China promises millions of low-cost homes ($200 bn for 10 mn homes?)

You don't think America's interest payments to China has any effect on their economy in general?

Of course they do. But that's not what you said in your previous post. You can ask me in the same vein whether rain make air wet --- yes it does, but that is not what we were discussing either.

The Chinese are making money off American taxpayers in the form of iterest payments on loans,

Firstly, this is false. This is the reason I responded to your post: stop and think for once about what these words really mean. By receiving interest on a loan, the lender receives profit from the loan. A bank does not make money off the borrower; it makes money off its own money that it lent to the borrower.

[ Even more precisely: principal plus interest is the price in future dollars that the borrower pay in exchange for today's dollars he receives in the form of the loan. If you are interested, I'd be glad to expand on that; let me know. ]

Secondly, the idea that lenders make money off borrowers (rather than off their own capital) is due to Marx. According to him, this is the reason for the socialist revolution: workers should stop allowing capitalists to make money off them (workers).

I know this happened without you knowing, but this commie viewpoint got under your skin --- no offense intended, I assure you.

I heard this directly from someone who was a host of the communists and went all through the country. I brought this up several times at USC with Chinese students and they don’t deny it either.

Heard what, how much or little money they make? I did not question the number you presented.

What I did question is your conclusions, supposedly based on that statistic.

I notice you are playing games...

No, I don't play games: I conduct a discussion the best I can.

...with the term slavery, meaning you consider $3 a day high pay?

Not only did I not say that, but I actually explained in detail what is wrong with your putting "slavery" and "high" in the same sentence:

Labor becomes a slave labor it is involuntary, not according to how much wage the laborer receives.

A person can be free and poor, making only $1/day. He can also be a slave and rich, making $1000/day. You must've not heard of beautiful female slave that some wealthy men kept in antiquity. Those women basked in luxury and had many times more wealth than a peasant or artisan working long hours. Yet, purchased at an auction, they were slaves; they had no freedom to come and go as they please, choose friends, etc.

Turning closer to home, you may be interested to learn that much of the beautiful iron work, in which Charleston prides itself so much, was created by black slaves. The best of them had freedom to come and go as they please, were shown much respect and even reverence by the public, and received great pay. They were wealthy but still slaves.

The point is that being a slave and being well paid are two different thing. Referring to Chinese wages as "slave wages" is pure nonsense: slave wages, whether high or low, are received by slaves, and the vast majority of Chinese workers are not slaves.

One can question, of course, whether those wages are high or low. To this I also replied:

Just like Americans or Germans, they are paid according to their productivity (and market prices).

Those that have higher productivity --- Americans, Germans, Brits --- receive higher wages. The fact that Chinese receive $3 does not make the wage low: this wage may be (and probably is) quite appropriate for the productivity of those workers. It is not high and not low, just right.

I also mentioned that No, you don't have accept similar wages to compete successfully against the Chinese.

Have you read any of this in my previous post?

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