Does Obama really believe what he said—that China’s infrastructure is “vastly superior” to the United States? Was this a gaff of someone who was off the teleprompter? Obviously, but perhaps he is suffering from a deeper malady.

The presidential campaign trail is grueling and takes a toll on the presidential hopefuls. With the advent of the 18-month campaign more politicians seem to be suffering from Teleprompter Reliance Syndrome (TRS). The syndrome can be an agonizing emotional roller coaster as the candidate travels through the vicious addiction cycle. Teleprompter Separation Anxiety dominates their psyche through repeated periods of non-use in which anticipation of the next use dominates thinking followed by the “high” or altered emotional state created by the trigger, and finally the post-use depression. The most notable and debilitating symptom of this syndrome is the tendency to make wild gaffs when speaking “off-the-cuff”—sans teleprompter.

TRS aside, if, as Obama says, Chinese infrastructure is “vastly superior” to the United States then multitudes of companies and individual “world citizens” will consider re-locating to China to take advantage of it. Maybe we should at least take a closer look at his misguided praise of China.

For starters, let’s begin with a straightforward multiple-choice question about China’s superior infrastructure: How many people in China live in caves.

A. one million

B. 10 million

C. 20 million

D. 40 million

Here’s a hint. To paraphrase Stalin, “One family of cave dwellers is a tragedy, but 40 million cave dwellers is merely a statistic.” Yes, a jaw-dropping 40 million Chinese live in caves—sounds like the Flintstones. Thus, Obama can add China’s cave infrastructure to the

“plus” column for China because China’s caves are “vastly superior” to ours. In fact, the Chinese cave dwellers take it in stride. For many, cave dwelling has an emotional attachment. Bon vivant taxi driver and man-about-town Tian Ping says, “Of course I prefer living in a cave. I don’t know how to explain it, it just doesn’t feel quite right [living in] an ordinary flat.”

And, China has a “vastly superior” day labor infrastructure. No waiting in Home Depot and other big box parking lots hoping for work, and certainly no “do-gooder” ordinances mandating construction of day labor centers with shelter, drinking water, bathrooms, trash cans and other creature comforts for day laborers. The Chinese simply invoke the machine-like efficiency of illegal Chinese child labor rings that kidnap school age children (too young to work legally) supplying them to work in factories, 12 hours a day, seven days a week, at roughly 25 cents an hour, far below the legal Chinese “gold” standard of 65 cents an hour. Speaking of “vastly superior,” those tiny little child labor hands are remarkably efficient when you consider how little space each child occupies on the assembly line. If Voltaire were alive today, he might sardonically applaud China’s tiny-tot workers as the Chinese Communist foray into nanotechnology.

Is all that hard work making you thirsty? Well, don’t drink the “vastly superior” water in Beijing as more than half of the water in China is unfit to drink. At least don’t drink it yet. To solve the problem the Chinese communists have turned to foreign investors (translation: the free market) to invest in water supply and sewage projects.

Finally, the “vastly superior” Chinese political infrastructure is quite streamlined. Instead of two wildly expensive and “messy” political conventions every four years, China has only one party and one convention every five years—much more efficient.

If Obama does not win the presidency, perhaps he and Alec Baldwin should explore a couple of China’s “vastly superior” caves.