Vitaliy wrote:

>> 1. The government is charged by the public to maintain and improve the
>> economy of the country.
> 
> As Cedric has pointed out, it's not the government's job to maintain and
> improve the economy. Not in a capitalist country, anyway. 

I think what Adam might have meant with "maintain and improve" is "set the
rules for it to work and prosper". A capitalist country needs a lot of
rules to work; capitalism is not anarchy.

> The real solution to "soften the blow" and protect the workers, is to
> give them an education. In reality, it is many times cheaper to give
> every one of the steel workers free college education, than to keep them
> employed in the steel mill.

It's funny how this both applies to many similar (and at first sight not so
similar) situations, and at the same time seems to be so difficult to
implement. 

(One of the "at first sight not so similar situations" I'm thinking of is
the War on Drugs. It seems to be vastly cheaper to provide the addicts with
proper care in a world where drugs are commercially available than to
maintain this war.)

> Trade is not a zero-sum game. Everybody who plays the game, wins. You sow 
> millions of dollars into another country's economy, and that country turns 
> around and sows millions into yours. 

It's funny how the "dependency on foreign countries" argument rarely is
taken up by the powers when it comes to increasing the public debt (which
is provided in part by foreign countries :)

Gerhard

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