Will China and the iPad Save Us?

Bob Samuelson is worried about another Depression. Readers of NBfPB know that I am deeply worried about it too. We have two factors in our favor now though that go under appreciated. One, China. China is a massive growth locomotive that we didn't have in decades past and they can't be bothered with all the growth stifling horsepucky that we are indulging in here in the West. They are full steam ahead with no apologies (because the leaders will all get lynched if they do otherwise- it is a good motivator). Two, communication technology. Today, we know just how bad our leaders are screwing up and just how venal, feckless, or out to lunch they are in nanoseconds, whereas it used to take a long time for people to internalize just what poor quality of leadership inhabits the halls of power. Just as one small example, it takes barely seconds after Mayor Bloomberg makes a giganticly asinine statement for it to be all over hundreds of media outlets that reach numerous types of devices used by all walks of society. That makes our democracy more responsive (which is probably why Obama doesn't like it). Of course, we could avoid making the bad policy choices in the first place and we wouldn't have to fall back on the speculative backstops of China and a more responsive political system made so through technology, but that would be too easy.