[Pages 174-187]
“Beware the
sleeping dragon,” said Winston Churchill. “For when she awakes the Earth will
shake.” The sleeping dragon of which Churchill spoke was of course Communist
China. Most people today, especially our corporate owned media, just drop the
word “Communist” from their name and refer to them simply as “China.” Why wouldn’t you . . . they are
no longer “Communist.” Now they are just brutal, totalitarian, dictators who
have embraced our “free enterprise system.” They support it with state money
and every government backed advantage possible, including: currency
manipulation, industrial espionage, Internet piracy, counterfeiting, collusion,
copyright and patent infringement and bribery. Even though this book is focused
on money, namely your money, any American that can overlook the well documented
human rights abuses and rampant pollution of Mother Earth by China is just choosing to look the other
way. Dong business with China directly supports one of the most
dictatorial, oppressive regimes on Earth as well as the largest polluter on the
planet.
Give credit
were credit is due, although new to the free enterprise system, China seems to be pretty good at it. In
2010, far ahead of projections by every genius PhD economist, China became the second biggest economy
in the world. The dragon, it appears, is now officially awake. By 2012, China
will overtake the U.S. as the world’s biggest economy.1 Due in large
part to U.S. companies investing and manufacturing in China, by 2020 it’s
projected that China will possess 24.1 percent of world output leaving the U.S.
in the dust with only 14.8 percent.2
While America was sleeping, the dragon awoke and
in less than 20 years went from being our doormat to kicking us economically
out the door. How could this have happened? Where were our so called political
leaders? Nowhere apparently! It’s long past time for Americans to stop fawning
over our political class, both past and present, and see them for what they
really are — failures who sold out the American people. The reason we’ve been
sold out to China is money in the form of campaign
money and profits for corporate America and stockholders via cheap labor as
well as access to a consumer market with a billion people. When historical
facts smack you in the face, in regard to China’s meteoric rise, you simply have to
focus and begin to ask yourself some difficult questions about our political
class.
Can any
American remember “Chinagate” . . . of course not — we can’t remember where we
put our car keys when we came in the house. Chinagate was part of our 1996 presidential
election in which Charlie Trie, an agent of China, sought to slip $460,000 to the
Democratic National Committee (DNC). Just the tip of a China money iceberg, more than 100 of Trie’s
fellow “Chinese agents” fled jurisdiction before 22 were convicted of either
fraud or trying to funnel money to the Clinton/Gore campaign via the DNC. The
DNC said “woops” and quickly gave the money back . . . and as things always
seems to go in Washington, D.C. — all was soon forgotten.
In a repeat
performance, during Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential run, Norman Hsu another
“Chinese agent,” illegally raised $850,000 for her campaign from “questionable
unknown sources.” William Paw, a mail carrier and his family gave $213,000,
including $55,000 directly to Hillary. Again, just like with Chinagate, the woops
excuse was used, the money was quickly given back and once again . . . as
things always seems to go in Washington, D.C. — all was soon forgotten.
Are these
two instances “cherry picking” or just reporting of the facts? Was there
pay-to- play going on here, or were the Chinese just contributing to further
our American democracy? Has money over the years changed hands and is it
continuing to change hands in Washington, D.C. to work to the detriment of a
strong U.S. economy for our average citizens instead
of only the mega-rich? How much has it contributed to China’s meteoric rise in just 20 years?
All good questions, don’t you think?
During the Clinton administration, from a national
security standpoint, millions of pages of data on “nuclear weapons” were
declassified. It was part of a Lockheed Martin, Hughes Electronics and Loral
Space and Communications deal to assist China with their nuclear strike force. President,
Clinton approved the sale of such technology, even as two of the companies were
being investigated by a grand jury.
