The Setting
I was at a meeting of small local business owners last Friday morning and the usual suspects were addressed: too many taxes on small businesses, how banks are buying treasury bonds and other banks instead of making the loans they were supposed to make with their bailout money, health care… The same subjects any business owner who survived 2009 would bring up and, understandably, these topics got the lion’s share of attention.

The Issue
I asked whether there’s some way to get a tax break or a special state certification that might help set apart those of us who do business in a socially responsible way – i.e. using eco-friendly and fair labor/fair trade practices. I talked about the difficulties we face competing with products made in China, and how inhumane the conditions are over there. I pointed out that if we help raise wages overseas then, eventually, it will become more competitive to make things here. And that means manufacturing jobs would finally come back to the US.

(That’s the big “DUH!” of this whole situation. Even if someone doesn’t care about the humanitarian situation, there are plenty of mercenary and nationalistic reasons to support it too! Not that I necessarily want to encourage that sort of thing…)

The Myth
As we were on our way back to our cars, a man who’s in charge of a very large Asian loan fund took me aside and told me that I had it all wrong about China. “China’s going to save America,” he said.

Fortunately for him, it was too early on a Friday morning for me to lose my temper. But he did get an earful about the disgusting way they treat their workers, etc. When it became clear there was no convincing me otherwise, he made his way to his car.

”China’s going to save America” – he was absolutely sincere! And completely, thoroughly and horribly misguided.

The Reality
China wants to dominate, well, the entire planet – including the rest of Asia, lest anyone should think I’m xenophobic. (This man’s last name was Honda, which is Japanese.) The Chinese elite don’t seem to care how they do it, who they abuse, who they sell the organs of their executed prisoners to or who they steal corporate and military secrets from.

And what’s so distressing is there are too many non-Chinese who, at best, turn a blind eye or, worse, don’t see anything wrong with any of that. Between what that man said and the comments I’ve been hearing from American manufacturers, I’m thinking all these people have OD’ed on greed-laced Kool-Aid.

I Need a Scotch
I look forward to stepping off my soapbox with my next blogpost…and telling you all about the “shockingly awesome” note we got from MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.

XOXO Marty