Because this is an open thread, no time for a new post. Can we make it kinder and gentler than the thread directly below?

I want to apologize to everyone for the mess the comments have become. I’ve never seen it quite this bad. I am closing the two threads below, and if you have anything else to say you can leave it here. It’s difficult finding a balance; I want Chinese people to comment here, but obviously I don’t want the threads to deteriorate into shouting matches or worse. Deciding what is or isn’t a troll comment is difficult when they don’t break specific rules, but it’s also obvious certain commenters want to take over threads and wreak havoc.

I am working on a huge project that will demand my full-time attention through the end of February (and yes, it’s China-related). So I can only check on the comments intermittently. But I will do everything I can to keep the comments from deteriorating. If anyone has any ideas on how best to moderate the comments let me know.

Happy Thanksgiving, even to my trolls who, of course all live in the US, and who should be grateful for what they have here, even if all they can express is scorn for America. Deep inside they must like it here, or else they’d vote by foot. Happy Holidays.

A jumble of thoughts on the economy.

At the end of 2006 and several times in 2007, I took a lot of heat for writing that the US economy was on the brink of catastrophe and that gold would be a smart investment. The price of gold when I first recommended it in 2006 was about $685 an ounce. Today it is $1,825 an ounce. It wasn’t long after my prediction that the housing bubble burst, dragging down America’s, and the world’s, economy with it. Gold went down, too, for several months in 2008 and then came soaring back to record highs.

Some commenters said I was crazy, others wanted to make bets that gold would fall, others cited articles in the Economist and interviews with Warren Buffet that proved I was wrong. I’m not going to gloat. At least not much. For once in my life, I was right about something.

Now that gold today hit its all-time high I am cautious about recommending it again. Obviously it’s going to have its ups and downs, and I would only buy on the momentous dips. Gold is manipulated, meaning it makes huge moves up and down as hedge funds and high-speed electronic traders speculate and short it. It is not for the weak; I had to watch my investment crash for nearly an entire year in 2008, but patience saw me through. You have to have nerves of steel. Otherwise don’t invest in gold and don’t even think of investing in silver, the most manipulated commodity on the planet.

I see one area of gold that remains depressed, and for anyone who can stomach huge risk I would recommend keeping an eye on it. These are the mining stocks which, instead of following gold higher have followed the stock market lower. I’ve been watching these stocks since 2006, and this is a pattern: gold soars, miners fall, then the miners make up for lost time by soaring up very quickly, often as high as 8 percent in a single day. They are as risky an investment as you can ever make, with outrageous rewards and crushing collapses. If anyone wants my specific stock picks, email me, but don’t complain if you lose your shirt.

Even more controversial than my advice on gold was my prediction that China would do better during the catastrophe, its economy moving up as America’s went down. When I quoted Niall Ferguson’s calling this “China’s century” I took more heat. I’m not sure I’d go so far as Niall Ferguson, but the fact is that China’s financial crisis was less painful and more short-lived than our own. Their influence has grown while ours has declined. I believe that at this moment more people, rightly or wrongly, see this as China’s century rather than America’s.

All of that may change, of course. China’s problems are legion, and its economy remains as fragile as ever. One match could turn it all into a fireball. And much of China’s continued growth has been based on government spending and massive BS construction projects leaving many cities afflicted with ghost malls and ghost luxury housing. But again, the fact remains, China’s economy went up as ours went down, manipulated though China’s prosperity may have been.

I’m now more pessimistic about the US (and European) economy than ever. Our austerity mindset is destroying everything the US stands for, and that is providing a safety net for the poor and the disenfranchised and the unemployed. I’m not saying handouts. I mean stimulus to boost spending and allow for more jobs, and increasing, not slashing, programs designed to help the underprivileged. We are doing everything wrong, guaranteeing low taxes for those most able to pay, while making everything harder for the poor and middle class, defunding social services while subsidizing the rich and the super-rich and their endless tax loopholes.

