How the Chinese saved GM’s Buick Brand and Donald Trump is killing American Jobs

December 5, 2018

Malignant Narcissist and the embarrassingly ignorant Donald Trump used his “BULLY” pulpit as the president of the United States to threaten: “General Motors Should Pay Back Bankruptcy Aid.”

Trump said this, “One day after General Motors reported it will shutter five North American assembly and powertrain plants.” The reason: the tariffs President Donald Trump has placed on steel and aluminum in his trade war with the world.

After Losing $1 Billion to Tariffs, General Motors Announces 14,000 Layoffs

And the BBC.com reports. “(Trump’s) Critics point out the US gets most of its (imported) steel from Canada and the EU – staunch US allies.”

In addition, ABC News reports, “The U.S. produced 81.6 million metric tons of steel in 2017, according to steel trade group The World Steel Association (WorldSteel).” How much steel did the U.S. import: “In 2017, there were 36 million metric tons of steel imported to the U.S.”

In June, Trump already had “imposed a 25 percent tariff on $50 billion in Chinese goods, including China-built cars such as the Buick Envision.”

The Envision was first introduced publicly in China on July 1, 2014, with a photo of the car under a cover and placed between a Buick Encore and a Buick Enclave.

The Buick Envision has never been manufactured in the United States and no American jobs were lost jobs because of the Buick Envision being produced in China.

Back in July 2014, NBC News reported, “How China, Not Your Grandfather, May Have Saved Buick’s Future.”

The reason China saved Buick is because in China Buick became a luxury car equal to BMW and Mercedes Benz. “In the late 1990s, when General Motors wanted to become one of the first Western automakers to set up a plant in China, government officials told then-CEO Jack Smith they wanted GM’s ‘best brand,’ he once recalled — not Cadillac, not Chevrolet, but Buick. Today, GM is the second-largest automaker in China and Buick is its top brand.”

How many GM Buicks are sold in China vs the United States?

Forbes.com reports, “When GM went through bankruptcy a decade ago and euthanized Saturn, Pontiac, Saab and Hummer, the custodians also pressed the case to relegate Buick to the automotive graveyard along with Mercury, Plymouth, Hudson, Studebaker, AMC, LaSalle, etc. But they were deterred by a passionate case for Buick made by GM executives stating that if the brand were killed in the U.S., it would probably dramatically impact the brand’s bizarrely healthy business in China. That’s right. Buick sells more than 800,000 Buicks a year in China. In the U.S., Buick did about 220,000 last year.”

Do you think the Chinese would be willing to buy that many Buicks if China allowed them to be imported, with a price increase, if GM moved manufacturing back to the United States for Buicks sold in China?

In fact, some U.S. made vehicles are exported to and sold in China. USA Today reports, “Altogether, Chinese sales of U.S.-made vehicles totaled about 266,657, representing less than 1% of the world’s largest automotive market.” Compare that number to how many cars made in China were sold in the US: USANews.com provides the answer: 50,000.

What country will lose the most jobs if the U.S. is forced to stop selling more than a quarter million cars made in America to Chinese consumers while China stops selling fifty-thousand to U.S. consumers all thanks to Donald Trump’s trade war?

Let’s not forget that Donald Trump has said he is a stable genius, very intelligent, and a great businessman … that caused U.S. banks to lose more than a billion dollars from Trump’s six biggest bankruptcies. Did you know that Donald Trump said during the 2016 presidential election debates that he never had a bankruptcy?

It is safe to say that if Donald Trump brags about how great he is, he is lying.

If you are curious how to sell China manufactured products in China, visit the China Law Blog here.”

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

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MAGA vs MCGA

October 17, 2018

Make America Great Again was Donald Trump’s misleading campaign logo. I wonder how many people know that Trump sold each hat for $25 and made a profit estimates at $8 for each hat. Millions of these hats have been sold. Trump, of course, trademarked MAGA. CNBC reports, “Trump submitted his application to trademark the phrase ‘Make America Great Again’ back in November of 2012. He has profited from the decision politically and financially ever since.”

Make China Great Again is also a reality. Did Mao or any president of China since Mao trademark MCGA and earn a profit from the logo?

How does China’s current President Xi Jinping compare to Donald Trump?

To discover the answer, let’s compare what we know about these two world leaders from reliable sources.

Xi Jinping


Here is how a boy sent to the countryside to shovel sewage and feed pigs became the most powerful president in China’s modern history.

Xi Jinping is the son of Chinese Communist veteran Xi Zhongxun.

