How to punish China for hacking

Regarding punishing China for hacking: It is simple.

For the first offense, we take $125 billion off of the debt we owe them. The second offense would be $250 billion and all future offenses would be $500 billion. We make this clear up front.

This would lower our debt but not embarrass China with meaningless gestures like kicking their agents out of the country. We would also make it clear that China is responsible for North Korea’s behavior in this regard.

China could apply the same penalties to us. I have no doubt that we are involved in cyber warfare also. In this way, we are simply dealing with debt and not sanctions, expulsions, threats or other forms of punishment that will draw quick and possibly escalating retaliation.

This story was originally published August 8, 2015 at 9:45 AM with the headline "How to punish China for hacking."