Fears of a rising China are spurring billions of dollars worth of weapons projects!

[Mizzle187]

Saw this on Yahoo a while ago! What doesnt spark billions of dollars of weapons projects in the US? LOL!

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=sto...&e=1&u=/nm/20060414/ts_nm/china_usa_arms_dc_1

 

[Lucky]

I think the catch is that a billion $ goes farther in China than in the USA. Last month's Economists predicted that purchasing power parity of China's economy would equal the US in a decade and a half, or so, and if you simply took the GDP and multipled by exchange rates then it would happen years sooner, them being 2/3 the US today.

So I hope for everyone's sake that the Pentagon can start finishing programs, and try not to waste so much money doing them (and cancelling them). China's level of graft exists, but it seems the fear of a murderous police-state gov't can motivate people to work faster and steal less while they do it. Maybe when everyone else catches on that the whole world ought to fear China's gov't they'll all start working faster and stealing less. Japan, India, and Taiwan for starters are looking in bad positions, and hurting their economies would be felt around the world.

 

[Fletchette]

Our pouring of billions of dollars into the Communist Chinese nation is stupifying. It reminds my of Lenin's famous quote, "The Capitalists will sell us the rope by which we will hang them".

 

[Phetro]

We're Allowing Our Own Gradual Murder

As nationalism thrives in China, it is criticized heavily here. We are trained to feel guilty, to reject feelings of superiority, and to give all we have to foreigners and foreign countries--who we are in turn trained to pity and ironically admire simultaneously.

It's time for the USA as a nation to stand tall once again, and assert itself as the undisputed No. 1 country on Earth, of which all others are mere shadows at most!

 

[jeff-10]

Our pouring of billions of dollars into the Communist Chinese nation is stupifying. It reminds my of Lenin's famous quote, "The Capitalists will sell us the rope by which we will hang them".

Nice quote but it proved utterly false. What the Captialists did is buy the rope that hung the USSR.

 

[Phetro]

The USSR is Far from Dead

It's not federalized anymore, but all those despicable communists didn't vanish overnight, you know. And overall, socialism/communism/democracy has gained FAR more ground in recent years than has sound, minimalist governmental philosophy. Even Bush (perhaps "even" gives him too much credit) now refers to America as a "democracy." After the sheep have heard that term a million times, they'll start using it, believing it, and living it...then we too will have fallen.

Communism by any other name still smells like BS.

 

[Justin]

You can't fight an economic "war" with bullets and bombs.

 

[1 old 0311]

Gee you mean that when Clinton allowed the Loral Corporation to transfer computer, and missle information, AGAINST the advice of the CIA, State Dept., and the Defense Department, it was a bad thing

Kevin

 

[Fletchette]

Quote:
Our pouring of billions of dollars into the Communist Chinese nation is stupifying. It reminds my of Lenin's famous quote, "The Capitalists will sell us the rope by which we will hang them".


Nice quote but it proved utterly false. What the Captialists did is buy the rope that hung the USSR.

Er, we weren't talking about the USSR. China is still Communist, ya know.

I think the quote is utterly pertenent in that our own greed is supplying a Communist nation the means by which they will fight us. All those shiny new factories putting out everything we now buy could have been built here in the USA. Those factories will soon be making shiny new missiles to shoot at us, paid for by our own country and designed by Loral.

And we did it all for a few bucks of 'profit'.

 

[Live Free Or Die]

I doubt those shiny Chinese factories producing crappy bicycles, substandard electronics, and shoddy tools, will be the same factories used to make sophisticated military hardware.

 

[Justin]

To say nothing of the fact that China is hardly monolithic. Their society has been infected with the virus of free market economics, and it's only a matter of time before their version of communism crumbles into dust.

It's already happening in India in a big way, mostly due to the fact that India's socialism was much softer than the more hardline type practiced in China.

May you live in interesting times.

