At least usually, The Economist is regarded as a free market oriented publication. Yet in a story about “China’s collapsing health care” which unfortunately is not online in its August 21 issue it blasts the “communist” leaders of China for being too free market oriented when it comes to health care and urges them to increase government spending on health care. The story ends with the line “Slowly and reluctantly as it maybe, China is beginning to discover that market forces alone cannot produce good health care”. They praise the former health care policies of Mao Zedong, while attacking the more free market oriented policies of today´s Chinese leaders. It is rather telling of the degree of socialism in the west that “free marketeers” attack “communists” for being too free market oriented.Allegedly according to The Economist, the abandonment of Mao Zedong’s wise health care policies in favor of more free market oriented policies has brought on countless evils, including lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality. What is also extraordinary is that another alleged evil that the free market oriented health care policies create is a higher savings rate which according to The Economist is and I quote “Public anxiety over the collapse of affordable health care is reflected in China’s high savings rate…Worries about the fast-rising costs of health care and education…is restraining consumer demand and thereby imperiling China’s long-term economic growth.” That’s right, The Economist thinks that a high savings rate is “imperiling long-term economic growth”. For a magazine that calls itself “The Economist” such economic ignorance is astonishing. I sent a letter to them a week ago criticizing this, but it looks like its not going to be published, so I’m criticizing them here instead.
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/2468/free-market-magazine-attacks-free-markets-and-thrift-in-communist-china/
“Free market” magazine attacks free markets and thrift in “communist” China
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The article is online here, but you need to be a subscriber.
Don’t be surprised. While I was in Japan I was reading The Japan Times, one of the two (that I know of) English language newspapers of note.
Their canned editorials always attacked the dangers of deflation, always attacked the Japanese peoples tendency toward savings, always blamed Japan’s woes on a lack of government control of industry.
Often the by-lines of these OpEd’s were “economist”, “research fellow” and other high-sounding labels and titles.
After a while I realized that there was simply no way to trust the published word in Japan. None. The only truly free-market writing I saw was a novel about a group of anarcho-capitalist ‘Net denizens who take down the national infrastructure long enough to take over the island of Hokkaido and turn it into a free-market power-house by doing everything that the Japanese officials said would cause disaster.
I was a subscriber to The Economist for several years as I was learning about free-market economics and libertarian politics. I gradually came to realize that the magazine was increasingly mercantilist and pro-interventionalist: neoconservative, in a word. The last straw for me was when the cover announced “The Case For War” in Iraq. I cancelled my subscription post haste.
The Economist is always against China. They simply can’t recognize the sucess of China capitalism because China doesn’t have elections.
Ed Kamisato
FWIW, if you don’t want to subscribe, visit http://www.bugmenot.com
(Thanks to whoever linked the latest slashdot rubbish, where I learned about BugMeNot)
Forgive me, I forgot to include the tie-in with the article. Most of those eminent economists op-eds published in The Japan Times were from the Economist, or were otherwise British.
Good call. I have to agree with Ike Hall that the Economist, trumpeting itself as “Liberal” (in the classical sense), is in fact for active foreign military intervention, and “sensible” government intervention, such as in healthcare. Has anyone noticed how the Brookings Institution has become the most-often quoted think-thank in this newspaper?
I remain a constant Economist reader, but every now and then one of their articles raises my eyebrows. They have always supported the “sensible” government intervention of gun control, but sometimes their journalists seem a bit socialist.
How the Communist Chinese Party and their espionage unit fund terrorist and genocidal dictators that oppress world women’s rights.
