Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Joined: Jun 26, 2007 Posts: 1620 Location: The Canada of America
Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 9:20 am Post subject: Re: Geopolitical predictions
americandream wrote:
China excels at supplying the labour force for creating the primary wealth base. That base will then be magnified in London or New York using a whole raft of mechanisms that have emerged or have yet to emerge.
Why not Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong? Why not Beijing itself, for that matter? Do you suppose there's something deficient in the minds of people there that they can't think up or use the mechanisms of which you speak? If they generate the wealth, why should they necessarily depend on others to, as you say, magnify it? _________________ I can has cheezburger?
Joined: Mar 09, 2006 Posts: 555 Location: Al-Mariyya, Al-Andalus
Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 10:52 am Post subject: Re: Geopolitical predictions
We do all love to talk and make predictions based on a very dangerous thing: a little bit of knowledge.
This article offers something no posters have offered so far: experienced insight. Reading this kind of thing more often, might persuade more of us to accept or acknowledge that we really don't know diddly-squat.
There is too much to take into consideration for any one of us to make a decent prediction: health and environment, energy geo-politics, religious/nationalist fanaticism, economic drought, local and regional politics, not to mention a quagmire of variables a la Rosa Parks.
Condoleezza Rice has said America has no “permanent enemies,” but it has no permanent friends either. Many saw the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as the symbols of a global American imperialism; in fact, they were signs of imperial overstretch. Every expenditure has weakened America’s armed forces, and each assertion of power has awakened resistance in the form of terrorist networks, insurgent groups and “asymmetric” weapons like suicide bombers. America’s unipolar moment has inspired diplomatic and financial countermovements to block American bullying and construct an alternate world order.
So now, rather than bestriding the globe, we are competing — and losing — in a geopolitical marketplace alongside the world’s other superpowers: the European Union and China. This is geopolitics in the 21st century: the new Big Three. Not Russia, an increasingly depopulated expanse run by Gazprom.gov; not an incoherent Islam embroiled in internal wars; and not India, lagging decades behind China in both development and strategic appetite. The Big Three make the rules — their own rules — without any one of them dominating. And the others are left to choose their suitors in this post-American world.
Europeans use intelligence and the police to apprehend radical Islamists, social policy to try to integrate restive Muslim populations and economic strength to incorporate the former Soviet Union and gradually subdue Russia. Each year European investment in Turkey grows as well, binding it closer to the E.U. even if it never becomes a member. And each year a new pipeline route opens transporting oil and gas from Libya, Algeria or Azerbaijan to Europe. What other superpower grows by an average of one country per year, with others waiting in line and begging to join?
Every country in the world currently considered a rogue state by the U.S. now enjoys a diplomatic, economic or strategic lifeline from China, Iran being the most prominent example.
Without firing a shot, China is doing on its southern and western peripheries what Europe is achieving to its east and south. Aided by a 35 million-strong ethnic Chinese diaspora well placed around East Asia’s rising economies, a Greater Chinese Co-Prosperity Sphere has emerged. Like Europeans, Asians are insulating themselves from America’s economic uncertainties.
------
Quote:
There are plenty of statistics that will still tell the story of America’s global dominance: our military spending, our share of the global economy and the like. But there are statistics, and there are trends. To really understand how quickly American power is in decline around the world, I’ve spent the past two years traveling in some 40 countries in the five most strategic regions of the planet — the countries of the second world. They are not in the first-world core of the global economy, nor in its third-world periphery.
Joined: Jun 26, 2007 Posts: 1620 Location: The Canada of America
Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 11:39 am Post subject: Re: Geopolitical predictions
virgincrude wrote:
This article offers something no posters have offered so far: experienced insight. Reading this kind of thing more often, might persuade more of us to accept or acknowledge that we really don't know diddly-squat.
I think some of it's a little far-fetched.
Quote:
It is 2016, and the Hillary Clinton
Who?
Quote:
or John McCain or Barack Obama administration is nearing the end of its second term. America has pulled out of Iraq
Likely.
Quote:
but has about 20,000 troops in the independent state of Kurdistan
Maybe...
Quote:
Afghanistan is stable
Maybe, but I doubt it. I think it'll be inter-tribal warfare for a generation.
Quote:
Iran is nuclear.
I don't believe this will happen, unless we're limiting the definition of "nuclear" to energy, not weapons.
Quote:
China has absorbed Taiwan
No way. You might as well say Northern Ireland will be part of the Republic by then. I think the best we can hope for is Taiwan won't do anything stupid to force Beijing's hand, and the "one country, two states" fiction will go on and on and on.
Quote:
(China) is steadily increasing its naval presence around the Pacific Rim
This seems likely to me.
