I try to teach my daughter about remaining cheap financially responsible but some things are so deep in our culture that they’ve become our culture.
It is amazing how fast brands can influence people and my daughter is a prime example. (more…)
The following is a snippet from Chinese Banker’s Advice to America.
In his first interview since the world financial crisis,
Gao Xiqing, the man who oversees $200 billion of China’s
$2 trillion in dollar holdings, explains why he’s betting against
the dollar, praises American pragmatism, and wonders about
enormous Wall Street paychecks.
And how should Americans feel about the growing Chinese presence in their economy? Isn’t it natural for them to worry that China will keep increasing its stake in American debt and assets—or that China won’t, essentially cutting America off?
I can understand why Americans might feel that way. But, talking with my lawyer head once again, it’s not relevant to discuss how Americans “should” think. We should discuss how Americans might think.
This concern is not really about China itself. It could be any country. It could be Japan, or Germany. This generation of Americans is so used to your supremacy. Your being treated nicely by everyone. It hurts to think, Okay, now we have to be on equal footing to other people. “On equal footing” would necessarily mean that sometimes you have to stoop to appear to be humble to other people.
And you can’t think as a soldier. You put yourself at the enemy end of everyone. I grew up during the Cultural Revolution, when people really treated other people like enemies. I grew up in an environment where our friends, our relatives, people I called Uncle or Auntie, could turn around and put a nasty face to me as a small child. One time, Vladimir Lenin told Gorky, after reading Gorky’s autobiography, “Oh my god! You could have become a very nasty person!” Those are exactly the words one of my dear professors told me after hearing what I went through.
But over the years, I believe I learned to be humble. To treat other people nicely. I learned that, from a social point of view, no matter how lowly statured a person you are talking to, as a person, they are the same human being as you are. You have to respect them. You have to apologize if you inadvertently hurt them. And often you have to go out of your way to be nice to them, because they will not like you simply because of the difference in social structure.
Americans are not sensitive in that regard. I mean, as a whole. The simple truth today is that your economy is built on the global economy. And it’s built on the support, the gratuitous support, of a lot of countries. So why don’t you come over and … I won’t say kowtow [with a laugh], but at least, be nice to the countries that lend you money.
Talk to the Chinese! Talk to the Middle Easterners! And pull your troops back! Take the troops back, demobilize many of the troops, so that you can save some money rather than spending $2 billion every day on them. And then tell your people that you need to save, and come out with a long-term, sustainable financial policy.
Almost everyone is dealing with the lingering idea of being laid off.
The American Dollar and economy are continuing to tank plus people are losing their homes.
Too bad we didn’t have anyone to warn us of the mess that we dug ourselves into due to our consumer, credit based economy.
Oh wait a minute, someone did however he was laughed at.
Funny how those same people that were not only COMPLETELY wrong but arrogant enough to laugh at someone still have jobs.
Hindsight is a bitch ain’t it?
So let me get this straight, I’m suppose to go out and buy a bunch of junk (for people that might or might not be deserving) because “tis the season?”
I’m not going to start complaining about what the real meaning of Christmas is but a lot of people have completely warped what the “holiday” season is all about.
So far I’ve been told that I need to purchase an iPod, cell phone, toys, a five hundred dollar bag, and a bunch of other junk that will be either collecting dust in a few months or lost.
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