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

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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 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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Leave a Comment » | America, American culture, China, economy, media, politics, United States | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse