how about: "Maintain the embargo if and only if embargo advocates can present a plan in which it will help lead to the destruction of the Castro tyranny."

Seconded. It's been 50 years.

Repeal if and only if repeal advocates can present a plan in which repeal can help lead to the destruction of the Castro tyranny, and the Obama administration is willing to implement the plan.

Isn't the burden on the proponents of a plan that, even after being given a fair change to work has very little objective evidence that it is working?

I support Obama's plan because hard currency that is disbursed outside State control strengthens the hand of citizens wrt he government.

"Repeal if and only if repeal advocates can present a plan in which repeal can help lead to the destruction of the Castro tyranny, and the Obama administration is willing to implement the plan."

I'm with the first two posters: shouldn't the burden of proof be on embargo fans, not embargo opponents?

Frankly my dear, I don't give a @&*! about foreign dictators. Let's turn in the World Police badge and hang up the guns.

Or how about this: We will embargo all countries whose leadership we disagree with, such as Cuba, China, N.Korea, Afghanistan, Iran, Moldova, Russia.

Or we have open trade with all.

Now, of course, we really shouldn't have a 'one size fits all' foreign policy. Sometimes there are good reasons to have embargos. But the fact remains that all embargos, to the extent the desire is for regime change, have failed. Furthermore, the larger the country, the less likelihood of success. (I really don't think Russia will throw over Putin or Medvedev if we stop trading with them.

Considering the fact that many other countries trade with cuba, it makes no sense to continue this silly policy.

does anyone else find irony in one person who thinks its a good idea to prevent its citizens from trading with Cuba, but who also thinks that the current administration is trying to exercise too much control over our economic decisions?

Repeal if and only if repeal advocates can present a plan in which repeal can help lead to the destruction of the Castro tyranny, and the Obama administration is willing to implement the plan

It's called free markets, open borders, and free exchange of ideas. I thought conspirators tended to believe in such things. Without the embargo, the Castro regime would have fallen decades ago.

The freer the markets, the freer the people?? Logical only everyplace on earth apart from Cuba, it seems.

The only reason we maintain the embargo is the voting bloc of Cuban exiles in Florida. The only reason they insist on the embargo is because they want to take over Cuba and install themselves as an oligarchy.

how about: "Maintain the embargo if and only if embargo advocates can present a plan in which it will help lead to the destruction of the Castro tyranny."

Exactly right. Maybe they will come up with something. Or is the embargo the natural state of things? Don't think so.

I support Obama's plan because hard currency that is disbursed outside State control strengthens the hand of citizens wrt he government.

Fair enough. Ironically, that's why I oppose all of his domestic plans.

Bush...a 10 or 15 on economic issues. Obama? Probably at 45 or so

I get it - the number is the percent of GDP each man wants to bring under direct federal control.

I once heard an idiot is one who tries the same thing over and over expecting a new result.....the embargo seems to fit this thinking....

Even rosetta's stones doesn't sound that keen on the embargo. Is there any commenter that agrees with Kopel that after half a century of not accomplishing anything positive with the embargo, we should keep trying?

Kopel's burden-shifting move isn't a position unique to him or to this issue - it's the dominant theme of the conservative opposition to Obama. This derangement assumes that everything Bush did was not only correct but the default policy position of America for all time. It further posits anyone who seeks to changes these policies as akin to a communist/facist/marxist because any changes to the default view is a change to the foundation of the nation. See, conservative positions aren't just policy choices eligible to be bent or changd with time, or, even more radically, with shifts in voter opinion. No, they are immutable truths that must be now and forever.

Plan to end Castro Tyrrany:

Copy plan used by the US after Tienanmen Square in response to China:

1) No embargo
2) Smart sanctions
3) Encouraged trade elsewhere.

You get more with a kind word and a two-by-four than you do with either alone.

Rosetta's Stones is exactly right:

The embargo really isn't much of anything, as Castro can buy from everybody else, whatever he can pay for at least. What hurts Cubans is Castro banning dollar exchange.

Or controlling exchange rates.... This is becoming a huge issue in Venezuela too with Chavez adopting similar forced exchange rate standards.

Cuba is moderately insulated but hardly isolated from the US economy and Castro probably is helped more than hurt by cultural isolation......

The embargo has not worked to end the Castro tyranny.

Free trade has not worked to end the Chinese tyranny.

What has worked? The various revolutions in Ukraine, etc., were mostly when the folks at the bottom got fed up with their rulers.

