Scapegoating China and Manipulating the Opinions of Americans – Part 3/4

November 7, 2012

In Part 2, we discovered that China’s unemployment rate among rural Chinese working in manufacturing reached 16.4% in early 2009 (while unemployment in the United States was only 9.3%), and from Forbes on October 18, 2012 we learn: “Manufacturing jobs stand poised for a rebound as jobs get reshored from China — creating 2.5 million to 5 million U.S. jobs in manufacturing and support jobs. Worries about a severe job skills gap are largely misreported according to results from a Boston Consulting Group (BCG) analysis – part of the firm’s ongoing series entitled Made in America, Again.” 

In comparison, unemployment in the United States stands at 7.8% today. In another comparison, during 2007 – 2009 while China lost 23 million manufacturing jobs, the United States lost only 2 million in that job sector. Source: bls.gov

With numbers like these, would someone explain how China is stealing manufacturing jobs from the US?

In addition, the average credit card debt per household in the US (I’m not talking about the Federal national debt) is about $16,000 while total U.S. Consumer debt was $2.43 trillion as of May 2011.


The History of Economic Booms and Busts

US Mortgage Debt is more than $14 trillion and 40% of Americans have no retirement savings while 25% have no personal savings. In fact, 38% of American adults have no emergency funds to fall back on.

However, in China the average household saves almost 30% of its annual income. The average business saves about 45% of net profits and the government has a surplus savings rate of more than 50% of tax revenues instead of the US that has a national debt more than 100% of GDP–more than $16 trillion. The US has been spending more than a trillion dollars a year that it doesn’t have while China saves half of its tax revenues and invests in infrastructure and in other countries such as the US. Source: VoxEU.org

Does that sound as if China is a threat to the US and is stealing manufacturing jobs from America? Many in the US are self centered and do not consider that China trades with the world–not just America. In 2011, China exported about $1.6 trillion in goods to other countries while importing about $1.4 trillion. At the same time, China bought about $104 billion in goods from the US. Source: US-China.org

In addition, outside the US, the world sees China differently. The Pew Global Attitudes Project surveys thousands of people in 59 countries. For 2012 China had a 94% favorable rating while the United States had 40%.


The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis

Back to Abraham Lincoln, who said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”

We will discover what that means today in the last post in this series.

Continued on November 1, 2012 in Scapegoating China … Part 4 or return to Part 2

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Scapegoating China and Manipulating the Opinions of Americans – Part 2/4

November 6, 2012

Once we discover how many times the United States has had one financial disaster after another, we start to understand why China must be used as a scapegoat to distract many Americans and give them a victim to blame for lost jobs and low pay.

In another example, Business Pundit.com mentions the 10 Most Bizarre Economic Bubbles in History.  One example was US Dot-com Bubble that burst on March 10, 2000 resulting in a mild but long-felt recession, and the stock market crash of 2000-2002 caused the loss of $5 trillion in the market value of US companies from March 2000 to October 2002.

I’ve left out many other global financial disasters such as those taking place in Israel (1983), Sweden (1990s), Japan (1990), Mexico (1994), Russia (1998), Turkey (2001), Argentina (2001), Iceland (2008), etc.

Then there is the global financial disaster of 2007 – 2008. Total losses are estimated in trillions of U.S. dollars globally. Between January and October of 2008, owners of stocks in U.S. corporations suffered about $8 trillion in losses while losses in other countries averaged about 40%.


Financial Crisis History Lesson – Part 2

Global Issues.org says, “While the Western mainstream media has often hyped up a threat posed by a growing China, the World Bank’s chief economist, (Lin Yifu, a well respected Chinese academic) notes ‘Relatively speaking, China is a country with scarce capital funds and it is hardly the time for us to export these funds and pour them into a country profuse with capital like the U.S.'”

