China has a foot in the door of NATO's internal defence market

mapuc · 10-17-13, 04:16 PM

The reason to why I ask these questions is that in this program I mentioned in a thread above, this economist said something about a single country own more than 40 or was it 50 % of an another countries total (forgot the word)

and what if China has more than these 40 or 50 % of USA total....

what kind of claim can they have?

Markus

Oberon · 10-17-13, 04:51 PM

Not a great deal, because Chinas economy is so based around the US economy that if the US economy falls down the Chinese one falls right next to it, and they've got a lot more to lose from their economy falling over than the US has...well...ok, maybe not a LOT, but certainly a bit more, such as their entire governing elite and most of the progress of the last twenty years. The US on the other hand, it would go to pot but would probably be able to rebuild itself quicker than China would because the US has taken the slow and steady route to its current economic spot, whereas China has taken all the shortcuts and so its economy is propped up by twigs.

In regards to Taiwan...Skybird has a point in it eventually boiling down not to what the US wants but what it can do, eventually the US military is going to have to be cut back, and I mean cut back, to like half the spending it has right now, if not further, which means that US overseas involvement is going to really taper off. South Korea and Japan are slowly preparing for this by building up their regional military forces, so that South Korea can counter the DPRK and Japan can hold its own, I expect that Japan will within the next two decades start to examine Article Nine of the Japanese Constitution with an eye to, if not remove it entirely, modify it to allow enough military force to defend Japans territory against any Chinese aggression. Australia will also likely look to work with Indonesia to create a military buffer zone along the Southern Pacific. The US will also work with Australia and Japan to keep US bases in the area as well as the Guam and Diego Garcia facilities, but forces elsewhere in the world may be reduced, certainly in Europe they have and already have been reduced, perhaps also in the Middle East as the Shale Oil boost takes hold, although whether Shale Oil will be enough to allow the US to disregard the Middle East is another matter entirely.
China will continue to exercise soft power, they are very good at it, I can't see them pushing the US too far too early, again I reiterate that the latter half of this decade, and early into the next will see the Chinese military start to assert itself more, probably just as the US hits its big financial problems. It's possible Beijing will be able to persuade Taiwan to rejoin the fold peacefully, perhaps through a similar deal to Hong Kong, once Taiwan knows that the US cannot defend it any more, certainly this would be the preferred option for Beijing, but we will see.
But I will be very surprised to see China take any major action over Taiwan before 2018.

mapuc · 10-17-13, 05:12 PM

^ Thank you Oberon. You could be wright the only things I know about economy is how to balance my own home-economy.

Al most every of these economist they interview in Danish and Swedish news program say about the same

USA is using more money than they have or as one of them put it, last time USA was in trouble.

Imagine you got 100 dollars from your mom and you use 110 dollars every week these extra 10 dollars you lent from your friends and you do so every week-sooner or later it's going to...

But what do I know and I could have misunderstood these economist

Markus

Skybird · 10-17-13, 06:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oberon

Not a great deal, because Chinas economy is so based around the US economy that if the US economy falls down the Chinese one falls right next to it, and they've got a lot more to lose from their economy falling over than the US has...well...ok, maybe not a LOT, but certainly a bit more, such as their entire governing elite and most of the progress of the last twenty years. The US on the other hand, it would go to pot but would probably be able to rebuild itself quicker than China would because the US has taken the slow and steady route to its current economic spot, whereas China has taken all the shortcuts and so its economy is propped up by twigs.

This is the belief that is very popular today, because it allows the believer to assume that all things will go well and China will play ball and be stupid like it is expected.

But consider this: 1.3 trillion in bonds that every day lose value due to inflation, financial suppression, money printing and all that. The party holding these bonds looses millions and millions in buying power - EVERY SINGLE DAY. And with every escapade Washington performs like just now, or by making the uber-Keynesian super money printer Yellen the new head of the Fed, and by printing money and printing and keep printing on, the chance for the collapse of the ponzi scheme that it all is, are rising. Not to mention that the only American answer to its debts is - to make more debts.

