Free Republic

To Get Rich Is Glorious By Bill Bonner 05/28/10 Paris, France – Imagine the looks on their faces, when Deng Xiaoping sold them out. The old commies in China had tried to make steel in backyard barbecues. They’d carried the fat Mao on a litter, on a long march to nowhere. They’d pretended his Little Red Book was more than drivel. They’d endured one absurdity after another…purges, starvation, and misery…all for the cause. And now this… “To get rich is glorious…” Xiaoping is alleged to have said. Whether he said it or not, millions of Chinese took it to heart....

China's communist leadership is trying to paint a smiley face over its most recent brutal suppression of dissent. Five days ago, protestors were gunned downed by police in a village not far from Hong Kong. The authorities blame a "few instigators" for the violence, but this event is indicative of growing socio-economic shifts in mainland China; namely the disparity between those profiting from communist experimentation with capitalism, and those left on the sidelines. China's government is trying to put lipstick on the pig. From MSNBC.com: The government said three people died in Tuesday’s violence in this coastal village northeast of...

...Life expectancy at birth has increased for all socioeconomic groups, with black men making the most dramatic gains, to 68.2 years in 2000 from 60 in 1970.... Partly because of rising female employment, the median income of white households rose 19% between 1980 and 2000 and that of black families 39% from a lower base.... Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg cites a decline in starvation. "In 1970, 35% of the people in developing countries were starving. In 1996, the figure was 18% and the United Nations expects that figure will have fallen to 12% by 2010." Professor Lomborg a few years...