Is A Model System Is About To Destroy Itself?

What is the right thing?

You apparently think it is right to hurt 2,000 people to cure one person being sick.

I think it is right to help 2,000 people and find a cure for the one sick.

You are arguing beliefs here and there are two sides. Acting like you don't see the other side is, as you said, successfully sweeping the problem under the rug".

 

Do YOU know?

I think it is right to substantively review what ANY industry or process might lead to in a given community, and provide recourse or compensation if necessary. (Think, 'fracking'... and what it is doing to many across the nation.)

I think what I shared above is the better thing to do. (Money/profit should never be more important than 'people'.)

I know. And that is the way is it with most moral issues. Laws codify those 'arguments'; nothing new about that.

If I think your views suck, then don't expect me to hold them up as being wonderful or profound. If nothing else, we can surely agree to disagree.

 

You misunderstand Conservatives.

 

You really need to explain what you mean.

 

Tossing off the life of that one unfortuante individual shows the right wing's belief in the sanctity of life IS limited to the unborn.

 

Yes, I'm claiming I've not seen the constant posts by conservatives and neoconservatives that constantly demand elimination of all environmental regulations by the government. And I've asked you to provide me some examples and you've failed to do so. I suppose in theory, a libertarian could have posted that, but I've still not seen that posted here either. And I already said I've not seen any posts written by right wingers stating that they are willing to shorten their lives so they can have fouled drinking water and burning eyes so that profits will increase. If it's as ubiquitous as you claim, you shouldn't have any trouble coming up with a dozen or so links from this forum. So where are they?

 

I think the point is that really, especially now that we're a GLOBAL economy, you have to be careful about raising the cost to do business. If it costs too much to make stuff in the US, the factory gets built in China or India instead. And if the cost in China gets to be too high, the factories in China close and move to Bangladesh.

If we're going to deal honestly with the policy questions, you have to balance all of that. Especially if your economy needs the jobs that come with the factory. That's what I honestly don't get about liberals. You drive up costs to the point that businesses can't afford to hire people, than cry because there are no jobs to be had. I'm not against protecting the environment, but again, you have to deal in the real world, and in the real world, there are limits to what costs a business will be able to support.

Both are technically true, but here's a problem. If we train all former factory workers to do middle management, you double the number of middle managers available, and what happens to the wages? The other part is that not everyone is capable of being retrained into a higher brain-power job. If you have a 5th grade education and lose your job at the factory, you aren't suddenly going to be able to learn to be an engineer. While re-training works for those with some college (say community college or something), you can't take a functional illiterate and make him a brain-worker. So what does he get? A nice park to sleep in, I guess.

To the environment -- the environment adapts to whatever comes its way. In fact, we've essentially been terraforming the planet since we arrived. Some have dubbed the era of humans as the "technocene" -- because we've changed the planet so much that we're a major driving force behind evolution. And you can sort of see that. The most common and successful plants and animals have adapted themselves to live alongside of us, either in mutually beneficial ways (dogs, cats, cows, corn, wheat) or by taking advantage of how we've changed the planet (rats and cockroaches). If you're aiming at a totally natural world, it no longer exists, it hasn't for 2000+ years.

 

Great commie rhetoric. I knew from the handful of your posts that I had previously read that you were pretty far left, but I had no idea you were a full-on pinko.

The interesting part is how you view the people on the right as the extremists here. While you support an ideology that has murdered millions due to its unrelenting zealotry.

 

Thinking isn't a strong point among conservatives.

 

Ok, ignoring the fact that China's problems are a result of the government, not it's "businesses" (which are manipulated by the government), since when do neoconservatives decry government regulations?

 

It’s apparent you right-wingers do not read what you write or what your fellow right-wingers post. You simply dash off the first bit of nonsense that pops into your heads when responding to an opinion with which you feel obligated to disagree?

As a reminder, the conservatives and neoconservatives regularly call government regulations "job killers", they have been doing this for years, especially those regulations that protect nature. This is often accompanied with the typical, “We must stop government interference with business.” or, “We must get government of the backs of business.”

With your selective memories, you to pick and choose your views of history, recent and from the distant past, and the majority of the time your recollections are inaccurate, it is the same with messages here on these boards.

The right wing denial of this (and many other truths) proves time and again their refusal to move out of their alternate reality.

