The old ,new Cold War

flip · Post by **flip** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 8:21 am

The Senate, seizing on the argument that the American jobs crisis is partly China’s fault, voted Monday to move forward with tough trade legislation that would impose tariffs on some Chinese goods to punish Beijing for keeping its currency artificially depressed.

Enlarge This Image

J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press

Senator Jeff Sessions, right, and Senator Charles E. Schumer spoke about the vote on trade legislation on Monday.

The bill, which faces an uphill battle from both the Republican-controlled House and a reluctant White House, would require the Treasury Department to determine whether China is manipulating its currency, and then order the Commerce Department to impose retaliatory tariffs on certain Chinese goods.

China intervenes in currency markets to keep the value of its currency, the renminbi, artificially low, which makes Chinese goods cheaper in the United States — a practice that lawmakers and some economists say undercuts American businesses and worsens the nation’s jobless rate.

We are at war and nobody seems to know it this time around.

Source

Since 2005, the renminbi exchange rate has been allowed to float in a narrow margin around a fixed base rate determined with reference to a basket of world currencies. The Chinese government has announced that it will gradually increase the flexibility of the exchange rate. China has initiated various pilot projects to "internationalize" the RMB in the hope that it will become a reserve currency over the long term.

A reserve currency, or anchor currency, is a currency that is held in significant quantities by many governments and institutions[who?] as part of their foreign exchange reserves. It also tends to be the international pricing currency for products traded on a global market, and commodities such as oil, gold, etc.[citation needed]

So China's stated goal is to replace all current currencies with the Renminbi?

This permits the issuing country to purchase the commodities at a marginally lower rate than other nations, which must exchange their currencies with each purchase and pay a transaction cost. For major currencies, this transaction cost is negligible with respect to the price of the commodity. It also permits the government issuing the currency to borrow money at a better rate, as there will always be a larger market for that currency than others.

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 8:36 am

If we go to economic war with China, where will go to borrow money to keep our deficit going?

flip · Post by **flip** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 9:08 am

I'm suggesting we are already in an economic war. Just as the Cold War between the Soviet Union and The US post WW2. Over a period of time and then happening in the 1990's we crippled their economy. Thus they broke up into smaller pieces. Same thing is happening right before our eyes again, except we are the ones with the weaker currency.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 12:50 pm

We're already in a cyber-war with them. I don't see why it wouldn't extend to this.

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 3:17 pm

None of this matters. By 2030, they're predicting a global economic collapse anyway and WWIII will commence because we'll all be fighting over the little planetary resource scraps that remain.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/ne ... 52944.html

callmeslick · Post by **callmeslick** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 3:51 pm

remember when I brought up the Biological imperative toward dramatic population loss? That is what the MIT boys are talking about except with goodly amounts of hard data and more PhD's than one can shake a stick at.

flip · Post by **flip** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 4:24 pm

Well as far as I can tell China is in the catbirds seat. I've heard that China has a population equal to or more than the US and all of Europe combined. They have learned to manage resources and a huge amount of people. Add that to the fact that they are also unencumbered by the current World Banking system, but still trade in commodities makes them economically sound for the most part. If their intention is to replace all currency based on their own, they are heading in the right direction for sure.

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 4:33 pm

Wait until India gets into the global picture. As for China, a lot of companies are starting to pull out their manufacturing because of wage inflation, corruption in the Chinese government and in the factories and the corresponding lack of quality and material control because of it.

flip · Post by **flip** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 4:36 pm

Coming from a complete independant, I find it interesting that the Senate is getting grief from both the President and The House for wanting to build up some safeguards. I wonder if Slick could tell us how many people he knows that have fallen over to Chinese submission?

Sergeant Thorne · Post by **Sergeant Thorne** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 5:53 pm

callmeslick wrote:remember when I brought up the Biological imperative toward dramatic population loss? That is what the MIT boys are talking about except with goodly amounts of hard data and more PhD's than one can shake a stick at.