Quote:
The European Union has expanded to well over 30 members
With all the nonsense about the Lisbon Treaty, I really think we've seen the end of the enlargement of the EU for a while, pending accessions notwithstanding. Maybe another round before 2016, but it would depend on them getting their act together on some way to run the place. The system right now worked for 12 members, but it's ungainly for 20-something, never mind 30.
Quote:
America's standing in the world remains in steady decline.
If they can cut the military crap and start using the money for something sensible, they might head a lot of this off. _________________ I can has cheezburger?
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 2:12 pm Post subject: Re: Geopolitical predictions
miles392 wrote:
No offense but I think you're full of crap. You start your 50(!) years prediction by saying that the US and UK will crush its competitors by its economic might. I mean come on... both countries are on a fast decline thanks to the housing bubble and general financial mismanagement. When they have fully recovered in say 50 years… they will be on par with Zimbabwe at best.
i'm not a cornucopian, but we do have a solid data point, the California economy in the 1980's. a lot of manufacturing was still local. it worked. energy consumption per capita was lower (it would be good to get a number on that).
California in the 1980's was different than Zimbabwe today.
i would say one of the major logjams is the willingness of people to have a living wage for manufacturing people. i participated in a society, that functioned, that had such a living wage.
will this mean wealthy folks making do with less ?
one of the other reasons manufacturing left Calif. is because health care is so expensive. fixing that will involve less money for doctors, using clinics in Canada as an example (office visit in 2004 - $35 cash on the barrelhead). my experience with American doctors is that they insist on charging 5-10 times what the doctor i went to in Canada made - and he made a decent living, $150K+ a year.
we don't have a shortage of oil, we have a shortage of cooperation.
people that got "cush" positions, the few wealthy friends that i have & the doctors whose business' i have had a chance to witness in detail, usually don't like any solution that involves a reduction in income for them. even if it means people dying from lack of medicine or food or money for heating oil. _________________ http://www.LASIK-Flap.com/ ~ Health Warning about LASIK Eye Surgery
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 12:08 am Post subject: Re: Geopolitical predictions
The wealth of America was built on cheap oil. Simply because China has a large population with a lower standard of living does not mean it magically can create wealth in the absence of cheap oil.
All the main industrial commodities have tripled or quadrupled in price over the last 5 years, and China itself is now caught up in double digit inflation. They can't bootstrap up the economy by building a cheap electric car for everyone, because the cost of the batteries alone would put it out of reach of anyone it might be sold to.
World economies now are all tied together through endless counter party risk arrangements, and its quite clear our own economy is bankrupt, although Ben and Henry keep printing more money to disguise it. Anyhow, at some point here the banks are going to close faster than the FDIC can redistribute their loans to other banks still functioning, the government will try to tax a lot of people with no jobs and get nowhere. Government then starts laying off workers because they can't pay them with tax money they are no longer collecting, and the economic and political system as we know it comes to a grinding halt.
This takes down China and India as well, without markets to sell clothing made by disposable child workers, these economies fail quickly. They can't sell them to their own people, that's WHY they use child workers in the first place, so they don't have to pay them much.
You don;t have to run out of oil for the economic engine to fail here, all you have to do is what the market is doing, price out the commodity relative to its scarcity. Scarce oil makes steel more expensive, glass more expensive, EVERYTHING more expensive. However, the individual human being is no more productive than he or she ever was in China, India OR the US. So that human being can make no more real money than the value of the labor, so poor laborers in China stay poor, they still can't afford to buy the products they are making.
Anyhow, I don't see China and India as economic powerhouses in 50 years. I see them mired in the same sewer as we are, just multiplied up by more people. Between the pollution and the sewage problems, both countries will have a worse disease problem than even Amerika has, and do you really think their medical care is able to handle that any better than we can?
I'll bet on nation states devolving into anarchy inside of about 20 years. This year the EU had trucking strikes that brought Spain to a complete halt, and while China has been masking its problems going into the Olympic games, they have a ton of issues with their border populations.
Probably we have another 50 years of really bad times as internal wars for resources within each country drag down the populations. Then perhaps we come out on the other side with a smaller population, enough resources around to start building something again and some kind of new world order.
Or perhaps somebody decides to pull the plug on the Nukes, and then we wave goodbye to humanity.
Joined: Jul 21, 2004 Posts: 1333 Location: Suburban tar sands
Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 12:15 am Post subject: Re: Geopolitical predictions
americandream wrote:
Ok people, I am going to stick my neck out here and make a few predictions. Going out 50 years.
This current Russian-Georgian conflict is a non-runner. The Russians will capitulate before the might of the US/UK economic machine and will in due course be absorbed into its confines.
Any thoughts?
So far the Russians seem to have kicked the US/Israel backed Georgian regime's butt, and don't seem worried about the "might" of US/UK since they are bankrupt while Russia/China/Iran/other oil exporters have vast surpluses.
Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 3:06 am Post subject: Re: Geopolitical predictions
Keith_McClary wrote:
americandream wrote:
Ok people, I am going to stick my neck out here and make a few predictions. Going out 50 years.
This current Russian-Georgian conflict is a non-runner. The Russians will capitulate before the might of the US/UK economic machine and will in due course be absorbed into its confines.
Any thoughts?
So far the Russians seem to have kicked the US/Israel backed Georgian regime's butt, and don't seem worried about the "might" of US/UK since they are bankrupt while Russia/China/Iran/other oil exporters have vast surpluses.
Oh come on. Nobody's butt has been kicked here, so far this is a minor skirmish in the great chess game. The pipeline through Georgia put a crimp in their hegemony over EU oil supplies. So now they got that back, but wielding this over the EU nations is not making them real popular, they are seeming as nasty as Amerika is. The EU threw in with Amerika after the second world war as their "protector", and NATO still functions in this regard.
The Ruskies are waging an economic war, Putin and Gazprom are trying to use their control over the oil coming out of central Russia to force the EU to toe the line. Problem being that its just counterproductive, demand destruction is killing the value in the oil until there is some economic stability. Both the actions of the US through its Georgian Puppets and the actions of the Ruskie Imperialists are destabilizing the region rapidly. Nobody has won this one yet, in fact everyone is LOSING.
The EU is in the middle here again, and one can project that the Ruskies will be rolling tanks into the Ukraine any time now. it could escalate quickly.
Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 2:14 pm Post subject: Re: Geopolitical predictions
americandream wrote:
Ok people, I am going to stick my neck out here and make a few predictions. Going out 50 years.
This current Russian-Georgian conflict is a non-runner. The Russians will capitulate before the might of the US/UK economic machine and will in due course be absorbed into its confines. As will China, India and Latin America.
Let me change the prediction.
Us/Europe economy collapses due the energy prices, excesive military budget and excessive grown.
while Russia, india , china, and other countries with a lot of resources rules the "new" world order.
Joined: Jul 21, 2004 Posts: 1333 Location: Suburban tar sands
Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 10:43 pm Post subject: Re: Geopolitical predictions
ReverseEngineer wrote:
Keith_McClary wrote:
americandream wrote:
Ok people, I am going to stick my neck out here and make a few predictions. Going out 50 years.
This current Russian-Georgian conflict is a non-runner. The Russians will capitulate before the might of the US/UK economic machine and will in due course be absorbed into its confines.
Any thoughts?
So far the Russians seem to have kicked the US/Israel backed Georgian regime's butt, and don't seem worried about the "might" of US/UK since they are bankrupt while Russia/China/Iran/other oil exporters have vast surpluses.
Oh come on. Nobody's butt has been kicked here, so far this is a minor skirmish in the great chess game. The pipeline through Georgia put a crimp in their hegemony over EU oil supplies. So now they got that back, but wielding this over the EU nations is not making them real popular, they are seeming as nasty as Amerika is. The EU threw in with Amerika after the second world war as their "protector", and NATO still functions in this regard.
The Ruskies are waging an economic war, Putin and Gazprom are trying to use their control over the oil coming out of central Russia to force the EU to toe the line. Problem being that its just counterproductive, demand destruction is killing the value in the oil until there is some economic stability. Both the actions of the US through its Georgian Puppets and the actions of the Ruskie Imperialists are destabilizing the region rapidly. Nobody has won this one yet, in fact everyone is LOSING.
The EU is in the middle here again, and one can project that the Ruskies will be rolling tanks into the Ukraine any time now. it could escalate quickly.
Nobody has won this one yet, and nobody will.
Reverse Engineer
All that oil and gas (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, etc.) surrounded by (clockwise, look at a map) Russia, China, Afghanistan, Iran and Georgia.
Whoever controls that wins.
(EDIT) They just kicked out the US backed dictator in Pakistan, which you need to go through to get to Afghanistan.
Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 1:22 pm Post subject: Re: Geopolitical predictions
I do love predicting, and its all the more interesting when you can see the crossroads ahead. Problem is, when systems are strained and you approach certain singularities, like PO, the possible consequences become nearly infinite. This is when the power of particular people, particular leaders, actually starts to become important again (wheras in a stable system, leaders become merely managers of a formula).
There are so many instances that will involve individual people.
For instance: will Europe ever develop its own foreign policy?
Will Japan, China, Korea reconcile themselves with each other?
Whether these things happen or not shall vastly influence the geopolitical world, but such things can depend greatly on the chemistry of a handful of people.
In other words, try as I might, I really cannot get my head into formulating even a likely prediction when it comes to more than 10 years. I end up with multiple, vastly different ones.
All times are GMT - 6 Hours Goto page Previous1, 2
Page 2 of 2
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
News
Discussions
Resources
Members
Forum FAQ
Search
Usergroups
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
