Quote: Original post by LessBread
The US isn't going to end up bankrupt, not when deflation is the concern.

For now. The situation in a few years might be very different when we find ourselves saddled with enormous amounts of debt and still unable to provide ourselves what we need.

Quote: I don't think you're paying attention. We're already paying for it, we just aren't getting our money's worth.

How can we? One person can only support so much at a time. I think we're finding that as lifespans increase, due to advances in medical science, while the aging population expands more rapidly than productive, young people enter the workforce, we won't ever be able to pay enough.

Quote: The financial crisis is straining stability in Eastern Europe, which is still recovering from the shock transition to capitalism, not Western Europe.

Ireland is ECB's sacrifical lamb to satisfy German inflation demands

When the going gets tough, European nations become remarkably selfish for entities which claim to belong to a common economic block.

Quote:
Your crystal ball says that in the future socialism is unsustainable. The present economic situation demonstrates that capitalism is unsustainable.

Socialism hasn't enriched anyone to the degree that capitalism has. There's simply no comparison. All of the major socialist experiments thus far have resulted not only in economic disaster but were downright lethal. Mixed economies have fared better but it seems fair to say that tipping things too far in the direction of government ownership of industry will eventually ruin the economy.

Demographics is destiny. Socialism in Europe is about to be subjected to the ultimate stress test. You seem to be betting on bureaucracy over competition and innovation.

Quote:
So you're happy with that? It sounds like that's what you're saying. At any rate, I don't agree with your claim. I also don't think that drug manufacturing should be a for profit endeavor. I don't think health care should be about providing opportunities for a few people to get rich at the expense of the health of others.

I'm not happy with this situation. Health care needs to be a for-profit operation; otherwise, why should I contribute? I know a brilliant PhD student in biochemistry who is worried that nationalized health care will leave pharmaceutical companies with nowhere to recoup their profits, thereby forcing them to slash research budgets and salaries further. She would like to be compensated for her hard work in the workforce. You seem to think lawyers and bureaucrats will come up with a mathematically optimal solution.

Quote: Yes, it's true. Prior to Mao, China experienced more than a century of instability, dating to before the Opium Wars. At any rate, I meant "always" as "constantly" rather than "has been forever".

China's greatest threats have nearly always been external in nature and the Chinese have a strong understanding of this. I read somewhere that for something like 18 out of the last 20 centuries, China was the largest economy in the world. They're not a culture known for desiring to fragment along ethnic, religious, or class divisions, but rather for expanding the notion of what it means to be Chinese.

Quote:
That's a report about a defense white paper published by the Chinese State Council. I point to it because it highlights issues of concern to Chinese leaders, "... territorial integrity as the top defense priority."

It doesn't surprise me that China's military leaders, whose sole responsibility is to defend China's territorial integrity, are concerned with China's territorial integrity.

Quote:
It sounds to me like they are concerned with preventing their nation from "spinning out of control and breaking apart" as I put it earlier.

What does this mean? Do you see a divide amongst the provinces that could lead to Civil War? Do you see an opposition government turning a substantial fraction of the Chinese people or the PLA against the CCP? Or something like a repeat of Tiananmen, except this time a success?

Quote:
Rising expectations followed by precipitous drops in living standards are a far greater threat to political stability than ongoing crushing poverty. People who were working, who's lives were improving, who are now thrown back into destitution are people prone to rebellion and political upheaval. 26 million unemployed migrants might be a relative drop in the bucket in China, but that's still a huge number of people to deal with.

This is true but I think the Chinese are generally acutely aware of how far they've come and are such big savers precisely because they fear being caught unprepared for a rainy day. China's migrant workers aren't their middle class, either, and it's the middle class that if threatened with poverty would drive political upheaval.

Quote: And as far as the problems with populism and the tyranny of the masses, they experienced more of that in the Cultural Revolution than what democracies have ever faced.

That wasn't tyranny of the masses, it was communist business as usual. And note that China solved this problem on its own. Throughout history, the Chinese have preferred meritocracy over democracy.

Quote: I agree that they shouldn't emulate Western-style democracy, but I think they should craft their own style of democracy.

They're already doing just that.

Quote: I think you missed the point. Bush seriously damaged Democracy as a brand. Relations with Chinese Communists were better under Bush because Bush cared more about commerce than human rights.

It proved to be the right approach in the case of China.

Quote: If the question is how well would the Chinese people receive a document calling for human rights and democratic reforms, it only makes sense that it wouldn't receive them well when the emblem of those values was a President who damaged them by using them as a marketing slogans to excuse an invasion while actively undercutting them with torture and the like.

The President could have been a freaking Gandhi and it wouldn't have been received well because they still don't trust the West, period.

Quote:
And again, the failed response to the flooding of New Orleans demonstrated that our system was no better than theirs. FEMA worked under Clinton. Who knows how it would have worked under Kerry, but I think it's a good bet that Kerry would have put a competent manager in charge of it rather than a old boy crony as Bush did.

Assuming your line of reasoning is correct, it still doesn't matter: the point is that Western democracy allows buffoons like Bush to get elected in the first place. That's the problem.

