US Financial Crisis/Bailout, China's Role

crobato · Dec 8, 2008

FugitiveVisions said:
I tend to believe that if given the chance, schools that exist for the sole purpose of profit would pop all over the place just like how there are numerous SAT classes offered by private instructors everywhere. Obviously, there are bigger operating requirements for a school than a class for one subject, but again, if the gov't helps poor families by sending them vouchers, the demand for such classes would be there. There is no doubt in my mind about that.

Do you have any idea how much those SAT classes cost?

Again, if the government used vouchers, it would cost a much greater deficit than what you already have, due to the costing of private schools.

I'm sorry but real experience shows that no one sets up elementary and secondary private schools for the mere sakes of profit. Simply because there is no market.

Aren't we comparing apples to oranges? You said it yourself that their two are offering different services.

And I continue to fail to see how a five billion dollar subsidy would make that much of a difference in terms of shipping costs for a 13 trillion dollar economy.

You failed to realize that USPS still made a gross revenue of 75 billion dollars. Imagine that in terms of letters and packages.

I kind of slipped in my argument. Let me rephrase my argument this way. How the heck do we know that the five billion dollar loss is a product of pricing rather than other inefficiencies aka your government bureaucrat sitting on an office somewhat making a comfortable salary on your tax dollars.

Or maybe because this loss is due to a small fee (.37 cents rising to .41 cents) at a time when oil prices were flunctuating. USPS is a service that is heavily based on aviation, and when US passenger airlines are losing money, expect USPS to do so also. Another thing, USPS is strictly dependent on the US economy.

UPS is NOT strictly US only. Its worldwide. Its diversified. Its got services in India, China, and Russia. Not only does it charge a lot, it charges a lot more when you ship overseas. Its not uncommon to pay $100 or $200 to ship a box via UPS like Tokyo to Beijing. A lot of its revenue comes from overseas.

As we saw with the UPS profits, UPS actually achieved profits on a much smaller revenue base, even with the existence of competition.

See comment above. UPS works worldwide. You don't know how much money it makes in Japan and China do you?

This leads me to suspect that USPS would have at least broke even if there had not been so many billions spent on dead weight loss. And more importantly for this debate, this leads me to believe that cutting those five billion dollars of fat would not raise your shipping price by one penny.

I'm sorry but few people in eBay and Amazon would ship by UPS because of the sheer cost it requires.

I'm not going to ship a 5 dollar item with a shipment cost of 10 dollars.

You continued to ignore the fact that a very successful mail order industry was built around USPS fees. It just dawns on me why you continued to comment on this when you apparently never used eBay or Amazon before. It is simply impossible for this companies to work without USPS. They only leave the expensive stuff to UPS.

Really if you think UPS is so good why don't you put your mouth on it and order your college text books online and ship it with UPS.

If everybody said the same, Pepsi would never have been in business because there was already Coke. Lenovo would have never been in business because there was already HP and Dell. I could go on.

Pepsi isn't technologically intensive.

Problem with your "free market economics", and you should fire your teacher. it rams head on against a true, observable law and phenomenon of economics, which is about economies of scale. That's why its impossible to replace GM, Ford, Chrysler, once they're gone, they're gone. No startup can ever have the economies of scale to compete against those who already have the scales. Having economies of scale means getting more capital, when you have more capital you have more technological development, which leads to advanced products that further increase your economies of scale. And so on in a reinforcing cycle. It works with Toyota and Intel. This cycle is further reinforced by third party support, where third parties produce products to complement the high volume product, enhancing its value even further, which in turn, reinforces the scale cycle. As the products become more and more advanced, the cost to develop them costs higher and higher, eventually the smaller competitors that cannot afford the continued development falls by the wayside, only to be eaten by the larger companies.

The eventual evolution of this is a state of oligopoly or monopoly. The result is continued consolidation. Already happened in the computer industry, where for example, graphics chipsets are now left with only two competitors when there were quite a bunch before. That's ATI and nVidia. Happening in the car industry, where smaller companies like Saab and Volvo are bought out by bigger companies, and forced to share platforms with the larger company. Nowadays, to develop a major car platform takes billions, and costs as much as to develop a weapons system for the Pentagon. You already saw this with aviation, where companies making fighters have practically died out in the US, leaving Boeing (who will be next to leave the business) and a virtual monopoly by Lockheed Martin.

