Free Republic

Inside China: A Sculptor's View I have been exchanging emails with Bill Hopen, a sculptor who frequently travels to China, often for months at a time. Bill writes .... I've been to China a lot Mish, spent many months at a time there for the last eight years. China is already in a massive overcapacity real estate bubble. They are building three apartments for everyone that is lived in. Most apartments are empty and those that are rented do not come close to paying the interest on the loan. There are huge department stores with products loaded on the shelves...

Today, the United States is expected to formally approve a new "open skies" aviation trade deal with the European Union (EU). The Bush administration has failed to satisfy congressional critics who question the pact's impact on long-standing law and policy limiting foreign control of our airlines. And aviation workers are deeply concerned that this agreement is a down payment on a broader Bush administration strategy to allow foreign control of our airlines and decision making that threatens thousands of American jobs. This is not hyperbole. Led by Transportation Committee Chairman Rep. James Oberstar, key House members in both parties wrote...

GET READY FOR a revolution in trade politics. This week, President Bush reiterated his call for authority to make more trade deals, which expires June 30. He went on the road for a photo-op at a Caterpillar Tractor plant, arguing that trade deals promote exports. But in the new Congress, extension of current "fast track" negotiating authority is a dead letter. The entering class of Democrats are nearly all fair-traders, demanding much more balanced rules for the trading system. Thirty-nine of the 42 freshma n Democrats in the House recently sent a letter to the Democratic leadership warning their leaders...

I don't handle national security issues that often, so when I get e-mails on the military I can presume that what I am hearing is widely understood elsewhere. Folks are telling me that their children who are in Iraq are telling them that they have been misled about why they are there. The young people who, according to their parents, were eager to go to Iraq when they were called up, now are bitter about their mission there. I think presidents used to call what they are doing "nation building." Whatever antagonistic attitudes our troops have are derived disproportionately from...