"Nano nano."
Posted on 06/26/2005 9:28:11 PM PDT by BringBackMyHUAC
Yes they still do all the things you mentioned, but less and less with each passing day. The trend is what it is. It is undeniable. I've, sadly, had to do my own fair share of codevelopment with those bastards. I'll tell you what - one of the hidden benes they get from having US companies "help" them with R&D is access. Imagine the access that one Chi COM engineer gets at the typical US company - unheard of 20 years ago. They are getting more than the item in question - for example, the reactor or the engine. They are getting all sorts of other facts about the American corporation in question - even mundane things like who's who and all the dirty secrets. Etc.
The world is inherently an unpredictable and dangerous place. We'll deal with the "threat" if and when it ever becomes a problem.
One of the problems with free societies is that people don't like to engage in wars and altercations if they're at all avoidable.
"And you know this how? Personal inspection of flight logs? Or could it be, that disinformation, portraying lack of training, is fed to the West. "When you are strong, appear to be weak.""
Hey, you self-confessed traitor, dealing with the enemies of America, when YOU can fly an airplane without jet fuel, feel free to run your mouth about disinformation. Until then, go Leahy yourself.
I am not directly concerned about the U.S. jobs...except as they represent skilled labor capacity for America, its competitiveness and national security capability. I am primarily concerned about U.S. security and the essential industry base necessary thereto.
Big, big, big difference. And you have totally missed the boat thereby. Your worrying about the ephemeral "wealth" or "consumer choices" of the U.S. as measured by paper estimates, but not real production, will be shown to be the phantasm it is when the dollar prop is kicked out that is holding it up. When the Pacific Rim states stop buying U.S. treasuries and sell off, and buy things that are tangible...like Unocal.
And American Consumers will not be buying many foreign goods then. Because they will be too poor, only being able to buy things with collapsed U.S. dollars. Where, or where is your concern for these future American consumers? [sound of crickets chirping from Free Trader's side]
You make so many mistakes they are too numerous. You don't have a clue about Hong Kong for instance:
Do you think Hong Kong achieved it's wage power by restricting trade with the world?
They import from the Mainland, which restricts everything that would allow general wages to rise. Hence, it is not benefitting from free trade, but the artifical construct, and it is an enabler to Bejing's design. Its wages, however, were generally established while it was still free as a British colonial province. Freedom was why its wages got to where they were, but not much longer, as the squeeze of the communists is now being felt. As they seek to impose their general regime upon them as well.
Stick to what I say, don't construct strawmen and then argue against them.
Rather difficult to do, since you started out shrieking about devastation to our poor, poor, poor, poor consumers... well, gee, how did they suddenly get so poor, Mr. Free Trader?
Agreed, our government can only ensure it doesn't interfere with us....How other people are restricted in their ability to trade is beyond the purview of our government.
WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. Tariffs, imposts and duties are how "our government" was supposed to be funded. And that is what is in the original constitution. You likely have never studied Alexander Hamilton, the Founder, who was the architect of American commerce and manufactures. He has been properly named by a number of historians the "greatest" American...and that was compared to all the other great Founders.
You guys? You missed the most important aspect of Washington's address - the desire on the part of some to constantly create enemies as justification for enlarging the sphere of the state. Already in this thread you want to prop up China as an enemy in order to exert control from Washington, D.C. over the rights of Americans to trade as they see fit.
B'zzt. Wrong again. Nice try. But it won't fly. That is NOT the most important part. The whole context of George Washington's Farewell Address (which you failed to even attribute to him) had to be read to see what he was really worried about...and that was FOREIGN INFLUENCE, BUDDY. Your disengenous, UNAMERICAN misrepresentation of Washington is what I knew you would try, and it has been pre-empted by my reprinting his whole speech. We don't need to "create" enemies. They are there already (remember 9-11? Did you know that China cheered it on, just like Saddam, and then sent weapons to the Taliban free of charge post-9-11? And rushed to put in the fiberoptic SAM control system in Baghdad?), and China our biggest enemy, is getting stronger. And we are financing it.
It would appear likely you have not read this:
Beijing devoted to weakening 'enemy' U.S., defector says
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published June 27, 2005
China's communist leaders view the United States as their main enemy and are working in Asia and around the world to undermine U.S. alliances, said a former Chinese diplomat.
