[paraclete]

really ? tell me how all those high tax rates are working out for the European nations .

Well Tom they seem to have more money available to deal with a financial crisis. If you add up all their debt with an equivalent population it is nothing like the spendthrift US who expect the rest of the world to keep on financing the party. You need to deal with the attitude of people rather than the EU. The greeks have been up themselves and have reaped according but the EU has taken in millions of low level economic migrants and responsibility for basket case eastern european nations. I haven't seen the US with it's "high" taxes do that. You winge and complain about a few million hispanics as a drain on your resources. Wouldn't you like to have an entitlement system like France? Or their rail network or their safe nuclear power?

Stop talking out of the side of your mouth

[tomder55]

but the EU has taken in millions of low level economic migrants and responsibility for basket case eastern european nations. I haven't seen the US with it's "high" taxes do that. You winge and complain about a few million hispanics as a drain on your resources. Wouldn't you like to have an entitlement system like France? Or their rail network or their safe nuclear power?

A few million a year you mean...
The French rail system may work for them... it would possibly work for a similar state in the US the size of France if we were dealing with central cities developed by king Louis too.
The truth is that here the mass transit and rail spending by the government has been a colossal waste of money . After years of sqander there is no more percentage of people riding rail than before the special subsidies began.

But you know what France did that is effective ? They built a tunnel system in and around Paris that serves 200,000 autos daily . How is it paid for ? The drivers who use it pay tolls for the privilege of avoiding down town congestion. That's innovation... not 19th century rail technology .

What does high speed rail get you ? Go ask the Chinese commuters . Their relatives never got to give them a proper burial ,the Chinese were so fast to bury the evidence of government run inefficiency.

As for the nukes ,yes I'd like their designs used here . That just tells me our bureaucrats are even dumber than theirs... In both cases you are talking of industries heavily run under the private-public model.

[paraclete]

Tom France has exploited the public-private model very well and you have pointed out how effectively they use their tax dollars even if it is to build toll roads. Nothing wrong with toll roads Tom, go to China and see how effectively they have facilitated nation building. No question of a well paved road there. Do you think that size matters so much it can be used as an excuse, If we thought that where I live we would never have gotten off the beach and that public-private model has been used very effectively to help us do it. Take the blinkers off Tom and realise there is more than one way to do things effectively. As far as rail crashes go Tom unfortunately we all have them and the risk is greater with high speed rail but as France has shown it can be done effectively. Rail isn't 19th century, in fact it is more logical that having millions of pieces of personalised transport requiring never ending maintenance and expansion of a crumbling road system. You have to take the oriential problem of face into account, the Chinese don't like airing their dirty linen, it tends to promote political unrest and protest, this is why they had undue haste to bury the evidence

[tomder55]

Quit making apologies for them .It is an outrage .They buried the evidence because they want to hide the fact they stole the technology.

[paraclete]

quit making apologies for them .It is an outrage .They buried the evidence because they want to hide the fact they stole the technology.

Bah Humbug Tom. If they stole the technology they stole the wrong technology, they couldn't have stolen US technology so why the bleating. If they bought the technology then they got what they paid for. They obviously have some very stupid or very frieghtened people working for them. The Chinese will do anything to avoid federal scrutiny, even bury the evidence. In the US the worst that will happen to you for negligence is prison, in China you are likely to be shot