Quote:
Human rights may well be used to browbeat developing countries, but that's no excuse to turn away from calling for them, as your complaint suggests we do.

Human rights are a great thing. We should zealously defend our human rights but I don't think we need to be anywhere nearly as zealous about human rights in other countries. If they don't want human rights, it's their loss. We should lead by example, not by telling others how to run their countries. Sometimes, when you're really on to something, it's good to keep it to yourself.

Quote: I don't have a problem with browbeating developing countries over human rights when that browbeating is deserved.

When it's deserved... there's the complication.


I think it's ironic that now they can use them to browbeat us and I'm glad when they do.

Quote:

Quote: Original post by trzy
A Singaporean government official whose name currently escapes me (I'm sure I've linked to him before, though) pointed out a few years back that human rights come with development, not the other way around. Those abused by the Chinese government may be sympathetic to our false outrage over human rights issues, but the average Chinese person is keenly aware of what their lives would have been like had it not been for Deng Xiaoping and his successors.

That's authoritarian nonsense. The U.S. was a small undeveloped nation when human rights were added to the Constitution. The fellow in Singapore is making excuses for abusing people. What do you base your claims about the awareness of the average Chinese person on?

It's not authoritarian nonsense and by bringing up the Constitution, you've proven my argument. It doesn't matter what the Constitution said. Ask black people, women, immigrants, labor activists, victims of eugenics policies. These weren't just minor oversights or imperfections in the system, these were institutional problems. There is merit to the argument that development precedes human rights.

Human rights, like all rights, have to be generally agreed upon and fought for. They don't exist by default. It isn't enough to merely believe they exist. Society has to function in a way as to make them appear to exist. It doesn't matter what the Constitution says.

Virtually everyone agrees with the general notion that human rights ought to exist. Even the CCP. That doesn't mean they're going to be implemented until the time is right.

The flip side of this, of course, is that the idea has to exist in the first place to be implemented. Human rights advocacy is part of the process as well. However, when formulating international policy, we have to be willing to be pragmatic. People involved in the advocacy part of the equation will see this as compromising our principles. Life is full of compromises.

As for the bit about Deng Xiaoping, I've heard this from Chinese personally and have read about it even more. That's my basis for saying the Chinese are aware of what he did.

Quote: Obviously, Chan drank too many noodles and took too many falls on the
set. It would seem that since people have voluntarily stopped going to see his movies, he's not above forcing their attendance...

Don't you be talkin' smack about Jackie Chan!

Quote:
You seem to have mixed up your own dislike for Western democracy with theirs.

As a Westerner, I greatly prefer Western democracy to Chinese authoritarian meritocracy. I'm fine with keeping Western-style democracy mostly intact over here. I don't really care about exporting it. If anything, I think it is a natural advantage of the West that should be guarded more than promoted.

Quote:
The examples of Hong Kong and Taiwan demonstrate that Chinese culture is compatible with democracy.

Hong Kong was a colony and Taiwan is hardly a shining example of democracy. KMT rule was for a long time hardly something most Westerners would call an acceptable democracy. That said, I don't think Chinese culture is necessarily fundamentally incompatible with democracy, but it's going to be a very different flavor of democracy than our own and, more importantly, the way they arrive at it will not necessarily be the way we expect or would like it to happen.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote: Original post by LessBread
And then there is the uproar over the DHS memo warning against Right Wing Extremists ala Timothy McVeigh. Limbaugh and his acolytes are up in arms over it. Nevermind that their outrage associates them with Neo-Nazis and the Klan. Nevermind that the DHS has been doing worse to leftists and pacifists since it's exception. Nevermind the history of COINTEL Pro and it's targeting of leftists, including targeting for assassination.

If you acknowledge this is okay, then you must acknowledge that the scrutiny of Muslims and anti-war group during the Bush administration was perfectly legitimate.

I disagree. There's a big difference between the two. The Bush scrutiny of Muslims would be akin to Obama scrutinizing Christians in general.


In SAT terms, Radical Islamic Terrorists are to Islam as Right Wing Militias are to Christianity. The groups on the left are small subsets of the groups on the right. Bush targeted the larger encompassing group. Obama isn't.

Furthermore, anti-war groups are inherently pacifist in nature (dur), and typically would cause no national security threat at all, while the very nature of a militia is to arm itself to the teeth. Huge difference.

Quote: Original post by Mithrandir

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote: Original post by LessBread
And then there is the uproar over the DHS memo warning against Right Wing Extremists ala Timothy McVeigh. Limbaugh and his acolytes are up in arms over it. Nevermind that their outrage associates them with Neo-Nazis and the Klan. Nevermind that the DHS has been doing worse to leftists and pacifists since it's exception. Nevermind the history of COINTEL Pro and it's targeting of leftists, including targeting for assassination.

If you acknowledge this is okay, then you must acknowledge that the scrutiny of Muslims and anti-war group during the Bush administration was perfectly legitimate.

I disagree. There's a big difference between the two. The Bush scrutiny of Muslims would be akin to Obama scrutinizing Christians in general.

The scrutiny was primarily of Muslims with (suspected, potential) dubious foreign and organizational ties. If Christians were as prone to international terror, it would be perfectly acceptable to profile them as well.