There may well be good arguments for free trade with Cuba, but freeing the people of the Castro tyranny is not one of them. The only that will happen is with a revolution - and given the Castro control of that island, it seems unlikely. It's a lot more isolated than, say, the Ukraine. And we have a lot more at stake, with, say, Iran. So regardless of whether the Cuban situation should be changed, it shouldn't be our top priority.

The reason it is appropriate to put the burden on those advocating free trade is that that's the change from the status quo.

Incidentally, isn't Kopel's post another way of saying: 65% of right-wing bloggers oppose free trade?

How is that view consistent with traditional right-wing thinking?

I think it's kind of like being against murder and in favor of private property and free trade. I'd say it's "nuanced" but it's not that subtle of an idea.

Also, please keep in mind that in Cuba there are basically two embargoes: 1) the US embargo, and 2) the Castro embargo. Opening up "free trade" with Cuba isn't suddenly going to put dollars in the hands of the populace. Similar to the problems delivering aid to a lot of the African trouble spots.

I don't think it's the job of the US government to get rid of bad governments around the world. The idea of helping people by impoverishing them (or trying to) for generations is pretty absurd. Cuba is no longer an outpost of the Soviet Empire. Whatever strategic rationale there might have been for the embargo several decades ago is gone. The burden of demonstration should always fall upon those who would restrict free trade. "Peace, friendship, and commerce with other nations"--wasn't that the Founders' vision?

Obama knows that Cuba is the key of an understanding between The United States and Latin America. It is the key that can join both political current axes.
I recommend http://blogdealbertovazquez.blogspot.com
Regards

The trade embargo is largely a red herring. The US is already Cuba's biggest food supplier and fourth largest trading partner. This is all about credit. Under current policy, the United States Export-Import Bank cannot extend credit to Cuba to purchase US products. Castro is free to buy as much as he wants from ADM, but he has to pay for it-- in cash. The French and Mexican ExIm banks have cut off credit to Cuba because he stiffed them. Now Castro needs credit and Obama is coming to the rescue. Look for a policy change at ExIm. This whole chatter about the embargo is designed to distract the public from the real issue: subsidizing Cuba at the expense of the American taxpay-- a bailout.

All those in favor of trade with Cuba: do want US ExIm to extend credit to Cuba?

The idea that the embargo was originally designed to end the Castro regime is also another strawman. When Dean Rusk spoke before the Organization of American States at Punta del Este Uruguay on January, 21, 1962, he made it clear that regime change was not the purpose of the embargo

"The United States objects to Cuba's activities an policies in the international arena not its internal system or arrangements."

The embargo and denial of credit function to weaken the Castro regime and those who think the embargo strengthens him have the burden of proof.

Kazinski:

"But I think we should lift the trade embargo which would allow us to enslave the Cubans, the same way we've enslaved the Chinese,..."

Here's the difference. The Chinese extend credit to the US, and lots of it ($1 trillion?) to buy Chinese products. Compare and contrast: Obama wants the US to extend credit to Cuba to buy US products.

I have heard that the real reson that americans are not allowed to go to Cuba is to save Dominican Republic, Mexico and other resorts area from competition in tourist business. Once ban on travel to Cuba it will cause a devastating effect on all resorts in Carribean.

Tack on the phoney exchange rates the Chicoms keep in place, with resultant trade imbalances which effect the US negatively.

You mean the one where they devalue their currency and thus sell us their exports for less than their true value and import our goods for more than their true value? Terrible deal that. Who would want to pay less for the goods they buy and, at the same time, get paid more for the goods they sell?!

Cuba, under Fidel, is the only country that ever tried to start a nuclear war with the US.

I think the embargo was as much a lesson to other countries as a policy aimed only at Cuba - the lesson: the US can and *will* hurt you really badly if you do something really dangerous to us.

All that being said, it would seem to be time to drop the embargo (I say this as a conservative Republican). We should do it in a way that doesn't allow subsidization of Cuba as long as the Castro regime (not just Fidel) is in power. But free travel and relatively free trade is something we may as well do.

I don't understand, Obama has all the power. Why doesn't he just issue an executive order lifting the embargo right now?

I think the plan is to extract concessions from Raoul in exchange for lifting the embargo.

einhverfr:

" ... am I the only one who would rather have the US being the creditor rather than the debtor to countries which don't share our ideology or interest?"

