USA no longer primary power

[robmcg]

After WW2 there was only one industrial powerful country left.

The USA. And ended stand off what what America calls diplomacy which stopped complete disaster and stands for freedom.
But it inherited the role of being 'boss'.

No longer the best producer of almost anything... others will do it cheaper.

China has started to pump money in US banks.

Apart from military, you guys are inefficient fat this is the way where US "decomcracy" is... you kill more in annual gun deaths than in Iraq.

please explain...

[Eric]

After WW2 there was only one industrial powerful country left.

The USA. And ended stand off what what America calls diplomacy which stopped complete disaster and stands for freedom.
But it inherited the role of being 'boss'.

No longer the best producer of almost anything... others will do it cheaper.

China has started to pump money in US banks.

Apart from military, you guys are inefficient fat this is the way where US "decomcracy" is... you kill more in annual gun deaths than in Iraq.

please explain...

Well, to begin with, cheaper doesn't mean better - just less expensive. I could, for instance, grow some mighty cheap cotton if I had me some slaves to do the work.... and, if that were legal, then I could sell the cotton (or even finished clothes) for a lot less than cotton/clothes produced by those not employing forced labor.

China's workers aren't quite slaves; but they are damn close to it. They have no political rights to speak of and are forced (in order to exist) to work for a pittance under cruel conditions for very long hours, etc. Abuse is common - and they have no recourse.

The notion that we can engage in "free" trade with such a system is ridiculous. What "we" (that is, large corporations and the elites who reap the majority of the benefit) can do is exploit this "labor arbitrage" mercilessly - leveraging short-sighted and (frankly) dumb American consumers against their own best interests.

"Free" trade economic polices and corporate statism have ruined the US - along with a ravenous "defense" industry that requires an equally massive government and obnoxiously high taxes to support it...

Just for openers... .

[chiph]

Maybe in some banks. But China just declined to invest $2bn into CitiGroup.

Chip H.

[robmcg]

China's workers aren't quite slaves; but they are damn close to it. They have no political rights to speak of and are forced (in order to exist) to work for a pittance under cruel conditions for very long hours, etc. Abuse is common - and they have no recourse.

Excuse me but capitalism and America grew out of labor and resoursces, brains and capital.

This meant slave-like work for most immigrants, such as those who built your RRs., and eventually most Americans had a fair standard of life and after WW2 you were the main undamaged production house for the western world.

Now you are not, even though you are prett damn good.

How can you rail against Chinese workers' conditions when your own country was built in much the same way?

[damen]

because our 230-some year old country cleaned up its act.
How old is China as a nation?

[robmcg]

because our 230-some year old country cleaned up its act.
How old is China as a nation?

China has many aspects.
The industrial age for China is only about 15 years.

US wealth is largely from no major wars, abundant resources, and a Euro-sourced energy and know-how and it's good, especially it's fierce protection of individual freedoms. I'm just not so sure the fist-in-the-table diplomacy is the best, and the cultural stuff? We don't want much of it. Equally, if GWB hadn't invaded in 2003 all those plans and boats would have rusted in dock... so h made the call. It is now being dressed by media as "fighting for freedom" etc but basically if you have a fantastic army naval airforce you need an enemy, of which there are few in the world today, 9/11 notwithstanding.

China may be what Eric derides as a command economy but it has not launched its power on the rest of the world, it has limited its population growth and appears more ready to trade than to war.

Yours,

Rob,
Lead Drummer,
New Age Amish Jive Band

[swamprat]

China's workers aren't quite slaves; but they are damn close to it. They have no political rights to speak of and are forced (in order to exist) to work for a pittance under cruel conditions for very long hours, etc. Abuse is common - and they have no recourse.

Excuse me but capitalism and America grew out of labor and resoursces, brains and capital.

This meant slave-like work for most immigrants, such as those who built your RRs., and eventually most Americans had a fair standard of life and after WW2 you were the main undamaged production house for the western world.

Now you are not, even though you are prett damn good.

How can you rail against Chinese workers' conditions when your own country was built in much the same way?

Excuse me, but America was once a great country that did have its share of poor people, but offered the greatest opportunities the greatest number of people to rise out of it. Name a country in this world that didn't have an equivalent percentage of poor folks in the same historical frame that you are talking about.

There is no way that you can compare the United States with the People's Republic of China. Never.

Another thing.. Euro sourced energy??? When did they ever sink an oil well except for the North Sea?

We still produce like 30 percent of our own oil. That's the highest percentage for any industrialized nation in the world save for possibly the UK.

It is true that China is not launching its power on the rest of the world. They are quietly waiting for us to go broke and they will be in our houses and we will be on the streets. See how neat that works out?

[Eric]

"Excuse me but capitalism and America grew out of labor and resoursces, brains and capital."

