FlatHead of the World part 1 - Actually, MSM, China’s an Economic Mess

Walter Duranty wrote glowing articles about Stalin and the 'magnificent' progress his 5 year plans brought to the Soviets. He saw, but chose to ignore, the starvation and degradation communism's central planning brought and instead posted progressive correspondence to the NY Times to show how backward America was. Friedman is just a rerun with a dumb mustache and longer, more boring prose. ♘

Pajamas Media » Actually, MSM, China’s an Economic Mess

In a repeat of Walter Duranty, tunnel-visioned liberals like Thomas Friedman keep ignoring China's authoritarian-fueled chaos.

7-22-11 by Ying Ma

America’s movers and shakers can’t seem to stop ogling Chinese authoritarian chic. While few would defend China’s repressive political system, numerous politicians, business executives, and pundits bow before China’s state-directed capitalism, equating authoritarianism with efficiency and ruthlessness with enlightenment.

At the heart of this ogling lies an admiration for Beijing’s ability to undertake large projects far more quickly than America’s democratic gridlock would ever allow. In reality, Chinese central economic planning generates massive inefficiencies and imposes drastic human costs. Below is merely the short list.

Infrastructure

As a candidate in the 2008 presidential election, Senator Barack Obama bemoaned the crumbling infrastructure of the United States and noted that China’s state-directed infrastructure spending had produced ports, trains, and airports that were “vastly the superior.” Since then, Westerners have consistently pointed to the rapid construction of China’s high-speed rail system, now the most extensive in the world, as Exhibit A of China’s infrastructure prowess.

In fact, going high-speed in China has highlighted endemic corruption and created unhappy customers. In February, Liu Zhijun, China’s minister of railways and architect of the country’s $300 billion high-speed rail network, was fired and arrested amid accusations of wheeling and dealing in bribes of $155 million — and keeping 18 mistresses.

Since then, concerns about shoddy construction and safety have surfaced.

China’s state media once trumpeted the trains’ top speed of 210-236 mph as the fastest in the world, but the trains were never designed to run above 186 mph. In April, they were slowed accordingly. Caxin.com, the website of China’s leading business and finance publication, reports that the “high-speed bubble” was all a “naked, systemic lie,” concocted and fanned by the Railways Ministry.

Meanwhile, most Chinese citizens cannot afford to ride the shiny new trains and have opted instead to pack into buses for their long-distance travel.

Read on at link RE: State Ownership, Climate Change, Financial Prowess, Internal Contradictions.