I think you might. I don't see the benefit to the US taxpayer from subsidizing Cuba. Do you really think Castro won't default to a creditor US when he has already defaulted on credit from other countries? Unless you stand to personally gain by selling products to Cuba, I don't see why you would support granting credit to Cuba.

Steve:

"Uh, yes, because of course when the US has a policy of regime change we always admit it openly in front of the world."

Sometimes the US does as Iraq shows. "Regime change" was the declared policy there. Now if you are privy to secret State Department memos that say the embargo was all about regime change, then share them with us.

In any case I don't see the benefit to the US from subsidizing Cuba at the expense of the American taxpayer. Will you go on record as opposing granting credit to the Cuba from the US ExIm bank and other institutions likely to get bailed out if the debt goes sour?

If you love Cuba so much then lend them your own money.

A Zarkov:

I think you might. I don't see the benefit to the US taxpayer from subsidizing Cuba.

I see even less benefit to the taxpayer for China owning our debt.

I am not saying either is good. I am saying given the choice, it is better to be the lender than the borrower.

Ben P:

Also, heck, if for nothing else as a long time resident of the southeast I support lifting the Embargo so I can see Havana become the Vegas off the Florida coast again.

... and the cigars.

I also harbor a romantic nostalgia for the Cuba of Meyer Lansky (not that I ever saw it personally -- my parents did). That said, and I'm sure many here will disagree, the one thing I'd say in the Castros' defense is that their Cuba has been at least marginally less crushingly oppressive than the one they replaced.

"... simply by quoting a US official who said we weren't after regime change."

The embargo came from the State Department. Dean Rusk was Secretary of State, and could speak with authority. This is different than some random congressman saying the purpose of the embargo was regime change. Thus far you have provided no evidence that the sole intent of the embargo was to remove Castro from power and anything short of that must be a complete failure. The embargo was not failure-- it did at least weaken him, which is why he has been so anxious to get it lifted. It also explains why domestic communists bring it up all the time and advance the strawman argument that the embargo has been a complete failure.

BTW do you support credit for Cuba from the ExIm bank and other institutions? Yes or no. Put your cards on the table.

I'm certain that Dean Rusk knew whether the goal of US foreign policy was regime change. That doesn't mean we can conclude that he must have spoken honestly at the time in question, not on a topic that is so often the subject of dissembling by government officials. Like I said, pure fallacy to think you've proven anything conclusively.

As for the ExIm bank, I have no earthly idea what you're talking about, so go change the subject with someone else.

Steve:

"As for the ExIm bank, I have no earthly idea what you're talking about, so go change the subject with someone else."

Oh come on. You know or should know what the ExIm bank is by context alone. Try reading this. Or go to their website. The bank is part of the executive branch and extends loans to foreigners to buy US goods. Without ExIm many countries like Cuba couldn't buy certain US goods because the sellers won't take the risk. ExIm puts the risk on the taxpayer.

This is not a change of subject because a policy change on the embargo will almost surely involve credit to Cuba. Otherwise the change won't make much of a difference because Cuba already buys from the US. You just want to avoid an honest answer.

Anyone who peddles the idea that greater trade with Cuba will corrode the regime ignores one important fact. The Cuban economy is at least 90% state controlled. Nothing goes in or out of the country without the regime's approval. There's no free market for labor, no private property, etc. All foreign entities doing business in Cuba must be minority partners to state controlled companies. The result is any liberalizing effects of trade are removed. It's like taking a bee's stinger away. Have any doubts? Take a look at the situation in Cuba since foreign trade with western democracies began in earnest in the early 90s. That's right folks, we're not the only capitalist country in the world that would be doing business with Cuba, we'd be the last actually (although we are already Cuba's largest food supplier due to a loophole in the embargo). None of this "free trade" has liberalized Cuba. All it does is prop up the regime that skims all profits off the top and shares none with the people. It's a shake-down racket, plain and simple.

Arthur,

I'm a "Florida based zealot" (there's a lot of us, we voted for McCain by a margin of 68% to 32%). The embargo restricts the amount of cash the regime (fidel, raul, the military and the repressive apparatus) have at their disposal to do what they always do when they get a few extra bucks. And that is export revolution to other countries and crackdown at home. I guess only a zealot would know about El Salvador, Nicaragua, Colombia, Angola, Bolivia and other countries that Cuba has interfered in. Let's not forget that the goons that rule Cuba today are the same ones that have been ruling for 50 years. It's not like the U.S. where we've changed leadership 10 times during that span. We've tried different approaches. The constant here is the brutal nature of the dictatorship. You can help them out by giving them free money (subsidized by U.S. taxpayers) or you can freeze them out. I prefer the latter, but I'm an unreasonable zealot.