Chen Yonglin, until recently a senior political officer at the Chinese Consulate in Sydney, Australia, said in an interview that China also is engaged in large-scale intelligence-gathering activities in the United States that, in the past, netted large amounts of confidential U.S. government documents from agents.
"The United States is considered by the Chinese Communist Party as the largest enemy, the major strategic rival," Mr. Chen told The Washington Times in a telephone interview from Australia, where he is in hiding after breaking with Beijing in May.
All Chinese government officials are ordered to gather information about the United States, "no matter how trivial," he said. "The United States occupies a unique place in China's diplomacy," Mr. Chen said.
A pro-democracy activist who took part in the 1989 demonstrations in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, Mr. Chen, 37, spent 10 years as a Foreign Ministry official. He said he defected and sought political asylum in Australia to highlight repression of the Chinese people by their government and the ruling Communist Party, as well as the repression of dissidents such as democracy activists and the Falun Gong spiritual group.
Most Chinese government activity in the United States involves information-gathering carried out by military-related intelligence officers or civilians linked to the Ministry of State Security, Mr. Chen said.
"I know that China once got a heavy load of confidential documents from the United States and sent it back to China through the Cosco ship," Mr. Chen said, referring to the state-owned China Ocean Shipping Co. The information was "very useful" to China's military and related to "aircraft technology," he said.
The Chinese also send political police abroad to monitor overseas Chinese and others in North America who Beijing considers opponents of the regime, he said.
China's government has targeted Australia as part of its "money diplomacy" and is working hard to persuade Australia not to send troops to help the United States in any conflict over the Republic of China (Taiwan), Mr. Chen said.
China has sought to influence Australia's government through high-level political visits and favorable trade and by offering contracts on energy-related products. The goal is to force Australia to become part of a China-dominated "grand neighboring region" in Asia and to "force a wedge between the U.S. and Australia," he said.
The U.S. government has a close intelligence relationship with Australia and has been working to build stronger military ties, as the Pentagon shifts its global strategy toward Asia with the planned deployment of more arms in the western Pacific region to counter a Chinese military buildup.
Mr. Chen said he is "frustrated" that the Australian government in May turned down his request for political asylum, a move he thinks was linked to Australian government fears of upsetting Beijing.
Mr. Chen also said he fears that Chinese agents could kidnap him, as they have done with other exile dissidents. He said he prefers to stay in Australia with his wife and child, but also could seek asylum in the United States if Australia threatens to send him back to China, which he fears would endanger his life.
Two other Chinese government officials also defected recently in Australia and have revealed Chinese government spying activities.
Mr. Chen also provided new insights into the closed world of China's ruling power structure and political tensions between President Hu Jintao and former President Jiang Zemin.
Mr. Hu is not fully in control of the government and military, and Mr. Jiang continues to wield power behind the scenes through allies in the armed forces, he said.
"Hu is still in the shadow of Jiang and will be until Jiang dies," Mr. Chen said.
The Chinese leader, however, launched his own version of Chinese ideology at the end of last year that calls for education in advancing the Communist Party. Asked whether Mr. Hu will bring democratic reform to China, Mr. Chen said the Chinese leader is the beneficiary of the dictatorship and, therefore, is unlikely to make changes.
"For the past 16 years, a lot of people have been looking to see if the Communist Party can change from the top down to the low levels, but nothing changes," Mr. Chen said.
On China's military buildup, Mr. Chen said Beijing is following the strategy of former leader Deng Xiaoping, who urged China to "bide our time, build our capabilities" -- military as well as economic and political. "What that means is that when the day is mature, the Chinese government will strike back," he said.
Mr. Chen said the danger of a war over Taiwan is growing.
"That is possible as Chinese society is getting more unstable," he said. "Once any serious civil disobedience occurs, the government may call for a war across the Taiwan Strait to gather [political] strength from people."
Or THIS:
FINANCING OUR OWN DESTRUCTION
JUNE 27, 2005
By Toby Westerman
Copyright 2005 International News Analysis Today
www.inatoday.com
The United States appears to have a determined policy of self-destruction, a policy pursued by elements in business, government, and the intelligence community. The result of this policy, if left unchecked, will be the end of the United States as we now know it.
