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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (18700)	12/6/2003 12:42:29 AM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793677

I think it was the "Asian Times" article I posted about the amount of business that China is now doing with other Asian countries that really pointed that out. China would love to be a totally mercantilist country, but they can't get away with it. Their people want too many things from other countries. That’s another reason why free trade is so important: it’s a major incentive to peace. Countries that are economically intertwined are way less likely to fight each other. China and Taiwan may rattle the sabers at regular intervals, but they are making way too much money off each other for anyone to want to rock the boat too much. Our economic turnaround in the last few years shows the strength of our economy. Almost unbelievable. I don’t think it unbelievable at all. The late ‘90s collapse was, I’d say, less an issue of fundamental economic weakness than of investor overreach. We had tons of fabulous companies, even if many of them were grossly overvalued. I have a gut feeling that one positive effect of the ‘90s bubble is just beginning to be felt. Because of the huge abundance of venture capital, a lot of money was poured into basic research and experimental technologies. Much of this capital generated no significant return, as in many of these fields the development of marketable products was well down the line. A lot of development work did get done, though, and while the companies that did the work did not, in many cases, succeed, their work will provide a foundation for others that will. We do face real economic challenges. Workers in many industries are simply overpaid, and will have a hard time competing with increasingly competent emerging economies. Demographics is going to be a problem: as the baby boom median crosses 50, they will not be earning and spending as much as they did. I do not think that any of these things are unmanageable. I’m basically an optimist on the economic front, as long as the politicians can stay out of the way.