Saturday, July 09, 2011

The wisdom of the American businessman

People, did you know that California was bankrupt? Me neither.

Did you know that the Chinese government "manages its economy with incredible care"? Me neither.

Do you know that the US really needs to make some cool five year plans like China (and the Soviet Union, and North Korea and Cuba)? Me neither.

That is, I didn't know any of these gems until I read Robert J. Herbold's Op Ed in today's WSJ, which is titled "China vs. America: Which is the Developing Country?" (I am not making any of this up).

Here is a link to the article and let me highly recommend it as a fun way to start your day.

If I understood how to do it, this would be a great "grand game" opportunity.

5 comments:

Mike said...

My entry for the Grand Game:

The sheer number of baseless assertions.

Also: another very fine example demonstrating that the management of large corporations do not support free markets.

Chris said...

What a fantastically funny article. Lemme get this straight? If Zimbabwe were to build the world's most kick ass airport, they'd suddenly be the hippest place to live?

I'm guessing Herbold was an expert in rent-seeking while at Microsoft, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

Apparently Murdoch sent all his staff from News of the World to the WSJ this week?

Anonymous said...

I guess when a majority of a country's citizens are too poor to use its glitzy infrastructure, places such as the airport tend to stay "spacious and clean."

aub said...

Two that go together so well:

"[The Chinese] view is that we are nuts for not blocking pornography and antigovernment points-of-view from our youth and citizens."

"Lets face it - we are getting beaten because the US government can't seem to make big improvements. Issues quickly get polarized, and then further polarized by the media... The autocratic Chinese leadership get things done fast (currently the autocrats seem to be highly effective)."

If only we could get rid of that pesky 1st amendment, we would be so much better off.

Anonymous said...

Darn it! I went to all that trouble to learn Japanese.