The growing military, political, and economic power of Communist China is familiar to regular readers of International News Analysis, the in-depth print report, and INA Today. Because of U.S. investment in China and consumer purchases of Chinese products, China is becoming a military and economic rival to the U.S.
Few news reports have informed the public that China could be a potential threat to the U.S., and no major broadcast media gave any warning to the public until Chinese business interests [connected to the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA)] made a bid for two prominent U.S. corporations, UNOCAL and Maytag.
Official U.S. government policy has encouraged strong economic ties with China in hopes of building free market structures and, eventually, a democratic government. A pro-China element in the U.S. intelligence community, recently documented in an article by Bill Gertz in the Washington Times, has enthusiastically supported this approach, and at the same time consistently underreported China's military growth.
Instead of a democratic movement burgeoning in China, the reality is that a Communist military colossus is growing, supported by a powerful economic machine, controlled in large part by the PLA. China will soon be able to project its will throughout the Asia-Pacific region, overwhelm the democratically ruled island of Taiwan, threaten the Philippines and Japan, and even insert a military presence in the Persian Gulf.
Chinese defectors state that China is already in an aggressive espionage war with Western nations. Former Beijing University professor Yuan Hongbing declared that Beijing is seeking to make Australia a "political colony of China," according to an AFP report. The Communist Party of China "will use their ideology to influence Australia's politics" and gradually force Australia "to betray its fundamental principles of freedom and democracy," Yuan stated.
Two other defectors, both Chinese diplomats, have stated that China has a network of more that 1,000 spies in Canada, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Service. U.S. officials have expressed concern over 3,000 "front corporations" operating in the service of Chinese intelligence service on American soil.
If American military lives are lost at the hands of a technically sophisticated, aggressive Chinese armed force, much of the blame for American deaths will fall upon the business interests who sent U.S. investment and jobs to China. These shortsighted U.S. business interests helped to build the economy which is financing the modernization of the Chinese military.
Bucking the broadcast blackout on negative news regarding China, CNN's Lou Dobbs did condemn U.S. corporate assistance to Communist China's suppression of the Chinese people in a segment titled, "Dot.commies."
Unfortunately the U.S. is making the same mistake in policy toward the Communist government of Vietnam as it did toward China. In an attempt to play power politics, the Bush administration is seeking to balance China's growing power with U.S. friendship and economic assistance to Vietnam.
The idea put forth is that Vietnam has interests at odds with those of China. Over the centuries China and Vietnam have had tense, and sometimes hostile, relations. The U.S. wants to build up Vietnam as a counterbalance to China - a force we helped create in the first place.
During the June 21st White House visit of Phan Van Khai, Prime Minister of Vietnam, U.S. President Bush and his administration expressed determination for close relations with Vietnam, and announced measures leading to significant economic and military ties.
Unfortunately, this approach is not based in reality.
Not mentioned by any media or government official was Vietnam's renewed alliance with China, and Hanoi's support for anti-American, pro-Communist youth groups.
Eight months before Bush's meeting with Khai, China's official Xinhua news agency reported that relations between China and Vietnam were developing "rapidly, comprehensively and profoundly."
A joint communique issued by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Khai stated that China and Vietnam were strengthening "political mutual trust," increasing "economic and trade cooperation," and establishing "positive progress in the resolution of problems left over by history."
Xinhua estimated that trade between China and Vietnam will reach 10 billion dollars by 2010.
And Vietnam is engaged in anti-American politics.
In February 2005, Hanoi hosted a preparatory meeting of communist youth organizations from around the world. The Hanoi meeting set the agenda for the "16th World Festival of Youth and Students," which will be held August 2005 in the now Marxist-dominated nation of Venezuela.
Recalling the most vehement moments of the Cold War, the theme of the "Festival" is: "For peace and solidarity, we fight imperialism and war."
Among the expected 15,000 "youth" will be some 300 representatives from the U.S.
The reality is that Vietnam is a close ally of China, Hanoi remains committed to Communism, and that the U.S. is again arming a potential enemy.
Copyright 2005 International News Analysis Today
The overwhelming, incontestable general evidence (CFR's Colin Powell notwithstanding) is that China is in fact not merely a "competitor" or "rival" but an out and out enemy....biding its time achieving an unopposed "peaceful rise" until it can bare all its fangs and claws.
Look, first, STFU.
