since most of the political discussions are about the war/middle east/oil/bush home front blah blah blah. how about the pacific. we will be sending a nuke carrier to japan to replace a convebtional in 2008. ok this counters any naval build up by china and places a marker if neede to deal with any beligeance by n.k.. what it also does is if we look the other way on taiwan,then maybe china put kim out to pasture and lets a united korea be governed in seoul. i think there will be a military build up by japan with our blessing to help stem any of chinas going anyfurther than n.korea or taiwan. i don't think that taiwan has the ageis destroyers yet,and if that deal gets shelved then taiwan goes to mainland and kim gets the boot. marcb(short fat bald guy that is way off base sometimes,oh yea and has a hairy back)
Sending U.S. ships to counter any "naval build up by China" is so 1900's. It's very reminiscent of the Chinese Boxer Rebellion, when the U.S. exercised gunboat diplomacy on the Yangtze River (e.g., the great '60's movie, The Sand Pebbles).
Actually, it's totally unnecessary for China to directly threaten the U.S. (or U.S. allies) to get its way in the Far East. China holds about $300 billion in U.S. T-bills etc., and its monthly purchase of our debt instruments is largely holding our economy together. All China has to do to roll us is to simply threaten to stop buying our paper. Interest rates would soar, and our domestic real estate bubble burst. Hello recession.
I agree, though, there's not much entertainment value in China using its economic power to counter any military posturing on our part. Besides, our military card has been pretty much played out in the Iraqi quagmire.
It's never been clear how much influence the PRC has on North Korea. Nor is it clear that the PRC actually wants to assists the US in defanging a NK nuclear threat.
If they did, what would be their price? Turning a US blind eye to the seizure of Taiwan? This would cause Japan immediately to rearm in a serious manner. Wouldn't be surprised if the Japanese amended their constitution to allow the possession of nuclear weapons, which is currently banned.
Probably the least dangerous [to non-Koreans] development would be economic collapse in the north, followed by mass starvation. Kim is overthrown or somehow convinced to call it quits and a "reformist" government immediately petitions the south for immediate reunification under whatever decent terms might be offered.
But I'm not counting on it.
Aren't we F****D Up enough in the Near East w/o this being added to our plate?
As MSD correctly points out, China ia rapidly developing other trading partnerships (e.g., pan-Asian) that will eventually take the place of its present economic dependence on the U.S.
Unlike the U.S., China is run by pragmatic, shrewd administrators who are taking the long-term view (i.e., ~20-30 years), as opposed to the George W. administration, who are now almost exclusively focussed on avoiding a new round of indictments by Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald.
Already the Chinese has determined that their dollar reserves are a diminishing asset. To China, it was a huge slap-in-the-face that their recent bid for UNOCAL was turned down by the U.S. because we judged it as a strategic asset. In response, they've uncoupled their currency (Yuan) from the dollar, which will have the net effect of further devaluing the dollar. China has moved ahead aggressively to secure oil reserves from countries such as Canada and Venezuela.
In search of larger markets with cheap labor global trade has been beneficial to us as consumers but the flip side has been the steady export of blue collar & white collar jobs steadily shrinking the middle class that largely sustains the economy.The question is how long can this process continue without sinking the economy into a full scale depression, or worse yet,an inflationary depression? China trade is forging ahead with far east countries and could withstand the shock...can we?
The truth is, there is no longer anything that can prevent, over an extended period of time, a great "evening up" which will assfuck many who aree illprepared for it.
Our society is probably the most pampered and dependant of any I can think of so we will take the hardest hits...
Not a panacea, but as long as they buy oil fron Canada and Venezuela they're not buying oil from the Near East/Persian Gulf, and we're not [unwittingly] protecting the flow of oil to a potential[?] rival[?]. But it's little enough to console us and cold comfort at best.
Re UNOCAL sale, it might have been handled more diplomatically but I don't see he US anytime soon being able to buy any asset the PRC deems 'strategic" Unless we somehow pull off a miracle beyond comprehension and buy Taiwan from the PRC [even though it's never really been clear that Imperial China had title to Formosa [as it was formerly known].