I think what Lin Yifu is talking about is not the US National Federal Debt but the fact that US corporate profits just hit an all-time high … Source: Business Insider.com

During the second 2012 Presidential Debate, Romney mentioned China seven times. He blamed China’s currency manipulation for the loss of manufacturing jobs in the US, and promised to “crack down on China when they cheat.” Source: The New Republic.com

However, what Mitt Romney did not say is the number of jobs lost in China due to the 2007 US financial crisis that swept the globe. “After August 2008, the number of orders filled by many export oriented enterprises dropped precipitously, and thousands of factories in the coastal region, especially in the Pearl River Delta, were closed. The impact was most serious on the rural migrant labor force. … In absolute terms, it corresponds to a loss of 23 million jobs. Rural migrant labor dropped from 140 million to 117 million with an unemployment rate of 16.4% in early 2009.” Source: The Global Economic Crisis and Unemployment in China

Continued on October 31, 2012 in Scapegoating China … Part 3 or return to Part 1

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Scapegoating China and Manipulating the Opinions of Americans – Part 1/4

November 5, 2012

If the traditional media in the United States or politicians campaigning for election are not bashing China, he or she may lose votes and/or an audience.

Why? Because many people want to believe what they want to believe. It does not matter what the facts from reputable unbiased sources reveal.

“Older Americans and Republicans are especially concerned about China’s emergence as a world power. About six-in-ten people ages 50 to 64 (62%) and 65 or older (59%) consider this a major threat to the U.S., compared with 48% of 30- to 49-year-olds and 43% of people younger than 30. Similarly, 60% of Republicans consider the rise of China as a world power a major threat, while 48% of Democrats share this view.” Source: Pew Global.org

In fact, I still run into Blog comments where people bash China for the tainted drywall (2009) or infant formula (2008).  However, these same China bashers will not mention that “Foodborne illnesses kill 3,000 Americans each year. Nearly 130,000 more are hospitalized. The aggregate cost of foodborne illnesses to the U.S. economy in 2011 was $77.7 billion.” Source: The Daily Ticker


Financial Crisis History Lesson – Part 1

Another example is when the US media focuses on economic problems in China that may lead to a financial disaster there. “China’s economic model that delivered three decades of double-digit growth is running out of steam and the country’s next leaders face tough choices to keep incomes rising.” Source: Yahoo! Finance and the Associated Press

Is it possible that all this attention on China is to take American minds off problems in the United States?

For example, during the three decades of double digit growth in China, in the United States there was Black Monday on October 19, 1987 when stock markets around the world crashed. In the US alone, the value of stocks dropped 22.78%.

Then the savings and loan crises in the US led to the failure of 747 out of 3,234 savings and loan associations caused in part by the tax reform act of 1986 that removed many tax shelters, especially for real estate investments.

Continued on October 30, 2012 in Scapegoating China … Part 2

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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In healthcare, what comes first: the chicken or the egg? – Part 3/3

October 30, 2012

What is better, universal health care as China offers its citizens or what Wal-Mart offers its associates/employees?  You decide.

From Making Change at Walmart.org, we learn, “Wal-Mart’s health care plans fail to cover hundreds of thousands of associates. In 2009, Wal-Mart claimed that 52% of associates were covered under their healthcare plan. The company has refused to disclose coverage rates for its 1.4 million U.S. employees since then. [4]

“Wal-Mart stopped offering health insurance to part-time employees (working less than 24 hours per week) in 2012. [5]

Taxpayers are forced to provide healthcare for Walmart’s Associates. Hundreds of thousands of Associates and their family members qualify for publicly funded health insurance. [6] Indeed, according to data compiled by Good Jobs First, in 21 of 23 states which have disclosed information, Wal-Mart has the largest number of employees on the public rolls of any employer. [7]

In fall 2011, Wal-Mart made it even more difficult for associates to get quality health care for themselves and their families. Beginning with the 2012 enrollment period, Wal-Mart rolled back health care coverage for part part-time employees and raised premiums for full-time employees by as much as 63% for non-smokers and their families and as much as 162% for smokers with families. . For employees earning $8.81/hour working an average of 34 hours per week, some of Wal-Mart’s 2012 healthcare plans would cost between 77% and 104% of the employee’s annual gross income. [15]

