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RedditI'm writing today from Chongqing, a vast city in central China that is China's gateway to its western regions. By some accounts, Chongqing is the largest city in the world, a muncipality of 32 million people, but that, I've learned, is misleading, since that number includes the population of a handful of satellite cities and a rural population of 20 million. A few years ago, however, China carved Chongqing and its 32 million people out of Szechuan province and made it a municipality of its own, and today the Chongqing is a pilot project for the most important thing happening in China, and perhaps the world: the urbanization of as many as half a billion people from rural farms and villages into newly constructed cities. "Chongqinq," says Wen Tianping, the city's spokesman, "is a microcosm of China itself."
The scale of the enterprise is staggering. In Chongqing, each year for the indefinite future, the plan is to move 500,000 people from rural to urban life. That means that Chongqinq must plan, ready, and construct the equivalent of a city the size of Atlanta, Georgia, every year, providing jobs, roads, housing, infrastructure, schools, hospitals and more. It's a project that has been going on in China for the past 20 years, during which 200 million people have already been urbanized, and over the next generation another 200 to 300 million people will follow in their footsteps.
"We have plans, timetables, goals," says Qian Lee, the director of Chongqing's comprehensive business promotion project. "You can't have a plan for everything. But we don't make plans to be abandoned. We make plans to be accomplished. You do it scientifically, as we always say in China."
And the thing is, in China, plans work.
In Chongqinq, the population itself has been steady for many years, but the entire municipality is shifting from rural to urban. The city center houses 5-6 million people, satellite cities of up to 1 million or more are popping up around it, and urban townships ot 200,000 to 500,000 are springing up like mushrooms around those. "We've planned six regional centers of 1 million each," says Qian Lee. As people leave the farms and villages, some of the land is converted to industrial use, and some it is combined into more efficient, industrialized farming. "Chongqinq will become what we call a ‘dragon's head' economic engine for the upper Yangtze River region, and the model for balanced, urban-rural areas."
As an inland center, Chongqing was a bit less vulnerable to the economic downturn that followed the financial crisis of 2008. That's because unlike the cities of southern China and Shanghai, for instance, Chongqinq is less dependent on exports of manufactured goods to Europe and the United States. So when the U.S. financial collapse spread around the world, and the economy cratered, the drop in demand for Chinese-made goods didn't impact Chongqing as strongly as other parts of China. Even so, 12 percent of Chongqinq's economy is export-related, so when the crisis hit unemployment in Chongqing – and across China – spiked.
China launched a stimulus of its own, whose size is pretty much unknown. According to Stephen Green of Standard and Chartered Bank, who I met in Shanghai, China's domestic stimulus likely dwarfed the American version. Officially, he says, it was as least $600 billion, but it may have been as much as $3.5 trillion, especially if you count the provincial-level stimulus provided by cities and provinces such as Chongqinq.
"When the financial crisis hit us, a lot of factories closed," says Wen Tianping. Chongqing launched its Warm Winter stimulus plan, spending vast sums, including credit programs to allow many of the 3.5 million unemployed workers to start their own businesses, providing loans and credit guarantees to small business, launching start-up industrial parks, providing direct subsidies to 1,500 businesses, and, of course, using China's ace-in-the-hole: the fact that it is still a communist country with a huge panoply of SOEs (state owned enterprises) that control all of the most important sectors of the economy. The SOE's, says Wen, "were instructed by the government not to cut jobs." Now, not only has Chongqinq recovered fully, but it is currently experiencing a 13 percent growth rate.
In the United States, there is a widely shared perception that China has abandoned socialism and that it has become a Wild West-style, capitalist free-for-all. That's wrong. True, US multinationals, among others, are sidling up cheek by jowl to invest and build factories in China, both for export and to supply China's 1.3 billion consumers. (More than a hundred US Fortune 500 companies operate in Chongqinq already, including Hewlett-Packard, whose laptop assembly plant here will produce 10 million computers a year, Chongqing officials say.) But the fact remains that in China, all of the key industries are government-owned: banks, energy, oil, transport, telecommunications (including China's huge cell phone company, which will soon have its 500 millionth subscriber). China's banking system – which includes four or five giant national banks, 17 mid-sized commercial banks, and about 140 city commercial banks – sailed serenely through the worldwide crisis of 2008-2009. Virtually none of it was exposed to the bad debt and high-flying securities speculation bubble that collapsed AIG, Lehman, and countless other players.
From what I've seen so far, there's no likelihood in the near future that China intends to privatize its core industries. And it's centralized planning system is humming along.
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Robert Dreyfuss
A chronicle of America's adventures in foreign policy and national security.
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I already posted this in the Bonanza for Over-Builders thread, but it's worth repeating here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h7V3Twb-Qk#
The interesting section starts around 1:22.
Posted by srjenkins at 11/18/2009 @ 5:30pm
>>>From what I've seen so far, there's no likelihood in the near future that China intends to privatize its core industries. And it's centralized planning system is humming along.<<<
We have other examples as well in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, in which "certain" core industries are socialized while others are part of the free market.
The policy goal is to find the right mix of socialism and capitalism so that economic dislocation is not as severe during downturns while maintaining significant upside potential for "responsible" risk-taking to create new businesses, industries, and wealth.
I am actually kind of tired of taking the red-bait of socialism VERSUS capitalism when we should all know by now that we need both to have a healthy country that works for everyone - not just those at the top.
Posted by Metteyya at 11/18/2009 @ 6:17pm
I am actually kind of tired of taking the red-bait of socialism VERSUS capitalism when we should all know by now that we need both to have a healthy country that works for everyone - not just those at the top.
Posted by Metteyya at 11/18/2009 @ 6:17pm
I second that!
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/18/2009 @ 6:25pm
I am actually kind of tired of taking the red-bait of socialism VERSUS capitalism when we should all know by now that we need both to have a healthy country that works for everyone - not just those at the top.
Posted by Metteyya at 11/18/2009 @ 6:17pm
I second that!
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/18/2009 @ 6:25pm
No surprise, we already knew that both of you love socialism. (yep, I brought it back because you walked into it Stephen)
And no, we don't need both to have a healthy country. You are both brainwashed by marxist thought.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/18/2009 @ 6:54pm
When I read Dreyfuss's article, I could not help but think of posting this for our comrades from the Communist Manifesto
<In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.
Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.
We have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.
Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of production.
These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.>
bet it makes you guys excited.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/18/2009 @ 7:02pm
Posted by antisocialist at 11/18/2009 @ 7:02pm
--Larry you produce nothing. You sell insurance.
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 7:21pm
...and you sell Jesus (which is the same as selling insurance, if one thinks about it).
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 7:22pm
Posted by antisocialist at 11/18/2009 @ 7:02pm
--Larry you produce nothing. You sell insurance.
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 7:21pm
You wouldn't say that if you saw my vegetable garden.
And I did produce for nearly two decades in the Aerospace and Defense industry.
And what does that have to do with marxism consolidating agrarian society into urban centers as is being realized now in China?
Posted by antisocialist at 11/18/2009 @ 7:34pm
...and you sell Jesus (which is the same as selling insurance, if one thinks about it).
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 7:22pm
And I don't sell Jesus. Nobody has enough wealth to buy salvation.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/18/2009 @ 7:35pm
Posted by antisocialist at 11/18/2009 @ 6:43pm
I am saving an I LOVE GOVERNMENT bumper sticker for you, Larry! They are going fast, but if you send me a mailing address, I will send it to you!
Posted by Metteyya at 11/18/2009 @ 7:37pm
I am saving an I LOVE GOVERNMENT bumper sticker for you, Larry! They are going fast, but if you send me a mailing address, I will send it to you!
Posted by Metteyya at 11/18/2009 @ 7:37pm
Sorry Mett, I don't put bumper stickers on my vehicles.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/18/2009 @ 7:48pm
I don't put bumper stickers on my vehicles.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/18/2009 @ 7:48pm
Then put it on your bathroom mirror. You need the positive re-enforcement.
Posted by chaoszen at 11/18/2009 @ 7:56pm
Chaoszen, go move to North Korea.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 8:04pm
You wouldn't say that if you saw my vegetable garden.
--oh yeah, an impressive addition to the GDP I'm sure
And I did produce for nearly two decades in the Aerospace and Defense industry.
--the gov't is the client. so tax dollars paid for what you did. you fucking socialist.
And what does that have to do with marxism consolidating agrarian society into urban centers as is being realized now in China?
--you de-facto worked for the gov't and brag about your vegetable garden and you decry agrarian china! IRONY WRIT LARGE!
Posted by antisocialist at 11/18/2009 @ 7:34pm
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 8:37pm
...and you sell Jesus (which is the same as selling insurance, if one thinks about it). Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 7:22pm And I don't sell Jesus. Nobody has enough wealth to buy salvation. Posted by antisocialist at 11/18/2009 @ 7:35pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--of course you sell Jesus. You can't help yourself but try sell Jesus even anonymously on the interweb.
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 8:39pm
p.s.--for those that aren't aware--Larry's wife is a gov't employee. as serious as larry takes the bonds of marriage, clearly his pro-capitalism stance with strangers on the interweb is more than a little self-loathing...I mean, someone who calls himself "antisocialist" has a wife who works for the government! haha!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 8:47pm
Chaoszen, go move to North Korea.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 8:04pm
I would think living in an oppressive authoritarian dictatorship would be more up your alley..
Posted by chaoszen at 11/18/2009 @ 9:03pm
Really? So I take it you believe we were right to liberate the South? What about the virtues of pacifism and the inherent evil of American foreign policy? Aren't North and South Korea moral equals?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 9:07pm
And I did produce for nearly two decades in the Aerospace and Defense industry.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/18/2009 @ 7:34pm
Which means you either worked for the government or that the government was your biggest client.
Without socialism you would have been out of a job.
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 9:13pm
And I did produce for nearly two decades in the Aerospace and Defense industry. Posted by antisocialist at 11/18/2009 @ 7:34pm Which means you either worked for the government or that the government was your biggest client. Without socialism you would have been out of a job. Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 9:13pm | ignore this person |
--Larry's a fucking socialist!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 9:14pm
<i>Posted by antisocialist at 11/18/2009 @ 7:35pm </i>
It's more basic than that. You can't buy something that's only given as a free gift.
Posted by Thrawn at 11/18/2009 @ 9:20pm
He said the "defense" industry, fools.
No capitalist country would be without the capacity for military self-defense. The proper purpose of government in such a country is to use force, but only in retaliation against those who initiate its use.
What you mean is, "without government, he would have been out of a job."
But no capitalist advocates blind, hysterical, collectivist mob rule where the majority can overpower the minority without reprisal and where an individual's rights are sacrificed to the irrational whims of the masses. Anarchy is not compatible with capitalism or freedom.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 9:20pm
Larry's a fucking socialist!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 9:14pm
Yeah, that's always the irony with these self professed faux free market types. They keep insisting that the government can;t do anything right, but criticize the biggest government agency/program of all, and you're anti American.
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 9:20pm
Boy, that socialism sure is great. We all love it here at The Nation. But please don't call it socialism, just call it progressivism.
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 9:23pm
<i>Posted by antisocialist at 11/18/2009 @ 7:35pm </i> It's more basic than that. You can't buy something that's only given as a free gift. Posted by Thrawn at 11/18/2009 @ 9:20pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--a "free gift" huh?
--by sell I mean trying to persuade, of course, not actually accepting cash. get a clue you two morons.
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 9:26pm
What you mean is, "without government, he would have been out of a job."
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 9:20pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--no, I said what I mean--he's a fucking socialist!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 9:28pm
Boy, that socialism sure is great. We all love it here at The Nation. But please don't call it socialism, just call it progressivism. Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 9:23pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--yeah pontificus, you're life is so insanely interesting you spend it anonymously chatting with people you supposedly are diametrically opposed to! with your free will, living in a free society--it's a helluva choice to spend your free time here amongst the socialists!
or perhaps you could progress to getting a real life!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 9:32pm
"No capitalist country would be without the capacity for military self-defense."
But there are plenty fo non capitalist counties who have miliary forces too, so the military clearly has nothing to do with capitalism other than to provide defense contractors with bloated contracts to fatten up on.
We call it defense, but they really are the armed forces, which are simply there to support government policies.
"The proper purpose of government in such a country is to use force, but only in retaliation against those who initiate its use."
The might be the proper purpose, but it is usually used to further commercial interests. Without wars for example, those fat cats running defense contracting companies would run out of money. For example, Halliburton, who wrote a recommendatino that contractors should be paid to do the work of the miliatry, was on the brink of ilsovency before teh Iraq invasion.
"But no capitalist advocates blind, hysterical, collectivist mob rule where the majority can overpower the minority without reprisal and where an individual's rights are sacrificed to the irrational whims of the masses. Anarchy is not compatible with capitalism or freedom."
Maybe, but Larry does. Then again, we've already established that Larry is no capitalist.
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 9:32pm
Nice work Shingo!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 9:35pm
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 9:32pm
"you're life is so insanely interesting you spend it anonymously chatting with people you supposedly are diametrically opposed to! with your free will, living in a free society--it's a helluva choice to spend your free time here amongst the socialists!or perhaps you could progress to getting a real life!"
The only people who I really find interesting here are HAPPY, ANTI, and a couple others. Most of you liberal socialists are just fucking programmed retards, but your responses are good for amusement.
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 9:38pm
Ponti is as much a blindly ideological conformist and shrill partisan as the most deranged leftists who post here.
"Just fucking programmed retards"?
What incisive, passionate (if vitriolic) prose!
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 9:43pm
<i>Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 9:26pm </i>
Now, now, no need to not place nice. And yes, I realize that was excessive alliteration. And I was talking about salvation itself, not Christianity (i.e., responding to antisocialist's own statement, not directly the one of yours that prompted it).
Also, one thing to note for the record: some of the stuff about China sounds eerily similar to the dialogue back in the early-mid 20th century, talking about how the planning "revolution" brought about by the Soviet Union was the wave of the future. How'd that turn out?
