China Sees the Future
China is remarkable. Not only are they catching up to us economically and scientifically, but they are ahead of us in time travel. Yes, I know they are many time zones ahead of us--and they cover many time zones themselves--but I'm not talking about our idea of temporal time. Apparently they can tell the future and report of events before they happen in our ordinary dimension. They are scheduled to launch a rocket with astronauts on board sometimes today, but at least 12 hours in advance of the launch they not only reported its success but also posted a transcription of what the elated astronauts said during the launch and upon entering orbit. Wow! They are ahead of us indeed.
Back in the day, before we started saying back in the day, in the field of International Relations we had the saying. That the optimists studied Russian and the pessimists studied Chinese. Even 40 years ago we had a well-founded anxiety over what would happen when the sleeping giant really awoke.
Now, I have always had a great love and respect for Chinese food. Being in international relations I have had respect for their amazing and growing power--if not how they use and abuse it. I, as others, have been awed by the growth of their industry and economy--even at the cost of their environment and health.
I have been deeply grateful that they financed our financial debacle and enabled our own irresponsibility. Had they done this is a half-hearted manner, we would be in far greater trouble than we already are (which is considerable). But they went whole hog; they bought up everything. Some people were worried about their influence and control. Some thought we were vulnerable. But no. There is another old saying that if you owe your banker a thousand dollars, the banker owns you. But if you owe your banker a couple of million dollars, you own the banker and the bank. We are so in debt to the Chinese that they cannot sell us out without losing their own equity. Cool, huh?
The Liberal columnist and economist Paul Krugman remarked earlier this week that people complained that we didn't have a level and fair trade relationship with China. But he held that this was untrue. He said, "They send us poison food and lead-covered toys and we send them worthless pieces of paper."
Were they really able to travel to the future they might have both avoided this trap of their making and we might have avoided the mess we're in. However, we are not in the co-dependant relationship together and for the foreseeable future, we need each other. Of course, given that they reported events today in advance of reality, they might foresee the future before we do.
The sleeping giant (as Jonathan Drober calls China) was asleep, yes, and the prince, the good old USA, awaken her with the kind of kiss mafiosi give to people they intend to kill. But this time, the kiss, instead of killing, woke up the sleeping chinese princess and began to put our country to sleep. A sleep from which we are doomed never to wake up again, courtesy of a new breed of CEOs. This golden-parachute-poisounos group of american traitors fully aware of what they were doing, sold our country for their own immediate gain. All of them, from Wal-Mart in 1950s to Hershey in 2008, contributed to the downfall of this country and now we pay. What is fascinating about all this is that one of those traitors now wants us, to follow his guidelines ($700 billions worth) to save the country from the mess he put it in!