Bailouts & Beijing's blackmail bonanza

The title of this article in Atlantic Monthly says it all: "Be nice to countries that loan you money."

Does America wonder who its new Chinese banking overlords might be? This is what one of the very most influential of them had to say about the world financial crisis, what is wrong with Wall Street, whether one still-poor country with tremendous internal needs could continue subsidizing a still-rich one, and how he thought America could adjust to its “realistic” place in the world. My point for the moment is to convey what it is like to hear from such a man, rather than to expand upon, challenge, or agree with his stated views...

Independence is measured in many ways. It's worth considering that if massive amounts of foreign credit are required to finance our runaway domestic spending and ruinous foreign policy, are we really all that independent? The trillions of dollars of debt we owe, combined with constant trade and budget deficits, hand the Chinese and the oil barons of the Middle East -- folks whose interests don't always coincide with ours -- the economic equivalent of a nuclear deterrent over us. Paying the piper, calling the tunes, and all that...