It's also interesting to note that many of said individuals were wealthy landowners and merchants, despite the popular historical account of a populist revolt taught in many public schools these days.
But who made up the Red Guard cadres who persecuted the "cultural elite" during the Cultural Revolution? Those same "educated" people in universities and high schools.
In 21st Century China, just swap out Mao ideology with material success.
For example, look at Arnold. As soon as he realized he had political ambitions, he made all the obvious moves and did all the obvious things to get him into the running.
Yeah, there's something about Oregon government workers. I used to work there too!
I heard about this manager who not only surfed pr0n at work, but printed it out on the full-color plotter as a poster to take home! Needless to say, he didn't stay very long after that.
The IT staff was a hilariously incompetent bunch. I remember that they wanted to upgrade all the computers, so they bought a pallet full of 486 OverDrive chip upgrades. By the time the purchase order got in and their overpriced, sleazy vendor got the order through, Pentiums were already widely available. The pallet of shrink-wrapped OverDrive upgrades still sit in the conference room, AFAIK.
All the people who couldn't get jobs during the dot-com boom (when you could write webpages with Word and get paid $15/hr) stayed behind and worked there. Because they were having trouble keeping people, they kept increasing salaries to retain people. The end result is that some of those people who have stuck around get around $8000-$9000 a month now rebooting Windows and admin'ing LANDesk.
And don't get me started on their migration to _Token Ring_ towards the end of the 90's.
The Bush administration has since changed their stance on the defense of Taiwan, albeit unofficially. After Taiwan's president Chen Shui-bian recently made moves to further de facto independence for Taiwan, Bush refused his plane for a refueling stop in Alaska. After going to Costa Rica for a state visit, Taiwan's president was criticized by the Bush administration for breaching state protocol by barging through a press conference without prior notice for a photo-op with Laura Bush (an act considered a faux pas in diplomatic circles).
With Chen's popularity polls in the single digits and his continuing actions irking both the Chinese and Bush administrations, Taiwan's future and its military dependence on the U.S. is in question.
Did you know that "Made in the USA" can nowadays mean a sweatshop in Guam or Saipan? Who staffs these sweatshops? Mostly migrant workers from the Chinese mainland working under similar conditions as the ones often described for sweatshops back in their homeland. Or they could be working in a underground sweatshop in LA or NY Chinatown. In any case, NB shoes don't cost that much more than other comparable brands of shoes. Now, even giving NB executives the benefit of the doubt and assuming they're completely angelic people dedicated to the advancement of American workers and human rights, did you really think they paid a union American worker $20+/hour + benefits to make that shoe and still be able to sell it competitively?
And what's wrong with goods from Taiwan, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia?
This is not true anymore. Now that the Western poison known as fast food has infiltrated virtually every city with a non-trivial number of people (which means quite a number of places), it even influences the local cuisine to adapt to people's changing taste preferences for greasier and fattier foods.
In Chinese culture, food is of paramount importance. The Cantonese (and I'm sure many others in China) spend close to 1/3 of their incomes on food. Older people will always overstuff their children with food as an expression of love. Of course, this was fine because there was not an abundance of food in the past. However, despite the fact that now food is widely and cheaply accessible in most parts of China, this has not resulted in a cultural shift to not overstuff their children with as much food as possible.
Combine this with the one-child policy in the affluent cities, the spoiled little kids get way more than their fair share of food fed by their elders who had previously suffered during the Cultural Revolution.
This ultra-low cost of living only applies in rural areas in Asia. Cities will often times be many times more expensive.
I have colleagues from Beijing who pay just as much rent as I used to do when I worked in Redmond, WA (a block away from a sign that says "New Houses in the low 800's). I remember going to Shanghai and paying US$1 per dumpling (that's pretty expensive even by American standards, but they were sure good dumplings). But after driving 3 hours away to a Nanjing suburb, a large bowl of noodles can be had for US$0.20. So I'm sure if you hit the major cities in Vietnam, the cost of living will adjust accordingly.
