Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 06/11/2010 8:55:09 AM PDT by NetRight Nation
Two unrelated stories in early June show in stark detail why the United States is on an accelerating downward, death spiral while China is continuing to build a solid foundation for economic domination in the decades to come. The actions reported in and of themselves will hardly register on the radar of most Americans. But they portray the crucial errors and arrogance of the Obama regime. They also point to a different path, a way forward out of the morass of ultra-liberal, ideological delusion that is now policy in Washington, D.C.
The first article, appearing in the Washington Post, details Chinese investment in the basket case of Europe, Greece. The Chinese government is investing “hundreds of millions — perhaps billions — of euros” into Greek infrastructure. Not the soft infrastructure that is thinly disguised consumption but in the hard, base platform that will allow both China and Greece to build prosperity.
Greece’s primary port city is Piraeus, a gritty industrial zone to the west of Athens. China is investing heavily to modernize Piraeus. Why? The answer is simple. The investment is so China will have a port to off-load mountains of Chinese exports to Europe. They are making investments that will enable industry to produce and sell more. And that means they are investing to put their people to work.
China has learned the hard way that control of all elements — what was once called total vertical integration — means maximum profit. Greece is flat on its back. China can get what it wants cheap. The irony of a communist state teaming up with a petty bourgeois neo-socialist government to crush unions allied with a local communist party just to maximize profits is too sweet not to note. But all such theoretical conflicts are of no consequence to the dictators in Beijing when in the hunt for increased market share.
Contrast the Chinese model with a big announcement made the same day by Barack Obama. Obama committed the United States taxpayers to $400 million in aid to the Palestinians in Gaza. What will the $400 million buy? Schools, mortgages for local citizens to buy homes, water treatment facilities and other associated “soft infrastructure” expenditures.
Is there any economic return on this money? None that is readily apparent. Is there any link to U.S. business thereby creating jobs for American citizens? Not unless they are a top level bureaucrat. What do we get out of it? Good karma, that’s about it.
So, while the Chinese invest in hard things that directly help create jobs in their country, the United States lavishes money on things the locals should be doing for themselves — things that any nation should want to do for themselves from their own savings, investment and hard work.
In Greece, China creates the foundation for the Greek people to do for themselves. In Gaza, the United States practices the toxic, paternalistic enslavement of the welfare state.
Were that all, it would be bad enough. But, of course, there is more. The Chinese are making these investments with saved money, money they have stockpiled. The United States is frittering away $400 million it doesn’t have. In fact, we are borrowing the money, throwing yet another brick on the backs of our children and grandchildren, unconcerned about their future.
In short, China is building jobs and a future for theirs, while the United States is going deeper in debt.
Whether there is time for America to reverse course is something one can only guess. But the path of enlightened self interest and national sovereignty practiced so aggressively by the Chinese is clearly the way the U.S. should go. The “World Government” dreamers and Ivory Tower gurus need to be shoved aside and hard-nosed realists put in their place. Just like they have done in China.
Bill Wilson is the President of Americans for Limited Government.
Read more at NetRightDaily.com: http://netrightdaily.com/2010/06/a-tale-of-two-countries-why-the-u-s-is-drowning-in-its-own-blood-while-china-prospers/#ixzz0qYnyImrq
Because rising numbers of people in this country want it that way. Otherwise they wouldn't elect those who facilitate this act of national suicide. Everything we need to know about America's future will be told by how the November elections go.
Answer: We are in the process of being sacked by Third World conquerors.
One thing I admire about the Chinese (all their other faults notwithstanding): Every move they make is based on ONE question: “What’s in it for China?”
China is still a command economy mainly controlled by the Government. Maos efforts have merely been turned in a different direction to make the country (not necessarily the people) rich. No business gets done without input or approval by a raft of bureaucrats. Politics controls everything. Most businessmen, in fact, ARE the bureaucrats. Therefore, corruption is rampant. This is why after only 20-25 years of “reform” China already has one of the most unequal wealth distribution in the world.
We should admire the individual Chinese’s thrift, focus on family and value of education, but they have developed these over the centuries as a survival mechanism against rapacious Government. There is very little in Chinese economic planning that the USA should copy.
China has a world of problems including a massive,restless peasant population, a rapidly growing demographic of elderly, and a state controlled economy that could pop anytime.
'Zactly!!!
And a Wal-Mart shoppers bump.
Ping for later.
This guy says we should copy the Chinese? Well, perhaps in actions of Self Interest.
I need to read it more and digest it. If he is one of these morons who says we need to run our government like the Chicoms in a bunch of other ways (as I have heard more than one statist liberal opine) then I’m gonna load my Internet Shotgun, both barrels.
And a real estate bubble that puts the one we had here to shame. The China “economic story” is a sham.
Idiots brainwashed by TV. The five networks support Obama 100%. I have been blasted here by some people but TV empowers the elites, libs and Obama. Cancel it. People won’t do it because they will trade their liberty for ball games.
The US has been systematically deindustrialized and turned into the trophy wife of the world. Doing nothing but buying a bunch of stuff on a credit card.
Progressives love altruism and empathy.For them, it is an end in itself.Self-sacrifice is the primary moral virtue. And it is destroying America.
Firstly, because all of the reasons everyone here will readily provide: our government’s slouch towards socialism, greedy unions, and so on. But more importantly, because China has a lot of room to prosper. Most of her population is out of Europe’s High Middle Ages at best. Also, and relatedly, they can prosper on the back of quasi-slave labor, because they are communists, and because as I said above the people are stuck way backl in time and welcome any advancement with the sort of relish that Americans welcome their third trip to McDonalds in one day.
At which point, the reflexive blaming of Bush will commence.
Policitians and the power elite who back them generally possess above avg intelligence. It's not mystery to them that democracies have repeatedly failed throughout history. So the challenge was to convert the republic into a democracy. Once that was achieved, anything is literally possible, as we witness on a daily basis.
The only way out is a reset. It's coming sooner or later (what, you thought the USA would live forever?); when it does, a couple of hundred years of tradition are going to go medieval on usurpers.
The Europeans are in as bad a shape as we are. What will they use to buy the exports?
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