George Will Loves Him Some China Bogeyman

2010-02-05

As usual, Washington Post columnist George Will strings together a bunch of statistics in his latest column, hoping that no one will notice that he fails to connect the dots. It's like a cryptographic puzzle — take these 47 numbers and try to figure out what their relationship is to one another. Gives me a headache every time.

In the latest edition, which is ostensibly a diatribe against the U.S. government's budget (a productive discussion during a recession, huh?), Will stumbles upon the facts that: Americans are living longer, and health care for old people costs more.

Pardon my language, but what a fucking genius.

So the U.S. will be spending a lot on health care in the future. What does this have to do with China? Will quotes economist Robert Fogel's recent article in Foreign Policy:

It carries the headline "$123,000,000,000,000." Fogel's subheadline is: "China's estimated economy by the year 2040. Be warned."

Why should we be warned? Oh right, I forgot. Zero sum game, and all that. George Will is firmly stuck in Cold War land, so any rise by China must mean something terrifying for the U.S. Got it. Let's move on.

He expects that by 2040 China's GDP will be $123 trillion, or three times the entire world's economic output in 2000. He says China's per capita income will be more than double what is forecast for the European Union. China's 40 percent share of global GDP will be almost triple that of the United States' 14 percent.

I haven't checked any projections by sane sources (i.e. economists not affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute or an investment bank) lately, but don't those forecasts smell a little bullshitty to you? It's either that or my cat (sitting two feet away from me at the moment) is having tummy problems again and polluting the air.

Fogel finds many reasons for this, including the increased productivity of the 700 million (55 percent) rural Chinese. But he especially stresses "the enormous investment China is making in education."

Yes, China is spending a lot of money on education. It still has a lot of ground to make up and is a long way from having schools that can turn kids into creative thinkers, but the government is trying. All that being said, I somehow don't think that Fogel, or Will, understand the challenges facing China over the next few decades.

Using China's education spending to argue for a decrease in U.S. spending is, however, a bit illogical, even for a retard like George Will (oops! We're not supposed to use that word anymore). If the U.S. government did things his way, they would cut Medicare and Social Security and move towards a balanced budget. You would assume that this would free up money to spend on education, which the U.S. apparently needs to do more of to keep up with those clever Chinese.

But you'd be wrong. George Will would never advocate an increase in federal spending on education. Talking about China's investment in this area was entirely disingenous as he doesn't support the same thing in the U.S.

No, he just wants to use the spectre of a rising China to frighten people into cutting social services, his longstanding policy position.

Good job, George. If you had only thrown in a few more irrelevant statistics, maybe I would have been so sleepy that I would have ignored your blather entirely.

Tags: U.S.-China Relations