Hey, thanks, China!

I feel like I should have been paying more attention. And maybe I should have taken some economics courses in college, because that might have helped, too. Until a couple of days ago, I certainly couldn't have explained a national savings rate to you. I also didn't know it was even possible for a country to dictate the value of their currency relative to other currencies. So why the sudden surge of interest? This big country called the People's Republic of China. It seems like I can't turn around without encountering another news story on the place. So I took that as a sign. A sign that it was time to get serious.

The amount of money that China has invested in the US economy is staggering. They possess around a trillion (!!!!!) dollars in foreign assets, and about seventy percent of this is in US dollar holdings. (Granted, these numbers are always estimates, because China considers its foreign asset holdings to be a "state secret," which, of course, only makes it more exciting. Right?) For the US, this means cheaper imported goods (hooray, iPods), lower taxes and interest rates, higher 401(k) values. For China, this means greater governmental control over domestic economic development and the prevention of massive inflation. All awesome, yes?

Now, this gets interesting when you start to consider the relative savings rates of China and the US, because I think one of the most important questions is: how can China afford this, and why do we need it? A country's savings rate measures the difference between what it produces and what it spends. The higher the savings rate, the less a country is spending relative to what it is producing. So obviously, a low rate would be indicative of the opposite: a country living better than it should. Which is exactly what the US is doing right now. China's savings rate is currently around fifty percent. This means they use only fifty percent of what they produce. Can you guess where the US's savings rate has been hovering lately? That's right. Pretty close to zero, and sometimes even lower, meaning we consume and spend more than we produce or re-invest. By now I think it starts to become pretty clear why this is DANGEROUS.

Here's part of how they do it. When a company in Country A makes a product that is eventually sold in Country B, a portion of Country B's currency will make it's way back to the place of production in Country A. Ordinarily, the company in Country A would take this currency to a bank and exchange it, in order to pay workers and taxes and what have you. Then the bank would be able to use this currency at its own discretion. Not so in China. In China, the bank must surrender it's dollars to the People's Bank of China, which is their equivalent of the US's Federal Reserve Bank. These dollars are then turned over to the State Administration for Foreign Exchange, whose job it is to decide how best to use these dollars. A majority of these dollars go to U. S. Treasury notes and federal-agency bonds, which pay low interest, but are very "safe." So what does this mean? It means our dollars come right back to us, and go right back into the US economy. Then it will (ideally for China) be spent on Chinese goods. However, what it really does is prop up our economy as we continue to live beyond our means: iPods, low interest rates, hurrah! It's not normal for a nation's economy to be supported in this way. In fact, the situation is considered unprecedented between independent countries during peace(?)time.

So at this point, pretty much only one question needs to be posed: what happens if (when?) they pull that money out? The short answer is that the US economy, as well as the dollar, would collapse. So if you were asking yourself why you should care while you were reading this, we've gotten to that part now. This is seen as a very plausible future reality for a few reasons. First off, the dollar has been decreasing in value, making it a less profitable investment for the Chinese. Second, the Chinese people are getting a little tired of watching their government send money away to pay for US expenditures while they still have an inferior infrastructure and inferior social services in many ways. Third, US political relations with China could pose a strain, depending on the level of aggression in our (or their) foreign policy. Now, obviously each of these reasons deserves an in depth explanation of its own, but I don't have time to learn about everything. Or at least, I haven't gotten there yet. Suffice to say, I'm nervous. And you know what? I really don't need more things making me nervous. So thanks a lot China, for stressing me out...

Oh. And for the iPod.

I am tired of everything.

Slow Learners

Why were we left with so many responsibilities? Your questionable guidance, my perhaps overly rebellious tendencies... these things have begun to accumulate. I understand that it was slow, but that is how it tends to be. Slow the way a day dips into cold. The dirtying of a pillowcase. A groove in the wood. A loss of contact. Now I am on the stool and you are by the desk. I reach out to strike a piano key, and the note hangs. You look up from your square of lamplight. There is no smile on your face. One of us should have been more aware. I think you would call this failure.

