OT - Gunner Quote

No, dear. I'm the one who lives here and has at least half an idea of what he's talking about. You, on the other hand ....

Because I lived there for oh-too-many years.

Reply to
Excitable Boy
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You occasionally exhibit a slight NY bias in your thinking, Ed :-) Dennis Conner is not a nice man. Nor is the NYYC a nice yacht club. Tom Blackaller, now *there* was a sportsman, but .... anyway. The kiwis were no worse than the New Yawkahs in America's Cup behaviour.

Reply to
Excitable Boy

What's happening here is that you're talking about what you don't like about the US lifestyle, when the subject is material wealth.

Lifestyle is a matter of personal likes and dislikes. Material wealth is a matter of numbers. The numbers aren't subject to argument, and you know where the numbers are.

As for my own opinion about lifestyle and feeling good about where you are -- though you didn't ask -- it's pretty much a matter of what you make of it. The arguments about it are interesting and sometimes amusing. But they don't mean a lot to me.

I'm sure I'd find a lot to like about China. I found a lot to like about most places I've lived, although some of them were better enjoyed as vacations than as living.

The key to me is what your "home" is. I happen to like this one quite a lot, mostly because of the things I value. There is no other place that I would consider my center, my home, even if I left the place and lived somewhere else for years at a time.

Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

I understand the metaphor (or is it a simile ?), but I don't care for it. There's nothing wrong with dirt. I _like_ dirt. Of course, I'd guess that China has dirt that's just as good as American dirt.

Goddamn, Ed, that's poetic.

Well said.

R, Tom Q.

Reply to
Tom Quackenbush

Inflation has taken off in China. The Economist reports this week that China's economic ministers are in a panic that they may be in for a repeat of 1992 - 93, when inflation ran over 20%. They've had to increase the money supply by 20%/yr. for the past two years, to keep up with foreign demand (don't ask, it's complicated -- the alternative is to watch their exchange rate go up in smoke) and they're worried.

Inflation in the US is running a CPI of about 1.9%, which is within the range that economists consider to be perfect. In other words, the cost of living is just about dead flat in the US, and has been for the past year.

That's right, because Marin County, like Westchester County, only tells us about demographic changes, not economic ones.

I don't know what kind of white bread you been eatin', white boy, but I haven't seen a loaf of bread sell for $.89 for at least ten years. Maybe in Marin County.

Wages in manufacturing have been flat for nearly three decades, even though sales have climbed substantially. Now, if you were a risk arbitrageur, the trend line would look a lot better...

Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Ok, Abrasha, you can be my PR man. d8-)

Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Now, wait a minute. Are you saying that challenging with a 128-foot boat was just a little boy's trick? You've probably sailed in IORC regattas. How did you fare about boats that were twice as long as yours? Cover them, did you? Luff them up? Did you sail out from under a cover? d8-)

In a 128-foot boat against a 12-meter, *I* could beat Dennis Conner.

In real life, I hear he's not. Not many people that ambitious *are* nice people. But he kept up the proper appearances over the Big Boat flap. He didn't say a lot about it for publication.

The word is they're pretty much a bunch of snotty pricks.

Blackaller, by reputation, Ok. About the kiwis -- or at least Michael Fay and the big kiwi entourage that supported him -- nonsense, no way, and I don't think anyone outside of New Zealand agrees with you.

Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Then we can both be glad you're gone.

-- Robert Sturgeon, proud member of the vast right wing conspiracy and the evil gun culture.

Reply to
Robert Sturgeon

Because we have the money to buy it, and they don't.

The point is that no country has ever been able to maintain an economic structure that's a "little bit" based on markets. As far as history has told us so far, markets are like broncos. You either ride, or you don't.

We won't know for decades to come if China can do it. Their wages now are so low, and there are so many factors keeping them low, that the most amazingly screwed-up state of productivity -- about what they have now -- can be tolerated, and the country can still compete in goods and services. Once wages go up, that situation always collapses. Witness France.

Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Nobody, lets Gunner, or anybody like him, run things. People like Gunner will never run things in this country. They get to own a few guns and get to think they have power, other thatn that, harmless sheep, who've been duped by their "leaders".

Abrasha

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Reply to
Abrasha

Bob, Excuse me, Robert. Cherish your own without begrudging others theirs. You do, and your better half speaks for you in this instance.

