Here's an awesome example of how capitalism creates value. Those who claim that America got fat and rich by exploiting others don't understand economics at all.
Get your Tim Geithner TAX CHEAT! stamps!
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I doubt that there are many people (who can otherwise be taken seriously) who claim that America got fat and rich *solely* by exploiting others. Certainly basic economics instructs us in how value is created from, essentially, nothing.
However, this doesn't mean or prove that America *has not* exploited others at all, in addition to our hard work creating value from nothing.
From what I read out of Europe and the third-world (particularlly Arab nations), a great many people think that America has built its wealth by stealing from poor nations, stripping their mineral wealth, and forcing our products down their throats.
Now, Americans do exploit people in some ways, but not in the ways they often thing. Out subsidized farm industry is one of the worst offenders, for example. However, there's a reasonable national security concern there that needs to be considered.
National security and the subsidized farm industry? Am I missing something?
Yeah. I wouldn't want America to be dependent on third-world countries for food if we get into another major world war, would you? An enemy could devote their resources to disrupting our food shipments (which would have to travel by sea) and get some pretty powerful leverage over us. Not necessarily decisive, but it would take a while to get our farms up and running again. Years, probably.
No, of course I wouldn't want that, but why would I expect it to be? We produce a majority of our own food anyway, or so I thought. Subsidized farms are extra capacity that we keep around for... who knows what reason, maybe national security, maybe something else. I just didn't understand what point you were trying to make, since you jumped from subsidized farming to national security without explaining what exactly you meant :)
Of course this is completely off the topic.
Without the subsidies many farm products would quickly move out of the country. Of course, there are subsidies for tobacco, so it's not all about national security, by any means. But I'm amenable to some subsidies, if they serve other legitimate interests.