China is the only country to land successfully on the moon in the 21st century, and has done it three times
by John Lawrence, December 19, 2020
While the US is in the midst of the greatest public health and economic crisis it has ever faced, China is surging ahead economically and in the space race. This December 2020 China's Chang’e-5 spacecraft gathered about 4.4 pounds of lunar samples in a three-week operation that underlined China’s growing prowess and ambition in space. It was China’s most successful mission to date; yet there was nothing reported about it on the nightly news. What has been reported on the nightly news is the fact that Russia has hacked into our defense department and other sensitive institutions. The fact that this is even happening represents sheer stupidity on behalf of the Defense Department. The internet is a public space that represents, as far as the Defense Department is concerned, a direct pipeline between itself and Russian hackers. It is asking for trouble.
Why hasn't the Defense Department detached itself from the internet and created a private intranet disconnected from anything Russian hackers could access? They could have an intranet which would just be a connection among those American actors and institutions that would need to interact with each other. If they need to interact with people in other parts of the world, they have had secure communication networks at least for the last 70 years. No one hacked them during the Second World War although the British were able to hack the Nazis. For American sensitive institutions to be using the public internet or even to be connected to the public internet is a travesty. There are different levels of internet communications that could be used. For nonsensitve communications and data storage a more public internet can be used, but for sensitive systems a private internet not connected to the public internet that Russian hackers have access to is more appropriate. Then hacking is a non-issue.
The US is falling behind China economically and in many other ways. China has mastered the art of using its public banks to build infrastructure at home and abroad. It has lifted 800 million people out of poverty in the last 30 years. Meanwhile, US infrastructure is rated a D+ by the American Society of Civil Engineers. Ellen Brown writes:
A publicly-owned national infrastructure bank, on the other hand, would be mandated to lend into the real economy; and if the loans were of the “self funding” sort characterizing most infrastructure projects (generating fees to pay off the loans), they would be repaid, canceling out the debt by which the money was created. That is how China built 12,000 miles of high-speed rail in a decade: credit created on the books of government-owned banks was advanced to pay for workers and materials, and the loans were repaid with profits from passenger fees.
Unlike the QE pumped into financial markets, which creates asset bubbles in stocks and housing, this sort of public credit mechanism is not inflationary. Credit money advanced for productive purposes balances the circulating money supply with new goods and services in the real economy. Supply and demand rise together, keeping prices stable. China increased its money supply by nearly 1800% over 24 years (from 1996 to 2020) without driving up price inflation, by increasing GDP in step with the money supply.
In the US the Federal Reserve has poured money into banks, hedge funds and various other financial entities but is forbidden by law from helping average Americans or Main Street businesses. There is Quantitative Easing for the banks, but not Quantitative Easing for the People. China has no such legal barriers for their central bank and public banks. While the US Congress quibbles endlessly over minuscule issues, China is going full steam ahead with economic development which benefits large majorities of its people as well as people outside of China with its Belt and Road initiative. The World Bank reports: "If implemented fully, the initiative could lift 32 million people out of moderate poverty—those who live on less than $3.20 a day, the analysis found. It could boost global trade by up to 6.2 percent, and up to 9.7 percent for corridor economies. Global income could increase by as much 2.9 percent. For low-income corridor economies, foreign direct investment could rise by as much as 7.6 percent."
While China has mastered the technique of generating money for infrastructure development inside and outside of China while also increasing world trade and economic well being, the US has only increased poverty and destroyed infrastructure with its never ending wars. It has squandered money on a military infrastructure which is larger than the next 10 countries combined. The US dollar is still the world's reserve currency and major world financial institutions like the IMF are still oriented towards the dollar. This could all change, however, as the Chinese renminbi gains ground. The US has a chance to reconstruct itself under a Biden administration and reorient itself towards a middle class democratic society which benefits its people rather than its elite. It's a tall order but maybe Joe Biden and his appointees can pull it off. A Green New Deal is necessary not only for the sake of reestablishing the middle class but also for saving the planet from global warming.
