Chinese Pianos

[A440A@aol.com]

Dean writes: 
<< >>If the Chinese workers want to work harder than the Americans, for
less money,

>>The beauty of it is we don't give them real money at all. It's paper
with green ink on it. As long as they think it is worth something we are
okay. If they ever try to cash in the 100's of billion$ they are sitting
on we may be in trouble.  >>

         Chinese pianos will continue to improve, but in the meantime, there 
are 40 million Chinese students of piano and/or violin that will constantly 
need instruments.  Don't be surprised if the price of vintage Steinways suddenly 
goes through the roof.  It happened to Martin guitars back in the bluegrass 
heydey of the the '70's when Japan caught the craze, so it just might happen 
again to our pianos. 
         China presently holds 350 billion dollars of US debt.  Japan owns 
another 800 billion.  These amounts of debt constitute a very serious threat to 
our ability to trade in this world.  If they want to, these two countries can 
control the value of the American dollar, and in turn, our ability to buy 
things out there, (like oil), or Renner hammers, imported felt, Roslau wire, or 
Yamaha pianos, etc.   Saudi Arabia owns more debt than these two countries put 
together, so we are not really as powerful as maybe we would like to think, 
(except for the military).  
    The next global conflict is going to be economic, and the debt incurred 
by America in the last 7 years,(which is more than all the debt incurred in the 
preceding 170 years), is going to leave our grandchildren unarmed.  What are 
we going to tell them when they ask us why we used all the oil, and left them 
all this debt?   

Write your congressman, and Vote Vote Vote (actually, I think piano techs 
probably have a much higher percentage of voters than most other trades. 
Regards, 

Ed Foote RPT 
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html