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Audioguru

Joined Dec 20, 2007
11,248
The government gave away money for you to scrap a clunker because IT POLLUTES THE AIR LIKE CRAZY! Also it drips oil all over the place. The stink from a clunker's exhaust kills people. People walking, bicycles and cars slip in the oil.

One new car (Volvo?) advertised that its exhaust has less pollution than the air it breathes in.
 

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
The government gave away money for you to scrap a clunker because IT POLLUTES THE AIR LIKE CRAZY! Also it drips oil all over the place. The stink from a clunker's exhaust kills people. People walking, bicycles and cars slip in the oil.

One new car (Volvo?) advertised that its exhaust has less pollution than the air it breathes in.
We already have emissions laws that are plenty effective. If they want to tighten the emissions laws, that's fine with me. Let individuals worry about making the decision between having costly repairs/upgrades done on their clunkers to meet new requirements or selling them for scrap. But when you take my money and give it to someone else so they can buy a car that I can't even afford, it makes me angry. And when I see perfectly good cars being sabotaged and then used to fuel the fires of Chinese industry that makes me even angrier. The way I see it, the capitalist free market is (or is supposed to be) a closed loop system like a nuclear reactor cooling system. Our double standard of buying everything from a communist country is equivalent to pumping our primary coolant out onto the ground. Eventually, all the coolant will be outside the reactor, instead of inside the reactor, and the system will collapse. nobody seems to give a damn about it.
 

Sparky49

Joined Jul 16, 2011
833
The Chinese are very efficient people. As is lots of the world.

Spread the wealth and the happiness. Ho ho ho. Seasons greetings.
 

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
The Chinese are very efficient people. As is lots of the world.
Yes, if only we could be as efficient as the Chinese; it would require us to all work for a couple of dollars/day and see none of the benefits of our hard work, as all of our products are sold to other countries who can afford them. Meanwhile, our government takes the meager fruits of our intentionally undervalued labor.
 

shortbus

Joined Sep 30, 2009
10,045
The way I see it, the capitalist free market is (or is supposed to be) a closed loop system like a nuclear reactor cooling system.
If you really believe that you have never heard of the "Northern Marianas Islands". A US territory that was set up as a "model" for a true "capitalist" society for the US. Clothes made by Chinese companies marked "made in the USA", by basically slave labor. Should really look into it, but get some 'high blood pressure' meds before you do. :)
 

chrisw1990

Joined Oct 22, 2011
551
Why? You guys have all kinds of drilling going on in the north sea. I understand you don't drill for all your oil, but neither do we. I assume your proportion of oil drilled for to oild purchased from unstable countries is similar to ours. So why do you pay over twice as much for it? Does your government put a 200% sin tax on it?
OO that would be nice if they reduced it to 200%......... lol
 

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
Ahem, I don't think you could call them a communist country. Look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism :D They are very far away from being one.

However, buying everything from there is of course not very clever.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_China
The Communist Party of China (CPC), also known as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Although nominally it exists alongside the United Front,[1] a coalition of governing political parties, in practice, the Communist Party of China is the only party in the PRC
I really don't see how they don't fit the description of communism you linked to. "Nominally Marxist–Leninist single-party state" is what the country is technically classified as, but "communist" works for me, and is easier to remember.
 

praondevou

Joined Jul 9, 2011
2,942
I really don't see how they don't fit the description of communism you linked to. "Nominally Marxist–Leninist single-party state" is what the country is technically classified as, but "communist" works for me, and is easier to remember.
"Communism (Lat. communis - common, universal) is a revolutionary socialist movement to create a classless, moneyless, and stateless social order structured upon common ownership of the means of production"

Completely not true in China.
 

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
"Communism (Lat. communis - common, universal) is a revolutionary socialist movement to create a classless, moneyless, and stateless social order structured upon common ownership of the means of production"

Completely not true in China.
BAH, ok fine I concede :). I am thinking more along the lines of :
In the modern lexicon of what many sociologists and political commentators refer to as the "political mainstream", communism is often used to refer to the policies of communist states, i.e., the ones totally controlled by communist parties, regardless of the practical content of the actual economic system they may preside over. Examples of this include the policies of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam where the economic system incorporates "doi moi", the People's Republic of China (PRC, or simply "China") where the economic system incorporates "socialist market economy",
And I think you are thinking more along the lines of pure communism. We've discussed this before IIRC. I was saying that communism works for small groups who enter into it willingly, but not for countries. I think that's why there's no real communist country (that I know of).
 
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