Have you seen it? It's the oh so very scary "The Chinese are coming, the Chinese are coming!!! They've taken all our money and now they're taking over entirely!!!" ad.
The "Now We Work For Them" meme. Shivvers!
Yes indeed, after having this Chinese Communist explain how America lost her way by adopting socialistic policies (ROFL), it goes on to offer up www.DefeatingTheDebt.com and informs that the spot is "PAID FOR BY CITIZENS AGAINST GOVERNMENT WASTE AND AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY." Well, it's good to know where they package teh stupid for the free market.
Personally, I find the ad so intellectually offensive I am moved to operate without anesthesia whenever I see it, which is many times a day on MSNBC which runs constantly in a small window on my desktop.
Follow me below and let's do a little dissection.
Beijing, China 2030 AD, says the caption.
A uniformed middle-aged Asian man with a mic steps before an assembly and addresses them in Chinese. The captions read: "Why do great nations fail? The ancient Greeks, the Roman Empire, the British Empire, and the United States of America. They all make the same mistakes. Turning their backs on the principles that made them great. America tried to spend and tax itself out of a great recession. Enormous so-called stimulus spending, massive changes to healthcare, government takeovers of private industries, and crushing debt. Of course, we owned most of their debt . . . ha ha ha, so now they work for us." Cynical laughter from the assembly, and then the English voice over: America can determine our own future, but only if we own it. For American Independence we must cut spending and waste."
The whole point of this missive is that we owe China $Trillions. Why? Because we buy all of that stuff that they sell to us. Stuff like iPads and Flatscreen TV's and all sorts of crap. They bring it here and offer in exchange for dollars. So we take their labor and materials, their energy costs, their social costs, and allow them to wrap all these costs up in a nice product for which we give them or promise them dollars, at best, little pieces of good quality paper with some fancy printing on them, more often just entries in an electronic spreadsheet. Obviously, they want the dollars - those pieces of paper, those data entries - more than they want the stuff. Nobody is putting a gut to their heads, right? But it's all kinds of stupid unless the dollar is worth something, don't you think?
So that's the question, what is a dollar worth? Take one out and read it. It says, right on the front. A dollar is worth a dollar and it says: "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private." Now we all understand private debt. If I borrow a pound of sugar, we could agree to allow me to settle the debt with the return of a pound of sugar, or by some alternative measure - a bushel of corn, an hour of labor, a couple of dollars. Public debt is different. The government only accepts payment in dollars. You can try to pay your taxes with gold, but they won't take it. They'll tell you to sell it in the market and come back with dollars. Only dollars can extinguish monetary liabilities to the government, and that is the only thing the government does with the payments it receives.
So, Mr Commie Guy, yeah, you and your assembly are laughing, but we've got your stuff and you've got pieces of paper and promises you don't understand. You have a $Trillion in US Bonds convertible only to US Dollars which are convertible only to extinguish US Federal Tax Liabilities and to purchase whatever is for sale for dollars. We work for you? Seriously, dude, we have you so much by the short hairs! Are you really that stupid. What, are you going to threaten us with suicide? Be my guest!
And as for the bullshit AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY, given their policy recommendations they would have more aptly named themselves AMERICANS FOR ECONOMIC FAILURE. Except that their policies would probably force another asset bubble for Rmoney and the rest of the 0.01% to exploit.
We have done budget surpluses 7 times in our history. Each was followed by economic calamity, six depressions and the great recession. History could not be clearer on this