Schadenfreude is wrong, I guess, because a superior person doesn’t take pleasure from mocking other people’s pains. I am not a superior person. People looked askance at me when I had a financial blowout, and I felt a lot of shame and guilt for signing my name to credit lines when I suppose I didn’t have to. In my defense, it’s hard to say “no” to spouses who beat you and then demand another credit line to support their profligate spending habits, and when they abandon you and you’re trying to pick up the pieces of your life with only a part time income, things like food seem important. But anyway, I got over it, and no one will ever enslave me with money and credit again. But it seems I’m an outlier:

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A tone you rarely hear here, or at least in most US based economics reporting. The money quote:

The bilateral trade volume amounted to 211 billion dollars last year, accounting for 15 percent of China’s total foreign trade of 1.4 trillion dollars.

Just 15%. The way a lot of econ folks over here speak, you’d think the Chinese economy would wither and die without us buying their plastic junk. (Forgive me SN) Not so much, it seems.

A perspective to keep in mind as we ponder things like war with Iran (who provide 40% of Chinese petroleum needs), our national debt and who lends us money for wars and tax cuts.