I’ve never seen morale so low in the US. Every news program leads with stories on either unemployment, the stock market crashing, or America verging on a new recession. Several of my friends have lost their jobs, and others are in constant fear that they’ll be next. I contrast this with China, which is bursting with optimism, and I know where I would rather be. Now, this optimism and energy may be misplaced and may not last forever, but there it is; it’s real (and yes, I know that doesn’t apply to everyone in China and a lot of people there get screwed worse than in the US). Bottom line: China’s spirits are high, the US’s are at rock bottom.

The depressing thing about being in the US now is that there is literally no end in sight. Inflation is up, housing prices fell again, the markets have crashed, unemployment is to the stratosphere and those who can find a job are being paid less. Most Americans in numerous polls said they want to end loopholes and special tax breaks for the rich and focus on jobs, yet Congress does the exact opposite. Obama, trapped in a cage by deficit hawks, shows little leadership, declining to fight for working people the way FDR did. FDR actually stood up to the banks and vowed not to let them decimate the working classes. He raised hope in a demoralized nation. So on top of the horrific state of the economy, we have no leadership that inspires Americans to have any hope at all. There’s a huge void. And the fact that three inexplicable wars are siphoning off hundreds of billions from the economy only rubs salt in the nation’s collective wound. Everything is grim, and if you think I’m exaggerating, watch the news. Skim through the newspaper.

It’s a grand time to be working in Asia. I wish I could put into words how much I miss it.

Finally, since I haven’t been blogging in a long time, let me offer up a couple of links:

Custer at China Geeks has done an outstanding job fisking the apologist fraudster Eric Li, whose idiotic columns in the NYT and Christian Science Monitor made me apoplectic. This link is ten days old, but it’s a must read.

Mark’s China Blog has an excellent review of Tony Parfitt’s Why China Will Never Rule the World — very different from my own.

Lastly, Imagethief has a great post on the torture of doing banking in China. And I mean torture.

As I said at the beginning, this post is a jumble, and I hope you could make it through to the end.

I am not quite sure what to make of this, but I can’t see why the commenter would have made it up. If true, it’s the end of an era. Math started commenting here more than five years ago, and since his first posts came over a university’s servers I am guessing he was still relatively young. Love him or hate him, it’s sad news.

For readers interested in the history of Math’s relationship with this blog, go here.

Charles Johnson catches Pamela Geller in the act of altering an old post of an email that could have been written by Norway’s Christianist mass murderer or one of his buddies. No matter who wrote it, the fact remains: Geller is furiously trying to cover her tracks of condoning violent rhetoric against Muslims (and I mean violent — check Johnson’s post now).

In case you’re unfamiliar with Geller’s amphetamine-driven site, do check it out. Her new schtick is pointing to the Fort Hood plotter and shrieking, Why isn’t the media giving this the attention they gave the Norway massacre? Well, Pam, it’s really kind of simple: the plotter didn’t kill anyone, while Breivik slaughtered more than 70 people, many of them young, including children. And the Fort Hood story has gotten tons of press.

Geller lurks in an alternative universe in which the media are actually accomplices to the terrorists. And she employs a tar baby mentality. Anyone who can be remotely connected to a story of Islamic terrorism is by association a terrorist. (Just ask this guy, a Jewish pro-Israel columnist who endorsed the “911 mosque” and thus earned from Geller the title “Jihad Jeffro.” Really.) When this simple algorithm is applied to herself she recoils like a viper and blames it all on liberals, who are all stealth jihadists.

Sorry if this isn’t China-related but I think it’s important. Geller’s audience gets bigger and bigger, and the idea that she can actually galvanize the masses to hate Muslims is scary. She needs to exposed.

If you’re new to this site, see my last post for more details on why I see Geller and her cohorts as evil.

My travel companion Lisa has put up a great post with stunning pictures of our recent four-day trip to Guizhou, one of the most beautiful places on the planet. We were both speechless as we drove by towering mountains and deep valleys, with poor farmers tilling the fields, terraced into the mountains, in their bare feet, helped by their water buffalo. It is a paradox that Guizhou is China’s poorest province, and one of the most gorgeous. Go see Lisa’s post now.

This is a thinking man’s blog on Chinawritten by a historian, very rich and detailed, well written and consistently fascinating. Please give him a visit and consider adding to your China blogrolls.