I was specifically talking about localized services, and I even mentioned that in the post.

Golly, for localized services, you can have a boy with bike like the way they delivered newspapers in the old days. No one is stopping you there.

But a national service is simply capital and scale intensive so large the scale itself is a barrier for entry.

Well you might want to look it up because USPS was certainly a government monopoly that the government propped up through anti-competitive laws. In other words, no one was allowed as mail carriers even if they offered consumers lower prices for their service.

That's completely BS. The government made USPS for the reason no one wants to produce this service because it can be inherently unprofitable. Ditto with low income schooling.

Well I'm not advocating that the Palins and the Pelosis ought to regulate the market either. Don't misunderstand me. This has nothing to do with what I think is the better form of government to central-plan an economy. The issue I have a problem with is the notion that bureaucrats understand better and can operate more efficiently the private enterprise than the private enterprise themselves can. Don't forget that Goldman Sachs employees some of the best economists in the world. I fail to see how Hujintao would be better at managing GS than the people at GS.

The fact is that HJT is managing an economy far better than a GS employee. There are economies where faceless bureaucrats are managing them and are doing far better than in the US, like in Singapore, Taiwan, Korea and Japan.

FugitiveVisions · Dec 8, 2008

crobato said:
That's completely BS. The government made USPS for the reason no one wants to produce this service because it can be inherently unprofitable. Ditto with low income schooling.

subsidized mail monopoly, The

Taxpayers Fund Inefficient Money-Loser

The U.S. Postal Service has raised its rates twice this year and is already talking about raising rates again next year. It has also made noises about eliminating Saturday mail deliveries. But the big problem with the Postal Service is not any of these particular policies. The big problem is that it is a monopoly and that the government keeps it a monopoly by law.

Why were people alarmed about the threatened elimination of Saturday mail deliveries? Would we panic if some supermarket said that it would close on Saturdays? No-because we would just shop at some other supermarket. The Postal Service's problems are more serious because nobody else is allowed to deliver mail.

Nobody else is even allowed to put anything in your mailbox. Even though you bought the mailbox yourself, it is treated as if it is the property of the Postal Service. Moreover, the Postal Service can impose its own rules on possible rivals, such as Mailboxes, Etc.

This is a monopoly plus.

Other Nations Begin To Privatize Service

The other side of the coin is that the Postal Service gets its monopoly and its various privileges-including exemption from taxes, zoning laws, and vehicle license requirement&-at the cost of being subservient to Congress.

By its own admission, the Postal Service has 26,000 post offices that are not making money. But closing them would-bring on congressional wrath. So would any attempt to seriously downsize its huge work force.

The net result is that the Postal Service is not only a rare privileged monopoly, it is an even rarer money-losing monopoly, due to such politically imposed inefficiencies. That is what is behind the constant rate increases and the threats to cut back service.

Although people who send first-class mail were exempted from the most recent rate increase, they are likely to be targets for the next one.

But people who send first-class mail are not only already paying their own way, they are over-paying and subsidizing junk mail and other things that are not pulling their own weight economically.

People in a number of other countries have begun waking up to the fact that a government monopoly of mail deliveries is bad news for the public, both as people who send and receive mail and as people who pay the taxes to subsidize a losing operation.

New Zealand has allowed its postal service to close more than a third of its post offices and has started the process of privatization. Sweden, Finland, Australia and the Netherlands have also started the process of privatization.

By contrast, the U.S. Postal Service is not only keeping its subsidized monopoly, it is seeking to use its privileges to expand into other businesses. It has already been selling T-shirts, mugs, and other miscellaneous items, and making money from copiers in post offices.

What is wrong with that?

What is wrong is that private businesses provide all these same goods and services-and these businesses are subject to all the taxes, zoning laws, vehicle licensing fees and other legal requirements from which the Postal Service is exempt.

Unfair Privileges For Postal Service

Nor can private businesses borrow money on the basis of the government's credit, rather than their own earning power, as the Postal Service can. This is not simply unfair, it is uneconomic.

When the post office's copier takes business away from a local copy shop, it also takes taxes away from the local government. More important, the economy's resources do not flow to the most efficient user but to the operation with the most privileges.

One of the bases for the Postal Service's claims for its privileges is that it is bound by law to deliver mail everywhere in the country for the same price.

