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It is true that China has experienced phenomenal growth over the past few decades, but what's way overlooked, actually several things, but just a few biggies..
When their growth began Chinas demographics were far different than it is now. In the late 70's China had roughly 7.5 people in their workforce to everyone who wasn't. They moved millions upon millions of people from the rural areas, farms and such to the big cities along their Pacific coast and the ratio of those in the workforce has changed drastically to closer to 2:1 instead of 7.5:1 and with the one child policy they had for many years they are in no position to reverse it. Plus nobody with a brain wants to immigrate to China to raise a family.
Secondly, China is deeply, deeply in debt to itself because of the forced policy of banks making risky loans that will never have a chance of getting repaid..
They have waýyyy to many utterly useless infrastructure projects built, ie: Completely empty cities full of empty shell buildings, bridges, roads and rail lines to nowhere not to mention the fact that the biggest company that makes and sells cigarettes in the entire world is the Red Chinese Army that just happens to be even more corrupt than the Russian debacle..
Next time someone cries wolf about the Chinese don't freak out. Those people are basically afraid of their own shadows..
And don't forget China's revered chairman Mao is still directly responsible for starving over 45,000,000 innocent Chinese civilians to death for the so called "Great leap forward" He was such a genius he ordered millions upon millions of people to kill as many sparrows as possible so the little birds wouldn't eat all the grain being grown and as a result the grain was instead eaten by the insects that the sparrows would have eaten and THEN had any grain still being grown to be seized by the government and paid to the Soviet government to pay back a then secret deal for machinery and such.. They still make him out to be the greatest leader in the history of the human race.
In the immortal words of my old man, "Wait'll you get to be my age!"
Chicago sounds rough to the maker of verse, but the one comfort we have is Cincinnati sounds worse. ~Oliver Wendal Holmes Sr.
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I don't know if anyone caught on, but just recently in the last day or so China approached CANADA of all places about cooperation. They made a fools bet that they could hook up with Russia to counter US power and US financing on the global stage and just learned a tough lesson about the power of US sanctions and US power. Now they know what will happen if they make a play for Taiwan. Tough lesson, but the truth is that the US has the power to utterly destroy any nations economy within a matter of days if we so choose and Russia is the text book example.
We tend to want to believe that the US empire is over and the good old days are in the rear view window, but the truth is we are the world's biggest power in the history of the human race and the richest. We have the largest navy bar none controlling most every ocean in the world and the best air force with the best technology the world has ever known and our hay day is gone? What a lot of propaganda sold to us by competing political parties to make it seem like we're on the brink of collapse. Nothing could possibly be further from the truth, but millions of people buy it.
China can barely feed its own people with the farmable land they have so they have to import 90% of their food. As it sits China, the second largest producer of fertilizer has completely shut off all exports of fertilizer out of the fear of mass famine. Russia is the largest producer of it, but thanks to sanctions they'll have to eat fertilizer before they can sell it and they have no deep water ports. The rest of the developed world doesn't need their fertilizer.
Anyway, China, hat in hand had to bow to the country that jailed their tech starlet and beg for cooperation. They know the US would laugh in their face at this point..
The war in Ukraine has overnight changed the entire way the world will want to do business with the United States..They'll watch their steps unless we get stupid enough to put trump back in the WH..
In the immortal words of my old man, "Wait'll you get to be my age!"
Chicago sounds rough to the maker of verse, but the one comfort we have is Cincinnati sounds worse. ~Oliver Wendal Holmes Sr.
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I don't agree with everything you say. But I will point out this fact.
A few years ago people were talking about how "China owned the United States" because we "owed them so much money". But what was actually happening was that the United States was selling government bonds and Chinese were buying them up. The reason they were buying all these US Government bonds was that they knew we were the safest bet our there to put your money on. And investing in government issued bonds does not give you any control over the government issuing them. It is not like the Chinese could "call in" the debt. They just collected the interest like everyone else.
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(05-02-2022, 01:54 PM)fredtoast Wrote: I don't agree with everything you say. But I will point out this fact.
A few years ago people were talking about how "China owned the United States" because we "owed them so much money". But what was actually happening was that the United States was selling government bonds and Chinese were buying them up. The reason they were buying all these US Government bonds was that they knew we were the safest bet our there to put your money on. And investing in government issued bonds does not give you any control over the government issuing them. It is not like the Chinese could "call in" the debt. They just collected the interest like everyone else.
