tracker Daily Job Cuts Handy Links - Economic Blogs: The Big Pictur...

The five worldviews that define American politics
By Michael Lind Salon.com Does it often seem that many American politicians and pundits are talking past each other? That is because they really are. The frustrating nature of public debate arises in large part from the fact that Americans do not share a single worldview. A worldview is a more or less coherent understanding of the nature of reality, which permits its holders to interpret new information in light of their preconceptions. Clashes among worldviews cannot be ended by a simple appe...

The Wealthy As An Object of Disdain.
Mark Yzaguirre allows for the existence of un-derserving rich: [I]n a Global Economy, there are very wealthy economic players who didn’t gain their wealth by risking their personal capital or other voluntary business transactions. Trillions of dollars of investment worldwide, including in the US Stock Markets and other investment vehicles that middle-class Americans rely on for their well-being, is provided by sources that didn’t become wealthy via Libertarian means. Jihadist oil barons fro...

The End of New Deal Liberalism
William Greider January 5, 2011 This article appeared in the January 24, 2011 edition of The Nation. We have reached a pivotal moment in government and politics, and it feels like the last, groaning spasms of New Deal Liberalism. When the party of Activist government, faced with an epic crisis, will not use government's extensive powers to reverse the economic disorders and heal deepening social deterioration, then it must be the end of the line for the governing ideology inherited from Roose...

AMD Forces Out CEO Dirk Meyer
It didn't seem to help Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) CEO Dirk Meyer that the world's No. 2 chip maker just announced its Fourth Quarter would be better than expected. Or that Nomura recently put a buy rating on the company's stock -- or that Gleacher reiterated its buy rating and put a $12 target on AMD shares (the stock currently trades just above $9). Despite this good news, Meyer was pushed out of his job Monday and was replaced on an interim basis by CFO Tom Seifert. AMD's board said, "We h...