While reading an email from Michael Moore about President Obama's Westpoint Speech, in which it was said he was planning on sending more troops to Afghanistan, I turned on the TV and there was a program featuring some people from china in a moderated discussion about China's role in the world economy and how they viewed it.
There were three speakers from the Chinese side and unfortunately one of them I didn't catch his name and he spoke a bit fast for me to really absorb what it was he was talking about.
the two other Speakers, Wing Thye Woo and Kiao Geng had some things to say that did catch my attention and get me thinking about how both of our countries look at the world economy. These are some of my thoughts I wrote down on my Blackberry to post. They may not be entirely correct, but it was based on my take of what they said.
Wing Thye Woo speaking at Brownings Institution as a Non Resident Sr. Fellow
Part of Chinese Global
He brings up points about American companies with their bad debts cause the Chinese Government to look to places like Africa to lend their money. This being a natural business reaction. (I'm not sure why Africa is a better place to lend money, unless it's because of resources available).
Wing Thye Woo also points out that having companies such as Better Buys come to try and sell China electronics and most technical equipment makes no sense. The Chinese already produce most of the goods and can sell to themselves cheaper. (Made sense to me.)
Where China does need imports is in the areas of education to create a higher level of education and Phd's. In addition they are looking for more education to help in bringing increased individual entrepreneurs and small businesses.
The drawback for this is that people need to be able to own or control their own land areas in order to secure monies to be able to build their own businesses.
Kiao Geng
Brookings Center-Tsinghua Center (Beijing) Director
He says that the Chinese have plenty of money, they have land to give away and are very interested in assisting businesses.
Chinese have become highly urbanized and building the business models that can work on smaller scales, is where they need help and are looking to the outside for that help.
Most of their money is going to the top and larger companies. While they do employ a majority of workers, it's the smaller service and private sectors that need to be helped more within the Chinese economy.
My take on this is that the Chinese have made loads of money and still do from Countries such as the United States that are more than willing to purchase and continue to purchase these products.This continues to move the money from the United States to China.
All of this has taken place slowly over the years until we now find ourselves in a position where the United State's debt is out of control, we have unemployment rates at all time highs, major industries such as automobile makers that have gone bust, neighborhoods with building after building hanging for lease signs because small businesses just can't afford to stay in business.
We have little faith in the United State's big businesses that cry about their lack of business and yet fragrantly wave their mismanagement, high management compensation and all the while continuing to lay-off the workers and yet keep creating jobs within the upper end of the companies.
They are telling the worker that there are no funds for training. Not only training but retraining workers for the jobs they are already trying to do and will continue to expect the worker to do more work without the adequate training for these unfamiliar areas.
The Government continues to award monies to companies based on the companies applications and how they will use the money. In many, if not most cases, it seems the money goes into areas that it was not intended for.
Instead of investors putting their money into promoting the United States through education and helping small business compete with the countries such as China by educating our own people. They choose to instead stop all the incentives The American Workers have and instead allow more people from other countries to not only utilize our educational facilities, but enormous amounts of American monies to help educate and then employ these foreign workers.
While local workers continue to stand in unemployment lines, collect welfare, lose their homes to banks that have been given millions of dollars with no conditions as to how they use it or account for it.
We need to take a very hard look at how we support our own people and provide the support and money that needs to be spent on the United States to bring back the various manufacturing, high tech and training for our people.
Had we not run around lending and giving money to other countries with little or no hope of having it returned, forgiving the debts for other countries and yet pressuring and increasing the cost of money to our own people, who are already over their heads in debt and continuing to go into debt.
Because it's the Holiday Season (now just a facade for encouraging commercialism). This will only bring on more debt and stress for families when the credit card bills come due, along with utility bills, food, gas. All while the banks use every trick in the book raise rates and go unchecked in creating any sort of fee they want to.
One bank I used to deal with reported 3 times the income from just fees alone compared to what they took in from interest charges.
Somehow we all need to take more personal responsibility in creating what it is we want in our lives.
---Get out of debt.
---Buy American.
---Support small business enterprises.
---Buy and spend locally.
---Eat foods that are grown locally and not shipped hundreds and thousands of miles.
so we can buy them at low prices and subvert the local producers.
---Insist on nutrient dense foods that help to improve our lands and our bodies.
It's up to each of us to take the personal responsibility to be the change that is needed and not look to others for the answers, maybe their knowledge and experience, but not to expect them to be the answer to our problems.
While I am all for education. I think it needs to be made available to the citizens of the United States at affordable prices and the Government and companies need to back this up.
I also believe that we need to rebuild our technology and manufacturing abilities and employ our own citizens to create goods that are well made and at reasonable prices.
It just doesn't make sense that we can ship manufactured goods thousands of miles to be used here in the United States rather than import the materials needed to do our own manufacturing.
We know that the cost of labor has the most to do with this happening, and it happened because Governments allowed major corporations to dictate these practices based almost solely on the return of capital and ignoring the good of the people in the process.
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