I hadn't realised that Americans thought that about taxes. That is quite a revelation and sheds new light on some of the articles I've read … and mostly forgotten.

If it's only one thing that puzzles you about the Republicans then you are doing better than most of us!

Amercian politics in my experience, I lived there for nine years, is fixated on tax cuts as being the magic dust which can enable 'anyone' to make it. Taxes, conversely, are seen as the tool the powerful use to thwart those who 'are gonna make it on their own'. Its a simple faith. But a dangerous one for anyone who genuinesy needs help.

Fort us taxes are about help. For most Americans it is about oppression.

As for China. I know what you mean. The worry, for me, has been seeing China and America find a mutually advatageous synergy whereby they both prop up the worst excesses of the same system. I have hopes that that may not be so easy as it once appeared.

Regarding China, I fatalistically desire another country to challenge the American way of conducting global trade, even if the new opposition is wrong. American business has acted so outrageously these last few decades that it is time they had a sparring partner. Hopefully a little Oriental wisdom will take the edge off the brasher forms of American culture.