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We should just ban all trade with China. That would solve things pretty quick...for most of us that is. It's completely ridiculous.
Possibly the dumbest op-ed I've ever had the displeasure of reading.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/op...dman.html?_r=2
Watching both the health care and climate/energy debates in Congress, it is hard not to draw the following conclusion: There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today.
One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century. It is not an accident that China is committed to overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power. China’s leaders understand that in a world of exploding populations and rising emerging-market middle classes, demand for clean power and energy efficiency is going to soar. Beijing wants to make sure that it owns that industry and is ordering the policies to do that, including boosting gasoline prices, from the top down.
(I love how he cites China as some kind of "green" role model)
Our one-party democracy is worse. The fact is, on both the energy/climate legislation and health care legislation, only the Democrats are really playing. With a few notable exceptions, the Republican Party is standing, arms folded and saying “no.” Many of them just want President Obama to fail. Such a waste. Mr. Obama is not a socialist; he’s a centrist. But if he’s forced to depend entirely on his own party to pass legislation, he will be whipsawed by its different factions.
Look at the climate/energy bill that came out of the House. Its sponsors had to work twice as hard to produce this breakthrough cap-and-trade legislation. Why? Because with basically no G.O.P. representatives willing to vote for any price on carbon that would stimulate investments in clean energy and energy efficiency, the sponsors had to rely entirely on Democrats — and that meant paying off coal-state and agriculture Democrats with pork. Thank goodness, it is still a bill worth passing. But it could have been much better — and can be in the Senate. Just give me 8 to 10 Republicans ready to impose some price on carbon, and they can be leveraged against Democrats who want to water down the bill.
“China is going to eat our lunch and take our jobs on clean energy — an industry that we largely invented — and they are going to do it with a managed economy we don’t have and don’t want,” said Joe Romm, who writes the blog, climateprogress.org.
The only way for us to match them is by legislating a rising carbon price along with efficiency and renewable standards that will stimulate massive private investment in clean-tech. Hard to do with a one-party democracy.
The same is true on health care. “The central mechanism through which Obama seeks to extend coverage and restrain costs is via new ‘exchanges,’ insurance clearinghouses, modeled on the plan Mitt Romney enacted when he was governor of Massachusetts,” noted Matt Miller, a former Clinton budget official and author of “The Tyranny of Dead Ideas.” “The idea is to let individuals access group coverage from private insurers, with subsidies for low earners.”
And it is possible the president will seek to fund those subsidies, at least in part, with the idea John McCain ran on — by reducing the tax exemption for employer-provided health care. Can the Republicans even say yes to their own ideas, if they are absorbed by Obama? Without Obama being able to leverage some Republican votes, it is going to be very hard to get a good plan to cover all Americans with health care.
“Just because Obama is on a path to give America the Romney health plan with McCain-style financing, does not mean the Republicans will embrace it — if it seems politically more attractive to scream ‘socialist,’ ” said Miller.
The G.O.P. used to be the party of business. Well, to compete and win in a globalized world, no one needs the burden of health insurance shifted from business to government more than American business. No one needs immigration reform — so the world’s best brainpower can come here without restrictions — more than American business. No one needs a push for clean-tech — the world’s next great global manufacturing industry — more than American business. Yet the G.O.P. today resists national health care, immigration reform and wants to just drill, baby, drill.
“Globalization has neutered the Republican Party, leaving it to represent not the have-nots of the recession but the have-nots of globalized America, the people who have been left behind either in reality or in their fears,” said Edward Goldberg, a global trade consultant who teaches at Baruch College. “The need to compete in a globalized world has forced the meritocracy, the multinational corporate manager, the eastern financier and the technology entrepreneur to reconsider what the Republican Party has to offer. In principle, they have left the party, leaving behind not a pragmatic coalition but a group of ideological naysayers.”
We should just ban all trade with China. That would solve things pretty quick...for most of us that is. It's completely ridiculous.
That reads like the kind of op-ed that could have been written in Italy or Germany in the 1920's.
Unless this is some elaborate kind of satire, that has to be one of the scariest op-eds in recent memory.
It is exactly the kind of argument both the fascists and the socialists used 100 years ago.
My doomsday prediction for America is so freaking correct. War is coming.
double post
Rather than waste all that white space, you could post some interesting facts.
Something like this works well.
Klingons (Klingon: tlhIngan, pronounced [ˈt͡ɬɪŋɑn]) are a warrior race in the fictional Star Trek universe. They are recurring villains in the 1960s television show Star Trek: The Original Series, and have appeared in all five spin-off series and seven feature films. Initially intended to be swarthy antagonists for the crew of the USS Enterprise, the Klingons ended up a close ally of humanity and the United Federation of Planets in later television series.
As originally developed by screenwriter Gene L. Coon, Klingons were darkly colored humanoids with little honor, intended as an allegory to the then-current Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. With a greatly expanded budget for makeup and effects, the Klingons were completely redesigned in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), gaining ridged foreheads that created a continuity error not explained by canon until 2005. In later films and the spin-off series Star Trek: The Next Generation, the militaristic traits of the Klingons were bolstered by an increased sense of honor and strict warrior code.
