Re: Soft anti-Americanism

On Sun, 28 Dec 2008 14:36:40 -0500, Les Cargill wrote:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200812/fallows-chinese-banker

This is an article by James Fallows, an interview with Gao Xiqing. Gao
Xiqing is one of the giants of Chinese finance.

It makes some great points - we have too much emphasis on abstract
financial manipulation at the expense of manipulation of actual goods
and services. Compensation is very different, expectations are vastly
different.

But what shines through to me is what I call "soft anti-Americanism".
It's a less warlike Qutbism, and it's very striking. The title says it
all - "Be Nice to the Countries that Lend You Money."

There's a vague reference to pulling out of Iraq. But it's mostly
surprising to me how scattershot the thing is, how little coherence his
criticism bears. Not all - but there are tow modes - one is more
technical, and the other is attitudinal.

I say "mild Qutbism", and I mean it. The resonances are somewhat
striking. "Finally, after months and months of struggling with your own
ideology, with your own pride, your self-right-eousness … finally [the
U.S. applied] one of the great gifts of Americans, which is that you’re
pragmatic." That's very similar to what a Qutbist would say, albeit with
a dollop of sugar at the end. And of course funneling billions into
failed organizations is, I suppose, obvious to a person who was alive in
China when he was.

I don't disapprove of this sort of anti-Ameericanism, but it seems a
displacement in this case - his fortune is completely due to the very
things he decries. He also misidentifies the role of savings and such in
this. We could, if we wanted, call the experiment in industrialism in
China a form of immigration with out having to leave the mother country.
We moved 1900s New York *to China*, because that's cheaper now. This is
to me analogous to Britain moving its low-end industrial revolution to
America because *it* was cheaper. Both statements leave out enough
detail to be wrong on my part, but it's *like* that.

Sure, there was ideology, but it was complex mixes of ideologies, forged
on the anvil of politics. Pride? Self-righteousness? Erm... maybe, in
cases, but the underlying structure is a perception of dishumility. I
dunno - what do you call the hubris of a Countrywide?

Stupid. That's what you call it.

I can't deny him his observations - but the word that doesn't appear is
"stupid". These things are stupid. I've been playing defense myself
against various bubbles since the mid 90s.

But it's ultimately kind of surprising how strongly the phrase "you
think you're better than us" shines through all that. "I won’t say
kowtow [with a laugh], but at least, be nice to the countries that lend
you money."

Very strange. I'm not 100% sure what to make of that. Cynically, if we
sent flatterers with nice gifts over, he'd be happy? America is brusque,
no doubt. But would it have made a difference?

What he is identifying in my mind is the Neocon Thing - let the
intellectuals write the book/plan, and the foot soldiers ( Bush being
the top foot soldier ) simply don't apologize or explain.

I appreciate how all this must look to a factory girl in Bejing, but
there's really not that much to be done about it. If America crashes,
SFAIK it all goes with it.

I read this and I read your critique and I see the same fundamental error
all the time. It really does get down to "borrowing $700B a year from
China and sending it to Saudi Arabia". And all the hoopla over global
warming is, to me, just a way to enlist the greens in the real fight to
save the nation (and even the world) from the "yellow peril" (and all the
other "perils" that besiege us). It will ever get back to this each and
every time: We do not need to borrow from anyone because the one thing
that we do manufacture in great abundance is money. It is somewhat like
an ocean borrowing water. The reality is that we must pay for all the
gasoline that we waste and that trumps the money.

The way to free ourselves from the clutches of the foreigners is to stop
sucking on the oil teat. It hasn't changed simply because oil has gotten
cheaper though this decline may buy is some breathing room. All that
crap about being nice to people that loan you money is top sided. The
SUV gas hogs and the high rollers want to be nice to the foreigners down
to the last working stiff in this country. We do not need the long term
cooperation of the Chinese or any of the rest of the Asians or even the
Europeans. That does not mean that cooperation isn't good. It means
that we need to deal from the proper position of economic strength which
is our reality to make.

As a nation we are far richer than they and it is primarily natural
resource per capita that gives us that wealth. We simply must use our
own resources (or at least the resources of this hemisphere) to become
energy independent within this hemisphere. Why we insist on being nice
to China while pissing all over Chavez and Latin and South America has
got to be one of the big mysteries of the universe. I would much rather
send money to Central and South America than to send it to the middle
east or the far east. And if that means we will be using a lot more
biofuels and paying more at the pump then so be it.

It is the oil dependence every single time.

--
"Those are my opinions and you can't have em" -- Bart Simpson
.

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