Jinping was exiled to rural Yanchuan County as a teenager following his father’s purge during the Cultural Revolution, and lived in a cave in the village of Liangjiahe, where he organized communal laborers. After studying at the prestigious Tsinghua University as a Worker-Peasant-Soldier Student, Xi rose through the ranks politically in China’s coastal provinces.

Jinping was governor of Fujian province from 1999 to 2002, and governor, then party secretary of neighboring Zhejiang province from 2002 to 2007.

Following the dismissal of Chen Liangyu, Jinping was transferred to Shanghai as party secretary for a brief period in 2007.

He joined the Politburo Standing Committee and central secretariat in October 2007, spending the next five years as Hu Jintao‘s presumed successor. Xi was vice president from 2008 to 2013 and Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission from 2010 to 2012.

After becoming China’s president, Jinping has introduced far-ranging measures to enforce party discipline and to ensure internal unity.

His signature anti-corruption campaign has led to the downfall of prominent incumbent and retired Communist Party officials, including members of the Politburo Standing Committee. Described as a Chinese nationalist, he has tightened restrictions over civil society and ideological discourse, advocating internet censorship in China as the concept of “internet sovereignty”.

Donald Trump

Compared to Xi Jinping, there is no shortage of information about Donald Trump. With several biographies, one official, there is too much information going back decades about the toxic malignant narcissist that became president of the United States.

Donald Trump has a history of making racially controversial remarks and taking actions widely seen as playing upon racial anxieties in the United States. Trump has denied accusations of racism by saying, “I am not a racist. I’m the least racist person you will ever interview”.

Donald Trump was born into a wealthy family. His father Fred was born in 1905 in the Bronx. Fred Trump’s net worth was estimated at $250 – $300 million. The family company, “E. Trump & Son”, founded in 1923, was primarily active in the New York boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn. Fred eventually built and sold thousands of houses, barracks, and apartments. In 1971, Donald Trump was made president of the company, which was later renamed the Trump Organization.

History of Discrimination and Racism

In 1973, Trump and his company Trump Management were sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for housing discrimination against black renters, a lawsuit which, according to Trump, he settled without an admission of guilt.

In 2011, Trump became the leading proponent of the already discredited “Birtherism” conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama was not born in the US, and he repeated the claim for the following five years.

He was accused of racism for maintaining, as late as 2016, that a group of black and Latino teenagers were guilty of raping a white woman in the Central Park jogger case, although an imprisoned serial rapist had confessed in 2002 to raping the jogger alone, and DNA evidence confirmed his guilt.

Trump’s History of Corporate Welfare and Business Failures

The New York Times reports, “A Trump Empire Built on Inside Connections and $885 Million in Tax Breaks.”

Thought Co.com explains, “Why Donald Trump’s Companies Went Bankrupt: Details About the 6 Donald Trump Corporate Bankruptcies.

“Donald Trump has portrayed himself as a successful businessman who has amassed a net worth of as much as $10 billion. But he has also led some of his companies into bankruptcy, maneuvers he says were designed to restructure their massive debt.

“Critics have cited the Trump corporate bankruptcies as examples of his recklessness and inability to manage …”

USA Today reports, “Hundreds allege Donald Trump doesn’t pay his bills. Among those who say the billionaire didn’t pay: dishwashers, painters, waiters …”

“Donald Trump often portrays himself as a savior of the working class who will ‘protect your job.’ But a USA TODAY NETWORK analysis found he has been involved in more than 3,500 lawsuits over the past three decades — and a large number of those involve ordinary Americans, like the Friels, who say Trump or his companies have refused to pay them.

“At least 60 lawsuits, along with hundreds of liens, judgments, and other government filings reviewed by the USA TODAY NETWORK, document people who have accused Trump and his businesses of failing to pay them for their work.”

Donald Trump’s Sexual Misconduct

The Business Insider offers a timeline of Trump’s many marriages and rumored affairs. “Trump has been plagued by allegations of affairs and sexual Misconduct throughout his three marriages to Ivana Trump, Marla Maples, and Melania Trump.”

Trump’s History of Lies

The New York Times says, “Many Americans have become accustomed to President Trump’s lies. But as regular as they have become, the country should not allow itself to become numb to them. So we have catalogued nearly every outright lie he has told publicly since taking the oath of office. Updated: The president is still lying, so we’ve added to this list, taking it through Nov. 11, and provided links to the facts in each case.”

Politic Fact lists “All False statements involving Donald Trump.” Page 1 of 10

The Washington Post reports, “President Trump has made 4,229 false or misleading claims in 558 days.”

