Comments on: China Agrees to Major Investments in Argentina’s Rail and Metro Lines

By: Augusto

Augusto — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 14:49:05 +0000

I see no facts that show proof of Jim’s comment. Most railways laid in Argentina were paid with grains sales to Britain and France. Although I am no friend of Peron’s economic policies, he realized more than the fair share had been paid, he decided to buy the railroad system at a huge deficit to the argentine state. Respectfully, Jim get your facts right before you comment on any other country’s affairs.

By: FG

FG — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:18:58 +0000

I think that natural resources and access to them is behind China’s moves. It’s the raison de etre for their massive investments in Afghanistan right now as well.

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 01:10:04 +0000

Actually, we didn’t spend it on “failed social programs”. The US spends damn near nothing on social programs, except for Social Security and Medicare. Social Security certainly hasn’t failed. Medicare certainly hasn’t failed.

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 01:08:50 +0000

Heritage Foundation is not a legitimate research organization — it’s an agitprop organization run by, you guessed it, very wealthy Republicans. Their claims regarding tax rates are self-serving bullshit.

It is true that the general wealth of the nation is more important to government revenues than the tax rates on the megarich. It’s also true that 90% taxes on the megarich would provide many billions of dollars of revenue.

It’s also true that the megarich *spend less of their money* percentage-wise than poorer people. It’s also true that the faster money is spent, the richer the country is (this is the “velocity of money” concept in economics), because the money is getting used to make *real things* more often. It’s also, therefore, true that taking the the money of the mega-rich and giving it to the poor *increases the general wealth of the nation*.

And this effect is *huge*. This effect, in fact, may be large enough to be the primary determiner of whether the country is in recession or not — high tax rates on the rich == healthy economy. There’s a strong correlation.

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 01:04:00 +0000

“We pay enought in taxes why can’t the US pay for it’s own roads and rail lines they did in the 1930′s and the 1950′s? ”

A lot of it is going to pointless military spending. The US now spends more on its military than the ENTIRE REST OF THE WORLD COMBINED. For real.

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 01:02:55 +0000

Gives some hint that perhaps the USA’s reputation wtihin the US isn’t entirely accurate?

A more accurate assessment is that the US spends gajillions of dollars on military stuff and somehow can’t quite get its act together to do anything else right. Probably ’cause of the US Senate’s insane supermajority rules (see Krugman’s “We Are Poland” blog entry).

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 01:01:26 +0000

It *would* be a game changer if the US would freaking *commit* to public trasnportation. China’s happy to provide, shall we say, “builder-financed loans” for constructing mass transit, probably at slightly-below-market rates, but we in the US still have to provide the long-term revenue source, get the projects approved for eminent domain and regulatory purposes, and *agree* to borrow the money from China. All hurdles which have not yet been passed by California (whose HSR China is quite interested in building), let alone anywhere else.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:05:33 +0000

Well, seeing as no one has taken the bait, I’ll try to answer my own question. My guess is that China has both foreign relations (“economic imperialism,” to put it in stark, and somewhat unfair, terms) and traditional “investment return” motivations. In the U.S., there may be some toll road, seaport, freight rail, and high speed rail projects that could provide a reasonable rate of return and hence could attract Chinese capital. Of course, they’d be equally appealing to any other major infrastructure investor, unless there’s also another benefit to China (maybe promoting a Chinese industry such as high speed rail manufacture), so maybe China would make a larger investment or take a lower interest rate than some other investor. But probably only at the margin; they’re not stupid and they’re not going to rain money down on American projects just because we have a “need” for money. So I guess I don’t see Chinese investment being a game changer for the U.S.

By: Johhny

Johhny — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 21:16:24 +0000

China is a builder not a chaos initiator. Saddam Hussein, Bin Laden and Iran’s leader were all put into power by the USA.

By: serial catowner

serial catowner — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 16:19:51 +0000

This year’s war budget is $500 billion. Tell me you couldn’t do the same 10% cut on that budget that counties and states are doing all across the country this year.