The cartoon mentioned in the previous post is alluding to a problem within the growth of China's economy not the actual growth itself.
The situation it is referring to, where energy prices effectively eat away the margin of efficiency of manufacturing in china, is a real thing. However, it is not caused by the economy growing. Instead this problem arises from how fast and in what way china is facilitating the growth. In the simplest terms...it just takes a long time to build efficient power plants...whether they be nuclear, hydroelectric or whatever. In order to keep up with the growth rate China has employed some rather oil heavy measures such as powering office buildings by generator. This time effective energy inefficient nature is the problem to which the cartoon is referring. While probably not the best way to present it the cartoon does connect two ideas that are indeed linked, though it fails horribly at explaining the train of thought.
Joel's Note: The concept behind the cartoon was not what I was getting at. I understand what is causing the problems in the Chinese economy as I spent the next hour after reading the cartoon reading about the problems in greater detail (which is what a good politcal cartoon can make you do and is the reason Time chose it to showcase for the week). Sure, it is inefficiencies in the economy that are causing the price increase and he is directly pointing out that their use is inefficient, but to most readers, that's not what they read. The cartoon says that buying goods from China does not save money. Most people who read it will not think, "what is the implication here about China," they will think, "what is the implication here about me." A writer must think about what the average reader will think.
