With Obama's policy of saying yes to everybody, our future is a basketball, and Obama is trying to make a basket from half-court. So much has to line up perfectly for the combination of bank bailouts, corporate bailouts, massive infrastructure spending and trillion dollar deficits to succeed. Obama's desire to "jolt" the economy back into health is telling: the economy probably wants some bedrest, and extra activity after out bedtime will only prolong our recovery.

It is clear why the Chinese would lend us money to do genuinely stupid things -- to fight wars that alienate us all of over the world, or even a bailout plan that preserves paper profits on their bond portfolio while ultimately burdening the American economy with obligations that will deprive any incipient recovery of necessary oxygen -- but why would they sponsor American investment in infrastructure and education, and might pose a threat to China's plans for Millenial hegemony?