Posted by Thrawn at 11/18/2009 @ 9:44pm
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 9:20pm
"criticize the biggest government agency/program of all, and you're anti American."
More nonsense from the socialists. Jefferson and Washington were in favor of national defense, so by your logic, they were socialists? Nitwit.
And the really amusing thing is, you socialists highlight all the waste and fraud and abuse in national defense procurement, then in the next breath you propose a vast government takeover of things the government SHOULD NOT be involved in - and we're supposed to forget all about the point you previously made, and drink from the same vat of koolaid as you that NONE of this wastefulness will transfer over to, say, administration of health care...
that's when you really get funny. Keep it up. No-one could make up stuff this amusing.
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 9:45pm
Most of you liberal socialists are just fucking programmed retards, but your responses are good for amusement.
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 9:38pm
That's OK, pontificus, we don't find you and most of the tea baggers all that interesting either, nor are you relevant.
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 9:46pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 9:43pm
"What incisive, passionate (if vitriolic) prose!"
You try reasoning with the statist religion, and get back to me on how it works out, kay?
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 9:47pm
The only people who I really find interesting here are HAPPY, ANTI, and a couple others. Most of you liberal socialists are just fucking programmed retards, but your responses are good for amusement.
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 9:38pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--so smart and talented and interesting conservatives/republicans with rich lives are getting together anonymously on the interweb to diss the "socialists" and "leftists"
yeah--you're any less of a "fucking programmed retard"--haha! hold up a mirror son.
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 9:49pm
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 9:49pm
"--so smart and talented and interesting conservatives/republicans with rich lives are getting together anonymously on the interweb to diss the "socialists" and "leftists""
Actually, I think ANTI is doing missionary work here. For his trouble, patience, time and scholarship, the most he usually gets is 'UGGA BUGGA'! in reply. Pretty hopeless, but I'm guessing it's therapeutic. He really is trying to bring enlightenment to the heathen, and God bless him for it. Me, I'm not here to enlighten anybody, just marvel at the insanity.
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 9:53pm
<i>Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 9:26pm </i> Now, now, no need to not place nice.
--what place?
And yes, I realize that was excessive alliteration.
--impossible i insist!
And I was talking about salvation itself, not Christianity (i.e., responding to antisocialist's own statement, not directly the one of yours that prompted it).
--sell it to someone else!
Also, one thing to note for the record: some of the stuff about China sounds eerily similar to the dialogue back in the early-mid 20th century, talking about how the planning "revolution" brought about by the Soviet Union was the wave of the future. How'd that turn out?
--the chinese have a different focus and drive than white people. the comparison is apples and oranges. they will dominate the world before the end of my lifetime.
Posted by Thrawn at 11/18/2009 @ 9:44pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 9:54pm
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 9:45pm
More nonsense from the socialists. Jefferson and Washington were in favor of national defense, so by your logic, they were socialists? Nitwit.
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 9:45pm
They were for defense, not standing armies, which is what we have now.
"then in the next breath you propose a vast government takeover of things the government SHOULD NOT be involved in.."
Firstly, the idea that government health cover is a government takeover is pure BS, but that aside, we still spend as much on defense every year as that health program woudl cost over a decade.
The you wingnuts say we need a military to save lives, but then argue against programs that would save lives.
Last but not least, you wingnuts are opposed to government services here, but insist on exporting governmetn ser4vics to countries we are invading and occupying.
If you hypocrites are so opposed to government run health care, why aren't you wingnuts lobbying he government to stop the wastefulness of looking after our vets with government run health programs?
You see, that why you wingnuts are so funny. You're the very same morons at the tea bag rallies that demand that the government keep it's hands of Medicare.
Do keep it up. We could use the comic relief.
Too funny.
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 9:55pm
Ponti is as much a blindly ideological conformist and shrill partisan as the most deranged leftists who post here.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 9:43pm
What could me more derranged and conformist than dismissing any criticism of US foreign policy as anti American?
"Just fucking programmed retards"?
"What incisive, passionate (if vitriolic) prose!"
By wignnut standards, perhaps. But then, most wingnuts can't find the US in an Atlas.
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 9:58pm
Jefferson and Washington were in favor of national defense, so by your logic, they were socialists?
--jefferson was a state's righter who abhored big government. they come from the time of militias (you know, the reason the 2nd amendment's in there)
And the really amusing thing is, you socialists highlight all the waste and fraud and abuse in national defense procurement, then in the next breath you propose a vast government takeover of things the government SHOULD NOT be involved in - and we're supposed to forget all about the point you previously made, and drink from the same vat of koolaid as you that NONE of this wastefulness will transfer over to, say, administration of health care...
--you highlight all the so-called waste and fraud and abuse in government but never criticize the military and huge military contracts or reasons for "war" (read: nation building in areas with oil).
that's when you really get funny. Keep it up. No-one could make up stuff this amusing.
--right back at ya kid!
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 9:45pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 9:59pm
Yo, urmy.......(fill in what you know I would brag/whine about)!
On another note, as someone said (to you) "no need to not place nice"......
Is something bothering you, besides my "bragging" that is? Are you a closet Hopey and Changey Obamabot and can't find a "nice" way to come out since, shit, there isn't any reason to.....LOL!
Posted by Happy at 11/18/2009 @ 10:00pm
That was a really nice touch, Ponti!
Posted by Happy at 11/18/2009 @ 10:02pm
Actually, I think ANTI is doing missionary work here.
--you're a fucking programmed retard!
For his trouble, patience, time and scholarship, the most he usually gets is 'UGGA BUGGA'! in reply.
--it's CHIMI CHONGA actually
Pretty hopeless, but I'm guessing it's therapeutic.
--yeah, he probably gets tired of talking to his socialist wife who works for the government.
He really is trying to bring enlightenment to the heathen, and God bless him for it.
--which heathens? the faggots? the queers? the cornholers? the gays?
Me, I'm not here to enlighten anybody, just marvel at the insanity.
--such a rich life you lead. please show us the way...oh, wait...you do EXACTLY what we socialists do! you have out anonymously on the interweb! you live in a free society and you can't think of anything better or more productive to do with your free will than spend your free time here?!?! tremendous!
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 9:53pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 10:04pm
"They were for defense, not standing armies, which is what we have now. "
Jefferson was for a government that was as limited as possible. Nothing could be more diametrically opposite to modern socialists (progressives) like you, who don't see a problem that an expansion of government wouldn't fix. You are as far away from the principles that built this country as you can possibly be.
And in Jefferson's time a standing army wasn't necessary to defend the country. He though an armed populace was enough. Oh, and I assume you're against that, too.
"The you wingnuts say we need a military to save lives, but then argue against programs that would save lives. "
Bullshit. Government run health care will start out by wasting gazillions of dollars, then will end up costing lives as the quality of health care slips and the cost skyrockets. Experience with government run programs from defense to the Post Office shows it's the absolute WORST way to do things, and your beliefs, or should I say religious convictions, are a fantasy.
"If you hypocrites are so opposed to government run health care, why aren't you wingnuts lobbying he government to stop the wastefulness of looking after our vets with government run health programs? "
What, we should send people to war, then tell them tough shit when they come back wounded? More nonsense in service to a delusion.
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 10:06pm
"You try reasoning with the statist religion, and get back to me on how it works out, kay?"
Fair point.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 10:13pm
"--the chinese have a different focus and drive than white people."
Shingo, are you offended by this racist remark?
"the comparison is apples and oranges. they will dominate the world before the end of my lifetime."
The Great Leap forward killed 70 million.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 10:16pm
Yo, urmy.......(fill in what you know I would brag/whine about)!
--yo happy--your investment portfolio is your business. are you that desperate to make other anonymous people aware of your private financial situation? sounds almost socialist!
On another note, as someone said (to you) "no need to not place nice"......
--if you think this is not nice you've lived quite the sheltered life.
Is something bothering you, besides my "bragging" that is?
--again, you think you're "bothering" me? haha! por favor.
Are you a closet Hopey and Changey Obamabot and can't find a "nice" way to come out since, shit, there isn't any reason to.....LOL!
--I'm not a fan of Obama. He's disappointed me with most of his policies. Bush was worse though, and he came first. Assign proper blame (which you and most of your righty friends refuse to do)
Posted by Happy at 11/18/2009 @ 10:00pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 10:19pm
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 10:04pm
"--such a rich life you lead. please show us the way...oh, wait...you do EXACTLY what we socialists do! you have out anonymously on the interweb! you live in a free society and you can't think of anything better or more productive to do with your free will than spend your free time here?!?! tremendous!"
Dude - I've already seen all the Seinfeld episodes twice. The only thing that makes me laugh more is watching people try to apply a 19th century philosophy again and again and again and again - and raging about why it doesn't work. Do you know anything funnier? Let me know, you just might get me to leave!
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 10:21pm
"The you wingnuts say we need a military to save lives, but then argue against programs that would save lives."
It is logically impossible for government healthcare to save any lives and your remark reveals your lack of knowledge about economic realities.
Every dollar spent on government healthcare is a dollar taken out of the private healthcare market that would have been spent more efficiently had the government not taken it (people more efficiently spend their own money than they spend money taken from others). Government run health-care will strangle supply with regulations as well as artificially inflate demand, but this will only cause rationing and unsustainable spending.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 10:24pm
Jefferson was for a government that was as limited as possible.
--including military (which you conveniently ignore). Jefferson was an anti-federalist. The anti-federalists lost. Of course, antisocialist will quote Jefferson on the one hand and the Federalist papers on the other (not realizing he's quoting philosophical opponents).
Nothing could be more diametrically opposite to modern socialists (progressives) like you, who don't see a problem that an expansion of government wouldn't fix.
--You mean like Bush with homeland security, 2 wars (nation building in oil-rich or oil-rich adjacent areas), massive deficit spending, No Child Left Behind, etc.
You are as far away from the principles that built this country as you can possibly be.
--like destroying the Indians and using slaves?
And in Jefferson's time a standing army wasn't necessary to defend the country.
--the Indians had bows and arrows.
He though an armed populace was enough. Oh, and I assume you're against that, too.
--the anti-federalists lost! jefferson was a slave owner who speculated on land and failed spectacularly. if it wasn't for patronage he'd have lived the life of a bum. he found success in government work (you know, tax money paying for his food and shelter)
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 10:24pm
"Shingo, are you offended by this racist remark?"
Not really, though I agree that attributing the differences to race is a mistake, so much as cultural.
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 10:27pm
Bullshit. Government run health care will start out by wasting gazillions of dollars, then will end up costing lives as the quality of health care slips and the cost skyrockets.
--let's take over europe. all the people that were there are dead now, of course.
Experience with government run programs from defense to the Post Office shows it's the absolute WORST way to do things, and your beliefs, or should I say religious convictions, are a fantasy.
--ah, yes! the tried and true picture: the postman is now your doctor--and he will kill you!
the truth is your an apologist for the insurance companies. you loooooooooove them.
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 10:06pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 10:27pm
"--the chinese have a different focus and drive than white people." Shingo, are you offended by this racist remark?
--it's not racist when it's a compliment! black dudes are better athletes than white dudes! oh, shit--racist mother fucker am I!
you don't see a focus and drive when you can surpass the billion mark in population?! haha! the chinese get busy in a way americans only dream of. you see, while we're here jerking off anonymously about politics with other dudes--chinese men are fucking chinese women.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 10:16pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 10:30pm
Jefferson is the greatest US citizen in American history. He is the man most integral to the founding of our nation of laws, and a visionary of unparalleled wisdom. Thank Thomas Jefferson for all your freedoms and for the extraordinarily high standard of living you enjoy because of them.
Yes, Jefferson was a true, pure, laissez-faire capitalist. America was the closest we've ever come to capitalism when it was founded (obviously, slavery, oppression of women, ect, has no basis in capitalism).
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 10:31pm
Dude - I've already seen all the Seinfeld episodes twice. The only thing that makes me laugh more is watching people try to apply a 19th century philosophy again and again and again and again - and raging about why it doesn't work. Do you know anything funnier? Let me know, you just might get me to leave! Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 10:21pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--Dude--you're no different than every lefty here. You're spending your free time anonymously chatting with people you don't know! Get a fucking grip on reality--'cause that's it!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 10:32pm
There's nothing to refute in your first point, it is incoherent.
"--You mean like Bush with homeland security, 2 wars (nation building in oil-rich or oil-rich adjacent areas), massive deficit spending, No Child Left Behind, etc. "
National defense is and always has been an integral function of the government. The fact that our society provides for national defense does not justify your socialist programs. This shibboleth has been skewered ad nauseum on this site. Next.
Sorry, the rest is just drivel. "Destroying Indians and using slaves", is just hateful drivel the leftists in the university indoctrination system uses to impress weak minds. Should we hate Italians today because the Romans had slaves? Everything good about America is nullified because slaves were used in the South, ignoring the millions of white Americans who died in the Civil War? Your indoctrination and brainwashing is so pervasive you can't even think about these questions.
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 10:32pm
"--it's not racist when it's a compliment! black dudes are better athletes than white dudes"
True, and Asians and whites perform better academically than blacks and Hispanics.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 10:33pm
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 10:32pm
"--Dude--you're no different than every lefty here. You're spending your free time anonymously chatting with people you don't know! Get a fucking grip on reality--'cause that's it!"
The reality to me is, you are funny. What more do I need?
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 10:34pm
"ignoring the millions of white Americans who died in the Civil War"
Millions?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 10:37pm
Jefferson is the greatest US citizen in American history.
--opinion stated as fact does not make the opinion fact (not does it make it persuasive to people immune to blunt-force "persuasion")
He is the man most integral to the founding of our nation of laws, and a visionary of unparalleled wisdom.
--he was pretty good.
Thank Thomas Jefferson for all your freedoms and for the extraordinarily high standard of living you enjoy because of them.
--easy now cowboy.
Yes, Jefferson was a true, pure, laissez-faire capitalist.
--jefferson was a failed speculator. he made his success in government work. and he was an anti-federalist. the federalists--hamilton, madison, et al--they are much more responsible for our way of life today than jefferson.
