The United States is in need of reindustrialization

Good that Pro is back at it. Pro grants that capital must be taken out of the private sector in order for the government to spend it on reindustrialization. So the question is whether private investors make better investment decisions than government. Pro claims "You have no proof to back this unfounded claim. You simply cannot prove that the people are more adept at making investment decisions than the government." In Round 1 I argued that if it were true that government were better at making investment decisions than free markets, then the Soviet Union would have been an economic success. It was not. In addition, one may compare North Korea to South Korea, East Germany to West Germany, India under socialism to India under capitalism, Taiwan and Hong Kong to socialist China, and China under Mao's central planning to China with today's dose of free markets. All provide clear examples of the greater efficiency of free markets. The burden of proof is upon Pro show where government investment was superior to free markets. I know of no examples. References [2] and [3] that I cited in Round 2 provide expert opinion that free markets make better investment decisions. Friedman cited free markets as necessary to compete in global economy. Rothbard provided the reasons why government is inherently less efficient. Reference [4] established that even in Japan, where cooperation between industry and government has traditionally been strong, government reindustrialization failed. Government cannot sense international market trends and it cannot adequately reflect regional strengths and weaknesses. Pro has provided no contrary expert opinion or rebuttal analysis and gives no examples of reindustrialization being accomplished successfully. The North Carolina example [1] shows the natural realignment of an economy without a reindustrialization policy. Pro argues that the private sector has been making most of the investment decisions. That is true, and it has been very successful, especially in comparison to all nations where the government makes the bulk of investment decisions. The reason why Pro is wrong in asserting that this constitutes "a government run by the rich" is that (a) all the power of law lies in an independently elected government, and (b) the rich compete with each other to bring better goods and services to consumers. The rich are rich because they know how to be efficient. Pro must cite examples of countries where government makes most of the investment decisions, and those countries are both free and wealthy. There are none. Pro argues that the ethanol debacle was a result of government making an honest, but incredibly bad, investment decision. If it was only a bad investment decision why are they persisting with a bad decision? It doesn't take much savvy to know that good money should not be thrown after bad. There are still votes in corn-growing states, however. Suppose Pro is correct, however. Then what we have is an extremely incompetent investment decision made by people who insist on wasting more money on the bad decision. That is what Rothbard [3] revealed to be the nature of government investment decisions. Pro asserts, "Our government does not have a sector known as 'political considerations'. M[y] opponent makes a brash accusation that the money taken from the private sector (taxes and the like) is solely squandered by whimsical politicians." We may not have a sector named "political considerations," but there is no doubt that we have political considerations, and moreover that political considerations usually take precedence over investment considerations. For example, California is teetering on collapse while prison guards salaries average $72K and retire at full salary, often over $100K, after 30 years. http://www.signonsandiego.com... State employee unions pour vast sums into the campaigns of the majority Party. It's no secret that the Congress runs on politics. If it prioritized investment savvy, we'd have chronic surpluses. Pro grants that we have not used coal, oil shale, and drilling to remedy the largest strategic industrial need the country has. Pro suggests that doing so could be part of a reindustrialization policy. Reindustrialization is about reallocating capital, however, and there would be no problem raising capital to achieve energy independence if government simply allowed it to happen. Government is the obstacle. That's symptomatic of why government-funded reindustrialization cannot work. The government does not make rational investment decisions, it makes political decisions. (Note that burning our own carbon does not create any more CO2 than burning someone else's carbon.) Changing educational policy does not meet Pro's own definition of reindustrialization "through government aid to revitalize and modernize aging industries and encourage growth of new ones." No government aid is needed to put more emphasis on scientific, engineering, and vocational training. It's a good idea, but it mainly requires a policy change, not inefficient reallocation of private capital. Government should play a major role in the long term revitalization of the economy. It should allow imported carbon fuels to be replaced with domestic carbon fuels. It can make a better climate for private investment through lower taxes, and it can change education policy to support science and technological enterprise. It could kill all the lawyers ... uh, scratch that one ... for now. But it should not enact a policy of taking private capital and investing it in the name of "reindustrialization." The resolution is negated.