Hats off to you, Elroy. How beautifully, eloquently said! I too have followed the policy you have, avoiding any investment in the US, avoiding companies which have any noticeable involvement in the US. I am afraid that the disease of the US is chronic, not acute and temporary. I see a gradual decline into an abyss. Once upon a time the US was a democracy. Maybe the best time was 1865 after the slave owning states seceded. 1933-1945 was also a fairly democratic time. But we now see:
1. Decline of the labour unions which provided their members with at least some political education, teaching them where their political interests lie.
2. Decline of education due to spending decreases engineered by the local rich across the country. The result is elementary and high school graduates who may possibly be good at sports.
3. Decline of the genetic pool, because bright people tend to have fewer children on average.
The result is that you CAN fool 49% of the people all of the time, and with some trickery you can capture the government
thereby. The days of heroes like Jefferson, Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, seem to be gone forever.
These ghastly trends look permanent if slow, so I think it may be wise to avoid investment in the US for all of our lives. Anyway, to descend to the particular, so far, avoiding the US has been quite profitable. Oil, gas, real estate outside of the US, and gold, all of these have been good bets.
Looking at China, specifically, it seems to me that there must be some noticeable effect on China's total exports, if the US dollar sinks relative to renminbi. But it may take some statistical reasoning to see it, i.e. the exports to the US may still increase a bit, nominally, in terms of US dollars.
If this were not the case why does the Chinese government save US bonds?
So I feel uneasy right now about buying any particular Chinese stock. But, in general, staying away from the US steers us to better pastures.
MB |