America was the closest we've ever come to capitalism when it was founded (obviously, slavery, oppression of women, ect, has no basis in capitalism).
--the caveat list is much longer--and there is no pure capitalism. chillax.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/1
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 10:40pm
The better point is that the African slave trade was started by Africans and that Europeans simply bought slaves from Africans and Arabs, then felt guilty about it and gave them all freedom and an extraordinary standard of living. By contrast, the Arabs exterminated over 112 MILLION blacks Africans, while in Africa the slave trade still goes on in many nations. In fact, more Europeans were sold into slavery by the Barbary pirate jihadists than the number of slaves brought to America.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 10:42pm
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 10:27pm
"--ah, yes! the tried and true picture: the postman is now your doctor--and he will kill you!"
Awwww, aint that too bad. You think it's unfair to project that the service in socialized medicine will be as bad as the Post Office? Oh, okay. Why don't you tell me which tried and true government program it will emulate instead. National defense? The social security and medicare that are scheduled to bankrupt us all? Public education, which seeming never has and presumably never can have enough funds to do an acceptable job? Amtrak? What's fair to you? Or should we just all be like you, and apply our unlimited faith that somehow it will all work out great in the end, cuz we just all feel so good about it? Come on now, you really have me chuckling.
"the truth is your an apologist for the insurance companies. you loooooooooove them."
Yeah, they pay me by the word. Get your hand out of your pants, son.
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 10:44pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 10:37pm
All right, geez, it was 600,000. I just got rolling there a little bit. If Al Gore can say the center of the Earth is millions of degrees hot and he can still be taken as an oracle here, I can get away with it.
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 10:46pm
National defense is and always has been an integral function of the government. The fact that our society provides for national defense does not justify your socialist programs. This shibboleth has been skewered ad nauseum on this site. Next.
--we don't have "national defense." we have an established military and civilian contractors that supply that military. and they don't always act in "defense." the shibboleth of "national defense" has been skewered ad nauseum on this site. Next.
Sorry, the rest is just drivel. "Destroying Indians and using slaves", is just hateful drivel the leftists in the university indoctrination system uses to impress weak minds.
--au contraire--ignoring history is "hateful drivel" so is minimzing slavery and racism and sexism etc.
Should we hate Italians today because the Romans had slaves?
--should we hate Islam because there are some Muslims that want to kill Jews and attack us?
Everything good about America is nullified because slaves were used in the South
--that's your guilt speaking. I don't feel that way.
ignoring the millions of white Americans who died in the Civil War?
--you really think every soldier fought for slaves? and you know slavery wasn't the main reason for the fight, don't you? or you working on a 7th grade civics class understanding of the civil war?
Your indoctrination and brainwashing is so pervasive you can't even think about these questions.
--keep it up. if you say it enough you'll brainwash yourself that you've nailed it!
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 10:32pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 10:47pm
"--it's not racist when it's a compliment! black dudes are better athletes than white dudes"
True, and Asians and whites perform better academically than blacks and Hispanics.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 10:33pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--in this country yes they do. of course, that doesn't mean every white dude is better than every black dude at math. the smartest dude in my pre-calc class in high school was a black buddy of mine (ironically enough, I was way a way better basketball and baseball player than him).
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 10:50pm
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 10:32pm "--Dude--you're no different than every lefty here. You're spending your free time anonymously chatting with people you don't know! Get a fucking grip on reality--'cause that's it!" The reality to me is, you are funny. What more do I need? Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 10:34pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--you're funny to me too!
and just so we're clear--I'm a leftist, and I'm hanging out on a leftist web site chatting anonymously with other people.
you are EXACTLY the same as me--except you're a righty.
but don't let the truth get in the way of your feelings of superiority!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 10:52pm
"Jefferson was for a government that was as limited as possible." Exactly, and the way to limit it most effectively is through opposing standing armies, because as we see today, the military is the biggest government program of all, and the biggest waster of resources.
Government programs are clearly not the answer to every problem, but to claim that we need smaller government while demanding more and more military spending is a blatant contradiction. To deny the population their most basic needs because they can't afford them is an anathema to a modern and civilized society. Progressives are not the ones contradicting themselves. They have nothing to prove because the fact remains that the government does run the most important functions of our society, while wingnuts like yourself, try to argue that government is bad for everything, while cheer leading he biggest government programs of all. Don't waste your time pretending that the right stands for the founding principals of this country. Jefferson and co would roll in their graves as to how this country has bastardized and distorted the ideals of free markets – in spite of who was running it. You are no closer to the principles that built this country than I or anyone else. No standing army was ever necessary to defend the country.
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 10:53pm
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 10:47pm
"Should we hate Italians today because the Romans had slaves?
--should we hate Islam because there are some Muslims that want to kill Jews and attack us? "
Didn't you momma ever tell you not to answer a question with a question? I ask you again, if we should hate capitalism because of slaver in the Old South, should we not hate modern Italian society because Romans had slaves? If not, why not? And if we are to slight caplitalism because of this, how about the tens of millions who have died pursuant to your dream of a socialist utopia? How do we deal with them, then?
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 10:54pm
The better point is that the African slave trade was started by Africans and that Europeans simply bought slaves from Africans and Arabs, then felt guilty about it and gave them all freedom and an extraordinary standard of living. By contrast, the Arabs exterminated over 112 MILLION blacks Africans, while in Africa the slave trade still goes on in many nations. In fact, more Europeans were sold into slavery by the Barbary pirate jihadists than the number of slaves brought to America.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 10:42pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--my buddies used to apply the same peer pressure rationale---c'mon, everyone's doing it!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 10:54pm
"of course, that doesn't mean every white dude is better than every black dude at math."
Duh.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 10:54pm
Continued...
"Bullshit. Government run health care will start out by wasting gazillions of dollars, then will end up costing lives as the quality of health care slips and the cost skyrockets."
And the system is not wasting gazillions of dollars now?
Spoke like a true health insurance lobbyist. When are you going to bring up death panels?
The fact is that government health care is what we offer war vets because it is accepted as the best this country can offer, and that my friend, is what sinks your whole argument. The fact is that there are millions in this country who cannot afford to get sick, because they face bankruptcy if they do. Even those that are covered are at the mercy of their insurance companies who decide if they get treatment or not.
Given you have no experience with government run health programs, you have no idea what government health cover would look like. Anyone who lives in the UK, Australia or Europe will tell you that they wouldn't trade their system for ours. Why are you so afraid of people having a choice? If you want to stick to your health insurance provider, fine. No one will take that choice away from you, yet insist on denying others that same choice.
"What, we should send people to war, then tell them tough shit when they come back wounded? More nonsense in service to a delusion."
Yeah I got cha there didn't I? You know exactly what i was arguing, so stop playing dumb, or give it your pest shot. If government run health care is so lousy, why not simply pay private insurers to take care of vets? After all, according to you, they are sure to do a much better job right?
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 10:55pm
Awwww, aint that too bad. You think it's unfair to project that the service in socialized medicine will be as bad as the Post Office? Oh, okay. Why don't you tell me which tried and true government program it will emulate instead. National defense? The social security and medicare that are scheduled to bankrupt us all? Public education, which seeming never has and presumably never can have enough funds to do an acceptable job? Amtrak? What's fair to you? Or should we just all be like you, and apply our unlimited faith that somehow it will all work out great in the end, cuz we just all feel so good about it? Come on now, you really have me chuckling.
--when's the las time your health insurance company gave you a checkup, or performed surgery on you, or prescribed you medicine? oh, wait--that's what doctors do! keep conflating doctors with insurance!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 10:57pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 10:37pm All right, geez, it was 600,000. I just got rolling there a little bit. If Al Gore can say the center of the Earth is millions of degrees hot and he can still be taken as an oracle here, I can get away with it. Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 10:46pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--notice it was your fellow righty who tried to catch you in a technicality rather than addressing your main points...
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 10:58pm
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 10:53pm
"No standing army was ever necessary to defend the country."
Really? Hmmm. Is that what Roosevelt said after Pearl Harbor? Madison after the Brits burned the White House? I wonder just how much you know about history, son.
And I am not always in favor of greater spending on the military. After Reagan won the Cold War, I was as grateful as anyone for the chance to ramp down military spending and devote the funds to more urgent priorities at home. My philosophy is far more practical than yours, I think, I doubt if there's ever been a time that you have not wanted to cut the defense budget at all costs, for example. And I doubt if you've ever seen a tax increase you didn't support, or a government program you weren't in favor of (outside of defense, of course). Please let me know if I'm wrong.
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 11:00pm
"Should we hate Italians today because the Romans had slaves?
--should we hate Islam because there are some Muslims that want to kill Jews and attack us? ""
Bad comparison.
The answer to the first question is no; to the second, clearly yes.
Yes, we should hate Islam. Islam is an evil, fanatical, murderous cult responsible for the needless deaths of hundreds of millions. The Koran clearly commands jihad against Christians. It clearly states that Jews are subhuman and should be exterminated. Bin Laden was correct when he stated that the Taliban's Afghanistan was "the only truly Islamic country on earth".
No, we don't hate all Muslims, but we should hate Islam (and all religions).
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 11:01pm
--when's the las time your health insurance company gave you a checkup, or performed surgery on you, or prescribed you medicine? oh, wait--that's what doctors do! keep conflating doctors with insurance!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 10:57pm
That's the only argument they can make. Sean Hannity does it all the time, arguing that people fly to the US for treatment, while ignoring the fact that they are paying out of their own pocket.
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 11:01pm
Didn't you momma ever tell you not to answer a question with a question?
--didn't your momma ever tell you not to answer a question answering your question with a question?
I ask you again, if we should hate capitalism because of slaver in the Old South, should we not hate modern Italian society because Romans had slaves?
--I ask you again, should we hate Islam because some Muslims want to kill Jews and attack us?
If not, why not?
--ditto to you.
And if we are to slight caplitalism because of this, how about the tens of millions who have died pursuant to your dream of a socialist utopia?
--no one died in the establishment of this country!
How do we deal with them, then?
--ditto to you!
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 10:54pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:02pm
"of course, that doesn't mean every white dude is better than every black dude at math."
Duh.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 10:54pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--dduuhh
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:03pm
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 10:55pm
"Yeah I got cha there didn't I? You know exactly what i was arguing, so stop playing dumb, or give it your pest shot. If government run health care is so lousy, why not simply pay private insurers to take care of vets? After all, according to you, they are sure to do a much better job right?"
Actually, that's the first good idea I've heard from you yet! Now you're thinking! Who says you people can't be helped?
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 11:03pm
Shingo wouldn't agree with your remarks on Pearl Harbor. He sympathizes with Imperial Japan.
He has argued that our response to that attack was "disproportionate" and a "war crime". He added that "Japan never came close to threatening our existence".
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 11:05pm
After Reagan won the Cold War
--HAHAHAHAHAHHAHA! you mean, when Reagan was in the right place at the right time to be called "winning the cold war"? i.e.--he was the last in a looooong line of cold warriors? learn your history, son.
I was as grateful as anyone for the chance to ramp down military spending and devote the funds to more urgent priorities at home. My philosophy is far more practical than yours, I think, I doubt if there's ever been a time that you have not wanted to cut the defense budget at all costs, for example. And I doubt if you've ever seen a tax increase you didn't support, or a government program you weren't in favor of (outside of defense, of course). Please let me know if I'm wrong.
--what gov't programs are worth keeping, in your opinion?
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 11:00pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:06pm
"Should we hate Italians today because the Romans had slaves? --should we hate Islam because there are some Muslims that want to kill Jews and attack us? ""
Bad comparison.
--no it wasn't. you know how i know? 'cause I made you respond to it.
The answer to the first question is no; to the second, clearly yes.
--gee whiz--you hate Islam. imagine my complete lack of surprise.
Yes, we should hate Islam. Islam is an evil, fanatical, murderous cult responsible for the needless deaths of hundreds of millions.
--christians have no blood on their hands!
The Koran clearly commands jihad against Christians.
--the bible calls for jihad against gays (although most christians are too cowardly to kill faggots)
It clearly states that Jews are subhuman and should be exterminated.
--the bible says the same about gays.
Bin Laden was correct when he stated that the Taliban's Afghanistan was "the only truly Islamic country on earth".
--is bin laden that dude george w. bush never caught?
No, we don't hate all Muslims, but we should hate Islam (and all religions).
--don't let larry catch you saying we should hate all religions!
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 11:01pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:08pm
antisocialist-Marx didn't teach that you need both to have a healthy country.Like you,he was an all my way extremist.If someone is saying that they want both capitalism mixed with some socialism why would you conclude that they love socialism,but not capitalism,also?If someone likes ice cream on their apple pie then I would assume that they love both.It appears that only you getting excited by the communist manifesto.
Posted by i'm nobody at 11/18/2009 @ 11:09pm
This healthcare debate is facile in the extreme! As I've stated:
"It is logically impossible for government healthcare to save any lives and your remark reveals your lack of knowledge about economic realities.
Every dollar spent on government healthcare is a dollar taken out of the private healthcare market that would have been spent more efficiently had the government not taken it (people more efficiently spend their own money than they spend money taken from others). Government run health-care will strangle supply with regulations as well as artificially inflate demand, but this will only cause rationing and unsustainable spending."
Shingo, stop calling yourself a libertarian and admit you love Marx, Lenin, and Castro and that you hate America, free markets, and capitalism.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 11:09pm
That's the only argument they can make. Sean Hannity does it all the time, arguing that people fly to the US for treatment, while ignoring the fact that they are paying out of their own pocket. Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 11:01pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--sean hannity can't bear to think that his taxes might help subsidize medical treatment for poor people. of course, he wants those poor people to watch his t.v. program so he can get more money!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:10pm
Shingo wouldn't agree with your remarks on Pearl Harbor. He sympathizes with Imperial Japan.
He has argued that our response to that attack was "disproportionate" and a "war crime". He added that "Japan never came close to threatening our existence".
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 11:05pm
And I stand by that. Japan attacked a port in Hawaii, and never came close to our shores.