Last time I stayed in a hotel in Bangalore for a business trip, they charged US$400/night. Even hostels were supposed to be over $20/night now, which is pretty spendy by Indian standards, considering the horrid conditions of these hostels.
Reminds me of this resume I ran across one time - the bloke put down "IIT, Bangalore" as where we got his BSCS. Impressive, right? (For those who don't know - that's like the MIT of India) Took a while for me to realize that "IIT, Bangalore" meant distance learning course from the Illinois Institute of Technology.
From what I hear, he's pretty high up in management now.
My real name? That would be too good to be true.:-)
I've lived in Portland before, and HungFarLo sucks. That has to be the worst Chinese food in Portland (and Portland's standards for Chinese food are pretty low already...)
Hong Kong is indeed a special case - it exhibits such Libertarian leanings in its government not so much because it wants to, but because it can. For close to 50 years, China has been closed off to much of foreign investment. Any indirect investing in/out of China had to be done through Hong Kong, since it was the de facto gateway into China. This artificially created an overabundance of wealth transfer through Hong Kong, thus creating the extravagant cash flow necessary for providing such an abundance in social services for its citizens, while only collecting relatively little back in taxes.
Now that China has liberalized its economy, and foreign investment pouring in like a burst dam into places like Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangdong, the unique monopolic position that Hong Kong once held as the economic gateway into China no longer exists. Already, many government entities have had their budgets slashed substantially (massive layoffs and paycuts across the board), and social services have been cut accordingly. Hong Kong has to now share that large piece of the pie with many, many large cities in the mainland, lessening its importance in the East Asian sphere of economic influence.
Being a Hong Kong native, I can tell you that people in Hong Kong are much more into nanny/welfare state entitlement stuff than you can believe. A comprehensive social safety net is considered a necessity and American-style individualism would be a very alien concept in Hong Kong.
One thing that has always fascinated me about Libertarianism is the sheer multitude of variety within a supposedly-singular-sounding concept of "Libertarianism." I've known people like you - who don't mind certain government services (and in your case even paying gov't employees handsomely - even if it is not called for?), and some other folks who would privatize sidewalks and set up toll boths on the sidewalk in front of every piece of private property if they had their way.
Mass transit has always been run by the government. The subway system (MTR) was recently privatized (but keep in mind that at least 95% of the construction was done prior to privatization), but all other public transport is still government-run.
Health care is a little different than say, Canada, where private health care cannot be purchased. In Hong Kong, private health care can be purchased if you have the means, and public health care is more for people who have no means to get any health care otherwise - it's basically a minimum safety net. But you may have to wait for more serious, but not life-threatening, surgeries. When I grew up there, I remember going to the public clinics for my immunization shots and to get treated for pneumonia (2-day hospital state where I got distinctly remember getting caught playing "doctor" with the girl in the next room:-)
I'm sure someone will call you on your bluff sooner or later, so it might as well be me.
As a Hong Kong native, I have enjoyed multitudes of social services, including free health care, free public schools (K-12, although you buy your own cheap textbooks), the best public transportation system in the world, parents with unspeakably generous government pension benefits, you name it.
Here's the grand slam - My Father-in-law got a all-expense-paid 14-day trip to Europe as a 20-year-anniversary present from his employer - the Hong Kong government; Imagine something like that in the States.
All this happened during the colonial administration, and is still going on today without too many drastic changes under Chinese administration (well, except they've actually scaled down the government employee benefits, if you can believe it).
So Hong Kong is hardly a shiny example of a libertarian paradise. It can provide social services despite the low taxes it levies (15% flat tax last I remember) because it is flush with money from being one of the great financial centers in Asia.
Right. And when tanks roll down my neighborhood, I'll be firing back with my awesome firepower befitting my suburbanite existence.
The 2nd Amendment has become nothing but a feel-good amendment - something that makes you safe and secured in case ADT doesn't call the coppers on time. But it is in no shape or form anything that would protect yourself against a tyrannical government. The only usefulness remains protection of private property from other private citizens.
