Financing Your Own Demise

Another recall of lead laced Chinese toys was announced today. It's about time for everyone to wake up. Some years ago, we conservatives were all over a certain President who accepted campaign funding from China and refused to remove MFTN status from that country. After he left office, we suddenly got amnesia... lead poisoning induced no doubt. We Americans snap up Chinese crap in our grocery and department stores like it's going out of style. America and China share the most imbalanced trade relationship of any two nations in the world; a whopping $202 Billion as of 2006. So every year, $202 Billion dollars flow right out of our pockets into Chinese coffers. That's $202 Billion per year for poisoned pets and children and products that fall apart when used for their intended purpose.

Now, what are the Chinese doing with these vast amounts of money you may ask...

For one, they're driving the price of our gasoline through the roof, by purchasing and filling the world's largest strategic oil reserve. They're upgrading and modernizing their military... A military that forced one of our aircraft down in international air space a few years ago and then held the crew hostage after they made an emergency landing on Chinese turf. They are also funding hackers to invade our defense data networks. They're smuggling spies into our nuclear research facilities. In short, they are fighting a low intensity war of aggression against us.

What are the Chinese going to do with their modernized upgraded military? I just got an e-mail forwarded from George over at MadOgre from a gentleman returning from an 11 month stint working in China. He posed his hypothesis as to what they may use them for. I happen to agree with him wholeheartedly. He said:

"a sane person does not acquire something without intending to use it. Therefore I will treat the PRC's intent to use the military as a certainty. This begs the question of what this use will be. Two possibilities immediately present themselves. The first use is the suppression of uprisings, particularly from the farmers and peasants. The second use is imperial expansion."

He also mentioned that many of his liberal acquaintances discount the possibility of China attacking their cash cow - us. I too have heard this "logic" bandied about. The fact of the matter is, why would someone continue to buy their milk, when they have the strength to simply take the cow. They are buying that strength with our dollars.

Our attention is diverted for the moment with the war on terror. We've become complacent about the communist scourge because we thought we won that war... forgetting that the largest communist nation on Earth is China.

So back to the issue regarding the MFTN status of China. Allow me to speak bluntly. What does this designation really mean? We have become so used to thinking that Washington DC should do everything for us and then we whine when it doesn't happen the way we want it. Grow up, if you want to defend this nation from China's obvious intended aggression, revoke China's MFTN status yourself. Stop buying their cheap crap. Flip that widget over and look for that "Made in China" sticker. If you find one, put the widget back on the shelf, buy the one that's slightly more expensive and probably a better value when quality is protracted. Revoke China's MFTN status by doing so with your dollars and we will all be better served and safer to boot!

This touches on another issue. So yahoo was telling me the other day how tough his Nissan pickup truck was... Let's see if I can put this any more clearly... Buying an import pickup truck is like buying a Playtex chainsaw.

Buy American for a stronger America and we'll all be happier.