Quote: In SAT terms, Radical Islamic Terrorists are to Islam as Right Wing Militias are to Christianity. The groups on the left are small subsets of the groups on the right. Bush targeted the larger encompassing group. Obama isn't.

What?

Quote:
Furthermore, anti-war groups are inherently pacifist in nature (dur), and typically would cause no national security threat at all, while the very nature of a militia is to arm itself to the teeth. Huge difference.

Inherently? Not so. History does not support your overly simplistic assertion.

Quote:
The group emerged from the campus-based opposition to the Vietnam War ... The Weatherman group had long held that militancy was becoming more important than nonviolent forms of anti-war action, and that university-campus-based demonstrations needed to be punctuated with more dramatic actions, which had the potential to interfere with the U.S. military and internal security apparatus.

Anecdotally speaking, even peace groups tend to be a draw for anarchist types. I think this is why law enforcement is so keenly interested in monitoring anti-war protesters -- to make sure things don't escalate into vandalism and firebombing, which are de rigeur for left-wing misfits.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote: Original post by Mithrandir

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote: Original post by LessBread
And then there is the uproar over the DHS memo warning against Right Wing Extremists ala Timothy McVeigh. Limbaugh and his acolytes are up in arms over it. Nevermind that their outrage associates them with Neo-Nazis and the Klan. Nevermind that the DHS has been doing worse to leftists and pacifists since it's exception. Nevermind the history of COINTEL Pro and it's targeting of leftists, including targeting for assassination.

If you acknowledge this is okay, then you must acknowledge that the scrutiny of Muslims and anti-war group during the Bush administration was perfectly legitimate.

I disagree. There's a big difference between the two. The Bush scrutiny of Muslims would be akin to Obama scrutinizing Christians in general.

The scrutiny was primarily of Muslims with (suspected, potential) dubious foreign and organizational ties. If Christians were as prone to international terror, it would be perfectly acceptable to profile them as well.

Heard of the IRA? Currently christians are not feeling as oppressed as muslims, but they're certainly not above acts of "international terror".

Quote: Original post by trzy
Anecdotally speaking, even peace groups tend to be a draw for anarchist types. I think this is why law enforcement is so keenly interested in monitoring anti-war protesters -- to make sure things don't escalate into vandalism and firebombing, which are de rigeur for left-wing misfits.

The plural of anecdote is not data. While there may be isolated cases of militant anti-war groups, they're certainly in a minority compared to the fact that everyone in a militia is preparing for an armed conflict. If you have group a, of which 1-2% are going to cause trouble and group b who's raison d'etre ([grin]) is an armed struggle, who would you monitor?

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote: Original post by LessBread
The US isn't going to end up bankrupt, not when deflation is the concern.

For now. The situation in a few years might be very different when we find ourselves saddled with enormous amounts of debt and still unable to provide ourselves what we need.

You'll know the debt has become a serious problem when Congress has no choice but to raise the top tax rate to more than 50%. Until then, bankruptcy talk is just another stick used to beat down the aspirations of the lower classes.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote: I don't think you're paying attention. We're already paying for it, we just aren't getting our money's worth.

How can we? One person can only support so much at a time. I think we're finding that as lifespans increase, due to advances in medical science, while the aging population expands more rapidly than productive, young people enter the workforce, we won't ever be able to pay enough.

You're still not getting it. Right now the nation is paying 30% more than is necessary to insure everyone. That's right now, not in some hazy future.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote: The financial crisis is straining stability in Eastern Europe, which is still recovering from the shock transition to capitalism, not Western Europe.

Ireland is ECB's sacrifical lamb to satisfy German inflation demands

When the going gets tough, European nations become remarkably selfish for entities which claim to belong to a common economic block.

The question is stability. Are the Irish ready to overthrow their government? Krugman writes about Ireland in today's column. Rather than blame Irish problems on Germany as Evans-Pritchard did, he holds them to account for their own actions. "Like its near-namesake Iceland, Ireland jumped with both feet into the brave new world of unsupervised global markets. Last year the Heritage Foundation declared Ireland the third freest economy in the world, behind only Hong Kong and Singapore." Ireland was led astray by the pied-piper of free market fundamentalism. It's no wonder that commentary from the Telegraph would cover that up by trying to push a wedge into the stability of the EU. Even so, your surprise with the behavior of European nations is remarkable considering the things that the Governors of some states have been saying here in the US. I'm also surprised that you would point to a commentary that essentially calls on the European central banks to start printing money.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote:
Your crystal ball says that in the future socialism is unsustainable. The present economic situation demonstrates that capitalism is unsustainable.

Socialism hasn't enriched anyone to the degree that capitalism has. There's simply no comparison. All of the major socialist experiments thus far have resulted not only in economic disaster but were downright lethal. Mixed economies have fared better but it seems fair to say that tipping things too far in the direction of government ownership of industry will eventually ruin the economy.

There's more to life than getting rich. Europe has a higher quality of life for everyday people than we do, which is what I thought you were talking about. Now it seems that you're invoking communism to criticize socialism. Are you interested in discussing the future of the welfare state or the past of the totalitarian state?

