China
Frying Pan, Meet Fire
An expert in financial disasters looks at the future of the U.S. economy.
December 19, 2008 | Read More
Outsourcing Our Economy
A spoof column announces that we are officially outsourcing economics policy to Asia. It’s a funny idea, but disturbingly close to reality.
December 8, 2008 | Read More
Paulson Goes Begging In Beijing
Hank Paulson is trying to convince our national bankers in China to use Wall Street’s financial services. You know, services like squandering your wealth and wrecking your economy.
December 2, 2008 | Read More
China Wins! ($585 Billion In I.O.U.’s)
It’s official. An authoritarian communist country is now our biggest, and most important, banker.
November 18, 2008 | Read More
Western Financial Flu Hits China
For years, we’ve been locked into a kind of parasitic pas-de-deux with China, a kind of insane codependency in which they are not only our chief supplier of consumer goods, but one of our biggest creditors as well. Now the party looks to be over. And the Chinese people are going to suffer for it, as are we.
November 7, 2008 | Read More
Reason #42: China and the Myth of Free Trade
Did you know that an authoritarian communist country is now keeping our supposedly capitalist economy afloat? No? Well, it’s true. And it’s scary as hell.
Politicians from both parties remind me of cult members sometimes, the way they mouth the mantra of “free trade” and parrot the conventional wisdom that globalization and more trade with fewer barriers is always a good thing. They treat “free trade” like it’s a religion. But like most religions, the free trade faith has an awful lot of myth in it.
Globalization has its benefits, for some at least. It makes many of our largest corporations boatloads of…
August 29, 2008 | Read More
Reason #59: Over a Barrel
High gas prices are a huge story these days. The so-called experts in the mainstream media treat them like a natural disaster, a hurricane or some other act of god. They breathlessly report on every half cent rise in a gallon of gasoline, but they make no real attempt to explain why it’s happening. The closest they come to giving their audiences actual reasons for the problem is when they blame increased demand from China and India or tensions in the Middle East.
But like the dotcom bubble of the 1990’s or the housing crash earlier this decade, the oil boom is not…
August 27, 2008 | Read More
Reason #46: The Widening Trade Deficit
In 2006, we bought $838 billion more in goods from other nations than we sold them in American-made stuff. That’s a world record, but it’s nothing new. From 2002 to 2006, we set a world-record trade deficit every year. The trade deficit with China alone was $233 billion in 2006, a new world record between two countries.
Back in 1996, our trade deficit was “only” $191 billion. People thought we were in trouble then. Who knew the debt balloon could stretch so much? And why does it keep expanding? Simply put, our political and corporate leaders have never looked beyond their…
August 27, 2008 | Read More
Reason #43: Dying for Chinese Junk
The other day, I borrowed a supposedly American-made driver for use in a golf match. It worked fine on the range, but when I took it out on the course, it turned out to be a dud. Finally, on the 17th hole, I looked at the shaft. Assembled in the U.S.A., it said. Then: Head: China-Shaft: China-Grip: China. “American-made”: what a joke! More like “American-packaged.”
We don’t make much on U.S. soil anymore. That’s why Wal-Mart is our country’s biggest employer. Wal-Mart calls itself “The Low Price Leader” and its trick for keeping prices down is to import cheap goods from overseas, especially China,…
August 27, 2008 | Read More
Reason #20: Governomics - Spending Like There’s No Tomorrow
Instead of cutting spending as promised, the Bush Administration greatly expanded the federal bureaucracy. Nearly every category of government spending grew like a weed on his watch. And the war in Iraq, which was supposed to cost a pittance (and be offset by Iraq’s oil revenues), will cost U.S. taxpayers $3 trillion by the time it ends. That is, if it ever ends. Unfortunately, George W.’s free spending is not an aberration. Spending has gone up under all our recent presidents, even after adjusting for inflation. Since the 1960’s and Lyndon Johnson’s “Guns and Butter” spending on Vietnam and his Great Society…
August 25, 2008 | Read More
