Large swaths of the Chinese economy are publically owned and controlled by local officials.
Their economy has been growing by 10% per year – the largest advancement in human welfare in history, AFAIK.
That said, I’m picking nits: central planning has some pretty serious problems. It’s just that the empirical reality differs substantially from the simplistic beliefs of economic fundamentalists (eg the predicited relationship between top tax rates and economic growth can’t be found).
Good question. Victory is a combination of turning out your supporters, switching the allegiances of swing voters and discouraging the opposition from voting, depending upon your morality.
My take is that there are a lot of Americans who don’t like Hillary and don’t want to. Some of their reasons are pretty laughable: their critiques (She’s ambitious! She’s pro-choice! She voted for the Iraq war!) are banal and wholly unexceptional among the political set.
Nonetheless, I’m guessing that Hillary’s political personality -a cartoon really- just turns a lot of people off, including swing voters.
Sure she won in NY, but Hillary is good at retail politics due to her command of detail, strong listening skills and serviceable glad-handling. Furthermore, she inspires loyalty among her staff.
But life isn’t fair. Methinks Hillary would have trouble in the general election against a decent Republican opponent. I’d opt for Obama, Richardson or Edwards.
Very nice. I asked an honest question, and this is how you reply. The fact is, that anecdotal evidence isn’t entirely irrelevant in this case. Either WIC buys you baby formula, or it doesn’t. We all know it does. So, my question remains…are we really in danger of children not getting enough nutrition in the US?
No, they aren’t going to really run Hillary. I’ve yet to meet anyone who actually supports her. What’s going for her now is that the left is not behind any one candidate. When Al Gore gets in the race, then he will become the anti-Hillary and will coast to nomination and eventual re-election.
It would be interesting if Hillary and Rudy get their nominations. You’d need a clicker in each hand to see who wins the battle of who can make the most references to 9/11 in their debates.
Regarding the class warfare stuff. There’s an excluded middle ground here. There are ways to make the tax system more equitable without turning into the USSR.
Your argument is a non-starter because I’m not advocating control of the means of production by the workers, just a better social safety net and fairer wages for workers. Trying to paint everything to the left of total laissez-faire capitalism worked in the Reagan era because it was a relatively new tactic. Now it’s just tired. It’s like trying to back George Bush as a credible president … just ain’t gonna fly with anybody but the dittoheads and right wing barking dog media.
My radical thought is that the middle class, not the wealthy class, is the real source of innovation and wealth in American society, and that the goal of any really greedy bastard who wants to get rich off the workers should be to expand the wealth and opportunity for the middle class. But that can be done by tweaking capitalsm to work to their advantage.
I do think we owe the working poor in this country a social safety net because of that social benefits thing for the wealthy and the middle class that I cited, which I note is an issue you completely dodged with your little foray into Communism. I am now officially reminding you that you dodged that issue and invite you to respond to it with something that doesn’t amount to gibberish.
I think we could solve the vast majority of the poor’s problems by keeping the middle class robust enough that they get good jobs in the middle class easily. There will always be some people who need help no matter what, but in a properly managed society, they would be a very small number, and the expense of helping them so low that even the stoniest-hearted libertarian would not be bothered by it.
The wealthy are not important to society. Their yachts and mansions and luxury goods should be easily supportable by a robust middle class. They only become a problem when they start cannabalizing the middle class for the wealth, as has been happening in the last decade or two.
Irrelevant.
Irrelevant.
Let’s see, anytime a European state tweaks its model of capitalism, it’s proof that laissez-faire capitalism is the only way to go, whereas anytime the US tweaks its model of capitalism, it’s proof that laissez-faire capitalism is the only way to go.
Got it. Most European states have a LOOONG way to go before they slide into the depths of depraved indifference characterized by American capitalism. My advice would be, don’t hold yer breath waiting for it to happen. The Europeans know they are managing things better than we are, except for that birth-rate thing.
Yawn. You guys have been predicting the demise of the European economies on this board for years, but all they ever seem to do vis a vis the US is gain strength. I get the impression your real model of ideal capitalism is China, anyway.
Right. The main thing that is advertised as rendering her “unelectable” is not so much her actual policy positions, or her actual vision for a direction for the country, or even her actual personal trajectory and record – any of which a rational voter may decide is a deal-breaker according to his value-set and his understanding of the public good – but rather that supposedly too many people buy into the reiterated *cartoon caricature * of her person as somehow in an entirely different league of “bad” vis-a-vis your usual presidential aspirant. The question then becomes: is that (that enough people buy the caricature) really so? And if it were, would it be impossible, difficult, merely tedious, or easy, to discredit that caricature among just enough “swing voters”?