A. Zarkov,

I actually don't think Cuban cigars are all that great, but that's just my own taste.

I gave up cigars when I had to admit to myself there were healthier ways to repel women and annoy almost everyone else. But every great cigar I ever had was Cuban.

"I'd say in the Castros' defense is that their Cuba has been at least marginally less crushingly oppressive than the one they replaced."

So who was Batista's Huber Matos? You can't be serious in that appraisal.

You're right. I can't name a single political prisoner Batista set free at the end of his sentence so he could become a celebrated ex-patriot dissident who regales sympathizers with his 20 year diary of tortured imprisonment. What conclusion am I supposed to draw from that?

Henry Gomez:

FIrst I am not at all sure how slightly insulating Cuba from the American economy does much to hurt the Cuban economy. I can drink Cuban rum when I am out of the country, for example, and I can even help to start businesses that can do business in Cuba without having to worry about Treasury Dept reservations (suppose I start a business in Canada and own 49% of it).

Heck I can even export my software to Cuba directly from the US legally without worrying about any export licenses (technically it doesn't count as export, and there is a minor and also ineffectual exception regarding encryption[1]). The thing is, my software is open source, and publication of source code IS NOT EXPORT under the EAR regime.

Cuba has active trading relations with 75% of the world's economy. The embargo has a small impact in terms of tourism, but I don't think it is very big. There are also the ExIm bank issues but those are also overblown. Far bigger reasons the Cuban economy sucks are:

1: 90%+ of the jobs are government jobs.
2: Rigid forex controls.
3: Laws regarding mingling with tourists.

In general when one looks at all three of these, the embargo helps Castro out by fortifying nos 2-3, and hence securing no 1. The embargo in so far as it avoids free market currency exchanges in the US helps lock people into Castro's currency exchange rates (Venezuelan associates of mine take that strategy to avoid Chavez's control over exchange rates). And of course fewer tourists means fewer probems controlling the ideological impact of tourists.

I do favor selective sanctions, btw. Just not embargo.

[1] For encryption, one can't actively facilitate folks in Cuba downloading your code, but you are under no obligation to prevent them from doing so or control re-export, or anything like this. My reading is one is not even barred from collaborating on software development with developers in Cuba since informational documents can be freely imported...

The embargo has not worked for 50 years. Nevertheless. despite the absence of any results...

This canard is repeated over and over... but is it really true?

Taking a moment to examine what's actually been happening reveals that it is not. Only the U.S. has been enforcing any sort of embargo, the rest of the world has not.

An embargo by one country isn't an embargo. Period. So when you consider the whole world's actions, it is NO EMBARGO which has been tried for decades with no results. What level of provincial American-centric blinders does it take to not see this immediately?

That said, we aren't missing out much on the latest technology hot off the shelves of the premiere communist country in the N. American area. For all its vaunted healthcare and education, the only thing Cuba mass-produces well is victims.

"Tack on the phoney exchange rates the Chicoms keep in place, with resultant trade imbalances which effect the US negatively."

Oren:"You mean the one where they devalue their currency and thus sell us their exports for less than their true value and import our goods for more than their true value? Terrible deal that. Who would want to pay less for the goods they buy and, at the same time, get paid more for the goods they sell?!"

Oren,

Getting paid more for exports means you're selling less of them, as should be intuitively obvious.

Additionally intuitively obvious is that these particular Chicom money practices (illegitimately?) promote foreign capital investment in China, which might otherwise be made in other countries. The capital buys more in China dontchayaknow, because of those exchange rates. That's how totalitarians do it. That's how Castro's been doing it forever, and is likely gonna continue to do it, soon on the US taxpayers' dime as it seems some prefer.

Rosetta,

Speaking as someone who knows a thing or two about high-performance computing, I'll let you know that the days when keeping Cray computers out of Chinese hands made any kind of difference are long gone. Anyone can put together a cluster of consumer PCs with mid-range graphics processors, and get all the computing power they can afford. Those PCs are being made in China in the tens of millions, for Dell, Apple, HP, and everybody else.

