It somehow didn’t come up.
Last week, when President Barack Obama met with Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, there was reportedly no discussion of the fact that our country owes China over $800 billion.
Just suppose you owed someone $800 bucks … or $800,000. Do you think it could affect the relationship?
What about nearly a trillion dollars?
The Obama Administration just announced that American-Chinese relations are “at an all-time high.” But a story in the Washington Post compared our relationship with China to the nuclear stalemate of the Cold War, known as “mutually assured destruction,” or MAD. We’re dependent on them for future loans; they’re dependent on us to pay back old loans and new.
Kenneth Lieberthal of the Brookings Institution explained that “the Chinese can pull the rug out from under our economy only if they want to pull the rug out from under themselves.”
Reassuring? Not very.
Why have we allowed a foreign power to gain such leverage over us?
Because our politicians cannot — will not — limit their yearly spending to the trillion-plus dollars in revenue from American taxpayers.
When it comes to debt, China’s tyrants have taken better care of their country than our politicians have of ours. But we needn’t cede them control. Far better simply to stop borrowing billions from Beijing.
How? Slash spending. If our politicians can’t do it for us, maybe they can do it for their Chinese allies.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
3 replies on “$800 Billion Gorilla”
“…the Chinese can pull the rug out from under our economy only if they want to pull the rug out from under themselves.”
More evidence of our politicians’ stupidity. They do not understand that loaning money to dictators is different than loaning money to democratic nations, businesses, or individuals. Just imagine that China decides to take over the Spratley Islands of the Phillippines (because of their oil). We move our Navy in, and China says, “Back off or we’ll dump all these bonds and wreck your economy.” Any bets on how we’ll respond? Goodbye Spratleys! The other factor our politicians ignore is that Chinese politicians plan decades ahead, not two or four years ahead based on election cycles. Since George H. W. Bush, we have been helping China secure future conquests.
Our growing, unsustainable debt is not only to China, but some Middleeastern oil rich countries like Saudi Arabia, Brazil and many others.
Our Military have been brainwashed to be Politically Correct and it can only fight with both hands tied behind their backs.
Should we, as a nation, decide to reverse our steep and accelerating decline today, it should take at least 20 years (probably more) to restore economic balance and prosperity. First, however, we will have to impose serious change such as sweeping tort reform, dismantling and downsizing huge swaths of our enormous bureaucracies and start a strict moral and spiritual redemption.
What are the chances of these things happening in the near future?
Egon Martinovsky is a hypocrite, liar and a thief. He should start and complete a strict moral & spiritual redemption on himself before spouting this drivel.