We have been shopping at my favorite tool store all week. Chinese made tools abound and the deals and bargains to be had are amazing and for some reason seam unsustainable to me. I can outfit a shipyard with a tool set for about 3000 dollars that could build a 50 foot boat. If I had 5000 dollars we could probably do a hundred footer. The tools are even guaranteed for life. It's crazy!!

Today we bought a one kilowatt generator for 89 dollars. It is a small gasoline engine with a cheap generator on it (must have aluminum windings) for less money than a good dinner out for 4 people. In Massachusetts a Chinese generator costs the same as a carton of cigarettes which can be made from a few leaves of a tobacco plant grown in Virginia (quite a bit closer). How can the Chinese just keep dumping this stuff into our market? How long can the dollar maintain it's strength to keep buying all of this stuff with a huge trade imbalance?

Why are the American made cigarettes taxed so heavily and the Chinese generator not at all? The generator burns mixed gasoline and is a two stroke making it much more capable of pollution and health hazards than the carton of smokes. I am actually thinking of not paying my taxes for a month* so I can purchase some more Chinese junk and store it for some future projects that I have in mind. I cannot imagine there will ever be a time again when the US dollar will have this much purchasing power and another nation will have a free pass to dump tremendous amounts of products into our market to the detriment of the nation's economy.

* I pay taxes monthly as a voluntary thing so I can skip a month when money gets tight (or there is a big sale.)

There are many voices of alarm about the status of US trade. The dollar as the world's reserve currency may not have much of a future due to growing opposition from developing nations like the members of BRICS.

Sanya (China), April 14 (IANS) Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – the BRICS group of fastest growing economies – Thursday called for a revamp in the global monetary system and signed a pact to use their own currencies instead of US dollar in issuing credit or grants to each other.

The US- Chinese Ponzi Scheme on MSN Money

http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/News/087505-2011-04-11-former-chinese-central-banker-treasury-market-a-giant-ponzi-scheme.htm