Europe Dreams of China Bailing Them Out

    However, they probably should save themselves the trouble. If you think the people of Germany and Finland are unsympathetic to the idea of their government bailing out Greece wait till you meet the Chinese people.

    http://www.cnbc.com/id/45145274

    The Chinese people feel like the government should spend all its money and resources addressing their problems and not the problems of Greeks, Italians, or the Spanish. You could almost write a rule governing the attitude of the people of any nation it is always something like this.

    In a way this is telling: after all China's problems next to ours would seem enviable. When was the last time we had to worry about growing too fast? If the China has too many of its own problems to help then every country does and there is no country that can afford to bail out another.

     "Domestic pressure (on China's leaders) is huge. Ordinary people are condemning" any decision to throw Europe a lifeline, one source with ties to China's top leaders told Reuters, requesting anonymity because of political sensitivities."

      http://www.cnbc.com/id/45145274

     "European officials have asked China to put cash in a mooted special purpose investment vehicle to enhance the region's rescue fund four to five-fold, to about 1 trillion euros."

     "China has given the idea a cautious response, saying it wants details first, but Europe will surely deliver the message again to Chinese President Hu Jintao at the summit, which ends on Friday. "

      "But a large swathe of China's 1.3 billion people is poor and many believe there are far better ways to spend excess cash in the $3.2 trillion pile of foreign exchange reserves the country has amassed in its rise to manufacturing might."

       "High on their priority list: handouts to help lower soaring prices of basic goods, subsidies to cut the crippling cost of home ownership, more investment to support job creation and easier access to bank credit for consumers and companies alike."

      The best summation of the feeling in China is ""Better to save Wenzhou than Ouzhou (Europe)"

       Here is what a Chinese blogger had to say on the subject, "The average wage of Chinese workers is a few U.S. dollars. The average wage of European workers is thousands of euros. Do they need China to rescue them?" wrote a microblogger identifying himself as "philosopher's journey".

       As the saying goes the grass is always greener. If they look to us as having greener grass it's surreal.

       "This is the people's blood and sweat money that is being used to bail out gluttonous and lazy Greeks," read a microblog posting by Sean Wu. 

        China is very concerned about a political backlash even if they don't face elections. For them to even consider such a thing, Europe will have to make a pretty good case that helping would be in China's interest. I'd love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.