Article

2008-12-13 China-Japan-Koreas

Be Nice to the Countries That Lend You Money

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Posted by tipper 2008-12-13 09:44|| || Front Page|| [1 views ] Top

#1 A very educated man interviewing another very educated man, neither of which seems to have a clue about the fundamental strengths of this country.

Posted by Halliburton - Mysterious Conspiracy Division 2008-12-13 10:21|| 2008-12-13 10:21|| Front Page Top

#2 I think he grasps our situation much better than we do.

Posted by Woozle Elmeter 2700 2008-12-13 10:53|| 2008-12-13 10:53|| Front Page Top

#3 Well, look at what he implies: that the free market is the cause of the whole mess, a failure, and those who believe otherwise are merely choosing ideology over pragmatism.

Please consider that people like him have made a _lot_ of money from the bicoastal socialists' assault on real physical industry in this country and the subsequent exporting of it overseas.

And that CHina's whole business plan is based on our hobbling industries at home while at the same time still being able to afford to buy all its junk.

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Finally, he says he saw all this coming. He's in a position of authority. If he really did see all this coming, why did his country's institutions lose so much money?

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2008-12-13 11:46|| 2008-12-13 11:46|| Front Page Top

#4 There's an old saying about lenders: If you owe $10,000 they own you, if you owe $1,000,000 you own them.

Asia's problem is that their economies are based on cheap exports. Selling dollars increases the relative values of their currencies and makes their exports more expensive. This is poarticularly bad when demand is falling and there is excess capacity.

What's bad for the U.S. is that there will be that there will be fewer dollars out there to buy U.S. "stimulus" debt, which will either force up interest rates or force the fed to monetize the stimulus.

Posted by DoDo 2008-12-13 12:23|| 2008-12-13 12:23|| Front Page Top

#5 Woozie - my point is echoed in the other comments - basically, how well will the rest of the world compete when we match up recessions/contractions? What countries/systems are best able to deal with downturns and recoverys?

Granted, there are endless ways for our political leadership to mess things up, as they proved repeatedly during the depression and more recently the seventies. But, so far we've been able to choose other political leaders, other economic strategies with general free market guidelines, and similar alternative actions - aside from a select few democracies, who else can match that?

Posted by Halliburton - Mysterious Conspiracy Division 2008-12-13 17:49|| 2008-12-13 17:49|| Front Page Top

#6 Hal- what you say is true. But what about this possibility?

Posted by SR-71">SR-71 2008-12-13 20:11|| 2008-12-13 20:11|| Front Page Top

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