Free Tibet?

The Free Tibet movement seems to be getting a lot of attention lately. This has always been a cause of American, middle-class, suburban kids who wake up one day and discover that not everyone in the world is as lucky as they are. The question no one ever seems to ask is

"What is China's reason for not allowing a free Tibet?"

I'm guessing that your average suburban hippie kid just says that China is a country led by maniacs that wont let the Tibetans have their own country. Now, there is some truth to that, but think of it this way: Let's say that Florida decided to succeed from the United States. What do you think the US government's response to that would be. Tibet is a substantial slice of China (see the map)


Now, you may be saying that it's not the same because the Tibetans are an identifiable, unique nation. This is true, but there are dozens or even hundreds of similar groups throughout the world that are asking for the same thing, but few people in the US seem to know or care about them. What about the Kurds in northern Iraq, Turkey, and Iran? They are also a unique nation with their own history. There's also Chechnya in Russia. These are two of the better known. You hardly ever hear of people joining forces with either group for their independence.

I think that a lot of the focus in the US toward Tibet is due to the Dali Lama and the view of Tibetans as a nation of monks in orange outfits. Their culture appeals to us and they seem helpless from the images we see on TV. It may sound cruel, but I think the American response to Tibet would be far different if they wore suits or middle-eastern tribal clothes. The mystique of the monk's robes drive our sympathies there.

Update: Thanks to my friend Bela for this link: http://www.bustedtees.com/freetibet

Sophie Redux

Gas Tax Holiday

Is it just me, or does the gas tax holiday make absolutely no sense. In order for a gas tax holiday to help anyone, gas prices would have to stay stable. Since there is nothing to stop gas companies, station owners, refineries, drillers, OPEC, etc. from raising prices to adjust for the gas tax reprieve, this will not save the consumer any money. All it will do is increase the national debt because money that is not collected from gas tax will have to be collected elsewhere.

Check out this graph of gas prices.

If you'd like to know more about how gas prices work, check out How Stuff Works.

National Debt

Go here: US National Debt Clock

As of this writing, the national debt is almost $9.4 trillion dollars. The population of the US is currently slightly over 300 million people. That means the personal share for every man, woman, and child in the US is about $31,000.

Now, children (people under the age of 18) make up 24.5% of the US population. That means there are about 228 million adults in the US. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the total US labor force is 146 million people. That means that the share of the debt for every working person in the US is: $64,239.

The median income in the US is about $25,100 (for all people 18+).

Now... how do we get rid of all this debt? Clearly having national debt that is more than twice the national average income means that we can't pay this off anytime soon.

With a yearly deficit of about $530 billion (give or take $10-20 billion depending on year), a dummy calculation means that we'd have to immediately cut spending or raise taxes by $3,630 per year per member of the workforce. THAT'S BEFORE WE START PAYING ANYTHING DOWN!!!

What does this mean for you?! Approximately $406 billion was spent in FY07 by the federal government to pay off the interest of the debt. That's $2,780 of YOUR money that isn't going to government programs, education, military spending, etc. A lot of that money is going to foreign countries that loaned us the money in the first place. Isn't it nice of us to help build roads and fund schools in China and Japan (they hold most of the foreign held debt of the US).

While it is very appealing to ask government to lower taxes, the more we increase the national debt, the less of our taxes will be going to fund our government. More and more we will be paying interest instead of funding programs. Asking for lower taxes is the adult equivalent of a elementary school kid asking his teacher for more recess -- while more recess is better for him now, he will suffer later for the lack of education -- similarly, we will all suffer in the future for our lack of financial common sense now.