Surat Khabar Lama

A few minutes ago I sold a short stack of old newspaper to a surat khabar lama man. There are a few surat khabar lama men in my area. Though the voice yelling 'paper lama and old newspaper' through the speaker sounds like a Chinese the surat khabar lama man can actually be an Indian. Today's paper lama man told me that the stack I'm selling would fetch RM5 a few weeks back, but today it costs only RM3. He told me that its the effect of the global economic crises, of course. According to him orders for old papers by box manufacturing companies are declining because many other companies are closing down or are also facing diminishing orders. What surprised me a bit was that the prices of iron and steel have also gone down. What use to be like RM5 per kilo (I think) has gone down to only 30 sen. He then went on to say that USA is to be blamed. The Americans have set up a plan to ensure that the Beijing Olympics is a failure as they know that China is economically getting strong, and so is India. Thus USA has made efforts to bring down China's economy including other Asian countries. Nevertheless, their plans backfired and now they are in a financial slump. Though this man deals with old newspapers he knows that it is pertinent for him to know to state of the world's economy because it will affect his. I'm impressed.