 

[Phetro]

To say nothing of the fact that China is hardly monolithic. Their society has been infected with the virus of free market economics, and it's only a matter of time before their version of communism crumbles into dust.

It's already happening in India in a big way, mostly due to the fact that India's socialism was much softer than the more hardline type practiced in China.

That's what the media likes us to think, anyway.

What's really happening is that communism is renaming itself and restructuring itself. Same disease, different name...the citizens in those countries still have no rights recognized by their governments--the governments also retain the power to control the people. Hardly what I'd call "crumbling into dust."

Britain, Spain, France, Finland, Sweden, and more nations have already fallen to democracy/socialism. The ball is rolling, but it's rolling the wrong way.

 

[308win]

Nice quote but it proved utterly false. What the Captialists did is buy the rope that hung the USSR.

You have been reading too many 'let's canonize Reagan' monographs.

History shows us that China hasn't had a tendency to mind others business. Bushyboy has assured that India can remain a speed bump to any imperialist tendencies that China exhibits in southwestern Asia. As for Japan, let China have their way with them - pay backs are a bitch. As for Tiawan, who cares?

Gee you mean that when Clinton allowed the Loral Corporation to transfer computer, and missle information, AGAINST the advice of the CIA, State Dept., and the Defense Department, it was a bad thing

Same could be said for allowing China in the last four or so years to buy the last rare earth magnet production facility in the US and IBM's PC business. But there I go again, I keep forgetting that El Jorge the Shub is the Gipper incarnate.

 

[antarti]

I think the catch is that a billion $ goes farther in China than in the USA.

If your point is that China is the (vastly) lower-cost producer, a net exporter, a still-ascending manufacturing power, and a creditor (and all that does matter since we are none of the above), then your comment is very astute.

Last month's Economists predicted that purchasing power parity of China's economy would equal the US in a decade and a half, or so, and if you simply took the GDP and multipled by exchange rates then it would happen years sooner, them being 2/3 the US today.

If the dingleberries in Congress slap the 30% tariff they want on the Chinese, the exchange rate will get the Chinese PPP (and then some) almost overnight. The Chinese will divest themselves of dollars and let the renminbi float, not wildly print notes & buy FRNs like the Bank of Japan.

The arbitrage on commodity prices would largely make up for any tariff, meanwhile we get to buy everything, including food and energy (which aren't measured in the worthless CPI anyway) at vastly increased prices.


Does anybody really want the Chinese (who are competing with us for resources across the globe, including militarily relevant steel/copper/oil) to have a much stronger currency?

Remember, they import commodities and turn out finished goods. We largely design things and provide services.

To say nothing of the fact that China is hardly monolithic. Their society has been infected with the virus of free market economics, and it's only a matter of time before their version of communism crumbles into dust.

Do they have the domestic demand to keep their economy going if we crumble? A decade from now, they surely will, but for now, they play the game, letting us build their infrastructure while buying our bad debt.

What convinces me you are right is what you mention, plus multi-person (though still single-party, for now) elections in the countryside, in order to placate the large agrarian populations. When you hear a Chinese farmer promising to "hold the government accountable", well, it tells me it's just a matter of time before he tries to. Our own government is poor at delivering on its promises, the Communists will be doubly so. Let's hope the Communists are given less time than anybody dared believe.

 

[JohnBT]

"The country produces as many sulphur emissions as Tokyo and Los Angeles combined but with only a fraction of the vehicles; China is home to 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities; water pollution affects as much as 70 percent of the country; air pollution is blamed for the premature death of some 400,000 Chinese annually; crop returns are steadily decreasing in quantity and quality because of polluted land and water; and solid waste production is expected to more than double over the next decade, pushing China far ahead of the U.S. as the largest producer (The Economist, August 19, 2004)."

Now, if they'd only hurry up and get those hundreds of millions of cars on the road that they're planning on building they'll bury themselves.

Let's give 'em a hand - BUY CHINESE !!!