But you cannot spend your way out of debts. You just cant.

How could you seriously assume the Chinese will play by these insane, suicidal rules at their costs, forever? How could you ignore the many signals from that country that they work on unlinking from the dollar, reducing their bonds held, and forming an economic an fiscal order that is dominated by them?

I predict that the Chinese sooner or later will give a very hard wakeup call to the world.

There is a known sociopsychological dilemma that plays a role in economics as well. It is that in a situation were many investments have been made, actors tend to argue and think that one cannot afford to give it up, because then all the invested things would be lost, and so the conclusion is that one needs to carry on supporting the system, and invest more and more in an attempt to keep it alive, else one would loose all one has already pumped into the system. However, the current situation already costs the Chinese a fortune every day, and the situation is such that it becomes destabilised not just by China's interests to free itself from this drowning man threatening to pull it down along with him, but by the devaluing and eroding of the fiscal system and the currencies themselves.

In the end it is not the Chinese actions of the future that dig our fiscal graves. We dig them ourselves. And we have build a whole industry about digging them.

If that is not morbid.

In the end, no wishful thinking, no economic plan and no law suite ever has managed to distort nature's ways, and since the market cannot be planned because the ways by which it reaches its natural price indexing by participants and conditions of trade cannot be humanly understood and described no matter how much empiric data you collect, all such theories must fail, and if you have no theory that functions, you better leave the flow of things to the flow of things. Not to mention that humans act by their own motives that no economic theory ever could measure, describe, calculate into formulas.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design." - A. F. Hayek.

Oberon · 10-17-13, 06:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skybird

This is the belief that is very popular today, because it allows the believer to assume that all things will go well and China will play ball and be stupid like it is expected.

But consider this: 1.3 trillion in bonds that every day lose value due to inflation, financial suppression, money printing and all that. The party holding these bonds looses millions and millions in buying power - EVERY SINGLE DAY. And with every escapade Washington performs like just now, or by making the uber-Keynesian super money printer Yellen the new head of the Fed, and by printing money and printing and keep printing on, the chance for the collapse of the ponzi scheme that it all is, are rising. Not to mention that the only American answer to its debts is - to make more debts.

But you cannot spend your way out of debts. You just cant.

How could you seriously assume the Chinese will play by these insane, suicidal rules at their costs, forever? How could you ignore the many signals from that country that they work on unlinking from the dollar, reducing their bonds held, and forming an economic an fiscal order that is dominated by them?

I predict that the Chinese sooner or later will give a very hard wakeup call to the world.

There is a known sociopsychological dilemma that plays a role in economics as well. It is that in a situation were many investments have been made, actors tend to argue and think that one cannot afford to give it up, because then all the invested things would be lost, and so the conclusion is that one needs to carry on supporting the system, and invest more and more in an attempt to keep it alive, else one would loose all one has already pumped into the system. However, the current situation already costs the Chinese a fortune every day, and the situation is such that it becomes destabilised not just by China's interests to free itself from this drowning man threatening to pull it down along with him, but by the devaluing and eroding of the fiscal system and the currencies themselves.

In the end it is not the Chinese actions of the future that dig our fiscal graves. We dig them ourselves. And we have build a whole industry about digging them.

If that is not morbid.

In the end, no wishful thinking, no economic plan and no law suite ever has managed to distort nature's ways, and since the market cannot be planned because the ways by which it reaches its natural price indexing by participants and conditions of trade cannot be humanly understood and described no matter how much empiric data you collect, all such theories must fail, and if you have no theory that functions, you better leave the flow of things to the flow of things. Not to mention that humans act by their own motives that no economic theory ever could measure, describe, calculate into formulas.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design." - A. F. Hayek.

