[TheForge] Peter Schiffer obituary OT

[Andrew Vida]

Peter Fels & Phoebe Palmer wrote:

> Not as fast as our screeching halt by far. They are in better shape and, 
> i point out, still loaning us money hand over fist!

	Good point, and that isn't anything good for us.

> There are more free market influences in China now than any time in our 
> lifetimes, by far.

	True, but still not enough, particularly in terms of labor cost.  If 
the labor market was freer, the problem would still persist for a long 
while because it will take more years for the bulk of China's population 
to bootstrap itself up to the higher living standard.  That cannot 
happen overnight.
> 
>> Therefore those ninnies who say Rand was wrong don't know what they are 
>> talking about because it has never been properly tried in the 
>> post/industrial era.

> The bush admin was as close as i'd ever like to get.

	They weren't even in the same ballpark.  And let us not ignore the fact 
that Clinton did more to make this disaster possible than any other 
president since Wilson and FDR.  If you want to cast stones, at least be 
precise and complete about it.

>> 	Furthermore, if the Chinese government were anything better than 
>> malevolent, they would be pushing for a significant rise in the 
>> average/median income of its citizens.  It does precisely the opposite, 
>> the effect being to concentrate power in their hands ever more definitely.
> Not at all true...That's crass oversimplification , generalization and 
> not supported by the facts.

	As of today it still is.  It is in fact as stark and simple as that. 
Labor rates are deliberately suppressed.  That is not a hallmark of a 
free market.

> The power that has been theirs all along is relaxing to an amazing 
> degree and is significantly more benign than in even the recent past.

	At this time, only economically so and only to the degree they see fit. 
  They maintain a suicide grip on just about everything.  I will, 
however, agree that this almost certainly WILL change in time, but it 
really has not done so yet in any degree I would call significant.

> They have come a very long way from Chairman Mao's day.

	Agreed.

> China has become astoundingly westernized considering.

	That is because Mao was just another communist stooge who thought he 
could alter basic human nature.

> Way too late..they did that a long time ago.

	Right.

> We thought we could exploit them on a huge scale and corrupt them with 
> our clever yankee capitalism. It used to be the dream of conservative US 
> businessmen.

	Yet the liberals took almost all of the most effective steps toward 
making it possible.  Mr. Heads, meet Mr. Tails.

> Now they are trouncing us at our own game and loaning us the money to 
> thoroughly fuck ourselves over...while they hold the string.

	Precisely correct.  We are probably in for some very black days.

> And who are we to read anybody the riot act when we've fucked up so badly?

	At this point it is probably all moot anyhow.

> We keep trying

	How?  Where?

> We, meanwhile, are going over to hi-def TV and diet snacks.

	The scent of death is on the air, it would seem.

> Whoah...you shifting position on me? Makes me dizzy...OK, dizzier.
> Equal compensation for poultry comes next!.

	Not at all.  I can see it from many POVs.  From theirs, it makes sense 
to screw the US citizen if it makes them loads more cash.  It reminds me 
of that line from "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?" where they guy, when 
asked why he sold his soul to the devil, responded "I wasn't using it".

	Yeeehaw maw!