I do recall a good discussion in another story about how Iraqi insurgents do not use guns at all, and exclusively use IEDs instead. This just shows how useless guns are against an invading army, foreign or domestic. Guns give away your position, and down comes the precision strike missiles on your 3BR, 2.5BA townhouse.
I don't know what it is - but throughout my working history, I've never worked with people as incompetent as medical billing staff.
At an annual auction fundraiser for a local hospital, I had the pleasure of giving a group of these people a 3-hour training to learn how to fill out a simple GUI with just 3 pieces of information: the item number, the price, and the name of the winner bidder. So it didn't surprise me when some study showed that up to 40% of current medical costs could be shaved off if all hospitals integrated their medical billing/patient histories systems and automated portions of their billing/insurance procedures.
Umm...maybe you're referring to Washington DC. But in Washington state - everywhere outside of Seattle metro / I-5 corridor is fair game Bush-votin' Bible thumpin redneck country.
Just one hour north of Portland (an even more liberal place than Seattle), you've got your famous Uncle Sam sign with gems like "AIDS TURNS FRUITS INTO VEGETABLES."
Environmental concerns are being caught on pretty quick by the Chinese government. All the big cities (especially southwards) which suffer so much industrial pollution that the skyline is no longer clearly visible on any day of the year. This is having severe impacts on food production as well as health care expenditures (12-year-old children are being diagnosed with emphysema).
These same 12-year-olds would catch a variety of lunch disease from smoking anyway, if it wasn't from industrial pollution. There are absolutely no governmental regulations on selling/advertising tobacco products to minors. Nine-year-olds can be readily seen throughout China smoking. Wonder why Philip Morris can continue to pay out billion dollar settlements in the States and yet continue to financially outpace many companies?
Uh...this is almost not funny. I remember some calculations done back at the beginning of the war a few years back, and the bill was looking like around $2,000 for every man, woman, and child in the U.S. For a family of 4, that's $8,000! (And it must be twice that by now...)
Similar situation with me too. I graduated HS in 98. In middle school, I wrote a story about a terrorist takeover of a corporate building and the drama that ensues (so I could probably claim prior art on "Die Hard":-) It was fairly violent, with many grisly descriptions of killings and whatnot (plus lots of cussing in a story written by a seventh grader). However, when I turned it in for a writing assignment, my teacher was so impressed with my "engrossing narrative" that I was actually nominated and sent to the state-wide writing convention/competition! I have now graduated with a bachelors and have a good-paying job. Just your normal, tax-paying, law-abiding suburbanite.
If I tried to turn in that story today in middle school, I'd be expelled seven ways from Wednesday and be promptly sent to the closest rehabilitation facility.
It's always an interesting look at various places with socialized health care. I've lived in places both with and without socialized health care, and can see pros/cons of each. However, it just baffles me how mesmerized the general American public is with the propaganda spewed by the health care industry about how socialized health care is a sure path to doomsday.
In Canada's case, IIRC they do not allow private health care to be paid for (I guess to minimize the gap between rich and poor in terms of health care received). I'm not quite certain if that's the greatest idea. Where I grew up, private health care can be purchased on top of your government health care should you have the means and the desire to do so. I probably prefer that system over Canada's. Government providing health care for the poor makes sense to me, even if I'm not typically the biggest fan of entitlement programs. Yeah, the poor can hobble into an ER and get the care that they need provided if they're damn near dying, but as most health professionals know - prevention is much much cheaper than a cure. It would certainly lower the overall cost of health care if the money wasn't all spent (and a lot of it) on costly procedures to fix up big problems caused by ignoring the smaller problems.
Slashdot Mirror
So...
The leftists want more Gore, and the rightists want more Bush.
Thank you. I'll be here all night. Try the veal.
News to me, but apparently, you can now get in deep legal poo in the U.S. for speaking "contemptuously of the president"
It's also interesting to note that many of said individuals were wealthy landowners and merchants, despite the popular historical account of a populist revolt taught in many public schools these days.
