China? Pull The Other One

Put on your Jan Brady hat and say it with me: "China China China!"

Malthus.

Global Cooling.

Killer Bees.

Hetero AIDS.

Ebola.

The USSR.

Bird Flu.

Global Warming.

These were all big "gotchas" that were supposed to zap us over that last few decades that all turned out to be great big nothings. Now it's China I'm supposed to worry about. A country of 1.3 billion where a billion of 'em live in huts and make a few dollars a week. A tyranny that can't build buildings that can stand up to earthquakes and won't let its subjects log onto the internet. No free market, no free government, and no free press.

Folks, we've been through this before, and its name was Japan. They got some money and tried to be America and they fell flat. But at the time I had friends aping Gore Vidal about how we were going to be Japan's boutique, etc. etc. One of the most ridiculous books I read at the time was "The Coming War With Japan" by a couple of guys who were all spun up about Japan remilitarizing. What a joke. As if building an aircraft carrier (one of the theses of the aforementioned book) would have made up for 50 years of lost naval tradition and practice.

China's in the same boat. They've financed a ton of our debt, and sure, that's annoying now that we've overspent, but the idea that they'd call in that marker before we right our financial ship of state is ludicrous. The Chinese are making a big stretch and a big posture puff-up right now, but it's unsustainable, and when they crash we'll just buy our crap from someone else, but they'll have to worry about how to keep a billion people too happy or too cowed to put an end to their latest dynasty - the ChiComs.

Now, if they made good cigars I'd be a little worried, but as it stands, let 'em have their fun and don't worry about it.