Trump’s attacks on the media and the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution

The Economist reports, “Donald Trump’s attacks on the media may have backfired.”

“BASHING America’s legacy media organizations may be Donald Trump’s most consistent hobby. America’s president has re-purposed the term ‘fake news’, which originally referred to online political-disinformation campaigns, to apply to all unfavorable coverage of his administration, regardless of its veracity. Since his inauguration, he has used the term in 258 different tweets—one out of every 16 messages he has sent on the platform as president.”

After learning about these two world leaders, it is obvious that only one of them will lead his country to become a great world power.  There will be one winner and one loser. What do you think, will it be MAGA or MCGA?

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

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Subscribe to my newsletter to hear about new releases and get a free copy of my award-winning, historical fiction short story “A Night at the Well of Purity”.

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China and Japan Continue to Face-Off in the East China Sea

October 10, 2018

The conflict between China and Japan in the East China Sea has been brewing for a long time and most if it is Japan’s fault. To understand why this is happening, one should know China’s history with Japan.

It started when “Massive changes were unleashed in Japan by the Meiji restoration – a period of radical modernization – in 1868, and out of these emerged the desire for wealth, power and prestige as a way of redressing the imposition of unequal treaties that had been placed upon Japan by western powers in the past.”

The Japanese also thought they were racially and spiritually superior to the Chinese. After Japan’s invasion of China in 1937, movie houses were among the first establishments to be reopened, and a favorite topic of Japanese film makers for over a decade depicted them as superior both racially and morally.

Japan’s warrior culture dates back to the twelfth century, but Japan was no match for China where gunpowder was invented in 904 AD. The first true rockets were also invented in China and used in combat in the 13th century, more than a hundred years before they were first used in European warfare.

With Japan’s culturally superior attitude, it is also arguable that the Japanese were envious and jealous of China during the 1,500 years China was the wealthiest and most technologically advanced country in the world up until the 15th century.

That decline didn’t happen overnight. It took about four hundred years for China to become vulnerable, and in 1840, Japan joined the British, French and Americans to gang up on China during the Opium Wars.

In 1870, Japan once again took advantage of China’s growing weakness and annexed the islands of the Ryukyu Kingdom that had also, like Korea and Tibet been one of China’s tributary states. A Ryukyuan envoy even begged England for help, but the British ruled that the islands should belong to Japan instead of China.

Like Tibet, Korea had been a tributary state of China for centuries, but Japan saw an opportunity and in 1884, Japanese and Chinese troops clashed in Korea, a conflict that ended in a lopsided stalemate in Japan’s favor.

A decade later, Japan tried against and fought their first war over Korea. China was defeated in 1895 losing Korea as a tributary and a large portion of Eastern Manchuria.

Then there’s World War II. On July 7, 1937, Japan invaded China and occupied most of that country for eight years. The Chinese estimate that that the Japanese military murdered more than 10,000,000 Chinese civilians during World War II. An additional 2.2 million deaths were Chinese troops. — Hawaii.edu

My own father-in-law lived in Shanghai and was 12 years old when he witnessed a Japanese officer behead his 12-year old cousin who had just reached the front yard on his way home from school. Thousands of Chinese of all ages and both sexes suffered the same fate when Japanese officers wanted to see how many heads they could chop off. Many more were gunned down for no other reason than they were Chinese.

Japan has never apologized for The Rape of Nanking and other atrocities that happened during World War II resulting in millions of Chinese deaths.

U.S. News & World Report says, The Chinese have resented the Japanese ever since Japan conquered and occupied China in the 1930s and 40s. The Japanese prime minister’s annual visits to a Tokyo shrine for Japanese war veterans always reminds the Chinese of Japan’s wartime brutality and continued lack of remorse.

After World War II, China asked for the islands in the East China Sea to be returned, but the United States rejected China’s request and gave the islands to Japan, the country that invaded China and bombed Pearl Harbor bringing China and the United States together as allies to fight Japan.  Why did the United States stab China in the back?

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

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Subscribe to my newsletter to hear about new releases and get a free copy of my award-winning, historical fiction short story “A Night at the Well of Purity”.

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What’s happening in the South China Sea is all about Natural Resources

September 25, 2018

There is nothing new going on in the South China Sea except recent interference and meddling by the United States in what has been a regional issue for more than two thousand years.

China’s historical claim over the South China Sea and the Spratly Islands has a long history, which is documented in detail by Dee Woo.

