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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: geode00 who wrote (176315)	11/29/2005 4:05:34 PM
From: Mary Cluney	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

we're going to fall very far behind and we're going to see the effects within the next decade. It will be many decades before they catch up from what I saw last night in a documentary about their busiest train station. The train pulled into the station and uniformed attendants herded the passengers toward the train. They were instructed to board very quickly as it was due to depart in a few minutes. The attendants annonced that it was okay to open the windows for boarding purposes. As the passengers "boarded" the train, luggage, children and the elderly were pushed through the open windows while the fit rushed through the doors to grab seats. The trains were crammed with people and luggage. There didn't seem to be any space left. They certainly could not move about on the train. I don't see how they could have found their luggage, children, and the elderly that were pushed through the windows. The train departed on time. It seemed like everyone that intended to board boarded. The uniform attendants walked away from the departing trains as if this was routine. From the looks of things, it looks like it will take them decades to learn how to board a train in a more orderly fashion.

To: geode00 who wrote (176315)	11/29/2005 6:50:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<Democracy and capitalism are not equivalent. > That's correct. In fact, democracy is anti-capitalist in that democracies involve voters voting to take property from other people for their own purposes, all to often outright cash payments to themselves and their mates. But China is definitely not capitalist, though a lot more so than it was during Mao's MADness. There is nowhere which is capitalist, with high quality respect for private property. <I've heard that if China raised the standard of living of all of its people to that of Mexico, it would use as much energy all by itself as the entire world does today. Ooops.> You are obviously not keen on arithmetic. There are 6 billion people and only 1.3bn in China. That's quarter of the world. Of the 6 billion, about 1 billion are quite well off and use a LOT of energy. Mexico isn't included in that "well-off" number. If the 1.3 billion used the same per capita as Mexico, they'd use about a tenth of the energy that the entire world does. Even if you just consider the rest of the world, excluding China, it would still only be about quarter of the energy, at the most. More like a sixth. I don't think China has 300 million people missing. <China doesn't know if it has 1.2 or 1.5 billion people. Therefore, our 300 million is their rounding error.> I think you are prone to hyperbole and exaggeration. I quite like those too! <China has a long history of capitalism. If we don't knock off ruinous foreign ventures and ruinous tax&steal policies, we're going to fall very far behind and we're going to see the effects within the next decade.> By "very long" do you mean 10 or 20 years? China wasn't a capitalist country before that. It was communist. Before that, it was a kingdom/emperor type place and far from capitalist. I think the USA is doing very well and will continue to do so. The USA hasn't even charged for use of cyberspace. They could charge a LOT of money for that as they control it. Competitors could start up, but it would take a big effort and probably not succeed very much. The USA owns the US$ and is pixelating umpty$billions every year, which they own, diluting holders around the world. Plus, the USA is the world's best capitalist headquarters. I prefer to leave my capital there than in the clutches of Helengrad. Mqurice