China and Taiwan Unification

One serious obstacle to reunification between China and Taiwan that is rarely discussed is what role will the Communist party play in governing Taiwan at the provincial level. It seems unlikely that Taiwanese would accept the transplant of Communists from the mainland to form a provincial government or that a significant and locally acceptable number of current Taiwanese leaders would be granted (or seek) admission to the Communist party.

The likelihood of Taiwanese political parties continuing their competition for provincial leadership would have the result of creating for the first time in China the existence of non-communist political parties that could hardly be tolerated by the monopolists of the Communist party. Taiwan is different from Hong Kong in scale as well as history. Until this political question is solved, I'd be hard pressed to see how reunification is in the interest of either side. Taiwan would have to give up existing political rights and an energetic democracy. If that didn't happen China may be letting the camel's nose under the tent so to speak in allowing a breaking of their monopoly on political power.

German Public Opinion and Bailouts. What about the True Finns?

I find it very interesting that the Germans seem so animated against bailouts of Greece et al when it seems that their second tier banks (the Landesbanks) probably stand to lose the most from a restructuring of debt. If the banks take catastrophic losses on their debt positions the Germans will still be on the hook for a bailout. Just this time for the bad decisions of their domestic bankers. The real question for Finland is not just do you want to bail out the Greeks, its by extension do you want to participate in the bailout if the ultimate beneficiaries are German banks that have been shown to be perpetual victims of bad investment choices?

Osama Bin Laden

Dead. Nice work.

Syria/Libya

Assad still hanging in there, but I have to believe every dead protester spawns a cycle of retribution and need to avenge honor. I'm not sure this is his father's Syria where a high body count will cow everyone back to their homes. Syrians have seen the outcome in Libya and Egypt and may see it all through. A key issue is whether the merchant class ultimately decides whether this looks like civil war or a cleaning of the slate.

Libya outcome really depends on whether the air traffic controllers hit the ground in force.