I just got this email from a reader, and I wanted to share it, as well as my response.

Dear Richard,

This will seem like a strange email, but if you could answer my questions, then I would be extremely grateful.

How do you find a balance between liking China, for the good things you can find there, and hating China, for all the wrong things that are happening there?

I’m Chinese American. I was born in America, and grew up hearing toned-down, child-friendly, good, nice stories about China. So when I finally realized what was happening over there, I was shocked, and extremely conflicted between pride and disgust. On one hand, it’s where my family and culture came from. On the other hand, everything that happens over there conflicts with my values. I now read blogs about China, hoping to keep up to date about the country, to know everything about it, condemn it for what it does, hope for it’s future…but it seems there’s never anything good. China’s always getting worse, and by now, I’ve pretty much lost hope for the China.

It’s tempting to just hate the country and cut all my ties to it. Go to an extreme and wish for Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan, and maybe even Hong Kong and Macau to go independent when it can, and the blood of all its communist leaders. Call myself American and the only thing Chinese about me would be the cultural and traditional aspects of it. But I can’t do that, because that’s not really want I want or believe.

I’ve been reading your blog over two years now. You are disappointed at China, yet still happy whatever something positive happens. (Well, happy’s not the right word, but I can’t think of an appropriate word…) How do you do that? Keep hope that maybe one day, something would change, but for now, bear to watch the humiliation and horrible things China is going through and doing? (is it because you’re not Chinese, and if something happens, well, it’s not your country/group of people/identity that’s doing it? Forgive me if I’m wrong)

Thank you for your time. I eagerly await your reply.

[Name]

Interesting email. It’s always a challenge, reconciling your feelings toward China, reconciling your knowledge of some of the darker things that go one there with your love of living there, reconciling your complaints with your admiration. Then again, how different is that from the US? Sometime I think it’s just a matter of degree (mainly because rule of law and freedom of speech make such a huge difference).

Anyway, here’s my sentimental response.

I love China. I am going there on a trip in two weeks and plan to move back to Beijing within the next two months. [Note: That is not written in stone.]

It’s the Chinese government and its culture of corruption and propaganda I can’t stand. But I first moved to China in 2002 and over the past 9 years I have seen the country make huge strides, socially and politically. It is a dynamic, vibrant, inspiring culture and there is nowhere else I’d rather live, except maybe NYC if I were a millionaire.

It’s normal to be conflicted about China because it is such a complex and often unusual country, a country in the midst of incredibly rapid change. No one can figure it out and there’s no way to define what China actually is, because it’s a work in progress and a phenomenon in motion. Lots of bad things happen there, but lots of good things, too. People’s lives are generally much better than 30 years ago. So don’t be afraid to love China, while accepting its faults and problems and strangeness. It’s still one of the greatest countries on the planet.

Thanks for writing and I hope that helps.

Richard

Sentimental, and I can catalog all the cliches. but it’s still from the heart. And for the record, I can’t stand America’s government either, especially now. (My faith in the US government has been in a free-fall since the day Gore lost the 2000 election; Obama has boosted my faith only nominally – at least he’s not a Republican.) Who can say they’re not conflicted about America, and about China?

I’ll arrive in Beijing on April 7 and will be visiting several cities. If anyone wants to get together let me know.

I’ve been confined to my bed the past four days, unable to do anything but watch TV and I feel totally tsunamied-out. But I wanted to take a moment to point readers to an excellent post over at Granite Studio about how Chinese “netizens” are reacting to the horror in Japan, and why Chinese feelings toward Japan are so complex.

I am several days late with this, but there is also a superb post over at Shanghai Scrap on Chiness reactions, and how the expected fenqing who welcome the calamity with open arms are being countered with a lof of compassion by other, more mature commenters.

I understand China’s complex attitude toward Japan. There’s plenty of reasons for it. But I’m glad to see a lot of Chinese people putting these feelings aside and expressing their compassion for the innocent victims of this incomprehensible tragedy.

I’m also ashamed of some Westerners who are making jokes about the Japanese people’s suffering. Imangine cracking Jokes about September 11th as the tragedy unfolded. Reprehensible.

Totally out of it. Back in a couple days.