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Our fading 'superpower'
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | Wednesday, September 29, 2004 | Dan Simpson

Posted on 09/29/2004 10:12:39 AM PDT by Willie Green

With an overstretched military and economic vulnerability, America can be eclipsed by China in key ways

It could simply be this year's edition of the morose introspection that sometimes accompanies autumn. But it could also be the case that the relatively short epoch of the United States as the world's sole superpower is drawing to a close.

A U.N. Conference on Trade and Development report released last week indicated that China was the largest recipient of foreign direct investment in 2003, having overtaken the United States. In the past year, foreign investment in the United States had dropped by 53 percent, taking it to the lowest level in 12 years.

The Chinese growth rate is now projected for this year at 9.6 percent. The U.S. economy is estimated to grow only at a respectable but unexciting 4.4 percent, less than half the Chinese rate.

U.S. manufacturing and service jobs are being outsourced to China and India. China is graduating thousands more engineers and scientists per year than the United States.

The United States is dependent on huge dollops of Chinese purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds to be able to continue to finance the soaring Bush administration budget deficit. A precipitous drop in Chinese confidence in the health of the American economy would be disastrous in financial terms for the United States.

(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government
KEYWORDS: chickenlittle; china; doomgloom; eeyore; globalism; golbalism; goodbycruelworld; itsoveritsover; joebtfsplk; killmenow; labor; nationalsecurity; superpower; thebusheconomy; theskyisfalling; trade; weredoomed; willieisaboob
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To: Willie Green
The United States is by far the world's largest debtor nation, with half our debt obligations being owed to foreign creditors.

As indicated, based on data from the Economist, China has the second largest foreign debt as defined in my post, i.e., debt owed to non-residents and payable in foreign currency. There is plenty of foreign investment in the US, in Treaury bonds and in the stock market and businesses. We have the largest capital market and the place where other countries trust to place their investments and which can absorb them. Our stock market capitalization ($13.8 trillion) is larger than the next 20 countries combined.

I have no problem with foreign investment. It helps create jobs and underwrite our economy. Moreover, it gives these others countries a stake in our success and gives us greater leverage in dealing with them.

21 posted on 09/29/2004 10:59:09 AM PDT by kabar
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To: AFPhys
Willie Green's worldview seems to coincide with many of East Germany's economic policies - like having a labor-intensive, low productivity workforce that is entirely unionized and has guaranteed lifetime job security, along with strict import/export controls.
22 posted on 09/29/2004 11:00:03 AM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave soldiers and their Commander in Chief)
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To: Willie Green
With an overstretched military and economic vulnerability, America can be eclipsed by China in key ways

America WILL be eclipsed by China. Not a big deal, though, since lesser nations do pretty well in todays world.

23 posted on 09/29/2004 11:00:59 AM PDT by Lazamataz ("Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown" -- harpseal)
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To: Willie Green
China's population will do that country in. The ratio of men to women are more than 5 to 1. So whatever happens there economically will have a short-term effect.

No nation can survive when it kills off its infant girls and cannot sustain sensible reproduction.

24 posted on 09/29/2004 11:01:08 AM PDT by 12 Gauge Mossberg (I Approved This Posting - Paid For By Mossberg, Inc.)
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To: kabar; Willie Green
Moreover, it gives these others countries a stake in our success and gives us greater leverage in dealing with them.

Countries whose debt is largely domestically owned are countries whom foreigners do not want to invest in because they think that country's currency is worthless and that it's economy is in peril.

If there were an enormous drop in foreign ownership of US Treasuries, that would be a signal of economic weakness, not strength.

25 posted on 09/29/2004 11:02:35 AM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave soldiers and their Commander in Chief)
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To: Lazamataz
I disagree.

By the same reasoning a country like Germany or the UK should have been eclipsed by Brazil a long time ago.

26 posted on 09/29/2004 11:06:11 AM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave soldiers and their Commander in Chief)
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To: wideawake
The President, like most reflective Americans, realizes that the sheer number of warm, unionized bodies on an assembly line does not equal added value.
It's 2004, not 1950.

And George W. Bush is no conservative visionary like Ronald Reagan.
Organized Labor representation of our blue collar industries has been in steady decline for decades, and today accounts for only about 16% of the workforce. Ronald Reagan won landslide victories with his America First! policies on trade issues. Yet the Bush dynasties have rejected the Gipper's leadership and continue to perpetuate the archaic stereotype of manufacturing union membership while feeding the Big Government growth of organized labor, which has risen to over 40% of the government workforce, stifling our domestic private sector.

27 posted on 09/29/2004 11:06:26 AM PDT by Willie Green (Go Pat Go!!!)
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To: wideawake
By the same reasoning a country like Germany or the UK should have been eclipsed by Brazil a long time ago.

Who say's they're not??? You ever see Brazilian wommins? :o)

I disagree.

Bad move. Now you are on "the list".

28 posted on 09/29/2004 11:07:31 AM PDT by Lazamataz ("Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown" -- harpseal)
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To: Willie Green
Quick Willie, how much money in your wallet and what are the denominations and serial numbers? How much change in your pocket and what coins (bonus for knowing the State editions)? How about your savings/checking accounts? What about investments - what percentage rates for the year/month/week/day/last 10 minutes?

Willie - the economy is important, but you gotta stop obsessing on money; it's unhealthy and unnecessary - everything will be just fine, uunless Kerry wins, then you can head for the poor house...