Dropping nukes on Nagasaki and Horishima was not a repose to the Pearl Harbor attack.
No I don't ympathize with Imperial Japan.
Any more imbecilic comments you'd like to add?
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 11:11pm
Shingo wouldn't agree with your remarks on Pearl Harbor. He sympathizes with Imperial Japan.
He has argued that our response to that attack was "disproportionate" and a "war crime". He added that "Japan never came close to threatening our existence".
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 11:05pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--if the suicide bombers in pearl harbor had been some radicals from laos or vietnam you'd have been all for FDR saying it was really Japan that was responsible...
you're not the only one who can work an analogy you nut!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:13pm
he wants those poor people to watch his t.v. program so he can get more money!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:10pm
Isn't it always the way? Like the tea parties where low income earnign rednecks came out arguing against tax increases for those earning over 250k, while being led and organized by the very people earning over 250k, the Fox News presenters.
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 11:14pm
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 10:55pm
"Given you have no experience with government run health programs, you have no idea what government health cover would look like."
Actually, I have good secondhand experience with British health care as my wife is a British national and her relatives get national health. They get generally decent care, but the cost is enormous, and the wait times are often deadly. More of concern, the systems are gradually going bankrupt as the demographics shift against them, much as social security and medicare are slowly collapsing. And it's worth noting that people who can afford it in those countries DO opt out for US health care (google Belinda Stronach for one example).
"Anyone who lives in the UK, Australia or Europe will tell you that they wouldn't trade their system for ours."
This is an absolute falsehood. People who can afford better care under those systems go private. People who can't often die waiting for care. These are facts.
"Why are you so afraid of people having a choice? If you want to stick to your health insurance provider, fine. No one will take that choice away from you, yet insist on denying others that same choice."
More lies told to you by Obama and his cronies in Congress. First off, I currently have an HSA and high deductible plan which will be immediately outlawed under all the Bills before Congress. Second, the way these bills are set up, they are designed purposely to a) to drive up the cost of private insurance such that it is prohibitively expensive by making us all pay for pre-existing conditions and innumerable other ways the bureaucrats in charge will make private insurance no longer feasible and b) thus driving us all into the 'public option' i.e., national health insurance.
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 11:16pm
Like you,he was an all my way extremist.If someone is saying that they want both capitalism mixed with some socialism why would you conclude that they love socialism,but not capitalism,also?
Posted by i'm nobody at 11/18/2009 @ 11:09pm
Touche. Well put.
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 11:16pm
"--if the suicide bombers in pearl harbor had been some radicals from laos or vietnam you'd have been all for FDR saying it was really Japan that was responsible..."
Not sure what your point is, but if you're talking about 9/11, the two countries that attacked us on that tragic day were Iran and Afghanistan. Some neocon got confused and a typo lead to a war in IraQ. They meant IraN.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 11:18pm
This healthcare debate is facile in the extreme! As I've stated: "It is logically impossible for government healthcare to save any lives and your remark reveals your lack of knowledge about economic realities.
--well, as long as you've "stated" it, then it must be true! how does any soldier who gets wounded and treated by a military doctor survive? the military doctor is not only paid by the gov't--he works for the gov't! he's literally government healthcare! same for doctors who work for the VA.
and, of course, that's the comparison you have to make. because medicare is not gov't healthcare. the doctors providing healthcare to people with medicare don't work for the gov't. they're private health care providers. funny how medicare hasn't destroyed all medical research since its inception DECADES ago!
Every dollar spent on government healthcare is a dollar taken out of the private healthcare market that would have been spent more efficiently had the government not taken it (people more efficiently spend their own money than they spend money taken from others).
--you really think two people going to the same hospital getting the same operation--get different treatment depending on who their payor is? or that the one paying privately (or with private insurance) is getting charged less? HAHAHAHA! you are naive squared.
Government run health-care will strangle supply with regulations as well as artificially inflate demand, but this will only cause rationing and unsustainable spending."
--no rationing now. oh, wait...that's how insurance companies make money. claim denial is rationing.
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:21pm
From 1966 to 2006, the percentage of federal funds spent on Medicare rose from 1% to 19%. This trend will grow exponentially as millions of "baby boomers" enter the entitlement pool. For the same period, spending for mandated government commitments rose from 26% to 53% of the total budget. The budget is increasingly out of the control of government officials. As of 2007, Medicare is running in arrears. In 2017 Social Security will be in deficit. By the year 2040, Medicare and Social Security alone will be running ANNUAL deficits of nearly 900 billion dollars. Medicare spending from now until 2032 will be 235% of economic growth. By 2040, Medicare will be spending about 10% of the nation's Gross Domestic Product annually, and the annual deficits of the United States will total some 20% of the total Gross Domestic Product. The bottom line is this: mandated fiscal entitlements, projected into the future, are over 52,000 billion dollars. That will equal 90% of all household wealth in the U.S., and will place a burden of over 450 thousand dollars on every household in the land. This is almost ten times the present median household income level.
Liberals think this is sustainable.
Surely, this is a sign of pure mental delusion.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 11:22pm
Isn't it always the way? Like the tea parties where low income earnign rednecks came out arguing against tax increases for those earning over 250k, while being led and organized by the very people earning over 250k, the Fox News presenters. Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 11:14pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--it's the same rationale why the lottery is successful...people envision themselves being rich; even though statistically their odds of winning it or earning it is very low.
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:25pm
This is an absolute falsehood. People who can afford better care under those systems go private. People who can't often die waiting for care. These are facts.--posted by pontificus
--"these are facts" says he who makes no citations and DEMANDS to be taken at his bald assertion!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:26pm
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:25pm
"--it's the same rationale why the lottery is successful...people envision themselves being rich; even though statistically their odds of winning it or earning it is very low."
Not everyone needs to be rich. Still, everyone wants it to be possible. Under your ideal system, we all become slaves to the government.
I have already seen in my lifetime the incredible erosion of income such that the average worker has NO chance to break out of the paycheck to paycheck experience. Fortunately, I was luckier than most and managed to do so. What you people offer the country is nothing but dependency and poverty in perpetuity. No thanks, and anyone with any sanity will reject you and your statist philosophy entirely.
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 11:28pm
"--if the suicide bombers in pearl harbor had been some radicals from laos or vietnam you'd have been all for FDR saying it was really Japan that was responsible..."
Not sure what your point is, but if you're talking about 9/11, the two countries that attacked us on that tragic day were Iran and Afghanistan. Some neocon got confused and a typo lead to a war in IraQ. They meant IraN. Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 11:18pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--no country attacked us. they were all men, mostly egyptian, allegedly part of a terrorist group. but go ahead and buy into bush's lies!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:28pm
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:26pm
"--"these are facts" says he who makes no citations and DEMANDS to be taken at his bald assertion!"
Did you google Belinda Stronach like I asked you to? Let's start there, shall we? Tell me what you find.
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 11:29pm
Liberals think this is sustainable. Surely, this is a sign of pure mental delusion. Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 11:22pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--they said the same about medicare when I was a child in the 80s. by the late 90s it was suppose to be broke. funny, clinton left office with a surplus....
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:31pm
ponti-Belinda Stronach isn't relevant since we have people who leave here and go other places for treatment.
Posted by i'm nobody at 11/18/2009 @ 11:35pm
Not everyone needs to be rich.
--no one "needs" to be rich.
Still, everyone wants it to be possible.
--even leftists? I thought we wanted to be poor?
Under your ideal system, we all become slaves to the government.
--oh, right, there it is. I spoke too soon. yep--I want us to all be poor slaves!
I have already seen in my lifetime the incredible erosion of income such that the average worker has NO chance to break out of the paycheck to paycheck experience.
--don't blame wall street or the fat cats. blame me, a 30 year old make less than $40k/year.
Fortunately, I was luckier than most and managed to do so.
--and look where it's lead ya--spending time with me anonymously on the interweb! you great success you!
What you people offer the country is nothing but dependency and poverty in perpetuity.
--yeah, that's what I'm doing--I'm personally enslaving you. I'm hungry, can you deliver me a pizza? Actually, why am I asking?--BRING me a pizza now.
No thanks, and anyone with any sanity will reject you and your statist philosophy entirely.
--I have no "statist philosophy." I'm a regular guy, who went to college, and has an ok paying job (en0ugh to pay my bills and save some). I have a girlfriend, and handful of very close friends, a lot of casual friends, two brothers and two parents that I'm still very close to; and generally a happy life. My philosophy is to eat, sometimes drink (but never drink and drive) and try to be happy. That's all. I'm pretty simple.
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 11:28pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:38pm
"They get generally decent care, but the cost is enormous, and the wait times are often deadly."
The costs are enormous to whom?
"More of concern, the systems are gradually going bankrupt..."
They're going bankrupt because of cut backs, while the government spend 80 billions a Trident Nuclear missile system which they'll never need.
"And it's worth noting that people who can afford it in those countries DO opt out for US health care"
Don;t confuse medical care with health insurance. "This is an absolute falsehood. People who can afford better care under those systems go private. People who can't often die waiting for care."
Having lived in both places, I know this is right wing BS. Has any member of your wife's family died waiting for care? Anyone they know died waiting for health care? When someone dies from neglect, it makes the news, but it doesn't mean it often happens. People have died waiting in this country too BTW.
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 11:39pm
I have already seen in my lifetime the incredible erosion of income such that the average worker has NO chance to break out of the paycheck to paycheck experience.
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 11:28pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--p.s.--well before I reached adulthood it was no longer considered un-American for corporations to send blue collar jobs overseas. But go ahead and blame the 30 year old making less than $40k/year for the average Joe's lot in America!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:40pm
Continued ....
"More lies told to you by Obama and his cronies in Congress."
It was the private insurers that implement policies of denying health care based on pre-existing conditions, not the government. Government heath cover would be for those who've been rejected cover by private insurers based on pre-existing conditions.
What article of the Bills before Congress would outlaw your HSA and deductible plan? Did you read it or is that something a Republican told you?
Again, private health companies are doing fine in those countries that have government health care, so there is no reason why private insurance would suffer. Those who elect for private health cover are not being forced into the 'public option, on the contrary, they receive tax incentives to go private and pay penalties if they can afford private health cover but opt for government health cover.
Clearly, you don't know what you are talking about.
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 11:41pm
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:26pm "--"these are facts" says he who makes no citations and DEMANDS to be taken at his bald assertion!" Did you google Belinda Stronach like I asked you to? Let's start there, shall we? Tell me what you find. Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 11:29pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--I didn't see you ask me to do anything. But no, I'm not doing any homework assignments for you!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:41pm
I have already seen in my lifetime the incredible erosion of income such that the average worker has NO chance to break out of the paycheck to paycheck experience.
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 11:28pm
...and yet you are arguing against government health cover, in spite of the fact that health issuance premiums are guaranteed to continue to sky rocket.
Pretty soon, your health insurance premiums ere going to be cost more than your mortgage.
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 11:44pm
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:40pm
"--p.s.--well before I reached adulthood it was no longer considered un-American for corporations to send blue collar jobs overseas. But go ahead and blame the 30 year old making less than $40k/year for the average Joe's lot in America!"
Jobs are sent overseas for the simple reason that there are qualified people over there willing to do the work for less. American jobs that are covered by obsolete labor laws, pushed by liberals, are the first to go. Ever wonder why Japanese factories in the South are humming along while they are closing in Blue states? Want to find the culprit? Go find a mirror and point your finger at it.
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 11:44pm
What you people offer the country is nothing but dependency and poverty in perpetuity. No thanks, and anyone with any sanity will reject you and your statist philosophy entirely.
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 11:28pm
What have YOU people offered that does not offer the same outcomes? If WE were offering the country nothing but dependency and poverty in perpetuity, then why didn't incomes increase (as opposed to decrease) under Reagan, Bush 1 and Bush 2?
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 11:46pm
Pretty soon, your health insurance premiums ere going to be cost more than your mortgage.
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 11:44pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--but as long as there isn't a public option (never mind single payer...and never mind universal health care)...that health care is guaranteed to be AWESOME!
A-W-E
S-O-M-E
AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME...
SAYS PONTI!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:47pm
"in spite of the fact that health issuance premiums are guaranteed to continue to sky rocket."
Every dollar spent on government healthcare is a dollar taken out of the private healthcare market that would have been spent more efficiently had the government not taken it (people more efficiently spend their own money than they spend money taken from others). Government run health-care will strangle supply with regulations as well as artificially inflate demand, but this will only cause rationing and unsustainable spending.
Are you retarded?!?
This is basic economics!
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 11:48pm
Jobs are sent overseas for the simple reason that there are qualified people over there willing to do the work for less. American jobs that are covered by obsolete labor laws, pushed by liberals, are the first to go. Ever wonder why Japanese factories in the South are humming along while they are closing in Blue states? Want to find the culprit? Go find a mirror and point your finger at it. Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 11:44pm | ignore this person | warn this person
-- i'm surprised you forgot to blame unions!
-- if jobs are simply moved from the northeast and midwest to the south the u.s. would still have the jobs. so your rationale isn't as air tight as you think.
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:49pm
Every dollar spent on government healthcare is a dollar taken out of the private healthcare market that would have been spent more efficiently had the government not taken it (people more efficiently spend their own money than they spend money taken from others). Government run health-care will strangle supply with regulations as well as artificially inflate demand, but this will only cause rationing and unsustainable spending.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 11:48pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--copying-and-pasting the same thing over-and-over on this thread (something you surely copied-and-pasted from someone else) doesn't make it right! but keep repeating it if it makes ya feel good ya nut!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:52pm
Every dollar spent on government healthcare is a dollar taken out of the private healthcare market that would have been spent more efficiently had the government not taken it (people more efficiently spend their own money than they spend money taken from others). Government run health-care will strangle supply with regulations as well as artificially inflate demand, but this will only cause rationing and unsustainable spending. Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 11:48pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--p.s.--military doctors and VA doctors work for the government. they save lives.