Quote: Original post by trzy
Demographics is destiny. Socialism in Europe is about to be subjected to the ultimate stress test. You seem to be betting on bureaucracy over competition and innovation.

You seem to have forgotten the mitigating effects of increased productivity.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote:
So you're happy with that? It sounds like that's what you're saying. At any rate, I don't agree with your claim. I also don't think that drug manufacturing should be a for profit endeavor. I don't think health care should be about providing opportunities for a few people to get rich at the expense of the health of others.

I'm not happy with this situation. Health care needs to be a for-profit operation; otherwise, why should I contribute? I know a brilliant PhD student in biochemistry who is worried that nationalized health care will leave pharmaceutical companies with nowhere to recoup their profits, thereby forcing them to slash research budgets and salaries further. She would like to be compensated for her hard work in the workforce. You seem to think lawyers and bureaucrats will come up with a mathematically optimal solution.

You only see reasons to contribute if health care is for profit? That makes no sense. Your friend would not work for free in a not-for-profit drug manufacturing system. Drug makers might respond to a shift to not-for-profit status in the manner you suggest, but that assumes that they would retain a for-profit attitude. The bottom line here is that the for-profit approach isn't working for society as a whole. It worked great for CEO's and shareholders, but it let everyone else down. It puts profits above people in the worst way. Resolving the problem includes more than just lawyers and bureaucrats, it also includes doctors, researchers and patients.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote: Yes, it's true. Prior to Mao, China experienced more than a century of instability, dating to before the Opium Wars. At any rate, I meant "always" as "constantly" rather than "has been forever".

China's greatest threats have nearly always been external in nature and the Chinese have a strong understanding of this. I read somewhere that for something like 18 out of the last 20 centuries, China was the largest economy in the world. They're not a culture known for desiring to fragment along ethnic, religious, or class divisions, but rather for expanding the notion of what it means to be Chinese.

That's all fine and well, but how relevant is it to the situation there today? With over a billion people there, problems that other countries might shrug off are magnified ten fold if not greater. Here's a look at the broad issues facing China for the next 50 years: China's "Peaceful Rise" to Great-Power Status .

Quote:
...
This last challenge is reflected in a series of tensions Beijing must confront: between high GDP growth and social progress, between upgrading technology and increasing job opportunities, between keeping development momentum in the coastal areas and speeding up development in the interior, between fostering urbanization and nurturing agricultural areas, between narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor and maintaining economic vitality and efficiency, between attracting more foreign investment and enhancing the competitiveness of indigenous enterprises, between deepening reform and preserving social stability, between opening domestic markets and solidifying independence, between promoting market-oriented competition and taking care of disadvantaged people. To cope with these dilemmas successfully, a number of well-coordinated policies are needed to foster development that is both faster and more balanced.
...

That's a tall order. Remember, the history you pointed to predates the instability that I pointed to. In other words, it's no guarantee against instability.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote:
That's a report about a defense white paper published by the Chinese State Council. I point to it because it highlights issues of concern to Chinese leaders, "... territorial integrity as the top defense priority."

It doesn't surprise me that China's military leaders, whose sole responsibility is to defend China's territorial integrity, are concerned with China's territorial integrity.

Quote:
It sounds to me like they are concerned with preventing their nation from "spinning out of control and breaking apart" as I put it earlier.

What does this mean? Do you see a divide amongst the provinces that could lead to Civil War? Do you see an opposition government turning a substantial fraction of the Chinese people or the PLA against the CCP? Or something like a repeat of Tiananmen, except this time a success?

I don't see a civil war, so much as a push for greater decentralization and regional autonomy (outside of Tibet and related issues). Here's a look at the stability of China from ten years ago: Is China Unstable? Although it's dated, it describes the underlying problems in their system. Those problems remain as this recent report attests: China's political advisors urged to help maintain social stability.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote:
Rising expectations followed by precipitous drops in living standards are a far greater threat to political stability than ongoing crushing poverty. People who were working, who's lives were improving, who are now thrown back into destitution are people prone to rebellion and political upheaval. 26 million unemployed migrants might be a relative drop in the bucket in China, but that's still a huge number of people to deal with.

This is true but I think the Chinese are generally acutely aware of how far they've come and are such big savers precisely because they fear being caught unprepared for a rainy day. China's migrant workers aren't their middle class, either, and it's the middle class that if threatened with poverty would drive political upheaval.

I don't think such an upheaval could be sustained without the support of the peasants. Mao realized this and that's why his revolution was successful.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote: And as far as the problems with populism and the tyranny of the masses, they experienced more of that in the Cultural Revolution than what democracies have ever faced.

That wasn't tyranny of the masses, it was communist business as usual. And note that China solved this problem on its own. Throughout history, the Chinese have preferred meritocracy over democracy.

In case you weren't aware, communism was a mass movement.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote: I think you missed the point. Bush seriously damaged Democracy as a brand. Relations with Chinese Communists were better under Bush because Bush cared more about commerce than human rights.

It proved to be the right approach in the case of China.