ES, don't be concerned. Friedman is merely a well-meaning boob. Nothing sinister here.
We've already had one party rule, as recently as 2001-2006. I agree it leads to bad things.
Friedman's choice of China as an example for us shows a tin ear, but the sentiment he expresses is hardly new. Bush used all the power at his disposal to "get things done", even invented some brand new powers, and steamrollered his opposition in Congress. Obama will probably do much the same.
And Friedman makes it abundantly clear that that, in his opinion; is not enough. More steamrolling is needed, not less.
Shoe's on the other foot now, so right-wingers cry fascism. They are no less right than the left-wingers who used to say it IMO.
The democratic majority is no more permanent than the GOP's was. Or will be. Unfortunately for us all, the nexus of money and power transcends party lines. Corporatism flourishes no matter who's in office.
It's becoming SOP and it sucks. I agree.
Instead of consensus, raw power.
Well, duh.
It's working so well in China - and has for like nearly 20 years now, how much evidence do we NEEEEEEEED?!
- kneejerk
Expedience is king. No evidence is needed for that.
Government works best when one controls the Presidency and the other Congress.
I love how these piece of shieeeeet Progressives repeat the mantra, "The majority of Americans want health care reform."
Of course they do. However they are using this term to project onto the listener that "Health Care reform" is synonymous with "Obama's current Health care reform plan." It is not.
Also, China does what China do. They don't care about the rest of the World. They are freaking China. ah ching chong chi China.
The United States, led by self loathing un-Americans, does not have the country's interest at the top of the list as China does of themselves. Our der leaders are more concerned with curbing traditional American prosperity if it means "progressing" the America they want us all to live under.
Last edited by BadMoodBob; 09-09-2009 at 03:21 PM.
Friedman is an idiot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_unit
He has negative credibility.
Nobody gets it. It has nothing to do with whether anybody is being "sinister."
The people residing in the United States of America, both left and right, are increasingly a people comfortable with intrusive, authoritarian government as long as it provides comprehensive services to their liking. These people increasingly see the role of the state as providing positive rights as opposed to protecting negative ones.
But at the same time, these people are increasingly are splintered to the point where separate factions, often regional in nature but not entirely so, hold little to nothing in common and cannot be called part of the same country in anything beyond a nominal sense. These people no longer believe that others are operating in good faith with them or that they much in the way of common interests. There is no trust even in so much as the basic decency of the other side. The other side is called dangerous and evil and must be eliminated [sic].
Democracies are always poor at coming up with sweeping government programs, because while a majority of people may agree something needs to be reformed, there is never more than a sliver that agrees with a particular detailed solution. Much of the majority that wanted reform might actually prefer no reform to whatever specific plan is under consideration.
So what happened in the past was that people would get frustrated with the inability to get anything done in a democracy. If only changes could be passed by fiat it would work better! Forget having dilettante politicians evaluate legislation; let panels of experts develop and implement reform! Germany and Italy didn't go from some Jeffersonian liberal paradises in 1925 to totalitarianism all of a sudden; the seeds were sown years, decades in advance in the culture of each nation to where the people accepted, nay, demanded dictatorial, er, umm, "unitary executive" leadership to solve their problems and purge their enemies.
The world has been down this road before. We know what happens, but I guess because the U.S.A. for all its hegemony is still isolated by the two oceans from really "getting it," we're doomed to go down the road ourselves and bleed and die. So be it. I may get to transfer out of the country in a few years, and if offered I will jump at the chance to get out.
And of course everyone will laugh and say that I am just being ridiculous because of course it can never happen here. Not only can it happen, it will happen, because that is who the people of the United States of America are, not because they're going to be duped by some sinister charismatic leader. New York will have its Lenin, and Georgia its Hitler.
Government is wisely turning the majority into those receiving benefits while the minority is expected to pay for it all.
It's going to be fun when this class warfare flips and it is the poor receiving the hate from the REAL Middle Class.
Not the "middle class" government refers to because they want to whisper sweet nothings into the ears of those whom they are afraid to offend with reality.
This is the nub of it. Most of what gets posted in this forum reinforces and extends it.
Isn't the US cons ution all about limiting the power of government and establishing checks and balanced to prevent any single branch from becoming too powerful?
Meet me back here in 50 years ES, and whoever is the winner of our "Will the US exist as it does now, more or less" bet will owe the other a coke.
Yes.
It's also about reducing the overall power of the government.
It was.
However, the "Interstate Commerce" clause let the camels nose under the tent; and there is NOTHING that Congress can not pass in terms of taxation/property rights - up to and including nationalization of industries and 100% tax rates; with that level of power over $$$$ - nothing else really matters.
I will join you........Meet me back here in 50 years ES, and whoever is the winner of our "Will the US exist as it does now, more or less" bet will owe the other a coke.
Comrades.
Your solicitude for the US Cons ution is touching, Darrin.
When did you acquire it? It was hardly in evidence last year.
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