Re: Welcome to capitalism
> If China wasn't such a repressive and aggressive imperial power...
Oh please! That's such a time worn cliche. China isn't a single entity, its 1.3billion people indulging their version of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" aided by a government that understands the value of investments in both people and infrastructure. Their commercial success isn't anything new, they were running a huge surplus with 'the West' (in this case the British Empire) by the mid-19th century which we tried to fix using military might (the Opium Wars and various incursions by western powers into Chinese territory). We're making the same mistake now -- instead of treating this like a huge sports league where the only way to get -- and stay -- on top is to continually up your game we're still at the 'send in the gunboats' stage.
The constant barrage of propaganda in the media is getting tedious. People wonder why governments have historically low credibility with populations easy prey for populists, the answer is that governments aren't delivering for the people and they're trying to force "2 + 2 = 5" type thought onto the unwilling and skeptical. If we keep this up we will lose (but we'll probably take the world down with us in the process -- nothing like Total War for being good for business).
Biting the hand that feeds IT
