Elizabeth Warren: Hey, We Need To Convert Our Economy To One More Like China's

Her suggestion is that the federal government spend an additional trillion per year on infrastructure. She does not say how she'd pay for this, and in fact all of her previous claimed agenda items relegate this newest item into the realm of the impossible -- she's already proposed a huge tax increase, but with new government mad-money dedicated to deficit reduction.

What happens when a Leviathan state has all the free money it could want? Well, let's look at China, the country Warren wants to emulate.

One of the more interesting searches you can conduct on Google is "ghost cities of China. Here, for example. Or here.

China's ghost cities are unlike any that have ever existed. The typical ghost city was once populated, but then abandoned, for one reason or another. China's ghost cities were never inhabited at all. China is building entire cities, capable of housing a million people or so each, with no one actually planning on living in them.

They're built empty, and they stay empty.

This is what happens when a state has all the money it could want and unlimited power to order economic activity to its liking, and can therefore do things that no one actually wants them to do. They are free to act upon bureaucratic dreams and civil servant caprice.

Below, a documentary on the Ghost Cities, and a famous Onion debate over the merits of similar policies.

posted by Ace at 02:26 PM

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