Now, I will reveal more (probably too much for a piece of dung like you). I work at a multinational. We indeed, like other multinationals, deal with both Russia and the PRC. I personally oppose it and do what I can to steer them away. Never, never call me a traitor, you piece of bird poop!
"I work at a multinational. We indeed, like other multinationals, deal with both Russia and the PRC. I personally oppose it and do what I can to steer them away. Never, never call me a traitor, you piece of bird poop!"
Okay. Let's try transposing this into another key...
"I am a liberal Democrat. We Democrats indeed, like other liberals, support abortion on demand. I personally oppose it and do what I can to steer them away from killing babies. Never, never call me a pro-abort, you piece of bird poop!"
Doesn't fly there, either.
Basically, you assent to selling your country out for a paycheck. Some rock-solid convictions on display.
You're weaseling on the word 'prohibitive' again. Whatever legislative handle you want to hide behind doesn't change your goal, to use the power of the government to manage who Americans can trade with.
Your worrying about the ephemeral "wealth" or "consumer choices" of the U.S. as measured by paper estimates, but not real production, will be shown to be the phantasm it is when the dollar prop is kicked out that is holding it up. When the Pacific Rim states stop buying U.S. treasuries and sell off, and buy things that are tangible...like Unocal.
Why shouldn't the Chinese and other Asian countries that willingly picked up the U.S. government's debt trade it for something tangible? They sent us tangible goods for paper, now they want something tangible for the paper. This should come as no suprise. The threat to the value of the dollar stems from the orgy of spending (and the credit creation it underpins) from Washington, D.C. The Chinese can't be blamed for the failure of the GOP to control spending, and the failure of the American public to hold their overspending politicians accountable.
And American Consumers will not be buying many foreign goods then. Because they will be too poor, only being able to buy things with collapsed U.S. dollars. Where, or where is your concern for these future American consumers? [sound of crickets chirping from Free Trader's side]
I've already expressed concern about how the U.S. government is devaluing the dollar and creating claims on future tax resources with it's reckless spending, but these are matters wholly independent of China. China didn't force the U.S. taxpayer into the SSI ponzi scheme, China didn't force us to pass Medicare, prescription drug giveaways, or any of the other billions of dollars in largesse. The devaluation of the dollar can't be pinned on the Chinese, or anywhere except Washington, D.C.
Its wages, however, were generally established while it was still free as a British colonial province. Freedom was why its wages got to where they were
How did Hong Kong manage to increase wages and wealth without adopting the kind of tariffs you propose for the U.S.?
Rather difficult to do, since you started out shrieking about devastation to our poor, poor, poor, poor consumers... well, gee, how did they suddenly get so poor, Mr. Free Trader?
Because the government taxes everthing they do. They work until around May just to pay the taxes, and then the government borrows beyond that to place them further in the hole. Couple that with K Street seeking to place roadblocks on their ability to trade to their advantage, and a Federal Reserve that has created an environment of negative real interest rates to encourage further indebtedness (used to prop up a consumption level that wages don't support). None of this can be blamed on China.
How other people are restricted in their ability to trade is beyond the purview of our government.
WRONG. WRONG. WRONG.
So the U.S. Congress can set China's tariff rates? Why don't they just eliminate them then, instead of asking China's government to do it? Methinks you missed the point.
Tariffs, imposts and duties are how "our government" was supposed to be funded.
Yep, and the government is only supposed to do what is detailed in Article I, Section 8. But dispensing over 1 trillion in largesse means taking ever larger sums from more and more sources.
You likely have never studied Alexander Hamilton, the Founder, who was the architect of American commerce and manufactures.
I have, and I have little use for that mercantilist. Maybe if he had a clue what kind of Leviathan the Federal government would become he'd have not been so eager to see it created. The concerns he dismissed with respect to usurpation have long come to pass. Even the effort to allay those concerns, the 10th amendment, is a dead letter.
The whole context of George Washington's Farewell Address (which you failed to even attribute to him)
Pardon me for assuming Freepers would be familiar with it absent a cite.
he was really worried about...and that was FOREIGN INFLUENCE, BUDDY.
Liberty was what concerned him. Foreign influence was an aspect of the threat to liberty. For example, people insisting that the U.S. must adopt Israel's interests and enemies as her own.
Shown in context:
Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it - It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue ? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?
In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations, has been the victim.
So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils? Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.
Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.
Your ad hominem attack are belong to us.
