The global war on tourism and something else you ought to know to say ahead of the Wall Street pack

For those of you market/economy watchers who have not tuned in to Minyanville, you're missing a good read, e.g.:

As international travel booms, the United States is fast losing market share, the International Herald Tribune reported.

* Since 2000, international travel globally has grown nearly 20 percent; in the United States it has barely budged, the IHT reported.
* Of 808 million international travelers in 2005, only 6.1 percent traveled to the United States, putting us behind France and Spain.
* A June survey found that 77 percent of international travel agents polled said the United States was more difficult to visit than other countries.
* "Flying into Kennedy is like flying into a third world country," Smedes Rose, a travel industry analyst at Calyon Securities in New York, said. "It's pretty awful."
* Look, here's where I draw the line, folks. These namby-pamby complainers can say whatever they want about the strength of our borders, but the fact remains we, as a country, are committed to keeping tourists out of the U.S. and protecting our citizens from any potential future acts of tourism. What is so wrong with that?!

Editor's Note: Sorry, we have to interrupt and stop this nonsense right now.

Editor: Kevin.

* I thought the whole point of Homeland Security was to block tourists from entering in the first place!

Editor: Kevin!

* People, in case you haven't heard, we are engaged in a global war against tourism!

Editor: KEVIN!!!!

What?! What?! I am in the middle of Five Things, what do you want?

Editor: Kevin, it's the global war on terrorism, not tourism. We want to keep terrorists out of the country, not tourists. Homeland security is in charge of fighting terrorism, not tourism. The story is about the decline in tourists to the United States, not terrorists.

Oh. Ok. Well, just change the words around a bit and we're good to go.

And:

* Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said on Wednesday that Chinese leaders were imperiling their own nation’s future by engaging in policies that Americans and others see as unfair.
* China, you're just hurting yourself, Paulson said.
* After all, there is nothing we, as Americans, would like more than to see China stop this self destructive behavior and rise up to be the gigantic, global powerhouse with a population that dwarfs ours and the natural resources and political might that goes along with leveraging the newfound economic might of more than a billion people into a full-on empire that is capable of challenging any nation that dares pursue political or economic goals that run counter to the further strengthening and maintenance of the empire that we know China can one day be.
* Please China, it hurts us to see you hurt you.
* One day, perhaps when you're the world's greatest superpower, you'll understand this.

From Sep 14th's regular "Five things you need to know" column.