SOUTH CAROLINA’S “ASIAN FETISH” IS A CONSEQUENCE … AND A HARBINGER
|| By MANDE WILKES || Did you know local powers-that-be have an Asian fetish? No, silly … not that kind of fetish. I’m talking instead about the recent land takeover by Chinese investors. Gleeful has been the tone of the local coverage surrounding the deal, both from media and from officials.
At first glance, it’s easy to see the excitement. The sales – involving over two dozen Grand Strand golf courses — total upwards of $400 million. That kind of cash influx is exciting to the likes of our small-town, big-dreams leaders who envision Myrtle Beach as the next Orlando or Las Vegas.
But try as they may, neither media nor officials can fool me. The fact is that this is decidedly bad news for our city, our state, and our country.
First, a couple of decades ago, the jobs went to China. These lost positions were overwhelmingly low-skilled labor which left the most vulnerable Americans with even fewer options.
Let me be clear: The fault for that lies with all levels of our government. Restrictions, regulations, and red tape strangled businesses, and they fled to a place where they were welcomed.
Now that the jobs have migrated to China and made it a country rich beyond recognition, the Chinese are using that wealth to snap up local businesses … with the full intention of evermore success on the backs of Americans.
And not for nothing, this news coincides with the annual influx of Europeans seeking Grand Strand summer work – foreigners who are granted by our own government special work visas to compete for American jobs.
So, to recap: Jobs have gone to China; the jobs that are still here are being filled by non-citizens; and the area’s most lucrative businesses are now under foreign ownership.
Spurred on by blindly jubilant politicians, the media are toeing the line and painting this as positive news.
Tell me again how the American dream endures? In my estimation, the purchases amount both to a consequence and a harbinger – we’re reaping what our bumbling leaders have sown, and all signs point to less and less American economic primacy.
Meanwhile, as I write this, local movers-and-shakers are absolutely giddy at having been invited to participate in the wedding festivities of one of the Chinese investors. (Of course they were invited — it’s the least the guy could do to invite the people who’ve served as his lapdogs).
The really pathetic thing is that I’m not even that mad at these guys. I’m not convinced they’re in possession of the cerebral capacity necessary to understand the mechanics of money.
That’s why, then, I place the blame ultimately with the voters who continue returning these ne’er-do-wells to office. Seriously, it’s like appointing Andy Griffith to the post of attorney general — Andy’s a nice guy, but niceness and competence are distinct qualities.
Perhaps worst of all is that it’s taxpayer revenue — in the form of the so-called ad tax — that’s funding the marketing for these foreign investors’ new businesses. The ad tax remains a misbegotten exercise in crony capitalism, and it chaps my hide to think that local taxpayers are personally funding foreign enrichment.
The American dream is indeed alive and well — just not for Americans.
Mande Wilkes is a wife, mother, businesswoman, author, etc. residing on the South Carolina coast with her family. Email her at m@mandewilkes.com.
41 comments
It’s always hard in economics to differentiate cause and effect.
Why does our government grant work visas to Eastern Europeans to work in Myrtle Beach in the summer? If MB businesses offered a living wage, US workers could afford to work there. Instead, the businesses complain that no one will apply for their jobs at the shitty wages offered, so the government has to issue work visas so that Russians can live six to a room and bike to work.
And that higher wage results in higher prices for goods and services putting us right back at square one. If our entitlement programs were not such a poverty lock, people would be allowed to work temporality in order to build up some quality of life. But no, u either collect and do nothing or take a chance and have the safety net pulled. It is a vicious cycle designed to set no one free.
Agreed. Perversity personified…that’s the Federal Government…reward sloth…punish hard work. ..incentivize helplessness…
Come on now…if we just raised the federal minimum wage to about $25 bucks an hour everyone would make over $50k annually. There; problem solved, right? ;-)
Raise it to $2500 bucks an hour and we’d all be 1%ers!
Now you’re talking! Next year’s Bilderberg conference will be a packed house!
The ‘ad tax’ is now funding foreign enrichment? LMAO. How can people like Mande,tomdickler,Boz and many other liberal assholes be so miserable living in ‘paradise’?
If you don’t like the ‘ad tax’ my suggestion is you nasty ass biker supporting socialists should elect local officials that agree with you.
Until then, STFU. The locals took the trash out,the beach is doing well and fucking move if you don’t like it.
I oppose a particular tax, therefore I’m a socialist? Makes sense.
That’s pogo, the dickish troll from the old SNOB forum/blog on The Sun News. He’s found a new home on FITSNews comment threads.
Yeah, makes no sense that he’s supposedly a conservative who loves certain taxes. But then, he’s never made sense. He’s buddied up to Grand Tango (T. Lawrence from Irmo) on here. A match made in Hell.
Getting tiresome with that. What other numbers do you do?
fat ass slob lives with mommy,walks around beach with canned goods in hopes of free food from bars,walks out on bar tabs,likes dresses and burlesque,accuses every politician in Horry County and state of high crimes and misdemeanors if he disagrees with you and if his medication aint right will show up at a local city council meeting dressed like Big Lebowski,stammering,sweating and shitting his pants while asking the mayor to resign…after of course falsely accusing the mayor of a DUI…no one trick pony there…..
Case made.
http://imgur.com/TWKf9Ab
Shit, man, it kinda bores me too, but it’s the truth.
Logic with this one is like regular bullets on a werwolf. Save em for the zombies.
This is Pogo the Troll we are talking about here. Everyone is a dirty no good socialist Obama supporter except for him and his butt buddy GrandTango.
No everybody.You and Boz are.Boz has stated he is a life long liberal Democrat that supported Green Peace Marxist Gloria Tinabu.Why do you people run from who you are?
