Rodent Regatta

How China surpassed the United States

By Craig J. Cantoni

(For Internet publication)

Scene: History Class at Beijing University, Beijing China
Speaker: Professor Chou Yeng
Date: October 26, 2150

I’m going to lecture today on how China surpassed the United States as an economic and military power 75 years ago. I’ll begin by discussing the factors that contributed to America’s downfall but were not the primary reason for the downfall. Then I’ll conclude with the primary reason.

Five factors contributed to the downfall:

1. ENTITLEMENT SPENDING:

By 2030, entitlements consumed 70 percent of the United States budget. This left the American government with inadequate military resources to defend itself against the enemies that it had made through military interventionism and against the enemies that it had made by virtue of being number one and holding Western values. Ironically, because of entitlement spending and progressive taxation, the United States eventually became more socialistic and less entrepreneurial than post-Mao China.

2. LACK OF SAVINGS AND INVESTMENT

The entitlement spending and the corresponding high taxes on income lowered personal savings to a rate that was one-fifth China’s rate at the time. This in turn left the United States with inadequate capital to fund investments in industry and productivity improvements.

3. TARIFFS, SUBSIDIES AND INFLEXIBLE LABOR LAWS

Over time, the lack of investment capital resulted in lower per-capita income and a declining standard of living. These in turn increased demands for tariffs on imported goods, subsidies for uncompetitive American industries, and strict labor laws that had the misguided purpose of protecting American jobs—all of which made matters worse. The United States stopped being a haven for capital from foreign investors, who shifted their money to China, where it got a higher return.

4. DIVERSITY

Immigration had been a strength of the United States during the latter half of the19th century and early 20th century. It had been a source of cheap labor, of outstanding scientific and entrepreneurial talent, and of new ideas. But by the 21st century, when immigration had morphed into multiculturalism and group rights and privileges, it had become a source of friction, resentment, divisiveness, and litigation. At the same time, China exploited the fact that it was 92 percent homogenous and had a formal and informal network of Chinese business contacts and investment sources not only in Asia but also in North America.

5. THE MANHATTAN DIRTY BOMB

The United States never recovered from the dirty bomb that spread radioactivity across lower Manhattan and the heart of the nation’s financial district in 2025. The ensuing panic and financial turmoil caused more harm than the bomb itself. Just 24 years before, a handful of Islamic extremists had destroyed the World Trade Center and caused the United States to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on security, military campaigns and nation-building. But that was a drop in the bucket compared to the trillions that were spent as a result of the dirty bomb—expenditures that coincided with increased entitlement spending. The United States had never learned from the World Trade Center. Due to nostalgia for high-density downtowns and a growing political movement against what was then called ”suburban sprawl,” the United States kept too much of its financial industry concentrated in vulnerable downtown Manhattan instead of spreading it out in safer suburban locations across the country.

Now for the primary reason for America’s downfall: nutritional labeling in restaurants. No, I’m not kidding.

In 2003, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration first considered mandatory nutritional labeling in restaurants as a way of countering the obesity of Americans. The FDA’s thinking was symbolic of what the United States had become. It had become a soft, paternalistic nation of big-bellied citizens who could no longer think for themselves without the government’s help.

Years before, the United States had mandated nutritional labeling on packaged food. The nation got fatter afterwards. So what did United States do? It advocated mandatory food labeling in restaurants, believing that the nation would get skinnier as a result. The government had become a government of obtuse fat heads. Instead of being a government that knew how to grow an economy, it had become a government that knew how to grow food labeling bureaucrats, food labeling consultants and food labeling lawyers who would file lawsuits on behalf of obese clients.

At the same time, restaurants in China were skinning live snakes at restaurant tables to satisfy the demand of patrons for fresh snake meat—without skin or nutritional labels.

The now defunct Wall Street Journal ran an article on October 23, 2003, about the restaurant labeling. I have it here. The article quoted a deputy FDA commissioner, who said: ”What the public really wants to do is get a reality check … to have an adequate nutritional program that does not make them overweight.”

That statement says it all about what had happened by the early 21st century to American self-reliance, individualism, common sense and initiative. Americans no longer had the intelligence to understand that overeating was making them fat, not the lack of an ”adequate nutritional program.” Americans no longer understood that steamed broccoli has less calories and is more nutritious than deep-fried chicken wings. A nation with such widespread stupidity and dependency did not deserve to rule the world—and it no longer does.

Any questions?

In the next class I’ll be covering why the United States followed in the footsteps of France, Germany and Great Britain.

• * * * *

Mr. Cantoni is an author, columnist and founder of Honest Americans Against Legal Theft (HAALT). He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com.