 

[Quaamik]

Socialism can only suceed so long as there are capitalists to fund it.

The reverse is not true.

In short, they need us far more than we need them. And they will continue to as long as they remain socalist. When they finally don't need us, it will be because they have become much like us.

 

[xd9fan]

Given the Empire...this one is no surprise. Ask a surgeon for medical advice....he'll tell you we need to cut!!!

 

[Hook686]

Today, 12:58 PM #4
Phetro

wrote:

As nationalism thrives in China, it is criticized heavily here. We are trained to feel guilty, to reject feelings of superiority, and to give all we have to foreigners and foreign countries--who we are in turn trained to pity and ironically admire simultaneously.

It's time for the USA as a nation to stand tall once again, and assert itself as the undisputed No. 1 country on Earth, of which all others are mere shadows at most!

Good grief !

 

[bearmgc]

As our debts are growing, their currency gets stronger. And I can remember when British rock stars moved to the US because their tax rates were 50percent. Well we're reaching that now. The flood of dollars are leaving the US through money sent back to Mexico by illegal immigrants. We buy Chinese, we bleed money. Everything outsourced. What do we produce? Yeah, maybe Chinese goods aren't big on quality, but bet they can produce enough quality missiles to produce a real threat.

 

[CAnnoneer]

There is a wide-spread thinking that we have to be an imperial power and that to do so we have to have the strongest military. Why? We are much better off being an economic superpower and the technological center of the world. Weaponry is then just a derivative thereof. Otherwise, we are moving to becoming USSR #2 - armed to the teeth but bankrupted. The real problem is corruption at the highest levels. Congressmen buying yachts with bribes from military suppliers...

 

[neoncowboy]

Isnt' that neat! The US Gov facilitates an unprecedented military buildup for an enemy that they can then spend trillions of our dollars protecting us from!

Kind of like what they've been doing in the middle east for the last 50 years.

What a great job they're doing. I should send a card to my congressman.

 

[LAK]

"Communism" and "socialism" are simply antithesis to others like "democracy" and "capitalism". The governments of both Bolshevik Russia and Red China have been and are run by oligarchs - just like ours. Looting and lying is standard in all these systems; it is only under different appearences.

Our oligarchs either have some heavy stakes in China - or the Chinese have some significant vice over them. There is no other explanation for the way they have sold us out with such obvious and predicted results.

-----------------------------------------

http://ussliberty.org
http://ssunitedstates.org

 

[MICHAEL T]

We can destroy China. Just stop shopping at Wal Mart and both would be history.

 

[antarti]

There is a wide-spread thinking that we have to be an imperial power and that to do so we have to have the strongest military. Why? We are much better off being an economic superpower and the technological center of the world. Weaponry is then just a derivative thereof. Otherwise, we are moving to becoming USSR #2 - armed to the teeth but bankrupted.

Exactly. We also spend a ton of our own productivity defending many of our trading partners (who are also trading competitors). Closing bases across the Europe and Asia would do a lot to force a level playing field, as those economies get to pay for both more guns and butter. We would get to focus more energy on our domestic economy, and hopefully become less meddlesome (that humble foreign policy Bush promised) in the process.

 

[Fletchette]

I doubt those shiny Chinese factories producing crappy bicycles, substandard electronics, and shoddy tools, will be the same factories used to make sophisticated military hardware.

Are you still living in the '80's? The Chinese are producing higher and higher quality stuff all the time. Soon they will have more people on the internet (censored, of course) than the U.S. They already produce better cell phones than we do - Chinese *subway* commuters are able to easlily make calls. Our cell phones routinely cut off over 'dead zones'. The list goes on and on.

They will soon displace us in space launches. Have you noticed how feeble our space program has become? NASA is 'outsourcing' our launches to the Russians. In a few years the Chinese will routinely launch more people into space than we do.

...but, we have nothing to fear because China only makes 'shoddy tools' and crappy bicyles'...