You and your brother and sister conservatives and neoconservatives should pay greater attention to each other’s posts. You might be surprised by how foolish your really are.

 

China does not really have businesses. Like the Mafia, those businesses are fronts for the Chinese government, who runs their country like a gigantic business because it makes them tons of money.

It's socialistic corporatism - in effect, it's a modernized version of fascism. Xi Jinping is probably the world leader I hate the most, even more than Kim Jong Un (because North Korea doesn't affect anything else; China is a superpower).

BTW you should know by now neo-conservatives are one of my arch-nemesi; so please stop calling me one, it's just foolish.

 

The topic of OP in this thread addresses the Chinese business model of the twenty first century, and how it parallels the system you right-wingers want created here. It also mentions the decades old fear of the "Red Menace" by you conservatives and neoconservatives. (Perhaps you right-wingers would have been pleased if your longing for the return of McCarthyism had been included in the OP.)

The OP deals with how closely Big Business of the United States and the corporate structure of China work with the Chinese government to increase profits, and the desire of the right wing to see that same cooperation here at home.

A business-friendly government, working to help companies make obscene profits and pay little or no taxes, is exactly the system of capitalism conservatives and neoconservatives have been demanding for the U.S. To establish this rapport between government and the U.S. corporate structure involves seriously curtailing the rights of workers, consumers, and environmental protection, a situation also advocated by the conservatives and neoconservatives

The right-wingers firmly believe “getting government of the backs of business” will create jobs here and also bring home all of the jobs lost to China and other countries.

But the unrest among the Chinese citizens over the freedom of businesses to pollute at will is exposing the massive flaw in the conservatives’ and neoconservatives’ plan for this idyllic melding of business and government here in the U.S.

China is discovering how permitting business to “do as they please” now has pollution reaching dangerous levels in that country. It is damage worse than that which happened here in the 1960's, when Big Business refused to clean up their act. Back then, it became necessary for government to develop regulations to force this corporate clean up.

It is these regulations, and others to stay current with the needs of our environment, conservatives and neoconservatives refer to as “job killers.” But the right-wingers do not stop there, they hang the name of “job killer” on any law or requirement that protects average Americans or our environment from exploitation by their beloved job creators.

China now faces the same need to protect the environment and the health of its citizens the U.S. faced decades ago. China’s ideal model for the business system conservatives and neoconservatives yearn to create here is an experiment that failed.

 

The interesting thing about the global economy is that there's a re-balancing going on. As affluence grows in former developing nations the imperative for western business to offshore lessens, particularly when businesses go into manufacturing (which seems to have most of the offshored jobs) which requires higher skills. Some nations have none or very little offshoring – I'm thinking of Germany – and still maintain a healthy manufacturing industry based on high skills.

The policy response I would like to see put in place is a shift to high-skill manufacturing and the requisite upskilling of workers. I mentioned Germany before. Their education system is far more in tune with the needs of their economy in terms of various types of worker but skilled labour is not seen as being lesser than white collar work. Also German unions are different from their North American counterparts in philosophy and operations and are able to work with employers and government for mutual benefit. I'm not suggesting Germany is a prime example, just an example.

In a consumer-oriented economy jobs are imperative, hence the focus on unemployment rates. But that doesn't seem to occur to businesses which offshore employment and therefore reduce the power of consumers who used to be employees. Short-term profits are what drives business nowadays and that thinking needs to change.

Retraining shouldn't just be about management. There's far too much made of management and not enough about operations. Workers can be retrained to be more skilled in operational work and that of itself would allow less management, less bloat in terms of salaries paid by businesses and more emphasis where it belongs, on production of wanted commodities.

I'm not suggesting that the Earth can be taken back to its pristine state. It is what it is right now and it's still liveable for mammals and other creatures. I'd just like it to stay that way.

 

ginger is good for that, ya know. (the nausea)

 

Their claim is that in a free-market, making everything private will then give it value and someone will own it and try to keep it's value. However, I find fault with this considering that it has value, it can be sold or someone can increase it's value by allowing others to deface it for money, maybe even more than simply selling it.

Free market works when you keep in harmony all aspects of culture in life. Otherwise, it's like godzilla casually strolling through a huge city with a blindfold on and no one weapons to stop him.