Hey China! You Want It? Come And Get It!

By Lee Russ

Tuesday, February 07, 2006 at 03:20 PM

Just when you think you've identified the most absurd conservative in the world...for instance, when you first read David Brooks...along comes another one to make your face contort into positions it should never hold.

From one Dr. Vincent G. Gioia, writing for New Media Journal

What would happen to all our "investors", China included, if the US developed the cajones in time of crisis to simply declare a bank holiday or nullify all foreign debt by law or decree? Sure, we would be disliked and more on the world stage, but so what? After all, business is business.

Dr. Gioia ends his piece with, "Can the world bear to have the largest and strongest consumer based economy fail? I think not."

In case you were wondering, Dr. Gioia is not merely an escapee from treatment, he is, according to the source:

..a retired attorney, formerly VP and General Council, Allegheny Ludlum Steel Corp., now Allegheny Teledyne. He is also a horticulturist and also a former President of the American Rose Society and the World Federation of Rose Societies. His articles have appeared in many engineering and horticultural publications.

The good Doctor is too restrained.  "[D]isliked and more" on the world stage, indeed.  The "and more" just might involve a lot more.  More missiles, more bullets, more bombs, more blood.

Say, Doc, did your doctoral mind take into account that pieces like you just wrote might actually make the Chinese think about the wisdom of their continuing to pile up US debt?  That just maybe your piece would be a factor in bringing about the very result that you decided was impossible?

Oh well.  If we burn all our IOUs and dare the Chinese to "come and get it," we should have a pretty large number of Americans willing to take up arms for a buck or two.  After all, the day after Dr. Gioia's piece went online, the Beaver County (PA) Times published an editorial noting that "The Commerce Department reported Monday that Americans' personal savings fell into negative territory at minus 0.5 percent last year....The savings rate has been negative for an entire year only twice before (1932 and 1933) because of the Great Depression...If the future does belong to [the Chinese, Indians, etc.], it's because we frittered it away."

While the Gioias of the world fiddled with leaps of illogic.