I am sure most of you know the tale of the frog and the scorpion. It comes in several slightly different versions but the one I like goes as follows: A scorpion found itself trapped on an island in the middle of a river created by a sudden flood. It called to a passing frog and pleaded for a lift to the far bank because it faced death by drowning. The frog demurred on the sensible grounds that the scorpion would sting it to death. No, no, the scorpion insisted, if you save my life I promise not to sting you. Touched by his plight, the frog agreed and the scorpion climbed on his back and the frog began swimming across the river. About half way across the scorpion stung the frog. As they both sank in the swirling waters the frog asked why the scorpion had executed such a mutually destructive act. Because I'm a scorpion came the fatalistic answer!
I am reminded of this tale by an article at The Coffee House in which the writer points up the frog/scorpion relationship between the West and China. We might, as it were, be facing financial death by drowning, but if we go, so to does China. According to the writer, Daniel Korski, China is producing 24 million - I'll repeat that - 24 million, new labourers every year! Even a slight downturn in Western economies will result in a lower growth rate in China and those people will be unemployed. China has not yet developed a big enough domestic market to pick up the slack if export markets in the West shrivel to nothing. In essence, the situation now is that we need their money and they need us to have enough money so that we keep buying their goods. I'm not sure in this situation who is the frog and who is the scorpion!
However, and further to my clown report in the previous post, we now have a Euro clown on the scene in the form of that Hungarian dwarf who runs France. He has made it clear that he intends to go off and hold hands with the Dalai Lama, not least, one suspects, at the behest of his beautiful but dim wife - such a wonderful photo opportinity, cherie. . The Chinese, not unaturally, have now cancelled a scheduled Sino/EU meeting. This is a prime example of MAD - mutally assured destruction!
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