Good morning, all.
Jim Webb uses China as an example of the wonders of diplomacy as, he says, we have arguably brought them into the world.
How is that working out for us?
On ABC This Week, Biden said he was told by CNN after Bush’s “appeasement” statement that Bush was referring to Obama.
I wonder if he believes everything CNN tells him.
We have become too greedy in we I mean the big corporations down to the small family run businesses. We say we have made a loss if our profits have not increased from year to year. How many times do we see headlines so and so made 2 or 3 million loss this year when you read the article they actually made 2 or 3 million less than they forecast but still more than they made the previous year and far more than what inflation was.
There has to come a time when we realise we cannot continue to get massive increases each year small solid ones are the way to go with everyone benefiting including price rises on everyday things.
It is this climate that has breed firms turning to China and India etc to produce substandard goods at cheap prices. How long does your kettle or toaster last against how long it lasted 20 years ago yes it may be cheaper than 20 years ago but does it last. The attitude also of consumers needs to change at present with cheap substandard white goods they do not care how long they last after all they will replace them anyway in 3 years.
I say this working for a company who has a joint venture in China though we have been smart and fought hard for it we have the controlling percentage of 51 per cent many companies in the west have had to settle for 49 per cent with the Chinese company having the 51 per cent. It was hard and we lost a couple of years because of it but it was worth the fight.
We now make the majority of our company's products in China along with the problems associated with this but it has kept us in business and yes we have had to settle lesser profits but many companies this is not true. Even though in our small way we have made our economy more reliant on China because without it yet another company in Britain would have bitten the dust.
What the answer is I do not know but I think that maybe we all need to realise we cannot keep growing at the pace we have and had to at some point say I will settle for a nice home, reasonable car fair salary etc etc.
I am not advocating lack of ambition or wanting to get on in life but a realistic attitude that we do this at the expense of others including the overall well being of own countries making them more reliant on countries who do not have our or even their own people best interest at heart.
We have become greedy and self centred and as we see this in people's day to day attitude and how they conduct their life either in business or their personal life and we hear of more and more natural disasters in the world we are reminded that we in the last days and that the Lord will return maybe in our generation.
Compared to what? Comnpared to the days of Mao it is working out much better for us. My son spent a summer in Bejing and wandering around. Incredible growth going on over there. He couldn't have done that in the 60s.
But to Webb's point it was not due to diplomacy but rather the power and strength of capitalism compared to the failure of communism.