The “Wall Street Journal” published China: Not Intentionally Pursing Trade Surplus With US, and I agree. The American thirst for high wages with benefits and cheap products created this mess. After all, when you balance global exports and imports for China, they are close to even. China has a small trade surplus with the world—nothing compared with the “HUGE” trade surplus with the US, where far too many people use plastic to live beyond their means.
However, most Americans don’t know that. Politicians who tell American voters the truth lose elections and the media seldom shows the whole picture—only the American slice. It seems that most Americans are not interested in the truth.
Qin Gang, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, mentioned the problem was with low US savings rates and high levels of borrowing and unemployment. He should have mentioned Wall Street risk taking too, which caused the current world economic crises and most of the job losses. Even China lost about 20 million jobs thanks to greed in the US.
People who accuse China of taking jobs from US workers don’t take into account that there are about 12 million illegal aliens in the US working low pay jobs most Americans refuse to do. Even Mexico and Canada, because of NATFA, have taken more jobs than China has.
Gang said, “We hope politician in the U.S. will think seriously about how to resolve the structural problems in their own economy, rather than invariably blaming others.”
Right again. Americans and US politicians spend too much time finding scapegoats while disagreeing on how to fix the problems in America. The US Federal deficit is in the trillions, and the average credit card debt per household is $15,519. Source: CreditCard.com
The personal savings rate in the US as a percent of personal income is about 3%, while in China that rate is more than 30% and the Chinese government saves too—its cultural. What’s more embarrassing for grumbling Americans is the fact that the Chinese work longer hours for much lower pay and still manage to save.
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the author of the award winning My Splendid Concubine and writes The Soulful Veteran and Crazy Normal.
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