Sen. Bunning (R): Tough sh*t unemployed.

[BigDH01]

That article is too focused on housing and land prices. It fails to see that the backbone of China's economic growth, its manufacturing sector is very strong. Bottom line: there is no ponzi scheme when China's government has a surplus every year and they do not have any national debt.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html

Budget:
revenues: $972.3 billion
expenditures: $1.137 trillion (2009 est.)
Public debt:
18.2% of GDP (2009 est.)
country comparison to the world: 109
15.6% of GDP (2008 est.)

They do have debt.

Also, from Forbes...

Signs of the times: government bureaucracies funding themselves by foisting debt on state-owned business enterprises; local governments raising capital by selling land at sky-high prices to corporations they own; and a People's Bank of China lavishing liquidity on the entire system in a way that makes Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke look downright stingy.

This debt is "hidden" inasmuch as it's not reported in those CIA numbers.

Also, by clinging to your belief in Chinese effectiveness and efficiency, you put yourself in an unenviable position of promoting and defending an economy that is in large part controlled by the central government.

http://blogs.worldbank.org/eastasiapacific/state-owned-enterprises-in-china-how-big-are-they

The Second National Economic Census conducted in 2008 reveals that of all the 208 billion trillion* RMB total assets of the secondary and tertiary sectors (industrial and service sectors), 63 billion trillion* – or 30 percent of total – was held by SOEs. (SOEs here correspond to state-owned enterprises and state sole funded limited liability corporations in the Second National Economic Census.)

It makes "Government Motors" look like child's play.

 

[werepossum]

Here's something you should understand: saying something, alone, doesn't make it true.

The free market improves products and services, but it doesn't necessarily decide "better" alternatives.

Donuts, for example, are highly popular. That doesn't mean they're a healthy thing to eat or what's "best" for anyone.

You misunderstand the free market. Donuts are not sold as health food, they are sold as snacks that taste good. The company with the best combination of good taste, price, and presentation (store cleanliness, advertising, etc.) wins by selling the most donuts and thereby maximizing its profits. Only in a government-run system would donuts be judged by how healthy they are, although the free market can also accommodate those people who want to buy their donuts based on how healthy they are.

This does demonstrate though the vast gulf between liberal and conservative ideas of the proper concept of government. Conservatives tend to think government's proper role is doing for us the things we cannot easily do for ourselves - national defense, for example. Liberals tend to think government's proper role is that of parent - e.g. selecting our food for us based on how healthy it is. (Case in point a liberal, staunch Democrat friend who wishes government would outlaw smoking so that he can stop smoking.) Even our definitions of freedom are radically different, with conservatives believing that freedom is lack of constraint in our choices and liberals believing that freedom is government making sure our basic needs are taken care of so that we can focus on other things. Our problem with making government work is not so much a function of the two-party system as it is with this diverging view of the world and how it should work.

 

[zsdersw]

You misunderstand the free market. Donuts are not sold as health food, they are sold as snacks that taste good. The company with the best combination of good taste, price, and presentation (store cleanliness, advertising, etc.) wins by selling the most donuts and thereby maximizing its profits. Only in a government-run system would donuts be judged by how healthy they are, although the free market can also accommodate those people who want to buy their donuts based on how healthy they are.

No, I don't misunderstand it at all. You're criticizing a simple example for not being complex, when it was never intended to be complex. The point is that what people want (and the free market provides) isn't necessarily what's best for them or for anyone else. People want donuts, but that doesn't make them a good thing to eat. I don't think the government's proper role is to be a parent or that it makes a good parent, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking the free market is any better. Parents are the best parents.. but only for their own kids, not anyone else's.

I'm sick of "conservatives" beating the drum about government robbing them through taxes, etc. only to support using government to curb other freedoms through the FCC's "decency rules", anti-abortion laws, barring homosexuals from adoption and marriage, etc. I'm also sick of "liberals" wanting the government out of those things but support more taxes and regulation.

But let's not put the free-market-solves-everything blinders on, either. It doesn't.. and it doesn't always generate the best outcomes for the most people. Nothing ever will.

 

[werepossum]

No, I don't misunderstand it at all. You're criticizing a simple example for not being complex, when it was never intended to be complex. The point is that what people want (and the free market provides) isn't necessarily what's best for them or for anyone else. People want donuts, but that doesn't make them a good thing to eat. I don't think the government's proper role is to be a parent or that it makes a good parent, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking the free market is any better. Parents are the best parents.. but only for their own kids, not anyone else's.

I'm sick of "conservatives" beating the drum about government robbing them through taxes, etc. only to support using government to curb other freedoms through the FCC's "decency rules", anti-abortion laws, barring homosexuals from adoption and marriage, etc. I'm also sick of "liberals" wanting the government out of those things but support more taxes and regulation.

But let's not put the free-market-solves-everything blinders on, either. It doesn't.. and it doesn't always generate the best outcomes for the most people. Nothing ever will.

I agree with most of that, actually. In my ideal world programming would be self-rated due to industry standards and parents would be responsible for providing the technology for preventing their children from watching what they do not wish them to watch (even if the technology is a willow switch.) I for one enjoy seeing Janet Jackson's breasts, although I would accept reasonable limits on my ability to do so in order to proetct children from the horrors of seeing a naked breast. (Curiously, the horrors of seeing a naked breast often seem to outweigh the horrors of seeing a graphic depiction of a torture murder. Go figure.) People should be reasonably free to live their lives as they wish, assuming they can display a moderate amount of decorum.

I would only point out that the free market IS parents making decisions for their families only, and that fetuses are by definition genetically unique persons and thus the government should have exactly the same interest in protecting their lives as any other individual - although only once they are medically viable outside the womb, I don't think government should disallow a woman to abort a baby that is not yet viable outside her own body. And I agree that the government needs to occasionally step in when the free market gets out of whack, to avoid outright fraud and monopolies.