--p.p.s.--and that's not even what would happen under a "public option"--doctors are still their own bosses, they work privately. the public option is a publicly funded health insurance company that competes with private health insurance companies.
keep defending the insurance companies!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:54pm
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 11:39pm
""They get generally decent care, but the cost is enormous, and the wait times are often deadly." The costs are enormous to whom?"
To the British taxpayer. Their spending is even more out of control than ours.
""More of concern, the systems are gradually going bankrupt..." They're going bankrupt because of cut backs, while the government spend 80 billions a Trident Nuclear missile system which they'll never need."
No, the cost of national defense in those countries is small and shrinking. In contrast, social spending is large and accelerating. Find another shibboleth, this one's about dry.
"This is an absolute falsehood. People who can afford better care under those systems go private. People who can't often die waiting for care."
"Having lived in both places, I know this is right wing BS. Has any member of your wife's family died waiting for care? Anyone they know died waiting for health care? "
'Death panels' exist in the UK and elsewhere. Old people are routinely denied care, or given extremely long wait times. The quality of care is substandard - look up Belinda Stronach and find out why she, a liberal MP in Canada who lobbied vigorously against any kind of ability for Canadians to use private care, decided that she wanted to go to the US for the right kind of care. Mastectomies, for example, in Britain are limited to radical types rather than the more difficult lumpectomies. Wait times for cancer diagnosis take weeks and even months when days count. I know about all of this first hand.
And the lack of published studies proves nothing because the liberal media simply can no longer be trusted to report the truth. You can't even watch 'Law and Order' anymore without being bombarded with liberalpropaganda.
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 11:56pm
Every dollar spent on government healthcare is a dollar taken out of the private healthcare market that would have been spent more efficiently had the government not taken it
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 11:48pm
Rubbish because with insurance premiums set to double in the next few years, those extra dollars will simply go into the pockets of health issuance executives.
With a government plan to act as competition, the blowout in these premiums are more likely to be controlled.
"Government run health-care will strangle supply with regulations as well as artificially inflate demand, but this will only cause rationing and unsustainable spending."
You could say the same thing for military spending, which is actually 10 times as much, but that doesn't seem to bother you wingnuts.
Of course the right argued against regulating Wall Street, arguing that Wall Street could regulate itself.
How did that work out or are you retarded?
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 11:57pm
Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 11:46pm
"What have YOU people offered that does not offer the same outcomes?"
The same things that have made this country the richest in the world, with the highest standard of living: free enterprise, free markets, and personal liberty. These are all things the leftists hate. Instead, they would trade them all for a promise of security. For an example of how this works you, please see: Cuba, Soviet Union, North Korea.
Posted by pontificus at 11/19/2009 @ 12:01am
And the lack of published studies proves nothing because the liberal media simply can no longer be trusted to report the truth. You can't even watch 'Law and Order' anymore without being bombarded with liberalpropaganda.
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 11:56pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--what a hell hole jefferson set in motion! open a vein--it'll all go away.................
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 12:02am
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:52pm
No, I did write that. It's nothing profound, but then were I too illiterate, I would refuse to believe my opponent was speaking with his own voice, as I would only barely understand what it was he was saying.
I repeat because you did not have a response the first time or the second. I repeat because my basic logic has not been refuted, and because you refuse to refute it. I repeat because you reject the conclusions of reason, whereas reason is on my side.
You are a primitive, uneducated, emotionalist simpleton and a fool.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/19/2009 @ 12:03am
Instead, they would trade them all for a promise of security.
--which is why your ilk sell out the constitution at the thought of a terrorist attack.
Posted by pontificus at 11/19/2009 @ 12:01am | ignore this person | warn this person
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 12:04am
The same things that have made this country the richest in the world, with the highest standard of living: free enterprise, free markets, and personal liberty.
Posted by pontificus at 11/19/2009 @ 12:01am | ignore this person | warn this person
--do tell--how have you made your living? what has been your career(s)?
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 12:05am
"Of course the right argued against regulating Wall Street, arguing that Wall Street could regulate itself."
Economic regulations caused the recession. Markets Don't Fail! is a book that will explain this to you.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/19/2009 @ 12:07am
"To the British taxpayer. Their spending is even more out of control than ours."
In your dreams. The cost of health care in teh US is the highest in the world, and we still only come in 38th or there abouts in terms of health care provided to citizens.
"No, the cost of national defense in those countries is small and shrinking"
You're just making this BS up now, because if you had any idea, you'd realize that military spending is on the rise in Britain, Australia and Europe.
'Death panels' exist in the UK and elsewhere."
Absolute rubbish. Again you are making this up. There are no old people denied care. While there are waiting times for elective surgery (for those on the public option only) it is still better than no care at all.
Belinda Stronach is a wealthy right wing politician who used her own wealth to jump to the front of the cue and get medical treatment by American doctors. Her choice has nothing to do with private vs government health cover. Stronach didn't opt for American health care to sign up with an American health insurance provider did she? You seem unable to avoid conflating the 2 issues here.We've already established that the medical treatment available in the US is the world's best, but only to the wealthy.
When it comes to come treatments, wait times will become unavoidable, especially with a growing population that is living longer.
There is no liberal media in this country. That too is a outright falsity. All media outlets are owned by large corporations who are driven by commercial interests, not political.
"You can't even watch 'Law and Order' anymore without being bombarded with liberalpropaganda."
Now you're getting paranoid.
Posted by Shingo at 11/19/2009 @ 12:13am
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 12:04am
"--which is why your ilk sell out the constitution at the thought of a terrorist attack."
My ilk? Constitutional rights have always been infringed on in times of war. Check out the history of the Civil War and WWII. The only Constitutional rights that have been infringed on during the war on terror are the imaginary ones the left seems to think that foreign terrorists have (see: Eric Holder). "My ilk" includes Lincoln and Roosevelt, who instituted, without debate, far more restrictions than 'my ilk' ever even advocated.
Posted by pontificus at 11/19/2009 @ 12:14am
No, I did write that. It's nothing profound
--you can say that again.
, but then were I too illiterate
--clearly I can't read or write. it's amazing you can communicate with me even though you talk to me in person. hmmmm....
, I would refuse to believe my opponent was speaking with his own voice, as I would only barely understand what it was he was saying.
--it's true I barely understand you, but it's not your faulty logic, it's wondering at what point you adopted your faulty logic....
I repeat because you did not have a response the first time or the second.
--your "point" (used VERY loosely) wasn't addressed to me when you first wrote it--and I did respond to it anyway. scroll on up.
I repeat because my basic logic has not been refuted
--you will never be able to see your "logic" being refuted--because your "logic" is actually a set of beliefs. like religious folk, your mind is closed to everything but your own beliefs.
, and because you refuse to refute it.
--can you read? are you illiterate? i already did chump!
I repeat because you reject the conclusions of reason, whereas reason is on my side.
--no, not quite.
You are a primitive, uneducated, emotionalist simpleton and a fool.
--we're all primitive. I'm not uneducated; if anything I'm overeducated. we're all emotional, and all emotions are actually very simple. i can be a fool, about certain things (usually women)...but I'm not being so here....and your resort to name calling is cute ya nut!
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/19/2009 @ 12:03am | ignore this person | warn this person
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 12:16am
Posted by Shingo at 11/19/2009 @ 12:13am
""You can't even watch 'Law and Order' anymore without being bombarded with liberalpropaganda."
Now you're getting paranoid."
Oh yeah? How about the last two episodes where a) war crimes trials of the Bush Administration are advocated and b) Health Care reform is explicitly backed.
These are not conservative positions, they are liberal positions, and they are explicitly backed by the program. For them or against them, you have to admit that it's flat out liberal propaganda. And that's not the only show, either, it's fairly pervasive, in varying degrees, subtle and not-so-subtle.
Posted by pontificus at 11/19/2009 @ 12:17am
"My ilk" includes Lincoln and Roosevelt, who instituted, without debate, far more restrictions than 'my ilk' ever even advocated.
Posted by pontificus at 11/19/2009 @ 12:14am
Sorry to break it to you, but your ilk has nothing in common with Lincoln and Rooselvelt. Your ilk has moved to far to the right of Lincoln and Rooselvelt that you re to the left of them.
Posted by Shingo at 11/19/2009 @ 12:17am
Economic regulations caused the recession. Markets Don't Fail! is a book that will explain this to you. Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/19/2009 @ 12:07am | ignore this person | warn this person
--lack of economic regulation, in conjunction with tax cuts and deficit spending during war time (2 wars!) caused this recession.
a book with an exclamation point in the title HAS TO BE GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 12:19am
""No, the cost of national defense in those countries is small and shrinking"
You're just making this BS up now, because if you had any idea, you'd realize that military spending is on the rise in Britain, Australia and Europe. "
As a percentage of overall spending in all of those places, defense spending is a small percentage and is shrinking as a percentage of overall spending. Social spending is exploding at an unsustainable level in Britain and Europe, dwarfing everything else, just as it is here. Do you even read the news about the explosion of social spending in America? It's obvious you don't.
Most of those countries could not even provide support for their NATO commitments in Afghanistan. Do the research, son, then get back to me when you realize I'm right.
Posted by pontificus at 11/19/2009 @ 12:22am
Oh yeah? How about the last two episodes where a) war crimes trials of the Bush Administration are advocated and b) Health Care reform is explicitly backed.
Posted by pontificus at 11/19/2009 @ 12:17am
Oh please, what other television show has a Republican Presidential hopeful starring in it?
How about the episode where euthanasia was tried and found guilty or when Fred Thompson's character insist that the war in Iraq is fro freedom? Those aren't progressive positions.
Are they explicitly backed by the program?
I guess that makes it flat out right wing propaganda.
Yes, you are most certainly paranoid.
Posted by Shingo at 11/19/2009 @ 12:22am
ponti-I love the way you extremists, on both sides, revise history in order to make your side look great and the other side to blame for everything.The reason that you dogmatic people love to declare your own side to be great is because that's a very good backdoor way of declaring yourselves to be great..It's the I'm okay,but you suck syndrome.Some of what people,on both sides,have to offer is okay,but history shows that some of it sucks.For the most part you guys are useless because all you care about is declaring yourselves to be fantastic and blaming everyone else.
Posted by i'm nobody at 11/19/2009 @ 12:24am
MATTHEWS: Well, how about large media enterprises? DEAN: ...The answer to that is yes. I would say that there is too much penetration by single corporations in media markets all over this country. We need locally-owned radio stations. There are only two or three radio stations left in the state of Vermont where you can get local news anymore.
Why doesn't Dean invest his own money (or organize a group of investors) and open up his own local radio station, and see if the people of Vermont will voluntarily support Dean's station with their own dollars? Why? Because economically, the reason why there are so few "local" stations in Vermont, is because the locals in Vermont do not wish to financially support any more then they presently have. That is the "democracy" of the marketplace--a freedom Dean wishes to override with his own nightmarish "plan."
In a free society there are many ways to get information: for those who want points of view, not available in the mass media (primarily because such views do not appeal to the "masses") they can turn to the Internet, specialized journals and magazines, "zines," etc.
Shingo, you have exposed yourself as a Castro-loving Marxist pacifist pinko multiculturalist America-hater.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/19/2009 @ 12:25am
My ilk?
--you don't understand the word ilk? look it up! or are you saying what constitutes your ilk? pansies, is the answer.
Constitutional rights have always been infringed on in times of war.
--"infringed on"? or "infringed"? it doesn't surprise me you're kool wit' it though!
Check out the history of the Civil War and WWII.
--it's funny how people of your ilk (read: pansies) think you're the only ones who've even heard of huge historical events, never mind read about them! too funny.
The only Constitutional rights that have been infringed on during the war on terror are the imaginary ones the left seems to think that foreign terrorists have (see: Eric Holder).
--yeah, warrantless wiretapping was limited to "proven" terrorists only. uh-huh!
"My ilk" includes Lincoln and Roosevelt
--you flatter yourself (flatter, in this sense, means it's not true...fyi)
, who instituted, without debate, far more restrictions than 'my ilk' ever even advocated.
--comparing the civil war and WWII to a fight on "terror" that's lasted longer than both...nice try
Posted by pontificus at 11/19/2009 @ 12:14am |
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 12:27am
"As a percentage of overall spending in all of those places, defense spending is a small percentage and is shrinking as a percentage of overall spending."
Wrong again. Britain is the second highest defense spender in the world.
"Do you even read the news about the explosion of social spending in America? It's obvious you don't."
You mean like government bailouts of the car industry and Banks?
"Most of those countries could not even provide support for their NATO commitments in Afghanistan."
That's because Afghanistan is a political dead end. It is unpopular and there is no clearly defined goals.
"Do the research, son, then get back to me when you realize I'm right."
I did, I'm back and it turns out your'e wrong.
But you are kinda cool for a wingnut.
Posted by Shingo at 11/19/2009 @ 12:29am
Oh yeah? How about the last two episodes where a) war crimes trials of the Bush Administration are advocated and b) Health Care reform is explicitly backed. These are not conservative positions, they are liberal positions, and they are explicitly backed by the program. For them or against them, you have to admit that it's flat out liberal propaganda. And that's not the only show, either, it's fairly pervasive, in varying degrees, subtle and not-so-subtle. Posted by pontificus at 11/19/2009 @ 12:17am | ignore this person | warn this person
--look at pontificus complain about the free market!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 12:30am
As a percentage of overall spending in all of those places, defense spending is a small percentage and is shrinking as a percentage of overall spending.--posted by pontificus
--come again?
haha! this is a gem. i've been posting here for years--by far that's the most incoherent sentence posted in almost a decade.
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 12:32am
I ask you again, if we should hate capitalism because of slaver in the Old South, should we not hate modern Italian society because Romans had slaves? If not, why not? And if we are to slight caplitalism because of this, how about the tens of millions who have died pursuant to your dream of a socialist utopia? How do we deal with them, then?
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009
Wow, an in depth examination of the US's karmic situation wouldn't go well for you Ponificus.
You were quite right to compare the US to the Romans.
The US has killed, abused or subjugated just about every race on this planet, at one time or another. (Except for Indian Nationals, who were colonized by the British.)
It is capitalism and greed which lead to some of the more shameful chapters of American history.
Posted by koroviev at 11/19/2009 @ 12:34am
Observe that in the 20th century the major world wars were all started by the anti-capitalist collectivist countries. The greatest period of world peace was during 19th century predominantly capitalist America. A businessmen gains nothing by having his property taxed away to pay for a war, only a power-seeking bureaucrat does. Thus, the businessman in a capitalist country opposes wars. The only men who benefit from wars are those with political pull, who gain their wealth through extortions from their fellow men through the power of government. Whatever these looters are they are not businessmen -- they gain their wealth by political favors, and not through competition in the free-market. Their wealth is gained through coercion and extortion of their fellow citizens.
America has liberated 1 billion people since 1942. It has saved tens of millions of lives since WW2. It prevented a massacre in South Korea that would have killed more people than the number of Jews killed by Hitler (based on the scale of killing in the North and the difference in population size between North and South Korea). It has saved millions of Afghans, Iraqis, and Africans under Bush. It does more to combat disease and hunger than any other nation. The Marshall Plan was the single greatest act of generosity in recorded history. If America had won the Vietnam War, over 3.5 million innocent lives would have been saved. We liberated Kuwait, Bosnia, and Eastern Europe. We have halted genocide and spread democracy worldwide. All hatred of America is inherently irrational.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/19/2009 @ 12:46am
<i>Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/19/2009 @ 12:46am </i>
All businessmen oppose wars, interesting. That must be why they all lined up to protest the Spanish-American...no, wait, actually they were part of the main impetus for it. Oops.
Do you think Islamists hate American generally, or hate specific actions, within, say, the last 20 or 30 years?
Posted by Thrawn at 11/19/2009 @ 12:55am
Observe that in the 20th century the major world wars were all started by the anti-capitalist collectivist countries.
--the nazis weren't collectivist. they hated an entire portion of their population. and the russians, the "anti-capitalists" you decry--helped us defeat the nazis.
The greatest period of world peace was during 19th century predominantly capitalist America.
--the century with our civil war? before which an entire portion of the population was treated as slaves (and women couldn't vote). you're eager for a return to a world where black men, all women, and even white men with no property--were 2nd class citizens. you need to wake the fuck up!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 12:55am
"Observe that in the 20th century the major world wars were all started by the anti-capitalist collectivist countries."
The US has started the most and been intervened, attacked or invaded other countries on 70 occasions since WWII alone.
"A businessmen gains nothing by having his property taxed away to pay for a war, only a power-seeking bureaucrat does."
Exactly, which is why the US government introduced the Federal Reserve Bank to print money to pay for these wars. If the US taxpayer had to pay for the US military industrial complex by taxation, they would oppose the insane military spending of this country.
"The only men who benefit from wars are those with political pull, who gain their wealth through extortion from their fellow men through the power of government."
Exactly and we have plenty of those. Lockheed Martin and other defence contractors make a fortune from wars. Halliburton was saved by the Iraq war.
"Whatever these looters are they are not businessmen"
No, they are social parasites, but they are very wealthy parasites, who control the government, so yes, it's true that their wealth is gained through coercion and extortion of their fellow citizens, namely politicians.
"America has liberated 1 billion people since 1942."
Rubbish. America has seen to it that the worlds population remain in servitude, especially poorer countries. The reason America overthrew Arsitide in Haiti for example,. Was because he threatened to increase the minimum wage,
America has killed tens of millions of lives since WW2. America killed 3 million in Vietnam and half a million bombing Cambodia. It has killed tens of thousands in Afghans, hundreds of thousands in Iraqis, in which 1.2 million have died because of our attack an invasion.
Posted by Shingo at 11/19/2009 @ 01:08am
Continued...
There was nothing generous about the Marshall Plan. America profited enormously from it. Britaain only finished repaying the US last year,
America bombed thousands to their deaths in Bosnia and Eastern Europe.
America has not prevented any genocide, but supported dictators and stifled democracy worldwide.
Posted by Shingo at 11/19/2009 @ 01:09am
All businessmen oppose wars, interesting. That must be why they all lined up to protest the Spanish-American...no, wait, actually they were part of the main impetus for it. Oops.
Posted by Thrawn at 11/19/2009 @ 12:55am
You'll have to forgive rigthwingnutcase. He surfers from a form of touretz, where he posts deranged messages that have no connection to reality.
Posted by Shingo at 11/19/2009 @ 01:15am
"All businessmen oppose wars, interesting."
You have to marvel at that statement an just stare at it don't you?
If it wasn't for businessmen, we woudl not have gone into Vietnam or Iraq.
Posted by Shingo at 11/19/2009 @ 01:17am
you need to wake the fuck up!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 12:55am
No hope of that happening urmygyro. I've been trying to wake this wingnut for months and all he did was go deeper into his intellectual coma.
Posted by Shingo at 11/19/2009 @ 01:24am
businessman in a capitalist country opposes wars.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/19/2009
The corporations in the US currently profit from wars.
Haliburton, Caci, Bechtel, KBR and an entire laundry list of vulture capitalists are currently picking the bones of Iraq.
Chevron used their helicopter to fly in army goons to shoot up Nigerian protestors.
Exxon-Mobil hired thugs from the Indonesian Army to protect its gas fields and their goons killed, raped and/or beat up the local people.
One corporation to pick the bones of a war ravaged country and another provides second hand soldiers to perform security or brutality on their behalf.
There is no culpability. Corporations aren't people. They are entities with no sense of morality.
Posted by koroviev at 11/19/2009 @ 02:00am
The sad thing is that China is having it's Industrial Revolution, but there won't be any labor, legal, or social corrections made like we had in the western world. No unions, no standardized work week, no enforced working conditions, no holidays, nothing, forever. And to boot, all of the abuses will be brutally enforced state economic policy in the name of prosperity and no one can do anything to stop it, right? Everyone want's their $.79 pot holders, so that's their internal problem. It will go down in history as the worst thing to happen to a nation of people outside of war.
Posted by Milhaus at 11/19/2009 @ 07:07am
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/19/2009 @ 12:46am
Brilliant thinking, huh? Boiled down?
"We saved you people, you should love us, and if you don't, YOU're crazy so we're going to have to kill you to save us!"
Posted by Mask at 11/19/2009 @ 07:35am
Wow, So many people with so much to say with so little insight. Mr. Dreyfuss, who's tending the lines? You've got a lot of ignorant and rude readers overreacting to a mere 8 paragraphs of opinion.
Seriously, everyone, read more and write less...you just might learn something!
Posted by mcmarty3 at 11/19/2009 @ 08:09am
Seems to be quite a few illiterates here.
You are my gyro, is, it seems on a cursory reading (a bit hard to read through all your posts) a pretty good illustration of that sort of naivety. "Working for the government" does not imply that those who do so are socialists or that a government that employs people is practicing socialism. That seems to be what is being said or implied by him/her and others.
State socialism mostly has been defined by government ownership of the means of production. In a communist state such as China that officially once meant no private ownership of enterprises. However China at present is practicing some of the most effective capitalism in the world today and that even includes a comparison with America.
China is an authoritarian undemocratic state growing at a phenomenal rate, in large part through attracting foreign capital and technical knowhow and that in its burgeoning private sector.
Robert Drefuss is always a good read and these reports on China are good and important. This country will help determine to a great extent the prosperity or otherwise of the rest of the world including America well into this century.
However it never was a completely classless society despite the dream of Communism with its Cultural Revolution and today the gulf between the incredibly wealthy and the poor is growing as fast if not faster than other "capitalistic societies" for the same reasons.
Just a bit of difference over who owns what in China. The following list of China's billionaires is a good place to start to see that Robert's view on privatisation is not quite accurate with regard to the present reality in China.
http://tinyurl.com/yl8xva5
1st on Duke Energy
Posted by lrjones4 at 11/19/2009 @ 08:17am
"The company(Duke Energy) currently is working with two Chinese partners - China Huaneng Group and ENN Group, both leaders in China's energy sector. China Huaneng Group is State-owned, while the other is private."
From: Private companies energize efforts to combat climate change
By Sun Xiaohua in Beijing and Wu Chong in New York (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-14 10:10
"Guo Guangchang (born 1967), is a Chinese entrepreneur. He is the CEO of Fosun International Limited and the representative of 10th National People's Congress. Guo is currently the second richest person in Mainland China with a net worth over 30 billion Chinese yuan."
Guo was born in Dongyang, Jinhua, Zhejiang, China. Guo was born as a low class farmer's child during the Mao Zedong era. His childhood was hard as was most of the Chinese countryside during this era. He went to a very good high school though his parents forbid him to go so he ran away taking a straw mat and several bags of rice. He graduated from the Department of Philosophy at Fudan University, Shanghai.
In 1995, Guo and four schoolmates borrowed 38,000 yuan to invest in product development in genetic engineering. The company name was changed to Fosun Holdings Limited (Now Fosun Pharmaceutical). The company earned 100 million yuan from developing medicine against the hepatitis B virus, which strengthened further development of Fosun companies. Fosun has since expanded into other sectors, including real estate, retailing, securities, steel and gold mining. It is currently the largest conglomerate company in China.
"Guo is often the only person the Chinese government will talk to on the subject of privatizing the state run companies."
The last para is significant in terms of where China is heading.
Posted by lrjones4 at 11/19/2009 @ 08:18am
lrjones-It seems rather obvious that everyone on here is literate.That's what I love about you egomaniacs who think you're brilliant.You say the most ignorant things,but you do use lots of pretty words to show ignorance with.
Posted by i'm nobody at 11/19/2009 @ 08:38am
lrjones uses "good and important" words like when he says "these reports on China are good and important."
lrjones: "However China at present is practicing some of the most effective capitalism in the world today and that even includes a comparison with America."
--when you gonna put your children or grandchildren to work sewing my underwear and socks for a couple bucks a day? you want to compare the economies--compare the standards of living--something you nincompoops won't do 'cause you're insulated from worrying about living like that.
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 08:49am
But no capitalist advocates blind, hysterical, collectivist mob rule where the majority can overpower the minority without reprisal and where an individual's rights are sacrificed to the irrational whims of the masses. Anarchy is not compatible with capitalism or freedom.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 9:20pm
Say that to all the people in America who don't have equal rights. They were taken away by the majority.
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/19/2009 @ 10:25am
But no capitalist advocates blind, hysterical, collectivist mob rule where the majority can overpower the minority without reprisal and where an individual's rights are sacrificed to the irrational whims of the masses. Anarchy is not compatible with capitalism or freedom. Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 9:20pm Say that to all the people in America who don't have equal rights. They were taken away by the majority. Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/19/2009 @ 10:25am | ignore this person | warn this person
--stephen, don't you know faggots don't have rights?!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 10:40am
Jobs are sent overseas for the simple reason that there are qualified people over there willing to do the work for less. American jobs that are covered by obsolete labor laws, pushed by liberals, are the first to go. Ever wonder why Japanese factories in the South are humming along while they are closing in Blue states? Want to find the culprit? Go find a mirror and point your finger at it.
Posted by pontificus at 11/18/2009 @ 11:44pm
So, you LIKE the fact that corporations are driving down American wages and "average Joe" benefits????
Cornelius Vanderbilt has nothing on you!
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/19/2009 @ 10:50am
1.And I did produce for nearly two decades in the Aerospace and Defense industry. Posted by antisocialist at 11/18/2009 @ 7:34pm Which means you either worked for the government or that the government was your biggest client. Without socialism you would have been out of a job. Posted by Shingo at 11/18/2009 @ 9:13pm | ignore this person | --Larry's a fucking socialist! Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 9:14pm
Urmy, when did you decide to be another Darla posting statements that are utterly moronic?
Is any form of govt socialist according to you? And on what basis?
It seems you have decided to abandon cognitive thinking and have instead adopted the idiocy of people like Darla by throwing out one absurd statement after another.
I enjoy debate with those who are willing to think and to back up their contentions, but I have not time or patience with those who want to engage in grade school juvenile rantings.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/19/2009 @ 10:53am
antisocialist-Actually,you don't enjoy debate.You enjoy stroking your own ego,like you just did.
Posted by i'm nobody at 11/19/2009 @ 10:56am
<-the bible calls for jihad against gays (although most christians are too cowardly to kill faggots)
It clearly states that Jews are subhuman and should be exterminated.
--the bible says the same about gays.
Posted by urmygyro at 11/18/2009 @ 11:08pm>
This is the low state to which you have succumbed? You post lies about Christianity as some form of supposed intelligent response to conservatives?
There is no "call for jihad" against homosexuals in Christianity.
There is no statement in Christianity that homosexuals are subhumans
The New Testament treats all sin as bringing the same result-spiritual death and separation from G-d. At this time, all sinners who die go to Sheol (to Torments). Eventually at the final judgment they will join satan when he, sheol, and sinners are cast into hell.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/19/2009 @ 10:59am
antisocialist-It's irrelevant what academic theories about Christianity say since none of you live that.
Posted by i'm nobody at 11/19/2009 @ 11:02am
America bombed thousands to their deaths in Bosnia and Eastern Europe.
Posted by Shingo at 11/19/2009 @ 01:09am | ignore this person | warn this person
Not sure what Eastern European bombing you are referring to, but the NATO military action in Bosnia should be applauded for the same reasons that US military action in WWII, against both the Nazis and the Japanese should be applauded -- because it was undertaken on behalf of democracy, freedom and human rights against totalitarianism, racism and human rights abuse. Even if one maintains that the bombing of Dresden and/or Hiroshima was unjustifiable (I don't think that anything in Bosnia would fall into a similar category), that does not change the fundamental fact that the nature of the confrontation was between right and wrong.
Posted by gren at 11/19/2009 @ 11:09am
Urmy, when did you decide to be another Darla posting statements that are utterly moronic?
--value judgments by you do not equate to fact.
Is any form of govt socialist according to you? And on what basis?
--the war machine ain't socialist! yeah----riiiiiiiighhht!
It seems you have decided to abandon cognitive thinking and have instead adopted the idiocy of people like Darla by throwing out one absurd statement after another.
--value judgments by you do not equate to fact.
I enjoy debate with those who are willing to think and to back up their contentions, but I have not time or patience with those who want to engage in grade school juvenile rantings.
--I take the time to deal with your petty religious matters. I'm better than you. Posted by antisocialist at 11/19/2009 @ 10:53am
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 11:32am
antisocialist-Actually,you don't enjoy debate.You enjoy stroking your own ego,like you just did. Posted by i'm nobody at 11/19/2009 @ 10:56am | ignore this person | warn this person
--he can't see that fundamental truth.
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 11:34am
This is the low state to which you have succumbed? You post lies about Christianity as some form of supposed intelligent response to conservatives?
--there are no lies in my posts.
There is no "call for jihad" against homosexuals in Christianity.
--god hates faggots. and wants you to destroy all gayness. blame yourself if you don't have the stomach to fuck up the faggots!
There is no statement in Christianity that homosexuals are subhumans
--god hates faggots.
The New Testament treats all sin as bringing the same result-spiritual death and separation from G-d. At this time, all sinners who die go to Sheol (to Torments). Eventually at the final judgment they will join satan when he, sheol, and sinners are cast into hell.
--god hates faggots! he's sending them to hell to be fucked for eternity!
Posted by antisocialist at 11/19/2009 @ 10:59am | ignore this person | warn this person
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 11:36am
I love debate. I'm a regular master debater. And as any master debater will tell you, it doesn't matter if it is wrong or right. It only matters if you have the pale glow of satisfaction at the end, which I can assure you happens every time I post to The Nation.
Nothing is so satisfying than giving it to socialism, again and again.
Posted by antis0cialist at 11/19/2009 @ 11:49am
I love debate. I'm a regular master debater. And as any master debater will tell you, it doesn't matter if it is wrong or right. It only matters if you have the pale glow of satisfaction at the end, which I can assure you happens every time I post to The Nation.
Posted by antis0cialist at 11/19/2009 @ 11:49am | ignore this person | warn this person
It is unfortunate that debate and argument mattwers more to you than right and wrong. It is even more unfortunate that you are far from alone on this board with regard to playing and gaming without intellectual integrity.
Posted by gren at 11/19/2009 @ 12:08pm
I love debate. I'm a regular master debater.
--you masturbate on the internet, stroking your own ego . you are far from a "master debater"
And as any master debater will tell you, it doesn't matter if it is wrong or right. It only matters if you have the pale glow of satisfaction at the end, which I can assure you happens every time I post to The Nation.
--you glow b/c you're bored and your socialist wife doesn't give you that glow anymore. you win nothing here. but if it makes you feel good-power to you old man!
Nothing is so satisfying than giving it to socialism, again and again.
--give what? what's "it"? your seal of disapproval? ohhhhh--we're quaking over here! por favor.
Posted by antis0cialist at 11/19/2009 @ 11:49am
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 12:09pm
Urmy, when did you decide to be another Darla posting statements that are utterly moronic?
--value judgments by you do not equate to fact.
Is any form of govt socialist according to you? And on what basis?
--the war machine ain't socialist! yeah----riiiiiiiighhht!
It seems you have decided to abandon cognitive thinking and have instead adopted the idiocy of people like Darla by throwing out one absurd statement after another.
--value judgments by you do not equate to fact.
I enjoy debate with those who are willing to think and to back up their contentions, but I have not time or patience with those who want to engage in grade school juvenile rantings.
--I take the time to deal with your petty religious matters. I'm better than you. Posted by antisocialist at 11/19/2009 @ 10:53am
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 11:32am
So, you are still unwilling or unable to explain why any form of govt is socialist?
I'll stand by my statement. You make grade school juvenile remarks instead of responding.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/19/2009 @ 12:11pm
Dreyfuss your worse on China than you were on Iran ,and I thought could not be possible.
Posted by Anti-imperialist at 11/19/2009 @ 12:17pm
So, you are still unwilling or unable to explain why any form of govt is socialist?
--the bloated military and its civilian contractors are socialist. deal with it...and your wife makes her money off people's taxes. the beast feeds you!
I'll stand by my statement. You make grade school juvenile remarks instead of responding.
--if i had a nickel for every time you make a "grade school junvenile remark" instead of responded to points being made--I could single-handedly wipe out the national debt. keep charming yourself old man!
Posted by antisocialist at 11/19/2009 @ 12:11pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 12:21pm
Sorry to enter what seems to be an in house debate or a family quarrel.
I am a Canadian, and constantly amazed at the ideological tenor of much of you political conversation. Many of you use words like free enterprise and socialism like religious mantras. Have you forgotten the philosophical pragmatism that is such an important part of your history. One should do what works for the greater good of the greatest number of people. You don't have private highways. They are public (socialist). You don't have private police. They are (in the main), public (socialist). So one should look at what works for the greater good in each economic sector. Many think health care and the money supply and parks should be in the public sector. Farming and bakeshops and auto making should be private. One can reason that some areas should have a mixture of both, as in education and housing.
Posted by Rick Taves at 11/19/2009 @ 12:59pm
Farming and bakeshops and auto making should be private. Posted by Rick Taves at 11/19/2009 @ 12:59pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--farmers seek handouts as much as any other businessmen. the key is the size...and so many get so big politicians don't want them to "underperform" never mind fail under their watch.
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 1:05pm
I love debate. I'm a regular master debater. And as any master debater will tell you, it doesn't matter if it is wrong or right. It only matters if you have the pale glow of satisfaction at the end, which I can assure you happens every time I post to The Nation.
Posted by antis0cialist at 11/19/2009 @ 11:49am | ignore this person | warn this person
It is unfortunate that debate and argument mattwers more to you than right and wrong. It is even more unfortunate that you are far from alone on this board with regard to playing and gaming without intellectual integrity.
Posted by gren at 11/19/2009 @ 12:08pm
The hoaxer misusing my name is at it again.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/19/2009 @ 1:12pm
the century with our civil war? before which an entire portion of the population was treated as slaves (and women couldn't vote). you're eager for a return to a world where black men, all women, and even white men with no property--were 2nd class citizens. you need to wake the fuck up!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 12:55am
The constitution never prohibited women or blacks (including slaves) from voting. That was done at the state level.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/19/2009 @ 1:23pm
The constitution never prohibited women or blacks (including slaves) from voting. That was done at the state level. Posted by antisocialist at 11/19/2009 @ 1:23pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--and it took fed. gov't action for it to change!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 1:36pm
The hoaxer misusing my name is at it again.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/19/2009 @ 1:12pm | ignore this person | warn this person
My bad.
Posted by gren at 11/19/2009 @ 1:41pm
Posted by Rick Taves at 11/19/2009 @ 12:59pm
Jesus loved Ayn Rand as his only begotten Sister.
Posted by Mask at 11/19/2009 @ 1:53pm
The constitution never prohibited women or blacks (including slaves) from voting. That was done at the state level. Posted by antisocialist at 11/19/2009 @ 1:23pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--and it took fed. gov't action for it to change!
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 1:36pm
No, it didn't require Fed action. It could have and should have been done at the state level. The constitution in fact did not address voting. It left it entirely up to each state to determine. And there were women who voted in the early years of the nation.
One of the 1st acts of Congress was the Northwest Passage of 1787. It banned slavery in all new terroritories. Blacks who were property owners did vote in both northern states and in the Territories like Michigan.
As far as the states: In the North before the Civil War, black people were allowed to vote with relatively few restrictions in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont
Posted by antisocialist at 11/19/2009 @ 1:54pm
antisocialist-You must have forgotten about the civil war.
Posted by i'm nobody at 11/19/2009 @ 1:58pm
antisocialist-How many blacks were in Maine?There aren't that many there now.The fed govt did have to step in to end slavery and segregation because some states refused to do so.
Posted by i'm nobody at 11/19/2009 @ 2:04pm
o, it didn't require Fed action. It could have and should have been done at the state level. The constitution in fact did not address voting. It left it entirely up to each state to determine. And there were women who voted in the early years of the nation. One of the 1st acts of Congress was the Northwest Passage of 1787. It banned slavery in all new terroritories. Blacks who were property owners did vote in both northern states and in the Territories like Michigan. As far as the states: In the North before the Civil War, black people were allowed to vote with relatively few restrictions in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont Posted by antisocialist at 11/19/2009 @ 1:54pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--notice you can't cite and southern states that allowed black people to vote. federal action was needed. and the south rightfully was forced to adopt a few amendments to the constitution on condition to reenter the union.
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 2:05pm
--notice you can't cite and southern states that allowed black people to vote. federal action was needed. and the south rightfully was forced to adopt a few amendments to the constitution on condition to reenter the union.
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 2:05pm
No, it's YOUR opinion that Federal action was needed. there was no amendement with the "right to vote" for blacks and women that the South was forced to adopt to be readmitted. You clearly made that up.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/19/2009 @ 2:26pm
No, it's YOUR opinion that Federal action was needed. there was no amendement with the "right to vote" for blacks and women that the South was forced to adopt to be readmitted. You clearly made that up.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/19/2009 @ 2:26pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--you ever heard of the 15th amendment you douche?!
you're not larry, evenlarry ain't as stupid as you
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 2:32pm
What happens when ALL production is automated, when human labor is NOT required AT ALL ?
It is NOT that far away.
Posted by allenwoll at 11/19/2009 @ 2:38pm
Posted by allenwoll at 11/19/2009 @ 2:38pm
People been talking about that since Asimov wrote his robot stories in the 50s....still not happening, even in China.
Posted by Mask at 11/19/2009 @ 3:33pm
No, it's YOUR opinion that Federal action was needed. there was no amendement with the "right to vote" for blacks and women that the South was forced to adopt to be readmitted. You clearly made that up.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/19/2009 @ 2:26pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--you ever heard of the 15th amendment you douche?!
you're not larry, evenlarry ain't as stupid as you
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 2:32pm
We are both partially wrong. in 1869 the bill was amended to require 3 Southern states to adopt it as part of re-admission
Virginia, Mississippi and Georgia
Posted by antisocialist at 11/19/2009 @ 3:37pm
now i know you're not larry--larry is incapable of admitting he's wrong
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 3:50pm
"That means that Chongqinq must plan, ready, and construct the equivalent of a city the size of Atlanta, Georgia, every year, providing jobs, roads, housing, infrastructure, schools, hospitals and more. It's a project that has been going on in China for the past 20 years, during which 200 million people have already been urbanized, and over the next generation another 200 to 300 million people will follow in their footsteps..."
HAHAHA! It would take the ACLU and the Sierra Club about a month to f**king derail every single plan and bring this all to a screetching halt.
Posted by freiheit1 at 11/19/2009 @ 4:02pm
now i know you're not larry--larry is incapable of admitting he's wrong
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 3:50pm
Wrong, I've done so at least 3 times in the past two weeks.
Daily if you count conversations with my wife.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/19/2009 @ 4:30pm
Gren wrote:
"Even if one maintains that the bombing of Dresden and/or Hiroshima was unjustifiable (I don't think that anything in Bosnia would fall into a similar category), that does not change the fundamental fact that the nature of the confrontation [WWII] was between right and wrong."
Your opinion. But not mine, nor that of John Maynard Keynes, Gen. LeMay, nor Winston Churchill, for that matter.
In regards to the later, this is what he wrote on page iv of his preface "The Gathering Storm", the first of his trilogy memoir on that War:
One dat President Roosevelt told me that he was askign publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called, I said at once "The Unnecessary War". There was never a war more easy to stop than that which has just wrecked what was left of the previous struggle."
Right and wrong is from the perspective of the victor. As Gen. LeMay has written, had the Allies lost, the "history" of that war and "the nature of the confrontation between right and wrong" would have been written quite different. As many are discovering, with reporting on Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan now in real time. Much of the reporting on the past (including the Gulf war- try this:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0906/p01s02-wosc.html )
was pretty much crafted by the victor, and any resemblance to other versions coincidental.
Posted by erichwwk2 at 11/19/2009 @ 4:30pm
I have a second cousin who just finished a three year stint in Chongqing. As well as a roommate whose dissertation was suggested by Steven Cheung, who is credited with introducing Hayek and market mechanics to China.
So all this interests me very much. My pervious comments were influenced by the flow. I had wanted to comment on the ending of the article:
"From what I've seen so far, there's no likelihood in the near future that China intends to privatize its core industries. And it's centralized planning system is humming along."
And so is its private sector. I am thus amused by those who think in either, or, as is still the ideology on the U.S., and was that of the former Soviet Union.
Deng Xiapoing to me got it right when he said something like:
"I don't care if its a white cat or a black cat; it is a good cat if it catches mice."
Posted by erichwwk2 at 11/19/2009 @ 4:42pm
Posted by erichwwk2 at 11/19/2009 @ 4:30pm | ignore this person | warn this person
The fact that the Nazis would have had a different narrative of right and wrong doesn't contradict my point. Slavery is wrong, and the opposition to it was in the right, even though the narrative would have been different if the slaveowners had triumphed. Jim Crow is wrong, and the opposition to it was in the right, even though the narative would have been different if the racists had triumphed.
Indeed, despite your pseudo-intellectual absolute moral relativism, I believe that in your heart of hearts you believe that the allies represent "right" in the war against the Nazis' wrong.
Posted by gren at 11/19/2009 @ 4:43pm
Posted by erichwwk2 at 11/19/2009 @ 4:30pm | ignore this person | warn this person
BTW, Churchill explained that WWII would have been unnecessary if the US had joined the lEAGUE OF nATIONS, had the Allies prevented Germany from re-arming, and had Hitler had been more aggressively opposed right from the outset. Churchill had no ambiguity about right and wrong in the war.
Thus, your out-of-context quote is completely misleading as to its meaning.
Posted by gren at 11/19/2009 @ 5:07pm
"Do you think Islamists hate American generally, or hate specific actions, within, say, the last 20 or 30 years?"
