Pushing China to the limit - Why China is not to blame for the USA's problems.

I understand that the majority of the internet world and even a majority of readers of this blog are in fact from the USA. Therefore, I thought I'd give a bit of time dedicated to blogging about the social, economic and political impacts and influences of the USA. This blog post is about challenging the conceptions given of China that is a evil growing superpower that plans to dominate the world, in favour of a more rational approach.

As the sweet turned sour in the USA and the rest of the world in terms of the economy, it can be seen that China is merely the USA's scapegoat for its own inherent problems. I will now explain why this may be the case.

Let's cast our minds back to the so called 'good times' where money was rolling in and prices remained fixed. At this time, the whole 'western' world (i.e. USA, UK, Spain) was engulfed by the greed for even more, and what happened? Well they got more. More money, more goods, more consuming and more or less more of everything, but the question I now pose is, at what cost?

Sure enough the good times can't go on forever and especially in this case the so called 'good times' had been stretched to the limit powered by greed and extreme confidence. As soon as it seemed to be never ending, it sure enough it did. Confidence was destroyed and money was lost, but out of the depths of the downward economic spiral out came a cry 'It's not our fault.'

The desperate attempt to blame something else soon came to be with China. Such attacks on this country escalated stating that it 'stole jobs', made things too cheap and generated unfair competition. However, I argue differently from this one sided narrow view that China is solemnly to blame for the problems in the USA. While I happily could go into the economics of this, I shall not for the purpose of simplicity (although I may, if popular, go into it at a later date) but rather focus on why the blame is not held totally by China.

We know that China makes a lot of goods for the USA, is this the problem of the USA? Well if it is then China is only supplying demand, the USA is not forced into demanding these goods but rather the USA is very familiar with living beyond its means (demanding more than what you can afford.)
Although, some may in response say that this is because these goods are so cheap, if they weren't so cheap then we wouldn't have this problem. I deny this argument for a number of reasons. Firstly, it makes the USA sound out to be some sort of shopaholic stuck in the centre of a Mall (Shopping centre for us UK people) and clearly this is absurd if the USA as a country cannot control itself. However, assume for instance that cheap goods in china did not exist, would this fix these problems? No I argue because it is a inherent problem with the USA (mainly USA but other countries such as in Europe too) rather than its overseas trade partners. If China did not produce cheap goods the USA would simply indirectly demand another developing country (such as India) to supply its never ending demand.

I hope that this gives a bit more insight to how slander is directed to countries that are simply scapegoats of powerful countries and how that there are inherent problems within one's own country rather than it being pinned on the rest of the world.

Feel free to Comment or even follow/share below, the more opinions the better =)

Always wanting more. Why a recession may not be such a bad thing.

By the title you are probably thinking how could you possibly think that? But before I start I would like to say that I empathise with those who are and have been struggling  throughout this hard period. My aim is rather to provide a general overview to why continuous economic growth would not necessarily be best for us.

So wouldn't life be so good if we got more, more and more? Probably not, there inevitably needs to be a limit somewhere and good reason too. If for instance we just kept on growing what are the implications? By imagining a infinitely growing society, there would be greater and greater competition between individuals, so much so there would be a fiercely selfish society that would emerge. Ready to get that extra bit extra on offer, people would become obsessed and disillusioned with no real goal in life.

Following this, it would not only be working life that would be effected but also in our spare time. Continuous economic growth, as shown in the last decade before the credit crisis, would drive people consumerism madness. Without the realisation of risk people would spend without a second thought, saving would be non-existent and consumerism like work would proceed to take over our lives. Sometimes we do need that push back to push us back into reality.

Also, we have to consider that consumer products and growth does not come magically out of thin air, someone and something has to suffer. This would be our environment and developing countries that would suffer. Our quality of life would diminish as we push the lives of those who can be exploited are worked to the death, while our generosity to charities would decrease as we become ever more tight with our money.

Furthermore, while we call it the 'bad times' some of the best ideas and businesses have evolved out of the poor economic climate. Without it we would promote inefficiency as there's no need to innovate and improve. Though this may be short but an important point.

Finally, I shall end by saying that while no one likes the 'bad times', we wouldn't be necessarily better without them. Rather we should take these times as a lesson before we get caught up in the rush of a boom and not to forget that the bad times again may be round the corner. Therefore, growth, work and money isn't everything but it can be over prioritised in the good times and the bad.