In December
2004, under the presidential leadership of Bush II, IBM was allowed to sell
their PC business to a Chinese company named Lenovo. The sale went through against
the wishes of at least a couple intelligent politicians in Washington, D.C. — who questioned, among other
things, the risk to our national security. Just lightly scratching the surface
pulls up $6+ M in lobbying dollars spent that year by IBM who profited wildly
from the sale.3 Along with the sale went the IBM brain power of
10,000 former IBM employees. Today, believe it or not, American citizens
actually purchase Lenovo computers from China and our own U.S. government purchases them as well.
Even worse, today China owns the world’s fastest super-computer: a machine
called the Tianhe-1A that will do 2,507 trillion calculations per second with an
estimated 1.4 times more horsepower than America’s fastest computer. Obviously
this type of technological advancement delivers business and economic
advantages, but militarily, when combined with the billions China is spending on upgrading their
armaments and war preparedness . . . it threatens the national security of America.
Currently, U.S. corporations and those of other
developed nations are signing deals with China almost every day that dictate
technology-transfer terms detrimental to both their corporation and America. Because China controls all the levers, such as
import and export licenses, China demands the technology transfers as
the price to be paid for access to the Chinese marketplace. American companies either
turn over our know-how and technological advancements or they don’t get into
the China market. As hard as it is to
believe, driven by greed and lust for access to the Chinese marketplace . . .
corporate America signs it all over in order to get
into the China game.
Although no
political leader, much less corporate head, in America is asking the question,
perhaps average citizens should ask, once China has our technology, expertise
and know-how given to them by America caving in to strong arm tactics . . .
what will China need us for? The answer is they won’t and anyone who believes
that China won’t “nationalize” entire
industries [or just boot out companies], once they have what they want, is
naïve in regard to dealing with the Communist nation of China. In fact, China tipped their hand
via their stated plan for science and technology from 2006 to 2020 that the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce states [is] “considered by many international
technology companies to be a blueprint for technology theft on a scale the
world has never seen before.”4 The blueprint is called indigenous
innovation via a Chinese government policy designed to favor Chinese firms for
state contracts that requires technology transfer if Western companies want to
participate.
Even with
the warning from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American companies are plunging
head first with their eye only upon short-term money with no long-term
foresight whatsoever upon what technology transfer really means for both their
corporations and the American economy at large.
Just as
dangerous and illogical, U.S. corporations are funding and
opening massive research centers in China. Even though America’s R&D
spending ($402 B in 2010) is still quadruple China’s $103 B, it’s projected
they will surpass U.S. R&D spending by 2020 and they are doing it with our
help.5 Now consider that the yuan is currently 40 percent
undervalued [because our political leadership has no backbone] and understand
that all China’s R&D efforts come at a 40 percent discount when compared to
the same efforts in America.
Patents,
largely tied to R&D, have long been considered the bell weather for future
economic prosperity within an industrialized nation. In 2009, China filed
279,298 patent applications which made it third in the world behind the U.S.
and Japan.6 While the rest of the world was experiencing a
recession, China’s patent applications in digital computing and data
transmission alone increased by 4000 percent and their patent number filings as
a whole will surpass both the U.S. and Japan in 2011 to make them No. 1 in the
world.7
Is anyone
within America’s political class thinking through
the military and economic implications of technology transfers along with
cutting edge R&D? No! Are stockholders raking in the gravy from China business telling their CEOs to be
careful and prudent when making deals with the devil? No! It’s all about the
money today in campaign contributions for the political class and short term
stock market gains for America’s mega-rich. Sounds very similar to
the recipe that crashed our entire economy with the “housing bubble” now
doesn’t it?
So America is falling behind in technology as
well as R&D, but we still have all those green jobs coming out way, right?
Don’t count on it. In 2010, top Party B fundraisers and lobbyists — with links
to president Obama and senate majority leader Harry Reid — were working behind
the scenes to snatch almost a half billion dollars in stimulus money for a
Chinese company to build and run a wind farm in Texas. The turbines would be
built by Chinese workers in China of course to ensure no American
jobs are created and the operations in the U.S. would be run by the Chinese to
ensure the profits go back to China. It’s all a partnership between
U.S. Renewable Energy Group, a Dallas investment firm and A-Power Energy
Generation Systems, a Chinese firm.
