ArtfulDodger's  Instablog

Say what you will about the Chinese; they are not stupid people. Neither are they degenerate minded, following paths that are sure to destroy them.

Mao preached socialism to the whole world, and it answered the calling, while he hardly socialized China. E.g., they still don't have the ever-burdening socialized medicine as much of the rest of the world does, and as the US has partly enacted (medicare et al) and is dying to enact fully.

And they don't have the massive "safety net" policies (welfare, food stamps, et al) that the US does which become brutal burdens during downturns.

The Chinese protect their own industries, while the US throws theirs to the hungriest hyenas. They practice hard-boiled, tough-nutted business and bargaining; the US goes out of its way to make other nations grow, while holding itself down through taxes, regulations, and trade policies that destroy its core.

The Chinese buy what that they need of natural resource products from other nations, but they don’t overpay, and they utilize what they have. The US refuses to use its own resources and buys them (often at a premium with little to no negotiation) from other nations.

China is actually building infrastructure with the money designated for that purpose in the fall of 2008, and it doesn’t have to borrow those funds. China can reach right into its own fat bankroll.

But in the US, citizens had a classic Bait and Switch con pulled on them when the government promised to rebuild and repair with the $770b Stimulus Package all the bridges, highways and railways, and roads it claimed were in "crisis state."

The government said shovel-ready projects were sitting there waiting for the go ahead as soon as funds were appropriated, but so far not even five percent has gone to such projects. (no mention in the media nowadays about bridges collapsing, roads crumbling, dams breaking, or rail lines rusting)

China continues to beef up its borders to protect its society, to maintain its proud culture, and to build long-range missiles that sit in defensive positions around the country. The USA, meanwhile, continues to keep its borders almost wide-open, especially on the southern side, distances itself further and further from its classical culture by deserting its art, morals, architecture, and religion, and goes traipsing about the world seeking monsters to destroy instead of protecting its borders.

The Chinese normally mind their own business; the US has its nose stuck in hundreds of nations attempting such things as trying to turn them into democracies and explain to them what US-style human rights are.

China wants to remain independent and self-sufficient and is in the process of following through on this desire by doing such things as building nuclear plants to power itself. US policies drive the nation further toward interdependence with oodles of nations.

China has a huge and growing Middle-Class and makes policies to boost it even more; the rural Under-Class of its hinterland has the opportunity to come in and take menial jobs to get started in society—if they wish.

The US takes dead aim at its Middle Class, to crush it with ever-burgeoning taxes and regulations that tend to hold the Middle down and build the Lower up—whether it is deserving of being built up or not.

The Chinese don't send the non-productive checks that come from the productive, and they don’t provide them with entrance to their best schools unless they deserve it. They believe some people belong in labor-intensive jobs, so they don’t try to make them into teachers or politicians.

On the other hand, the US goes out of its way to find those with the least potential and then gives them scholarships to the best universities that make sure they get passing grades—whether they deserve them or not. And they end up being teachers or politicians.

Or, the US sends the least productive checks that come from the most productive that encourage the least to stay where they are.

The Chinese, quite ironically, believe as the great Christian Apostle Paul wrote: If anyone will not work, do not let him eat (II Thess. 3.10).

The US, quite ironically, believes as the great Apostle of Communism, Karl Marx, wrote, Not each according to his ability, but each according to his need.

Some have claimed that the Chinese are pumping up a real estate bubble by pouring money into their banking system and forcing banks to lend the money and that this policy will end as it did in the US. But there is no comparison.

In one of the dumbest known acts in the history of governments, in the 1990s the US sued lending institutions for "discriminatory lending practices" and then forced them to lend to borrowers who did not meet the qualifications that the government itself had laid down.

Ten years into these type of business practices, and even a few government bureaucrats were beginning to blow the warning trumpet. After the Fed raised rates 17 straight times (sucking billions of dollars out of the system along the way) and the economy slowed, borrowers began defaulting by the thousands helping to cause the economy to crash.

Obviously, the Chinese are building with their strongest material, and they are promoting their strongest; the US is building with its weakest, and holding its strongest down.

It will take years for China to catch up with their economy fourfold behind the US’s, but as Jim Rogers has said in various interviews, The Chinese are now more capitalist than America (and they’re better at it); they’re more willing to work; and in business they take care of their own first.

That is a winning recipe, in my view. They may never catch up in our lifetime, but they should grow much faster, and their nation will stand more united and stronger, whereas the US will continue to splinter along racial and class lines and become weaker because of it—not because of its people, but because of its government’s policies.

Not one bit of evidence exists to tell us that either nation will change its current policies. The US is in fact moving further to the left, while China is becoming freer—not free by any means, but certainly freer.

What else can happen but for China’s power to rise and America’s demise?

Don’t take my sentiment wrongly in this article. I am not at all happy about what I see happening in the US, but it’s the route our leaders have been shoving us down for years—and so far, no matter what the people do or say, nothing has stopped them.

I remain hoping otherwise, the Artfuldodger