Radical Islamic jihadists repeatedly attacked America starting from its founding. In 1786, the U.S. representative John Barclay, negotiated a "non-molestation" treaty with Morocco, whose "emperor" was paid $10,000 in gifts to sign it. But Tripoli, Algiers and Tunis for the next three decades continued their seizures of American vessels and enslaving their crews and passengers. After the Dey's death, Morocco also resumed its depredations.
The Islamists captured, murdered, and enslaved Americans unilaterally. Jefferson and Madison ended up having to take military action to stop them.
They first asked the jihadists why they did this, given that America was a secular, not Christian, country in its laws that had no quarrel with Muslims and had never behaved in a hostile manner towards them.
They said that their right to murder and enslave infidels was spelled out quite clearly in the Koran.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/19/2009 @ 8:15pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/19/2009 @ 8:15pm
Funny that you guys never mention the Koran when promoting "nation building", "laying the foundation for incipient democracies" or "saving the population from cruel dictators."
It would seem that after 200 years of malevolent, though sometimes latent, behavior on the part of these "jihadists" you'd throw in the towel.
Talk about changey & hopey as your astral & titular leader would say.
Posted by Sorelish at 11/19/2009 @ 9:02pm
lrjones uses "good and important" words like when he says "these reports on China are good and important."
lrjones: "However China at present is practicing some of the most effective capitalism in the world today and that even includes a comparison with America."
--when you gonna put your children or grandchildren to work sewing my underwear and socks for a couple bucks a day? you want to compare the economies--compare the standards of living--something you nincompoops won't do 'cause you're insulated from worrying about living like that.
Posted by urmygyro at 11/19/2009 @ 08:49am
Good? I had in mind China illiterates like you as in "good" for your re-education.
If you weren't an E grade Dunce you may not have equated capitalism in an undemocratic China with the version practiced in democratic America. The point you missed was that capitalism seems to work as well in a Communist state as it does in a democratic Republic.
Had you been a C grade Trier you may have said "aha I see, when looking at China, that capitalism also works in an authoritarian state".
If you were an A grader there were some "important" considerations to be mulled over such as capitalism paradoxically being the economic choice of a Marxist state. Why? Better than the socialist model when it comes to growing an economy? Which of course is the name of the game in China.
You do seem in the dark re China. The images of China that we regularly see in this part of the world are of upwardly mobile middle class young Chinese, driving pretty flash cars, dressed in the latest fashions and hanging out at nightclubs that rival the best in the West. They are the new bourgeois from the burgeoning bourgeoisie whom, I would suggest, do their sweating only in the expensive gyms in cities like Shanghai.
Posted by lrjones4 at 11/20/2009 @ 01:44am
Posted by gren at 11/19/2009 @ 5:07pm
And your view of Churchill is a bit revisionist, too, gren.
He didn't always oppose Hitler, in fact as late as 1938, Winston Churchill was willing to give Hitler a chance to "prove himself".
In an attack on British opponents of Munich, Hitler called Churchill a "warmonger"...to which Churchill replied-
"In common with most English men and women, I should like nothing better than to see a great, happy, peaceful Germany in the vanguard of Europe. Let this great man search his own heart and conscience before he accuses anyone of being a warmonger. The whole peoples of the British Empire and the French Republic earnestly desire to dwell in peace side by side with the German nation. "
Churchill didn't like Hitler, but he didn't have any problems with a Nazi Germany, as long as it was a peaceful, non-expansionist Nazi Germany.
Posted by Mask at 11/20/2009 @ 07:35am
The hoaxer misusing my name is at it again.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/19/2009 @ 1:12pm
I thought so. You calling yourself a "master debater" was simply too good to be true. :-)
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/20/2009 @ 12:49pm
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/20/2009 @ 12:49pm
I couldn't fall for that one and think that even Larry would use that old joke seriously. He's smarter than that.
Posted by Mask at 11/20/2009 @ 1:17pm
Some miscellaneous thoughts:
Robert Dreyfuss, in talking about the blissful utopia the Chinese are developing in Chongqinq says:
"....As people leave the farms and villages, some of the land is converted to industrial use, and some it is combined into more efficient, industrialized farming. ....."
I thought that industrialized farming was wrong....at least over here in the U.S., it has been condemned as wrong. I guess over in Utopia (excuse me, China) it is OK.
Also, two thoughts about motor vehicles over in Chongqinq:
1. I'll bet the license plates on cars in Chongqing don't say "Live Free or Die" like the ones in New Hampshire do.
2. I'll bet if the comrades in Chongqinq who run the place (the communist party elite) decide to make the citizens get (and pay for) new license plates that aren't necessary, that the comrades who live there (the people who aren't in the ruling communist party elite) don't have the ability to stop that, like it appears the people in New York State may have successfully done.
In all of Robert Dreyfuss's discussion about the blissful utopia that is Chonginq, there is no discussion about whether the comrades who aren't part of the ruling communist party elite can speak freely and do what they want and say what they want. I wonder why that doesn't matter?
Also, unrelated to that stuff but since it has been brought up on this thread, why are we still fighting the War Between the States over 140 years after it ended at Appomattox?
While the North had outlawed slavery, many hypocritical Yankees with the means to do so still engaged in the slave trade, supplying the South with slaves, and treated Black people in the north very poorly. Yankees were not simon pure on this issue.
Posted by sjchermak at 11/20/2009 @ 3:50pm
Posted by sjchermak at 11/20/2009 @ 3:50pm
Of course you are right about the democratic freedom to express one's political opinions in China. It is still very much an authoritarian state.
However one could not expect Dreyfuss to miss the chance to claim socialism is not dead in China.
But the question really is, given the burgeoning growth of capitalism and private ownership in China, can what we are witnessing be called socialism at all? All governments including yours are pretty heavily involved in planning and by laws on how towns and cities are to be regulated and developed. That is not socialism.
There has been a view expressed that because China is a Communist (authoritarian) state it would be impossible for capitalism to prosper there. That in light of what can now be observed in China is not a credible proposition.
Robert made a point of saying that things like energy and communications were still state owned. That was not gratuitous information but was in support of the proposition that socialism is still alive and well in China. A little searching shows that even some of those industries are also in private hands and privatisation of existing government owned assets is certainly being considered. All these indicators tell us that whatever we like to call the economic system in China it is not, by definition, socialism.
Robert Drefuss's article was important, in my estimation, because it puts the focus on what will become the economic heart the world in this century (given the equally phenomenal industrial and hence economic growth of democratic India).
Will the freedom given to private enterprise to prosper in China lead to political freedom? Who knows? But America as never before has the opportunity to foster China's movement in that direction.
Posted by lrjones4 at 11/20/2009 @ 5:00pm
If we don't elect Ron Paul President, America will experience a political and economic collapse comparable to the fall of Rome.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/20/2009 @ 9:40pm
So, you LIKE the fact that corporations are driving down American wages and "average Joe" benefits????
Cornelius Vanderbilt has nothing on you!
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/19/2009 @ 10:50am | ignore this person | warn this person
Right, our filthy greed is driving normal working families to fight for living wages while doing highly skilled and arduous labor. It makes me want to vomit. Why can't they understand that it's their place to lead the way to economic parity with China. Then we will once again enjoy the glory of 75 cent/hour wages and shanty towns in America. Don't fret, there will be the ever present network of corrupt ultra-wealthy organized crime figures like our buddy Vanderbilt to make our country a worse place, just like they always have.
Posted by Milhaus at 11/21/2009 @ 12:42am
Have you forgotten the philosophical pragmatism that is such an important part of your history. One should do what works for the greater good of the greatest number of people. You don't have private highways. They are public (socialist). You don't have private police. They are (in the main), public (socialist). So one should look at what works for the greater good in each economic sector. Many think health care and the money supply and parks should be in the public sector. Farming and bakeshops and auto making should be private. One can reason that some areas should have a mixture of both, as in education and housing.
Posted by Rick Taves at 11/19/2009 @ 12:59pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Oh boy.. what you are seeing is 200 hundred years of spin. This goes all the way back to the drafting of our constitution and the political factions there. The whole thing, states rights tied to wealthy economic interest, the public trust (commons), the incredible double-standard of what "Men" means, slavery, later Caribbean slave owners fleeing to the mainland (the south) to escape slave revolts, all tangled up in the then old, and now extremely distorted allegiances to the English crown which still exist but people don't understand where their political views originated from, today we call them Republicans. If they did, a lot would change. Our country was founded on some very strong and good fundamental ideals laid out in the constitution, but even as it was being drafted, the corrupt and the slavers forced unworkable compromises into it. Mainly states rights, voting requirements in governing bodies, and many of the sources of confounding permanent gridlock our government suffers from. People care, but the system is designed to make a real public trust impossible.
Posted by Milhaus at 11/21/2009 @ 01:06am
"But no capitalist advocates blind, hysterical, collectivist mob rule where the majority can overpower the minority without reprisal and where an individual's rights are sacrificed to the irrational whims of the masses. Anarchy is not compatible with capitalism or freedom.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/18/2009 @ 9:20pm
Say that to all the people in America who don't have equal rights. They were taken away by the majority."
False. The only ethnic groups who are racially discriminated against under the laws of the land are whites and Asians. Such laws limit, for example, the number of Asians who can have access to higher education without the government finding "disparate impact" discrimination in the results of colorblind policies being that Asians are more academically successful than other groups. Liberals never encourage blacks to improve their disgraceful IQ scores; they punish Asians for their success. This is irrational and fundamentally evil. It is further pathological because it subsidizes and provides incentive for failure even as it takes opportunities away from brilliant Asians who might have contributed immensely to our standard of living and economy.
Liberals have to understand that their welfare state has accumulated between 50 and 60 trillion dollars in mandated fiscal entitlements that the government has promised to pay in the future and that this is more than the net household worth of the entire United States. Unless our economy grows in the double digits every year for the next 75 years, we are, in a word, doomed.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/21/2009 @ 8:15pm
IM GAY
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/21/2009 @ 8:17pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/21/2009 @ 8:17pm
A hoaxter is misusing my account. I know who they are.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/21/2009 @ 8:30pm
IM GAY
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/21/2009 @ 8:17pm
So as a right winger, that must make you a self hating gay.
Posted by Shingo at 11/22/2009 @ 4:42pm
I'm not gay, and I don't hate gays, so I'm certainly not a self-hating gay.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/22/2009 @ 4:49pm
Liberals have to understand that their welfare state has accumulated between 50 and 60 trillion dollars in mandated fiscal entitlements that the government has promised to pay in the future and that this is more than the net household worth of the entire United States. Unless our economy grows in the double digits every year for the next 75 years, we are, in a word, doomed.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/21/2009 @ 8:15pm
The 50 and 60 trillion you are referring to occurred under both governments and was largely created by defense (ie. empire) spending.
But you are right, we are doomed.
Posted by Shingo at 11/22/2009 @ 5:33pm
Actually, empire spending is not even included in that figure. Empire spending is approaching 1 trillion dollars a year, however.
"But you are right, we are doomed"
Unless we elect Ron Paul President. Which isn't likely, since when he goes on, say, Fox News, he's asked questions like "So, do you think we should take our marching orders from Al-Qaeda?"
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/22/2009 @ 6:14pm
Unless we elect Ron Paul President. Which isn't likely, since when he goes on, say, Fox News, he's asked questions like "So, do you think we should take our marching orders from Al-Qaeda?"
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/22/2009 @ 6:14pm
Even though I admire Ron Paul as much as you, I don't think there is anything even he could do to fix the problem.
Fox never liked Ron Paul. He's too honest.
Posted by Shingo at 11/22/2009 @ 6:44pm
Shingo, why are you so supportive of socialized medicine if you are aware of the fact that our government spending is unsustainable?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/22/2009 @ 8:57pm
Shingo, why are you so supportive of socialized medicine if you are aware of the fact that our government spending is unsustainable?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/22/2009 @ 8:57pm
The following reasons: 1) The value of life and health is priceless and society can afford it. Medical services should be available to everyone in a civilized society. 2) We could easily afford a government program it if we cut defense spending by 20%, though I believe we should reduce spending to 20% of what it is. 3) Having a government health cover as an option is not socialized medicine, because private insurance will remain an option to those who can afford it.
Posted by Shingo at 11/22/2009 @ 11:41pm
"The value of life and health is priceless"
So, I take it you support the American empire stopping genocide worldwide, from Afghanistan to Sudan to the Congo to Burma to North Korea?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/22/2009 @ 11:52pm
"everyone in a civilized society"
I thought that the very idea of civilized and uncivilized societies was inherently racist?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/22/2009 @ 11:53pm
"We could easily afford a government program it if"
We're already 60 trillion dollars in debt. We can't afford it.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/22/2009 @ 11:55pm
"Having a government health cover as an option is not socialized medicine, because private insurance will remain an option to those who can afford it."
But every dollar used to finance a public program is a dollar taken out of the private healthcare market that would have been spent more efficiently by the private market had the government not taken it.
Sure, we could force people to buy coverage using other people's money, but this would only artificially increase demand even as regulations decreased supply. Obviously, this will exponentially raise prices and lead to rationing. Further, people carelessly spend the money of others, and use it to buy things they would otherwise never consider purchasing.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 11/23/2009 @ 12:01am
When the U.S. had tariffs, foreign companies could produce products within the country and sell them here as domestic goods. These companies were investing in this country and employing Americans. Similarly, when General Motors and Ford went to Europe, they built their cars in those countries employing local workers and SUPPORTED THEIR MARKET! Trade did not support these markets, but the jobs of ordinary workers and the investment in those markets supported them. There is nothing wrong with companies going into China, if they employ local people and sell within those markets. Beginning with NAFTA, American Jobs and Industries were outsourced to other countries for cheap labor. Since 70% of the American economy was supported by the disposable income of ordinary workers, Free Trade destroyed the American market. A similar process is at work in Europe. Selling products to a failing American and European markets is a no win proposition for China. They need to concentrate on developing an independent internal market, which is how we became a major industrial nation. They should not ignore Agriculture which feeds the new Industrial base.
Posted by pjcasey at 11/23/2009 @ 1:35pm