Interesting point.
But who made up the Red Guard cadres who persecuted the "cultural elite" during the Cultural Revolution? Those same "educated" people in universities and high schools.
In 21st Century China, just swap out Mao ideology with material success.
I don't why this got modded funny.
For example, look at Arnold. As soon as he realized he had political ambitions, he made all the obvious moves and did all the obvious things to get him into the running.
Who knows?
Yeah, there's something about Oregon government workers. I used to work there too!
I heard about this manager who not only surfed pr0n at work, but printed it out on the full-color plotter as a poster to take home! Needless to say, he didn't stay very long after that.
The IT staff was a hilariously incompetent bunch. I remember that they wanted to upgrade all the computers, so they bought a pallet full of 486 OverDrive chip upgrades. By the time the purchase order got in and their overpriced, sleazy vendor got the order through, Pentiums were already widely available. The pallet of shrink-wrapped OverDrive upgrades still sit in the conference room, AFAIK.
All the people who couldn't get jobs during the dot-com boom (when you could write webpages with Word and get paid $15/hr) stayed behind and worked there. Because they were having trouble keeping people, they kept increasing salaries to retain people. The end result is that some of those people who have stuck around get around $8000-$9000 a month now rebooting Windows and admin'ing LANDesk.
And don't get me started on their migration to _Token Ring_ towards the end of the 90's.
Russia still has tens of thousands of active nuclear weapons.
And there's a trend in recent elections to elect back the old guard of the bygone Communist era. Yes, communists. (waves hands dramatically)
The Bush administration has since changed their stance on the defense of Taiwan, albeit unofficially. After Taiwan's president Chen Shui-bian recently made moves to further de facto independence for Taiwan, Bush refused his plane for a refueling stop in Alaska. After going to Costa Rica for a state visit, Taiwan's president was criticized by the Bush administration for breaching state protocol by barging through a press conference without prior notice for a photo-op with Laura Bush (an act considered a faux pas in diplomatic circles).
With Chen's popularity polls in the single digits and his continuing actions irking both the Chinese and Bush administrations, Taiwan's future and its military dependence on the U.S. is in question.
That's right. "Made in the USA" used to matter.
Did you know that "Made in the USA" can nowadays mean a sweatshop in Guam or Saipan? Who staffs these sweatshops? Mostly migrant workers from the Chinese mainland working under similar conditions as the ones often described for sweatshops back in their homeland. Or they could be working in a underground sweatshop in LA or NY Chinatown. In any case, NB shoes don't cost that much more than other comparable brands of shoes. Now, even giving NB executives the benefit of the doubt and assuming they're completely angelic people dedicated to the advancement of American workers and human rights, did you really think they paid a union American worker $20+/hour + benefits to make that shoe and still be able to sell it competitively?
And what's wrong with goods from Taiwan, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia?
This is not true anymore. Now that the Western poison known as fast food has infiltrated virtually every city with a non-trivial number of people (which means quite a number of places), it even influences the local cuisine to adapt to people's changing taste preferences for greasier and fattier foods.
In Chinese culture, food is of paramount importance. The Cantonese (and I'm sure many others in China) spend close to 1/3 of their incomes on food. Older people will always overstuff their children with food as an expression of love. Of course, this was fine because there was not an abundance of food in the past. However, despite the fact that now food is widely and cheaply accessible in most parts of China, this has not resulted in a cultural shift to not overstuff their children with as much food as possible.
Combine this with the one-child policy in the affluent cities, the spoiled little kids get way more than their fair share of food fed by their elders who had previously suffered during the Cultural Revolution.
This ultra-low cost of living only applies in rural areas in Asia. Cities will often times be many times more expensive.
