April 25, 2001
K. David

I am becoming a little concerned with the tension between the United States and China, and would like to see it resolved quickly so that I can continue to purchase disposable consumer goods at rock bottom prices. Fully half of my possessions bear the mark "Made in China", and although I believe that many of these consumer goods could be produced in other countries, I have grown quite fond of the thought of entire Chinese families heading off to work together at Nike factories for 28 cents an hour.

The economics are simple: American companies can't afford to pay higher wages, and the Chinese people don't need the money as badly as American stockholders do. Alan Greenspan eluded to the complexity of this economic relationship and its impact on the floundering American economy last week, when he said "The fabrication of footwear to be placed on the human bipedal organs and used in the walking motion, as represented by companies which produce these products, which include but are not limited to companies such as Nike, are, as per my personal opinion and aesthetic taste, not the kind of products which I favor placing, wearing, or otherwise mounting to the bodily organ which is attached to the end of my leg. Now if that's all, I'm headed for lunch at Panda Express." Experts agree that Mr. Greenspan was insinuating that he does not wear Nike shoes, but that he likes Chinese food.

In a later statement, Mr. Greenspan ruminated on this point when pressed for clarification, by FOOTSTINK, the corporate shoe lobby and Washington think tank, "Federal Organization Operating Through Solicitation of Topgovernmentofficials in the Interest of NiKe". Mr. Greenspan said that the reason he won't wear Nike shoes is that, "they're too damn expensive, but lots of people buy them so their stock holders can get rich." Experts agree that Mr. Greenspan was insinuating that life on Mars is possible if water really is discovered, and that the Yankees have a real shot at the World Series again this year.

So we can see how obvious it is that cheap labor and high selling prices lead to fiscally unsound businesses. But that doesn't explain everything. For example, analysts still don't understand what leads to the high cost of American military products, or why Barbara Bush looks like she is 340 years old when she is actually only 143. In any event, the EP-3E ARIES II American spy plane which is still parked on the landing strip in China, was built in America by Lockheed Martin for a cost of 3 million dollars, of which an additional 1.5 million dollars was spent on electronic data gathering equipment. This expensive equipment was destroyed and rendered useless by the crew of the aircraft while they were struggling to land the hobbled aircraft, by cleverly installing Microsoft Windows 2000 as the operating system. A helpful government official, who was interviewed by the author, wanted to inform our readers that ARIES stands for "Airborne Reconnaissance Integrated Electronic System", and not as Chinese officials have stated, an acronym indicating America's acknowledgement of Chinese sovereignty in the South China Sea: "Asian Reconnaissance is Illegal Except on Saturdays".

Because of Chinese ingenuity and the fact that the average Chinese worker doesn't need high wages [because American marketing and advertising firms haven't helped them decide what to buy with their money, as they have so generously done for American citizens] some analysts have suggested that the average American will actually be able to purchase a fully functional, full scale, reverse-engineered replica of the American EP-3E ARIES II, spy plane for the low cost of only $13.74; this is of course without the high-tech data gathering equipment, which would be offered in another version which would be fully loaded [like George W. Bush used to be] for an additional $5.95. This is astounding, how do they do it?

Intelligence sources have now confirmed that the now-famous American satellite photograph, of what appeared to be a line of military trucks parked alongside the U.S. plane, holds the explanation: child labor. A senior Pentagon official named John DeVries, speaking under a condition of anonymity, stated that these trucks were actually a line of school buses. According to American Pharmaceutical company Pfizer, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zoloft Zyrtec, defended their use of child labor when he said, "They [children] are used because they are small enough to not show up on American satellite photos." The presence of school buses, although they do not definitively indicate that child labor is being used to build replicas of the plane, do indicate that the Chinese government is considering school children for the project, which would be much more lucrative and less hazardous than fireworks production.

I think its time to put this whole issue to rest. Human rights activists in the United States need to understand that the performances of their stock portfolios are directly linked to the exploitation of children in foreign countries. Give the Chinese the spy plane, they can keep it, it will make a nice tourist attraction. When higher resolution satellite photos become available as part of the Bush military spending package, the Chinese government won't be able to hide any longer from the watchful eye of American Corporate interests, and American businesses will be able to vigilantly watch to make sure that their Chinese employees are earning their 28 cents an hour.