And you see,** that ** is a sensible consideration: recognize she does have the merits to legitimately contend, but be skeptical as to whether what is good enough to be US Senator for NY and topkick of the DLC may be enough to get the Dem ticket over the top.
I never said you were stupid. What you are is avoiding making any kind of substantial answer to the question I asked you. You claim that capitalism isn’t the “bestest economic system EVAH!” (while attempting to slant what I said as if it only applies to the US…or as if I was talking solely about the US). Fine…then give me an alternative system that is competitive with capitalism, either historically or theoretically. I’ve asked this of you several times and gotten nothing but replies like above…strawmen about how stupid (or whatever) I think you are, blah blah blah.
Instead of straw simply give me an answer.
Sam addressed much of this but I’ll put in my two cents as well. The point I was making is that Russia has roughly comparable resources to, say, the US. They too are a continent striding nation. They too have vast natural resources. And yet their economy NEVER took off…pre-Stalin or post-Stalin. He didn’t rule Russia for the duration of its history after all.
As for your assertion that the Soviets got ‘clobbered in WWII’, I suppose there is some merrit to that. Certainly they lost millions of folk killed. Certainly they had massive amounts of damage done to them during the invasion phase. However, the realities are that they HAD a lot of folks they could lose…and IIRC their losses, while horrific, didn’t even cut deeply into their population growth. On the economic front the war pushed their industries forward…and was probably the one thing that saved them, allowing the country to continue as long as it did. Finally, let us not forget that the Soviets were on the winnnig side…and they basically stole everything that wasn’t nailed down in the territories they ‘liberated’, shipping whole factories back to Russia to boost their own economy. And then, after stealing everything they could they maintained their occupation, turning those countries into satellite nations.
And yet, even with all of that THEIR economy continued to languish long after that of Western Europe (and Japan, who was damaged much more extensively than Russia ever was) rebuilt…and began to soar. And they had no where near the resources Russia did.
You are going to sit there and seriously say something to the effect of ‘it was all Stalin’s fault’??
A planned economy doesn’t work…and we already HAVE found another way that works quite well. Can I take it by this that you don’t have an alternative to bring up…just some theoretical, pie in the sky ‘well, we’ll find a better way someday’?
No problem. A lot of folks take things on faith.
I have no doubt. Again, societies make trade offs that are acceptable to their citizens. They set that sliding scale between capitalism and socialism where they get the trade offs they desire. In the case of the countries you mentioned they have decided that things like Defense are lower priority, while things like the social programs you briefly touched on are high priority. Thus they have made a trade off. A lot of Western European nations have made this trade off to a greater or lesser degree…to put it bluntly they had (this is changing slowly) allowed themselves to become dependent on the US to maintain security outside of Europe (and to a lesser degree to assist with security INSIDE Europe if needs be).
I think its safe to say that if individual European nations decide to take on more of the burden of their own defense they will be forced to make additional trade offs.
I’m happy for them…and happy that their system works so well for the majority of their citizens. They have made their choices and their trade offs based on the attitudes of the majority of their citizens, and what those citizens feel is important. Just as we have.
I’m truly happy for them that the accept and love their country and the system they live under. I’m guessing that if they make the kind of money you imply their tax burden is a bit higher than 40%, but again if they are happy with the system and accept the trade offs, then more power too them. I’m not trying to say that the US’s way is the best and that everyone should adopt the trade offs WE have accepted. In fact, I think that every nation needs to make its own determination based on what its citizens want and accept.
Greed is good. This has nothing to do with encouraging the poor to rise up for ‘their fair share’…fair share of what? You, again, are deciding that individual peoples property and wealth is REALLY just part of some collective, to be divided like pie so everyone gets a ‘fair share’. I reject that kind of thinking myself.
What I’d rather encourage the poor to do is take advantage of the myriad programs enabling them to go to college or trade schools in order to improve their chances of getting decent jobs. Such a program is the only reason I’m not still living in a ghetto in South Tucson myself these days…and why I speak English like a native born American (and I write so well ).
Notice, BTW, that in saying that it’s a myth that she’s “unelectable” I am by no means saying the converse, that she’s a cinch for the nomination, never mind the election. The Dems will at some point have to decide which one of their electABLE aspirants is the better bet at becoming electED. You can lose while being Presidential as all get-out (v. Dole, Humphrey, etc.)
