Andy Grove, the founder and chairman of Intel, provocatively wrote in Businessweek last year that, “Our fundamental economic beliefs, which we have elevated from a conviction based on observation to an unquestioned truism, is that the free market is the best of all economic systems—the freer the better. Our generation has seen the decisive victory of free-market principles over planned economies. So we stick with this belief largely oblivious to emerging evidence that while free markets beat planned economies, there may be room for a modification that is even better.”
The past few weeks have proven Mr. Grove’s point, as our relations with China, and that country’s impact on America’s future, came to the forefront of American politics. Our inert Senate, while preparing for the super committee to fail, crossed the normally insurmountable political divide to pass legislation to address China’s currency manipulation. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Gov. Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama all weighed in with their views—ranging from warnings that China must “end unfair discrimination” (Mrs. Clinton) to complaints that the U.S. has “been played like a fiddle” (Mr. Romney) and that China needs to stop “gaming” the international system (Mr. Obama).
Comments below
I am so glad I read this just after reading Ethan Gutman’s article in The Weekly Standard on the harvesting of organs from political prisoners in China. Yes, indeed, a strong central government with a plan can solve so many problems. All those party officials with bad kidneys and livers need not worry about need. Just go to the northeast of China and wait for the special mobile operating rooms to go to the execution site. In a few hours you can have a still warm, really good kidney replacing your defective one. No problem with blood clots since the prisoner first had anticoagulants injected before being shot. This whole article is reminiscent of Thomas Friedman’s longing for Chinese efficiency for just one day.
,,,free democratic societies are messy.
The Left —as do all authoritarian organs—-HATE messy….but….
Alinsky and Obama and Stern and Soros and the CPUSA and the DSA and the DNC take advantage of ‘messy’….
Hence…they look to China today….make apologies for the massacre at Tien An Men Square—–because that gathering was messy.
They hate messy.
When I was in China in 2005 the week they opened the Peoples Congress they put 30,000 troops in Beijing to “Crush any student or farmer led’ protests.” Their words….not mine.
They really hate ‘messy’.
Sorry. But Mr. Stern is incorrect. The ills of U.S. employment is central planning. Not the free market. Some of our politican’s centrally planned regulatory “gifts” to the American people are:
OSHA laws
EPA laws
Americans with Disabilities Act
Anti-discrimination laws
Sexual harassment laws
Workman’s compensation law
Social Security Act
Paid holidays
Overtime pay
Minimum wages
Manditory health care tax
Unemployment compensation law
Collective bargaining laws
Does any of this make a business want to hire people? If I have overlooked another one of these political “gifts” to the American worker feel free to add to this list. The United States is still the greatest country on earth to have survived this long with so much central control interference by politicians. I suspect that China has none of these laws in place to burden thier businesses and hence their stellar growth projections. And by the way, despite our faults, it is free market capitalisim that built the countries that buy all of that Chinese c**p
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