[lbo-talk] Obama gains on "electability"

[Peter Hart Ward]

I think there is ample reason to be skeptical that this is the case.  
In Italy, e.g., one can find motorways that literally lead to nowhere  
and hospitals that stand empty. Pork-barrel spending is seems to be  
the nature of the beast not an eccentricity only found in the US.  I  
think the solution to this problem, along with all others, is more  
democracy. In this case, that we do not have control over where money  
is spent. In this respect, if anything, the situation is worse in  
Europe (in the Euro Zone, i.e.) where economic decision-making is  
consigned to the European Parliament. I will admit that in certain  
particulars Europe tends to be better as in healthcare and public  
transportation (where it's actually needed) but I think that certain  
respects it may be worse--state subsidization of companies like Air  
France and legal action preventing competition such as the refusal of  
Ryanair flights to Strasbourg, among many other things.

What we have are different shades of the same hue not different hues.

Peter

On Apr 17, 2008, at 9:37 AM, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:


> Unlike
> postawar Europe, where tax dollars deliver, for the
> most part, public goods that benefit almost everyone,
> the US spends most of its tax dollars on projects that
> benefit special interests first, and only incidentally
> the general public.