I am currently thinking about dogs...

I understand that this is a common twenty-something white girl cliche, but regardless, someday I will own a small herd of Pomeranians. I will take them for long walks, in a little pack of fluff. I will not force them to wear clothing. And here is the list of names with which I intend to bless them:

Scarf
Boats
Thermos
Gazebo
Lunch
Frost

Those are some of my favorite words. But maybe if I decide to have children, they will receive those names instead of the dogs. God forbid.

A modern art exhibit

We laughed when we stood under the "monofrequency lighting," rubbing at our skin and touching each other's clothes. Yellow and black, everything. Even my bright pink coat. Monochromatic bulbs, the brochure explained (although we did not read this until later, while drinking margaritas), "emit light at such a narrow frequency that they affect our normal color perception." This made me think of astronomy. 18 years old in a large lecture hall, learning about light frequency and color. The professor, who wore glasses and had a mustache, just like I had always imagined my college professors would, produced a slide displaying the exact frequency that causes human eyes to perceive the sky as blue. The slide showed several groups of numbers. It showed sets of lines, waving in varied rhythms across the screen. It showed a color spectrum. It showed me that countless people, in presenting the color of the sky to me as the world's greatest unanswerable rhetorical question, were liars and idiots. Or maybe they had never taken a course in astronomy. But I liked my first idea better.

California & Taylor

There was no one else around, although this was not unexpected at 11:24 pm. I know it was 11:24 pm because I checked. I wanted to know how long it would take me to walk this labyrinth, etched on the stoop of Grace Cathedral. I had never walked a labyrinth before. An intentionally solitary process, to be sure, but it made me lonely. Loneliness makes me claustrophobic. I sought refuge on the swing set across the street. I guess I will never grow up.

Small, furry creatures

I asked a number of people if they would draw me a lemming. Only two of them did. Make of this what you will.

Thank you, Joshua.

Thank you, Deli.

Oh, s*#t.

As uncontainable as my excitement may be about the upcoming release of the film Persepolis (based on Marjane Satrapi's outstanding graphic novels; go read them), I can't help but feel a touch of hesitation regarding the timing. What an interesting time for a film project providing a negative representation of an Islamic Republic to receive funding, right? One of the issues at hand in the film, the oppressive nature of countries populated by Islamic Fundamentalists, is far too complex to fully explore in a single doctoral dissertation, let alone my measly blog, so I won't attempt any exhaustive discussions here. However, I will take a moment to consider a question which constantly plagues me, and which will hopefully plague you upon taking the time to think about it (trust me, it'll be good for you).

How can the concepts of fundamental human rights and cultural tolerance ever co-exist?

My feeling thus far is that they can't. Like parallel lines, the two will never logically intersect, although here in the United States, we certainly like the believe that they will. Hence the inability of many to see the double-standard hidden in our general outrage at, say, the veil worn by women in countries such as Iran. But what about that central feature of a liberal democracy (I am not using liberal as a counterpoint to conservative, re: bipartisan politics, but rather in its original meaning)? Liberalism stands largely for cultural tolerance. To simplify it, it is the belief that all cultures have the right to exist. Including ones that veil their women. Why, then, do we use fundamental human rights as a premise for the invasion of Afghanistan and the demonization of Iran? Is it a violation of human rights to insist that women veil their faces? (This does not even begin to touch on the topic of those Islamic women who view Western women as the true sexual prisoners, what with out greater propensity for breast implants and Girls Gone Wild.) Now, I bring this up not because I am a supporter of the veil, or because I want to defend Iran, etc. I certainly wouldn't want to wear it, and I wouldn't want to live there. I bring this up because I cannot decide which one I would choose: human rights or cultural tolerance. Can we have both? I don't think we can. And now I will proceed to think about this for the rest of my life...