I'm not sure what that means; can you be more specific?

"This meant slave-like work for most immigrants, such as those who built your RRs., and eventually most Americans had a fair standard of life and after WW2 you were the main undamaged production house for the western world."

But you keep missing the big point - which is that the US was not a police state; that it had laws (however imperfect) that acknowledged individual rights.

China does not have these things. It is an enormous difference.


"How can you rail against Chinese workers' conditions when your own country was built in much the same way?"

First, see above. Second, even if we allow for past abuses such as slavery - that doesn't make it right today, does it?

[Eric]

"US wealth is largely from no major wars..."

You may not realize this, but we had a massively destructive Civil War that devastated the South; in which a massive percentage of the nation's young men (more than 600,000 out of a nation of around 30 million) were killed that absolutely (on a per capita basis) is the equivalent of anything that took place in Europe.

Just fyi -

[jdm124]

... eventually most Americans had a fair standard of life and after WW2 you were the main undamaged production house for the western world.
...

The undamaged production base was no blessing for the US in the long run. We clung to our ancient factories and mills while our ex-enemies were building state of the art facilities on the sites we had conveniently prepared for them.

[robmcg]

Another thing.. Euro sourced energy??? When did they ever sink an oil well except for the North Sea?

We still produce like 30 percent of our own oil. That's the highest percentage for any industrialized nation in the world save for possibly the UK.

It is true that China is not launching its power on the rest of the world. They are quietly waiting for us to go broke and they will be in our houses and we will be on the streets. See how neat that works out?

Sorry, by "Euro-sourced energy" I mean Euro work ethic and knowhow...

but the energy stat is interesting. UK has just decided to invest in new-generation nuclear because North Sea oil is finite, just as was easily-reached coal.
Much debate in the House of Commons but it has passed... funding for new-generation nuke power.

[robmcg]

"US wealth is largely from no major wars..."

You may not realize this, but we had a massively destructive Civil War that devastated the South; in which a massive percentage of the nation's young men (more than 600,000 out of a nation of around 30 million) were killed that absolutely (on a per capita basis) is the equivalent of anything that took place in Europe.

Just fyi -

Actually I am very aware of the casualties in the US 1861-65. In numbers it's as bad or worse than WW1 in Europe. Mike Blanche used to remind me. JDM also with respect to the slaughter on the Western Front. I am well aware of the numbers of Americans who were killed in 1860-style 'charges'

We won't mention The Somme. Nor Verdun. Nor Ypres. Most of which were similar but presaged with a week of artilliery.

[robmcg]

"Excuse me but capitalism and America grew out of labor and resoursces, brains and capital."

I'm not sure what that means; can you be more specific?

"This meant slave-like work for most immigrants, such as those who built your RRs., and eventually most Americans had a fair standard of life and after WW2 you were the main undamaged production house for the western world."

But you keep missing the big point - which is that the US was not a police state; that it had laws (however imperfect) that acknowledged individual rights.

China does not have these things. It is an enormous difference.


"How can you rail against Chinese workers' conditions when your own country was built in much the same way?"

First, see above. Second, even if we allow for past abuses such as slavery - that doesn't make it right today, does it?

Individual rights are enshrined in the US Constitution, mostly about religion and trade. In China there are rights too, but they are much more subsumed to the common weal. I don't think it's fair to call Chinese workers "slaves", after the horrors of Mao's "Great Leap Forward" My point is that factory workers in Europe and America were until the 50s in Europe and post WW2 in the US working in similar conditions to Chinese workers today.

China is not good at religious "rights" nor general human rights when things get done like the Three Gorges but they are better at making things cheaply than the US. Their rapidly amassing wealth will filter into their nascent middle class, just as in Victorian England.

It is not an attack on the USA. If you want to take a moral standpoint you should support GWB in Iraq. Saddam was a butcher.

[robmcg]

... eventually most Americans had a fair standard of life and after WW2 you were the main undamaged production house for the western world.
...

The undamaged production base was no blessing for the US in the long run. We clung to our ancient factories and mills while our ex-enemies were building state of the art facilities on the sites we had conveniently prepared for them.

Same with Britain, which is now a nation of bed and breakfast proprieters.

What's with the opinion of others here that China is an evil enemy?

Shanghai is building a 300mpg MAGLEV railway and there are demonstrations in the streets.
Back in the C19th RRs were built and people were bought out of their homes or just thrown out...

For instance the English Midlands around 1900AD were producing so much wealth, on the back of cheap labour, that the "Great Central" built a railway into London to Marylebone against three direct competitors AND still made money. This would be like putting a hi-speed train into Manhatten to replace cars,

but in 1900AD RRs replaced horses and oxen in 2008AD people don't get excited by travelling at 60mph.

