A: You can be sure the extent of your genius has definitely made an impression on me. Or, is it arrogance, I dunno, could be, do you think?

From the The Vegetarian Resource Group (VRG) website: "All the available evidence indicates that the natural human diet is omnivorous and would include meat. We are not, however, required to consume animal protein. We have a choice."

www.vrg.org/nutshell/omni.htm

As one ignorant of the issues, what ever they are, I am sure we will be told what is best for us, what we need, what we should like and the way it ought to be. I defer to the magnificent geniuses that know best for each of us and have all the right feelings but can't be bothered with science or facts.

I am a bit confused as to which issue is of concern.

Is it

1 Pollution from feed lots, i.e., meat production?
2 Killing animals?
3 Eating meat?
4 Too little regulation?
5 Globalization?
6 Capitalism?
7 International trade?
8 Free trade?
9 Controlling economies?
10 The unintended consequences of replacing market dynamics with the intelligence of a few appointed bureaucrats?

Seems to me this is a lot of BS.

@laotou: Dude, it is amazing how you morph most threads into misinformed slams of the US. You should contact Adrian Cahill.

The very real issues with China's infrastructure development of rail abound as you point out. Another area is road building. In the north it seems beautiful highways last three four years then undergo huge rebuilding due to cost cutting construction methods that are associated with the graft and corruption you so well depict. In the south, the investors in road projects are not enjoying returns and have replaced the government in financing until the government backstops the banks by socializing the losses.

Most infrastructure projects are initiated, financed and built based unrealistic calculations of future revenues and benefits. As a result, governments, of all ideologies, pick up the tab and socialize the costs. To me that is pretty fair as there are incalculable benefits to society. But as you point out, the huge personal fortunes amassed due to graft and corruption are also derived from the ease that socialization provides.

One of the underlying justifications for unrealistic, and eventually unrealized, benefits of infrastructure projects is the "Build it and they will come" philosophy. In California, there is little evidence that building a huge high speed rail line at taxpayer expense will ever attract sufficient riders. There exist in California, roads, trains and air alternatives, with the rail segment operating at losses and subsidized by society, which give choices to the traveler. Note, high speed rail is a traveler thing. The cost of rail beds and rolling stock for freight capable high speed rail is in the order of magnitudes high than passenger travel.

As to the lack of US technology canard, the US is quite capable of obtaining German technology, and actually paying for it, if the need be.