The Chinese are Coming!

Forget war, take off the blinders. It’s “the economy, stupid,” more jobs, not more war debt. Unfortunately, America’s myopic right wing acts like ninja saboteurs, unwittingly aiding and abetting growth in foreign nations. China keeps investing in its future, creating jobs, building infrastructure, funding education and technology and its GDP soars. And America keeps sliding into a no-growth economy, to 1% GDP growth in a generation.  Yes, Asia is speeding way ahead of us, winning the economic war. By 2015 China’s GDP will overtake America’s. And still we refuse to compete, thanks to the myopic Luddites running Congress.  –Paul Farrell

Paul Farrell is a lawyer/psychologist who applies his skills and insights to the analysis of economic issues.  He’s sometimes humorous, sometimes way off the mark, but never boring.  In his most recent column, he’s right on the money. 

Our economy has been producing goods and services below our needs for about as long as China has been growing at about a 10 percent per year growth rate, and during which we also have been running a huge trade deficit with them.  Both date to 1980.  Concurrently, more and more of America’s wealth and income have been sucked up by our corporate CEOs, private equity fund managers, and the idle rich.  As a consequence our wealth and income distribution curves are skewed about a thousand times worse than the typical American suspects.  We are a nation of the poor, the soon-to-be poor, and the ultra-rich.

So what’s next? Are we going to become vassals for the rich, of chop suey for the Chinese?

I don’t like either of those outcomes, or any combination of the two.  They represent the demise of history’s “great experiment” with freedom, the death our founding principles, namely, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.   And they would be a betrayal of the trust handed to us by all who came before us.  Count me out of that sellout.

There is an alternate future.  It is one in which we roll up our sleeves and begin the task of taking America back.   It can be done by re-directing our wealth and income streams away from the vertical gusher that rises to the top of corporate America, and into an expanded horizontal structure of community-based capitalism where you and I and millions of others exist.   That outcome begins with shifting large amounts of cash from corporate banks and into community banks and credit unions.  

The 63,000 corporate CEOs, the 3,700 private equity fund managers, along with the political action committees they fund, and the members of Congress they own are the problem.  They’ve got at least $53 trillion in wealth holdings.  Nobody has the power to change the tax laws that might level the playing field, nobody has the power to redistribute wealth and income by any legal means, and hope for other ideas is simply fading fast.

And now, as Paul Farrell warns us, the Chinese are coming.

It costs nothing to move your bank accounts away from those big corporate banks and put your hard-earned dollars in your credit union.   If 10,000 people moved $10,000 each, that would shift $100 million.  It would also show that it can be done.  Then repeat that procedure 10,000 times, communities would have $1 trillion of working capital.  That would provide communities with the funds to expand local projects and businesses, utilities, co-ops, new jobs, and more GDP growth.

Not enough incentive yet for you?  A recent research report estimates that offshore tax havens hold $32 trillion is secret private accounts.  This means the rich are even richer than I knew, and I track this stuff.

My own estimate puts China in the #1 GDP position sometime in the 2020’s.   They are not likely to be a threat to dominate us economically or militarily before about 2040.  By then our own super rich will likely have $425 trillion—unless we get off our asses and go to work now.

I’d like to lay out a grand plan for how to change the course of history.  But why give our adversaries a plan of how to defeat them?  It must be flexible enough to allow for the unforeseen, setbacks, and other obstacles.  With or without those elements, it requires capital. And most of that must be produced by a growing system of local enterprises. 

Our goal for phase I:   Move $1 trillion from corporate banks to local banks and credit unions before the Chinese or the super rich can do anything about it.

 Look for this new website after July 4, 2013:   www.AmericanWealthNetwork.org.  It will have much more on this subject from world renown authors and practitioners including progress that is being made.