I don't disagree, but I think that the timeline is different. Right now China is moving towards a more balanced economy, it was, if I recall correctly, one of the chief goals of the 2012 five year plan, to boost internal demand for products which are currently sold to export markets. To do that they really have to do something about the massive gulf between the rich and the poor in China in order to avoid a second Communist uprising which is something the Deng Xiaoping generation are terrified of, a second Mao. The last thing they need is someone telling the poor people of the countryside that they need to rise up and overthrow the rich people of the coastal cities, right now they can keep them happy with the right amount of PR and government grants, but with the economy slowing down, that money isn't going to last forever, so it really has to be wisely spent away from the cities and redeveloping the countryside. This is one of the reasons there's been so much upset in the villages about property redevelopment, because whole families are usually bought out of their homes/shacks which are then torn down and more modern homes built in their place. This brings to the west stories such as the man who defended his farm with a homemade cannon (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ow-cannon.html) and the man who had a road built around his house (http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/n...-couples-house) usually because the housing bubble has meant that the government is currently offering lower prices than the market value for the houses that they're knocking down, so naturally the more obstinate people of China are telling them where to put their money, these people are often known as 'nails' and there's an old Asian proverb 'The nail that sticks up gets hammered down'.
So, whilst appearing strong and invincible, the Chinese economy is actually very precarious right now. Why should they continue to fund the US, I hear you ask? Well, that is a good question and certainly Beijing IS looking to use its powerful soft power to encourage a move away from the dollar in global trading, they've been talking about it for some time in fact, and it's only because the US has been able to project a strong front in return that no-one has taken the prospect seriously...however, the strong facade of the US is in pieces and so I expect within the next few years the conversation will come up more frequently, at the moment though there are not many good alternatives to the dollar, but I think that something will come from the BRICS that will be put into play, or they might just try for Gold if they're desperate enough to get out from the dollar.
This takes time, especially if they want to avoid a total collapse of the Chinese economy, and make no mistake, it's something that they are no doubt laying the framework for right now, but their primary focus is preventing a second Mao from putting all the progress of the past thirty years down the drain, and to do that they need to keep the masses in the countryside quiet and happy, and China has a lot of countryside, so this is something that's going to take at least five to ten years.
Of course, that is providing that the cracks in the Three Gorges Dam don't get any bigger and do to China what the supervolcano in Yellowstone threatens to do to America.

Skybird · 10-17-13, 05:16 PM

Well, 1.3 trillion in state bonds held by China, 1.1 trillion held by Japan, compared to 17-19 trillion in explicit US debts (depending on which debt clock you want to believe in) - do the math.

If you throw 5% of US state bonds onto the market in one short period of time, you cause an avalanche that would wash Western finances away. Not to mention the cataclysmic loss of trust in the currency. No paper money - which is nothing else but another name for "note of debt" - can survive without the players falling to the illusion that these pieces of paper actually represent a value that already is secured for the player. In other words, most players - people, everybody - believe these leaves of paper were the same like gold and silver coins, real property, material resources.

That illusion will collapse, paper money illusions always must collapse, due to their illusory nature. And that hammer is falling hard down on us. We can already feel the shockwave of compressed air that precedes the solid head of the hammer while it slams down on us. 15 more weeks, maybe 15 months or even 15 years - everything is possible, imo. Certain I think is one thing, however: it will not be another half of a century, or even longer. The Eastern economies were in ruins already in the early 70s, but it lasted another 1.5 - 2 decades before they ultimately collapsed, and when it did, it all went very quickly and surprised everybody.

The Chinese claim that they have against Am erica, doe snot help them, since America just gives sh!t about the mess it does to the rest of the economic globe. The Chinese will not invade America. But they will stop financing the newly accumulating debts, and will stop caring for the cataclysm they cause by getting rid of their US papers - that in principle are good only for paper recycling and making toilet paper of it. They may not have the military power to overthrow the US, but they have the power to slowly strangle it, or to make it gasping for air so much that the US cannot afford to stick to its many global claims and treaty obligations - namely Taiwan. Whatever the US does, it does it on tic. And if it does not find new creditors, than this living on tic comes to an end, and everything collapses, the whole house of lies. A house build on sand may have strong walls, and high watchtowers, and glamorous saloons and several safe rooms with hidden treasure chests - it still is a house build on sand.

