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In Reply to: Re: Nope! posted by Acheick on March 29, 2003 at 20:00:19:
Hey, wait a minute. Let's not debate about what I didn't say! Nobody downplayed your experiences. You said your friend talked about trade with China, and made it out that the US was dishing out jobs to their sorry asses. I disagreed, I explained why. This has nothing to do with 'academic' calculations. What has this got to do with 'book smart?' Why the labeling? Why do you think I had to read this somewhere? Could it not be my experience and knowlege? Why should I read Wild Swans? Because it would make me book smart or less book smart, now? Because it would give me someone else's opinion? BI have my own. That's my problem. I'm too much of my own thinker, and I tend to do my homework rather than just read someone's summary and have my mind made up for me.
"What character are you talking about? Those poor people had no character, all they were was slave labor to the horrible communist regime."
What is it with you? So you think the Chinese people in general have no character? How did they end up having all that surplus and savings? Do you think the government made them save? It's part of the culture and mentality. I thought you for one would know that. I thought you had some experience to know that the Chinese were capitalists at heart, and you'd know what I mean when I said they had enough character to build up an economy and make it work. Sure they were slaves in some way, not to different from the way capitalists are slaves to their own system. I am not idealizing communism at all, but when you keep coming up with sweeping rhetoric like that, you lose me. I don't even know how to debate or discuss this. This is very unlike you.
Moving towards capitalism may or may not help the Chinese, but their government certainly wasn't made accountable by the US which does the most trade with them. I thought that was the point we were discussing. I am not speaking for or against ideologies and market systems. I am pointing out that what seems to be missing from your consideration is the fact that the US dollar is used as an instrument to control. This as the same as when the west created trading conditions so that the Chinese had to sell opium to the west in order to get western currencies which in turn could be used to trade with the west. Then they got blamed for that and the British had an excuse to give them some gunboat diplomacy. The west sets up terms for trade, insists on trading in a currency only they recognize, a currency market which they control and dominate, and then uses that to enslave their trading partners.
I didn't get that from a book. Honest.
