The Have or Have Nots at the G-20 in South Korea

October 28, 2010

The world appears to be divided between nations that have spent too much and those that save.

In China, people that hold onto money are called “Iron Roosters”. In the US, we call people who save stingy or skin flints or other insulting terms. The average saving rate among Chinese is about 40%, while the average family in the US carries several thousand dollars in credit card debt.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the US is among the ‘Have Nots’. In G-20 Deal to Curb China is Weakened, Evan Ramstad and Bob Davis said that “China, Japan and Germany all have surpluses; the U.S. has a deficit.”

However, the US is not alone. “Australia, Canada, Britain and France, all of which have current-account deficits, lined up with the US” to pressure China to let the value of the yuan rise.

The US and other Western nations that have overspent need to export more products to other countries and import less.  For this to happen, the US dollar must be worth less than the Chinese yuan to pressure U.S. consumers to stop buying products made in China when prices for those products become higher than what is manufactured in America.

This means that countries with money in the bank want to rely less on exports for growth and more on homegrown demand instead of buying more products from the debt-ridden nations.

Germany’s current account surplus is about 6%, Japan’s 3% and China is at 4.7%. The U.S. is running a 3.2% deficit, which should be no surprise.

It appears that China won this round and will not loosen controls on the value of the yuan yet.  The US went into the G-20 summit in South Korea wanting to punish China for US consumer appetites to buy cheap foreign made goods.

Instead, little was accomplished.

It’s all about the national interest of each nation, and China and America have opposing interests.

If America wins, China loses.

In fact, whoever, wins this global currency war will be the stronger for it. The question is, Will the Iron Rooster win or the Buy Now Pay Later nation?

See Democracy’s Economic Roller Coaster

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Machines of Ancient China — Part 2/4

October 28, 2010

Modern iron works used the same method that ancient China used, but today we use electrical air pumps to feed the fire.

How did the ancient Chinese develop a method to drive enough air into a furnace to heat it to the necessary high temperatures?

In fact, the Chinese used water to drive the bellows for a blast furnace. With these inventions, the groundwork was laid for other sophisticated machinery used in mass production.

One such invention in ancient China was an odometer designed to measure distance.  This device was known as the range finder chariot. A cart that was rolling along with troops measured every five hundred meters by banging a drum automatically.

This device was used to measure the distance to enemy camps and measure how far the troops had marched from the royal city.

 

What is amazing about this ancient odometer is that the gears match exactly those found in modern motorcycle engines.

There is also evidence of the application of gear engineering on a massive industrial scale during the Song Dynasty (960 – 1276 AD) based in eastern China.

We now know that the Chinese had huge operational factories capable of mass production.

Another ancient machine recently discovered is the hydraulic trip hammer and it is believed to have been developed two millennia ago. The texts from that time tell us that the huge machine was used to crush grain but also to pound metal as is still done today.

The ancient Chinese then invented a more efficient way to grind grain-using millstones. However, the Chinese took this machine to an advanced level known as a multiple geared gristmill, which was also powered by water.

This technology wouldn’t be seen again for nearly a thousand years when the industrial revolution started in England.

Return to the Machines of Ancient China – Part 1 or to discover more intentions see Invented in China – Printing

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Every Vote Counts

October 28, 2010

Fear tactics still grab votes or American conservatives would stop using them.

Since America’s 2010 midterm elections are being held in November, the Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) ran a political video designed to exploit fear of China.

Abraham Lincoln said, “You can fool most of the people some of the time and some of the people most of the time…” 

Evidently, the CAGW decided they could fool some of those people in time to make sure they vote against Democrats.

New York Magazine ran a piece, Is this Really the Best Political Ad This Year, which proves why it is dangerous to be a democracy instead of a republic.

Ben Smith of POLITICO writes, “This slickly-produced new ad from Citizens Against Government Waste … attacks spending in the Mandarin-speaking voice of a gloating, future Chinese professor.”

The sad thing is that millions of Americans believe these distortions.

According to the PEW Global Attitudes Project, 36% of Americans view China with an unfavorable view.

It is no secret that Rush Limbaugh is a Sinophobe and has between 14 and 30 million listeners (depending on who you read).  Glenn Beck has about two to three million. 

In fact, the people that Rush and Beck appeal to must be some of the voters the CAGW is hoping to influence.

The National Center for Educational Statistics shows us that forty-three percent of Americans read at or below basic, which means 93 million votes could be influenced through fear of China.

After all, the illiterate and semiliterate are the easiest voters to fool and that’s why they shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

Learn more at Democracy, Deceit and Mob Rule

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

2 Comments | America, American culture, China, media, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Machines of Ancient China — Part 1/4

October 27, 2010

It is a common assumption in the West that we invented the machines that power our modern lifestyles.

However, new discoveries from ancient China are forcing us to rewrite history.

While Europe was mired in the so-called dark ages, ancient China ruled supreme as the world’s technological super power.

Now we are discovering that many of the inventions that have shaped our modern world had their roots in China’s ancient civilization.

There were complex geared machines that allowed production on an industrial scale such as precision seismographs that detected earthquakes, drilling machines that bored for natural gas hundreds of meters beneath the earth, or a super-scale Cosmic Engine that not only told the time but also predicted the passages of the planets and the stars.

 

Some of these technologies were so complex, they remained a mystery for centuries.

Two thousand year old books show in detail things that are still needed today — sixteen hundred years ahead of the West.

Another discovery from ancient China is still important – drilling for oil. We assume it was modern engineers that developed oil-drilling techniques.

In fact, the techniques used in gaining access to oil and natural gas were reinvented from what the Chinese had already invented two thousand years ago.

During the Song Dynasty (960 – 1276 AD), China’s innovations reached their peak. Inventers and engineers were creating machines that wouldn’t be seen in the West for another thousand years.

For example, in Shantung province, a recent discovery demonstrated the advanced metal forging abilities of ancient China – the remains of a giant cast iron pagoda built during the Song Dynasty.

To discover more inventions see Chinese Crossbow and other Inventions

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Silicone “Juice” in China

October 27, 2010

In You Can’t Build a New Silicon Valley Just Anywhere by Margaret O’Mara, writing for Foreign Policy magazine, she says, “for many of the would-be silicon cities being constructed by the Russias and Chinas of the world; with their long histories of centralized control, they are still convinced they can order up success.”

O’Mara’s theme is that the success we have seen in California’s Silicon Valley is due to the freedom America’s republic—now a democracy—offers along with loads of money from the government and venture capitalists with no strings attached.

If that were true, explain how China (ruled by Emperors under an autocratic imperialistic monarchy) was more technologically advanced than any country on earth for almost two thousand years.


If you don’t speak Chinese, the English subtitles say it all.

After all, the Chinese invented the stirrup for saddles which revolutionized warfare on horseback, gunpowder, the multistage rocket, the compass, paper, the printing press and pasta along with a long list of other innovations, which changed the world.

Without the Chinese, where would the world be today? See Chinese Crossbow and other Inventions

China may not offer the same individual freedoms the West does, but “face”, which is important in Chinese culture, is a strong motivator to improvise and invent so one gains “face” and becomes powerful and wealthy.

Before Deng Xiaoping and the “Getting Rich is Glorious” generation that he gave birth to, I would have agreed with Margaret O’Mara but not now.

In my next series, The Machines of Ancient China, we will discover more about China’s contributions to the world we live in.

To discover the Chinese advantage, learn about Guanxi in China

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

2 Comments | America, business, capitalism, China, Chinese Culture, cultural differences, environment, science | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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