That's reality presently. It doesn't even matter if the interests of this microscopic minority are self-destructive and so run not only contrary to the interests of the rest of the country and/or world but against their own interests as well...It will continue in the direction it alone wishes to head, until it no longer exists as such.

You need to understand that it is an investment or investor community interested only in certain (i.e. sure-thing) short-term profits and the status quo and it is not in the least concerned with anything else.

China knows this especially at the upper levels of its own quasi-communist regime and was pressured by these same forces into becoming a quasi-state capitalist system itself like the united states. In order to do so and to compete (maintaining its viability as a regime) the chinese regime knew it would have to throw off of all social services and out of most social programs a significant enough portion of its population to provide a cheap labor force for its own subsequent state-capitalist class. As well as provide a cheap labor pool (almost slave labor by any standards, even in asia) for the microscopic investment class in the u.s. So that this tiny class, tr-unity, or 'Bermuda Triangle' would begin to off-shore most of their industries, to take advantage essentially of new, legal slaves in China. This would also prevent any u.s. tarriffs from being placed on chinese goods, and as PCR points out in his article above, give china some leverage as to how its own currency is valued. So as to keep the price of off-shored goods in china and chinese goods entering the u.s. low enough for the increasingly poorer, and debt ridden u.s. consumers, (being inevitably forced more and more into lower paying service industries.)

As PCR points out if china who is perceived to be holding subsequently too much u.s. debt and is too cash rich in terms of u.s. dollars is pressured into revaluing its currency in relation to the u.s. dollar it will only subsequently hurt u.s. consumers, and not the microscopic american investment class in the short-term.

Since only the microscopic american investor class has any power or clout whatsoever in this system, and NOT the 99.9% of the american population, this is the prudent or smart move for the chinese regime to have made in terms of its own viability and self-presevation in china and internationally. The point to grasp is that how the chinese regime is behaving is exactly how the the u.s. investor class behaves and controls its own domestic population except that the circumstances were somewhat different on each side.

The question becomes only how long can each nation's microscopic minority at the expense of the rest of the 99.9% of their respective populations survive the inevitable upheaval or new revolutions in each of their respective nations, due to the misery index domestically. It is NOT China's fault...it IS the fault of america's investor class; but at the moment it looks like two adolsecents playing chicken with one another in their cars? Win-win - would that neither swerves?

"... It should be common sense, a nation which produces nothing is subservient to those who produce. ..."

French demographer and historian Emmanuel Todd observes in his "After the Empire" that the total industrial capacity of the U.S. has now declined to roughly equal that of Japan, a country with a mere one-third of U.S. population. (Capacity, mind you, not even the actual output.) What a change since the WW II times, when the unique might of America stemmed from the enormity of its industrial basis.

According to Todd, what keeps the United States of today afloat is the trust of the rest of the world, that this still is the safest place to keep the money, mainly via purchase of U.S. government bonds. When that magic disappears (and it will, since next to nothing is actually produced), it won't be pretty. Among other things, Todd projects a decline of the living standard to about 70% of the present.

"Clearly, it is a MISTAKE for the U.S. government and economists to think of the imbalance as if it were produced by Chinese companies underselling goods produced by U.S. companies in America."

"The Times and “free trade” economists haven’t caught on, because they MISTAKENLY think that offshoring is trade."

I don't believe PCR's use of mistake is appropriate. Asking someone to pass the malt-o-meal when only cream of wheat is on the table is a mistake. I find no way to convince myself that the above are not calculated efforts to reduce the American population to serfs. The people who publish and edit the Times etc are not stupid.

PCR's last sentence is much closer to the truth even though "Pilotesque": "Free market economists simply ignore the facts and proceed with their ideological justifications of open borders, a policy that is rapidly destroying the ladders of upward mobility for the U.S. population."

Starting in 1973 the rate of economic growth began to decline and the real wage began to stagnate for skilled White American workers and began to decline for unskilled White American workers. All this began to occur when the US economy became more integrated into the global economy and the US labor market become globalized through increasing levels of LEGAL and illegal immigration.

Mr. Roberts, I just want to say a few words about Comrade Alexander Cockburn whose website you write for. Comrade Cockburn and his lefty comrades over Counterpunch cheer on and tolerate the race-based politics of hispanics and asians on the Counterpunch website.

So obssessed is the LEGAL IMMIGRANT Alexander Cockburn with reducing White Amerians to racial minority in America that he has for the past 14 years-I'm am a long time reader of Alexanders Nation and counterpunch columns-justified the racial and economic dispossession of the majority White American population on the grounds that cheaper hispanic and asian immigration is a great benefit to the greedy cheating class(agribusiness and Bill Gates). All I can say is this: What a cockoach you are Alexander Cockburn.

Mr. Roberts, I highly recommend that you read a very important book on the real facts about protectionism written by a young Korean economist who teaches economics at Cambridge. The name of the book is "Kicking away the ladder". Also, there are essays written by this economist on the true history of protectionism floating around the internet.

I support a protectionist trade policy. I support a protectionist immigration policy.I oppose the globalization of American labor markets through post-1965 asian,hispanic,african,carribean and asian LEGAL IMMIGRATION.

Because American labor markets have been globalized through post-1965 non-European immigration, the majority White American population faces the very real possibility of complete economic and racial dispossession over the next several decades in the nation they founded and created.

Why do you let the cockroach LEGAL IMMIGRANT Alexander Cockburn off the hook?

The globalization of American labor markets through post-1965 non-white LEGAL IMMIGRATION has created enormous economic insecurity in thousands of White American families across America. Thousands of American White families are experiencing an acute level of terror and fear because of this. This is very likely the reason they are not aggrsively challenging the Bush adminstrations war crimes in Iraq.