[Regulator]

Soon the "Republicans" will be in here telling us that deficits are good, huge deficits are even better, things are fine, China is a wonderful place, blah blah...not to worry, prosperity is just around the corner.

Should be thrilling to read. Not...

[raybbr]

I don't know what to say anymore about this subject.

Just imagine what our country would be like if we had a $500 billion dollar trade surplus?!?!?!

[WRhine]

Indeed, if economic troubles can bring "a near collapse of the social and political order" would it not be to Beijing's benefit to see the assertive President George W. Bush defeated for reelection in 2004?

The only place where I disagree with the author is the above. It was Bush that approved China for MFN Trade status and his administration's trade policies since day one have been exceedingly beneficial to China (to say the least)...as the numbers so painfully show.

I don't think the PRC leadership would want to risk the great thing they have going with Bush with the uncertainty that another president naturally brings. Even a democrat.

China will bide their time, like they always do, and wait until our country has lost so much of its industry and economic independence that we can no longer effectively counter their global ambitions. To be sure, we are not all that many years away from this.

[RockyMtnMan]

"No wonder the individual income tax cuts that have been the center of Bush Administration recovery efforts have had so little effect. The money is being spent on imports to create jobs in foreign lands, not America."

Now where have we seen this before? Sounds like globalisation is in the Democrats best interest.

[Perseverando]

" In the seminal Chinese treatise on modern strategy Unrestricted War by People's Liberation Army Colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui published in 1999, the ongoing financial crisis is compared to military conflict: "Economic prosperity that once excited the constant admiration of the Western world changed to a depression, like the leaves of a tree that are blown away in a single night by the autumn wind. After just one round of fighting, the economies of a number of countries had fallen back ten years. What is more, such a defeat on the economic front precipitates a near collapse of the social and political order. The casualties resulting from the constant chaos are no less than those resulting from a regional war."

It is also argued in Unrestricted War that to attack another country's economy, the aggressor "must adjust its own financial strategy, use currency revaluation or devaluation as primary, and combine means such as getting the upper hand in public opinion and changing the rules sufficiently to make financial turbulence and economic crisis appear in the targeted country or area, weakening its overall power, including its military strength." As the weak American economy contributes to rising budget deficits, it becomes more difficult to provide the funds to modernize or expand the overstretched U.S. military, or to pay for overseas combat operations, or to finance national building in places like Iraq and Afghanistan."

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

Every paragraph is important.

[The Pheonix]

I have been told, time and time, again, that the US is a "post-industrial" Nation/society

Whatever that means.....

[F.J. Mitchell]

I don't want to buy this made in China sh*t. I would happily pay three times as much for the same product, with a "Made in the USA" tag on it. Saving a few cents by buying products created by slave labor, that enriches the powers of darkness, such as the goods from China, is assinine. Rewarding the sonovabitches who move their factories off shore and leave American workers jobless, has no appeal at all to me.

[ApesForEvolution]

In the name of all that is good, decent and right...what the schmuck are we doing? Unbelievable.