A good book on it is by Detlev Schlichter, it is available both in English and German, here is the English link. The author also runs a website.

LINK: Paper Money Collapse: The Folly of Elastic Money and the Coming Monetary Breakdown.

And a site where plenty of free stuff is to be discovered and more names can be learned about:

LINK: LvMI

mapuc · 10-17-13, 05:25 PM

Thank you once again and this time I'm glad for your in-deep answer to me.

If I have calculated it correctly China "own" about 8 % of USA total debt.

I also what you wrote earlier about a blind leading another blind(Japan-USA)

You know, it is not only USA, Japan, Greece almost every country in the western world is up over their head in debt to some other countries.

Either they come up with some solution or the whole thing is going to fall apart.

Markus

Skybird · 10-17-13, 05:42 PM

The two most likely possible outcomes are a state-enforced debt-based currency in a fully planned economy like we have seen in the Warsaw Pact states - this will happen if the elites are strong enough to enforce the submission of the crowds; else there will be a currency reform, which is the euphemistic term for expropriating most of the possessing people, hyperinflation, a massive depression - collapse, in other words. I would wish that after that they would return to an equivalent to the gold standard, some substantial form of real, of commodity money, but history tells us that the same mistakes are repeated again and again, and even more easily so if the crowds are being told sweet lies - leading them on the path towards paper money again. And without paper money, neither plutocratic elites nor democratic politicians can exist, so they definitely have no interest to return to a gold standard. As a matter of fact it was for the selfishness of these antisocial parasites that they destroyed the gold standard and turned things to paper money. And that was not just the end of Bretton Woods, or the time of WWI - that was already a motive in the American Civil War.

A lot of things need to be changed, not just economically and financially. Talking about nothing else but reorganizing the whole cultural and communal forms of living, communal organizing and administrating. What is needed is a totally different world, nothing less. That's why I am extremely pessimistic that we or the next coming two generations will really go that way. I think they will just repeat the same old patterns and schemes that we just see collapsing.

There is nothing new under the sun - except what has been forgotten. - Santayana

Skybird · 10-17-13, 06:10 PM

Any comments on the Chinese missile system and Turkey's deal, btw?

mapuc · 10-17-13, 06:16 PM

Forgot to mentioned it every time we discuss economy and our debt.

Well maybe it is a unattainable dream some of us have? Even Gene Roddenberry had it

A world without money, as it is the world of Star trek.

Markus

periunder · 10-18-13, 11:05 PM

I'm not a fan of drones, It will gradually take more and more jobs away from career soldiers and people who have no other hope than join the military.

Being in the military can be a dangerous occupation, but in the US the ratio of those killed to those wounded in action has shifted drastically in favor of actually surviving the war. Manufactured limbs and other impressive advances in our health industry also make the military a very sound financial employment opportunity in the US. There is no question the respect and government treatment of US personnel has skyrocketed since the 70's.

Technology is the greatest threat to our working wages.

