making their financial situations more precarious. Economists call the process of consuming capital, “disinvestment.”

Meanwhile, Chinese and foreign investors are helping China develop by building factories that produce every kind of consumer and capital good, making the most modern technologies freely available to the Chinese. Most of what the foreigners produce in China is exported. This, plus Congressional restrictions on oil-drilling on public lands and offshore and on nuclear generating plants, has resulted in our enormous trade deficits that have cost six to seven million American industrial jobs since the 1980s, one to two million more jobs than the recession has caused thus far.

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making their financial situations more precarious. Economists call the process of consuming capital, “disinvestment.”

Meanwhile, Chinese and foreign investors are helping China develop by building factories that produce every kind of consumer and capital good, making the most modern technologies freely available to the Chinese. Most of what the foreigners produce in China is exported. This, plus Congressional restrictions on oil-drilling on public lands and offshore and on nuclear generating plants, has resulted in our enormous trade deficits that have cost six to seven million American industrial jobs since the 1980s, one to two million more jobs than the recession has caused thus far.

Then, to top it off, we invite foreign governments to socialize our economic system in order to serve their purposes. We let the Chinese government fix the price at which the dollar is exchanged for the yuan at a rate that allows their producers to steal market share from ours. And we give foreign governments a tax break (no tax on interest or dividends earned) when they buy ownership in American businesses and thus turn our businesses into socialist enterprises serving foreign governments.

China learned the lessons of socialism’s failure in Russia and is prospering. Congress did not.

Raymond L. Richman is a professor emeritus of public and international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh.
Ray and Howard are father and son and co-authors of the 2008 book, Trading Away Our Future published by Ideal Taxes Association. They blog at tradeandtaxes.blogspot.com.