Irony? Geithner Urges Chinese Leaders to Fundamentally Alter Economy

Perhaps I am the only one who finds great irony in Timmy Geithner flying to China to tell a "central command economy" on what to do.  Then again, one country is opening up to a more capitalistic standard (relatively speaking) while the other turns more to central planning.  I'll let you figure out which is which...but in that vein, this makes perfect sense. "Look (Chinese) fellas - our consumer is out of control.  We give them easy money and they keep buying your stuff.  When they default we tell them it was those mean banks and the print on their mortgage was too small.  It's crazy out there in the States.  Clearly it is not our fault that we solve every problem by raining easy money from the heavens... hence after careful study we've figured it's your fault."

"p.s. could we borrow another $500 Billion?"

Next on the roadtrip, Geithner was to go to rural Thailand to teach them how to properly work a rice paddy.  Then off to South Africa to tell them how to properly mine for gold.

Via WSJ

• U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner heads to Beijing this weekend to urge Chinese leaders to fundamentally alter the export-oriented economy that has created years of trans-Pacific trade tensions.
• ... he is also planning to press Beijing to take drastic measures to turn China's economy into one that depends heavily on sales to domestic consumers and less on sales to the U.S. and other foreign markets, according to a senior Treasury Department official.
• The message signals that Treasury is beginning to look beyond the current crisis toward preventing a return to ever-mounting trade deficits and the constant political tensions they generate between the U.S. and China.

No matter what crisis we bring to the world, there is no humbling us.  How about we deal with the root causes in the mother country? 

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