  • 200BC around – China discovered the Spratly Islands
  • 220 – Nansha (Spratly) Island was settled by Chinese monks, building up a monastery on that island.
  • 789 – The Tang Dynasty, China included the Nansha Islands into its administrative map
  • 990 – Spratley Islands became a part of the Northern Song area in Hainan
  • 1121 – Kublai Khan controlled most of the islands during China’s Yuan Dynasty

Woo’s final piece of evidence is a link to a 64-page document titled, China’s Sovereignty over the South China Sea islands: A Historical Perspective, which is archived at the Oxford Journals.

China’s leaders argue that they and other nations in the region can work out their differences without intervention from the United States. They allege the U.S. is intruding and attempting to make this an international issue.

The South China Sea is bordered by ten nations and includes some of the world’s most important shipping lanes and fisheries. Another motivation to possess this territory is the critically important mineral resources found there, including oil (with reserves thought to be the fourth largest in the world).

In fact, Oil Price.com explains How Oil Drives the South China Sea Conflict. “While Western geologists seem to only recently appreciate the area’s oil and gas potential, the Chinese have known it for years. Perhaps, that’s why they even refer to the South China Sea as a Second Persian Gulf and will undoubtedly continue to not only build there but defend it with rhetoric and if push comes to shove, by force.”

Historically, the South China Sea dispute is no different from any the United States has been involved in since defeating the British Empire and becoming a nation. Another example is when the U.S. paid France for the Louisiana Purchase, while millions of North American natives still lived where their ancestress had lived for thousands of years.

How can anyone buy and sell something that they never occupied or owned? The answer is that it happens all the time.

The Atlantic reports, “Europeans arriving in the New World met people all the way from the frozen north to the frozen south. All had rich and mature cultures and established languages. … Sites in the Yukon that straddle the U.S.-Alaskan border with Canada give us clues, such as the Bluefish Caves, 33 miles southwest of the village of Old Crow.

“The latest radio-dating analysis of the remnants of lives in the Bluefish Caves indicates that people were there 24,000 years ago. These founding peoples spread over 12,000 years to every corner of the continents and formed the pool from which all Americans would be drawn until 1492.”

In 1941, Europeans invaded North and South America and waged war against the people already there, and the United States continued that brutal practice after 1776, against Native Americans because of the resources and wealth that came with the land.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  What China is doing in the South China Sea is no different than what the Europeans did in North and South America.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

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Subscribe to my newsletter to hear about new releases and get a free copy of my award-winning, historical fiction short story “A Night at the Well of Purity”.

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Cyber Warfare is Evolving and China is taking the Soft approach while Russia follows the Hard path

September 18, 2018

The Washington Post reported, “Our research shows that nations such as the United States and Israel prefer to infiltrate enemy networks and precisely target and attack key military and government systems.” …

“China also primarily hacks other nations’ systems for military and industrial espionage purposes.”

Former President Obama said, “Every country in the world, large and small, engages in intelligence gathering.”

Russia, however, “stands out from other nations in uniquely using cyber methods to distort, gaslight and alter the views of the target population. Other authoritarian states use cyber methods to rig their own elections. But Russia remains rare among great powers in its targets and methods.” …

“U.S. intelligence services have concluded that Russia is conducting political warfare to alter the hearts and minds in its rival power’s population. That’s a far cry from what any other nations are attempting.”

Even China isn’t doing what Russia is doing to manipulate democratic elections and brainwash a rival country’s people unless we count “Crazy Rich Asians” a film financed by a US-based Asian film investment group Ivanhoe Pictures that partnered with Nina Jacobson to product the film that became #1 at the U.S. box office in August, 2018.

However there is a vast difference between Russia deliberately invading a democracy’s election system and programing voters to not vote and/or vote and elect liars, frauds and criminals like Donald Trump and what the Chinese are doing through major films to change the perception of China and its people from a negative bias to a positive one.

The Economist reports, “China is spending billions to make the world love it.”

“The (Chinese Communist) party borrowed the idea of soft power from an American academic, Joseph Nye, who coined the term in 1990. Mr. Nye argued that hard power alone was not enough to wield influence in the world. It had to come from ‘the soft power of attraction’, too. China was acutely conscious that it lacked it.”

Meanwhile, Russia under Putin continues to use a virtual sledge hammer in an attempt to end democratic freedoms.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

Where to Buy

Subscribe to my newsletter to hear about new releases and get a free copy of my award-winning, historical fiction short story “A Night at the Well of Purity”.

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Leave a Comment » | America, business, censorship, China, Chinese arts and music, Communism, democracy, Lloyd Lofthouse, politics, propaganda, United States | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
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