Breakout Resource(s):
Wind at their backs: Powerful Democrats help Chinese energy firm chase
stimulus money
The
campaign dollars, the bad decisions, the connections and the loosely strewn
together instances and facts above may not prove anything definitive
whatsoever. They are certainly not aimed at any political party, but instead
point to our American political class in general. Nonetheless, when it comes to
“green,” Party B is up to their necks in cronyism and pay-to-play campaign
donations to “save the planet” as evidenced further by the emerging Solyndra
scandal. Taking a page from the Chicago politics playbook, the Obama
administration pushed for the solar company to receive $535 M in backing from
the federal government in exchange for campaign donations. Tulsa billionaire George Kaiser, a major
stockholder and backer of Solyndra, is credited with raising somewhere between
$50 and $100 K for the president’s election campaign. In addition, Kaiser donated
$53,500 of his personal money and along with Solyndra senior executives and
board members their total donations were $87,050 to the president’s campaign.8
Do the math America, somewhere around $187 K for a
billionaire borrower to get his hooks on $535 M of our tax money is a dandy
interest rate. Most especially in light of the Obama administration “fast
tracking” the loan through the Department of Energy amid harsh criticism by the
GAO who’s role it is to smell a rat when it comes to government spending. After
multiple visits to the White House by Kaiser, president, Obama posing for
photo-ops at the Solyndra facilities, etc. — Solyndra is now of course shredding
documents and deleting e-mails as fast as possible and the Obama administration
is throwing Kaiser and Solyndra executives under the bus as if they have “the
cooties.”
When the American
public thinks “green,” we think saving the planet and jobs for American
workers, but for our esteemed political class “green” means campaign donations
and political power. As for the billionaires like Kaiser, political
contribution “green” means low interest loans, products made in China for higher profits and more money
in their pockets.
It has just
been assumed by the American people, for far too long, that our political class
was on our side and had our best economic interest at heart. Continue to
believe that at your own peril and see clearly that when it comes to campaign
money, cronyism and corporate profits . . . the workers of America come in dead last! Millions of U.S.
manufacturing jobs gone to China and elsewhere, sweet heart deals to transfer both
sensitive defense and business technological advantages to the China and it all
begins to add up to either stupidity or a massive 20+ year track record of
political corruption in Washington, D.C. to sell out the American people for
stockholder gains and corporate greed.
Without any
doubt, as far as dealing with China over the past 20+ years, major
mistakes were made. The first mistake was to trust our political class to look
out for our best economic interests in regard to full and gainful employment as
well a strong U.S. economy. Going forward, “we the
people” must kick the door down and have a seat at the table during any and all
trade agreement discussions and deal making that take place with any foreign
nation — most especially any agreements that involve China. “Live and learn” as
the saying goes, but if we haven’t learned enough to put the brakes on NOW in
regard to protecting our “green jobs” economic sector in America . . . then we
have only ourselves to blame for absolute stupidity and naivety.
Overall,
imports of clean energy products increased 74% per year, on average, between
2000 and 2010 . . . more than doubling our trade deficit with China in clean
energy products.9 Clean energy imports from China are currently
exceeding our exports by a 10 to 1 ratio.10 In one single year, from
2009 to 2010, Chinese competition pushed the price of solar panels down 50
percent, making it difficult if not impossible for western manufactures to
compete.11 China now exports most of the solar panels they make,
control half of the German market and a third of the U.S. market.12 The
reason, as noted in the EPI report linked below, “China is using a wide array
of illegal trade policies to stimulate growth and exports of its green
technology industries, including massive subsidies of more than $216 billion;
restrictions on access to rare earth elements and other minerals;
discrimination against foreign firms or goods; technology transfer requirements
for foreign investors; and making subsidies contingent on exports or domestic
content.” In layman’s terms it’s called cheating, manipulating the market,
playing games and kicking America’s posterior in clean energy
products.