Get serious. Nothing they ever did in Myrtle Beach affected the steady flow of money from bikers for the whole Grand Strand area but just that little piece of it. The ones who ride harleys have been slowly returning to that town year by year. the black bikers never left but have steadily increased in number. You say the most foolish things possible but want to be taken seriously?
Using logic against the hard-core illogical. Useless.
Well, they can’t move it to China and we can , always, pop them with tax. Of course, they will buy off our legislature and get an exemption.
“Let me be clear: The fault for that lies
with all levels of our government. Restrictions, regulations, and red
tape strangled businesses, and they fled to a place where they were
welcomed”
Translation: Mande supports the modern day near enslavement of US workers to be the same as the Chinese with little regard for human rights, no unions, poverty wages, 70 hours a week, lax (if any) safety standards and the like.
Mande, the problem is not “red tape”, the problem is greedy mutha fuckin’ corporates who want to maximize profits off the backs of labor by paying them fuck all and treating them like shit…voila…China!!
What should I expect from a person who blames female victims of domestic violence as it being their own faults.
Actually she hit the nail on the head. you libturds still don’t get it do you ?
‘Did you know local powers-that-be have an Asian fetish?’
Yes, Nikki already knows……
It’s not so much a fetish as it is an
Who cares about the Chinese? What about Mande’s hair. No longer glamour girl. More boy toy bad girl.
Agreed. Normally I refrain from commenting on personal appearances but short hair doesn’t really suit.
Then again, I’m a big bloviating fatso myself.
Good logic – I too try to stay out of the personally destructive nonsense that takes place on internet discussion boards attendant to someone’s personal appearance, family issues, etc. It may be rationalization, but I will occasionally make exceptions if the person in question either really needs an ass-whipping due to bad public behavior or incessantly fixates on their own appearance / sexuality anyway. I still can’t make myself care about this chic’s hair, though. ;-)
I say let Mande do how she gone do.
“…country rich beyond recognition…”
China is loaded, to be sure, but they are not “rich beyond recognition.” There’s a lot of mythology and misunderstanding about our favorite Asian reds out there, but the fact remains that the US is “richer” in almost every way we can compare (with the glaring exception, of course, of our centralized governmental debt, although China’s internal central banking issues are starting to catch up with them as well). Our GDP is over 150% that of China’s, and more importantly our per capita GDP is seven times theirs ($53k versus around $7k). Even a significant part of the trade imbalance between the US and China is misrepresented due to “country of origin” manufacturing issues. Let ‘em come over and spend some of that cash!
‘Andy’s a nice guy, but niceness and competence are distinct qualities’
————
Andy has Aunt Bee to back him up, and everyone knows Aunt Bee takes no crap from anyone!
Not only was Andy competent, he didn’t even need to carry a gun and had more respect than the guy that did.
Andy kept a pistol on top of the buffet in the dining room, out of Opie’s reach. Didn’t have Eddie Eagle around then to educate Opie what to do iffn’ he found a firearm.
“The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves if we are underlings.”
China wages war on golf…..
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-04-06/china-s-war-on-golf-courses
Or perhaps one could take Arthur C. Clarke’s 2061 and extend the prospect of world peace to nations having too much to lose if they attacked an adversary, Kinda reflected in Dr. Strangelove’s episode where Colonel “Bat” Guano resists briefly shooting up a Coke machine so they have correct change to call the Pentagon on a pay phone.
REALLY!?!!? Linking jobs to China with too much gov’t regulation here and the Adtax to bringing over the Chinese? How about mentioning how rainfall in MB on Dec. 28th, 1978 caused more monkeys to be born in Tibet? Just because you compare two things in your brain and then type them does not make them true or even relative.
I read in Sunday’s paper the the largest % of immigrants coming into the US are Chinese and NOT hispanics (now that may mean LEGAL immigrants…………….) and that there is a decrease in golf playing at the the Myrtle Beach courses (I don’t chase a little white ball around so it is of no real consequence to me but I was not surprised to learn that golf participation has peaked)
I have posted many times the movers & shakers of the “Great State of South Carolina” would sell thier mother’s grave if they could make a profit from it. So I’m not surprised that this is happening.
Anyhoo….
it’s a global economy/world sweetie———–get over it. Take Spainish and/or Mandrian lessons and you will be ahead of the game. The numbers are not on your side.
Get back to fawning over some damn Palmetto tree or low country swamp/marsh.
Don’t worry your pretty little heads on this stuff,get back to the kitchen and rattle those pots & pans and make some “Low Country Boil” while you’re at it.
“Bless you heart”
“Restrictions,Regulations and red tape strangled business and they moved elsewhere.
I’m calling “Bullshit” on that premise.
i guess it was all those “restrictions,regulations and red tape” that caused the mills in New England to move to the southern Piedmont a little under 100 years ago wasn’t it???
Truth is business go where they can make a better profit – plain and simple and I’m not knocking that – that’s capitalism 101.
That is just the way capitalism works – again; plain and simple
Throw in shifts in population and demographics and “wham-bam- thank you mamn”
That’s it in a nut shell – plain and simple
Go back to waxing poetic over some damn Palmetto tree or low country swamp/marsh/whatever…………
You just might be able to do something about saving a tree here or there but that’s about as far as it will go.
Implying that golf courses are among an area’s most lucrative businesses is a bit of a stretch. Todd is skeptical that we should discourage the Chinese from making bad investments in SC.
Let them buy up all sorts of American real estate. They can hardly take it away. They may well reap Japan’s fate when it did the same.
Wow. Nancy Mace did your web site? Thats juss turrible,