Tom:
I haven't been there, so I cannot verify "great social unrest."
Consider the source of the report to judge its' accuracy.
As I understand it, yes there are many subsidies. Here we call them
Section 8 housing, food stamps, medicade, unemployment insurance,
etc.
As I was just discissing on previous post, China is doing some
"corporate downsizing", to efficiently consolidate capital & resources. In the short term, this causes problems. I remember the
huge problems experienced in upper NY State when IBM had their
big layoffs a few years back. Or in Pennsylvania when the steel mills
shut down.
From a purely economic point of view, the actions of the Chinese Government make good sense if one looks out a year or so. Consolidating companies & resources will produce more goods, quicker.
Since many of these are basic infrastructure goods,(power plants, transporation, communications) this production creates new jobs.
Are there abuses & disparities? Hell yes! With over a billion people,
you can bet there will be some. Regardless of what country we're
talking about, we are still dealing with people.
China has, for some time, been putting incentives into the system.
This is a massive change for that country. ( PARDON my total screwing up of the following name!) As I recall it was around (Joe-En-Lai's)
time that the common attitude became "why should I do more? I get the same regardless of what I do?"
The changes are massive. Just think for a minute what it would be like
here if we got rid of ALL the special interests, lobbies, etc. and
the Federal Government was limited to those powers SPECIFICALLY given it under the Constitution. My guess is 90%+ of federal employees would
be given the boot. IMO, we would be a LOT better off in the long run, but it would be a pretty big mess for a while.
Doug |
