China: Gosh! My 8-year-old daughter is making money at school???

Noon today, when my daughter came home from school her mouth was red and swollen. When I asked, she said it was from eating ma la tang[a Chinese type of spicy soup]. This led me to discovering 8 yuan in her pocket, and I asked her where the money came from. She refused to say, so I went to school in the afternoon to investigate. To my astonishment, she’s making money from her classmates! How was she doing it??? Well, many of her classmates bring comics to school and are afraid of teachers’ inspections, so she keeps the comics for them, 5 jiao each time. Also, other students pay to use her pencil sharpener. The first two times are free, she charges 5 jiao from the third time and 5 jiao extra from the 6th time. In addition, I found a little notebook under her pillow tonight, with a list of people that owe her money written inside. Faint…

Had a talk with her tonight, told her that her responsibility right now is to study, and that friendship between classmates is priceless. Most importantly, it’s wrong to help others break school rules for money, because when she becomes a part of society she might break the law for money. (It’s the same thing, a set of rules that must be obeyed). The consequence to breaking the law is to lose life’s most precious freedom.

The child is asleep, but I can’t fall asleep (because in life I always like to help friends. But my daughter…), so here I am on the discussion forum, hoping to hear everyone’s thoughts. Thanks.

OK then.

Please explain. What I got from the story is that it’s ok to break rules in China, because now that Americans on both side of the political aisle are eagerly making China (through our bone-headed “free trade” deindustrialisation of the USA), the world’s newest superpower by making ourselves weak and broke - the communists running the country, will magically now embrace freedom and democracy.

And we’ll all live happily ever after.

Did I miss something?

As with many such arrangements the result is often a Catch 22.

The little girl is assuming the risk of the other students by holding the comic books for them. That is a risk they are willing to pay her to relieve them of. She is also providing them with a service by allowing them to use her pencils and pencil sharpener, a service for which they are also willing to pay. She is a bright marketer by making the first few times free. However, that is the same as a drug dealer.

The Catch 22 is if she decides to discontinue the service she will most likely alienate her classmates. If she continues breaking the rules she will probably eventually get caught. What seems at first to be a win-win will sooner or later become a lose-lose.

Since her classmates are as guilty as she is of breaking the rules will they also be punished? If so, they will likely blame her and be mad about it. If they aren’t considered guilty they will likely disassociate themselves from the guilty one and shun her.

Is the reward worth the risk? That is always a central question in business endeavors whether legal or illegal.

Did I miss something?

Only the entire point of the story.

The story was posing a moral dilemma, nothing more. It may have been, at most, suggesting that there are moral perils to free enterprise sort of like the many examples making the rounds about Socialism. You know, the ones about the guys going to dinner and deciding to pay according to the income of each?

As to your complaint about free trade and China I would suggest China has little to do with our loss of jobs and the decline of our economy. Seventy years of steadily advancing Socialism/Communism in this country are the true culprits.

Labor unions in the major industries and government regulations mandating overly stringent safety and environmental rules, affirmative action and other personnel management rules, and punitive taxes on individuals, business and investors play the biggest role. All of those policies are Communist inspired.

The alternative to free trade is high import taxes. That raises the cost of the products to American consumers or makes the product unavailable to them if the tariff is too high. We already have tariffs on many products including steel, coffee and sugar. Why? We don't grow coffee and the sugar producers would do just fine without protection. However, look at the cost of sugar and coffee in the supermarket. The increased cost of steel means higher costs for many other things like cars, appliances, buildings, etc.

As to the deindustrialization of America, today just our manufacturing sector alone makes it greater than most other countries entire GDP, behind only Germany and Japan I believe.

Free enterprise is based on freedom of choice, private property and freedom of movement. Freedom is the root of free enterprise. At its core is human nature. R. Buckminster Fuller, a genius in many fields, said free enterprise has the unique ability to transform the selfish desires of the individual into a good for the whole population.

Free enterprise as practiced by China and Russia is like being a little bit pregnant. It ain't possible. Either they abandon free enterprise, abort it, or it will grow into a new vibrant free society. If they abort it they will return to stagnation and ruin. That is unlikely since the young people have gotten a taste of success and the Communist oligarchs are getting rich.

Tragically, as Communist nations in the Eastern Hemisphere have learned the lessons of Communism the nations in the Western Hemisphere are moving in the opposite direction.

Obama and his Communist buddies are the worst thing ever to happen to this country. You complain about free trade and Obama and his fellow Communist are still living it the past and want to take us there.

Worry about that if you want to worry about something.

First I apologize to TigerLikesRooster.

I let my own frustration with the state of our trade mess, get in the way of respectful dialogue. I had thought TLR was posting someone else’s words - but it seems maybe it was just an honest expressive (original) post, and I apologize for responding in a knee-jerk way.

That said, if I were raising a child in China, the (first) lesson I would be teaching them is, not to break rules. Not there, not now.

I’m sorry. Please accept my apologies.

But to Mind-numbed Robot’s criticism that I’m somehow anti-business:

I have no gripe with free trade.

That’s not what we’re doing. We’re unilaterally surrendering.

“Free trade” would mean markets around the world were as open to our goods and services, as our markets are to others’.

Nowhere on earth, are markets as open to American goods and services, as our markets are to every dictator and communist, and their corrupt business practices.

My gripe is, we have allowed selfish people to sell our own country into future collapse - so that THEY could make a few dollars on our defeat.

That is my gripe.

It’s got nothing what so ever to do with “free trade”.

There is no “free trade”. Because we have not insisted upon it.

But to Mind-numbed Robot’s criticism that I’m somehow anti-business: I have no gripe with free trade.

May I quote you?

What I got from the story is that it’s ok to break rules in China, because now that Americans on both side of the political aisle are eagerly making China (through our bone-headed “free trade” deindustrialisation of the USA), ...

I will take the liberty of speaking on behalf of TigerLikesRooster:

I had thought TLR was posting someone else’s words - but it seems maybe it was just an honest expressive (original) post, and I apologize for responding in a knee-jerk way.

He WAS quoting someone else's words! That is why he said "ROFLAO" in post number one!

I am tempted to post a snarky remark about your comprehension skills but instead I will be kind. I hope my clarification helped.

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