That's your opinion. It turned out well for Bush. China is one of the few places overseas that he can visit without worrying about getting arrested.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote: If the question is how well would the Chinese people receive a document calling for human rights and democratic reforms, it only makes sense that it wouldn't receive them well when the emblem of those values was a President who damaged them by using them as a marketing slogans to excuse an invasion while actively undercutting them with torture and the like.

The President could have been a freaking Gandhi and it wouldn't have been received well because they still don't trust the West, period.

That doesn't explain the "goddess of democracy" statue in Tiananmen back in 1989. Bush's actions contradicted his rhetoric and damaged the appeal of democracy across the globe. He provided more reason not to trust the West.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote:
And again, the failed response to the flooding of New Orleans demonstrated that our system was no better than theirs. FEMA worked under Clinton. Who knows how it would have worked under Kerry, but I think it's a good bet that Kerry would have put a competent manager in charge of it rather than a old boy crony as Bush did.

Assuming your line of reasoning is correct, it still doesn't matter: the point is that Western democracy allows buffoons like Bush to get elected in the first place. That's the problem.

Democracy requires vigilance. Americans are prone to corruption just the same as any other people. We aren't exceptional in that regard and our belief that we are leads us to assume that the system won't be gamed by power hungry political operatives.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote:
Human rights may well be used to browbeat developing countries, but that's no excuse to turn away from calling for them, as your complaint suggests we do.

Human rights are a great thing. We should zealously defend our human rights but I don't think we need to be anywhere nearly as zealous about human rights in other countries. If they don't want human rights, it's their loss. We should lead by example, not by telling others how to run their countries. Sometimes, when you're really on to something, it's good to keep it to yourself.

I agree that we should lead by example, but I don't think we should shut up about abuses in other countries. Silence amounts to tacit approval.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote:

Quote: Original post by trzy
A Singaporean government official whose name currently escapes me (I'm sure I've linked to him before, though) pointed out a few years back that human rights come with development, not the other way around. Those abused by the Chinese government may be sympathetic to our false outrage over human rights issues, but the average Chinese person is keenly aware of what their lives would have been like had it not been for Deng Xiaoping and his successors.

That's authoritarian nonsense. The U.S. was a small undeveloped nation when human rights were added to the Constitution. The fellow in Singapore is making excuses for abusing people. What do you base your claims about the awareness of the average Chinese person on?

It's not authoritarian nonsense and by bringing up the Constitution, you've proven my argument. It doesn't matter what the Constitution said. Ask black people, women, immigrants, labor activists, victims of eugenics policies. These weren't just minor oversights or imperfections in the system, these were institutional problems. There is merit to the argument that development precedes human rights.

It's total nonsense. It's an excuse to continue abusing people. It's true there have been failings in our application of human rights, because the people in charge didn't see their victims as humans. The guy in Singapore is the same. The argument that development is more important than people justifies treating people like animals. Accept that argument now and you'll be accepting it forever because development never stops.

Quote: Original post by trzy
Human rights, like all rights, have to be generally agreed upon and fought for. They don't exist by default. It isn't enough to merely believe they exist. Society has to function in a way as to make them appear to exist. It doesn't matter what the Constitution says.

Virtually everyone agrees with the general notion that human rights ought to exist. Even the CCP. That doesn't mean they're going to be implemented until the time is right.

The flip side of this, of course, is that the idea has to exist in the first place to be implemented. Human rights advocacy is part of the process as well. However, when formulating international policy, we have to be willing to be pragmatic. People involved in the advocacy part of the equation will see this as compromising our principles. Life is full of compromises.

That's just the kind of thinking that kept slavery in the Constitution and Jim Crow on the books for 100 years.

Quote: Original post by trzy
As for the bit about Deng Xiaoping, I've heard this from Chinese personally and have read about it even more. That's my basis for saying the Chinese are aware of what he did.

So it's anecdotal.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote: Obviously, Chan drank too many noodles and took too many falls on the
set. It would seem that since people have voluntarily stopped going to see his movies, he's not above forcing their attendance...

Don't you be talkin' smack about Jackie Chan!

He deserves it. Interesting also that he made those remarks before a crowd of businessmen. No love of liberty there.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote:
The examples of Hong Kong and Taiwan demonstrate that Chinese culture is compatible with democracy.

Hong Kong was a colony and Taiwan is hardly a shining example of democracy. KMT rule was for a long time hardly something most Westerners would call an acceptable democracy. That said, I don't think Chinese culture is necessarily fundamentally incompatible with democracy, but it's going to be a very different flavor of democracy than our own and, more importantly, the way they arrive at it will not necessarily be the way we expect or would like it to happen.

Hong Kong and Taiwan were Chan's targets. Chinese democracy is more likely to resemble theirs than ours. That's the rub in Chan's remarks.

Quote: Original post by ChaosEngine
Heard of the IRA? Currently christians are not feeling as oppressed as muslims, but they're certainly not above acts of "international terror".

I've heard of the IRA. It's an nationalistic Irish-Catholic terrorist organization. If Britain feels the IRA is still a security threat, I would hope they are paying close attention to individuals linked to the group who may be planning attacks. I'll bet they would be disproportionately Irish Catholic.