Why the anti-Chinese sentiment in the USA "they are taking us over"...?

[Eric]

"Individual rights are enshrined in the US Constitution, mostly about religion and trade."

You leave out some very important ones; viz - freedom of speech, of the press - which do not exist in China.

"In China there are rights too, but they are much more subsumed to the common weal."

That's a very "soft" way of putting it; you make it sound like British socialism! In fact, it is much "harder" - and tyrannical. You can be sentenced to hard time in prison merely for criticism of the government. Is this the sort of society we wish to "trade" with?

"I don't think it's fair to call Chinese workers "slaves", after the horrors of Mao's "Great Leap Forward" ...

I said not quite slaves; but the difference is one of degree, not kind.

"My point is that factory workers in Europe and America were until the 50s in Europe and post WW2 in the US working in similar conditions to Chinese workers today."

That's really not an accurate statement; American workers had it far better - certainly by the early 1920s. And as I mentioned before, even if we bring slavery into it, does that make China's treatment of its workers today excusable?

" If you want to take a moral standpoint you should support GWB in Iraq. Saddam was a butcher."

OK, but has our invasion improved things over there - or made them worse? By the most conservative estimates, the war has cost 100,000-plus lives so far; what level of butchery is morally superior? Iraq is still in a state of virtual paralysis; massive unemployment, only a few hours of electricity per day. Death squads in the street; random violence routine...

And I think you know as well as I that Saddam's treatment of his people had about as much to do with the real reasons for our invasion as "French" fries have to do with France.

Else, how do you explain the fact that we were buddy-buddy with ol' Saddam at the peak of his abuses - as when we helped him go after regime opponents and knowingly supplied him with chemical weapons precursors. Etc.

It's all bullshit; I think (hope!) you know that...

[robmcg]

While I agree about the Saddam thing, I disagree about the idea that China is a 'not free' society,

We have a lot of students here and Chinese tourists.

I stand by my comparison with Victorian England, and add that will be complexities because of the Web allow all kinds of views.

If you want free capitalism, it uses low wages to make profit. Always has.

>>That's really not an accurate statement; American workers had it far better - certainly by the early 1920s. And as I mentioned before, even if we bring slavery into it, does that make China's treatment of its workers today excusable? <<

US workers in, say, Ford, were in 1925 treated as s**t. High-wage economies as you have now will shrivel. That's how capitalism works. Chinese workers are treated poorly, but otherwise many would starve. Get thee back into the hills, guns at the ready for the 'yellow peril"

My neighbour has a daughter who married a Chinese man and had three kids and a daughter is now a a willowy beautiful half-Asian slender and at 13 yrs she already gets the asian hate thing.

It comes, alas, from the type of people who run V8s and call their wife "the missus". and perhaps they are the first to be threatened by cheap labour, but I know every angle of this down here; we educate Asians in our universities and tech., and these young kids get this hate stuff, and are poor and use the bus to get to tech or uni and

personally I think American fear of China is mostly because you do don't compete when you have workers who have wages and retirement plans which to put it bluntly are un-competitive, where they have family

[damen]

hrmm, that's interesting
I say this as someone who drives a great big american V8, but who also studies kung fu and very much would like to learn mandarin and visit china

or maybe I'm the exception that proves the rule?

[robmcg]

The Asian-US connect is complex.

The US might be a bit better at absorbing different cultures than almost any other country.

I think of that small state above Poland called Kone ing n s something which prefers command economy it remains in USSR style but has every freedom of the West.

I don't 'do' formally Iyengar Yoga but I practice it's principles, Martial arts are good but seem to be not that much different from the weightlifting I did for many years. I have seen and done great feats of strength. Could have toured the world on the disabled games circuit but preferred to run my lab alsation X for 10-mile runs and weightliftingand taking a cuppa tea with nurses at the Burwood SIU

[jdm124]

Why the anti-Chinese sentiment in the USA "they are taking us over"...?

I'm not so sure that there is an anti-Chinese sentiment in the US, at least not among those capable of independent thought. The Chinese are trying to bootstrap themselves into a first world standard of living and doing a pretty good job of it. Who can blame people for wanting to eat?

Then, I'm an unrepentant Sinophile so what good is my opinion?

[robmcg]

I'm not so sure that there is an anti-Chinese sentiment in the US, at least not among those capable of independent thought. The Chinese are trying to bootstrap themselves into a first world standard of living and doing a pretty good job of it. Who can blame people for wanting to eat?

Then, I'm an unrepentant Sinophile so what good is my opinion?

If the US has a recession there will be a degree of Xenophobia and Asia-bashing. It's not as if China does things perfectly, but my pint is that who amongst us is without blame?

Eric describes China as a command economy without freedom, but I think it a bit more complex. I don't know what the candidates are saying in Michigan.