I would hope that there is much investment going in both directions, as there is with Canada, UK, Germany, and any other major economy. It's comparative advantage. It's why I don't make my own shoes from scratch, and why I hire a lawyer when I go to court. There are innumerable reasons why at any given time the people living in a given place are better at doing some things than other people are. It would be hard to completely understand why. Luckily, we have prices, which, in a relatively free society give a decent picture of those advantages, even when no single person could possibly know all the inputs empirically. The Chinese investor sees the lower cost, and that's all he needs to know. Now, we will all be marginally better off because he has exercised the freedom to use their services.

#30:
"Part of the reason life is bad for many people is so ours can be better."

Our government may do things that make some people worse off. But that has nothing to do with capitalism. And everything economics since Adam Smith has taught us is that we are better off when others are better off.

The idea that our wealth must be built on the backs of someone else is simply a fallacy, a misreading of inequalities that happen to exist at any given time. Over the last 20 years, there has been a poverty revolution, with huge parts of the world leaving subsistence poverty by the millions, and the amount of success any country has had in this respect is very highly correlated to their engagement with global capitalism. (See formerly the pacific rim, and currently India & China). The revolution is well underway. This kind of misguided altruism will only serve to keep people in poverty.

Sentences have the same information and relevance half gone...

Postmodern capitalism:

For every one farmer running an automated parlor that milks 200 cows an hour, there are 500 other people sitting in their den, in their underwear, blogging about how it has something to do with immigration & health care.

Come on, Weatherman. It's Wal-Mart. So them bad, others good. Don't think about it too hard. I mean, in the 80's the company's founder actually suggested that he thought they should have more women in management. Now that's just evil!

I hate Bush, too, but I think it's ok for the world to push along imperfectly, with a problem here or there, and for it to happen independently of his incompetence. I don't see why he would be responsible, or even why he should even feel particularly compelled to be responsible. God help us if one elected official is somehow supposed to be in charge of a $13 trillion economy.

And, to clarify, in whole, the bankers, investors, and homebuyers, were ALL being unwise & greedy. I'm not generally one for nostalgia, but there was a time when if you wanted to buy a house that was more than you could afford, your friends & confidantes would tell you you were dumb & that you'd get what you were asking for if you went ahead with it. Today, apparently, making dumb decisions just qualifies you as a victim.

If we want to treat the buyers as victims, I ok with that, but as part of the deal, they should have to wear a red scarf around their necks for the rest of their lives, identifying themselves as minors under law, who cannot sign an enforceable contract without the support of a competent adult.

I don't mean to be harsh. I realize financial difficulties are tough. I have my own. But I accept them as my own. Most of the foreclosed homeowners probably accept them, also, the ravings of do-gooders notwithstanding.

If there are 250 working days a year, and each true fan pays you a days' wage, then it looks like you'd only need 250 true fans to earn the same wage they do.

Does that make you feel better, Antinous?

Thank goodness they don't need to rely on petroleum. If only we could all burn wood in a 1940 boiler, for ourselves & for the earth.