Counting down to 2016

[PineappleMama]

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/imf-bombshell-age-of-america-about-to-end-2011-04-25

I donno about you guys but a world where China is the Alpha Dog scares the crap out of me.

Mostly because I know what we have done as the Alpha... become the world police, enforcing our beliefs and laws on others with guns... and knowing (even the tip of the ice burg) the differences between our laws and China's... well it's scares me to imagine them doing the exact same things we've done...

Only plus side I can think of is that maybe if that happens then American companies who've abandoned their own and moved there will come back, and bring the jobs with them. To help their country (and thus themselves), but also to put a tack in the teacher's chair so to speak. Donno how much American companies contribute overall to the Chinese economy but if we ever hope to get back on top then that's an idea to consider... OUTSIDE our own issues, which are legion, but I think we all know that the economy is in trouble so I won't go on and on about that.

So... anyone else concerned by this or am I just summoning Chicken Little??

 

[Ridgerunner]

I think it is a legitimate concern. Of course the top dog could easily be India instead of China. Maybe they cooperate or maybe they go at each other. Lots of different scenarios of what could happen.

We have basically been the world's policeman since World War II, keeping the peace to allow the world to trade in relative peace. It has cost us a fortune and now it looks like it is going to be someone else's turn to pay for it. But that means we can no longer impose our will on everybody else.

I know some people want to demonize China. Heck, the way they stay in power and feel important is to demonize everything they can. Some Chinese or Indian leaders are like that. Some are pragmatic and will be willing to work with us instead of deciding to be against us. I don't think we have a lot of influence over which ones win out in China or India, but I do feel that every time we demonize them, we strengthen the hand of those that we don't want to win. If we try to work with them we have a better chance of a better outcome. There are no guarantees though.

You are thinking of companies that have sent jobs overseas as American companies. Most of them are not. They are international companies that may be headquartered here. If labor gets too expensive in China or India, (and it is starting to happen in China, which could cause huge problems for them) those companies will just go somewhere else in the world where labor is cheap. Bringing those jobs back here does not make economic sense. People who talk about that happening either don't understand how international business works or are lying to you. People running those companies are there to bring profits to their stockholders. If they don't make a profit, they will be replaced by the stockholders. A whole lot of those stockholders are Americans on pensions or in retirement plans. They want maximum return on their investment.

I don't think you are summoning Chicken Little, but I'm not going to panic over it. I find that I normally worry about the wrong thing. Something else happens.

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

deleted

 

[PineappleMama]

Hear you about the jobs thing... admit I'm NOT a finance wizard by any stretch, but if it resulted in us finally getting back to making things instead of just using things ... no economy can support a society that only consumes, eventually it'll collapse and then it's REALLY bad because there's no money to buy and no one here with the skills to make. A scary thought. Just looking at my own self, my own lack of 'living' skills, and I know that if things (banks, gas, ag, etc) crashed we'd be in deep doo to make it... and skills like gardening don't hurt to have anyways so I'm trying to improve... but that's really just a drop in the bucket. The vast majority of Americans just don't have the skills needed to 'survive'... we've sort of evolved to the point where even the lowest paid worker (heck even the unemployed ones ftm) figure they 'deserve' a McMansion, a Lexus, Gucci, Cable and Iphones etc... that that is "surviving"... and that they're too good for such peasant jobs as farming, etc. NOT everyone, by ANY means, especially here on BYC... but enough of the population that it scares me. If imports stopped one day... no money, sanctions, whatever... no oil/gas, clothes, food, etc from 'outside'... what the hello would we do? Hence jumping straight to the idea of bringing manufacturing/growing/etc jobs back... didn't really put a whole lot of thought into that, just straining to visualize what we could possibly do... grasping straws really. *sigh* At least here in the US there's a lot of land that theoretically could be used to grow food... not like a lot of smaller, yet densely populated, or bad weathered countries.

Demonizing agree too. I don't know all about China's (or India's ftm) laws and such but I do know that they're pretty well guaranteed to be different from ours simply because they are not us. Every person is different, thus every culture/country is going to be different in a million little ways and that can add up to some pretty big ways. What those differences are, and how they'll effect things, that's what is a mystery and the thing feared most is the unknown. In my lifetime, heck really in my living relatives' lifetime, there's never been a time when the US wasn't the top dog. We have no experience with it, so... yeah Chicken Little. Heck for that matter I don't have a firm grasp on all our own laws... stoploss for instance boggles me... saying you can force a person to stay in the military, but only when we're at war... when we haven't bothered declaring war since WWII... lost on how that one is legal. And the tax code... good grief, I don't have a clue. If I can't wrap my head around the laws I'm living with I don't reckon I've got a chance to figure another country's.

