From The International Herald Tribune:
Perhaps the only working class that China’s Communist president, Hu Jintao, is still assisting is the American.
I am not referring to the flood of cheap Chinese products that are keeping prices down, although that helps the average household. I refer to Hu’s policy of using what is widely regarded as an undervalued Chinese yuan to buy United States Treasury securities and so help keep American interest rates down.
The United States is awash in debt. Median household debt has risen to more than $100,000 from less than $60,000 in 1990 even as median incomes have increased only slightly. Much of the debt is held by workers ramping up their loans on one credit card after another, or obtaining dubious mortgages in a bid to secure some fraction of the heady lifestyle of an upper class that keeps getting richer.