Those people saying that are the same folks who have no idea how global economics work or national debt works. They equate it to personal loans and personal debt.
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(05-02-2022, 01:54 PM)fredtoast Wrote: I don't agree with everything you say. But I will point out this fact.
A few years ago people were talking about how "China owned the United States" because we "owed them so much money". But what was actually happening was that the United States was selling government bonds and Chinese were buying them up. The reason they were buying all these US Government bonds was that they knew we were the safest bet our there to put your money on. And investing in government issued bonds does not give you any control over the government issuing them. It is not like the Chinese could "call in" the debt. They just collected the interest like everyone else.
Yes I think they own about 4%. While that’s a lot, it’s not owning the US and like you said, they just get to collect on them. Oh and they own some buildings I think. Hope they don’t take them away.
“History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.”-Thurgood Marshall
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(05-07-2022, 08:35 PM)michaelsean Wrote: Yes I think they own about 4%. While that’s a lot, it’s not owning the US and like you said, they just get to collect on them. Oh and they own some buildings I think. Hope they don’t take them away.
I don't think they need them...
"China has at least 65 million empty homes — enough to house the population of France. It offers a glimpse into the country's massive housing-market problem."
https://www.businessinsider.com/china-empty-homes-real-estate-evergrande-housing-market-problem-2021-10#
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(05-08-2022, 10:42 PM)rfaulk34 Wrote: I don't think they need them...
"China has at least 65 million empty homes — enough to house the population of France. It offers a glimpse into the country's massive housing-market problem."
https://www.businessinsider.com/china-empty-homes-real-estate-evergrande-housing-market-problem-2021-10#
Those empty homes are a bit more than just empty. Most are mere building shells, worse than Potemkin buildings slapped up to entice Chinese investors.. The average Chinese citizen dumped tons into wanting to be a landlord of an apartment on the 67th floor of a 66 floor apartment building.. There are entire cities built like that.. The red army really mopped up on their fellow China citizen. it's one scam after another in both China and Russia. Those in power get to scam and steal from the public with absolute impunity. Both countries are in demographic hell facing horrendous difficulties in the coming years.. The birth rates are so low they can't replace people faster than they die off and nobody wants to immigrate to either one..
In the immortal words of my old man, "Wait'll you get to be my age!"
Chicago sounds rough to the maker of verse, but the one comfort we have is Cincinnati sounds worse. ~Oliver Wendal Holmes Sr.
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China along with Iran, North Korea, and Russia scare me. As what they can do. Very much you have to really watch out for them big time.
Ready for Memorial Day!
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(05-09-2022, 01:54 PM)JPPT1974 Wrote: China along with Iran, North Korea, and Russia scare me. As what they can do. Very much you have to really watch out for them big time.
Not much to be afraid of.. Iran is way too broke to scare anyone, NK is just too crazy and broke, but they take marching orders from Beijing. Russia? You see how great their army is now.. They can't beat Ukraine.. This war and sanctions are going to cripple them for years to come.. China won't start anything since sanctions would leave them with mass famine within months with Russia style sanctions.. We are by far China's biggest customer and most of the biggest companies in China are American owned..not to mention we're the protector of the single largest manufacturer of semiconductor chips with 92% of that market and they're building a giant factory here soon.. Between us and Taiwan we'll have cornered the semiconductor market and nobody else will be able to make high tech weaponry without our say-so..
Americans forget sometimes..We have the most powerful military the world has ever seen bar none with the best military technology and trillions in hardware. We are by FAR the richest nation and the US dollar is the global default currency, we have two giant motes on both coasts and friendly nations to the north and south.. The only thing we have to be afraid of is voting for dipsh*ts like trump again.. Personally I favor deporting the magats to russia.. They could use new people to have stupid white babies for their population crash..
If you want to see where geopolitics is heading in the next 20 or so years watch the YouTube series Geopop..
In the immortal words of my old man, "Wait'll you get to be my age!"
Chicago sounds rough to the maker of verse, but the one comfort we have is Cincinnati sounds worse. ~Oliver Wendal Holmes Sr.
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