ya, and what country is that from? I bet my copy of sins that it's not from a western country.

some bad leardership will slow america down utill it falls and the jelly bean death star kills us all orders by chuck norurs.

Sorry that was my brother how wrote this.

Oh lord, what is this world coming to... you and I agree on something
wanna see a fasist in action? go chck this thred out
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/310739

[quote]Back on topic, many people have pointed out the vast foreign debt of the USA as a weakness. However there is a school of thought amongst the asian financial community, (particularly China and HKSAR) that borrowing money works out better for the USA and worse for China.
As the theory goes, China, which holds a trillion in bonds from the USA, is at severe risk of devaluation of the currency and thus of the bonds they hold. The currency devalues when the USA prints more money or when people stop buying the bonds (very simplified explanation, some finance major please correct any mistakes). China is the largest buyer of bonds and the logic goes that if China stops buying, the bonds they currently hold will devalue, as everyone else will stop buying (because they will devalue). Thus, China is in a position where it must keep lending money to the USA to stop losing on their current loans (ie, being shafted). The best solution for China to not lose is for the loans they give to the USA to improve their economy so the bonds they hold become valuable again, so it becomes a win-win (really a small gains-big win) situation.
Derivatives of this theory go to say that this is one of the reasons for their massive overseas and military investments and the Chain-of-Pearls strategy, to convert the bonds they hold into something less likely to depreciate. The Chain of Pearls strategy for those who haven't heard is a string of Chinese funded ports and bases all along the route to the middle east to safeguard their oil supplies. The significance of this is that it is an opportunity for them to quietly get rid of the bonds they hold so in case the USA does the stupid thing of spending their loan on more carriers or wars, China can cut their losses and have some power to resist a belligerent American strategy.
All that being said, it is only one of the many economic theories, but one thing most are sure of is that America insists on going down the path of Military Keynesianism (the belief that military spending will provide sufficient economic stimulus), the future does not look good for anyone.[quote]
sorry for quoting myself but I thought I might spread this interesting theory to complement Aasch's observation on todays geopolitical situation.
Your theory seems to describe the USA following the path of military Keynesianism, but I do not agree with your point that the USA will resort to "hot" wars with large powers to prop up its economy. One idea that Americans have was that fighting and winning a war will not harm, but significantly improve ones economy. This idea originates from WWII where the USA emerged as a superpower over the ruined remains of her former enemies and while it does have its points, it has been largely negated by the deployment of nuclear arms and the fact that for the USA, the war was comparatively brief and not as costly in terms of lives and infrastructure as everyone else (yes flame me all you want for desecrating your sacrifice but you now you casualties pales comparison to numbers and proportion). People might say that I am naive for believing nuclear weapons will deter war, but in this Aasch's case (USA vs China nuclear exchange) I am saying that the cost of such an exchange will far outweigh the gains of reducing a perceived rival to ruin. It is true that in such an exchange, the USA will "win" the exchange simply using its strategic and Naval assets to completely destroy Chinas military assets. Many don't know but the USA's nuclear arsenal is primarily counterforce, ie designed to destroy military forces and nukes. Cities are no longer a primary target but a secondary retaliation target should the inital counterforce attack fails or the USA is pre emptively attacked.
China on the other hand possesses a countervalue arsenal designed for a retaliatory strike against cities. This is designed to deter a counterforce first-strike, for example from the united states, as though their military might be severely crippled, the enemy will suffer far greater losses than are gained by defeating China. A hot war by the USA to destroy their rival China will result in a great loss of civilian lives and infrastructure and little gained in terms of area of influence and access to resources. In a war of attrition in today's multipolar world the victor will likely be the countries which did not participate. This is why MAD is still the prevailing factor today. The more likely form of warfare between superpowers discussed by Military tacticians today is limited regional warfare like the Falklands where neither the Argentine mainland nor the British Isles themselves were attacked. No one seriously considers a ground war on mainland China nor an invasion of the continental USA as likely scenarios of the future. Americas conventional forces are not as powerful as many believe to bring the fight onto the Chinese mainland. Nor is China capable of fighting outside its borders for long. In the likely Taiwan scenario, even those in the US military admit that assistance will take too long to arrive to really rout an invasion, and for all the talk of "preserving freedom" of the current administration it is doubtful of whether it is simply talk or whether future administrations will continue that rhetoric. The powers that be consider Taiwan to be simply a strategically valuable territory in the region, but sell it to the people as a 'bastion of freedom'. On the flipside, the bearers of power in China consider Taiwan as an "Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier USS taiwan" which threatens to cut off their sea lanes at a whim, but I digress.
On the topic of the militarisation of space, it is true that the USA has announced a plan to do so and prevent anyone else from doing so. What many might remember was that China demonstrated their ASAT capabilities shortly afterwards under the pretence of destroying an old weather satellite of course, everyone condemned it as an unprovoked act of aggression, conveniently forgetting the USA's threatening declaration earlier. Of course, not to be outdone, the USA demonstrated their ASAT capabilities against an allegedly malfunctioning satellite which was an "environmental threat". Fortunately bullshit is not an environmental threat because of the amount generated by this ASAT nonsense. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that space assets are extremely vulnerable to ASAT weapons and have been criticised for their poor survivability, so weapons in space are an unlikely future.
As for the missile defense program or "Star Wars", it seems those idiots have finally fallen for their own trap. The missile dense program was an elaborate ruse designed to end the Cold War by causing the Soviet Union to spend itself to death. The plan worked but obviously somewhere along the line someone forgot about it and plans to spend their way to demise. Unless of course, they are using the same ruse against China. Things are looking interesting....