Breakout Resource(s):
China’s Subsidies to
Green Industries Lead to Growing Trade Deficits in Clean Energy Products
Next time
you see another politician with the flag as a backdrop, lauding the “green
economy” that’s going to save America, think again — unless current
trends are reversed. We obviously can’t trust China, but the real question is can we
any longer trust our current political class? No average Americans are watching
or paying attention to connect the dots, following the money or tracking the
deals. Perhaps it’s time that changed . . .
The clean
energy sector is just the most recent economic sector to begin falling under
the control of China. Across the board, China is kicking our posterior, cheating
us, taking our jobs and robbing us blind. In 2009, 79 percent of all
counterfeit goods seized at U.S. borders originated in China.13 In
the preceding 5 years, it’s estimated that China ripped us off by
counterfeiting $10.6 B in U.S. goods such as: apparel, athletic footwear,
textile fabrics, floor coverings, consumer goods, chemicals, electronics,
electrical equipment as well as copied media and IT software, such as: movies,
music, publishing and entertainment software.14 What did our government
bureaucrats have to say about it? They applauded the Chinese for their progress
by getting the percentage down form 81 percent in 2008. Just think, at a 2
percent reduction per year, we’ll have the issue fixed by 2046. Keep in mind
that these are just the garbage Chinese goods coming into America and just the goods caught at our
borders . . . now consider the American products counterfeited by China going into every other nation on Earth.
Since we’re the most hated nation on Earth, just how many of these nations do
you think care if America is being swindled by China? The answer is almost NONE!
You name it
and China is knocking it off or stealing it
via pirated optical drives, Internet piracy, copyright and patent infringement,
industrial espionage or just good old fashioned hands-on stealing of books,
movies and software. How many billions of dollars and good American jobs have
they stolen already? They have zero ethics and respect for copyrights, patents,
Internet security measures or locked doors. Just how much of China’s meteoric rise can be attributed
to plain old stealing and American stupidity?
Assuming
you can get past Donald Trump’s ridiculous hair, he does on occasion cut through
the BS and tell it like it is. In a recent interview with CNBC, he said, “I
know lots of people in China and they think we are the dumbest
son-of-a-bitches in the world.” He added, “They think our representatives don’t
know what they are doing. They are laughing at us.” He went on to add that by
taxing Chinese products coming into the U.S. we can help to pay off the federal
deficit and bring jobs back to America. With our inept level of political
leadership and spineless bureaucrats protecting our interests . . . don’t hold
your breath on anyone in Washington, D.C. standing up to China. They represent the top 10 percent
of Americans who own all the stock in America, not “the little people.”
You can’t
really blame the Chinese for taking advantage of our stupidity, now can you? If
you are a criminal society like China and you find a sucker, what do you
do? You play them for all it’s worth until they wise up. Whether our political
class has been selling out the American people to China for decades is somewhat debatable,
but what’s not debatable is that our political “bureaucrat class” are the most
pathetic inept monitors and negotiators in the history of business trade and
regulation! Whether it’s deals with China or regulation of Wall Street . . .
they are outclassed, out maneuvered, overpaid and played for fools and the
American people are the ones paying the price.
Now that China has stolen us blind and as a nation
we we’re dirt broke, what’s left? Lend America lot’s of money to see just how
indebted we will become. In a March 2009 Washington Times article, Cornel
professor, Eswar Prasad calculated that China currently owns $1.7 trillion in
U.S. Government debt.15 Estimates vary of course, depending upon who
you ask, but the debt has certainly risen since 2009 and owing China even one
trillion dollars is a recipe for disaster. Just the interest payments alone
threaten to destabilize our economy and prospects for paying off the actual
balance appear bleak at this point in time.
Breakout Resource(s):
Trump CNBC Interview
So what
does all this China history have to do with our present
day reality and the future? Why should average Americans care or be the least
bit interested? In a word, it’s about “survival.” America has been fed a steady diet of “a
wonderful global economy” for 30+ years. The ruse is perpetuated every single
day, via our corporate owned media machine, and we just continue sucking it up
like kittens drinking milk.
