The Chinese Connection

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here is a great deal of rejoicing at the state of the economy (11/27/99). Continuous boom now for ... hmmmm ... how long? Pretty damn long. Why? And who's ox is being gored, if anyone?

There are several factors aiding the "boom extension".

These are the main ones.

  • The absence of war (which tends to break things up a bit). The USA hasn't been fired upon with any consequence since the civil war. And we have not born the financial or philosophical costs of warfare for about twenty five years. (No, the Gulf War was not a war. It was no more than an "excercise". In fact, less US soldiers died in that conflict than would have died if they had stayed home and partied on weekends and fought over women.)
  • The evolution of politics into a pure state wherein politicians are impotent to screw up the country to any meaningful extent ... because their total focus is on getting elected ... not doing something. They just go "whither the wind bloweth".
  • The rapid development of the computer industry is one of the main causal agents in the boom. Everybody, I believe, knows that. It will continue to shore up and stave off any decline in productivity for quite some time yet. (And by the way, the advance of this industry is a byproduct of the government's destruction of the space program. Well, all that creative intellectual energy had to go somewhere ... didn't it?)
  • The absence of inflation is another causal factor. This gives people confidence and they do better work. And it is effective if you just convince them that there is no inflation by redefining the term also. Inflation now means "rising cost of living" as opposed to a government's printing money in excess of replacement requirements.
    Printing gobs of money (or any action equivalent to it) is what increases the cost of living.
    The effect is understood but the causal agent has been buried. We do have counterfitting ... but it passes as "trade deficit", i.e. if all the prices here stay the same, all other things being equal, a trade deficit means that gobs of money are being held by other nations who get no goods in return for theirs. They just get green paper or its equivalent. They accept this because the American dollar is stable (HUH! ... let 'em try to cash in that load all at once.) and they use it as a savings account as a hedge against their own country's fiscal irresponsibility.
  • And, lastly, the acquisition of Chinese slaves. One must never forget that China is a Communist country. It's people are owned and operated by a small contingent of leftover maoo-shu thugs.

    • Let me illustrate that last point.
    My wife and I were looking around for Christmas tree lights. We could not find the kind that we were looking for ... only the cheap Chinese stuff, i.e. 300 lights on a string - no twinkle. Why? Because the People's Commissar of Exportable Tree Lights has determined that this year the Chinese people will manufacturer only non-blinking lights and "icicle" & wrap around "net" lights for outdoors. And they make them cheap. This kills off the US manufacturer. Who wants to pay $20 for a string of 200 controllable twinkle lights when you can get by with $3 for 200 steady burning Chinese lights. Look on the boxes of lights and see "Made in China". Do you get it?
    The Chinese export "value" merchandise. Value = Quality divided by Price. They are proud of their work. I see it in all their cheap stuff. It's not just junk. We often produce better quality in the West ... but we have to charge the price for it. By taking a slight quality hit, the buyer gets a hell of a deal.
    What's so bad about this? Answer: They are working for slave wages. Maybe, 5 cents an hour. Then, the commissar tacks on his "cut" and the business to business to business takes more cut and at the retail ... you still get it cheap.
    We're not killing the Chinese people outright ... we're just torturing them while at the same time ... giving them jobs by creating a huge market for their goods. This takes jobs away from the US and we will all end up working in MickeyD's sooner or later.
    A similar thing happened to Spain some centuries past. All that New World gold looked good on the face of it ... but ... it ruined them. If you pay others to do everything for you ... you lose your humanity. To achieve wealth without work is bad for a country's self-esteem.
    And ... they lose their skills. They can no longer take care of themselves when the money dries up.
    And ... this bubble WILL burst some day. So, what I'm going to do is buy everything Chinese ... real cheap ... and save money.

    What else is there to do? Got any ideas? Boycot Chinese goods because they have value? How does one deal with a totalitarian regime? Fight them? ... Or, take advantage of the slave labor while it lasts? Maybe they'll become "the free-marketeers" (all 41n14 all) ... by seeing how well the commissar lives?

    There seems to be two different approaches to this.
    1) Feminine - Embrace them and show the proper road to righteousness by example.
    2) Masculine - Fight them and force them to see the error of their ways.

    Both work apparently. #1 takes longer than #2 ... but ... 2 is more intense than 1. Take your pick but be conscious of what is going on. There may be severe consequences either way.

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