I’d like to hang out with the Dalai Lama for a day — maybe even two, if I could find the time.
He and I could monk-ey around a little, maybe put a prank phone call into Mr. Lama’s pal Richard Gere, pretending it’s coming from Julia Roberts. We’ll drink some tea and basically try to solve the problems of world inhumanity in one afternoon.
It would be fun, although — you’d probably agree — there wouldn’t be much reason for the meeting.
But America would suffer no ill consequences of my meeting with this Buddhist holy man, who — if you don’t know it — is revered by most people in the world (especially those who live in the liberal world) but reviled by the leaders of China.
The current Dalai Lama got the title in 1950. He has met with popes and won a Nobel Prize in 1989 for his stance on human rights. He’s the spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet, which is politically part of China, and with which it has a tense relationship.
So why am I bringing this up? Because President Obama felt the need to meet with the Dalai Lama this past weekend for what were described as “low-key talks.”
I’m sure the two didn’t pull any pranks. But they would have caused fewer problems if they had, because China — our biggest creditor — wasn’t amused.
China’s vice foreign minister, Zhang Yesui, protested the meeting. No matter how low-key, he said, it was damaging his country’s ties with the US.
Zhang said Obama’s meeting was “a wrong move by the US that seriously interfered with China’s internal affairs and seriously violated the US promise of not supporting Tibet independence.”
The White House said that’s all hokum and that the US is “committed to a constructive relationship with China.”
Here’s news for the president: As much as I’d like to hear the US tell China to stuff an egg roll where it hurts, we are beholden to Zhang and his gang. China owns $1.4 trillion worth of US government securities, and it is already disinclined to buy more.
In fact, China was a seller of US government securities in the last quarter.
Right now, the only substantial buyer of government bonds is the Federal Reserve. These shill transactions are inherently dangerous, especially if the US feels the need to anger potential real buyers.
If China stops purchasing our bonds, or starts selling large amounts of that $1.4 trillion holding, interest rates will rise substantially in this country. And the economy will slow. And jobs will be lost.
Was it really necessary for Obama to kick back for an hour with the Dalai Lama — a meeting that had no more purpose than mine would have had?
Mayor de Blasio would like New York City motorists to drive 25 mph. As someone who uses his car in the city a lot, I reply: I would love to go 25.
Show me a street that doesn’t contain enormous and numerous potholes, swerving pedicab drivers, jaywalking pedestrians and construction, and I’d happily maintain that speed.
My average speed in the city is about 15 mph.
It’s a miracle that the mayor’s limo was recently clocked doing 10 to 20 mph over the current 30 mph speed limit.
Mea culpas to Keith Hall, the former head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Hall wasn’t pushed out of the BLS in 2012, his term expired. And Hall believes the definition of the unemployment rate is flawed. That’s why he believes the jobless rate is higher than the BLS is advertising, not because the numbers aren’t truthful.
Still, as I said in a column last week, I believe that Hall would have blown the whistle if he had seen a letter sent to him by a tipster who alleged back in 2011 that the unemployment rate was being manipulated by people at the Census Department.
By the way, that probe — I’m told — is expanding.
The Federal Reserve released meeting transcripts last week that showed our central bankers didn’t understand the full extent of the banking-system crisis in 2008.
Why would that surprise anyone? Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and his successor, Ben Bernanke, never understood that they were laying the foundation for the crisis in the years before 2007-2008. And even today, Bernanke, new chair Janet Yellen and the rest of the Fed governors don’t seem to grasp the mess they have made of the economy.
There is already noise from the Fed that the economy is strong, or even too strong, and may be reaching full employment. Please! Do these people live in a different country than the rest of us?
Doesn’t anyone at the Fed realize that the unemployment rate is only dropping because people have given up looking for work?
The Fed didn’t release transcripts of the ex-officio meetings that took place in ’08, when Bernanke and Wall Street bigwigs decided to rig the stock market as a supposed shortcut to economic prosperity.
That prosperity never happened. But Wall Street — up another 104 points on the Dow Jones industrial average Monday — has certainly been thrilled by those clandestine plans.