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https://www.quora.com/How-much-faster-could-the-United-States-develop-infrastructure-wise-if-it-followed-the-Chinese-model/answer/Vince-Dhimos
How much faster could the United States develop infrastructure-wise if it followed the Chinese model? Vince Dhimos, Editor-in-Chief at New Silk Strategies (2016-present) Answered just now No one can say how much faster it would develop but it would develop better. Democracy and economics don’t mix. The Chinese system is geared to get results, not votes. That is the difference in a nutshell. Trump’s efforts are not aimed at developing the economy but only to satisfy voters who, like Trump, have zero understanding of macroeconomics. And without that understanding, no country can survive indefinitely. Example: Trump naively thought he could improve the trade deficit by slapping tariffs on China and most of US trading partners, even friendly ones like Europe. His constituents loved that he was "tough on China." The result? After a year of this ham-handed approach, the trade deficit grew to a record level in 2018! On top of that, US soybean farmers are sliding into bankruptcy because, surprise (!), the Chinese can play this game too, and they stopped buying US beans. Also stopped buying US pork. Trump screwed up US agriculture big time. US tariffs on Russian aluminium (from Rusal) also nearly ruined the US aluminium industry. You see, US politicians know nothing about the industries they mess with. It turns out that US secondary aluminium manufacturers rely on primary aluminium (ingots for the most part), and those who bought this from Russia lost their ability to produce. US Al manufacturers almost went bankrupt until Congress woke up from its opiate sleep and restored US trade with Rusal (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-08/trump-sanction-hammer-tested-as-u-s-retreats-from-rusal-penalty). Trump also supports US shale oil production, but US investors in shale oil are learning that the expensive fracking process used in this oil extraction is too expensive to be profitable and they are paring back their investments. The kind of errors described above occur a lot less in countries like Russia and China because these countries don’t have to worry as much about getting votes and can therefore actually have people with technical knowledge manage the economy. Finally, the biggest business in America is arms manufacture, which is controlled by the myth that more spending makes you more secure. This factor alone accounts for much of the excessive debt that threatens to destroy the US economy. China and Russia spend only what they need to and they spend wisely. The US often spends on boondoggles to repay arms makers for their generous donations to politicians.
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