Are people optimistic about the West/US/Europe?

[Sinophile]

If I remember correctly, many factory workers ended up homeless when the U.S. housing market crashed. In Short, China's economy is tied strongly to America's, and a recession in America means a recession in China. Still, while America has been accumulating staggering debt, China and India have been saving up.

[Trandoshan]

If I remember correctly, many factory workers ended up homeless when the U.S. housing market crashed. In Short, China's economy is tied strongly to America's, and a recession in America means a recession in China. Still, while America has been accumulating staggering debt, China and India have been saving up.

 

China is like a fetus. It has no real economy without us, and thrives off of the nutrients that we give them (In the form of them giving us loans). When the U.S. suffers, so does China. Really, the rest of the world too. Our crisis effected every capitalist nation in the world, with the exception of Russia... but they aren't fully integrated yet. You can probably guess what happens if we were to cut the umbilical cord too quickly at any rate. Disaster for both the mother and the child. Though I would attribute our relation with that of the reproduction of a spider as most adult spiders are eaten by their offspring, China is in the position to end America as we know it. Scary.

 

Personally, I put my faith in Asia. Every section of the earth has had its moment as the leaders of the known world. Africa had Egypt first, then the Middle East had Persia, Europe had Britain, and North America had the U.S.A.... The only two continents left without a superpower in relation to those around it is Asia and South America. Don't worry too much about South America though, the U.S. has effectively crippled them.

 

If anyone needs a source for any one of my arguments, I will gladly post them.

[Karasuman]

I don't know if this has been mentioned or not, but one of the main things that keeps the US in an advantageous situation is agriculture. People mention oil prices or military and all those things, and yes they're part of it. But it is agriculture that is the US's true strength and should be one of its main international bargaining chips, even though they don't use it as much as they could. I don't know what the exact figure is this second, but I do know the US produces a very, very large percentage of the world's food supply.

 

In all honesty, theoretically the US could possibly settle a conflict much faster by simply refusing to export its grain and/or livestock. Threaten people with military force, and they may well stand against you based on principle. Tell them they'll starve to death, and it might just bring them to the bargaining table faster. This however is considered not a very humanitarian thing to do I guess, though many would argue dropping two a-bombs in the middle of Japan wasn't very humanitarian either, so...And I dare say that our enemies would be more than happy to use such starvation tactics against us if they had it as an available option. This is definitely something I would do without hesitation, so I suppose it's good that I don't hold a political office.

 

As may be gathered, I am pretty pessimistic about the current goings-on in the western world as a whole. When you begin thinking of ways you could starve your enemies into submission, (and make no mistake, it is definitely something the US could do if it chose to), chances are your view of current affairs has become less than favorable.

[PreWar]

US is going fail under it self soon. I was think of make more money that I do now and buy my own county where a high IQ stander or skill is required to enter/live. Where the gain of knowledge is put over all others ideals. I mean I have a huge list of other details but I nor have the time copy and paste as do you have to read all 91 pages of. So the to basics will do. Edited January 24, 2011 by PreWar

[Keanumoreira]

US is going fail under it self soon. I was think of make more money that I do now and buy my own county where a high IQ stander or skill is required to enter/live. Where the gain of knowledge is put over all others ideals. I mean I have a huge list of other details but I nor have the time copy and paste as do you have to read all 91 pages of. So the to basics will do.

 

Yes and if that happens, the world is going down with it. For all our sake, lets hope that isn't the case, and that a change of heart and policy alike will follow instead.

[Sinophile]

In all honesty, theoretically the US could possibly settle a conflict much faster by simply refusing to export its grain and/or livestock. Threaten people with military force, and they may well stand against you based on principle. Tell them they'll starve to death, and it might just bring them to the bargaining table faster.

I believe Jimmy Carter put a wheat embargo on Russia during his time in Office. The wheat farmers weren't all to happy at the loss of revenue.

[WizardOfAtlantis]

Ron Paul can not be more right on foreign policy, and I would vote for him any day over Obama... But the thing is Ron Paul also doesn't realize the major threat of corporate power.

 

Oh I wouldn't be too sure about that , he is very much against corporate lobbyist and he wants to end the Federal Reserve and restore the powers it has stolen from Congress back to Congress .That would be the biggest blow to Corporate power possible.

Down with the "Federal" Reserve! The Founding Fathers were against just such an idea since it puts everyone into a central bank's pockets and then guess what happens...ever increasing debt since the money used to pay the debt loaned to the government is issued with debt already attached to it.

 

Ron Paul's the only one doing enough damn sabre-rattling. it's high-time someone unsheathed the damn thing and took off some corrupt heads with it. http://www.thenexusforums.com/public/style_emoticons/dark/pirate.gif

 

Besides, I think it was Thomas Jefferson that said a country needs to renew itself every 200 years...and we're a good bit past that point now. More sabre-rattling, anyone?

[marharth]

If I remember correctly, many factory workers ended up homeless when the U.S. housing market crashed. In Short, China's economy is tied strongly to America's, and a recession in America means a recession in China. Still, while America has been accumulating staggering debt, China and India have been saving up.

 

China is like a fetus. It has no real economy without us, and thrives off of the nutrients that we give them (In the form of them giving us loans). When the U.S. suffers, so does China. Really, the rest of the world too. Our crisis effected every capitalist nation in the world, with the exception of Russia... but they aren't fully integrated yet. You can probably guess what happens if we were to cut the umbilical cord too quickly at any rate. Disaster for both the mother and the child. Though I would attribute our relation with that of the reproduction of a spider as most adult spiders are eaten by their offspring, China is in the position to end America as we know it. Scary.

 

Personally, I put my faith in Asia. Every section of the earth has had its moment as the leaders of the known world. Africa had Egypt first, then the Middle East had Persia, Europe had Britain, and North America had the U.S.A.... The only two continents left without a superpower in relation to those around it is Asia and South America. Don't worry too much about South America though, the U.S. has effectively crippled them.

 

If anyone needs a source for any one of my arguments, I will gladly post them.

The thing is though china gets richer off giving us loans, we don't need loans if we have a good economy...

[RZ1029]

Are we allowed to declare bankruptcy and just hit the RESET button? If so, I vote we do, that'll really mess China up.

[Aurielius]

The thing is though china gets richer off giving us loans, we don't need loans if we have a good economy...

 

 

ROFTL..have you ever sat through an economics course? I'll give you an example: in the Peloponnesean War between Sparta and Athens the Athenians through the use of a type of civic bond were able to contain the superior land armies of Sparta by means of hiring help, Sparta which had no deficit spending or even coinage that was valued at any level of exchange was forced to go cap in hand to the Persian Empire for monetary support, an act they found odious in the extreme. The lesson is: deficit spending has been with governments almost as long as there have been governments in existence. Loans or bonds are how governments pay for improvements to infrastructure, wars and social programs. FYI ....the last debt free administration was that of Andrew Jackson, which was only achieved through massive sales of land deeds in the central Mississippi area, his repeal of the Bank of the United States was immediately reversed in the subsequent administration.

Edited January 27, 2011 by Aurielius