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Originally Posted by killarney_sailor
Happened to see Zakaria this morning on CNN and he started his show with an analysis of poor economic growth in the US being caused by a decline in physical infrastructure and human capacity. He used about five measures from the World Economic Forum and OECD in which the US has dropped from rankings well up in the top ten in the world to somewhere in the mid 20s. Then he had a couple of measures of competitiveness which showed the US around fifth after a bunch of small countries like Singapore and Finland. Then he asked the question - why is so much attention behing paid to things like tax rates and little attention to the issues he brought up.
It was short, focussed, logical, and supported by hard evidence. Just brought to mind how little of the talking heads's (not to mention politicians') stuff goes beyond generalities and vague opinions.
Also heard an interview with Huntsman - why he is not doing better is beyond belief. He seems to actually know what he is talking about, is articulate and has some specific policies in mind - which could be a disqualifier I guess.
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The short answer is no. He's basically just another showman like the rest of the cable news line up and you got snookered. And he isn't the smartest showman or he would have more viewers.
You got snookered because he never told you why we can't seem to do infrastructure or get more people through college. And it's a bipartisan issue. A good example of the problems we now have is the issues we have adding roads here in North Texas.
On the one side, Republicans have a woody for toll roads. Because of that they keep stealing from the money we pay into gas taxes. It's now being used for a number of things from subsidizing emergency rooms, to building commuter rail that will lose money and not relieve congestion. The Democrats help them in this but the Reps rule the roost so it's kind of hard to blame a lot of this on the Dems.
But on the other side, the Democrats at the federal level have already stuck a gear in the wrenches. Any roads built with federal money not only have to pay union wages on the part the federal money pays for, but on the whole project. Then they're are whole layers of extra paper work that has to be done to prove that those wages are being paid as well as there are enough minorities.
Both of these make it so that any politician that tries to raise taxes will be demonized. Of course you have to have money to pay for roads, but we the people aren't willing to give them more money to waste. Contrary to the learned wisdom, we aren't as stupid as the political class seems to believe. We're not going to give them dollars and get pennies back in actual roads. Maybe it's cutting off our nose to spite are face, but I doubt those countries that are building better infrastructure have twisted their taxes and laws as bad as we have.
Same for colleges and schools. It's not a simple matter of money. Reps want to push twisted science while Dems want to stock the library with books on gay penguins that raise chicks together. And both are ever ready to borrow more money to build the next school rather then cut some other waste to pay for it today.
There is plenty more I could go on about. Both sides have their issues. But again, I doubt Singapore is requiring diversity and sensitivity training in they're schools. We already pay more per student then every other country but Sweden.
So you got suckered. Fareed got you thinking he's some kind of real clear thinker but I doubt he's got a way to cut through all the crude and get back to a time when we used to be able to build roads and educate students.
Don't get me wrong, this isn't a Liberals suck thing. I don't believe the average democrat wants all this, but like the Republicans, they can't stop the madness.
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