That means that the guy who lives miles out in the middle of nowhere gets his mail deliveries subsidized by people who are mailing letters from New York to Chicago, which costs less than the price of a firstclass stamp.

But that is trying to justify one privilege by another. Why should someone who lives in isolation have someone else pay the costs created by his isolation?

If the isolation is worth it, then let the person who benefits pay for it. That goes not only for the cost of delivering the mail, but also for the cost of delivering electricity, water and other things that cost more to deliver to someone living out in a desert or up on a mountain top.

Monopoly means inefficiency, and a money-losing monopoly means even more inefficiency. Make it a business like any other business and let others compete with it.

BY THOMAS SOWELL

Dr. Sowell, an economist and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of Race and Culture.

The notion that nobody is willing to deliver mail or provide schooling in exchange for a fair profit is BS. There is nothing inherently loss making about these two activities. For you to say that there are no one out there who are willing to do it so we ought to ban is flat out BS because there have already been court cases where the entrepreneur has taken to the gov't to the court over its monopoly. I'm tired of arguing about facts.

dlhh · Dec 8, 2008

To PLA, Engineer & all the others:

Why don't we point this arguments to a different direction.

What can happen if China were to have a free press to report economic crimes, corruption, etc and independent judicary to try these criminals including government officials?

crobato · Dec 8, 2008

FugitiveVisions said:
subsidized mail monopoly, The

A subsidized mail monopoly that works to the betterment of the economy. How many businesses send their checks and goods through USPS instead of paying through the noose for UPS?

The notion that nobody is willing to deliver mail or provide schooling in exchange for a fair profit is BS. There is nothing inherently loss making about these two activities. For you to say that there are no one out there who are willing to do it so we ought to ban is flat out BS because there have already been court cases where the entrepreneur has taken to the gov't to the court over its monopoly. I'm tired of arguing about facts.

It is inherently loss making. You honestly think that setting up private schools and postal offices in small towns, military bases and downtrodden neighborhoods profitable? Once again, economies of scale. Period. UPS isn't going to set up a shop inside a village. USPS will and that's because they have a mission to serve the public first and foremost in their minds. Ditto with schools.

I will tell you the real reason why the entrepreneur is taking the government to court and that's because you got a society out to make a buck out of every possible lawsuit angle you can imagine. I hardly think that this entrepreneur would actually last, and its very questionable that the bank would even lend him the money. Before you can even get to borrow the money, you need to present a viable business study and model and present that to the bank before you can convince them to loan you the money.

The pundits always talking and mouthing about free markets and enterprise are often the people who have never tried that experience---running a company---first hand.

AssassinsMace · Dec 9, 2008

Obama to Borrow China’s Wealth, Clout in Effort to Steady World

By Indira A.R. Lakshmanan

Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Thirty years ago this month, President Jimmy Carter held secret negotiations to establish formal diplomatic ties with a poor, insular communist China. President-elect Barack Obama will inherit a relationship with a China whose wealth and influence are essential to rescuing the world economy.

Resolving almost any international problem now -- from reducing North Korea’s potential nuclear threat to slowing global warming -- requires Beijing’s cooperation. The financial crisis also underscores China’s importance: Its $1.9 trillion in foreign reserves will be indispensable in helping to avert a global economic meltdown.

While this means China will likely get immediate attention from Obama, the new president probably won’t reorient U.S. policy toward the world’s fourth-largest economy.

Factory closures and job losses in Michigan and China’s Guangdong province “vividly remind us how interdependent our countries are now,” says Susan Shirk, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for China who has advised both Obama and Hillary Clinton his choice for secretary of state. “Although this could lead to conflict and friction, it also gives the U.S. a strong incentive to cooperate with China.”

Every president since Carter has come to office lambasting Beijing about espionage, unfair trade practices, violations of human rights and threats to Taiwan -- before being compelled to work with the Chinese government on common interests.

Less Confrontation

Obama may be the first to start out less confrontationally. During George W. Bush’s presidency, the two countries have forged unprecedented lines of communication, forming working groups on Africa and Latin America and holding economic summits like one last week with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

The current administration “has handled the U.S.-China relationship perhaps better than any bilateral relationship of the last seven years,” says Ken Lieberthal, a former national security adviser on Asia under President Bill Clinton who advised Hillary Clinton, 61, and then Obama, 47, during the presidential campaign.

