Global Economy

Regular readers of these rantings (and I'm pretty sure there are some) have heard me going on about the Global Economy, and how no matter how isolationist you might happen to be, you still ignore Globalism at your own risk. Or, as I have said at least twice in this space, "It doesn't really matter if you believe in the Global Economy or not; the Global Economy believes in you!" Well, today in the news online, there was a story that proves that point once and for all.

BBC News is reporting that a factory mass-producing those "Free Tibet" flags you keep seeing all over the world on the news has been uncovered operating in Southern China. That's right, folks; the same people who are going to bad-movie parody lengths to squash the "Free Tibet" movement and anyone who might support it are also making money off of the movement. In fact, since doing business in China automatically includes making "gifts" to local officials to get things to happen, it is a virtual certainty that actual members of the Chinese government have been receiving money in exchange for making this happen.

Now, from a business standpoint, this seems only logical. Since crushing a popular rebellion is dirty, expensive work, it would only make sense to make as much money off the by-products of the situation as you can. In fact, it seems a shame that the U.S. Government has never made anything off the sales of all of the "Che" t-shirts and posters that stupid people who don't actually know anything about Ernesto “Che” Guevara buy, considering the amount of money our government has spent fighting everything Guevara stood for (and trying to prevent or counter the revolutions he was trying to start). It’s an irony that Guevara himself would have considered grotesque, although probably no more so than the fall of Soviet Communism and the rise of a free-market economy in China…

But whether or not this strategy has any utility from a government/revolutionary/counter-revolutionary standpoint is irrelevant. From a leadership standpoint, or simply from the standpoint of trying not to look like a clueless jerk, it would probably be a good idea to avoid manufacturing the banners of protest that the enemies of your government are waving...

Why does he tell us this? I hear some of you asking. You know you'd never accidentally do anything that would cause the Department of Homeland Security to pay YOU a visit, right? You know the complete details of every part of every product that your company manufactures, and there's nothing there that could possibly give aid or comfort to an enemy, make you look like a drooling idiot, or destroy your company simply because you didn't read what it was you were going to be manufacturing before you signed the contract, right?

Right?

Sure, I'll wait…