It's Time To Raise The Gas Tax - Not

[LoArmistead]

But I haven't present a 'way of thinking', unlike yourself.

 

Using Russia as an example to emphasise your point is exactly what I expected from you. Using the complete polar opposite in terms of economy and situation compared to America. The perfect definition of being wholly subjective, to fit your needs. You never seem to present a balanced argument. Though I am sure you are probably capable of being balanced, you seem more content on trying to be as controversial in your opinions as possible. I bet that doesn't bode well for you in the real world.

 

And yes, I really suggest you DO get out there and see the world for what it really is. I work with a lot of Americans in my company and the ones that have been away and seen the world are exceptionally humbled and almost totally different in reflection to those that have.

 

You didn't mention that I also used France and Germany as examples of things we need to avoid (e.g. excessive unemployment benefits, strict labor regulation making it too costly to fire bad workers, and too costly to hire good ones, etc).

 

I'm an army brat, I've been everywhere, met all kinds of people. South Koreans, Japanese, Australians, Germans, Mexicans, Irish, Brits, Sud Africans, Chinese, you name it.

 

Socialism never makes a country prosper, amirite?

 

You are right. China's currency manipulation has done well for now... for now... but it's growing too fast, and internal social issues are haunting them. And no one is saying socialism can't be effective , it's worked out well for a lot of the smaller Nordic and western European countries, but they are successful due to their small size. It's folly to look at the success of Norway or Switzerland, and try to apply that same government style to the United States. Our economy is simply too big to be controlled centrally (Russia is a good example).

 

Here's a little example of how a socialist country cannot compete in the long-run with a capitalist government. Socialist countries are notorious for subsidizing their industries to keep them afloat and competitive in the world market (e.g. cars and textiles in India, steel in China and the UK, agriculture in the US). There are tariffs being placed on steel imports from China because they are able to sell their steel to us at a loss (the difference being comprised of tax dollars from the government) as to undercut American prices and put American steel companies out of business. That's fine and dandy, and effective in the short term, but for every dollar/euro/yuan the government gives to a company to subsidize an already-made product, that's one less dollar/euro/yuan they have taken from the private sector that would otherwise be use for expansion and innovation, or taken from the public sector that could've been used for the same purpose. Japan did this during the 1980s, and that's why the 1990s is considered their "Lost Economic Decade." The government, in an attempt to minimize unemployment, began sibsidizing fledgling industries to keep the jobs there. When you are subsidized by the government, there is no incentive to imrpove operations or make new products, so during the 90s when everyone awas beginning to buy DVD players, Japanese companies, for instance, were still producing VCRs, and it got to the point where the government couldn't support the companies anymore and they let them die. It took Japan's economy almost a decade to recovery from those mistakes - just one more thing we should learn from and strive not to repeat, yet we are doing it by subsidizing our automobile industry. The companies will never return to profitability with the strict regulation placed on their union operations and fleet emissions by the federal government, so the government will be forced to subsidize them until eventually the government is just going to let the domestic auto industry die a gruesom, tragic death. The hundreds of billions that will be spent keeping dying industries afloat could be left in the private sector to be invested in restructuring the companies to become profitable again, or it could be spent to innovate new products that would allow auto workers to transition into a new field when their plants inevitably go out of business.

 

The United States is not capitalist, and it hasn't been for over a century. We are very much a socialist nation, with over half of government expendiutures being transfer payments. If there was any doubt we were socialists, that doubt is now gone with the US government taking equity interests in almost every major financial firm in the country, and now bailing out all the industries that are hurt by the economic recession.

[jammin]

The United States is not capitalist, and it hasn't been for over a century.

 

You whaa?