Xi Jinping's Power over Hong Kong Threatens Golden Goose China should Emulate

Paul Krugman has this perfunctory way of dismissing the Nobel Laureate economist Milton Friedman and his monetary economic analysis when espousing exclusively  Keynesian solutions. China for example has pretty much followed the big government directed spending dictum prescribed by Keynes since the financial crisis of 2008 and yet now find itself in a recession where too much was invested in unwanted assets and a leadership that appears to be at its wits’ end as what to do about it.   They need an expertise to best allocate resources to provide the maximum public good.  It's the missing element in Keynes’ theory and it will take a catharsis for China’s authoritarian government to understand that their few experts don’t hold a candle to the swarm of individual players trading freely among themselves in a system with a rule of law that protects property rights. It already exists in Hong Kong but Xi Jinping's assertion of his power is strangling the golden goose that all of China should emulate.

Global Economy Needs to Recognize the Loss of Illusory Savings

"Bad Loans Haunt Global Economy" is an example of denial that gives a prolonged ache among many versus a sharp pain to a few.  In the U.S. we have a good "Goldilocks" recovery underway, one where its not too hot nor too cold.  Its not clear that TARP helped us by bailing out the banks and auto industry rather it was a rejuvenated oil and gas industry that lifted us out despite the Obama administration's initial contrary vision at the Energy Department. Europe on the other hand bails out Greece by mandating banks to take its debt thereby saddling their economies with nonperforming assets and then depends completely on uneconomic energy policies that make energy expensive and in yet increases air pollution with dirty coal being burned when the sun don't shine or the wind don't blow. Much of the savings sloshing around in the global economy as indicated by low interest rates, below 0 in Japan, are worthless assets still not written down to their true value.  China's managed economy, for example, is not writing down as it should. Its doing the same as what Japan did as it entered the first long term recession of our era; one that is approaching thirty years!

Cities Made by Decree to Meet GDP Targets not the Public Good

China's Obsession with GDP Targets Threatens its Economy is an example of how authoritarians go wrong. An economy with just a few big hands manipulating levers can never reach the same level of public good as many players interacting among each other can in sussing out the true costs and benefits.  China made cities by decree, that no one lives in these cities because there was no price benefit mechanism to determine that they were wanted is the problem.