It is indeed a small world after all. The Disney marketeers are correct, even if their insipid tune played over and over can induce a coma. YouTube and other social media have made us all one big neighborhood.
But that can cause difficulties and, as usual, I’m part of the problem.
You may remember Chinese strongman Xi Jinping thumbing his nose at the Trump tariffs and taunting America by visiting Vietnam, Cambodia, and Malaysia to make trade deals. Mr. Xi apparently believes those countries will buy enough stuff from China to partiality make up for a dwindling USA market.
After the Easter Bunny got finished guffawing, I told the millions of folks worldwide who listen to my analysis that Xi was weaving a grim fairy tale. The reality is people who live in South Asia don’t have much money and they are not going to buy Chinese caps and T-shirts that say, “I’m With Stupid.”
To compare small third-world markets to the big dog USA is preposterous.
Enter Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia. He tells a Kuala Lumpur newspaper that I, your humble correspondent, am “racist and colonialist.” Wow. The Malaysian Edge paper went on to write that Ibrahim “strongly rebuked” me, something that began in the 1950s with the School Sisters of Notre Dame.
Now, all of this is a bit confusing. A colonialist is someone who wants a big country to dominate a little country. I have been to Malaysia and did not want to dominate it. In fact, I wanted to get the deuce out of there because the heat was melting my sunglasses.
The racist thing is right out of the Al Sharpton handbook. No further comment required.
However, I am impressed that the prime minister watches the No Spin News. And, through our dispatches on YouTube, I was able to give old Anwar some stats to back up my China analysis. Household per capita income in Malaysia is $5,731 a year. It’s $42,220 in the USA, eight times higher.
Sorry if that information is racist.
The important point here is that China needs American consumers to buy its stuff. There is no substitute. That’s why a Xi-Trump trade deal will ultimately come about.
I could be wrong but don’t bet on it.
In the meantime, because I’m a good guy, I am gifting a BillOReilly.com premium membership to Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. Why? Because it’s good to be smart in a small world.
