I don't know if this makes any sense, but I can't help but wonder.

Since so much of our economy is built on foreign possession of our dollars and good will, at what point can we expect them to dump everything that is American?

The short term profit view seems to have completely permeated our society and government, but I don't think China and India are using short term profit thinking. I think they are willing to take some losses short term to gain the long term victory. And at some point, I suspect they're going to decide they're strong enough to start sliding out of supporting an anemic America.

I know a lot of people who like to proclaim that free enterprise will change China and allow them to own the factories that they have reassembled over there, but I think about China's history and I wonder...

I feel it will be a last resort for them to bail on us.

until they can develop markets elsewhere to take the place of the US.

so they have to keep us going or those factorie stop.

the US isn't a major market for them. The only way they can continue sell to us is if they send the dollars back by buying our bonds.

Historically, every industrial country on the planet has helped prop the dollar when we've had a trade imbalance. Europe and Japan went through it, now it's China's turn.

Those who say that market forces will decide when, or if, China dumps American assets may well be right - but they may be wrong, too. As far as I know China is still Communist. At the very least it is still a repressive regime. It is also a completely different culture from ours. I'm not, er, sold on the idea that the Chinese are motivated by profits. It seems quite possible to me that there is some other motivation at work.