How can we solve our problem with China?

[legoboy792]

Re: How can we solve our problem with China?

i thought i answered it

[devonin]

Re: How can we solve our problem with China?

So you're suggesting a "european" invasion of the United States?

Led by whom?

Using whose army, whose navy, whose air force?

How are they planning on crossing the atlantic without getting -smashed into bits- by American missile attacks, and the vastly superior American navy?

I'm curious how exactly you think that could ever possibly come about.

Well, there's those ones.

[JonXia]

Re: How can we solve our problem with China?

Alright, lemme take a crack at this

My opinion with China, I'm not american. Canada trades with China and the US, I am up for both. In fact, one of the only reasons that China's development is at the point where it is right now is through trading with North America. They aren't gonna call and say "gimme monies" because it would cause trading problems and we could find other people to do business with. It will NEVER happen as long as China keeps on moving up. Their middle class population is approaching the total population of the US, they aren't going to want the debt paid off in total immedeatly. It is stupid plain and simple and no government, no matter how they govern is going to do it.

As for war, however the hell this came up, maybe it could be another topic. ANYWAYS as for war if ANYBODY touches Canada or the US we support eachothers millitary (even if the US doesn't need it =_=). so if you attack Canada, the US is gonna kill you, you touch the US we shall assist in the most biggest (forgive my "french") ass-kicking festival of the century.

I actually have this image of two brothers in my head. The bigger one has a baseball bat and is hitting balls like crazy with the smaller one in awe at the skill the older one has. Then the older brother says "here have a go" and the little kid starts hitting the ball. Nothing to the conversation at hand I thought it was cool ^_^ basically that is the US and Canada

[legoboy792]

Re: How can we solve our problem with China?

OK FOR THE LAST TIME. i am not saying that Europe will attack the US. i am saying that Europe will atack india.

[devonin]

Re: How can we solve our problem with China?

Okay, so you finally really cleared up what you meant by a post to which I already responded a while ago "Er...your comment failed to address a single solitary point in my post that you quoted."

So you've addressed my point by clearing up something that didn't actually have anything to do with my point?

You know, when I ended a post with "What is Europe going to do to the US" and your next post was "If they aren't careful, they might find Europe knocking at their door" you'll forgive me if I draw the conclusion that you're talking about the US.

[legoboy792]

Re: How can we solve our problem with China?

good point i was actually talking about India. but the US could find Europe at its door with even more military then we have because we are too busy in Iraq to do home defense.

[chunky_cheese]

Re: How can we solve our problem with China?

good point i was actually talking about India. but the US could find Europe at its door with even more military then we have because we are too busy in Iraq to do home defense.

I know very little about the war in Iraq, but what I can safely assume is that the number of U.S. troops in Iraq is a very insignificant fraction of it's total military force.

With that being said, all of Europe (being a continent) will never band together to attack the United States. Why? Well as Devonin pointed out, even if they did combine all of their forces, they would still loose, AND it would be the worst economic decision of all time. Why would you attack one of, if not THE biggest trading partner you have?

[legoboy792]

Re: How can we solve our problem with China?

I believe that the US takes in more then we produce. someone correct me if im wrong on this.

[FlavorMe]

Re: How can we solve our problem with China?

I know very little about the war in Iraq, but what I can safely assume is that the number of U.S. troops in Iraq is a very insignificant fraction of it's total military force.

With that being said, all of Europe (being a continent) will never band together to attack the United States. Why? Well as Devonin pointed out, even if they did combine all of their forces, they would still loose, AND it would be the worst economic decision of all time. Why would you attack one of, if not THE biggest trading partner you have?

We have over 100,000 troops in Iraq IIRC.

And besides, considering that Europe, India, and the US have quite a significant nuclear arsenal, it'd be pretty stupid for one of these countries to ignite a war.

But getting back to the topic on hand, the United States has always treaded a cautious line with China.

Yes they could. They won't, and even if they did, the US could pretty easily get away with just ignoring them.

Besides, the most important point is China's economy is booming right now, they are in no financial trouble whatsoever. As a result, if they tried to call the US's debt, the US would simply point out to the international community that China has no need for this money, and is obviously only trying to cause economic distress to competing economy, which would certainly not go over well internationally, especially coming from China.

