Lester Brown writing in the Globalist notes:
I know Santa Claus is Chinese because each Christmas morning after all the gifts are unwrapped and things settle down I systematically go through the presents to see where they are made.
The results are almost always the same — roughly 70% are from China.....
Let's start with toys. Some 80% of the toys sold in the United States — from Barbie dolls to video games — are made in China....
Eight out of every ten artificial Christmas trees sold in the United States are made in China. In 2005, Americans spent over $130 million on plastic Christmas trees from China....
In the United States, Christmas shopping expenditures, headed for another record high this year, contribute to rising credit card debt and a soaring trade deficit. Underneath the American Christmas spirit and good cheer is a debt-laden society that appears to have lost its way, marred in the quicksand of consumerism.....
Each month, the U.S. Treasury covers the fiscal deficit by auctioning off securities. The two leading international buyers of U.S. Treasury securities are Japan and China. In this role, China is now also becoming the banker of the U.S. government.
This developing country, where income levels are one-sixth those of the United States, is financing the excesses of an affluent industrial society.
There is something wrong with this picture. High time to use the holiday season to reflect on our unsustainable ways and means.
Here, Here and Amen.
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