so, you think the US should destroy china to keep it's rank as a superpower?

or do you think that we could destroy china and stay a superpower?

Should?
Genocide again a billion people to prevent ourselves from losing a little power doesn't sound like a particularly good thing. Would seems to be the question, and I honestly don't know.

Could?
Destroy China... almost certainly. Would it prevent the U.S. from declining... highly unlikely. But that isn't really the point. The point is China's current position: If they challenge the U.S. directly, they are destroyed, and what happens to the U.S. afterward doesn't effect them much.

Which is why a military engagement is fundamentally impossible: the aggressor cannot benefit. So, we resign ourselves to economic struggles.

Of course it will, its a matter of time. Its in so much debt its already in decline. People often assume superpower is the one with the most military/nukes.(Those people are usually from Texas or more south from what i understand)
But it seems strange in this age to be thinking in terms military power, as if china and usa would fight a war for the one that gets #1, you wont get a match and then a scoreboard will list the winning country, it will just slowly become the main country for getting entertainment/pop culture and things like that.
I'd say my top pet peeve with ignorance in america is how they say things like "the most free country" or things like that. Some things i hear on the news like email/phone surveillance and torture prisons give the idea of the most oppresive environment ever.

The US's debt as a % of its GDP is less than most European nations or Japan.  It's all relative. 

Technically speaking, the US is still currently on a relative ascension relative to the G7 average when one looks at economic and military might.

China, Japan, etc. are very very far behind economically and of course militarily they're not even on the charts.

All this hubris one way or the other about nation states is pretty baffling to me to be honest. Where one was born was a matter of random chance.

 

I just read an excellent article about the economics side of the great demise of the USA.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23681221-20261,00.html

I suggest some of you read it.

While debt does kill personal wealth, it is what the modern economy thrives on. You seem to be confusing "good personal economic sense" with "good macroeconomic sense": it's great to save but if people saved like you are advocating modern financial systems would collapse. People aren't going to outright buy a house or a car (well, the latter perhaps if it's junk). Heck, people even put payments on appliances. The way people buy big-ticket items is based on short-term personal loans, and that's a given considering the way people earn money (ie through monthly or biweekly paychecks).

US wont die ever.

Why?


Not because you are powerful or economically vital (you are at the moment btw) but because the way society has evolved these last fifty years war among developed countries, much less worldpowers are no longer feasibly. The world economies are so integrated that war will be too expensive even if one or both parties finds away to avoid the "mutual destruction assured" from nuclear weapons.

It is however quite likely that China (and to lesser) extent India is going to dominate the world economically.

The question is whether we have an enviromental breakdown before or after that.