jg, we need more people to speak up as you did. You get the Reality-Check-of-the-day Award.

Consumption has got to get back to trendline. If it doesn’t, we’re going to run this country into bankruptcy around the time we run out of $70/barrel oil, and are into $100/barrel oil shale deposits.

The problem is that China cannot create a consumer. Did you read in the story that the shopping malls are empty, as the people are either too poor, or too much savers. The wages are not high enough for them consume their own goods. For this reason, they need to revalue their currency. As long as they remain export dependent, they will have a recession right along with us. Read Roubini = he explains why the entire world will go into a bear market when the US goes into a recession.

Charles Jones Soong, the father of Soong May-ling and father-in-law to Chiang Kai-Shek became an extremely wealthy man in China selling bibles! He discovered that there’s plenty of money to be made in religion. Where did he learn that? In America, at Duke University and Vanderbilt University.

I meant to say that IF China can engineer a consumer boom, we might be able to export more stuff. Also, when China revalues it’s currency upwards then the Chinese consumers could afford to buy more imports.

Thailand, Malaysia, South Korean suffered a terrible recession after the Asian financial crisis of 1997, but they were able to engineer a recovery by boosting local consumption. They were previously export oriented economies (and still are but to a lesser degree).

All right, SDREBear, I’ll save you a place right next to me in the next human chain-to-protest-government-meddling-in-religion!

China — The problem with the Chinese economy at this point is that it’s too dependent on fixed infrastructure investments, similar to that the US is too dependent on consumers. With so much capacity built in China, there is the danger of too much price competition, significant resource misallocation, and a resulting hard landing.

PS, you said, “The problem is that China cannot create a consumer. Did you read in the story that the shopping malls are empty, as the people are either too poor, or too much savers.” (Thanks for the link, BTW) That’s not entirely true. The very high end malls are empty because the builders went after prestige and their pricing was way too high (we’re talking about Paris NYC type of prices). If you go to shops normal Chinese go to, there is plenty of consumption. Not all chinese are savers, either. Younger generation who’s making good money fast are quite good at consuming. Very savvy multi-nationals are already making a lot of money in China.

PerryChase, even if Chinese consumers are buying US branded products, it may not benefit US jobs because those products are very likely made in China. The only true exports (that I’m aware of) are airplanes, chips, software, highend capital equipment (machinery, likely from Europe, Japan and Korea), etc. China is also resources hungry, so it imports a lot of raw material from places like Australia, Brazil, and Africa. I think that US exports to China algriculture products. Entertainment is another US export.

If you look out 20 years, the probability of US living standard decline relative to the rest of the world (Asia) is very high. (Note the word “relative”). US just isn’t producing enough value-added products.

ybc – thanks for your great information.

We don’t have to assume it is the one true faith to demand that the cross stay where it is. This country was founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs and they are a part of our history. This monument is a historical treasure. These same people would have us remove all references to Christianity out of the Constuitution.

I’m sure we’ve all heard that we should choose our battles carefully. Well, when it comes to the ACLU why is it that their lawsuits always seem to target those things that most American hold dear? Like Christmas, Christian historic monuments, the Boy Scouts etc and other fringe issues. And they are even trying to undermine national security by fighting most of the Patriot Act and demanding recruiters stay off campuses. If they don’t like the law on gays in the military, change the law, don’t take away the opportunity to learn about military careers from college students!