Watchhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTSQozWP-rM&feature=player_embedded
A few obvious questions:
1)Should i be laughing or crying about this ad?
2)Who exactly is this ad blaming? The Chinese? Our government in general? The democrats specifically? It's hard to tell.
3)The ad insinuates that more debt and dollar devaluation is what the Chinese want--and exactly what we can't handle. This also seems to be the prevailing opinion amongst most pundits. I am a bit confused by this premise, since a dollar devaluation lowers the market purchasing power of the $2 trillion (or whatever) in US bonds that China holds.
4)Is propoganda like this a sign of a possible trade-war on the horizon?
5)Could Chinese-Americans one day become the scapegoats for future US demagogues, similar to what Jews were to Germany?
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47 male
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The Chinese are playing a rigged game and they certainly realize it. Their goal right now is not to own the United States, but to convert as many paper promises as they can into hard assets like gold and natural resources before the DEMOCRATS and Keynesians like Bernanke put a stop to it. They can end it tomorrow by a severe devaluation and putting the resulting new dollars into the very stimulus that this video is ridiculing. There wasn't political will to do a lot of it in 2009, so they did a little. It helped but didn't change the trend.
REPUBLICANS who preach fiscal responsibility want to INCREASE the value of the dollar and therefore INCREASE the chunk of the United States owned by the Chinese. Now an idealist might claim that Republicans will reduce deficit spending and therefore reduce the creation of new debt, but this is disingenuous at best.
Republicans cut taxes first, raise spending on the military second, and if they take any action at all to reduce government spending it's a distant 3rd. I'm being extremely generous here because ALL Republican administrations from Nixon onward have INCREASED government spending far more than the Democrats ever dared.
Not only are increasing deficits almost guaranteed under Republican rule, but the right has been so successful with their propaganda that even the mere suggestion that we should print our way out of this crisis will cause a national riot.
Aristocratic Republicans and the Chinese are blood brothers. They are both sucking wealth out of this nation and both stand to lose if the dollar is devalued. What's good for the Chinese is also good for the richest Americans. What's bad for the Chinese is also bad for the richest Americans. Do the math.
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That's damn good propaganda.
The ad is clearly focused on the Teabag platform, the health reform was a dead giveaway.
"Turn their back on the principles that made them great"
"America tried to tax and spend itself out of a depression"
"Enormous so-called 'stimulus' spending"
"Massive changes to health care" [HEALTHCARE DEBACLE]
"Government takeovers of private industries"
"And crushing debt"
"Which the Red Chinese now own"
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_Against_Government_Waste
Just more corporate agit-prop bullshit pushed into peoples' brains. The corporate seed money behind this is all for globalization and the destruction of the middle class. The comfy position of the American middle class is going to get rammed good and hard pretty soon now.
All corporations want is happy customers and cheap labor, and they don't need the American people for that -- we are just 4% of the global population.
Unfortunately, we have this pesky democratic government that can do business-bad things like the Tobacco lawsuits and the Microsoft anti-trust witch-hunt, two things this particular communications organization has fought against in the past.
The Chinese know this is all bullshit and that our corporations are perfectly happy with the status quo. Our masters, like Perot said in 1992, would rather have the world making $6/hr than Americans making $50 and Chinese making $1.
But you've got to be very well educated to see through the bull.
I don't have any answers wrt the China trade problem, other than tariffs based on the trade imbalance between us.
The tough thing is that in the short term we do in fact benefit from all the cheap Chinese-made goods we're getting. $25/hr labor costs add up quick for consumer products.
I'm also not a big fan of the stimulus spending. But in its absence I know we'd be still falling into Hooverville-like conditions. The wealthy of this country do not mind this actually, people like Buffet with sterling balance sheets can pick up great wealth for less than pennies on the dollar in financial blow ups.
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Speaking of Buffett, guess what the Burlington Northern - Santa Fe tracks connect?
Hint: One end is rooted in the nation's bread basket and the other is all our China-facing ports.
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Some great parodies of the ad were done:
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/10/26/chinese-treatment-for-anti-china-ad-parody/
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCD5gzG511c
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iwog says
Increasing deficits are almost guaranteed with either party. No large group in politics has the balls to cut military spending--not the Republicans, not the Democrats, not the Teapartiers.
A national riot against printing wouldn't concern me as much as the reaction of the Chinese. A trade war could set the entire world back 25 years--much more if an actual war breaks out. Hyperinflation could throw any third world country into anarchy. Shouldn't the Chinese see quantitative easing as theft?
iwog says
I aways thought the same thing about the Texas families, the Saudi oil families, and the leaders of both sides of the Palestine/Israel conflict. All the aristocrats were making a killing (pun intended).
Troy says
Huh? That is interesting. Funny that Buffett called the Burlington Northern acquisition a bet on the future of the US.
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The JPY was 360 for most of the pre-Plaza regime, now it's 80. I think the yuan will follow a similar trajectory.
When the yuan goes to 3 the Chinese will be able to buy TWICE as much stuff from us. Buffett made an easy play to get a piece of that action.
As for the ad, the point isn't to demonize the PRC, it's to accuse the Congress of selling the nation out to the foreigners. The parody on vimeo did a pretty good job pointing that out.
The strategic goal with this ad is to just boot the Dems out of power, preferably with no more judicial appointments and all that 'advice and consent' jazz though it looks like the Teatards shot themselves in the foot with that (fingers crossed).
I don't think the general "bear" case on the US is that hard to put together, so I don't see why the Chinese leadership would not be able to see the jam we're all in. Like OPEC, they know they have to milk us and not kill us.
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If we're all working for the Chinese, does that mean that unemployment isn't a problem anymore?
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CBOEtrader says
Quantitative easing isn't theft, it's default and bankruptcy. The Chinese (and others) lent us a sum of money that could never be paid back during a time when both deficit spending and trade deficits were growing progressively worse. They screwed up and STILL haven't cut up our credit cards.
I would welcome a trade war as long as it's combined with an inflationary depression. We've lost the soul of this country. Most citizens no longer go to work in the morning to create wealth, they go to work in the morning to shuffle around borrowed wealth and money left over from our golden years.
We need fewer real estate agents and more factory workers. We need fewer WalMart clerks and more construction workers. A trade war will accomplish this although it will be a painful transition.
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Heaven is an American House, a German Car, a Japanese Wife, a Chinese Chef, and an British salary.
Hell is a German Chef, Japanese House, American Wife, a British car, and a Chinese salary.
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iwog says
Russia and China are the two major creditors who have in fact cut us off.
http://www.ustreas.gov/tic/mfh.txt
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Troy says
Not exactly. They still have to finance the trade deficit even if they don't finance the government. There's a TON of debt that isn't federal.
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iwog says
Not if the Fed prints : )
Maybe it's time for the Treasury to roll out those red-numbered bills again. I remember seeing those occasionally, back in the day.
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iwog says
That's a pretty big exaggeration. About 5 million people work in the "money shuffling" business, and most of those are people who do at least semi legit work -- stock brokers, bank tellers, etc.
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Kevin says
Government jobs are basically the same thing.
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iwog says
Police, firefighters, teachers, garbage men, civil engineers, the military? I think not.
Even if you exclude all of those people, it isn't anywhere close to "most".