The latest from The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com
- Robert Scheer: The Chinese Come Calling
- Bella DePaulo: Newsweek's Misleading Account of Latest Marriage Study
- Harry Smith: Just a Minute: Beer Profiling
| Robert Scheer: The Chinese Come Calling | Top |
| What a hoot. The Chinese Communists invaded Washington on Monday demanding not that we sacrifice our freedoms but rather that we balance our budget. Creditors get to make that kind of call. And the Marxists of Beijing, who have turned out to be the world's most prudent bankers, are worried about their assets invested in our banana republic. "China has a huge amount of investment in the United States, mainly in the form of Treasury bonds. We are concerned about the security of our financial assets" was the way China's assistant finance minister put it. Briefing reporters at the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, he added, "We sincerely hope the U.S. fiscal deficit will be reduced, year after year." Quite sincerely, one suspects, given a U.S. budget shortfall this year that is slated to reach $1.85 trillion. Suddenly, it was U.S. officials who were promising deep reform to their disgraced economic system rather than demanding it from incompetent foreigners. President Barack Obama's economic team of Clinton-era holdovers, who a decade ago had hectored China on the virtues of fiscal responsibility, now were falling over themselves to reassure the Chinese that their $1.5 trillion stake in U.S. government-issued securities is safe, and that they should buy more at this week's $200 billion Treasury auction. If they don't, we're in big trouble. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner promised to behave, saying the U.S. is "committed to taking the necessary measures to bring our fiscal deficits down to a more sustainable level once recovery is firmly established." Now let's hope that the Chinese Communists and their natural allies among congressional deficit hawks will be able to keep him to his word. And don't blame any of this on peacenik liberals. The new conciliatory--nay, deferential--tone toward China precedes the Obama administration, having begun in bilateral talks during the last years of the Bush administration as the U.S. economy began its ignominious downfall. It was George W. Bush's treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, who set the course when the former Goldman Sachs chairman realized how dependent were his Wall Street buddies on Chinese goodwill. But from all of this adversity may come something good: recognition that the United States is not the repository of all wisdom. Maybe the Chinese have found a model different from ours that also works? Might there not be an Arab, Latin or Indian one that also qualifies and need not be overthrown? The tone of this week's talks, ironically held at the Reagan Building and co-chaired by Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, finally signaled the end of the Cold War assumption that regimes with labels like communist and capitalist could not form profitable partnerships. On the contrary, as Secretary Clinton noted, it is time to move from "a multipolar world to a multipartner world." And President Obama in opening the conference made clear that the partnership between China and the U.S. is decisive: "The relationship between the United States and China will shape the 21st century, which makes it as important as any bilateral relationship in the world." Mark it as a historic Rip van Winkle moment. For those who recall the rhetoric of the Cold War, the idea that we would someday be cooperating with Chinese Communists because they had humbled us economically rather than militarily is a startling turnabout. How did they get to be better capitalists than us, and being that they are good capitalists, why are we still spending hundreds of billions a year on high-tech military weapons to counter a potential Chinese military threat when the weapons they are using are all market-driven deployments? A recognition that our tension with China is not military in nature came at this week's conference in an announcement by Adm. Timothy Keating, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, that agreement had been reached with his Chinese counterparts on improving relations: "A statement was made by a Chinese delegation official yesterday [Monday] that no country can develop sound policy if they try and do so in isolation. And I think that's a great way of addressing the sense that all of us feel, the desire, to get back together again and discuss exercises, discuss personnel exchanges, discuss responses to humanitarian assistance crises and the provision of disaster relief." Not bad for a start, and maybe we can help solve our economic problems by selling our latest high-tech weapons to China as we do to the rest of the world. Or better yet, we could do some serious damage to our deficits, and our dependence on the Chinese, by sharply cutting expensive weapons programs now that the Cold War is finally over. More on Economy | |
| Bella DePaulo: Newsweek's Misleading Account of Latest Marriage Study | Top |
| A new day has dawned, and with it another study of marriage misrepresented in the media. As always, the inaccuracies are in one direction only - implying that getting married results in better outcomes than it actually does. I've been at this for a while, and I have yet to find a media report that misrepresents findings in a way that makes singles look better than they actually are. (I don't even want that - I want accuracy.) Here are some of the headlines that WERE published, supposedly as descriptions of the latest study of marriage: • "Getting married - and staying married - is good for your health" (from Health Behavior News Service ) • "Lasting marriage linked to better health" (from Reuters ) • "Divorce hurts health even after remarriage" (from MSNBC.com ) • "Another reason to stay married" (from Newsweek ) Here are some of the headlines you did NOT see, that actually would be accurate descriptions of the results of the study: 1. People who have always been single are healthier than the previously married. (The advantage held for all four measures of health: number of chronic conditions, number of mobility limitations, self-rated health, and depression. Significance tests were not reported.) 2. People who have always been single have no more chronic health conditions than people who are currently married. (This is especially noteworthy because this is not a comparison of all people who stayed single with all people who had ever gotten married. Instead, it just compares the ever-single to those who are currently married. Anyone who got married, hated it - maybe even suffered poor health during marriage - and got divorced and stayed that way - is taken out of the married group. Do you see how this makes marriage look better than it really is?) 3. Women who have always been single report heath that is just as good as women who got married and stayed married. (This comparison uses a married group that is even more selective. Single women - all of them - are compared NOT to all currently married women - a group that would include those who were previously divorced or widowed and got remarried - but just to those who married and stayed married. In the study, the continuously married represent just about 57% of all those who ever did marry. Of course, there is no comparable selection of just a particular subgroup of singles. Yet, even by this rigged comparison, the always-single women [though not the men] do just fine.) 4. Men who got married were LESS healthy the younger they married. (This was true even for those who got married and stayed married. What's especially noteworthy about this is that the authors pursued this analysis in their attempt to show that marriage is so good for you, that the more years you spend married, the healthier you will be. Surprise! The opposite was true, even for the most select group of men who got married and stayed married. Among those who married and then got divorced or widowed, the results still were not as the authors expected. Those who got married at a later age - both men and women - reported better overall health and fewer chronic conditions and mobility limitations than those who married at a younger age.) Now consider this quote, taken directly from the original report: "Those who have married once and remained married are consistently, strongly, and broadly advantaged." Considering results #2 and #3 above, this statement simply cannot be true. I'm making two points. One, the media got this study wrong. Two, the authors were not entirely accurate either. (Continue reading here at the Living Single blog at Psychology Today.) More on Mark Sanford | |
| Harry Smith: Just a Minute: Beer Profiling | Top |
| Doesn't what you drink say something about who you are? James Bond... Martini. Shaken, not stirred. Whiskey for my men and beer for my horses... Willie Nelson and Toby Keith. As the big summit meeting at the White House draws closer, I'm wondering what we can learn from the beer preferences of Henry Louis Gates and police officer James Crowley. Gates told the Boston Globe he likes Becks or Red Stripe. Becks is a straight ahead pilsner. Foreign without being froo froo. Red Stripe is from Jamaica... It's vacation in a can. Sergeant Crowley is said to like Blue Moon. Blue Moon is a Belgian wheat ale brewed in Colorado, preferably served with an orange slice. Whoa. Did these guys get their beer choices switched at birth? Or are their beer choices more a reflection of their aspirations? Skip Gates wanting to be more macho. Sergeant Crowley wanting to seem more mellow. Let the beer buzz begin. Just a minute. I'm Harry Smith, CBS News . | |
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