29 posted on 09/29/2004 11:07:39 AM PDT by trebb (Ain't God good . . .)
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To: Willie Green

http://www.chicagofed.org/publications/fedletter/cflmay2004_202.pdf


30 posted on 09/29/2004 11:10:48 AM PDT by kabar
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To: 12 Gauge Mossberg
The ratio of men to women are more than 5 to 1.

That's wildly inaccurate.

Among Chinese age 0-14 (the age group most thoroughly impacted by the one child policy) the percentage of males is 53%. In the US it's 51%.

In terms of demographics this is an enormous difference and has a real social impact on China (that's almost 20 million men, or the whole population of New York state, without realistic marriage prospects).

But the ratio of 5 to 1, or 83% male is way, way off base.

31 posted on 09/29/2004 11:11:13 AM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave soldiers and their Commander in Chief)
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To: Willie Green

I always felt the Chi-Coms will be the source of our next Cold War.


32 posted on 09/29/2004 11:11:16 AM PDT by Nowhere Man ("Laws are the spider webs through which the big bugs fly past and the little ones get caught.")
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To: wideawake
Willie Green's worldview seems to coincide with many of East Germany's economic policies - like having a labor-intensive, low productivity workforce

Resorting to misrepresenting my views once again.
You really are pretty lame, aren't you?

In a competitive domestic market, rising labor costs (due to a tight labor market) are what stimulate investment and innovation in automated technologies. This requires fewer, but a more highly trained, workforce.
Dubya's emphasis on globalization undercuts this motivation by flooding the labor market with cheaper, less-skilled labor. Neocon globalists are the force of technological luddism. Their motto is: "let somebody else do it first".

33 posted on 09/29/2004 11:14:29 AM PDT by Willie Green (Go Pat Go!!!)
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To: Willie Green
And George W. Bush is no conservative visionary like Ronald Reagan.

Bush has a plan to reform the tax code and begin the dismantling of SS and Medicare in his 2nd term. If this isn't conservative, Willie, along with signing two pro-life measures, then Bush is more liberal than Kerry.

34 posted on 09/29/2004 11:15:37 AM PDT by 12 Gauge Mossberg (I Approved This Posting - Paid For By Mossberg, Inc.)
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To: Willie Green
Yet the Bush dynasties have rejected the Gipper's leadership and continue to perpetuate the archaic stereotype of manufacturing union membership while feeding the Big Government growth of organized labor, which has risen to over 40% of the government workforce, stifling our domestic private sector.

This statement is incoherent.

While far too many Americans work for the government and these government workers are increasingly unionized, the government has not taken over any economic functions of the private sector. Our private sector is not stifled, but it is hindered by taxes.

And don't pretend that President Reagan wasn't anti-union or that he wasn't free trade.

President Reagan famously broke the Air Traffic Controllers' Union - completely destroyed it, in fact. A shining achievement. And he was a firm supply-sider, not a protectionist.

35 posted on 09/29/2004 11:17:35 AM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave soldiers and their Commander in Chief)
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To: Lazamataz
America WILL be eclipsed by China. Not a big deal, though, since lesser nations do pretty well in todays world.

Nonsense. China is a developing country with so many liabilities that it would take a book to enumerate them. The mistake everyone seems to make who takes your position is the assumption that the current growth trends will continue unabated into the future. China will have problems just feeding, housing and clothing its 1.2 billion people. Our GDP per capita is 35 times that of China. China must invest massive amounts of money just to bring its infrastructure up to anywhere near ours. With affluence comes other problems in terms of consumer goods. An antiquated banking system, an oppressive political system, and lack of investment in R&D don't bode well for China becoming a developed country.

36 posted on 09/29/2004 11:20:07 AM PDT by kabar
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To: 12 Gauge Mossberg
Bush has a plan to reform the tax code and begin the dismantling of SS and Medicare in his 2nd term.

Fat chance, the boob has already drasticly expanded Medicare.

along with signing two pro-life measures,

Prediction: He'll have Robert Zoellick outsource human stem-cell research technologies to India and China where life isn't worth a warm bucket of spit, then spin around whining about how he doesn't want to "upset our valuable trading partners."

His modus operendi is as transparent as glass.

37 posted on 09/29/2004 11:26:52 AM PDT by Willie Green (Go Pat Go!!!)
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To: wideawake
This statement is incoherent.

Then pull your fingers out of your ears.

38 posted on 09/29/2004 11:28:24 AM PDT by Willie Green (Go Pat Go!!!)
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To: neutrino

The USSR went bankrupt because they are communist. Communism not only breeds inefficiencies, it also breeds government corruption. This is the lesson to be learned from the USSR. Now you are saying that communist China will replace the US as the worlds only super power? Do you also think your life would be better if you lived in China?


39 posted on 09/29/2004 11:45:40 AM PDT by dumpdaschle
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To: Willie Green
Then pull your fingers out of your ears.

I read the statement, I thought it through and I came to the conclusion that it was incoherent.

President Reagan did nothing to establish protectionism in this country - he made a symbolic gesture to Harley Davidson just as President Bush made a symbolic gesture to the steel industry - he was a free market advocate throughout his Presidency.

President Bush's position on trade is no different from President Reagan's. Are you seriously implying that President Reagan encouraged trade unionism, or protectionism?

You'll need to clarify.

40 posted on 09/29/2004 11:50:24 AM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave soldiers and their Commander in Chief)
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