SOG,

One question. In the simple system you described, do interconnected consumer PC's function precisely and seamlessly as one large system?

americans are so cute when they're idiotic about cuba.

Also on Crays etc....

The early 1990's also saw the rise in "Beowulf Clusters," and the first of these was built by NASA as a budget supercomputer (1 Gigaflop) out of 16 80486-based PC's along with some ethernet (iirc 10baseT) and such. Thus began the rise of massively multiparallel computing. Since the source code was publically available, we can assume China had access to it too.

Now, as far as raw number crunching, beowulf clusters do as well as top-of-the-line vector-processing supercomputers. In some tasks they do better, though, and in some tasks they do worse. This is why today, Cray is focusing on both MMP and Vector-based supercomputing. The questions are those of latency and how critical latency on the interconnect is. MMP works by passing messages back and forth, while VB relies on rapid access to cache and RAM.

I hope this helps.

The American embargo with respect to Cuba has accomplished nothing -- in 50 years -- except to make the United States look silly. It likely has been counterproductive, and most people would reassess after five decades of futility, but zealots don't pay attention to "talking points" such as 50 years of lack of success. They also don't genuinely object to distasteful governments, or they would have found a moment by now to criticize their government's support of brutal right-wing dictators, opposition entities, and death squauds. They don't care about the principle of "interference in the affairs of other countries, such as Nicaragua," or they would be criticizing the United States just as loudly as they criticize Cuba.

It appears to me that anti-Castro zealots lost contact with sensible judgment long ago, and today merely cling to stale grievances and tactics with respect to Castro and Cuba, oblivious to the point that they are Castro's best friend in several ways, just as Bush Jr. and bin Laden developed a bizarre co-dependency in which each was the other's best recruiter for a pointless crusade.

"The American embargo with respect to Cuba has accomplished nothing -- in 50 years -- except to make the United States look silly."

Do you think Castro and his supporters, both domestic and foreign, want the US to stop looking silly? Unless you believe that Castro is really a US friend, why would he promote lifting the embargo if it does nothing but harm the US?

Your whole argument is a strawman.

Careful there, einhverfr, those US sugar manufacturers might just have you whacked, if you and Fidel start messing around with their territory!

ein,

Yeah, Castro's economy is a mess, but I believe you might find that the historical roots for the embargo have at least some branches leading into the US sugar industry, which we've protected for many years in this country. If we were to suddenly accept Cuban imports, presumably those would or would eventually include sugar, putting some politicians at risk of targeted campaign "assasination".

It's not as simple as it seems, there are other forces at work here, as I implied in another segment of the discussion above.

Getting paid more for exports means you're selling less of them, as should be intuitively obvious.

So if I sell 50 barrels of wheat at $1 a barrel, that's better for me that selling 40 barrels of wheat at $1.25? This way I have 10 barrels left over to sell to someone else or use myself. Getting paid more for my exports is in my interest. Nobody in their right mind tries to cheapen their own assets.

Additionally intuitively obvious is that these particular Chicom money practices (illegitimately?) promote foreign capital investment in China, which might otherwise be made in other countries. The capital buys more in China dontchayaknow, because of those exchange rates. That's how totalitarians do it. That's how Castro's been doing it forever, and is likely gonna continue to do it, soon on the US taxpayers' dime as it seems some prefer.

So, they are selling us their factories (or a stake in their factories, whatever) for less then they are really worth. Sure, that distorts capital investment towards China but it also lets us buy their country at bargain prices.

A. Zarkov:

Would you be OK with lifting all restrictions on tourists importing duty-free things from Cuba and travelling there, but leaving the rest of the embargo in place?

Oren:
So if I sell 50 barrels of wheat at $1 a barrel, that's better for me that selling 40 barrels of wheat at $1.25? This way I have 10 barrels left over to sell to someone else or use myself. Getting paid more for my exports is in my interest. Nobody in their right mind tries to cheapen their own assets.

Except that this is caused by a manipulated currency exchange, and while the micro view is that your one wheat guy might break even either way, the macro resultant is that total volume of US exports to China will fall, and the total volumes of trade will be imbalanced, as we've experienced. That gets us into the cycle we've been in... sending mucho dollars over there, which we then borrow back, increasing the national debt. Not a good cycle.

You'd likely point out that these are uniquely soluble issues, and you'd be right. But, as we've engaged in robust discussions with other nations over currency exchange, killing multiple birds with that stone, it would seem that we could do likewise with the Chicoms. We haven't been able to do so, unfortunately.