On a serious note, if you truly believe that people who doing business in the PRC are traitors, per se, then there are plenty of people on this thread arguing in favor of unrestricted business with the PRC. Go bother them. At least I am trying to steer a good American company away from a train wreck. And what the hell are you doing to help? Go attack the Free Traitors who think there is nothing problematic about business dealings with the PRC, I dare you! Do you have the guts to go after some Free Traitors, you disingenous bunch of squashed flea guts?
"On a serious note, if you truly believe that people who doing business in the PRC are traitors, per se, then there are plenty of people on this thread arguing in favor of unrestricted business with the PRC."
But you are engaged in business with the PRC, and at the same time, you are screaming bloody murder about those who do business with the PRC, throwing the term traitor around quite liberally.
Just what the hell is anyone supposed to make of your own statements? Your claimed ideals and your claimed daily life contradict each other.
"At least I am trying to steer a good American company away from a train wreck."
Is that your excuse? You're trying to "steer" a company?
There's only one person or group of persons who can steer the company, and that's the owner(s). If you're employed by a multinational, you're just another brick in the wall.
"And what the hell are you doing to help?"
More than you are. I'm not renting my talents to those who trade with our enemies.
"Go attack the Free Traitors who think there is nothing problematic about business dealings with the PRC, I dare you!"
I attack hypocrisy wherever I find it. You just happen to be the most shining exemplar, based on your own statements.
"Do you have the guts to go after some Free Traitors, you disingenous bunch of squashed flea guts?"
What courage is involved in posting on an Internet forum? Are you now going to pretend that you're some brave warrior? You mock those who put their lives on the line every day with that kind of talk.
Don't make too many assumptions what my role is or what degree of influence I've got. Assumptions can make an ASS out of person.
RE: What courage is involved in posting on an Internet forum? Are you now going to pretend that you're some brave warrior? You mock those who put their lives on the line every day with that kind of talk.
So basically, you're wussing out. You don't have the courage to take on the Free Trade ideologues. Truth be known, since on this and other threads you've essentially be belittling people's concerns about the PRC, and on the Russia thread where you initially attacked me, you took the anti American, pro Kremlin position, you are actually a Commie coddling, 5th columnist yourself. You need to be issued a deportation order, you are an underminer of America and the West. Your feigned "patriotic" attempt to be a holier than thou judge of me and others who have consistently expressed a directly pro Western and pro American position, over the years here, and to call US traitors, when you yourself coddle foreign influence and hang out with apologists for anti American nation states, is a double game, aimed at discrediting and demoralizing. I've got your number Commie. You've somehow survived here at Free Republic way too long. You have been exposed!
"Don't make too many assumptions what my role is or what degree of influence I've got."
Another guy on the 'Net who gives mysterious hints about how he's REALLY important and influential while posting on a chat room. When someone does that, they're usually posting from their mother's basement.
"So basically, you're wussing out. You don't have the courage to take on the Free Trade ideologues."
Like I said, how brave does one have to be to post on a website? I mean, YOU'RE doing it, it obviously doesn't take any.
I take on hypocrisy. Those folks aren't displaying any, unlike you and your claims.
"Truth be known, since on this and other threads you've essentially be belittling people's concerns about the PRC, and on the Russia thread where you initially attacked me, you took the anti American, pro Kremlin position, you are actually a Commie coddling, 5th columnist yourself."
I don't trade with Communists. You claim that you do. End of story.
"You need to be issued a deportation order, you are an underminer of America and the West."
Yeah, right. Actually, by your self-professed standards and your claims of being a corporate bigshot trading with the ChiComs, you should be deported, if not shot.
"Your feigned "patriotic" attempt to be a holier than thou judge of me and others who have consistently expressed a directly pro Western and pro American position, over the years here, and to call US traitors, when you yourself coddle foreign influence and hang out with apologists for anti American nation states, is a double game, aimed at discrediting and demoralizing."
I don't coddle the enemy. You, on the other hand, claim to give them aid and comfort. Now, whether I'm supposed to actually believe that you're some sort of bigshot at a multinational is another thing entirely.
"I've got your number Commie. You've somehow survived here at Free Republic way too long. You have been exposed!"
Paging Nurse Ratchet...