Quote: The plural of anecdote is not data.

Depending on the sample size and bias, it most certainly can be.

Quote:
While there may be isolated cases of militant anti-war groups, they're certainly in a minority compared to the fact that everyone in a militia is preparing for an armed conflict. If you have group a, of which 1-2% are going to cause trouble and group b who's raison d'etre ([grin]) is an armed struggle, who would you monitor?

Yeah, and everyone taking Tae Kwon Do classes is inevitably going to fight. I don't know why you threw that red herring in there. You readily concede that anti-war groups can resort to militancy (this has certainly occurred before in the United States) -- although I think the biggest threat remains hooliganism rather than outright militancy.

Being "anti-war" does not necessarily make you a pacifist.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote: Original post by ChaosEngine
Heard of the IRA? Currently christians are not feeling as oppressed as muslims, but they're certainly not above acts of "international terror".

I've heard of the IRA. It's an nationalistic Irish-Catholic terrorist organization. If Britain feels the IRA is still a security threat, I would hope they are paying close attention to individuals linked to the group who may be planning attacks.

They're not as much of a threat these days, but the point was that they were a christian group who carried out acts of international terror.

Quote: Original post by trzyI'll bet they would be disproportionately Irish Catholic.

Almost exclusively irish catholic, but that doesn't mean the british government does or should treat irish catholics (i.e. the majority of irish people) with suspicion.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote: The plural of anecdote is not data.

Depending on the sample size and bias, it most certainly can be.

"can" != "is". This is exactly the point.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote:
While there may be isolated cases of militant anti-war groups, they're certainly in a minority compared to the fact that everyone in a militia is preparing for an armed conflict. If you have group a, of which 1-2% are going to cause trouble and group b who's raison d'etre ([grin]) is an armed struggle, who would you monitor?

Yeah, and everyone taking Tae Kwon Do classes is inevitably going to fight. I don't know why you threw that red herring in there.

I'm not sure what you're referring to as a red herring. Either way, there's a world of difference between studying a martial art and joining a militia group.

Quote: Original post by trzy
You readily concede that anti-war groups can resort to militancy (this has certainly occurred before in the United States) -- although I think the biggest threat remains hooliganism rather than outright militancy.

You're more likely to see more incidents of hooliganism but a single incident of militancy would seem to be a much greater threat.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
You'll know the debt has become a serious problem when Congress has no choice but to raise the top tax rate to more than 50%. Until then, bankruptcy talk is just another stick used to beat down the aspirations of the lower classes.

Good advice to give the poor: buy whatever you need with credit card debt. It is well within the government's right to impose taxes, even on a sliding scale, but there's no denying that top-down income redistribution, if done improperly, has some sort of effect on the psyche of recipients. Socialism is the easy way out, and a quick way into stagnation. If it worked, one would expect to see rapid economic growth, productivity gains, and entrepreneurial innovation diminish the need for government money. In other words, if income restribution were doing its job, the system would reach a level where taxation would begin to diminish or, if perfectly matched by the growth potential it creates, stay the same.

Yet, typically, it is more services that are called for. It's like quicksand.

Quote: You're still not getting it. Right now the nation is paying 30% more than is necessary to insure everyone. That's right now, not in some hazy future.

What part of this is due to the health care equipment and pharmaceutical markets reacting to the fact that they can't recoup their investments in the government-run economies?

Quote: The question is stability. Are the Irish ready to overthrow their government? Krugman writes about Ireland in today's column. Rather than blame Irish problems on Germany as Evans-Pritchard did, he holds them to account for their own actions. "Like its near-namesake Iceland, Ireland jumped with both feet into the brave new world of unsupervised global markets. Last year the Heritage Foundation declared Ireland the third freest economy in the world, behind only Hong Kong and Singapore." Ireland was led astray by the pied-piper of free market fundamentalism. It's no wonder that commentary from the Telegraph would cover that up by trying to push a wedge into the stability of the EU. Even so, your surprise with the behavior of European nations is remarkable considering the things that the Governors of some states have been saying here in the US. I'm also surprised that you would point to a commentary that essentially calls on the European central banks to start printing money.

The omniscient European bureaucratic priesthood wasn't smart enough to avoid the housing bubble, it seems. Speculation and unregulated swashbuckling finance played a huge role in amplifying the housing bubble but to implicate the entire capitalist system is rather ridiculous. Alternative explanations for the housing bubble itself point to an over-supply of large houses and an under-supply of qualified young people to buy them. The socialist response to aging populations has been primitive: simply siphon wealth from those who have and distribute it to those who have not reared a labor force to support their health costs.

I've heard that housing economists have been warning about the American housing bubble for well over a decade. If the market is notorious for thinking in the short-term, then this is evidence that socialists are equally unable (or unwilling) to think in the long-term.

I posted the original article not to advocate printing money but to show that the European socialist experiment, which relies heavily on bypassing democracy, is taking the rather unpleasant course of national self-interest under a system whereby EU institutions have the right to take from others and protect the interests of the powerful.

Quote: There's more to life than getting rich. Europe has a higher quality of life for everyday people than we do, which is what I thought you were talking about.

