Posted on 08/23/2023 9:42:49 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The PRC is our real threat, but neither Republicans nor Democrats will call that elephant in the room out.
The PRC donates a lot to political campaigns and parties through their US based subsidiaries. The PRC has lobbying firms (some of the most influential like the Podesta Group). They have vast influence on the US media through direct engagement, some ownership, their own state run media being available in the US and advertising revenue. There is a huge expat population in the US. Very important, much of US manufacturing is based in the PRC (Cisco, HP, Apple, Dell, GM or >75% of what is sold on Amazon) and US based companies do not like anything which interferes with that, nor do they like to have access to one of the worlds largest markets interrupted.
Bottom line: when it comes to the PRC, the US policy makers and bureaucrats hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_wise_monkeys#/media/File%3AGandhiji‘s_Three_Monkeys.JPG
The PRC can drive tanks over pro democracy students on Tienamin Square, and that same year the US will give them most favored trade status under George H. They can have questionable organ harvesting policies, make dissidents disappear, oppress religion, have forced abortions, literal internment camps, and we won’t say much. The PRC is a single party communist regime, they execute more people than any other country on this planet, occupy Tibet and in a show of force recently conducted a naval blockade of Taiwan. What do we do? We tell our #1 trade partner not to worry and things will return back to normal soon.
Our foreign policy is guided by making money, and that’s it.
If you’re important enough to us, you can disembowel and dismember a US resident and journalist while he’s still alive, in a fellow NATO country, at the order of the prince, and we won’t do anything, i.e. Kashoggi. We’ll sell you $200 billion worth of arms the next year and roll the red carpet out. Where’s a warrant? What investigation was there, really? Who in the US government is pushing for those responsible to be “brought to justice?” Hahahaha
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45812399
We once were special. We once had a constitutional republic, a free press, our policies reflected certain societal values.
We expected our leaders to display certain values, and they were present in our literature, movies, plays, paintings, music, sculpture, even architecture. All that is history. That is not who we are today. Today you “literally” have a US President go on a tour and claiming the US is not a Christian nation, repeatedly.
You tell me, what do we really represent today? Your Norman Rockwell, apple pie and American flag world is gone. Today when you go on a US military installation, you’ll buy clothes made in Vietnam, where the owners of the sweatshops there are communist party members, some are the same folks we fought against. You can buy your peace, democracy, sovereignty and human rights Ukraine flag (Ukraine isn’t any of those) on Amazon made in China: https://a.co/d/cD3bR4L
.
Who?
China is an economic threat.
Is it a military threat? To Taiwan yes, but not to Japan, leave along parts of the USA.
They need to be encouraged to not make the leap to a military threat and at the same time to play by the same economic rules as the USA.
However, even if China turns into a democracy overnight and fully accepts the same economic rules as the USA, they are still going to rival the USA economically - they are large, have smart people and are growing internally as well.
you are talking about going back to the gold standard?
Right now there is roughly $2.26 trillion in US currency in circulation worldwide - physical (about 10%) and bank fiat currencies etc.
There isn’t enough gold in existence for the USA to go back to the gold standard.
If you have a gold standard, then the money supply can only expand in line with the gold supply. That means limited money, so money does indeed retain its value better (= less inflation). However, without the ability to create money, it’s hard for an economy to expand. Imagine going to the bank for a mortgage and being told, “sorry, we haven’t discovered any new gold mines this year so we don’t have any money to lend you.”
You can’t go back to a physical standard for currency any more than you can cancel all paper currency and keep it in specie
“You don’t think China and Russia aren’t doing the same bullying the US does?”
Actually, no, they won’t. They are not pushing other countries to use their currency to prop it up and give a federal reserve a cut of the action. The US does.
“Why was Finland desperate to join NATO”
For reason’s anti-Russian bigots like you cannot possibly understand. You are blinded by your job to push anti-Russian propaganda.
The West did help in a way, but what was important was that the countries themselves made the change -- compare Poland and Ukraine
Ukraine was hamstrung by sticking to the Russyski Mir, while Poland wasn't (I am simplifying yes)
That is one of the reasons why Ukraine did not want to stay with the Kremlin's plan in 2014 but wanted to be closer to the West.
anti-russian?
Nah, Finland and Sweden decided to join NATO now because Putin has shown that Russia is an aggressive state - returning to its state in the 1800s or during the pre-”Communism in one country” USSR state.
Nothing Russo-phobic about that.
“There isn’t enough gold in existence for the USA to go back to the gold standard.”
Sure, there is. There always has been. The problem you failed to understand is that the federal reserve system deflated the value of the dollar by 97% since 1913 when the federal reserve system was implemented.
If you took that $2.26 trillion and divided it by 3% it would only be worth $67 billion, as it should be before the massive federal reserve inflation.
Chinese and North Korean leaders do not like for their whereabouts to be known when they are out of the country.
We annex entire continents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine
Ask a Mexican about New Mexico and Arizona and if the US invades and annexes land.
“In 1848, the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War and allowed the New Mexico territory to be annexed to the United States.”
Wrong. They joined out of pressure the US, not pressure from Russia. Again, you are a bigot, not an educated person.
Where Ukraines economy today?
https://tradingeconomics.com/ukraine/full-year-gdp-growth
Using your reasoning, was following our lead a good idea?
The world bank anticipates that 30% of Ukraines population will be at or below the poverty level by the end of this year. Great success!
AND
Finland and Sweden have joined out of pressure from Putin's attempt to create a new Tsarist Empire.
Ukraine should have been allowed into NATO in 2008 when it applied.
If that had happened, then Ukraine would today not be under threat from Putin and would be on the path to prosperity.
Ukraine has been invaded by Russia - first in 2014 and on a larger scale since February 2022 —> so looking at their economic progress since 2021 is looking at a country under invasion.
Ukrainians do not want to be under the Kremlin’s thumb.
It is estimated that approx 200,000 tonnes of gold has been mined.
That is 7 billion ounces or 14 trillion dollars at current prices.
I’m not necessarily an advocate of the gold standard, but it appears doable. A partial like the Swiss is worth looking at.
Do they like being under our thumb?
https://www.ft.com/content/3d6041fb-5747-4564-9874-691742aa52a2
Who do you think hand picked most of the key people running Ukraine today?
When a US Vice President makes phone calls and demands folks get fired in Ukraine because he don’t like where they’re taking an investigation is that a “sovereign” nation not under someone’s thumb?
If you really cared about Ukraine and such concepts as sovereignty, you would have supported the Minsk agreement which basically strived to get foreign influence out of Ukraine, on both sides.
Things like that.
I'm sure there is plenty more.
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