I keep reading comments on the Internet Asking: Can China bail us out?

Each time I read something like that it strikes me as so odd. There is no better example of how completely out of touch as a nation we are from what is happening, how we're viewed in the world now.


It speaks to the incredible presumptive nature of Americans regarding our role in the world to think to even ask this question. Wow.


Exactly what good for China would come from just "bailing the West out?"


Why is China supposed to care, if they continue to grow while we shrink?

The best answers are nothing good would come to China, and regardless of how we assume China will "do something" they will do nothing if they continue to grow economically, while we shrivel.

As a nation we've always been blind to the suffering of other countries, as long as we had what we wanted.

We were happy to work with the thieving regimes in Latin America, prop them up and keep the 1% in total power, while 99% starved as long as they promised to mortgage their entire national wealth for pennies on the dollar ensuring their supreme role as the super-wealthy kleptocratic class ruling all of Latin America at the expense of the rest of the people living there.

That's just one example.

They'll bail us out if it benefits them as much but probably not unless it benefits them much more than us.

As of now, the best thing for China to do is wait for everything to clearly hit bottom to get as much bang for their buck as they use their vast wealth to buy whatever they want in the West.

All those empty houses in the USA would sure do wonders to help resettle a few million loyal Chinese over here to help us rebuild - kind of like what happened during our industrial age, but rather than coming over as indentured servants, they'd be coming over as agents of the owners of vast amounts of American land and property.

Of course we can say no, and dwell in a long-time deep recession, and ultimately lose a decades long battle of attrition against a slowly rising China able to use the vast debt we owe them to suck the life out of our country any time we look threatening.

It will be our choice.

This has been made possible by the Iraq war.

It's amazing how few realize the reason why China is sitting on trillions.

The reason is GW Bush, starting with the first Dollar, has borrowed the entire cost of the war from the PR China.

China was and is still happy to continue this deal. For every dollar we borrow is more leverage over the USA.

As for Bush's reason... he has the rich man's view that when you owe so much to one bank, they cannot let you fail or you'll take them with you. In effect you own the bank as much as it owns you.

The question is whether or not China thinks that they can survive us trying, should we say no to being bought, and no to paying off their demands to have their debts fulfilled.

If they decide they can then they'll let us fall long, hard and fast, and pretend not to notice.

They'll be waiting eagerly to pick up the broken pieces and refashion them into a world with China on top, just like their economy does right now with our cast off electronic consumer items which the strip for parts, clean up and refashion into things to sell us again and again.

The last two wild cards the USA has are both extreme, and only one is held by the USA - our nuclear arsenal.

That will dissuade China from pushing too hard - just as it enabled Russia to survive the collapse of the USSR. If it hadn't been for those nukes, Several nations including China would have probably carved off big pieces of Russia for themselves.

Then the other non-American wild card is India.

Will India as the 2nd giant decide it needs the USA to counterbalance China. That's what we're hoping, but if they do, you can be sure that instead of Chinese being settled in all those empty houses it'll be Indians in the same roles the Chinese would fill that as agents of a superior foreign power sending their people to ensure their investments here are managed to extract maximum profit.

Gee amazing GW Bush in 8 short years has turned us from the greatest power in a unipolar world, into a nation that in another decade could resume the long ago discarded "colonial" role to either China or India. Hmmmm. Way to go George W.

The why of the Economic meltdown is pretty easy to understand

The financial quacks in their genius found a way to so far exceed "real production, real increases in value" to the point that they successfully decoupled "supply and demand."
There is NO greater example of this than the oil market. Where for a couple of years, the price kept rising and rising, without an eminent sign of a shortage.
The sole driving force was the gambling urge of the "investors" all betting the "future" price would go up, and their confidence all boosted by their manipulation of the "overnight" trades that "proved" that prices were going up, even though there were ample supplies. Tight does NOT equal shortage, and was there ever a time when the amount of crude pumped fell short of the demand. I don't think so.
Decoupling "supply and demand" meant they could basically go insane gambling fantasy notions of the future, and manipulate those who believed these market thieves at their word that their "efforts were the best way to channel capital into the most productive way." What a total line of bullshit. What's amazing is how many willingly believed this even though one of the key "most productive ways" was dramatic increases in executive pay for failing!
Of course, once they did breach this cardinal rule of economics, that "price must reflect on a basic level the REAL demand vs. a REAL supply" it was not going to be long before like Icarus they were going to come falling down and crash.
The question is what should be done.
In a general sense, so much of the current "financial gambling circuit" is rotted to the core, and that means it cannot be saved, thus the inevitable deep recession (but don't call it a depression.)
Before things can get better, the rot in the form of NO regulation, the rot in the form of rules designed to reward extreme short sightedness must be eviscerated.
In the place of those laws which legalized what past generations would call criminal should be a new system of regulation that recognizes one principal over all PROFIT FOR THE SAKE OF PROFIT IS GREED, and GREED IS NEVER GOOD.
Profit should be "defined" as the result of making something worthwhile, useful in some way (even as entertainment) that fills a want, desire need in the world.
Financial tools that exist solely to make money from money based on "guesses" on a future price without ever creating anything along the line should be eliminated (that does NOT mean traditional financial tools like Interest - Interest is a product of performing a "service" not gambling).
Honestly the German way is the best way, and should serve as the core of the rebuilding, but there are the Spanish who thanks to their smart decisions are avoiding the crisis. Their decisions should be used to learn and expanded on worldwide as well. An amalgam of the German/Spanish/Traditional Anglo investment rules is what's needed to ensure that the West doesn't end up at the bottom of the world economic spheres once the Chinese rise to the top.
No effort should be made to save the "chief gamblers" who did their best to hide their "pyramid schemes, shell games" under the guise of creative financial investment tools.
On an individual basis, no matter how long it takes, these thieves must be punished, brought down. Society must learn and teach itself that such hubris, selfishness and greed is evil.
It's ironic that we in the USA have had a President obsessed with simple black and white evil who was utterly blind to how evil his "kleptocratically run, gambling driven financial system" was.
Humans live too short lives to expect this lesson to be remembered beyond a generation or two.
It must be instilled in our educational texts, not as a historical footnote, but the punishment of these financial criminals must be put on par with Hitler. For in their own way they have probably caused as many if not more deaths, violence and destruction to the common man as he did, or any megalomaniac warmonger has (Bush I know).
Then on top of it, basic economic education must become mandatory in all AMERICAN schools. I imagine Europeans have always had some sort of basic instruction, but Americans have absolutely NONE. This ignorance is what made so many of my fellow Americans all to eager to believe the garbage being told them as gospel, financial truth.

Obama won 2 weeks ago. All that's left is the drama of the campaigns

Barack Obama has ALREADY WON the election. It was uncertain until McCain pulled the "campaign suspension" stunt, but when he did that, I had a gut reaction that it was over. I never recall a candidate for president doing anything similarly contrived and so empty vs. a vs. his stated reason. All too many Americans up to that point were still all too easily convinced that the lies Republicans tell were true. That stunt to me served as a wake-up call to them, not a "epiphany" moment, but subtle, sustained the kind you need to wake the "sleepwalkers" among us who having placed too much faith in the Republicans lost their ability to distinguish truth from reality until that moment. It was just so absurd.
So I just want to say ahead of time. Congratulations for winning. The next four weeks are just drama, necessary of course, but I know it's over, and Obama has won already. The only question is how big will he win? Will he actually win in the landslide B. Clinton predicts? I'm not sure, but I bet he comes close! :-)