Say Anything Blog

The message to China is apparently “shop, don’t save.”  Or, in other words, do to your economy what Americans just did to theirs.

WASHINGTON—Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner heads to Beijing this weekend to urge Chinese leaders to fundamentally alter the export-oriented economy that has created years of trans-Pacific trade tensions.

In meetings with Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, Mr. Geithner is expected to reiterate U.S. support—and gratitude—for the giant stimulus package that China has implemented to combat the global recession.

But he is also planning to press Beijing to take drastic measures to turn China’s economy into one that depends heavily on sales to domestic consumers and less on sales to the U.S. and other foreign markets, according to a senior Treasury Department official.

So, in other words, China should quit selling Americans the products Americans want to buy?

Think about it.  Why does China sell so many products to America?  It’s because Americans want to buy them.  I know that’s not politically fashionable to say.  I know we’re all supposed to think of anything made in China as worthless junk.  But protectionist rhetoric and union talking points aside, Chinese products succeed in America because Americans buy them.  Ours is still a free market, and Chinese products tend to be the right product at the right price a lot for Americans.  And that’s a good thing.  Without the inclusion of Chinese products in our economy (not to mention products from a lot of other areas in the world) our purchasing power would be significantly less.

Just about everything would cost more, and that would mean that your dollar wouldn’t go nearly as far.  Your income would be worth less in terms of what it could buy.

And that is, apparently, what Obama wants.  Because he’s operating on the misguided notion that fewer Chinese products in our economy will mean the purchase of more American products, which in turn will help the economy.  But that’s wrong.  The benefit of having lower priced goods in our marketplace far outweighs any good more domestic buying might bring to the economy.

Would that we had a President who was a little more economically literate and a little less slavishly devoted to doing whatever his union masters tell him.