Over four years ago, America suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history, caused by a terrorist group largely known as al Qaeda. About a month after the attack, it was first reported that Communist China bought unexploded American cruise missiles from al Qaeda in order to “reverse engineer” them, i.e., use them to advance its own cruise missile capabilities. That report was just confirmed on Nov. 29. The subsequent silence from mainstream media has been deafening. What gives here? For over four years, as the democratic world has fought the War on Terror, Communist China has managed to stay out of sight and out of mind, despite the information above and immediately below. Even the pro-democracy, anti-Communist movement has largely been quiet on this. This remains a terrible and dangerous mistake. For those new to this topic, what follows is a quick synopsis of Communist China’s actions regarding al Qaeda and the Taliban. 1998: After the American cruise missile attack on al Qaeda, Communist China pays up to $10 million to al Qaeda for unexploded American cruise missiles. 1999: A book by two Communist Chinese colonels presents a battle scenario in which the World Trade Center is attacked. The authors recommend Osama bin Laden by name as someone with the ability to orchestrate the attack. September 11, 2001 (yes, that date is correct): Communist China signs a pact on economic cooperation with the Taliban. Just after September 11, 2001: The Communist press agency makes a video “glorifying the strikes as a humbling blow against an arrogant nation.” Also after September 11, 2001: According to Willy Lam (CNN), the Communist leadership considers al Qaeda to be “a check on U.S. power,” and only decides to back away from it after deciding that “now is not the time to take on the United States.” Also after September 11, 2001: As Pakistan mulls a request from the United States to allow its troops to be based there for operations against the Taliban, Communist China—a 50-year Pakistan ally—announces it would “oppose allowing foreign troops in Pakistan.” Also after September 11, 2001: U.S. intelligence finds the Communist Chinese military’s favorite technology firm—Huawei Technologies—building a telephone network in Kabul, the Afghan capital. November 2001: As U.S. Special Forces and local anti-Taliban Afghans are liberating Afghanistan, Communist China, through public statements and behind-the-scenes actions, tries to prevent what it calls “a pro-American regime” in Kabul. 2002: Raids of al Qaeda hideouts by U.S. Special Forces and allies net large caches of weapons from Communist China, including surface-to-air missiles. This comes weeks after the U.S. government warns that al Qaeda terrorists in the U.S. would try to use said missiles to take down American planes. April 2002: Then-Communist Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, while visiting Iran, rips the U.S. military presence in Central Asia. Late summer 2002: Almost a year after Afghanistan’s liberation, a three-man delegation from the Taliban—led by Ustad Khalil, purported to be Mullah Omar’s right-hand man—spends a week in Communist China meeting with cadres, at their invitation. August 2002: Intelligence from the post-Taliban Afghan government reveals that Communist China has turned a part of Pakistan deemed under its control (most likely “Aksai Chin,” the piece of disputed Kashmir that Pakistan gave to its longtime ally in the 1960s) into a safe haven for al Qaeda. May 2004: Media reports expose how the Communist Chinese intelligence service used some of its front companies in financial markets around the world to help al Qaeda raise and launder money for its operations. Yet Communist China continues to claim that it is our friend in the War on Terror, and foolish supporters of “engagement” continue to believe it. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s not merely al Qaeda that has received Communist support (for more on Communist China’s extensive ties to terrorists, check out my book on the subject), but given the nearly universal acceptance of al Qaeda as an enemy of the democratic world, one would think that the above information would be enough for a serious and thorough reexamination of our relations with the Communists. After all, Communist China’s reasons for supporting anti-American terrorists are not difficult to ascertain. The U.S. is the main obstacle to the Communists’ plans for conquering Taiwan, replacing Japan as the lead power in Asia, and replacing the U.S. as the lead world power. If Communist China fails in any of these, its reliance on radical nationalism—the regime’s raison d’etre since the Tiananmen Square massacre—will backfire badly. Thus, the Chinese Communist Party sees the United States as the chief threat to its power, and its survival. Yet President Bush has not once demanded that Communist China end its support for al Qaeda—indeed, he has not even acknowledged the existence of that support. Sadly, he is not alone. In fact, those of us who insist on spreading the word about this are in the distinct minority. If we are to win the War on Terror, this must change. The War on Terror is, in fact, part of the Second Cold War—the cold war between Communist China and the democratic world. As such, the War on Terror can not and will not be won unless the free world sees the Chinese Communist Party for what it really is: an enemy. The road to victory in the War on Terror ends not in Kabul, Baghdad, Tehran, or Damascus, but in Beijing. America and her allies will never be secure until China is free. D.J. McGuire is President and Co-Founder of the China e-Lobby, and the author of Dragon in the Dark: How and Why Communist China Helps Our Enemies in the War on Terror. http://www.homelandsecurityus.net/al%20qaedas%20link%20to%20other%20countries/al_qaeda%20china%20tie.htm http://rideriantieconomicwarfaretrisiii.blogspot.com/
Rider I
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