Geithner Gives Chinese Students The Giggles

There is something quaint and good-natured about laughing at the ludicrous Geithner’s claims of American solvency, instead of getting angry or being rude, as less-inhibited Westerners might, when faced with a bald-faced lie. The Chinese response is definitely culturally distinct.

Were American students capable of grasping how bad the U.S. Treasury Secretary’s policies are, and how dire the debt and the deficits, they might grow testy. Alas, no point dealing in hypotheticals. The chances are slim that an audience of students on a typical American campus would allow facts, the laws of economics and reason to get in the way of Obamadualtion and general Keynesian credulity (a proxy for economic illiteracy).

It happened in China (via Reuters):

“China is the biggest foreign owner of U.S. Treasury bonds. U.S. data shows that it held $768 billion in Treasuries as of March, but some analysts believe China’s total U.S. dollar-denominated investments could be twice as high.

‘Chinese assets are very safe,’ Geithner said in response to a question after a speech at Peking University, where he studied Chinese as a student in the 1980s.

His answer drew loud laughter from his student audience, reflecting scepticism in China about the wisdom of a developing country accumulating a vast stockpile of foreign reserves instead of spending the money to raise living standards at home.”