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On Fri, 29 Oct 2010 20:03:37 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 29 Oct 2010 10:45:28 -0700, wrote:

On Fri, 29 Oct 2010 13:15:31 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 29 Oct 2010 09:39:48 -0700, wrote:

Actually I saw a Chinese lady on Charley Rose a few weeks ago
explaining why she and a lot of other Chinese students chose to go
back home when they graduate from an American school ... growth and
opportunity. They are growing exponentially and the US is not. We
scoff at a business where you may only be making a few cents a unit
but when your customer base is a billion, that is a lot of pennies.

As long as you don't mind being oppressed and censored, not to mention
practically no environmental regulations, sure lot's of "opportunity."
--

You are basically describing the US back when we were great.

Come on.. Love Canal? McCarthy's era? Jim Crow? I think I'll pass.

The fact remains the US was the engine of democracy and the growth
leader of the world in these times

The fact remains that we still are. Our economy is improving, big
corporations are making record profits, but it's going to take a while
to recover from all the years of bs.

Much like the Chinese, we didn't know we were oppressed.

So, I guess the active and vocal right and left media don't identify
any problems. Who knew? I guess you never heard of Edward R. Murrow
calling out McCarthyism?

I also remember one of the most quoted supreme court decisions was
Schenck where OW Holmes told is about fire in a crowded theater and
that was a decision that upheld the government's power to quash an
anti-war demonstration and throw Mr Schenck in jail for speaking out
about the draft.

And your point? Things are a bit better these days.

In the 40s the press was not allowed to talk about the president's
health, in the 60s we couldn't talk about the president's girlfriends,
in the 50s, 60s and 70s we had the "equal time" law that restricted
political commentary on TV. There was plenty of censorship about
things that were "immoral" or just in bad taste on TV with the
government largely making that decision.

And this was when we were "great"???

It was when we had an expanding middle class and when we were the
fastest growing economy in the world.

The middle class in this country is not extinct. It's been battered,
but not deep fried just yet. Having the "fastest growing economy in
the world" isn't the most important thing nor is it necessarily a good
thing.

As for environmental laws. under our current law, there would have
been no Hoover Dam, the LA water system and hence the development of
most of Southern and central California. There would also not have
been a TVA, and that probably meant no atom bomb.

So, we should go back and keep on polluting? That's going to make us
great again?

We only have to look at the super fund sites to see what industries
would not exist with current laws. That may have been horrible
environmentally but it was the opportunity that let us dominate in
technology.

And, again... you want us to dominate what exactly? How about we
actually get our collective sh*t together, which means getting our
sh*t cleaned up, and actually competing through intellect
.

I don't think we ever really competed on intellect. We were just very
good at bringing products to market cheaply and quickly. They were
seldom the best product, nor were they particularly innovative, we
just made a lot of them.

Huh? We have more Nobels than any other country and we're ranked 11th
out of 40 per capita.

What would you rather have, a 58 Chevy or a 58 Mercedes Benz?

Depends on it's condition of course. I imagine that there would be
some 58 Chevys that are worth quite a bit.

As for personal freedom, we did not have the woman's right to chose,
civil rights, the EPA, OSHA, CPSC and other things the chinese lack.

Yet we do now. So, you're saying that a woman's right to VOTE or
Choose or be a full citizen was required to be competitive? You're
claiming we should scrap OSHA and the EPA for the sake of competing
with the Chinese??

I agree we do not want to go back to the bad old days but that also
means we will lose significant market share. China is not going to
dominate the solar PV market because they make the best solar
collector. They will dominate because they make the cheapest one.

You can have a 100% market share of the buggy whip industry and still
lose.

Cheaper isn't always better. Example: McDs. And, it's not even clear
that cheaper is actually cheaper in the long run.

Yet Bob says those were the last days that the middle class actually
got a raise. (pre 1973)

I don't know what Bob said.

He said just what I said. The US Middle Class has not had a raise
since 1973 ... and he said it 30 times or more here.

Take it up with Bob. I am not his savior.
--
Nom=de=Plume