The United States has historically backed Taiwan and I have a hard time seeing how it would back out of it's partnership with Taiwan if tensions flared up between Taiwan and China. Taiwan's status has always been a touchy subject. Luckily for us, a Nationalist was recently elected in office recently in Taiwan who puts relations with China over Taiwan entering the UN IIRC.

[Zythus]

Re: How can we solve our problem with China?

They have taken the precaution not to stir some things up, but currently, its not so hot. US currently is one of the prominent propagandists in the whole thing about Tibet. I read the paper (Globe and Mail) a few days ago. Despite the happy smiles the Chinese are showing the newly deployed westerners, it is pretty evident that they are infuriated by the whole bad publicity from the western countries. This already impacts the relationship by an amount. There was also fear of something strikingly radical that might happen in the opening ceremony by France and the western countries. So in my opinion, The relationship is present but vulnerable in the upcoming events.

[ShAiOnEi]

Re: How can we solve our problem with China?

I don't know how we can resolve such a problem but the first step into doing this is to stop debating and take action if we must. It doesn't seem like much of a problem though since many of our imports come from this nation.

[flamingspinach]

Re: How can we solve our problem with China?

holy

****ing

****

China will never ask its debt to be repaid suddenly, because the debt is in US dollars. Such an announcement would cause the US dollar to devalue to the point of total worthlessness, and they would have gained essentially nothing even if the US paid back every last cent. Furthermore, they would have lost an important bargaining chip and psychological upper ground against the US. So to do so would be total suicide.

Intuition from microeconomics fails here because the debt is not of "fixed worth" in any particular sense. This mitigates much of the risk involved in the case of personal debts. Think of it in terms of a company whose debt is in its own stocks. Nobody will suddenly collect the debt because once they get the stocks, they can't sell them because they've ruined the company whose stocks they just got paid back to them.

The entire reason for people to make loans is because they profit off the interest. Think about it - the only reason a loan shark wants you to pay back a loan is because he knows you're broke (and won't be able to pay him any more interest on his investment), or he wants to re-loan the money to someone else for a higher rate, or something like that. Otherwise, a lender wants you to keep the loan as long as possible so that he will keep getting interest every year/month/whatever.

<s>Then again this forum is full of idiots screaming "gold standard!" so I guess any discussion about economics is futile.</s> CAN'T SHOW THAT IN A CHRISTIAN MANGA!

EDIT: lol i forgot this forum has censors 8)

[devonin]

Re: How can we solve our problem with China?

I'm wracking my brain for the presence of a single reference to the gold standard in this thread. Don't call other users idiots, even if you think they are. Your subjective opinion about their intelligence is worth exactly as much as one might think it is.

[flamingspinach]

Re: How can we solve our problem with China?

There isn't, but the last time I moseyed on down to ffr, the forum was abuzz with ron paul fanatics. I wasn't referring to this thread, but in the interest of "cordiality", I'll rescind that line. Any comment about the rest of my post, perhaps?

By the way, the phrase is "to rack one's brains", not "to wrack one's brains". It's a reference to the medieval torture device.

[devonin]

Re: How can we solve our problem with China?

"wrack" means to ruin; "rack" in this sense means to strain, I'm pretty sure by connotation, either can be used in this context. If you rack your brain to think of something, chances are good you will also wrack your brain.

I wasn't responding to your post as a CT user, I was responding to your post as this forum's moderator.

Regardless of your previous experience, the "Ron Paul Fanatics" had pretty much no presence whatsoever in the CT subforum. They kept their political support for Mr Paul largely confined to Chit-chat and the Garbage bin. It would be appreciated if you treated each thread as being in the vacuum it is intended to exist in, without allowing issues from elsewhere to enter into the discussion.

As for the body of your post, I'm pretty sure that China owns most of its portion of the American Foreign debt in the form of bonds, which have a fixed life until maturity. So I'm not sure you can say that China is happy to let America not pay them back because they can profit off the interest for as long as possible. In fact, they are profitting off the interest for a very specific and precise amount of time.

I think that the internationality of debt among all countries (IE. That while the US owes a huge amount of money internationally, they are also owed a lot of money from other nations, as seems to be the case for most countries [They have debt going both ways]) has a lot more to do with why these debts will never be called. I'm not entirely well versed in the way the American Treasury Bond system operates, but I rather suspect that by the terms of the Bonds, their holder pretty much -has- to wait until the term of maturity comes up to get the money, and so China doesn't even really have a debt to call in the first place.