In a word, no. The principle of falsification, bless its heart, is more akin to a principle of formal logic, which you are free to define as philosophy. I wouldn’t, but that’s just me.
Right, the rate of government borrowing was high and the prosperity brought by the war wasn’t sustainable at that level. Of course it didn’t have to be for things to be pretty good. The wartime exansion was enormous as compared to the prewar depression era and the spectre of inflation was a constant worry. However, high inflation didn’t happen in the planned economy of the war and it has happened in the free-market, unplanned, postwar economy.
One thing that made planning possible in WWII was that the choices planners needed to make were from a limited set of options. The needs of the war effort for goods and services were limited in variety and it was only necessary to allow for the basic civilian needs. In times of peace the options that must be considered are essentially unlimited and this makes planning hard. Allowing for innovation and advance planning for its effects are beyond our ability at the moment if one is talking about a completely planned economy. However I’m not at all sure that they are impossible for all time.
And I wouldn’t push the government borrowing too hard. At the moment the administration claims the economy is good but if those operating in at least a majority planned economy, China, stopped lending us money what do you think would happen?
I’m not claiming that planned economies are the route to eternal economic bliss. I’m just saying that I think that our experience in WWII is a counter-example to the claim that planned economies are doomed to failure.
So, lets see…first a claim that you weren’t REALLY talking about all that means of production to the workers and such (fine by me if you weren’t), then a strawman in the form of “Trying to paint everything to the left of total laissez-faire capitalism worked in the Reagan era because it was a relatively new tactic.”. Finally a bit of hand waving distraction with “like trying to back George Bush as a credible president … just ain’t gonna fly with anybody but the dittoheads and right wing barking dog media.”
Is this faith based or do you have some kind of information to back up this ‘radical thought’?
You are right that the effect you are after could be achieved by simply tweaking capitalism, if that was what was desired by the majority of citizens. There is no need to toss out the entire system (as 'luci seems to be implying).
I invite you to read what I’ve written. I’ve dodged nothing. I addressed having a social safety net for the poor. To summarize for you (since you missed it), I agree…a social safety net is a good and necessary thing to any modern nation. I’m certainly not advocating doing away with THE ONE WE ALREADY HAVE…and I might even be in favor of some tweaks to improve it (or at least make it work a bit better).
The point I was making (which you seem to feel is ‘gibberish’ for reasons I won’t even attempt to speculate on ) is that societies set the bar for where they want social programs vs economic prosperity (and vs things like nations security or defense). This isn’t a bar set in concrete…its movable, changeable with time. The majority of citizens are generally in agreement of where the bar sits in their own countries…if they aren’t then that bar gets moved. One has but to look at where the bar has moved in the US since the 30’s…or the 60’s…or even the 80’s. Some times the movements are subtle…sometimes they are profound. But they DO move based on the trade offs the people want to make.
Gods…talk about a cartoon view of the world. You really have no idea of what you are talking about, do you?
No wonder you thought what I was saying was ‘gibberish’. Its stunningly obvious that you didn’t understand a word of it.
You haven’t been keeping up with current events I see. No worries…its apparent (again) that you didn’t get what I was saying.
Maybe you should keep up with current events. Try doing some research on, oh, say France sometime…and see if you still think things are peachy keen there.
(BTW, for the record, China is certainly not MY idea of ‘ideal capitalism’…nor is it anyone else’s that I know of. Can you say ‘strawman’?)
Except I don’t actually think Gore is going to run. Or I should say, I think the odds are against it. I do believe, however, that if he were to jump in the race, he’d have the best chance of beating her. So, I do think “they” will run her simply because she will win the nomination (short of Al Gore entering the race).
And I have no problem with a candidate who wants to raise taxes or to change aspects of the tax code… as long as he or she makes a good, honest case for doing so. But I do have a problem with a candidate (be he Bush or Edwards) who deliberately tries to divide the country instead of uniting it. And when he does that by lying, it’s even worse.
Well, your Latin-American brethren seem to have realized they are much better off migrating to your hated (and my beloved) Spain, not just due – though it’s obviously a big factor – to our social net (even as a non-resident, I have my free health insurance card. All I need do is hop on a plane to Madrid, where I was born, and all medical treatment is taken care of. And I don’t even pay taxes there anymore as I sold my apartment in Madrid to my sister) but because the much better treatment and opportunities they receive vis-a-vis the US. So yeah, I, and obviously all the Latin American immigrants heading there, believe we have the better overall system. By the by, we are now second only to the US in number of LA immigrants and the overall % of the influx only continues to rise, meaning that proportionally, we’ll soon have more immigrants than the US itself.