False. I believe that when a foreign nation uses prohibitive manipulations against our nation's manufactures, it is appropriate for us to fight fire with fire. I still believe in trade and commerce. I would be prohibiting (i.e., countering) their advantage obtained from their manipulations.
Your entire extended attempt to try and rescue your debunked misuse of George Washington fails... And you know why? George Washington believed strongly in protective tariffs too. You take his statements out of that context, they are practically meaningless and you derive a false understanding. Alexander Hamilton and George Washington saw eye to eye on these things. And you show your true colors against both Hamilton, and George Washington who you misuse...
P.S. You clearly haven't studied Alexander Hamilton, or your disdain would have long ago vanished. He was a true Revolutionary War hero. A dedicated slavery abolitionist. An economic visionary. Assuming you are an American.
And the guilt trip about usurpation you try to lay on him is really not one that would have been anticipated in 1796. The Communist Party and its covert tentacles dedicated to the very usurpations you allude to (from the Bill of Rights, etc) was not yet in being...or even conceivable then. In his day, precedent had a real palpable weight in the court rooms he argued in. Today, as the shyters in black robes demonstrate, it is a non-factor...to be given lip-service only for the theatrical benefit of for the unwashed masses.
"Nano nano."
Fine. So why have they been buying our Treasuries up to this point, despite their low interest? Why didn't they instead buy American cars, planes, trains, heavy machinery, electronics, consumer goods etc.? Because, as we all know, they have not been engaged in commerce in good faith, rather that runs precisely counter to their plainly visible objective: The absolute destruction the U.S., its economy and military supremacy, and their usurpation of our previous position. They transparently yearn for Chinese Hegemony. And they will perpetrate any evil, any crime, and as Ronald Reagan said, "reserving to themselves the right to lie, to cheat, and to steal" to get there.
The PRC doesn't want to do ANYTHING to prop up American industry. They wish to steal those very surviving industries for themselves. Hence they are very careful to only buy American manufactured goods and machine tools that are at distressed prices...such as auctions of defunct manufacturing plants, Chapter 11 sell-offs, or Chap. 7 liquidations. Relocating them to Tianjin, etc. If they have to buy state of the art, and pay top dollar, they prioritize buying from outside the U.S., and from U.S. competitors. All to weaken the U.S. The main enemy.
Your points on the Congress and President's deficit spending have some merit, as the Chinese didn't "make" them do it. But they did rather deliberately, and knowingly, enable the consumption binge. By buying those Treasuries, it financed the deficits with the debt purchases, and like a credit-card junky we kept on increasing the spending rather than pulling back. The Chinese Government was cannily acting like a drug pusher. And the Chinese fellow-travellers, the Democrats, gleefully pushed the spending-aholicism along, cheerily egging on the smugly-overconfident GOP which engaged in a "bidding war" for the Demoncrats voter base.
It was a cynical, misguided and ultimately futile exercise...as the narrowness of victory proved. Why Karl Rove is not currently swinging from the highest rafters is beyond me.
The Treasury purchases also served their purpose by aiding and abetting their conspiracy to keep their wages excessively deflated versus the U.S. and their competitors. To become....and stay...an economic "industrial capital black hole" sucking in everything into the maw of its "low cost" vortex. The treasury purchases have often been timed to and sized to optimize their currency manipulation to keep the rmimbi-dollar ratio "pegged."
The PRC has always been prepared to take a "hit" on these securities, as they knew that the dollar was weakening...and their T-Bill purchases were artificially sustaining it... They always hoped to time it of course. So that the "rug-pulling" operation of selling off U.S. Treasuries would have the effect of reversing roles. It was a cynical, calculated ploy on their part. Well worth the loss of the "investment" if it had the intended effect of bankrupting the U.S. and smashing its military finance capability.
GWB is only now finally making noises about tariffing China in retaliation for its WTO-illegal currency peg (only a part of the overall Chinese wage-suppression plan). Hence, China may be hurrying up its timetable. Having to do the rug-pulling now or the very near future may be premature from the standpoint of their ulterior plans.
Or maybe not. We'll see.
I've already expressed concern about how the U.S. government is devaluing the dollar and creating claims on future tax resources with it's reckless spending...
To your credit, you, unlike a number of pseudo free trade spin-meisters here at Free Republic, admit to concern about the devaluation of the dollar. And also the disadvantageous taxes and regulatory over-burdens on our manufacturers.
