That's gratitude for you. The Chinese have been selling us nearly everything we need to live the life of Riley on the cheap ' flat-panel TV sets, stainless steel patio grills, down comforters, graphite-frame trail bikes, silk scarves, custom furniture, computerized running shoes, robotic vacuum cleaners, laser pointers, you name it. Not only that, they've been lending us the money to buy all of this stuff and much more in return for IOUs that have been piling up like frequent flier miles in the account of some globetrotting salesman who has pledged his business to U.S. Airways. So how do we show our gratitude? By threatening trade sanctions, is how. And the crime? Underpricing their currency, the yuan. According to the Bush administration, this practice is 'highly distortionary' and 'pose[s] a risk to China's economy, its trading partners, and global economic growth.' Apparently, this is how tariff wars are fought nowadays. Instead of slapping a surcharge on Chinese imports, we cajole them into raising the price of their money. Good thinking, guys. After all, didn't the Smoot-Hawley tariff trigger the 1929 Crash? Regardless, why take chances on how historians will apportion blame for the next crash? Just put on a fright-mask and make scary noises until Beijing gooses the yuan sufficiently to give what's left of American manufacturing a little breathing room. Of course, the Bush administration could probably achieve the same affect by leaning on Wal-Mart to raise its prices by 30 percent. As we know, that's not something our local congressman could or would support. But monkeying around with Asia's currency peg? Perhaps only the ruinous policy of inflation is more subtle in the ways that it deliberately obscures economic truth
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