First of all, let me indicate an appreciation for
an actual conversation that's interesting and devoid
of ad hominum.
Mark-T wrote:
> On Mar 20, JCrowe <bongof...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> As an aside, the only significant U.S. manufacturing that is
>> still really based in the U.S. is arms.
>
> Manufacturing doesn't matter nearly as much
> as the Chicken Littles decry. The im****tant
> thing, economically, is that resources get
> utilized efficiently; it doesn't matter who or
> where. Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage...
I'm not so sure. I understand about production of
goods where it is most efficient etc., as per
Ricardo et al. However, from a cultural and
individual PoV, it makes a lot of sense to keep
the capacity/infrastructure for producing basic
manufactured goods fairly locally. If you look
back through the past, there have been many
cultures/areas who proceeded through the phases
of cheap goods poorly made to high quality goods
for a good price. This includes the U.S., Japan
and now China. From my personal perspective, much
of the stuff made in China is very low quality,
but there are no alternatives at the moment. In
this respect, Europe is even worse off than the
U.S.
>
> However, your point is taken, that we
> vastly overspend on war. And it's sickening
> to listen to the rabble rousers yap about "good
> for the economy" and "good jobs".
I agree, but remember, many people believe that
FDR brought the U.S. out of the great depression and
that WWII was an economic boon.
>
>> The last guy who declared the U.S. could have
>> both guns and butter by playing
>> the same games that Bush and company are playing was LBJ
>> and the Viet Nam experience and subsequent hard times were
>> blamed on Carter primarily.
>>
>> In twenty years, the U.S. will be a third world
>> backwater... the last T-bill auction saw a very
>> reduced demand from those folks...who wants
>> to keep pissing real resources down a rathole
>> like the current U.S. economy.
>
> There is nothing fundamentally wrong with
> the U.S. economy. Americans are productive
> as ever, that's what an economy is - people
> producing and trading. We're not Mongolia.
The question is what is the U.S. economy
producing that's not being done much cheaper in
other places? U.S. workers have expectations of
high wages, great benefits and relatively short
working hours. (that could spawn a totally new
thread). Many European countries have workforces
with even less realistic expectations. The goods
manufactured in the U.S. vary in quality...we used
to make great tools and machinery, but the price of
that quality is too high for most applications. The
companies that are headquartered in the U.S. have no
loyalty to this country, and I can understand that.
Link this with an attitude of need to consume ever
more goods without saving for future investment and
I don't see a lot of upside here. The Chinese save
an average of 40% of their earnings...people in the
U.S. on average have a negative savings rate.
>
> The problem is a welfare ethic, where everyone
> has a right to everything they want... call it
> 'need', and no can deny you. The political
> class panders to this - for their own gain -
> and tragically the central bank has become
> their tool, handing out free money for decades.
> As in the Vietnam era you alluded. And the
> process is accelerating...
Exactly. The Bill of Rights seems to now have been
changed from limiting power of government to infringe
on individual rights to pandering to the desires of
folks who don't want to work for their cot and three
squares.
>
>> Orwell was quite prescient. Hard to
>> believe he was actually a socialist.
>
> That was early, later he renounced socialism,
> after seeing the horrors of the soviets.
I don't think that's right. He was an anarchist/
socialist at least until right before his death in
1950 if I remember correctly. Certainly, 1984 and
Animal Farm were written while he was still a socialist.
Orwell was vehemently anti-Soviet, but that did not
preclude him embracing socialism. He was a bit of an enigma.
He did write about all governments being evil, but he
was really all over the map. He opposed the formation of
the state of Israel, but wrote about anti-semitism in
England etc.
>
>> Here are some quite applicable quotes....
>
>> War against a foreign country only happens when
>> the moneyed cl***** think they are going to profit from it.
>
> This is Marxist propaganda, that business
> as a whole benefits from war. Only a small
> section, the war industry, profits... everyone
> else pays. Of course, the warmongers are
> horrifically influential.
My reading of the quote above was not that business
as a whole will profit from it, but rather that the
"military-industrial complex" will profit from it. I'm
talking about the Halliburtons, Duponts etc.....
>
>> Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is
>> represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense
>> against a homicidal maniac.
>> ~George Orwell
>
> "Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why
> would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his
> life in a war when the best that he can get out of
> it is to come back to his farm in one piece...
> But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who
> determine the policy and it is always a simple
> matter to drag the people along... "
> - Hermann Goering
Good quote. There are a number of Goering and
Goebbels quotes that are quite interesting. You
could almost see them coming out of the mouths of
Bush or Cheney.
> Mark
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