China time

Sweatin' in the shop

While PT's busy packing I feel compelled to do a China post. A Google search indicates there are people still wringing their hands over horrible conditions in Chinese sweatshops. I'll admit I wouldn't want to work in one even if that woman in the purple bikini was working beside me. However, it should be mentioned that there's well over twenty million workers in China who still can't find a shop to sweat in.

Everyone knows that enterprising Chinese emigrants have historically settled over much of the world in search of opportunity. According to Jim Rogers that's been a blessing for mainland China as over 80% of all investment in the country comes from Chinese living overseas. I suppose it compares to Mexican immigrants in the U.S. sending money home for their families to spend in Mexico.

Jim Rogers is well known for traveling all over the world in search of investment opportunities, and for showing investors that they needn't be traders with nerves of steel to invest in the commodity market. I'll have to take his word for it because I don't have any experience in investing due to a lack of...well that list is too long to get into now. The point is that he sold his house in the U.S. and moved his wife and two daughters to Singapore to be closer to where the action is. He's still an American citizen and still pays taxes here but has found our government to be increasingly hostile to business. (Clik title for a good Rogers interview.)

China's Communist government, on the other hand, likes capitalists and makes it comparatively easy to do well there. After Mao Zedong was buried a new slogan became popular: "It's glorious to be rich." While capitalists appear to enjoy greater freedom in China than here, ordinary Americans are still living with more liberty than their Chinese counterparts, but for how long?

What I'm really wondering is whether there will eventually be an exodus of youthful American entrepreneurs looking for some glorious wealth that they feel could best be created in another country. If that should happen hopefully they - like the Chinese and Mexicans - would send some of their new riches to the "old country" because I think we're going to need it.