leftwingagenda-

I’ve focused my studies on China since I was 14 and started taking Chinese language and history courses. I moved on to study their culture and politics. I’ve spent time in China. I’ve also watched time-and-time again as various intellectual property cases went before the Chinese courts. I think my favorite example is New Balance. You should google their i.p. cases in China. Most Americans don’t even realize that an unknown, but, according to New Balance, significant, number of “New Balance” shoes sold in America are 3rd shift or the products of a Chinese competitor that simply lifted New Balance designs. New Balance is not seeing the profits. From family members, who work for companies like Coach, I know that they are desperate for cheap labor, but they are also quite scared about their low-cost Chinese competitors that have spun off of Coach sans permission from Coach.

I bet that you never thought Toyota or Hyundai would grow into massive headaches for Detroit. Or, if you did, then why can’t you see how a Chinese company could do the same and to even more devastating effect? Are you one of those nativists who doesn’t believe the Chinese have the mental or industrial capacity to do so? I doubt it. Yet you’re sitting there telling me that a $2 billion return on a $6 billion investment is acceptable when Ford’s short-term debt is somewhere around $23 billion and their long-term debt is something like $124 billion. There are other sources of capital and Ford has shown that they have earned credibility with their lenders who renegotiated payment dates PRIOR to final word on Ford selling Volvo.

Now, don’t get all preachy on the stocks point. You’re one of the posters that reminded us almost daily, over the past year, that greed on Wall Street was to blame for our woes. So, I fail to see how you can now anoint the performance of Ford’s stock. Moreover, how many times have folks on Wall Street celebrated the wrong moves? Wall Street strongly approved of Cerberus’ acquisition of Chrysler. The point is, unless you can tell posters what Ford should/could do 10-20 years from now to compete with cheap Chinese autos entering the U.S. then you cannot tell us to not worry. About the only solution I see for Ford is to offshore more jobs. And by the way, did you invest $10,000 in Ford stock and make a killing? If not then I can only assume you didn’t believe it was a good investment for $10,000 9 months ago. You may have bought a few shares, but you didn’t sell your car or dip into savings to raise that $10,000. I guess your crystal-ball is as cloudy as the rest of ours. Or maybe you did buy the shares and I’m an idiot.

One final thought, can you name ANY American-owned television company? I’ll give you a hint, the last one was Zenith and they collapsed more than a decade ago. And it all started with the licensing of transistor technology to Japan to make radios post-WWII. Americans are unwilling to accept market-competitive wages. The end result is that the only jobs we can’t offshore are the service sector jobs that require stores to be manned in the U.S. or service-visits to homes. In your world, America owns less and builds less, but somehow competes by working in service-sector jobs? Meanwhile, fewer and fewer Americans are paying taxes. 47% of Americans will pay NO income tax for 2009. Does it sound like these sort of deals have been good for America? I really hope you’re right. I promise that, under it all, I’m an optimist. I don’t believe you can ever count out the American people. That said, we differ on how to keep the U.S. strong. Merry Christmas leftwing!