Just a few stories to talk about this week, but I guess the first order of business is to finish what we started last week about the economy. We talked about how government spending, no matter how unwise you might think it is, never is money lost because most of it is money that recirculates in the economy. The general economic picture is always better when money is moving than when the fat cats, of whom the government is one, are not opening their checkbooks. If you’ve never looked at it that way before, you might have been relieved of some of your anxiety regarding the money being spent to bring death and destruction to the middle east. We’re talking only about your financial anxiety here; Your moral outrage should continue to grow.

Even when the money is moving, however, the modern U.S. economy is loaded with scary elements, things that never were discussed in the introductory class where we learned principles like supply and demand. It might take a lifetime of capitalist commerce to figure out that the law of supply and demand was repealed about the time Ralph Nader killed the Chevy Corvair. At that point, the gloves came off. Corporations began to drop all pretense of being good citizens. It no longer was possible for the profit motive to be swept out of sight, so the corporations stopped trying.

In today’s economy, the supply and demand are controlled by the same people. It’s easy to see how supply is controlled. Make the product scarce, the price goes up, then it stays up when the scarcity is ended. The demand is controlled in at least two ways. The obvious is advertising. The corporation is free to tell you its product is superior, even if it’s junk. You could do the research for yourself and find out if it’s junk, but if you researched everything you buy, you’d have no other life and the job still would be hopeless. You’d spend the next ten years just deciding what breakfast cereal to buy.

Planned obsolescence is the other way demand is controlled. If it breaks, you either do without it or buy a new one. Everything from a light bulb to an automobile can be made to last forever, but there’s no money in that. The only way to keep the money moving is to make sure everyone has to buy a new one from time to time, no matter what it is.

We hear a lot of sound bite discussions of things like balance of trade, national debt and deficit spending. I don’t worry much about those things. I just see it as running a balance on your credit card, only on a much larger scale. These days, the things that are really scary are the kind of transactions in which the money moves, but it never comes back into the U.S. economy. All those corporations telling you about the superiority of their products are making those products in other countries. The wages are low, but when they’re paid, they’re gone. The only way to get that money back is to print more of it. Not an acceptable option.

The other scary word in the modern economy is China. Almost nothing is made in the U.S. anymore except cars and hamburgers. No wonder trade is unbalanced. If you don’t make anything, you’ve nothing to export except war. War used to be regarded as good for the economy. A lot of people think WWII did a lot more to end the great depression than the Social Security Act did, but now U.S. businesses are complaining that sales overseas are drying up because the rest of the world is disgusted by the invasion and occupation of Iraq. That’s enough to turn a right wing capitalist into a peace protester. Most of the "stuff" we buy now is made in Asia, and most of that is made in China. China is organized to literally own the world economy, and soon. Global capitalists, ironically meeting right now in Hong Kong, are playing right into China’s hand. When China is pulling the economic strings, the well-being of the U.S. middle class will not be a high priority.

And speaking of China–just when you’re worrying that the rug of liberty and free speech is being pulled out from under you, consider this. Some people in a Chinese village called Dongzhou were a little peeved about a new power plant nearby. Not only did they worry about environmental damage, they weren’t too happy with the prices they got for the land that was taken. So they painted some signs and had a little street march. Now, the entire village is locked down, guarded by soldiers, and the word is that 20 citizens have been killed by their guards.

Governor Arnold appointed a new chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, and the neo-cons are raising a big stink about it, because she’s a Democrat. Shouldn’t matter. While serving on the state Public Utilities Commission, Kennedy sided with the power companies against the ratepayers every time. The neo-cons are not a one-issue voting bloc, but one issue trumps all the others with them. Kennedy is pro-choice.

Two people who changed the world, Richard Pryor and Gene McCarthy have been adequately eulogized already. Pryor was one of the funniest people who ever spoke English, but the byproduct of his humor was a huge contribution to breaking down racial barriers. McCarthy had the hair to challenge Lyndon Johnson in 1968, and although he didn’t win in New Hampshire, he got enough votes to chase Lyndon out of Washington. In that way, you could say it was McCarthy who ended the Viet Nam war.

The Grass Valley Union is running an electronic readers survey. In describing the purpose, the paper says the expected things about gathering suggestions and insight from readers, but here’s the real stuff: "Gain information on shopping patterns to share with local retailers and collect data to help attract additional businesses to the market." In other words, The Union is doing its part to ensure that we can buy more and more of that stuff from China.