Shop at Walmart--Help the Enemy

Way back when Sam Walton was still alive his retail empire proudly advertised that it "Bought American." Sam is gone. So is buying American.

The rapacious corporation which has emerged under the ownership of the five Sons of Sam seeks nothing save ever larger profits. The interests and well-being of employees, customers, even our nation do not matter compared with enlarging the personal wealth (currently estimated at least five billion dollars each) of the Sons of Sam.

One of the means favored by Walmart to further feather the fortunes of the Sons is to increase the spread between cost and price. That's standard business practice to be sure. Every company does it.

But Wally's World takes it to the extreme. This is the major reason that the Wonderful World of Wally has become the largest importer of Chinese origin consumer goods in the US, if not the world. The denizens who serve the wealth of the Sons of Sam have even relocated their main purchasing office to China so the deals can be done faster, cheaper, more frequently.

What's wrong with this? Doesn't it make things cheaper for American consumers?

Sure it does. At least in dollars and cents, and at least for a little while buying goods made by the very cheap labor (what the heck, the convict labor is free) will mean lower costs to the end purchaser.

Competition through price considerations alone is one of the reasons that so many other big box stores as well as "manufacturers" such as Mattel have followed the lead of Wally, the one thousand pound gorilla of retailing. The hell with quality. Who cares about service? Phooey to durability. Price is all!

The Geek agrees. Items made in China will be cheaper--at least at the moment--than those made in many other countries including the United States.

But! Get a grip on this. Price does not equal cost.

What?

That's right. Cost is not the same as price. And, when we deal with the Peoples' Republic of China it is necessary--no, it's downright essential--to consider costs. All the costs.

To do this accurately we must grab onto a real and quite unpleasant fact. The PRC is not, repeat, not an ally of the United States. China is not, repeat, not our friend or well-wisher.

China is, in many essential respects, an enemy. Keep that in mind. The Geek knows that it is not currently politically correct to insist that any nation-state can be an enemy. Or at least that is what the history-is-dead, multi-culturalist and completely out-to-lunch academics and their hangers-on would have us believe.

The Peoples' Republic of China is not an enemy in the sense that it wishes to invade us, or bomb us into the paleolithic. The PRC is not aching for a war with the United States.

Nonetheless, China is hostile to the US. It is an enemy.

Unlike the Russians whose appearances of military muscle flexing, diplomatic chest-beating, and generalised irascibility simply indicate the need to be taken seriously as a Great Power, China wants the ultimate capacity of a Great Power. China desires the capability to limit the freedom of global action, diplomatic, military, and economic, of another Great Power.

We are that Great Power.

The Chinese government wants to inhibit our freedom to act through diplomacy, the projection of military force, or the pursuit of economic interest to the advantage of the Chinese.

The men in Beijing are unhappy with a number of US actions. They want us out of Afghanistan. They are tired of us interfering or attempting to interfere with their arms business, including the provision of nuclear knowledge and technology. The boys in the Forbidden City want an absolutely free hand in Asia. They want us to stop limiting sales of dual use technology. They even have had a hissy fit because the US has had the sheer effrontery to ban some Chinese foodstuffs because they contain nasty chemicals. The nerve of those Americans!

China wants untrammeled access to our markets. Unrestricted access to our technology. The mandarinate wants us to leave Asia to the Asians (which means Chinese Asians, of course.) The more-or-less capitalist government of Communist China wants to make sure that the US will sit on the sidelines when Formosa is reabsorbed into China. It would like the US to be indifferent should China suddenly remember that the old Chinese name for Vietnam translates as "Occupied Southern Territory," and move to re-establish itself as overlord.

The PRC has a powerful weapon with which to coerce the United States. It is more powerful by orders of magnitude than an atomic bomb. It can move faster than an ICBM. It can cause more devastation than a thousand 757s turned into cruise missile.

"What is it?" You ask.

The US dollar. More precisely the 1.3 trillion (that is trillion not mere billion) dollars of foreign currency reserves held by the PRC central bank. Not only does China have the largest foreign reserves in the world, most are in dollar denominated holdings including T-bills and T-notes.

Last week a group of Chinese economists stated that in the event of further US actions against the trade interests of China, the government would have to retaliate by dumping some of its bucks on the market with instant, massive, and negative results for the American economy. Please keep in mind that a statement of this sort would not--could not--have been made without the knowledge and approval of the Central Government at the highest levels.

More recently an official of the Chinese Central Bank denied these "rumors" and stated that the Chinese were responsible and conservative investors in the global economy. The Geek agrees. Over time the Chinese have shown great--and greatly profitable--skill as "responsible and conservative" players in the world market.

But the Geek remembers something else. He remembers another feature of Chinese history. He remembers a tactic of warfighting which the Chinese have employed for a couple of thousand years or so. He recalls that the tactic has been used in his own lifetime.

Back during the Korean War as overconfident American troops plunged through North Korea on the way to what their commander assured the world would be a victorious end to the war within a month, the Chinese Army attacked. They attacked fast, hard, and quite successfully. American units cracked, broke, and fell under the sudden violent onslaught.

Then, the victorious attackers stopped. Melted away into the dark mountains of North Korea. We had no idea why. Instead we assumed without any evidence that we had inflicted unacceptable losses on them.

We restarted our stalled offensive. Shortly after we did, the Chinese attacked again. This time they didn't melt away. They kept on coming.

The two conflicting economic front statements of the past few days out of Beijing can be seen as analogous to the two Chinese attacks of fifty-six years ago. They have sent a warning to the US. Now they will stop and see if the warning is going to be heeded.

The second economic attack will not come immediately. It may not come for quite awhile. The men in the Forbidden City have to calculate carefully. Any dumping of dollars will hurt not only the United States, it will hurt the world. China is part of the world. So a careful assessment of the amount of blowback China can accept must be made before any plans for a second attack can be made.

In the meantime is there anything We the People can do? Yes. We can demand that our "representatives" in Washington continue to press China to revalue the yuan so their exports become more expensive (as they should be if the PRC was not intentionally depressing the value of their currency) while our exports to them would be concomitantly cheaper.

This is what's called "Free Trade." Supposedly free trade is a concept loved by Republicans and at least tolerated by Democrats. It's way past time for the Congress and Administration to show a genuine support for real free trade.

The other thing that We the People can do is simpler than overpowering the forces of Wally's World and others like it in the power centers of Washington.

Quit buying Chinese.

Stay out of Walmart until Walmart gets out of China.