Who Needs Tanks When You Have Cheap Sedans?

What on earth is going on in China?

A while back I ordered a Chinese car charger for my cell phone. I don’t recall the price, but it was something like one cent. Seriously. And the shipping was very cheap. The product arrived, and it worked great. I can’t figure out how the seller managed to make the sale worth his time.

Earlier this week, I ordered a nice green laser sight from Hong Kong. Total cost, with rechargeable battery and mount: about $40. That’s less than half the cost of lasers American companies sell. Is the quality as high? People who have bought the laser seem to love it; that’s all I can tell you.

Today I remembered that I needed a charger for the laser battery. I found one. Cost? Two dollars. With FOUR batteries included. I’m not kidding. For a total of about ten bucks, they’re shipping it from Hong Kong.

I’ve used Chinese batteries in my cameras, with Chinese chargers. They work great. They’re probably made in the same factories where my Canon batteries were made.

Here’s something that makes Chinese bargains even more interesting. They’re going to sell cars here. I know that. I don’t have to check; it’s obvious. Common sense.

Okay, I’ll check.

Yes, it’s happening. As of 2007, a company called Chery was planning to open up shop here. I assume they’ve done it already.

Right now, Chinese cars are junk. On the other hand, they cost under ten grand. That covers a multitude of sins. Industry people say it will be five or ten years before they improve. Yeah, right. The same nation that has quickly improved its tools and other industrial products dramatically will need five years to do the same thing with cars. Do you believe that? Even if it’s true, five years isn’t a long time.

And here we are, seriously entertaining the notion of taking money away from responsible Americans and giving it to relatively unskilled auto workers who bring home about $72 per hour, working so slowly their effective rate is actually about $144. Brilliant. We are supposed to pump more money into three failed companies, with no expectation that they will stop paying their workers five times the market value of their labor. Please explain. Do you make $144 per hour? Some of you do, but many of you don’t. I’m sure many of you make about a tenth of that. How do you feel about paying taxes on your market-value wage, so someone else can earn several times as much, doing something of equal or lesser value? Would you lend money to your neighbor to keep his convenience store afloat, if he insisted on paying the clerk four hundred dollars a day?

The Japanese used to make bad cars. They improved. The Koreans make good cars. The Chinese are going to make good cars, too, and they’re going to be dirt cheap. And it’s going to happen right when our bloated car industry is supposed to start paying off on our giant welfare check. Am I the only person who sees a problem here? Would you invest in a failing Burger King, if you knew the Chinese were going to open a similar restaurant next door, charging half as much for the same food?

No.

The UAW needs to get a grip. Their wages are going to plummet, with or without a bailout. That is a certainty. They can’t compete with the Japanese, and when the Chinese show up in force, they’re going to be annihilated. They should be working with the carmakers to increase efficiency and get wages in line with revenues. The free punch and pie are things of the past. The fifty-year-long frat party is OVER.

I still tend to think America is washed up, as the world’s preeminent nation. We aborted our babies, we sanctioned every type of sexual sin, we took drugs, we turned VD into an honor, we accorded evil religions the same dignity as Judaism and Christianity, and we helped Israel commit suicide. We quit taking God seriously, and we forgot where all that lovely money came from. I think we’re all done. Get used to second-tier status.

We can’t seem to absorb the truth. Americans are not superior. We are not the master race. We are not invincible. Without God’s protection, poverty and socialism can happen here. Our enemies can win. We can be invaded and conquered. The UAW thinks it’s 1950, and we’re still in a postwar boom, with the highest standard of living in the world. In all likelihood, we are in a contraction that will not end until life here is about like it is in Italy. We are living under a self-inflicted curse, just like the Jews who were carried off to Babylon.

I am not an economist, but it sure seems like bad times are here to stay. A gigantic amount of American wealth–trillions of dollars–has ceased to exist. People are going to spend less. They’re going to have less to invest in a recovery. Even companies that are managed well are going to suffer, because consumers will have less money to pay for their products and services. Companies that sell to other companies will see lower demand, because their customers will go out of business or experience dramatic slowdowns. Someone tell me…doesn’t this guarantee deflation? It’s already happening to oil and other commodities.

In my mind, it spells “depression.” Demand for everything is down. Capital is gone. Most Americans have almost no savings; no one seems to be talking about this. Many Americans have negative net worths. When waves of layoffs start–and they will–the millions of people who have low net worths and heavy debt loads, and who rent their homes, will spill into the street in a flash. Am I wrong? If you live from hand to mouth, and you have a $15,000 Visa balance, and you have no equity in your home, where are you supposed to live the month after you get fired? Don’t buy a car now; it would be like buying a house in 2007. Six months from now, you may be able to take your pick, from hundreds of low-mileage repos.

Wow, a question just occurred to me. Tens of millions of Americans have no assets and too much debt. If layoffs start, won’t it cause a second credit crisis as bad as the one caused by our socialist mortgage mess? The same banks that are now eating bad mortgages will have to eat credit card balances. All I can say is, thank God for the FDIC.

Not everyone agrees with me. Supposedly, evangelist Perry Stone thinks we can turn it around. He knows more than I do. I hope he’s right. I trust him more than the “experts” on cable TV. Here’s a question I asked my dad the other day. How many of them are now saying, “This is exactly what I predicted!”? Very damn few. This crash cut their legs out from under them. And the eternal pessimists don’t count; they forecast disaster regardless of the circumstances. Very few of these geniuses saw this coming. They are utterly clueless. False prophets. If you watch the financial channels, you should know this already. When the market is strong for a week, they talk about the wonderful boom which is going to last for years. When it falls for a week, they talk about the bear market that has just begun. I’m not kidding. I’ve watched these people for years. Here’s something to remember. A lot of these characters are not great investors. Many of them handle other people’s money, which means they get paid whether or not their predictions come true.

I’m checking out my theories, and it looks like some gurus are already voicing these concerns.

I know this: it’s always the right time to turn back to God. We shut off the valve that supplied our prosperity. Every individual can reopen it with respect to himself.