Posted on 07/15/2002 3:24:20 PM PDT by sam_paine
With Russia as a first strike, the AW of the Chinese is a great second punch. If Russia and China teamed, with China supplying the ground forces and Russia the Technology, the US with its Clintonesta half an army would be in dire straits. A plum ripe for the plucking. Now if we were to ship all our army over seas to quell brush fires started by the marxists and IslamoNazis It would be an unguarded plum.
Too bad they did, and we did... To bad, so sad...
I'm terrified that our administrations pansy response to the events of 9-11 have only emboldened the chinese. Remember all of us posting on FR after 9-11 that we would unleash hell on the terrorist states? 10 months later its not so hellish is it? Yes The taliban is gone, but we continue to cozy up to the likes of Saudi Arabia and Syria who are perhaps bigger threats.
$200 nikes that are made in China are not commodity items.
It all depends on the products.
PCs are going the way of microwave ovens and toasters.
Even then, in a price war, prices eventually level off. The question is, do they level off at $11 or $12? A price floor might help, especially when the extra $1 is capitalized into more end consumers, which it would definately do in relation to SE Asian nations compared to China.
Other than that, what would an airline price war have to do with the cost of jet fuel? The main driver is the economic system, which in turn forces those companies to seek out cheaper inputs.
Not every situation is a price war. And even when there is, cheaper might not always be better. Cut throat pricing means there is a going out of business sale. Where is the floor going to be?
I was in my driveway, next to my house, in a smallish collge town in central Michigan. A hellacious storm front had just passed through the area, and the weather bulletins said another storm front was on its way. (Michigan gets some really nasty squall lines in the late summer.) I went outside to "sky watch" to see if there were any tornadoes in the area. (I'd seen one a year or two earlier, during similar weather, this was kind of the northern suburb of "tornado alley".)
When I first saw it, it was a black dot high up and way to the West and a little to the North. I assumed it was a bird and didn't pay it any attention. A few minutes later, I noticed it was still there, and was a slightly closer (and appeared a little bit larger). I couldn't make out what it was, and figured it must be a kite, since a bird wouldn't be in that same area of the sky barely moving in several minutes.
A few minutes later, I thought "who would be insane enough to fly a kite in this kind of weather?", and started looking at it to see if I could tell what it was. (Before that point, I'd glance at it but wasn't really curious about it.)
As it gradually got closer and lower, I could tell that it wasn't a kite. When I realized it was some kind of plane, I was in awe, because as I said, it was completely silent, and moved so slowly. Although it slowly drifted around the area as it wafted Eastward, its nose was always pointed in the direction it was moving. (I had the impression that it's Eastward motion was at about the same speed that the breeze was moving.)
I don't know why, but I kind of had the impression that it was having some kind of problems, maybe as a result of the weather (very severe electrical storms). Maybe there were a couple of frantic guys trying to jump start it. :)
Anyway, I don't think anyone intended that I see it, I think it may have been blown off course, or had its nav systems scrambled by the violent weather. When they "got it started" (or so it seemed), they seemed to be fairly intent on booking out of the area pronto.
It was very frustrating, because the weather was so unbearably humid. When I first figured that it was a plane, I ran inside for a binocs, and the instant I took them out of the air conditioned house, they fogged right up. I wiped them, and they immediately fogged up again. I ran inside again to grab my spotting scope, and same thing. So I never got a better look at it.
It is much more based on 'how much can I charge and still get away with it'?
Its about profits and returns on investments. Those profits are what makes a man rich. And that is what drives things. If prices get too low, hey, its not worth my time.
Its the bull vs the bear. The seller vs the buyer.
Thats the fallacy of your argument. You are talking capitalism with a communist mentality.
The way to make money is to improve people's lives, and charge a fee for it.
And this is EXACTLY the liberal attitude China is counting on to broaden their military might. We are talking about ICBM's here! They can Kill us! Wake up!
I believe that is called "Treason"!
i thought they had already won via WALMART.
just TRY and find a product that's not made in china, the phillipines or indonesia!
Yes. So true.
"Strategic partners"? Against what...(wondering)...an attack from Mars????
Yes, I can see this happening. I've always thought lawn care services were just a cover for political insurgency groups (PIG). Of course the can be no disputing the goal of the radical outfit Calixo Amarrillo y Beaumont Revolutionary Indian Takeover Operations (CABRITO). Speaking of which, has anyone else noticed now at Taco Bell you have to ask for hot sauce or they won't give you any?
Actually, as sheik yerbouty pointed out in #48, that is not likely to happen, since Russia needs an "American card" in order to keep Siberia Russian.
In IIRC East vs. West, written 35 years ago now, C. J. Cutliffe Hyne pointed out that there are very long cycles in East-West relationships that tend to be marked at their inflection points by strategic battles, such as Salamis and Plataia in the Persian-Greek Wars, that ended Xerxes's attempt to conquer Greece. He opined that such an inflection point has just been passed, and that its strategic turning point was the Russo-Japanese War. America is a wild card in Hyne's scenario, because as everyone knows we imposed an American shogun on the Japanese in 1945. But European influence in Asia has been in recessional ever since the Russo-Japanese War, so his thesis would seem to hold up. Hyne prognosticated that Russia would play the same role in centuries to come that the Byzantine Empire did 1500 years earlier, as the shield of Europe against the aggrandizement of Asian despotisms. In Hyne's scenario, Russia is the key player in that centuries-long agon, and America can affect the outcome of the clash of civilizations by how we play our hand.
Russian thinking has been molded by the experience of not just the Mongol invasion, but of prior invasions and incursions going back to before the origins of Russia itself. Khazars, Cumans, Pechenegs, Avars, Huns, and other nomadic peoples swept out of the east over the centuries, burning and slaying everything in their paths, so that the Russian experience has been a long series of woeful blows at the hands of hordes from the East and of military regimes from the West. The Russian strategic reality has been that they have to defend quaquaversally, all around the compass, from essentially open defensive positions. But while the Russians have fought their most bitter wars against Western military adventurers like Napoleon and Hitler, in their own minds the major threat is to the East, because their national humiliation by the Mongols remains a bitter, nearly-fresh memory almost 800 years later. Many nations have invaded Russia, but it was the Mongols who hurt them.
Therefore I think that, with the Chinese presently running a demographic invasion of the Russian Far East similar to what the Mexicans are doing to the American Southwest and eyeing Siberia as their second great opportunity for aggrandizement after Taiwan, no Russian leadership will cooperate with Chinese attempts against Taiwan, viz., against the United States. If anything, such a contest between China and the U.S. over the Formosa Strait would be a proving ground for Russian weapons similar to the Middle Eastern wars, but there won't be any grand anti-American alliances. The Russians are not stupid about their future relationship with China.
For some reason I attract the left side pro-China flamers. It has always been this way. Then they get banned, wait a week, then come back again. I guess it means I am "on" and they see the most threat from me.
When they actually sit and read, think, and reply to what was said, in its entirety that is one thing. In general though, they read..."blah blah blah... the point I want to see...blah blah blah..."
They sound like broken records, and refuse to try an even understand what the point is. I have also responded to the same 'fire' about 10 times, specifically to the same poster, but they refuse to listen, and then revert back to the same old stuff, so I stop responding.
Say with the word 'democracy'... AIG dogs it, and keeps on saying his one liners. Its almost like PeeWee Herman shouting louder each time "I know you are but what am I..."
It turns into a confrontational war of words where one side talks about something in specific and tried to make a point, and the other tends to digress into rhetoric
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