The US has been socialized for quite a while from many aspects. Lets start with agriculture, where huge subsidies are given to the agro businesses. Food products and fuels such as cheap ethanol from Brazil cant be imported because the agri lobby wants subsidies to continue for its expensive locally grown corn for ethanol. This boondoggle was initiated by Bush. On a related front, Mahindra which was supposed to import its trucks targeted for the agri business, is being forced to review its plans thanks to a 25% import duty on its trucks. Free trade?? Hmm.
Another dubious program from the Bush era is the largest expansion of socialized medicine ala its expansion of medicaid prescriptions for the elderly. Taxes in America are ridiculously high - specially when compared to countries like China and India. It may be quite a shock to know that when all the taxes are added, an individual is taxed between 40-60% of his income. The differences between the the US parties is minuscule and amounts to a few percentage points. Obviously the current administration is only adding to the fires started by the incompetent (or asleep at the wheel) Bush administration. The current downturn is a natural correction to the excesses of the past and the American govt. and people must be brave enough and take it on the chin. The current spending stimulus programs are more akin to a drug addict promising this to be yet another last hit, before he returns to sobriety sometime way in the future. The US must gradually return to its old, self reliant model - eliminate social security, medicaid (Mario, send me your checks) and welfare. It needs to become more American and less Canadian. Its military force (man power) needs to be reduced and in part be substituted with cheaper foreign mercenary forces. All restrictions on foreign labor must be removed. If an American can be replaced with an as qualified, but cheaper foreign worker, the employer should have the right to do so, without the bogus security provisions now in place that put enormous burdens on industry. The role of the US government should be focused on just the basics - to provide the basics such as education, health care for children and the handicapped and defense, with no allusions of empire and forward force projection. The US can only maintain its world dominance though technological superiority coupled with a low cost economic base. I believe it still has elements of the former, but definitely not the latter. The US is still the most dynamic economy in the world, given that it is still the most free market economy. The severity of this recession is an indication of the rapid changes and adjustments taking place here. This is a good thing. We need to let the government to step out of the way and let individuals and businesses take care of themselves (or not). China and even India seem to have a lot of this free wheeling, can do spirit today. However, their larger economic ecosystems are still heavily controlled by their governments, which puts an ultimate damper on things. Marlon --- On Mon, 3/23/09, Mario Goveia <[email protected]> wrote: From: Mario Goveia <[email protected]> Subject: [Goanet] America - A Socialist Economy To: [email protected] Date: Monday, March 23, 2009, 11:03 AM Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 09:29:01 -0400 From: Roland Francis <[email protected]> Canadian Goanet readers must be having the last laugh after hearing Mario Goveia repeatedly call Canada a socialist economy. Yesterday I read that: AIG one of America's largest corporations is now 80% owned by the government. That takes it to the level of an Indian nationalized bank. There must be countless other US corporations that are in the same predicament as AIG. After all, the US deficit this year is 1.8 trillion dollars. Mario responds: Roland, Surely you know better than most that certain Canadian Goanetters are among the most uninformed about the US than anyone else, and maybe laughing too soon - schadenfreude only goes so far. To begin with, surely you couldn't have missed my opposition to the US being turned into a socialist-like economy by the election of President Obama and his teleprompter, aided and abetted by Democrat majorities in the Legislature as the American pendulum swung to the other side once again. In the meantime, every basket case economy in the world is run on socialist principles and countries around the world are running away from extreme socialism as fast as they can. Even France and Germany and Russia have scoffed at the massive bailout and government intervention plans of President Obama and his teleprompter.
