I just meant study for fun and not formally.  Mak nad means pineapple in lao

Why are you so busy?

Man , admin that's alot of work. If that was me doing that kinda work.I'll be out drinking everynight to relief stress of course

I thought Miss Administrator Saovaluck was engaged to forum poster Larb Deep. We should not speculate as it is a private affair.

Laos needs a socialist government and their economy should be planned by the state.. Having access to the banking resources of the United State is beneficial for the promotion of multi-national trade. Laos is too small of a country to practice self-reliance. Access to healthcare, telecommunications, and transport technologies from surrounding countries will boost the economy and increase the prosperity of the people. That said, the government should strictly regulate the internet and completely restrict access to outside media. Although this is disadvantageous to me, the country should also place harsh restrictions on traveling to discourage a Western tourist presence in the country.

Isolationism is a reason why Burma has yet to succumb to the iniquities of Westernization.

China is a great example as to why Capitalism is a failure. Under Chairman Mao, the Chinese people were unified in their unswerving pursuit of national success and Socialist glory. From the 1980's onward, the country opened up to the rest of the world. Western corporations, lured by cheap labor, brought outdated and dangerous industrial machinery which polluted the environment. The ecological tragedy that unfolded was and is unprecedented. A fifth of the fresh water supply is unusable for both humans and animals in China. The air in Beijing that seeing the sun is now exceptional.

TexasCowboy wrote on 21^st Jun, 2014 at 8:09pm:

Yes.  And the United States is so capitalist that you cannot find a cup of water to drink anywhere.  That is why all of the people in the U.S. are dying of thirst and starvation.

And nobody in California has see the sun for decades. 

Buk Nut wrote on 22^nd Jun, 2014 at 12:11am:


Untrue.

America was highly industrialized only a few decades ago.  We put restrictions on pollutants and required factories to be clean.  It worked here.  It can work everywhere else.

Perhaps part of the reason Chinese production is so cheap is that they don't have such restrictions.  But that is their choice. 

You cannot rationally blame "capitalism" for  all of the evils of the world.  You can blame the selfishness of people.  And people in a communist country are fully as capable of being selfish as anyone else. 

Perhaps a country like Laos is better with a planned economy, at least for now.  But it depends on what the planners do.  And there is nothing in the universe that necessarily makes them "better" people than the most ruthless industrialist capitalist.


Oh ... and we have not "outsourced all of [our] production to China" either.  I work in an aerospace manufacturing plant. We make plenty of our own stuff.   And we have outsourced to other places like Mexico, too.  Our manufacturing plant there is clean and up to U.S. standards.  And they are glad to get the jobs.  (Mexico is about 10 miles from where I live.)

TexasCowboy wrote on 22^nd Jun, 2014 at 12:41am:


Anyone who expects an "-ism" to be the solution to the world's problems is due to be sorely disappointed.

And there is no such thing as "workers of the world."  There are workers of lots of various regions and industries, all with different personal abilities, needs, and relationships with the businesses that they work for. 

A capitalistic system contains a method for workers to organize through labor unions.  (These can sometimes become more powerful than the businesses that their members work for, and this is not always a good thing for the workers.  Any time you have a concentration of power, you have the potential for people at the top to be motivated to move more for their own benefit than for the good of "the masses."  Just recently in my area, a corporation wanted to do a large project that would have created thousands of jobs for several years and many hundreds of jobs continuously after that.  The local unions demanded the exclusive right to dictate certain terms.  And now thousands of people are not employed who would have been otherwise.)

And it is a humorous (or sad, depending upon one's perspective) irony that in many "workers' republic" (communist) countries, independently organized workers' unions that might wish to promote an opinion or agenda that is opposed to the direction of the Almighty State are illegal. 

The terms "for the people's benefit" and "socialism" are not necessarily equivalent.  There always must be a hierarchical command structure, and the "good" (or "evil") that the organization does is largely dependent upon the whim of those in charge. 

Creative people demand certain freedoms of expression and action.  And they almost certainly are better off if they are not living under the restrictions of a State with 100% control over economic and social planning. 

It was the organization of workers in a labor union in Poland that was a primary factor in bringing down that country's Soviet-era government, which, in turn, was a major triggering factor in the demise of the rest of that "Union" of "Socialist republics."

It is possible for central control to be good for an area.  Maybe it is good for Laos.  I cannot judge that from here.  But worldwide "socialism" cannot be a solution any more than worldwide "capitalism" can be.

There are no panacea solutions with a suffix of "-ism."  Human nature makes them impossible.  There is only individual learning and slow social evolution.

Part of the solution is for each region to require environmental protections.  Another part of the solution is for local workers to unionize.  This can raise their standard of living as it did for workers in the United States in the past.  But it will also drive jobs back to the U.S. and this is very likely one of the reasons that they are not quick to do it.

Very good and down to earth posts Peter.