I have colleagues from Beijing who pay just as much rent as I used to do when I worked in Redmond, WA (a block away from a sign that says "New Houses in the low 800's). I remember going to Shanghai and paying US$1 per dumpling (that's pretty expensive even by American standards, but they were sure good dumplings). But after driving 3 hours away to a Nanjing suburb, a large bowl of noodles can be had for US$0.20. So I'm sure if you hit the major cities in Vietnam, the cost of living will adjust accordingly.
Last time I stayed in a hotel in Bangalore for a business trip, they charged US$400/night. Even hostels were supposed to be over $20/night now, which is pretty spendy by Indian standards, considering the horrid conditions of these hostels.
Reminds me of this resume I ran across one time - the bloke put down "IIT, Bangalore" as where we got his BSCS. Impressive, right? (For those who don't know - that's like the MIT of India) Took a while for me to realize that "IIT, Bangalore" meant distance learning course from the Illinois Institute of Technology.
From what I hear, he's pretty high up in management now.
My real name? That would be too good to be true. :-)
I've lived in Portland before, and HungFarLo sucks. That has to be the worst Chinese food in Portland (and Portland's standards for Chinese food are pretty low already...)
Hong Kong is indeed a special case - it exhibits such Libertarian leanings in its government not so much because it wants to, but because it can. For close to 50 years, China has been closed off to much of foreign investment. Any indirect investing in/out of China had to be done through Hong Kong, since it was the de facto gateway into China. This artificially created an overabundance of wealth transfer through Hong Kong, thus creating the extravagant cash flow necessary for providing such an abundance in social services for its citizens, while only collecting relatively little back in taxes.
Now that China has liberalized its economy, and foreign investment pouring in like a burst dam into places like Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangdong, the unique monopolic position that Hong Kong once held as the economic gateway into China no longer exists. Already, many government entities have had their budgets slashed substantially (massive layoffs and paycuts across the board), and social services have been cut accordingly. Hong Kong has to now share that large piece of the pie with many, many large cities in the mainland, lessening its importance in the East Asian sphere of economic influence.
Being a Hong Kong native, I can tell you that people in Hong Kong are much more into nanny/welfare state entitlement stuff than you can believe. A comprehensive social safety net is considered a necessity and American-style individualism would be a very alien concept in Hong Kong.
One thing that has always fascinated me about Libertarianism is the sheer multitude of variety within a supposedly-singular-sounding concept of "Libertarianism." I've known people like you - who don't mind certain government services (and in your case even paying gov't employees handsomely - even if it is not called for?), and some other folks who would privatize sidewalks and set up toll boths on the sidewalk in front of every piece of private property if they had their way.
Mass transit has always been run by the government. The subway system (MTR) was recently privatized (but keep in mind that at least 95% of the construction was done prior to privatization), but all other public transport is still government-run.
:-)
Health care is a little different than say, Canada, where private health care cannot be purchased. In Hong Kong, private health care can be purchased if you have the means, and public health care is more for people who have no means to get any health care otherwise - it's basically a minimum safety net. But you may have to wait for more serious, but not life-threatening, surgeries. When I grew up there, I remember going to the public clinics for my immunization shots and to get treated for pneumonia (2-day hospital state where I got distinctly remember getting caught playing "doctor" with the girl in the next room
I'm sure someone will call you on your bluff sooner or later, so it might as well be me.
As a Hong Kong native, I have enjoyed multitudes of social services, including free health care, free public schools (K-12, although you buy your own cheap textbooks), the best public transportation system in the world, parents with unspeakably generous government pension benefits, you name it.
Here's the grand slam - My Father-in-law got a all-expense-paid 14-day trip to Europe as a 20-year-anniversary present from his employer - the Hong Kong government; Imagine something like that in the States.
All this happened during the colonial administration, and is still going on today without too many drastic changes under Chinese administration (well, except they've actually scaled down the government employee benefits, if you can believe it).
So Hong Kong is hardly a shiny example of a libertarian paradise. It can provide social services despite the low taxes it levies (15% flat tax last I remember) because it is flush with money from being one of the great financial centers in Asia.
Right. And when tanks roll down my neighborhood, I'll be firing back with my awesome firepower befitting my suburbanite existence.
