I frequently wonder why most people in the economic world are afraid to point out the obvious. Certain things on the face of it are patently absurd. Was anybody as amused as I was to see Vladmir Putin and Wen Jiabao on the front page of the Wall Street Journal today waxing philosophic about what has caused the world’s economic problems?

Of course, it’s the United States that did it.

These guys would know, wouldn’t they? Certainly, as the heads of the world’s biggest centrally planned governments, they would have uncommon insight into how to run a free market economy. The real question in all of this would be who invited these guys to speak at Davos?

Yet, the press takes these guys seriously enough to place them on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. What possible free market credentials do these guys possess? Oh, I suppose you could point out that Russia, under Putin, has enjoyed some capitalistic success, and that China, once they started to allow some private possession, have made extraordinary strides and enjoyed tremendous growth. But, does this qualify them as expert enough to address the rest of the world and to scold it for what it perceives to be excess?

This is amazing in its arrogance. Here is the reality. China is the largest trading partner of the United States. They take in way more dollars than they export. They also buy our treasury debt and when the U.S. business cycle turned negative in the housing and credit debacles, they needed to point the finger because they took a beating. I’m dying to ask them why they bought our debt in the first place.

Are we to believe it was altruistic?

Was it to further Mao’s vision, or were they trying to make money? Do they seriously think that anybody is going to swallow the rhetoric regarding the United States and its “blind pursuit of profit?” Clearly, the press thinks the Chinese premier may be onto something. I think it’s America-bashing pure and simple and indicative of where we are as a society. I have to tell you something, folks; I’m getting fed up with America’s need to buy into the ugly American scenario.

The next time our former Presidents team up to raise funds for tsunami victims or America’s Congress spends time debating how much money we should send to Africa in order to combat the Aids crisis or we spend any time at all fretting over what is going to happen to the folks suffering in Somalia; we ought to send Russia or China the bill for that worry and explain that it’s the price we pay for our collective freedom to pursue profit, and, oh, by the way, that is what we do with a lot of it.

So, Mr. Chinese Premier, the next time you imprison somebody unjustly because you don’t like what they said or they don’t believe what you believe or you don’t like the God that they worship, remember that the freedom to criticize comes with a price tag and it is one that China and Russia have not yet paid.

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