Go to your
local McDonald’s and ask the college graduates flipping burgers about the
“wonderful global economy” then divide a minimum wage into the average college
loan amount of $24 K and you’ll get a better picture of the true “global
economy” reality. It’s a far cry from the manufactured image portrayed via the
corporate media machine. Take just one example from the Cisco ad linked below. Eager,
bright-eyed little American students networked by Cisco to their Chinese
counterparts as they prepare to participate in this “wonderful global economy.”
They even have a movie star selling the idea . . . it’s got to be valid. Makes
you feel warm all over doesn’t it?
Breakout Resource(s):
Ellen Page Cisco Advertising Field Trip
It’s a Kumbaya
mirage, a world vision generated by corporate America and the mega-rich to steal us all
blind. Young Americans are told to take out student loans, work on those math
skills, major in science and they too will be able to compete in this wonderful
world economy. Supplementing the media spin is a heavy dose of “American
exceptionalism” from radical right politicians telling Americans we’re ‘the
best and brightest in the world.’
In 1998, China graduated 830,000 from college, but
just 12 years later in 2010 they graduated more than 6 million and the number
will only grow larger in the years ahead. 16 While many American
graduates are now forced to move back home with mom and dad and work at
McDonalds, it’s far worse than that for China’s graduates. More than 100,000
Chinese graduates now live in a slum called the Ant Tribe that sits just
outside the Olympic Village in Beijing.17 Stench, trash and filth
just outside the door — multiple college grads bunking in the same room — with
6 million more Chinese grads lining up in 2010 alone for the privilege to get
an open bunk. They possess degrees in accounting, finance, IT, business and
engineering and all the other white collar occupations imaginable . . . they
are hungry and if they can’t immigrate to America, all are ready to take America jobs via the Internet and that
wonderful Cisco network.
As detailed
herein — American white collar professionals, now living the upwardly mobile
American Dream — are headed for a rude awakening just around the corner and
most don’t have the slightest inkling of what’s to come. Thanks to the
Internet, from the squalor of Beijing, hundreds of thousands of white
collar American professionals will drop like flies with ever increasing
frequency. It will only get worse as the mega-rich, stockholders and their
multi-national corporations fuel their bottom lines with cheap Chinese talent
that sucks the life out of America. Great for stockholders and the
mega-rich, awesome for the corporate bottom line, but really bad for America and her white collar college
educated workforce!
Just how
smart are these Chinese students? In a word, they’re “BRILLIANT!” Go ahead and
buy into the idea of “American exceptionalism” at your own peril. A few years
ago, I had an intern from China who was getting her MBA from Wake Forrest University. She was just a kid, the child of
Chinese “peasants,” but in no time flat she navigated America and the corporate playing field
like an old pro. Charming, articulate, smart beyond belief and hell bent on
“success!” Multiply that singular reality by 6 million Chinese graduates within
China, thousands upon thousands educated internationally and
Americans had better bring their A game — for a lot less money. Chinese grads
will work for peanuts and they don’t need a big house in the country club. As
far a work ethic . . . former peasants carry no burdens of entitlement and are
happy just for the privilege to climb upward as Americans slide downward.
If you are
a CEO looking out only for the share price and your stock options — who gets
hired . . . an expensive American graduate or a hungry grad in Shanghai via the Internet? Again, the
question must be asked, who’s going to look out for America’s college educated? Corporate H.R.,
your boss, assuming they make the next cut, or perhaps our currently corrupt
Congress? What about “liberty and freedom” or the mechanics of the free
enterprise system? Maybe “American exceptionalism” will save you or you can try
wearing a Paul Revere hat to work and place a copy of the Constitution on your
office wall.
