editorial post #2 [not a very creative title]

so, this week's editorial, from the Washington Post Online, is about how the declining state of the american economy is effecting other parts of the world, namely china.
Apparantly the U.S is the largest consumer of chinese goods. China was in the process of expanding their industrial work force to meet consumer demand, therefore the rural population was moving into the cities to find work in factories. now with consumers in america cutting back on buying foreign products, the chinese economy is falling apart. The workers have been forced to return to their thrird-world rural housing, which, for some, does not even exist anymore, and thousands of jobless and homeless roam the cities of china. Chinese exports have dropped 40-70 percent, depending on the product, and those exports are the base of China's expansion and de-isolationism at this moment in time.
for me, and hopefully for others, this article opened my eyes to how inter-connected the us economy is to the economies of other countries. right now the american economic depression is not that bad for the majority of the country. the same can't be said for the countries which are directly invested in the US, who cant afford any turn down in either our or their economies.