Even so, “mutual distrust about both sides’ intentions has grown,” says Lieberthal, 65, a visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Thwart Growth

On a recent trip to Beijing, he says he discovered that many Chinese -- officials and ordinary citizens -- believe the U.S. purposely triggered a global financial crisis to thwart China’s growth. Likewise, many Americans assume a stronger China would marginalize the U.S.

“Each side hedges against what they fear the other might try to do,” Lieberthal says.

As economic conditions worsen, both countries are under pressure at home to protect their domestic markets. Obama spoke out during the campaign against what he called unfair trade practices and currency manipulation, which has left Chinese policy makers nervous about his intentions. China, meanwhile, is shielding its own economy by slowing the appreciation of the yuan against the U.S. dollar and giving Chinese exporters a larger tax rebate.

With the U.S. now officially in a recession, China holds more cards than it did even a few months ago. Washington is more reliant on Beijing -- the largest holder of U.S. Treasuries -- to buy more government securities to finance deficit spending. China’s massive trade surplus has enabled it to accumulate more foreign-currency reserves than any other nation, according to Bloomberg data.

‘A Lot of Cash’

“It’s one of the few players in the world, besides the Saudis, who is sitting on a lot of cash and can help save the international financial system,” says Victor Shih, author of “Factions and Finance in China.”

Some fear America’s reliance on China’s money means the White House will bite its tongue when the country acts against U.S. interests or values.

“If there were not a global recession and crisis, I would expect the Obama administration to take a stronger stand on Tibet and human rights,” says Shih, a professor at Northwestern University near Chicago.

The upside of interdependence is that the two nations should be less likely now to take punitive measures against each other, says Nicholas Lardy, an economist who specializes in China at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

No Incentive

There’s no incentive for China to stop buying U.S. securities; it needs a safe investment for dollar reserves, and its growth depends on the health of the U.S. economy. Congress also may hesitate before demanding trade barriers against a country that’s the main source of cheap goods for budget- conscious consumers.

The Communist Party’s legitimacy rests on its ability to deliver rising standards of living, without which the government’s grip on power becomes tenuous, China watchers say. So the country’s leaders have reason to worry about an economic slowdown that is pushing growth below the estimated 8 percent a year economists say is needed to create enough jobs for its citizens. Authorities are also anxious about rising discontent and daily protests over corruption, unemployment, housing and tainted food.

Obama should have a contingency plan for “what we would do if there’s a major collapse of the political order,” says Roderick MacFarquhar, a China scholar at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

China-Savvy Advisers

The president-elect will be able to turn for help to the China-savvy individuals he has brought into his circle. Timothy Geithner, 47, Obama’s choice for Treasury secretary, studied Chinese and has lived in China. His transition team includes Jeffrey Bader, a China specialist with a 27-year career in government that spans trade and national security.

Among the possible candidates for ambassador are John L. Thornton, a former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia who has been a professor in Beijing; Richard Holbrooke, 67, who dealt with China as Clinton’s United Nations ambassador; and Shirk, 63, a visiting fellow at the Asia Society in New York.

Lieberthal expects Obama’s administration will engage Beijing in what he describes as “critical transnational issues of the 21st century.”

Interdependence will work to both countries’ advantage, Shirk says, “if it motivates us to do our best to cooperate rather than taking potshots.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Indira Lakshmanan at in Washington or [email protected]

Last Updated: December 8, 2008 18:25 EST

Isn't a good portion of China's reserves already invested in US Treasuries? So how would that work since China would have to cash out in order to reinvest it for this bailout?

crobato · Dec 9, 2008

No, only a part of the reserves are in US Treasuries, the ones you plan to keep on the long term. You cannot put all your reserves into the economy without creating a massive inflation balloon. You transmit the liquid part of your reserves to the economy bit by bit and try to use your own internally generated funds as possible. You "liquidate" your Treasury holdings by letting them mature in due course or sell them to someone else, and refrain from buying new ones.

There isn't enough cash in China or the Saudis combined to save the financial black hole the US and the G7 dug themselves into.

Any money China gives out to the US only ends up in China again via sales of Chinese products or US companies and private investors investing in China. Look at Peter Schiff's portfolio. Ironically, by next year, expect China's forex reserves to continue to swell despite the global economic crisis because investors are the ones viewing China as the safe haven, including US investors.