In fact, there is no universal health care in the United States. What is known as Obamacare in the US is not a universal healthcare plan that is run by the government. It is a healthcare plan that just expands health care through private sector health insurance programs with the government subsidizing the costs of health-care premiums for Americans that do not earn enough money to pay for it so huge corporations such as Wal-Mart will allow the government to subsidize its private sector profits. In addition, if Mitt Romney is elected president and he follows through with his promise to get rid of Obamacare, America’s health care will return to where it was in 2007 and 2008:

The percentage of people without health insurance in 2008 was not statistically different from 2007 at 15.4 percent. The number of uninsured increased to 46.3 million in 2008, from 45.7 million in 2007.

The number of people with health insurance increased to 255.1 million in 2008—up from 253.4 million in 2007. The number of people covered by private health insurance decreased to 201.0 million in 2008—down from 202.0 million in 2007. The number of people covered by government health insurance increased to 87.4 million—up from 83.0 million in 2007

The percentage of people covered by private health insurance was 66.7 percent in 2008—down from 67.5 percent in 2007 (Figure 7). The percentage of people covered by employment-based health insurance decreased to 58.5 percent in 2008, from 59.3 percent in 2007. The number of people covered by employment-based health insurance decreased to 176.3 million in 2008, from 177.4 million in 2007. Source: Census.gov

Maybe now, a few of China’s critics may understand why the Chinese Communist Party and most of China’s people continue to resist becoming a democracy similar to America. Don’t get me wrong. I love my country and I am willing fight for her again(if it was a real threat and not one based on malarkey and lies as Vietnam and Iraq were) as I did in Vietnam in 1966 as a US Marine, but she has some serious problems that will be difficult to solve regardless of who is the next president of the United States. In fact, I think if Mitt Romney is elected, the problems will become worse.

Return to In healthcare, what comes first: the chicken or the egg? – Part 2 or start with Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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In healthcare, what comes first: the chicken or the egg? – Part 2/3

October 29, 2012

To compare universal health care in China to private sector health care, I’m going to use Wal-Mart as an example to explain why we cannot rely on the private sector when it comes to the importance of health care and the quality of life.

In the private sector in the US, Wal-Mart did not achieve success because a sorcerer waved a magic wand and “POOF” suddenly Wal-Mart is everywhere as if a light switch were turned on.  The first Wal-Mart store opened in July 1962. By 1967, there were 24 stores. Today, forty-five years later, Wal-Mart has 2.2 million employees/associates worldwide and serves 200 million customers each week at more than 10,000 stores in 27 countries.

But China’s challenge is to serve 1.3 billion Chinese compared to Wal-Mart providing health care for 2.2 million of its workers. There is a HUGE difference in the numbers and China  hasn’t had forty-five years to build the infrastructure of this new universal health care plan.

Of course, a China critic may point out Wal-Mart’s success because it was a private sector business but that same critic, out of ignorance or by design, will not mention what Christian Science Monitor.com says about Wal-Mart’s health care for its employees:

“In addition to stopping the retaliations and respecting workers’ right to free speech and assembly, OUR Wal-Mart members would like to see the retailer offer more dependable work schedules, affordable healthcare for full-time workers, and a living wage ($13 per hour minimum).

“Wal-Mart has been advertising that they are a family-oriented company. And if this is how family is treated, then I would rather not have a family at all,” says Ms. Cruz.”

In the private sector, the way corporations/businesses treat employees varies from company to company. There is no universal standard of treatment, and there never will be unless the private sector eventually is owned by one global corporation.

Business Insider.com shows how Wal-Mart treats its employees: “Wal-Mart Guts Its Employee Health Care Plan and Raises Premiums—Rates are expected to climb by more than 40 percent for some employees. Combined with high deductibles, employees are complaining that their health care will now eat up to 20 percent of their annual pay.”

Continued on October 30, 2012, In healthcare, what comes first: the chicken or the egg? – Part 3 or return to Part 1

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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3 Comments | America, American culture, business, capitalism, China, Chinese Culture, Communism, democracy, economy, family values, government, health care, politics, United States | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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