Which foreign dependency is worse: Oil or Money

if Americans think they have it bad with their dependence on foreign oil, they haven't even started to realise how incredibly dependent they are to foreign money. Without China, Japan, Korea, the Arab oil states and Europeans, the USA would not even be capable of sustaining the incredible trade and budget deficit it is currently trying to control. So, if we compare, which of the two is worse? Oil or Money?

Voodoo economics: China or America?

So, which country is mostly unaffected by the current money crisis? Yes, China. The least capitalist based market of the larger nations, with substantial government regulation, but seems to best now that the credit crunch is getting worse.

But things are worse, China is probably the only nation in the world that can actually finance the bonds that the US will need to cover the 700,000,000,000 US $ that the US wants to invest in their bankrupted (no pun intended) financial system.

The US government was already unable to tell China what to do. Every time a senator or other politician made some waves for reform, for example to limit imports from China, or to prevent jobs from going there, a mid-rank official would appear on Chinese television, and indicate that China was considering to diversify their bonds. And without failure, the stock market would cringe and the US politician would shut up. Now, the sell-out to to China is just going to be worse.

What I really do not get is that many poor people vote for the republicans, because in the end, they are the victims of the voodoo economics of that party. But I guess that prohibiting gay marriage is more important than having money in their wallet.

Social Security, American Style

In the US, when you get unemployed, are sick, or whatever, only limited help can be expected from the federal government. Capitalism rules, and if you cannot help yourself, you are crewed. Really, well, it is more nuanced.

Take the current crises in the financial markets. They are big enough to bring the US economy on its knees, and most of it is caused by the idea that you should lend for everything, even when yo do not have the means to pay those bills..... And so it began. bad credit, here is a loan anyway. A mortgage for the house? Sub-prime, no problem, here it is...... And then the economy did not exactly do what the Bush administration wanted, so you give everybody a stimulation package (Thanks Uncle Sam), but did it solve the issues. No, it just made the deficit sky rocket, but heck, most of the people making those decisions will be embalmed and put in their grave fault before those worries will hit our children and grandchildren. Who cares, we can at least live rich and destroy our earth....

But lets stop that rant there. I wanted to address another aspect of this insane system. First the government encouraged sub-prime loans because that was good for the economy. But the economy did not do what they wanted, so they nationalized two semi-private corporation, Fanny mae and that other one when they came in trouble. (O yes, they tried a few things in between, but that did evidently not help a bit either. Anyway, so what to do next? Well, uncle sam is going to be a mortgage broker, and is going to buy mortgages. Congratulations.

So, who is going to pay all this? We, the tax payers (remind me, no taxation without representation, but I as a foreigner am not allowed to vote, but I do have to pay taxes!)! So, instead of directly developing some system that will help those in need, the US does it inderect by first pushing those people into debts to deal with the life-emergencies, after which they will hekp them anyways, and along the road, leave a lot of money with finacial instititions that could have been left out of the equation if a more sensible social security system would have been in place.