I was trying to think of an Onion-like headline when I came across a New York Times article describing the last minute negotiation session by the House and Senate to avert the debt limit crisis:
[Senator] Mr. McConnell, meanwhile, spoke three more times that day with Mr. Biden. That night he strategized with his staff between a series of phone calls, including one with Mr. Boehner. The group ordered Chinese food, and laughed when one fortune cookie advised: “You may be spending too much money.”
Of course, with every fortune you receive you have to add, “in bed.” Yes, the U.S. is in bed with the Chinese. If you didn’t know, China is the United States’ largest creditor (how ironic given that it is still governed as a Communist country) holding over $1.15 trillion of our total $14 trillion in debt.
But if you want to read an interesting book on the history of Chinese food in America, you should check out The Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8. Lee. It’s no surprise that the rise of China and our economic decline is striking fear into Americans, but I think it’ll be a long time before China will be able to impose what food we’ll be eating or what language we’ll be speaking. But as comedian Joe Wang joked once in front of Vice President Biden, he’d like his son, who was born in America and could one day be president, know how to sign legislative bills in English and talk to debt collectors in Chinese.
