So Barack has nipped round to Wen's place this week to have a little chat about good neighbourly relations. Black/White guy lives next to Oriental bloke with a name that sounds like a question. Reminiscent of a perfectly acceptable 1970's English TV sitcom.
"Michelle Honey, I'm just off to see Wen."
"What?"
"No, Wen"
"I know when Sugar, why?" (That's quite enough. Ed.)
Now these two have several things to discuss, and we're not talking about dripping gutters and dog dirt on next doors lawn here.
There's the smoke from Barney's truck and rubbish dumped by Haamid and who pays to clear it up
There's a question about Benjamin and Armydinnerjacket and their hoodie broods who fight all the time and are threatening to break all our windows.
There's the Ozzie the bin man whose crew live in Mr Patels back yard.
But all the time theyr'e having their chat at the back of their minds is one overriding thought.
Barack's family owe Wen and his chums seven hundred billion dollars.
I'll say that again. 700, 000, 000, 000 dollars. and another 36, 000,000,000 every month on top.
And that's not actually true.
In July 2008 the US said "Blimey, by next year we could owe the Chinese $490 billion."
WRONG.
This month, whoah, hold on it's just gone up (again) now it's $772 billion.
So let's have the Captains run down on what happens next.
1) The Chinese write off the debt - Ain't gonna happen
2) US raises exports and the Chinese/Rest of the World all buy them (US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke says he's having a bang at that with a trade push - love a push do the Yanks).
3) The Chinese re-evaluate their currency - great idea, can someone let the Chinese know though.
4) There's a War - Aah, the traditional solution, trouble is lately politicians have just aimed too low, little provincial wars, not like the good old days, WORLD wars, now that was more like it. Bloody nuclear weapons, took all the fun out of it. For my part - no, lets NOT have a war, hopefully even Wen and Bazza will concur on that one.
5) US and China join up and have a war with someone else - not as unlikely as it once seemed, certainly as far as the Somali's up the street are concerned, not likely to help the problem though.
6) Do nothing. Bit of protectonism - tit for tat - no real change.The economies balance out as America runs out of money, the Chinese get richer, they spend money on cheap US goods and holidays in Florida and California. US becomes an ageing fallen empire, third world country.
Yes, my money's on number six. B & W will talk and talk, nowt much will happen and they'll all hope they're dead or at least out of office when it falls apart.
Sorry kids, looks like you get this one too. We could of course appoint good old Gordon as a special advisor to sort it all out.
At least we won't have to wait for disaster, he can deliver it in weeks.
(Apologies forthe usual negativity - the Captain is out in the Thai Office "on holiday" but still sitting writing this for you dear reader).