If all that is so, how do you feel about the following proposal to cure the problem:
(1) Eliminate all forms of the U.S. Income Tax. Corporate, Personal, and Capital Gain. All of it. Rescind 16th Amendment if needed to effectuate this. (i.e., making sure the States also have to eliminate it).
(2) Replace the funds lost with exclusively consumption taxes so as to promote production and savings again:
Via
-- (a)a National Sales Tax...constitutionally limited to 15%. And
-- (b) a 25% foreign "revenue" tariff. (Revenue tariffs are permitted by WTO regime).
(3) Pass a Balanced Budget Constitutional Amendment with teeth. Spelling out that shortfalls automatically come out (through disallotment) of Domestic Spending Giveaways, not Defense.
The "enemy within" of a runaway government you fear would be constitutionally curtailed.
And the "enemy without" would similarly see its plans foiled. By the Power of the People being asserted at the last instant to save the Republic.
Shazbot!
A hot air belching loser, you are ...
Because they've been trying to create relatively stable reserves for their banking system. Buying a Buick doesn't improve the balance sheet of a bank trying to have reserves for lending. Their banking system is a horrendous mess though, another reason I'm not worried about the U.S. falling prey to the dragon.
They transparently yearn for Chinese Hegemony. And they will perpetrate any evil, any crime, and as Ronald Reagan said, "reserving to themselves the right to lie, to cheat, and to steal" to get there.
No less tranparently than American neocons like Bill Kristol and his cabal yearn for American hegemony. Our own fiat money system is a crime against Americans, and I can't fault the Chinese for tying themselves directly to our currency to avoid the unmitigated default our government's constant inflation of the money supply represents.
The danger to the US's currency's role as global reserve currency is a better alternative. It's not an accident that since the French and Belgians voted no on the EU constitution gold has risen against all fiat currencies. If the Chinese try to float their currency and discharge their U.S. denominated reserves they'll destroy their economy more effectively than we could with a fleet of bombers. Their best recourse, and one that would threaten the dollar's position in global trade, is to tie themselves to gold, but since that would remove the ability of the leadership to manipulate the currency to the advantage of themselves and cronies, I don't see it happening.
They wish to steal those very surviving industries for themselves. Hence they are very careful to only buy American manufactured goods and machine tools that are at distressed prices...such as auctions of defunct manufacturing plants, Chapter 11 sell-offs, or Chap. 7 liquidations.
Then why are they willingly paying a 2 billion dollar premium on the value of Unocal? Is it in bankruptcy? The purchase of distressed company's assets isn't unique to China. If they can make profitable use of the equipment, the world benefits.
But they did rather deliberately, and knowingly, enable the consumption binge. By buying those Treasuries, it financed the deficits with the debt purchases, and like a credit-card junky we kept on increasing the spending rather than pulling back.
Again, they were trying to establish their own supply of stable banking reserves. The Chinese aren't responsible for the lion's share of financing U.S. debt. The Japanese have been picking up that tab, in a bid to reflate their own economy. You can read more about it here, it's pretty interesting, especially with that madman Bernanke poised to replace Greenspan.
The "enemy within" of a runaway government you fear would be constitutionally curtailed. And the "enemy without" would similarly see its plans foiled. By the Power of the People being asserted at the last instant to save the Republic.
While we're dreaming, let's return the currency to a solid footing. Link the dollar to weight in gold as done originally, and undone to finance the socialist dreams of FDR. Ditch the Federal Reserve for creating the credit environment (afterall, it has authority to monetize Federal debt, so you can't blame foreigners for funding our debt, the Federal Reserve can print till its heart's content to buy U.S. debt) that has every man woman and child in the nation staring at $100,000 in debt.
I'd be happy to see income tax abolished. Get rid of SSI, Medicare, and Medicaid in the same fell swoop. If States want to tax their citizens to provide these services, they are of course empowered to do so, but people will be able to escape those States with their property.
I have concerns about the nature of the sales tax proposed. I can't see how it results in a less intrusive government. I'd prefer the federal government collect it's direct taxes via capitation from the States. Perhaps even better would be to have the federal government collect them directly. But no 'emergency withholding' (as instituted in the midst of WW2), instead citizens write out their payment in full on the first Monday in November. The tax ID can serve as their voter identification on the following Tuesday...
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