Reply to
J. R. Carroll

Sssshhhh!!! Your post is crossposted to misc.survivalism and nobody over there is supposed to know which is why I deleted that group in my previous posts. As I said, I don't want to ruin his reputation with those folks over there. They'd kinda wonder why someone as intelligent as he hangs around with an airhead (one of the mildest things I've been called over there ) such as myself. BTW if you live in San Francisco do you ever get mistaken for Jon Carroll the Chronicle columnist. I enjoy reading his stuff except when he gets political. Fun "cat columns". Sue Brady, not Sturgeon

Reply to
Sue

Well, having stripped a number of formerly government companies/ dapartments (Air NZ, railways and some others I have forgotten) he then took his dough and is currently living in Switzerland, leaving the New Zealand taxpayer to clean up the mess. Given he got many of these assets *extremely* cheaply, some opinions might be formed about payoffs, but I couldn't possibly comment. G

Reply to
geoff merryweather

paranoid as

But, Ed, it seems to be the central part of what being "right wing" is all about, as far as I can comprehend it.

True, there seem to be a lot of guns, copied spew and bluster involved too but ....

Reply to
Cliff Huprich

Aha! The greedy bastard applied his principles to more than yachting, I see.

Some days when I hear about what the very rich are doing to the rest of us, I feel like Hamei must feel all the time.

Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

I probably shouldn't have written "capitalist democracy". Could you agree with me that China is transitioning into a democracy embracing a western style market economy, where private enterprise will be the driving force behind the country's growth? And that, so far, the Chinese administration is doing an admirable job of it, by controlling the transition process, keeping it slow and smooth?

-tih

Reply to
Tom Ivar Helbekkmo

Odd that you would say that. As I may have mentioned, just last week I was getting a hair wash anda happy ending when some bigshot American economist came on the telly speaking to a large group of Chinese hot-shots. He made a big point of the fact that inflation here was about 1% and his biggest concern was with the people displaced by all the moving-to-the- cities and social change stuff. Wish I'd got his name, but they took me upstairs before the credits came on ....

All depends on whom you listen to, I guess. I haven't seen any huge inflation - unlike I did in San Francisco - but ...... you can make inflation figures say whatever you want by choosing where and what to pick, ya know ? Housing prices here go *down*, and since housing is usually the largest part of any family's expenditures ...

Reply to
Excitable Boy

Great article, Ed! I've downloaded the others as well, and am looking forward to reading them. Highly recommended reading, folks!

-tih

Reply to
Tom Ivar Helbekkmo

Thanks, Tom. 'Glad you enjoyed it. Of the four articles on that site, I wrote three of them, including the one without a byline. The fourth one, about Representative Phil English's trade proposal, was written by David Smith.

Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

No, that's not really correct. At least not in the way that I understand the words 'democracy' or 'market economy', anyway. First, they are never going to be a "democracy." That's not what Chinese people want. Chinee people have traditionally wanted an *effective* government. They don't feel any great need to be voting or spouting off on politics. Almost never does anyone show much interest in those kinds of things.

They DO demand that their lives get better and that things are run as well as they can be (more or less. You know the expression "chinese fire drill" ?). This government has been democratic in the sense that the representatives represent their province or areas as much as American representatives do, I guess. They do listen to the people and have mechanisms for soliciting people's views, but not in the way that Americans would describe as "democracy." Pretty similar to the traditional Chinese government, imo. Is that a democracy ? I don't think so. Do they listen to the populace ? of course. All governments do and always have. They HAVE to, or eventually be overthrown. Naive people like to point fingers at monarchies or dictatorships or whatever but the truth is, if the people don't go along with the program ain't NO government that can last forever.

As for the "market economy" ... well, this is just a personal view but I think what they want to do is let the "market" take care of the small things while the government controls the big directions. Let the government decide the country's priorities but no reason to try to control every aspect of the economy. That was tried and proved impractical. It is unlikely that China will ever become the laissez- faire free-for-all that the US is ... or if it does, it will once again implode. The Chinese government isn't stupid. They've read history, they remember landlords, they know what happens with uncon- trolled "capitalism" - it sucks the lifeblood out of the entire country. Stomach acid is good in the stomach, but when used for blood it's not at all the thing, yeah ? Capitalism is great for small things, like corner grocery stores. It's absolutely shit for determining a nation's priorities because obviously the priorities of making money and providing for a nation's people are entirely different things. All this is simply common sense, but Amerika appears to lack that vital ingreedient these days :-(

Well, lots of things they do are bonkers but overall they're trying. That's more than I can say for the Republican Congress of the United States - or the fool Democrats, for that matter. The US seems to be totally lost these days, not an idea in the place about what the plan is or even what would BE a good plan. Comes from making Money your God, I suppose.

Reply to
Excitable Boy

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