>>>And so the big thing which proved capitalism was better was that it could spend more money on weapons. I'm not really convinced anymore.
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>>Can you explain what you mean? I don't follow....
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>In analogy to a game of poker, capitalism didn't prove to be a better player, only that it could throw away more money and stay on its feet. It sounds like it gave up most of its major trump cards - individualism, free enterprise, better life for most of the people, and played the "we'll arm-race you to exhaustion" card.
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>At what price? The unimaginably huge pile of cash (on both sides) was wasted on arms. And what's the result? Most of the people in the countries in transition are worse off than they were before, and most of the safety nets were dismantled with the old system. And the capitalism has lost competition, so it doesn't feel the urge to play nice with its people. Just watch where this goes. I'm not sure I like the direction toward all-power-to-huge-corporations.

Well I guess I can see your point, but I don't think it all that bad. Yeah this is not a perfect world and certainly not a perfect country (USA), but its the one country that I know that the rest of the world depends on when thing get tough. For example, how much money did US contribute to the tsunami relief? - over 35 mil. How much did France contribute? - about 400K. Heck, there is an American individual (I forget his name) that contributed over 200K on his own.

I think in the transitional countries they don't know what it takes to be free. It take sacrfice and years/decades of nurturing. Freedom and individual pursuit of happiness come at a cost. Lucky for us here in the US, a lot of people already did most of that work and sacrifice for us. We just have to do our best to keep it going.

Oh well, I'll get off my soap box.

God bless us all in 2005....

Happy New Year.....