Just how
many American jobs have been lost already to China via freedom, liberty and the
mechanics of the free enterprise system? Between 1997 and 2006 America lost 2,166,000 jobs to China. More than 1.8 million of those
jobs occurred after 2001.18 What occurred in 2001? Answer: China entered the World Trade
Organization (WTO). Total to date from 2001 to 2010 alone, just in the
manufacturing sector, there have been 5.5 million jobs lost, along with 26,000 U.S. manufacturing plants closed.19
Between 2001 and 2010, 40 percent of all U.S. factories that had more than 250
employees closed their doors.20
These
horrifying statistics beg two questions: 1) was getting China into the WTO a good idea? and 2)
who was behind it? Question #1 could be debatable, but the answer to question
#2 is not. Elder statesman, former president, Clinton is the answer to that
question. He theorized, or at least told the American people, that “We’ll be
able to export products without exporting jobs . . . The more China liberalizes
its economy, the more fully it will liberate the potential of its people —
their initiative, their imagination, their remarkable spirit of enterprise.” Do
fraud, corruption and good old stealing fall under the category of China’s “remarkable spirit of enterprise”
or was our elder statesman just wrong on the whole idea of allowing China into the WTO?
Breakout Resource(s):
America’s Stake in
China, by Bill Clinton
In 2010,
according to EPI, we only lost approximately half a million jobs to China, but
that was only because our economy was horrible already thanks to Wall Street’s greed.21
To be fair, China was a formidable player on the global stage previous to 2001,
but pushing for them to get into the WTO helped China, corporate America and
the mega-rich — not the American people. Let’s look at what happened to job
loses to China after 2001 in a few selected “blue states” [as our corporate
media like to label them]. After China entered the WTO in 2001 spanning to
year 2006, CA lost 269,300 jobs, NY lost 105,000 jobs, IL lost 79,000 jobs and
MA lost 59,000 jobs to China.22
Millions of
lost American jobs, human rights abuses, pollution of Mother Earth and ever
less food on American’s tables. China is quite literally “eating our
lunch!” When you look at the reality, the stats and the numbers . . . China’s entry into the WTO accelerated
the war being waged by the greedy upon America’s middle-class.
To blame any
specific president or political party alone for China’s rise would be
completely irresponsible and just plain wrong — without almost the entire
political class pushing for China’s entry into the WTO it wouldn’t have
happened. It does however, according to most analysts, mark a dramatic turning
point in the rise of China as an economic power. Chinagate is now
a long forgotten smoking gun along with Chinese influence upon our “democratic”
political system, but any sane individual that doesn’t question what took place
behind the scenes then and what’s taking place behind the scenes even now is
completely naive. At a minimum, it should send the alarm to the American people
that we must now have massive change in the political system, the way business
is done in Washington, D.C., the cronyism and a campaign finance system that
amounts to outright bribery. Massive amounts of mega-rich money rules and the
people’s jobs and financial security take a back seat to stockholders and
corporate greed.
The toxic
recipe is quite simple, production worker costs per hour, even today, are $22
in the U.S. versus $2 per hour in China (9% of U.S. costs).23 The
mega-rich and stockholders at the top of the U.S. food chain want even more
money via higher margins and the easiest way to get it is to make a deal with
the devil for cheap labor and access to the China marketplace. That deal for
short term wealth and long-term market access includes both R&D as well as
technology transfers, not to mention billions of dollars in critical
manufacturing infrastructure being placed into the hands of the Chinese.
Because the
American people have been increasingly starved for 30+ years via stagnated
wages, they demand and in some rare cases have no other choice but to buy from China. The short-term nickel and dime
savings put a few dollars back into the family budget, but the long-term
consequences to the American economy at large — when viewed collectively — are
absolutely horrific over time. Only the mega-rich and stockholders win, while
the America people continue to be sucked down into
a financial vortex of Third World existence.
Breakout Resource(s):
Costly Trade with China: Millions of U.S. jobs displaced . . .
The China Trade Toll
Rising China Trade Deficit Will
Cost One-Half Million U.S. Jobs In 2010
USCC.gov
USCC 2010, Annual
Report to Congress
Ready for Takeoff: China’s Advancing Aerospace
Industry