10-17-13, 05:16 PM	#6
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 42,676 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	Well, 1.3 trillion in state bonds held by China, 1.1 trillion held by Japan, compared to 17-19 trillion in explicit US debts (depending on which debt clock you want to believe in) - do the math. If you throw 5% of US state bonds onto the market in one short period of time, you cause an avalanche that would wash Western finances away. Not to mention the cataclysmic loss of trust in the currency. No paper money - which is nothing else but another name for "note of debt" - can survive without the players falling to the illusion that these pieces of paper actually represent a value that already is secured for the player. In other words, most players - people, everybody - believe these leaves of paper were the same like gold and silver coins, real property, material resources. That illusion will collapse, paper money illusions always must collapse, due to their illusory nature. And that hammer is falling hard down on us. We can already feel the shockwave of compressed air that precedes the solid head of the hammer while it slams down on us. 15 more weeks, maybe 15 months or even 15 years - everything is possible, imo. Certain I think is one thing, however: it will not be another half of a century, or even longer. The Eastern economies were in ruins already in the early 70s, but it lasted another 1.5 - 2 decades before they ultimately collapsed, and when it did, it all went very quickly and surprised everybody. The Chinese claim that they have against Am erica, doe snot help them, since America just gives sh!t about the mess it does to the rest of the economic globe. The Chinese will not invade America. But they will stop financing the newly accumulating debts, and will stop caring for the cataclysm they cause by getting rid of their US papers - that in principle are good only for paper recycling and making toilet paper of it. They may not have the military power to overthrow the US, but they have the power to slowly strangle it, or to make it gasping for air so much that the US cannot afford to stick to its many global claims and treaty obligations - namely Taiwan. Whatever the US does, it does it on tic. And if it does not find new creditors, than this living on tic comes to an end, and everything collapses, the whole house of lies. A house build on sand may have strong walls, and high watchtowers, and glamorous saloons and several safe rooms with hidden treasure chests - it still is a house build on sand. A good book on it is by Detlev Schlichter, it is available both in English and German, here is the English link. The author also runs a website. LINK: Paper Money Collapse: The Folly of Elastic Money and the Coming Monetary Breakdown. And a site where plenty of free stuff is to be discovered and more names can be learned about: LINK: LvMI __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert. Last edited by Skybird; 10-17-13 at 05:46 PM.

10-17-13, 05:42 PM	#8
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 42,676 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	The two most likely possible outcomes are a state-enforced debt-based currency in a fully planned economy like we have seen in the Warsaw Pact states - this will happen if the elites are strong enough to enforce the submission of the crowds; else there will be a currency reform, which is the euphemistic term for expropriating most of the possessing people, hyperinflation, a massive depression - collapse, in other words. I would wish that after that they would return to an equivalent to the gold standard, some substantial form of real, of commodity money, but history tells us that the same mistakes are repeated again and again, and even more easily so if the crowds are being told sweet lies - leading them on the path towards paper money again. And without paper money, neither plutocratic elites nor democratic politicians can exist, so they definitely have no interest to return to a gold standard. As a matter of fact it was for the selfishness of these antisocial parasites that they destroyed the gold standard and turned things to paper money. And that was not just the end of Bretton Woods, or the time of WWI - that was already a motive in the American Civil War. A lot of things need to be changed, not just economically and financially. Talking about nothing else but reorganizing the whole cultural and communal forms of living, communal organizing and administrating. What is needed is a totally different world, nothing less. That's why I am extremely pessimistic that we or the next coming two generations will really go that way. I think they will just repeat the same old patterns and schemes that we just see collapsing. There is nothing new under the sun - except what has been forgotten. - Santayana __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert.

10-17-13, 06:10 PM	#9
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 42,676 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	Any comments on the Chinese missile system and Turkey's deal, btw? __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert.

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10-17-13, 04:16 PM	#1
mapuc CINC Pacific Fleet Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Denmark Posts: 20,543 Downloads: 37 Uploads: 0	The reason to why I ask these questions is that in this program I mentioned in a thread above, this economist said something about a single country own more than 40 or was it 50 % of an another countries total (forgot the word) and what if China has more than these 40 or 50 % of USA total.... what kind of claim can they have? Markus

