A few months back,
in an attack that you've likely never heard about before,
someone infiltrated Defense Secretary Robert Gates' secure
Pentagon computer network and started downloading data.
Officials still don't know how much information was
compromised.
While it's frightening enough that our critical networks are
vulnerable to attack, the Real Story is that it's much more
frightening once you hear who was reportedly behind this
attack: the People's Liberation Army of China.
Why do you look so surprised? Is it because everyone in the
media keeps trying to get you to believe that China is our
friend? Well it's time for someone to tell you the truth:
China is not a friend, or an ally...what they are is a
growing superpower that is slowly and methodically working
to threaten us both militarily and economically. And it's
that second part -- the economic threat -- that I don't
think most people really understand.
While I'm no Ben Bernanke, I am a thinker, so let me give
you a sixty second "thinker's version" of the Economics 101
class you slept through in school. First, the U.S. has a
massive trade deficit. That means we import a lot more than
we export -- actually, it's now about $58 billion dollars a
month more, but who's counting? Before 1980, it was exactly
the opposite; we actually exported a lot more than we
consumed. What's changed over the last 27 years? The rise of
China and their cheap exports that we can't get enough of.
Secondly, we have massive budget deficits. That means our
government spends more than it earns and, just like us, it
charges the difference to credit cards, which they call U.S.
Treasuries. That's not normally a big deal, except that
instead of U.S. consumers buying those treasuries and taking
on that debt, it's now foreign governments who are doing
it...and yes, China is right there near the top of the list.
Now, conventional wisdom holds that none of that is really a
big problem because they cancel each other out. China NEEDS
us. After all, if we stop buying their stuff, then their
factories go bankrupt and they go into a depression, right?
Maybe ... but what if China was able to take their one
billion people and turn them into consumers? Would they
really still need us? Would they really still keep buying
and holding our debt? Unfortunately, that's about where my
Econ 101 class ends.
|
|
Research Articles
Show Transcript
Send us Your Real Stories!
If
you've seen a news story lately and thought to yourself that
the media has it all wrong, we want to hear from you! Send
us the story you saw, along with what you think the Real
Story should be, by filling out the form below.
|
