Matt Miller writes about a recent talk he gave to some Chinese business students in Shanghai. They were all eager for the man from Washington to tell them when they were going to get their money paid back from the United States. Miller:

According to the IMF, China’s GDP per capita is about $8,400. The United States’ is about $48,000. How can it be that a country nearly six times richer is relying on a country so poor to help finance its current consumption?

Maybe supercommittee members can answer that one as a bonus take-home essay now that they’ve flunked the in-class test.

Related surreal question: What does it say when Europe, where most nations have per-capita incomes ranging from $35,000 to $45,000, is also passing the tin cup to much poorer China in an attempt to backstop its recklessly leveraged banks and governments?

What more proof do we need of the decadence of the Western governing class?

You try sitting in Shanghai and listening to these questions and see if you don’t feel the same dawning sense that we’re squandering a precious inheritance.

“Is our money safe?”

“Is the Fed going to inflate so much that China gets back worthless dollars?”

“What do you think about moving beyond the dollar as the major reserve currency?”

You can see where this is headed.

Yes indeed. Of course, China has huge social and economic problems of its own, and is not the invincible colossus we imagine it to be. Still, the gist of Miller’s column is true. It would be shameful to our governing class, and our financial class — if they were capable any longer of being shamed.