Police wise... after seeing what doing that has done to our economy, well I wouldn't jump to copy it... especially not if I'd just then become the leader FINALLY. And especially not when there's another that's pretty close to the line and might just be waiting for me to tank myself so they can move into the top spot, or even the formerly top one lurking and waiting for a chance. Yet another unknown though... what'll happen if there's not a superpower, big brother with big guns, around to stop the atrocities... will they get better... will people in those countries rise up themselves and see the job done... or will the rebellion be squashed and the 'bad stuff' stay the same or get worse since there's no one big enough to stop the bullies? If it stays/gets worse will those bullies be satisfied with their own power base, their own assets, or will they want to expand their empire? Throughout history we've had a bad habit of never being satisfied with our territory... seems a bit of a stretch to think that magically we'd overcome thousands of years of human habit.

Just too many unknowns... makes a body jittery.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

China has been expanding enormously for many years now.

Anyone ever heard of a nation that could do that and never have a crash?

Japan was supposed to eat our lunch too, remember? They were practically buying the country out from under us for a time.

Every nation has its day in the sun. China may be about to have theirs.

Or maybe not.

Defeat occurs in the mind. Some folks are already beat before the fight even starts.

 

[PineappleMama]

A.T. Hagan :

Defeat occurs in the mind. Some folks are already beat before the fight even starts.

Well, I like to think that in America's history it was when we were NOT top dog, when we were under the thumb of a very powerful empire... when we were the outnumbered, outgunned little guy that was when we showed our backbone. When we showed insane courage, when were worked our bums off (though that was really every single day back then just to survive) and sacrificed anything to succeed... to provide a safe home for our children's children.

Maybe this 'threat' will summon up some of those qualities and get us out of our I Got Mine funk... if that happened then maybe being knocked from our pedestal might turn out to be the best thing that could have happened to us??

Yeah, as a matter of fact I have been accused of being a determined (if not outright delusional) optimist before... why do you ask?

 

[PaulaSB12]

China is going to have HUGE problems in a few years, way to many boys with no chance ever to marry. In 2020 there will be 40 million men who will never marry and now there are many men who can't find a bride.
http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/news/boys-without-girls
It is hard to imagine adoption wasn't a more popular option when you look at the beautiful young girls in the image to the left. We want to be clear that we don't believe the Chinese government had any of this in mind when they adopted their one child policy to address their overpopulation problem. But when societies are secret even the best laid plans can spiral out of control. They were a very closed society when this began and the mere fact some of this information is even available speaks loudly of their intention to get it resolved. We salute the Chinese Government of today for the openness that made this article and others like it possible.

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences predicts that in the year 2020, China will have as many as 40,000,000 more men than women under the age of 20. That's roughly the equivalent of the entire population of young men in the United States, or twice as many as in the three largest countries in Europe, all facing the prospect of being excluded from a society where having a family is a requirement just to "belong."

In 1978, China instituted its one child policy to address its massive overpopulation problem, and since that time, as many as 400,000,000 abortions have taken place. With Chinese parents' strong traditional preference for boys, it's not surprising that the vast majority of them were destined to be little girls. When nature is allowed to run its course, there are 105 boys born for every 100 girls, but in some parts of China, the ratio can be as high as 130-1 today. The abortion problem is just the beginning. Women are blamed when a "family raid" finds a violation of the one child policy. They are often dragged out of their homes screaming and forced to have an abortion, to set an example. If the midwife assists in giving birth when she finds a violation and the child is a girl, it is killed almost immediately, while a boy is often allowed to live.

In a society where girls don't count, it's no surprise that China has the highest female suicide rate in the World. Forced abortion traumatizes women and by some estimates from the WHO, as many as 500 Chinese women commit suicide every day. We could speak at length about what might happen when little boys become big boys with too much time on their hands, but most of the behavior is obvious and is already taking place. Human Trafficking and Sexual Slavery are on the rise, but that's just the beginning. The evidence is equally clear there is increased violence almost everywhere an imbalance between the sexes, on this scale, has been allowed to occur. This violence appears to be localized at the moment, but will it remain so in the long run?

Will this massive social experiment have consequences for us all? Nothing on this scale has ever happened before, so there is no way to know how growing up in a society without the balance provided by an adequate supply of women will affect the attitudes and beliefs that will drive the behavior of these young boys. But we won't have to wait much longer to find out.
INDIA HAS LOST MORE THAN 50,000,000 BRIDES

Dowry victim Roopa

It is hard to imagine what happened to Dowry victim Roopa, taking place in a country we think of as being so warm and so kind (Image Top Left). It may be even more difficult to understand why any rational parent would participate in a practice that would, so dramatically, reduce the odds of their son spending his life with a beautiful Indian Bride, like the woman in the Image Below, on her wedding day. What do they find so irresistibly attractive about their men that would cause them to knowingly eliminate the lives of millions of their magnificent women, just to improve their odds of having a boy?

