One of these countries makes things, and the other country buys things with borrowed money. Guess which is which:
As I've said recently, this malfeasance only ends one way - with the apologists for ultra-greed flying off of tall buildings, by their own volition. Or not.
Speaking of apologists, Trump's new trade tsar actually wrote the book on blaming China for amplifying corporate profit 10x. And yet, on average 4,000 Chinese die every day due to pollution thrown off by creating the cheap junk that consumption zombies prize at Walmart. Therefore, I thought it would be timely to remind everyone how the history books will view this entire era, once the greed goggles have been lifted...
The history books will say:
"...at that point the U.S. outsourced its entire economy to China including all of the pollution, then sat back and collected 10x inflated profits. Chinese workers did all of the same things American workers used to do, but for ten cents on the dollar and in working conditions reminiscent of the Middle Ages. Chinese factory owners were for some reason satisfied with profit margins that were 1/30th that of the American-based marketing shells aka. multinational corporations, which merely imported the goods and distributed them to Walmart. Actually, they had someone else do that, the marketing shells merely provided the marketing and finance. Due to the high suicide rate in the medieval sweatshops, high fences were installed to prevent anyone from getting out and safety nets were installed around the buildings to thwart any suicide attempts by workers jumping off of the roof.
When the unemployed Americans could no longer afford to buy the cheap crap made in China, they turned to borrowing from the sweatshop workers via the recurring trade deficit which had generated a simultaneous exchange of capital to keep the flow of goods flowing. For some reason, the Chinese wage slaves and their factory slave masters assumed that the unemployed Americans would one day pay them back, despite the fact that the Americans soon after turned to printing money to keep interest rates from rising. The same people who had outsourced the U.S. economy kept wondering why there were no jobs and no job creation. They blamed government whom they had bribed to look the other way. A grassroots movement harkened back to an earlier age, so they created the Tea Party to restore traditional values. Billionaires fearing a revolution, bought up the Tea Party and convinced its members that aircraft carrier groups circling the globe, offshore tax havens for the ultra-wealthy, and poverty for everyone else is the American tradition. The Tea Party, educated on South Park, had no qualms.
The smartest Chinese headed straight to Canada where they bought citizenship, cash on the barrel head, subject to "investment". They, of all people, were fully aware as to how the sausage gets made back home in China. Canadian house prices went parabolic, since the "investments" mostly went into real estate. However the Canadian government assured Canadians that real estate prices never go down and "we have no subprime", unlike our crazy (but lovable) American neighbours. They also assured Canadians that the CDIC can cover all loan losses despite having reserves equating to only .39% of deposits. In the meantime, speculators paid millions for crack houses in Vancouver and flipped condos like there is no tomorrow.
Pollution from across the world was concentrated in China and the Far East, lowering the life expectancy to 96th worldwide - one level below Syria (hopefully before the war). The Chinese government feared that the smog, which was three times the level considered extremely hazardous, might make people "angry" because they would have to take a day off from the sweatshop. Some of the toxic pollution inevitably made its way into products shipped to the Western nations. The Westerners were outraged that the products they were buying with money they borrowed from Third World wage slaves, were contaminated. They thought about boycotting goods made in China, but then realized all goods are made in China.
The entire ponzi scheme ended in a massive collapse which for some reason caught the vast majority worldwide by surprise. In the end most Westerners and Chinese were left with no jobs, since the entire system was predicated on a continuing flow of capital from East to West, which itself was predicated on a continuing flow of goods. After the collapse, the Asians decided that there was no point in working for ten cents on the dollar to make things for people who have no ability to pay them back. Most savings were wiped out, since the money had already been spent and was merely represented by worthless IOUs with nothing tangible backing them other than the full faith and credit of politicians. The average Westerner was shocked and enraged that all of this malfeasance had been going on in broad daylight without them knowing anything about it. They blamed their game show hosts in leadership for convincing them to bend over and shove their heads up their own asses. Riots and anarchy ensued until the U.S. Military came home and worked with the NSA to install a police state that would make George Orwell proud. But that's a story for another time..."
The demagogues of history have proven over and over again that it's easier to fool a million people than it is to fool ten. Fooling 7 billion requires no effort whatsoever.
