AlterNet /
By Scott Thill How China Holds the American Economy by the Balls
America stays afloat selling billions of American dollars and Treasuries to our Chinese sugar daddy to keep our faltering consumer economy alive. May 3, 2010 |
On May 1, China popped the cork on Expo 2010 in Shanghai, a months-long international celebration signifying the ascension of the city, and thereby its parent nation, as a global economic and cultural powerhouse. Meanwhile, in the United States, China's economic and cultural power has come under mounting fire.
Short-happy hedge funder Jim Chanos, who prophesied the fall of Enron, argued in April that the country's heated property market was on a "treadmill to hell." Foreign Policy followed suit by more or less blaming China's alleged currency manipulation, rather than America's own corporate and economic malfeasance, for exporting unemployment to the United States. Even our President Barack Obama jumped on the dogpile, expressing concern that China has not moved its currency to a "more market-oriented exchange rate," during an April meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Washington. His administration stopped short, however, of releasing an April 15 report to Congress expressing this disapproval in concrete terms, choosing instead to trot out the disgraced deregulationist Larry Summers to soothe the Chinese that such matters will be taken up at future gatherings.
For its part, China has responded to the finger-pointing by the United States with its own middle digit.
"We oppose the practice of finger-pointing among countries or strong-arm measures to force other countries to appreciate currencies," Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said in March, before restating his well-publicized 2009 worries that U.S. Treasuries are in trouble. "In the press conference last year, I said I was a bit concerned about it. This year, I make the same remark. I am still concerned. I hope the U.S. will take concrete measures to assure its investors." .........(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.alternet.org/economy/146702/how_china_holds_the_american_economy_by_the_balls