Chris Lewis

"...booming house prices..." - Why is that a good thing? Yup, it takes both parents working to even get near owning a house and supporting a family.

Good ol' "mindless credit reliance."

Here's an interesting piece on America's not-so-booming house prices. Capitalism seems a tad flawed here:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-24/aussies-lured-by-dirt-cheap-us-housing/3970128

Sorry Poirot.

It aint my style to sit back and bag the past. I will leave it the lefties who very often have no idea why certain polices, whether flawed or not, emerge. They just write righteous bulldust and mostly get it wrong.

Point is that many who that bag the system, including relatively wealthy lefty academics, also benefit from the system. Just ask the great man (Rudd) whose family has made considerable wealth from the privatisation of employment services alone yet he lectures us on the evils of unbrdidled capitalism. But hey, Rudd (and his like-minded readers, then salivated over how good his Monthly piece was attacking the past that he himself gained from.

Well, Chris, if we are to judge the health of a society by how much profit is to be extracted from it, then I understand where you're coming from. Lots to be made from such a system.

Some of us nasty lefties question, for example, the modern day penchant/necessity to pour our infant population into day-long care while their pappy and mama are both out working to pay off inflated house debt and, more likely than not, also further fueling their reliance on mindless credit.

What was that saying about those who ignore the lessons of the past being condemned to repeat them?...never mind, it was obviously a leftie who said it.

Poirot,

I could have better worded my previous comment.

I also share concern about recent trends towards housing. You can see this with some of my prevsious opinion pieces.

Point is that i sincerely believe, rightly or wrongly, that liberal democracy is the best means of achieving the right balance, although I also recognise that there are many obstacles.

I have never seen a liberal demcracy as just being a server of capitalism. I believe that liberal democracy has many checks and balances that can temper the negative impulses of capitalism.

Maybe i am also a bit too optimistic, but i have seen nothing that will change my mind, at least thus far.

Chris,

The problem with our liberal democracies is that they have got out of hand and no longer serve the people. Since the Reagan/Thatcher revolution and the discarding of anti-trust or monopoly laws we have allowed corporations to get ever bigger and more powerful to the point we are at now where they have co-opted our governments and media and the people are ill informed and are powerless.

The wholesale privatization of public sector assets and activities, many inherently monopolistic in nature, plus the contracting out of labour has also pushed more power into the hand of big corporations.

The system is broken, perhaps beyond repair.

On another point: The US and the West govern according to an ideology, the neo liberal one, the pursuance of which is itself the goal. It's a belief system more than anything else and like Christianity, Islam and other outlooks/philosophies or whatever you call them, facts are either ignored or manipulated to comply with the preconceived views. China on the other hand look at the facts and adopt policies and actions to best deal with those.

Kulu,

Interesting view.

I still think liberal democracies are best equipped to adapt,and still offer world leadership, although there will be still be mistakes.

As for China, it is indeed smart in terms of meeting its own interests, but it is merely exploiting the flaws of the international economy. More and more info aso reveals that China is making a lot of mistakes.

I do not think that an authoritatian state can offer much vision to the world long-term.

However, time will tell.