The 2nd Amendment has become nothing but a feel-good amendment - something that makes you safe and secured in case ADT doesn't call the coppers on time. But it is in no shape or form anything that would protect yourself against a tyrannical government. The only usefulness remains protection of private property from other private citizens.
I do recall a good discussion in another story about how Iraqi insurgents do not use guns at all, and exclusively use IEDs instead. This just shows how useless guns are against an invading army, foreign or domestic. Guns give away your position, and down comes the precision strike missiles on your 3BR, 2.5BA townhouse.
I don't know what it is - but throughout my working history, I've never worked with people as incompetent as medical billing staff.
At an annual auction fundraiser for a local hospital, I had the pleasure of giving a group of these people a 3-hour training to learn how to fill out a simple GUI with just 3 pieces of information: the item number, the price, and the name of the winner bidder. So it didn't surprise me when some study showed that up to 40% of current medical costs could be shaved off if all hospitals integrated their medical billing/patient histories systems and automated portions of their billing/insurance procedures.
Umm...maybe you're referring to Washington DC. But in Washington state - everywhere outside of Seattle metro / I-5 corridor is fair game Bush-votin' Bible thumpin redneck country. Just one hour north of Portland (an even more liberal place than Seattle), you've got your famous Uncle Sam sign with gems like "AIDS TURNS FRUITS INTO VEGETABLES."
Either that or it's a persuasive tribal lobbyist.
Environmental concerns are being caught on pretty quick by the Chinese government. All the big cities (especially southwards) which suffer so much industrial pollution that the skyline is no longer clearly visible on any day of the year. This is having severe impacts on food production as well as health care expenditures (12-year-old children are being diagnosed with emphysema).
These same 12-year-olds would catch a variety of lunch disease from smoking anyway, if it wasn't from industrial pollution. There are absolutely no governmental regulations on selling/advertising tobacco products to minors. Nine-year-olds can be readily seen throughout China smoking. Wonder why Philip Morris can continue to pay out billion dollar settlements in the States and yet continue to financially outpace many companies?
Uh...this is almost not funny. I remember some calculations done back at the beginning of the war a few years back, and the bill was looking like around $2,000 for every man, woman, and child in the U.S. For a family of 4, that's $8,000! (And it must be twice that by now...)
Similar situation with me too. I graduated HS in 98. In middle school, I wrote a story about a terrorist takeover of a corporate building and the drama that ensues (so I could probably claim prior art on "Die Hard" :-) It was fairly violent, with many grisly descriptions of killings and whatnot (plus lots of cussing in a story written by a seventh grader). However, when I turned it in for a writing assignment, my teacher was so impressed with my "engrossing narrative" that I was actually nominated and sent to the state-wide writing convention/competition! I have now graduated with a bachelors and have a good-paying job. Just your normal, tax-paying, law-abiding suburbanite.
If I tried to turn in that story today in middle school, I'd be expelled seven ways from Wednesday and be promptly sent to the closest rehabilitation facility.
It's always an interesting look at various places with socialized health care. I've lived in places both with and without socialized health care, and can see pros/cons of each. However, it just baffles me how mesmerized the general American public is with the propaganda spewed by the health care industry about how socialized health care is a sure path to doomsday.
In Canada's case, IIRC they do not allow private health care to be paid for (I guess to minimize the gap between rich and poor in terms of health care received). I'm not quite certain if that's the greatest idea. Where I grew up, private health care can be purchased on top of your government health care should you have the means and the desire to do so. I probably prefer that system over Canada's. Government providing health care for the poor makes sense to me, even if I'm not typically the biggest fan of entitlement programs. Yeah, the poor can hobble into an ER and get the care that they need provided if they're damn near dying, but as most health professionals know - prevention is much much cheaper than a cure. It would certainly lower the overall cost of health care if the money wasn't all spent (and a lot of it) on costly procedures to fix up big problems caused by ignoring the smaller problems.