That's completely subjective. If you believe it to be true, why then aren't Americans emigrating to Europe? I haven't lived in Europe since I was a kid but I know that my quality of life would not improve if I moved there.

Quote: Now it seems that you're invoking communism to criticize socialism. Are you interested in discussing the future of the welfare state or the past of the totalitarian state?

Tending towards using the government monopoly on violence to forcibly maintain an inefficient system run by incompetent bureaucrats is more totalitarian than I'm comfortable with.

Quote: You seem to have forgotten the mitigating effects of increased productivity.

What if they aren't mitigating quickly enough?

Quote: You only see reasons to contribute if health care is for profit? That makes no sense.

Of course it does. You'd think by now we'd at least be able to agree that you can't fight human nature. The health care system is byzantine and complex and you have to concede that this is largely due to regulation and red-tape, even if you think it could be done in a better way. Try to develop a medical product and sell it to hospitals.

I don't know if eliminating government involvement altogether is wise but there is room for creativity yet! Have you heard of the burgeoning health tourism industry?

Quote: It worked great for CEO's and shareholders, but it let everyone else down.

The PhD biochemists didn't feel let down. Nor the medical researchers who are able to earn a very good living performing groundbreaking work that will allow us to continue arguing on these forums for decades to come.

Quote:
It puts profits above people in the worst way. Resolving the problem includes more than just lawyers and bureaucrats, it also includes doctors, researchers and patients.

Does it include bureaucrats determining how to manage and compensate these resources?


I'll respond on China later tonight or tomorrow, perhaps. Out of time.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote: Original post by LessBread
You'll know the debt has become a serious problem when Congress has no choice but to raise the top tax rate to more than 50%. Until then, bankruptcy talk is just another stick used to beat down the aspirations of the lower classes.

Good advice to give the poor: buy whatever you need with credit card debt. It is well within the government's right to impose taxes, even on a sliding scale, but there's no denying that top-down income redistribution, if done improperly, has some sort of effect on the psyche of recipients. Socialism is the easy way out, and a quick way into stagnation. If it worked, one would expect to see rapid economic growth, productivity gains, and entrepreneurial innovation diminish the need for government money. In other words, if income restribution were doing its job, the system would reach a level where taxation would begin to diminish or, if perfectly matched by the growth potential it creates, stay the same.

Yet, typically, it is more services that are called for. It's like quicksand.

We're not talking about the poor, we're talking about the government. If you're throwing down the "moral hazard" card, there are worse patterns of government behavior to complain about, such as lying to justify a war or covering up war crimes under the guise of "moving forward" or more to the point, bailing out billionaire bankers while leaving everyone else to sink or swim. I'm not challenging the government's right to impose taxes, I'm saying that until taxes are raised to considerably higher rates than present rates the debt is not an issue that Congress takes seriously regardless of whether or not members of Congress pretend otherwise. Socialism is no more the easy way out than doing nothing, in fact, planning is a lot more difficult than letting the imaginary hand of the free market work it's magic (which is the ultimate in laziness if you think about it). The point of socialism isn't to push the economy towards rapid growth etc. The point is to allow the people who live in the economy to catch their breath as they're being pummeled by the ups and downs of the casino. It's a question of who is the economy supposed to serve, the people who live and work in it or the few who own and make money with it. If it's only about making money for people who have magnitudes more than they need, there's no justice in it. At present, income redistribution flows from the bottom up, so if you're making a statement about present circumstances, your assumptions are faulty. If you're talking about the past, taxation was forcibly diminished on those at the top as the burden was put on those at the bottom in the guise of service fees and sales tax.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote: You're still not getting it. Right now the nation is paying 30% more than is necessary to insure everyone. That's right now, not in some hazy future.

What part of this is due to the health care equipment and pharmaceutical markets reacting to the fact that they can't recoup their investments in the government-run economies?

No part of it. The American public did not force them into competing overseas. The American public didn't agree to subsidize their overseas business ventures. The idea that somehow the US public has to pay more and get less because transnational corporations do business overseas does not make any sense. If they can't recoup their investment, they shouldn't be in business, should they?

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote: The question is stability. Are the Irish ready to overthrow their government? Krugman writes about Ireland in today's column. Rather than blame Irish problems on Germany as Evans-Pritchard did, he holds them to account for their own actions. "Like its near-namesake Iceland, Ireland jumped with both feet into the brave new world of unsupervised global markets. Last year the Heritage Foundation declared Ireland the third freest economy in the world, behind only Hong Kong and Singapore." Ireland was led astray by the pied-piper of free market fundamentalism. It's no wonder that commentary from the Telegraph would cover that up by trying to push a wedge into the stability of the EU. Even so, your surprise with the behavior of European nations is remarkable considering the things that the Governors of some states have been saying here in the US. I'm also surprised that you would point to a commentary that essentially calls on the European central banks to start printing money.

