25 Jul 2014 3:27 pm
I knew what you did before I asked. The thing is you can't add up all of the total sales in an economy and get your GDP. You can only add up final sales. It doesn't matter. If it was 1% or 30%, the Singapore government still owns a company.Cannonpointer » 25 Jul 2014 8:06 am » wrote:
I used their gross product, because I was comparing it to the nation's gross product. But I also used their gross profits in another calculation - and their net profits, when comparison to total government expenditures required it.
I used their own reported figures for their gross product, their gross profits and their net profits. In each case, I picked the one that seemed to represent apple to apples for the particular comparison being made. If I erred, I suspect the error did not cause an over-statement of Temasek's market share - though even if it did, the principle of my argument is not affected by that error.
Italy was a free market with an authoritarian government. The Krauts nationalized everything and it was hardly free market. Hitler combined tariffs with price controls(why interest rates were kept low) that essentially stopped agriculture, and any imported raw material was spent on rearming the country. You're trying to draw a line between the two. The Italians didn't create anything. They were just along for the ride. The Krauts are really smart people thouh. Their innovation had nothing to do with their politics. Great minds like Heisenberg, Planck,and Einstein all laid the groundwork for atomic theory in the 20's before Hitler even came to power.Cannonpointer » 25 Jul 2014 8:06 am » wrote: Thank you for that acknowledgement. Imagine those hacks putting a slave pit above their own country this way - might as well endorse Nazi Germany. After all, National Socialism was such an effective economic model that it turned a bankrupt nation on its knees into a world super-power in a single decade, making it possible for a nation the size of Oregon, with very few natural resources, to hold the entire capitalist world AND the Soviet Union at bay for years.
National Socialism, both in Germany and in Italy, was extremely business friendly, with low taxes, easy credit, low interest rates and very light regulations (you could even murder your workers - a handy option and good for discipline, if not morale). And National Socialism spawned a great many inventions and innovations - including jet planes and the V2 rocket - even made Italy's trains run on time, where free market capitalism had failed miserably. The National Socialists also invented the atom bomb, though we managed to grab their scientists and complete the work before they had it off paper and in production. So clearly, if it's a dynamic business environment and predictable markets you want, along with low taxes, low regulations and ease of doing business, Nazi Germany is better than Singapore, hands down. Heritage would have LOVED them (well, if they were paying them to).