FugitiveVisions · Dec 9, 2008

crobato said:
A subsidized mail monopoly that works to the betterment of the economy. How many businesses send their checks and goods through USPS instead of paying through the noose for UPS?

It is inherently loss making. You honestly think that setting up private schools and postal offices in small towns, military bases and downtrodden neighborhoods profitable? Once again, economies of scale. Period. UPS isn't going to set up a shop inside a village. USPS will and that's because they have a mission to serve the public first and foremost in their minds. Ditto with schools.

I will tell you the real reason why the entrepreneur is taking the government to court and that's because you got a society out to make a buck out of every possible lawsuit angle you can imagine. I hardly think that this entrepreneur would actually last, and its very questionable that the bank would even lend him the money. Before you can even get to borrow the money, you need to present a viable business study and model and present that to the bank before you can convince them to loan you the money.

The pundits always talking and mouthing about free markets and enterprise are often the people who have never tried that experience---running a company---first hand.

Just found out that the facts you have presented are misleading. First of all, UPS is banned from engaging in direct competition with USPS.

wiki said:
the United States Postal Service is an example of a coercive monopoly created through laws that ban potential competitors such as UPS or FedEx from offering competing services (in this case, first-class and standard (formerly called "third-class") mail delivery).

Not only does this fact dispute your notion that UPS comes at much higher cost, since they aren't even offering the same service, it also proves that your claim that there are no government restrictions on market entrance to be nothing but baloney.

When you compared the cost of an UPS delivery to that of an USPS delivery, you were in fact trying to mislead by trying to compare apples to oranges. Hard to argue with the facts.

Your last sentence makes no sense either. As far as I am aware, the vast majority of private entrepreneurs absolutely hate government intervention. You make it sound like business owners love to have the government interfering with their business.

crobato · Dec 9, 2008

FugitiveVisions said:
Just found out that the facts you have presented are misleading. First of all, UPS is banned from engaging in direct competition with USPS.

Who told you that? They are already in direct competition when it comes to packages.

Not only does this fact dispute your notion that UPS comes at much higher cost, since they aren't even offering the same service, it also proves that your claim that there are no government restrictions on market entrance to be nothing but baloney.

Both are delivering packages already door to door. The fact that UPS exists shows there is no government restrictions in their entry. The real barrier of restriction is scale.

For example, cannot have another CPU competitor to Intel.

When you compared the cost of an UPS delivery to that of an USPS delivery, you were in fact trying to mislead by trying to compare apples to oranges. Hard to argue with the facts.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

The Postal Service was the least expensive by far for local and long-distance deliveries. For letter-size envelopes, such as the ones it gave us for sending the books, it charges a flat rate of $16.50. (Flat rates for slower delivery are lower.) The other shippers base prices on weight and distance traveled. UPS charged $62.87 to send our book next-day to Oregon and $29.55 to Manhattan. FedEx charged $54.57 and $27.48, respectively.

...Asked how the Postal Service, an independent part of the U.S. government’s executive branch, can deliver overnight shipping for less, a spokeswoman, Yvonne Yoerger, said: "We have an infrastructure in place and letter carriers everywhere. We’re simply adding package delivery to a network that already exists."

Consumer comments.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Your last sentence makes no sense either. As far as I am aware, the vast majority of private entrepreneurs absolutely hate government intervention. You make it sound like business owners love to have the government interfering with their business.

LOL. Private entrepreneurs love government intervention when it is in their favor.

The fact remains, private entrepreneurs, far and large, isn't going to setup schools and post offices for the purpose of making money in remote villages, bases, camps and small islands, or bad neighborhoods, and that's the general phenomenon around the world. If someone has to do it, by far and large, it has to be the government. You cannot create a new business without a viable business model to present to the bank. A school in Smallville would be a good example of something that can't be a viable business model.

Now that you refer to wiki for USPS as a monopoly, why bother not reading the discussions behind it.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

"So the USPS is a monopoly because FEDEX can't put a letter in a box marked US Mail? Can they sell their own box to put on a pole? "

"Well you can say whatever you like regarding your political beliefs, can't you? A public service with a law enforcement arm is not a monopoly. Period. A service started and sanctioned by a government in a democracy is not a monopoly. "

"Now, with respect to codification of law: something developed for the stability of the common good is not a monopoly. It’s called a public service. Saying the USPS is a monopoly because they won't let anyone else deliver letter-mail to mailboxes is like saying the United States Government is monopolizing democracy because they won't allow insurrectionists to split from the union."

