1) To Turn on the Ethernet hard wired connection open up the shell console and type in:   dhclient eth0

2) To Enable your wifi open up the shell console and type in:   /etc/init.d/wicd start

Then after you have pressed enter type in the following:

update-rc.d wicd defaults

This will enable wicd and from there you should be able to set up your wifi connection using whatever encryption methods you might have set up on your router.

The principles behind free market economics dictate that a more competitive economy will rule the day.  What could the United States do to make its economy more competitive than China?  In order to evaluate areas that the United States can improve, it is important to note which areas of China’s economy are slanted to make them more “competitive” in relation to other free market economies.

1) China’s economy is state controlled. Companies are told what they can and cannot do. Companies and individuals are told how they can spend their money and how and where they can invest it.

2) China’s economy is still developing and their infrastructure is not fully developed.

3) China’s military is still not superior and they lag behind in technological advances and innovation.

4) China’s political structure is unstable and will undergo future transformations.

Now, in order to improve the competitiveness of the United State’s economy, the above perceived weaknesses must be exploited.

1) Overhaul our tax system to spread out revenue generation across the entire economy, not on the backs of individual citizens. Tax Revenue will be generated by feeding off the products and services produced in our economy as whole. Eliminate business income taxes and individual income taxes. What would this do for the United State’s economy as a whole.  All of the current talk about foreign wealth leaving the United States in search of alternative free havens would immediately be reversed. Companies would flock to the United States to onshore anything they could. They would have no incentive to offshore and outsource anymore. If business taxes are eliminated foreign and domestic companies could afford to do business here in the United States. What would that mean? More Jobs, More Manufacturing, a bigger GDP, more tax revenue which in turn could be used to pay off our foreign and domestic obligations.

2) Though China is continuing to grow, they are still not considered to be a world safe haven for capital investment due to a number of factors directly related to their own systematic stability. The United States needs to continue fostering domestic tranquility and help restore the trust of its people and the rest of the world by cleaning up its own house financially, morally, and intellectually.

3) Though China is making great strides in technological and military advances, they are not expected to become a superpower in the very near future. This leaves the United States as the only legitimate pillar of stability for the foreseeable future. As long as we continue to invest in our military and push the envelope to new frontiers in space and foster scientific experimentation we will be able to maintain superpower status.

4) There is a significant chance that China will undergo political changes as their people become more wealthy. They will want to have a say in how their wealth is allocated. This leaves China with a higher national risk premium. We must always maintain and improve upon our system in order to allow the people of the United States to live in the most free and prosperous nation on the face of the earth.

Like it or not, the United States still has the world’s largest economy. The United States will have the world’s largest economy for the foreseeable future. Even if the US Dollar is replaced as the world reserve currency, the influence the United States has on the international financial system cannot be ignored.

What will change is the United State’s ability to borrow money to fight protracted wars, fund entitlement programs and fuel the American people’s unquenchable appetite for foreign goods. Wow, this sounds like it will actually stop us from digging a deeper hole. Why should the rest of the world trust us with their money if we’re just going to waste it all?

Maybe if we turn things around, create a sustainable model for paying for our obligations as a nation and actually stop borrowing to live our daily lives then we wouldn’t be the laughing stock of the world.

This could explain a number of recent developments surrounding Russia’s unexplained change in attitude towards sanctions. Once President Obama revealed these details to Russian President Medvedev, the Russian’s are actually considering further sanctions. This also brings to mind the question of the Chinese government’s quality of foreign intelligence. If they had this information in advance like the United States and other western governments have had for years, it begs to question why they are being so complacent. Do the Chinese support Iran and their desire to wipe Israel off the map. It seems to me like the Chinese are once again failing to step up to be responsible leaders on the world stage.

It will be interesting to see if China continues to play the role of an obstructionist when the facts are plain for the entire world to see, even Russia can see the writing on the wall.

Now that this newest intelligence has been revealed, look for it to start getting more interesting on the international political stage.  Is this another Colin Powell like pretext to war, or is this the real deal? I think it’s the real deal and this will be a good test of how much power and clout America still has.

NASA and the Indian space program teamed up to study the possibilities of water on the moon.

I find this to be rather interesting considering the possibilities for the existence of life. I’ve always heard the addage that wherever there is water, there is life. I didn’t really think the first place alien life might be discovered is on the moon. I guess it makes perfect sense though.

I’m really interested in finding out whether there are large deposits of helium 3.

America was built on the backbone of free capital markets and the stability of these markets to provide for development of wealth.

On a macro level, the United States of America has been a haven for capital from around the world. Due to recent actions, the United States has created doubt in the minds of the rest of the world. The question of whether or not the United States can be trusted with foreign wealth is now open for debate.

On a micro level, the people of the United States have mismanaged their economic affairs. The people have mortgaged their futures and their children’s futures by becoming a nation of debtors. This in itself has fueled the growth of emerging nations. Our ravenous appetite for foreign cheap goods in Wal-Marts across the country has sold us out. I can actually remember times when I was told that Wal-Mart was good for our economy because it kept inflation low. We were selling ourselves short for short-term gain. All of the people across this great country will no longer have money to go by Chinese goods when their manufacturing jobs are shipped overseas to China.

On a macro level more spending in the form of borrowing and printing money was regrettably necessary to pull us out of a downward spiral and the collapse of the financial system.  The entire microeconomy was broken, individuals were not spending money.  I am however unable to write off our system as a “dead man walking”.  I think we have a lot of fight left in us.  It will take the collaboration of both individuals and the institutions they trust to govern them to bring us back from the brink.  We can make reforms that can elevate us out of the mess we are in. We can overhaul the way we earn income, we can make it easier for firms and businesses to inject capital into the system by taxing them less and by giving them incentives to pay their workers more.

On a micro level less spending on goods from overseas is necessary to reverse the trend of capital outflows. The less we spend on goods from overseas, the more we are able to right the sinking ship. A professor of mine once noted that America is like a big oil tanker sailing across the ocean, the more holes it gets in the form of capital leaving our economy and the less oil it gets filled up with in the form of foreign and domestic capital, the more likely it will be to sink. Make a decision that will be good for the whole, buy more American goods while sacrificing your 2-3% cost difference so that we can bring manufacturing jobs back to America.

The driving force of every economy is Labor and Capital, as our capital declines, our labor has to increase in order to keep our current standard of living. With more taxes and continued reliance on imports we as a nation and individuals will have to work harder to achieve the same things our ancestors achieved.

As a nation, Americans need to realize that the only path to continued prosperity is through sustainable practices. We must enact rational policies that reflect practical approaches to past, current, and future resource consumption. The way we consumed resources in the past has a direct effect on how we consume resources now, and how we should consume resources in the future.

It is my goal to offer suggestions and insights on what I believe are rational policies for allocating resources in the present and in the future.

In the past, I have debated on how to separate my blog into separate areas of interest. Since I am most interested in three different areas, I will separate my blog into three separate sections, one having to do with Economics, one having to do with Technology, and the other having to do with Politics.

The Economics section of my blog will undoubtedly be slanted more towards the macro end of the spectrum, where I will attempt to provide personal insights on global economic phenomena.

The Technology section of my blog will usually focus on interesting technolgies that I come across as I read, discuss, and experiment with certain items that I find to be interesting.

The Politics section is self-explanatory.