10-17-13, 04:51 PM	#2
Oberon Lucky Jack Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 25,976 Downloads: 61 Uploads: 20	Not a great deal, because Chinas economy is so based around the US economy that if the US economy falls down the Chinese one falls right next to it, and they've got a lot more to lose from their economy falling over than the US has...well...ok, maybe not a LOT, but certainly a bit more, such as their entire governing elite and most of the progress of the last twenty years. The US on the other hand, it would go to pot but would probably be able to rebuild itself quicker than China would because the US has taken the slow and steady route to its current economic spot, whereas China has taken all the shortcuts and so its economy is propped up by twigs. In regards to Taiwan...Skybird has a point in it eventually boiling down not to what the US wants but what it can do, eventually the US military is going to have to be cut back, and I mean cut back, to like half the spending it has right now, if not further, which means that US overseas involvement is going to really taper off. South Korea and Japan are slowly preparing for this by building up their regional military forces, so that South Korea can counter the DPRK and Japan can hold its own, I expect that Japan will within the next two decades start to examine Article Nine of the Japanese Constitution with an eye to, if not remove it entirely, modify it to allow enough military force to defend Japans territory against any Chinese aggression. Australia will also likely look to work with Indonesia to create a military buffer zone along the Southern Pacific. The US will also work with Australia and Japan to keep US bases in the area as well as the Guam and Diego Garcia facilities, but forces elsewhere in the world may be reduced, certainly in Europe they have and already have been reduced, perhaps also in the Middle East as the Shale Oil boost takes hold, although whether Shale Oil will be enough to allow the US to disregard the Middle East is another matter entirely. China will continue to exercise soft power, they are very good at it, I can't see them pushing the US too far too early, again I reiterate that the latter half of this decade, and early into the next will see the Chinese military start to assert itself more, probably just as the US hits its big financial problems. It's possible Beijing will be able to persuade Taiwan to rejoin the fold peacefully, perhaps through a similar deal to Hong Kong, once Taiwan knows that the US cannot defend it any more, certainly this would be the preferred option for Beijing, but we will see. But I will be very surprised to see China take any major action over Taiwan before 2018.

10-17-13, 05:12 PM	#3
mapuc CINC Pacific Fleet Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Denmark Posts: 20,543 Downloads: 37 Uploads: 0	^ Thank you Oberon. You could be wright the only things I know about economy is how to balance my own home-economy. Al most every of these economist they interview in Danish and Swedish news program say about the same USA is using more money than they have or as one of them put it, last time USA was in trouble. Imagine you got 100 dollars from your mom and you use 110 dollars every week these extra 10 dollars you lent from your friends and you do so every week-sooner or later it's going to... But what do I know and I could have misunderstood these economist Markus

10-17-13, 05:25 PM	#7
mapuc CINC Pacific Fleet Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Denmark Posts: 20,543 Downloads: 37 Uploads: 0	Thank you once again and this time I'm glad for your in-deep answer to me. If I have calculated it correctly China "own" about 8 % of USA total debt. I also what you wrote earlier about a blind leading another blind(Japan-USA) You know, it is not only USA, Japan, Greece almost every country in the western world is up over their head in debt to some other countries. Either they come up with some solution or the whole thing is going to fall apart. Markus

10-17-13, 06:16 PM	#10
mapuc CINC Pacific Fleet Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Denmark Posts: 20,543 Downloads: 37 Uploads: 0	Forgot to mentioned it every time we discuss economy and our debt. Well maybe it is a unattainable dream some of us have? Even Gene Roddenberry had it A world without money, as it is the world of Star trek. Markus

10-18-13, 11:05 PM	#11
periunder In the Brig Join Date: May 2013 Posts: 96 Downloads: 1 Uploads: 0	I'm not a fan of drones, It will gradually take more and more jobs away from career soldiers and people who have no other hope than join the military. Being in the military can be a dangerous occupation, but in the US the ratio of those killed to those wounded in action has shifted drastically in favor of actually surviving the war. Manufactured limbs and other impressive advances in our health industry also make the military a very sound financial employment opportunity in the US. There is no question the respect and government treatment of US personnel has skyrocketed since the 70's. Technology is the greatest threat to our working wages.