"You don't understand. A traditional monopoly is complete and unquestionable control over an entire industry, not just sections of it – a fact which made the Microsoft cases so controversial. Fedex adjusts to the regular requirement by offering stepped levels of service. In a true monopoly, FedEx wouldn't even exist."

FugitiveVisions · Dec 9, 2008

Did you just decide to not read the wiki thing at all? What part of "coercive monopoly created through laws that ban potential competitors such as UPS or FedEx from offering competing services" don't you understand?

One of the episodes in Milton Friedman's series "Free to Choose" highlighted a woman who was running a successful and profitable local mail delivery service and was told by the government to stop. Businessmen who were fed up with the inefficient gov't system volunteered money to support her case. What part of this fact do you want to dispute?

Arguing that UPS can not provide the same service for comparable prices due to the lack of distribution networks, while in the breathe preach the fact that UPS has a global reach, and at the same time continuing to be blind to the fact that anti-competitive measures such as prohibitive taxes are imposed on UPS services shows, I must say, a level of intellectual dishonesty. It's fun to engage in discussions, but we ought not to purposely overlook relevant information or mislead others on facts just for the sake of 'winning' an argument. I can run faster than the tall dude from China if I tied his feet together in chains, and I bet you can too. Does that mean I win the argument that I'm faster?

Anyway, good discussion, and probably should be returning to topic.

crobato · Dec 9, 2008

FugitiveVisions said:
Did you just decide to not read the wiki thing at all? What part of "coercive monopoly created through laws that ban potential competitors such as UPS or FedEx from offering competing services" don't you understand?

One of the episodes in Milton Friedman's series "Free to Choose" highlighted a woman who was running a successful and profitable local mail delivery service and was told by the government to stop. Businessmen who were fed up with the inefficient gov't system volunteered money to support her case. What part of this fact do you want to dispute?

Arguing that UPS can not provide the same service for comparable prices due to the lack of distribution networks, while in the breathe preach the fact that UPS has a global reach, and at the same time continuing to be blind to the fact that anti-competitive measures such as prohibitive taxes are imposed on UPS services shows, I must say, a level of intellectual dishonesty. It's fun to engage in discussions, but we ought not to purposely overlook relevant information or mislead others on facts just for the sake of 'winning' an argument. I can run faster than the tall dude from China if I tied his feet together in chains, and I bet you can too. Does that mean I win the argument that I'm faster?

Anyway, good discussion, and probably should be returning to topic.

You are watching already something meant to tell a story from one particular side, omitting certain facts and a full rounded presentation from the other side.

The fact is, no one, FedEx, DHL or UPS or any private service, can deliver mail to a post office box marked US Mail or marked by the US Post Office. That's it. That's the so called monopoly. That's like saying only Toyota technicians can work on your Toyota or it will void your warranty. So Toyota has a monopoly on the new Toyota car warranty business? Bad Toyota Bad.

It does not stop these various services from delivering these mail directly to the address to the person in question. It does not stop these services from making their own mailboxes either. There is no monopoly because there is nothing that stops a company from making a business that can deliver mail from one home to another.

Did you just decide to not read the wiki thing at all? What part of "coercive monopoly created through laws that ban potential competitors such as UPS or FedEx from offering competing services" don't you understand?

I did, and you did not bother to read the back of the wiki at all? At the discussions page?

"A public service with a law enforcement arm is not a monopoly. Period. A service started and sanctioned by a government in a democracy is not a monopoly. "

"Now, with respect to codification of law: something developed for the stability of the common good is not a monopoly. It’s called a public service."

Are you going to say the Fire Department is a monopoly? That Police Department is a monopoly against private security agencies? Is the US Army a monopoly for military services and competing unfairly with mercenary groups like Blackwater?

US Financial Crisis/Bailout, China's Role

crobato

Colonel

FugitiveVisions

Junior Member

dlhh

New Member

crobato

Colonel

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General

crobato

Colonel

FugitiveVisions

Junior Member

crobato

Colonel

FugitiveVisions

Junior Member

crobato

Colonel