13 thoughts on “Great Ad”

  1. How does an ad that has no intersection with reality a “great ad”? How does holding less than 7% of U.S. government debt translate to “owning most of” our debt? How does the fact that Americans and American entities own the large majority of U.S. government debt translate to China “owning most of” U.S. government debt? How does China owning government debt, period, translate into America “working for” China?

    This is not a good ad. This is an ad that simply draws on and plays on the economic and fiscal idiocy rampant in the United States and elsewhere about the U.S. – China relationship. That’s not to say there are not grave concerns, but they are not these.

  2. It does remind me of the old saw that if you owe the bank $2 million, you have a problem, whereas if you owe the bank $200 million, the bank has a problem. If the Zhongnanhai really controls as much debt as this ad contends, aren’t we too big to fail for the PRC?

  3. I agree with the second comment. When the Democrats (assuming they survive as a party and win another election) finally default on our debt, the Chinese won’t be laughing. China has terrible demographic problems, as well. The ad does make a good case against present policies and, for that reason, I think it is a good ad.

  4. Horrid ad, for reasons laid out here. Namely, with the exception of the debt, the Chinese are currently doing everything this professor criticizes the Americans for in his lecture. If these are the type of things that make great nations fall, then the Chinese are coming down with us.

    I suppose if you are judging the ad on the basis of style and showmanship it is truly great. But for honesty? Not in the least.

  9. I don’t think the commercial is about US China trade relations.

    I think John Cochrane Had that one right this week in his WSJ Op-Ed:

    They [China] put a few trillion dollars worth of stuff on boats and sent it to us in exchange for U.S. government bonds. Those bonds lost a lot of value when the dollar fell relative to the euro and other currencies. Then they put more stuff on boats and took in ever more dubious debt in exchange. We’re in the process of devaluing again. The Chinese government’s accumulation of U.S. debt represents a tragic investment decision, not a currency-manipulation effort. The right policy is flowers and chocolates, or at least a polite thank-you note

    No, it is about a paradox that first began to bother me when Shaw Livermore propounded it in class 40 years ago:

    “If you cannot govern yourselves, How can you have self-government?”

    We have been on a drunken spree, the cure is not hair of the dog.

  10. Thanks, Michael. I replaced the embedded code here with the code from CAGW’s site and it appears to work now (for now).

    Censorship/lawfare attacks are evidence of effectiveness.

    I think the critics miss the point about the ad. I agree that our high debt level is at least as much a problem for our overseas creditors as it is for Americans. However, the ad is not about China, it’s about us and our self-destructive govt spending and borrowing. It puts into cartoon-cinema form the concerns of many Americans. They may be wrong to blame China but they are not wrong to worry about how our public-finance profligacy is constraining our future options.

  11. I thought I closed the blockquote tag.

    The last three lines above are mine, not John Cochrane’s.

    No, it is about a paradox that first began to bother me when Shaw Livermore propounded it in class 40 years ago:

    “If you cannot govern yourselves, How can you have self-government?”

    We have been on a drunken spree, the cure is not hair of the dog.

    [Fixed – Jonathan]

  12. As much as I detest YouTube and Google for a large number of reasons, that include among other things, a devotion to political censorship of anything that does not grovel to the Left or is effective for the Right; in this case it has not yet dropped it into Nacht und Nebel. I just went to YouTube and searched for CHINESE PROFESSOR and it came right up. Mind you, they may disappear it at any time.

    The specific charges of trying to spend our way out of a recession and taking over healthcare are in fact on point in this country, and it works wonderfully as a political commercial.

    Oh, for the record, I don’t consider it a “Yellow Peril” slur, because China is in fact our adversary and far from a friend. And I don’t put up with those who get on a PC-flogged racial high horse about saying so. And I think I can take that stand, because despite the Mongol nom d’ blog; I am an American of Chinese ancestry. I love my ancestral culture, but I am American through and through and can recognize an enemy of my country.

    Subotai Bahadur

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