The omniscient European bureaucratic priesthood wasn't smart enough to avoid the housing bubble, it seems. Speculation and unregulated swashbuckling finance played a huge role in amplifying the housing bubble but to implicate the entire capitalist system is rather ridiculous. Alternative explanations for the housing bubble itself point to an over-supply of large houses and an under-supply of qualified young people to buy them. The socialist response to aging populations has been primitive: simply siphon wealth from those who have and distribute it to those who have not reared a labor force to support their health costs.

I've heard that housing economists have been warning about the American housing bubble for well over a decade. If the market is notorious for thinking in the short-term, then this is evidence that socialists are equally unable (or unwilling) to think in the long-term.

I posted the original article not to advocate printing money but to show that the European socialist experiment, which relies heavily on bypassing democracy, is taking the rather unpleasant course of national self-interest under a system whereby EU institutions have the right to take from others and protect the interests of the powerful.

Housing bubble? Wall Street thought it was smart to create it, but now that it has blown up, clearly it wasn't that smart. You want to blame socialism for the failures of capitalism? The oversupply of large houses came about through choices made by developers and sloppy banking practices. The under-supply of qualified buyers flows from the oversupply of young people with college loan debts. The absence of universal health care amounts to treating the underclass as less important than beasts of burden and is as primitive as it gets. Economists of all stripes warned about the housing bubble. If Europeans didn't heed those warnings, it means they we're more capitalist than socialist. The article you linked to concluded that the European central banks needed print more money. It didn't offer evidence of bypassing democracy or the like.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote: There's more to life than getting rich. Europe has a higher quality of life for everyday people than we do, which is what I thought you were talking about.

That's completely subjective. If you believe it to be true, why then aren't Americans emigrating to Europe? I haven't lived in Europe since I was a kid but I know that my quality of life would not improve if I moved there.

Americans are conditioned from birth to believe they live in the greatest nation on the planet, so of course they stick around.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote: Now it seems that you're invoking communism to criticize socialism. Are you interested in discussing the future of the welfare state or the past of the totalitarian state?

Tending towards using the government monopoly on violence to forcibly maintain an inefficient system run by incompetent bureaucrats is more totalitarian than I'm comfortable with.

Sounds like you're describing the Bush administration.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote: You seem to have forgotten the mitigating effects of increased productivity.

What if they aren't mitigating quickly enough?

What if the sun doesn't rise tomorrow?

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote: You only see reasons to contribute if health care is for profit? That makes no sense.

Of course it does. You'd think by now we'd at least be able to agree that you can't fight human nature. The health care system is byzantine and complex and you have to concede that this is largely due to regulation and red-tape, even if you think it could be done in a better way. Try to develop a medical product and sell it to hospitals.

I don't know if eliminating government involvement altogether is wise but there is room for creativity yet! Have you heard of the burgeoning health tourism industry?

The health care industry is byzantine and complex because keeping it that way allows health care corporations to charge more money for services. 30% overhead versus 3% overhead (See Physicians for a National Health Program). That's what greed gets us in the health care industry, waste, fraud and abuse. There is no health tourism industry. That's a propaganda fiction created to attack the allure of the Canadian health care system.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote: It worked great for CEO's and shareholders, but it let everyone else down.

The PhD biochemists didn't feel let down. Nor the medical researchers who are able to earn a very good living performing groundbreaking work that will allow us to continue arguing on these forums for decades to come.

That's completely subjective, isn't it? Or maybe they do feel let down and that's why they fudge their studies to get federal approval for their poisons.

How Big Pharma Distorts Science to Get FDA Approval for Dangerous Drugs

Quote:
...
Forest paid Massachusetts General Hospital researcher Jeffrey Bostic $750,000 to chat up Celexa and Lexapro, according to US District Court in Boston filings. AstraZeneca paid University of Minnesota researcher Charles Schulz $112,000 to push Seroquel, according to US District Court in Orlando filings. And a decade of pain "studies" conducted by Baystate Medical Center's Scott S. Reuben on Vioxx, Lyrica, Celebrex and Effexor were completely fabricated--including the patients say published reports.

And speaking of "made up," Coast IRB, an institutional review board which oversees some 300 clinical trials and 3,000 researchers, agreed last year to approve a human trial for "Adhesiabloc," a surgical gel that the Government Accountability Office completely made up in a sting operation. Oops.

And let's not forget Joseph your-child-is-bipolar Biederman, a Harvard physician who, according to the New York Times, assured benefactor Johnson & Johnson his studies would have favorable results for the drug Risperdal in advance of doing them. (Why leave things up to science?)

And Charles "Paxil" Nemeroff, MD who was forced to step down in December as psychiatry chairman at Emory University thanks to unreported GlaxoSmithKline income of up to $800,000.

And the pharma funded studies continue!
...

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote:
It puts profits above people in the worst way. Resolving the problem includes more than just lawyers and bureaucrats, it also includes doctors, researchers and patients.

Does it include bureaucrats determining how to manage and compensate these resources?

Probably, just as the private system does today, but without the profit motive that leaves so many people under provided for in America today.

Quote: Original post by trzy
I'll respond on China later tonight or tomorrow, perhaps. Out of time.

The China stuff was o.t. I've got to leave it here too.

Hi Mithrandir, I just wanted to let you know that my forum account is older than yours. Have a good day.