And another consideration is - class divisions. The only Americans who will benefit from global trade as producers [workers] will be those who already possess middle class educations and skill-sets. I think it will be a thing of the past for the Ameircan worker to experience upward social mobility within his/her working lifetime unless he's already middle class and manages to become upper middle class. As for working class, lower middle class and the rest, life will become increasingly more difficult, and little or no social safety net to catch them. I shudder to think of the effect on these peoples' families and especially their children, as the kiddies see mom and pop kill themselves working and no discernable improvement in their lifestyles. And the macro effect ofthis on several generations over time. If you're looking at something that might radically transform US politics i think we've founfd it here.
your talking to a guy who backed a guy who thougtht trading weapons secrets for campaign cash was a good idea. Don't hold your breath on him being quick on the uptake RE UNOCAL....
good thing we off loaded that pesky old steel industrie eh?
I think the globalization of labor, what the economist Stephen Roach calls global labor arbitrage, is already hitting hard at those with middle-class educations and skill sets in the U.S.
It's been almost 20 years now since blue-collar jobs started their inexorable march off-shores. At the time, the mantra (from both GOP and Demos) was not to worry. Even though these were mostly top-end manufacturing jobs with excellent benefits, the chant was that higher-end technical jobs would be secure.
As indicated, however, in the George Monbiot essay (see website), entitled "The Flight to India":
"...If you live in a rich nation in the English-speaking world, and most of your work involves a computer or a telephone, don’t expect to have a job in five years’ time. Almost every large company which relies upon remote transactions is starting to dump its workers and hire a cheaper labour force overseas...."
As far as I can tell, the 'global labor arbitrage' consists largely of multinational corporations going wherever they can squeeze labor the most.
true enough- hopefully the transformation will be gradual and peaceful. It's becoming increasingly questionable if even a college education is sufficient to maintain a middle-class lifestyle.I shudder to think of the consequences! Oh well,isn't disorder the natural state of the cosmos?
I agree that a good case could be made against the sale of UNOCAL to China, namely that it is an important strategic asset for the U.S.
The problem, however, is that by us borrowing so much from China, we have placed ourselves in the role of the 'servant'. The denial of the UNOCAL sale tells China, in no certain terms, that we are 'devaluing' their U.S. dollars and bonds, so that they are not worth nearly as much as they thought. Piss them off too much, and they could flood the currency markets with dollars. Wouldn't it hurt the Chinese to do this? Probably. Would it hurt the U.S. more than the Chinese. Again, probably.
On the issue of the U.S. purchasing Taiwan from the PRC. If you look at our current accounts deficit (i.e., trade deficit, government debt etc.), the only way the U.S. could do that would be if China lent us the money. Doubt that will happen anytime soon.
Didn't they piously claim that globalization would lift the living standard of the third world? It sure did, but it will take either the taming of greed or achieving a uniform living standard worldwide.What happens in-between is an open question....
I didn't know that using up all of the world's resources was necessarily a 21st (not 20th, BTW) century virtue.
Wasn't it just a few days ago that George W. was recommending that we use less oil?
And also by the way, if China's administrators are not shrewd and pragmatic and ours are, why are we borrowing buckets full of money from them -- instead of the other way around.
Here's something from the Old Testament, Book of Proverbs:
22:7 "...The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender...."
Or, are you faith-based brethren, now attempting to rewrite the Bible?
Would the PRC be willing to endure the losses to itself and it's people to hurt the US by offloading the dollars and US gov't debt it currently holds? Common sense sez no, but i've come to believe that common sense is pretty rare a commodity in life, and rarer still in any discussion re politics.
Purchasing Taiwan was just a fanciful notion, not meant to be taken seriously.
The question of US debt has been with us since Ronnie Reagan and at that time the problem was Japan holding so many US gov't securities. Nothing really bad re foreign policy happened there, can we hope history repeats itself? And an we target India as the next sucker to finance our debt? And what about the oil exporting countries in the Gulf? No blood for oil? How about no protection without debt? Maybe the Traqis...?
There's disorder and there's disorder. Any disorder caused by man is something we should try to remedy or at the least protect ourselves from the consequences of. Aggrevating internal social divisions as a consequence of our belief in a particular economic system [i.e. global capitalism with porous int'l borders and relatively unrestricted trade in goods, services and a relatively free movement of people and labor] is a choice, with consequences both positive and negative. While we enjoy the benefits of the positive we must act to mnimize the consequences of the negative. Or reconsider our choice re adoption of the economic system?
