My guess is that your guess is way wrong

Stop for a second and take a guess on the percentage of how much money you spend on goods and services from China.

Your guess?

************


I asked someone earlier today and they said 80%.

That would be 77.5% WRONG.

Your consumption, as a United States consumer, of goods and services from China ads up to a whopping........
2.7%

2.7!

Obviously if you spend all your time buying toys and socks from Wal-Mart and shopping at the .99 Store, than you might have a higher percentage in your household. But in reality when you consider what you spend your money on....then indeed Chinese items are pretty far down the list of importance.

Think about your mortgage, rent, car payment, auto and health insurance, food, mechanics, haircuts, ball games, gasoline, utilities and entertainment......and it's easy to see why it's only 2.7% Chinese.

We then sell our Treasury notes to China and thus there is an imbalance on how much debt is incurred. China holds 26% of all foreign held U.S. Treasury securities....which has grown considerably from the 6% they held in 2000.

WE ARE OBVIOUSLY A GREAT INVESTMENT FOR CHINA.....I think.

If they decide to cash those Treasury notes then a different problem might arise. A problem that I don't wish to think about at the present moment. Selling them to Japan or Great Britain or Brazil might be ok but I truly don't know enough to offer a reasonable answer.

It just makes me want to play more golf.

Anyway.....2.7% of Made-in-China is all that we have floating around our lives....and yes that adds up to a tidy sum of money but nowhere near your original guess.

Am I right?

Michael Timothy McAlevey