. . . perhaps you should just refrain from posting here.

I don't know what ignominy and snark failure are but why not explain to me the ways in which our stimulus plan was effective and then explain why you don't think the whole thing was just a big liberal payoff. -- yeahOKsure

As far as what little stimulus has made it into the economy at this point, I'd hardly call bailing out failed financial institutions and third-rate automobile companies and funding "shovel ready" highway projects while ignoring education and trying to figure out how to not rein in big pharma and the health insurance industry a "big liberal payoff." As a matter of fact, most liberals (not to be confused with Democrats) aren't very please at all about the direct the Obama administration is taking.

Then again, I see your point as anything more than two steps away from the police state Cheney envisioned looks liberal to the right wing in American today.

Obama: another reason for Chinese success Another reason might be that China's allegedly Communist leaders aren't as business-illiterate, business-ignorant, or downright business-hostile as the brown-skinned US presidential messiah.

Jesus Christ, what does Obama have to do to prove his glaringly obvious pro-business credentials to idiots like you, pay Goldman's and Morgan's bonuses straight out of the U.S. Treasury in large unmarked bills?

China isn't saddling its recession-plagued businesses with massive health and energy taxes and new eco-regulatory mandates.

No, because, shitty as it is, the Chinese already have a national health system, and as of yet, nothing is settled with regards to the energy bill, which as it stands now will do next to nothing in either weaning us off oil or reducing carbon emissions.

That's why this lifelong Republican is putting his money where his mouth his: in China and gold investments. -- kd6rxl

That says it all right there - a patriotic American investing in an erstwhile communist country while having wet dreams about the gold standard.

BTW, Jesus probably had brown skin too.

. . . customer builders are working right now. As Andrew mentioned, the nation is awash in finished and partly finished houses and acres of cleared lots.

We won't see any improvement in the residential construction business for at least another year.

Once they've achieved 500 million "21st century consumers" . . . -- blunderdog

I seriously doubt with current resource constraints that China will ever become much "richer" than it is now without Japan, the U.S., Canada, and Europe becoming relatively poorer. And if standards of living decline in the Western nations, can China continue to grow without export markets? Or will we simply strip the planet bare with no one left living on the coasts of most nations because dramatic rises in consumption in China (and India) have meant increased carbon output and rising sea levels?

. . . how many people need electric toothbrushes? Is the very existence and apparent popularity for expensive electric toothbrushes (reminds of Steve Martin's electric dog polisher from the Let's Get Small recording) not symptomatic of most of the problems in our consumer society? Is there that much of a leap from the need for an expensive motorized toothbrush to needing a 5,000SF house?

Can a Chinese laborer afford the $99 toothbrush? Hell no! He needs us to buy it. Could we afford a $300 toothbrush? Well, maybe, maybe not, but if we could reasonably expect it to last 3x longer than the $99 dollar one from China, it wouldn't be a "loss" would it? -- blunderdog

A number have posters have brought up a lot of plausible reasons as to why the passenger cabins often look like the aftermath of a party for 6-years old. But in the first ten posts or so I didn't see anyone mention how affordable fares have contributed to this. Airplane often look trashed after long flights (or even shorter hops) because a lot more trashy people can afford to fly.

But wouldn't any mechanism that had American consumers paying the price of Chinese greenhouse gas emissions be a tariff or tax on those goods? Or is Locke saying that we need to somehow directly subsidize China not to emit greenhouse gas emissions?

What he is saying is that Americans should be paying a surcharge for consumption in general.

Very little of what we consume does not harm the planet in some fashion. Some of this harmful behavior can be mitigated, but only if there is some extra cash generated in the consumption.

For example, most countries tax gas and diesel at levels much higher than we selfish, car-addicted Americans would put up with. But doing this is what pays for Japan and Europe marvelous transportation systems. We are far beyond the point where we should consider cheap oil and personal transportation as some sort of constitutional right. And since the automobile business as it existed for about 50 years is pretty much dead, now is the perfect time to push for a petroleum consumption tax. The millions of jobs lost in that industry are never coming back, so finally taxing oil consumption as it should be is not going to adversely affect the business.

Similarly, we should have been taxing all water use in the West at much higher rates than we have (explain to me why water is cheaper in Tucson than Seattle). Had we done so twenty or thirty years ago, do you think that desert cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas would have grown to the polluted, sprawling messes they are today?

"I seriously doubt with current resource constraints that China will ever become much "richer" than it is now without Japan, the U.S., Canada, and Europe becoming relatively poorer."

That part is happening right now. -- blunderdog

But per capita GDP is still more important than national GDP. China (or India) is never likely to achieve even the per capita GDP level of South Korea. China is so productive now because it's currency is kept artificially low and it's wages are atrocious.

I never took acid.