On a personal note, I hold several credit cards with Chase. They are relentless about calling their cardholders with silly promotions and the like. In the last year or so, coincidental with the previous prez campaign where outsourcing overseas was briefly an issue, i've recieved at least 10 calls of this nature, and every one was a person with a heavy and obious Indian accent. I can't balme them. This paricular job - telephone solicitor? - is considered a lousy one here in the US, but it's just a tip of the iceberg. I think the only way to be safe in the future is to have an MD, an MBA and at least an MA in something computer/info technology related. Curious as to what we'll be like in 2050. Will it be possible to stay in scholl until retirement age and never work?
I don't think that there are hard numbers on the impact of outsourcing here in the U.S., but it wouldn't be surprising if it was a major factor as to why wages have not risen here in the last five years. And this at a time that U.S. productivity and CEO compensation have both climbed dramatically.
My own outsourcing story focusses on a five-year old Dell LCD monitor that suddenly developed horizontal striping, overlayed wherever there were black characters on the screen. The Dell service rep was from India, and diagnosed it as being due to a faulty screen. He directed me to sales (another Indian rep), and they sold me a high quality replacement, with almost next-day delivery. A third rep from Dell (also from India), followed up to see if I was satisfied. I almost regretted telling her that, although I could see that the new monitor was excellent, the problem still remained (turned out, it was due to a faulty video card). I told her that it was an example of the operation succeeding and the patient dying.
Would this have happened with domestic service. Possibly, maybe even probably. But with the Indian reps, I decided not to follow-up with a complaint, and instead got it fixed locally.
As to whether it may be possible to specialize/educate sufficiently for workers in the U.S. to not get displaced by foreign workers. You might not be safe, even with a higher education such as a M.D. degree. For example, examination of X-rays is being outsourced to foreign radiologists. Moreover, actual diagnoses are increasingly conducted over the web by compu-Docs. Even research and development for drugs is being outsourced overseas, which is not surprising given the hostility of the George W. administration to science. Once the U.S. was preeminent in science and technology, but no longer.
So if we're no longer manufacturing anything in the U.S., and not supporting science and technology, what is it again that the U.S. is doing to make a living? Selling life insurance, banking services, real estate? And is that a sustainable economic model?
Yes, I'd completely forgotten about prisons, one of the great growth industries in California and the rest of the nation.
Solutions are tough to come by as you know, but I think that people are starting to realize that there is a real problem - always the hardest step to take.
To some extent, I think that the U.S. economy has been partially immunized by the inflated/bubble real estate market. People have been able to sustain their lifestyle (more-or-less) by taking on more debt, through easy to obtain equity loans. However, if the real estate market does indeed burst (or even just leak for years), it may just wake people up to how much wealth/power in the U.S. has been concentrated in the hands of the few.
I'm not sure where CNBC etc. gets all of these commentators (Cato, Heritage, American Enterprise Institute etc.?) telling us like a mantra about what a great economy we have. Most people I know are stretched pretty thin.
Re flat wages, you've also got to consider [1] the impact of illegal immiration, which competes with and severely disadvantages the weakest part of the US labor force [the unskilled and lesser skilled segments of the work force], [2] exerts downward pressures on wage rates for ALL workers, and [3] the growing impotence of the almost comatose US labor movement, hard-pressed even to maintain the gains it has made in the last 3/4 of a century.
Productivity has steadily increased for at least the last 15 years after a period of about 20 years of stagnant growth. [Remember in the 70s when that was A Problem Urgently In Need of a Solution? Be careful what you wish for]. So, more and more work is being done with less and less workers. Labor tends not to be a sellers' market under these conditions.
Obscene exec comp? Gee, that's been the case since maybe the storied Robber Barons of The Gilded Age [see, Matthew Josephson, "The Robber Barrons" it's dated but still delightful].
Yeah, exactly what will be the shape of the US economy as these trends continue? Supposedly, as foreign countries become higher income, they will have $$$ to buy lots of value-added goods and services in which the US economy specializes. I'm starting to have my doubts.
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