So, they are selling us their factories (or a stake in their factories, whatever) for less then they are really worth. Sure, that distorts capital investment towards China but it also lets us buy their country at bargain prices.

Maybe you are, but I'm not buying a dang thing... some multinational company is. I'm just commenting on the multinationals making capital investment decisions which are influenced by manipulated exchange rates, which if absent, might lead those multinationals to invest elsewhere, perhaps down the street from me, which I dang well favor.

This is just being neighborly, and I can't understand why the Chicoms don't act a bit more neighborly. They do appear to be moving their currency reserves into something besides dollars, so maybe they are about to help us with our debt issues, albeit out of fear of hyperinflation, or defacto default.

Oren:

I think you miss the problems with manipulated currency exchanges. As I say, I have colleagues who have personal experience with this sort of problem in Venezuela, though in that case the opposite problem (overvalued rather than undervalued).

If the currency is officially overvalued, then this makes it very difficult to export services, makes it easy to import goods, but if you can buy the currency on the free market, you can export/re-import your same goods and services and a profit. This effectively drives out of business the exporters, and as a result Venezuela really has no mid-size businesses left!

If the currency is undervalued you get the opposite problem. You can easily export but imports become a problem. On the positive side, it encourages multi-national corporations to build factories in China, and it encourages export-oriented businesses, but it traps the population into buying Chinese goods even if they are unsafe (milk products for example, or dogfood, childrens' toys, etc). This creates a captive market.

BTW, one big issue that is occurring in China at the moment is rising corruption. While even the Chinese I have met who didn't agree with Communism said that Mao was largely above taking bribes and did not believe that he should have special treatment, the current country pretty much runs on bribes. If trends continue, I wouldn't be surprised to see China end up on the top 10 list of most corrupt countries within a few years.

A Zarkov:

That's not the impression of Mao one get from reading the book Mao: The Unknown Story. As the emperor, Mao didn't need to take bribes. During his rise to power, he would do anything. Like Castro, Mao was a thug.

Sure, but a thug who wasn't terribly corrupt. Iirc, Mao sent his son into battle as a soldier (not officer) in Korea.

Mao was a dictator whose brutality put Hitler to shame. But he was still above taking bribes or accepting special favors.

"Mao was a dictator whose brutality put Hitler to shame. But he was still above taking bribes or accepting special favors."

Human beings will strive to accumulate wealth and power, no matter what economic or political system they are under. When Lord Acton said "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely" more than 130 years ago, he didn't have a particular system in mind, just human nature.

One of the big differences between the major forms of government is simply about how these human aggressions are channeled.

In the old Soviet Union (just as in China under Mao as AZ notes above), the Politburo didn't make a whole lot more "money" than the worker. Money was irrelevant, political power was the medium of exchange. If you were in favor, you got to spend your money in state stores with stocked shelves while the average Soviet worker lined up in hours long queues to fight over the last potato in a store full of empty shelves. The party members got nicer apartments, state cars, the ability to travel outside the country, and the elite even got tailor made suits and summer dachas on the Caspian, free of "monetary" cost. I'll bet Castro hasn't had to "pay" for anything since at least 1960, likely doesn't even get a salary, but lives far beyond the means of any of his subjects.

The capitalist system recoqnizes that human self-interest is a given and attempts to incentivize it without government direction, in a way that benefits the society even as the individual becomes wealthy. You want to have lots of money in America, then satisfy consumer demand - a win, win. It even has the advantage of decentralizing power. But when the incentives shift to gaining wealth and power by bribery, corruption, vote-buying, sophistry and demagoguery, all that human effort is channeled into non-productive activity instead.

As government here has grown out of control, the incentives have shifted - power and wealth can be more readily obtained by using government than actually doing anything productive. Thus, the influx of money into the political system has gone wild, despite McCain-Feingold, and who has benefitted most from that? The so-called "socialists" and even big-government "conservatives", most of whom go into public service with modest means and leave in luxury.

At the 1972 Democratic convention, 70% of the delegates got all or most of their income via government, directly or indirectly. It's got to be much worse now, and the Republicans probably aren't a whole lot better.

Economics 101.

It ain't going to change until the power and scope of government goes way down. And that's not going to happen until it gets a lot worse first.

Captive market? We don't have to buy cheap crap from China, we chose to because those goods satisfy our wants.