In some respects, the Indian culture is even more obsessed with boy babies than the Chinese. They didn't impose a one child law on their people that might trigger behavior of this sort, but with the advent of ultrasound in the 1980's, which made the Sex of the baby easy to determine, female babies began to disappear in record numbers, even after they were born. Today the preferred method is abortion. One survey of Indian abortion clinics found that as many as 7,999 out of 8,000 aborted babies were little girls. India now has the highest suicide rate in the world among younger women. India and China combined exceed 50% of all female suicides in the world.

Like China, India has an overpopulation problem, and many families can't afford too many children. In the poorer parts of the country, where ultra sound may not be available, if the first born is a girl, the odds of the second born surviving to the age of five if it is also a girl are staggeringly low. The Indian tradition of the family of the bride providing a dowry, along with their daughter's hand in marriage, adds to the problem. If the dowry isn't large enough, the new bride's life can be in danger, or, at a minimum, she can be forced to suffer for the rest of her life for the insult caused by her family's lack of generosity. "Dowry deaths" are a serious problem in some parts of India, but the practice has other social consequences as well. Some families consider the birth of a girl as a future economic burden, leading many to conclude it is better to eliminate the problem now rather than later.

A bride on her wedding day

Selective Sex abortion is illegal in India, but they have neglected enforcing the law for far too long. Now their obsession with little boys has created an imbalance between the sexes that has led to other social consequences. In some areas, the boys already outnumber the girls by as much as two to one. And while the Indian people are known as being naturally warm and kind, who knows what changes might take place in their behavior as a result of having too many young men without brides to nurture them and occupy at least some of their time? One of the saddest aspects of the problem in India is that selective abortion takes place more often in the north, where the people are more highly educated and far more prosperous. If we can't blame this problem on the poor, where do we go from here?
A LIGHT AT THE END OF A VERY DARK TUNNEL

The people can draw attention to the problem, but only Governments can make a problem as serious as gendercide go away. India already has a Law on the books, all she has to do is summon the courage to enforce it and we understand that process is well underway. India's large social groups are speaking out more forcefully on the subject as well and many have taken oaths to never engage in this practice again. And more than half of India's popular Soap Operas now address some aspect of this complex issue every week. The future looks very promising, but they have a long way to go to clean up the mess they have created for themselves today. One would think China will have to address the one child policy to put this matter completely behind them, but the new China is far more innovative than the China we knew before. The magnificent effort they put forth for the Olympics speaks volumes about how they feel about the image they present to the rest of the world. They know they can't continue to devastate their female population and have any hope the world will continue to look the other way. It's gone too far already and we believe the best evidence that change is on the way is how open they are about the problem. And it appears both of these proud countries have the right leadership in place to take them the rest of the way.

It's not easy for either of them to release so much information on a subject as sensitive as this and they should be commended for taking this step. Rather than condemn them, at this point in the process we might want focus our energy on encouraging them to continue their efforts to end it. One reason to consider some positive reinforcement for this new openness is they aren't alone. Centered primarily in Asia other countries with serious male population imbalances are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Serbia and Belarus to name a few. According to the UN South Korea had a very serious problem at one time, but is now well on their way to having it under control. So, it can be done! Tom LeDuc

 

[Mattemma]

I always told dd that as women we were so fortunate to have been born in THIS country.

 

[Dunkopf]

Eventually a lot of jobs will come back to the USA. Once they can get rid of the minimum wage and people don't have any social nets they will work for 4.00 an hour. If you take the cost of shipping and add it to labor cost, it will be a little cheaper to make stuff in the USA. At that point the jobs will come back. Not all of course, but the stuff with low overhead cost.

I don't think we will ever see China governing our country. They already own some of it and will continue to purchase it. Nothing is sacred when it comes to money. Remember when someone was trying to sell our ports to the Saudis back around 2004?

Our great great great grandchildren may see something similar to the Federation on Star Trek. Minus the spaceships of course.

India is a little scarier. There are a ton of intellectual jobs that get outsourced there. Engineering and such.

 

[yotetrapper]

Very though provoking post. Almost makes ya sorry for whomever gets elected next year, if they will become the last prez to rule when we were top dog. You know it will be entirely blamed on them. The last post about abolishing the minimum wage laws is correct. Until minimum wage, and staggering taxes on corporations are removed, there will be no jobs here. You hear so much about the "greedy corporations", but, I think the evidence shows that it's our governments policies against companies that are causing so many to go overseas.

I've had one close friend, real smart guy, who has been claiming for the past 10 years that America will one day be a third world country. I always scoffed at him, but, now, I don't really feel like laughing.