We must be doing something right, as the lines for visas at the Spanish Embassy here now easily surpass those around the old nirvana, the American Embassy itself.
But not to worry you still number one at having the biggest guns and the most greed.
Og Almighty! Would that some Americans would wake up and smell the coffee! It did you not see what happened in NO after Katrina? The gutter-rats that make an ample % of your exploited population – euphemistically, and rather quaintly known as “the working poor” – came to the surface. By the tens of thousands…
Which part of The American Dream are they living? Of course, no doubt it’s all their fault…you know, being lazy, uneducated and all. Then agian, parhaps it has to do with the fact that all is not well in The Capitalist Kingdom Of The World.
:::gaaasp!:::
*Imagine that. Never mind, I doubt it’s in your grasp.
Gore will definitely not run. He’s said so numerous times. You guys need to let him go…he doesn’t WANT to run. He’s happy doing what he’s doing. He thinks (and I agree) that what he’s doing is important…more important than him running for president again.
Let him go…move on. Hillary is a serious candidate, not just someone waiting in the wings for Gore to come in and take the torch from. If you REALLY don’t want Hillary to be the Dem’s nominee then best wake up and start doing something about it…because from where I’m sitting it looks to me as if she is going to walk into the nomination. Easily.
No, I’m going to sit here and say that your single-cause explanation is simplistic and self-serving. Which is what I actually said, rather than what you say I said.
Did you miss the question mark on the end? I don’t concede that a “planned economy” doesn’t work, we tinker with our own economy to quite an extent. How do you seperate out the planned aspects of our economy and call them detrimental, while in the same breath claiming that our economy is a Panglossian paradigm of perfection? It would seem that some degree of central planning is not, by definition, ruinous. Because, after all, here we are, in the best of all possible worlds. It would seem, then, that some degree of central planning can be good. What we don’t know is how much.
I’m sure you are a splendid fellow, and exceptionally intelligent. Which is the problem, you are exceptional. What do we do with all the people who are not exceptional?
And, golly gosh, if we have trade schools and the like, isn’t that like…gasp!..central planning? After all, if we had sent people to typewriter repair school twenty some years ago, we would have legions of unemployoed typrewriter repair persons. Do we then make them into computer programmers?
Oh, a planned economy can “work”. It’s just that we’ve never seen one that works as well as the unplanned types. It ain’t for lack of trying, guys, because it’s been tried many, many times. And the problem is not so much that the economic performance tends to be crappy, but you have to trample on liberty in order to keep the economy planned. Let’s not forget that even in the US some of our worst breeches of civil liberties were during wartime. Just ask the Japanese-Americans. The press was censored, many goods were rationed, and much of the population of young men was conscripted into the service. Let’s not hold that up as an example of something we’d like to return to.
So, what you seem to be saying here is that more Hispanic’s are immigrating to Spain (a Spanish speaking nation, IIRC) than did before…but that, even though they get all those wonderful benifits by moving to Spain, and even though they are treated like dog meat here in the US (or something), they are STILL coming to the US in such numbers that Spain is ‘we are now second only to the US in number of LA immigrants’.
At any rate, I’m happy for you and your country. I hope things work out well for you with the huge influx of immigrants.
Must be doing something right…
I’m unsure what you are trying to prove with all this. That Spain is better than the US because almost as many people want to immigrate there as here? Well, perhaps thats the case.
We have the better economy too. As for the biggest guns…well, that brings up kind of a good point about what I was saying earlier. Its all about trade offs. For instance, in wonderful, marvelous Spain, your annual defense budget is (from memory) something like $8 billion (in US dollars)…while our’s is something like $600 billion.
Now, you might think thats fine…and a lot of your fellow countrymen might agree. And for you, that is the right answer. However, MY fellow countrymen (by and large) have decided that having a strong military is worth the trade offs. There IS no right or wrong way to do something…only whats right or wrong based on the feelings of the folks who actually live in the country in question.
You know, if Clinton gets the Dem nomination, and Giuliani gets the Pub nomination, and Bloombergs makes an independent bid, the American people will have a choice between three New Yorkers! :eek:
Can I take it by this that you don’t have an alternative to bring up…just some theoretical, pie in the sky ‘well, we’ll find a better way someday’?
).