historycircus

Well said Gwynned,

As for China and goodwill, I would say that that is the ideal, but not the reality. If I was in charge of the Chinese economy, I would be infuriated at the United States and Western Europe right now. Western underwriters of bad mortages knew what they were selling foreign investors, and China, on good faith, snapped a lot of those up - based on the deceptive packaging. The only reason they have not crashed us yet, is because we are a primary market.

Chinese goods rate as acceptable in terms of quality, and it should be remembered that the massive influx of American goods that flooded Europe in the aftermath of WWII were not always of the best quality either. "American made" serves as a patriotic meme more than an index of quality.