May "biologically imperative, dramatic population loss" take first the people who go around with such an twisted notion on their lips. This world needs people who are just to each other, it doesn't need wars and man-made plagues and catastrophes.

callmeslick · Post by **callmeslick** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 5:57 pm

flip wrote:Coming from a complete independant, I find it interesting that the Senate is getting grief from both the President and Congress for wanting to build up some safeguards. I wonder if Slick could tell us how many people he knows that have fallen over to Chinese submission?

huh? Can you put that in terms that make some sort of sense? I mean, first off, that the Senate is part of Congress. Second, I don't know what 'safeguards' you 'put in' that would be worth squat. The only defense against eventual Chinese dominance, economically, is to develop our industrial base to a more functional level. Which means rebuilding the infrastructure and pouring massive resources into education at all levels, among other things. Hmmmmm, which major politician has been saying such things all along, to a chorus of naysayers who would propel the naton back to the 19th century?

callmeslick · Post by **callmeslick** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 6:01 pm

Sergeant Thorne wrote:
callmeslick wrote:remember when I brought up the Biological imperative toward dramatic population loss? That is what the MIT boys are talking about except with goodly amounts of hard data and more PhD's than one can shake a stick at.
May "biologically imperative, dramatic population loss" take first the people who go around with such an twisted notion on their lips. This world needs people who are just to each other, it doesn't need wars and man-made plagues and catastrophes.

as far as I know, Biology doesn't work that way, over the long haul. Too many members of a species for limited resources= population crash. Works every time, with everything from bacteria, to rats, to dogs to large predators. We are just another animal
species, in the overall scheme of things, and we are sucking down resources needed by the whole system. So, at least, take heart that we can and likely will take a bunch of 'lesser' species down the tubes with us. Take heart, also, that as a species, man will probably survive, and given enough time, repeat the mistakes.

flip · Post by **flip** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 6:40 pm

Well, I asked for 2 reasons. At one time you said to start speaking mandarin and I mention China and you think of population control. Figured you had put some thought into it

. This specifically:

"The Senate, seizing on the argument that the American jobs crisis is partly China’s fault, voted Monday to move forward with tough trade legislation that would impose tariffs on some Chinese goods to punish Beijing for keeping its currency artificially depressed. "

"The bill, which faces an uphill battle from both the Republican-controlled House and a reluctant White House, would require the Treasury Department to determine whether China is manipulating its currency, and then order the Commerce Department to impose retaliatory tariffs on certain Chinese goods"

Why would we as a country just sit by and let their dominance grow unhindered? Wouldn't applying tough trade legislation help "safeguard" against that? Why would the House and President be opposed to it, or have they become like-minded with Henry Kissinger who advises just to bow to Chinese dominance?

Sergeant Thorne · Post by **Sergeant Thorne** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 6:52 pm

calllmeslick wrote:as far as I know, Biology doesn't work that way, over the long haul. Too many members of a species for limited resources= population crash. Works every time, with everything from bacteria, to rats, to dogs to large predators. We are just another animal
species, in the overall scheme of things, and we are sucking down resources needed by the whole system. So, at least, take heart that we can and likely will take a bunch of 'lesser' species down the tubes with us. Take heart, also, that as a species, man will probably survive, and given enough time, repeat the mistakes.

I believe this kind of thinking will ultimately cause a great deal of suffering, oppression, and death. You don't adequately consider the consequences of your intellectual pet ideology! And most people will only fully realize what they're dealing with when it has come to fruition, if it is allowed to progress that far. You cannot deal with human beings as animals or numbers.

Callmeslick, I'm somewhat young and inexperienced, but I know basically why you believe this. It isn't stupidity, and you certainly aren't alone. One thing is certain, you are guilty of being willfully ignorant--of glazing over the actual causes of human death and suffering in order to believe this biologically-caused population-check business. Why don't you skip your next fishing trip and look into why this is being popularized--what this sort of thinking has caused in our history--what the actual causes of these population checks are!

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 8:02 pm

Bickering over that exact point aside, the article itself notes that there's far from a consensus on the certainty of this imminent "collapse," and besides that, I don't know that a sensationalist news blurb is the best place to read about such computer models.

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 8:11 pm

Didn't Ehrlich (sp) write a book called "The Population Bomb"...stating the 70's and 80's would see mass starvation? Yet here we are just buzzing along and still breeding out knickers off

flip · Post by **flip** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 8:19 pm

Heh, I leave the ideas of population control to the high-minded. My point is the ability of China to misrepresent the value of it's currency in order to manipulate the markets and suffocate those around them.

callmeslick · Post by **callmeslick** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 5:56 pm

Sergeant Thorne wrote:[I believe this kind of thinking will ultimately cause a great deal of suffering, oppression, and death. You don't adequately consider the consequences of your intellectual pet ideology! And most people will only fully realize what they're dealing with when it has come to fruition, if it is allowed to progress that far. You cannot deal with human beings as animals or numbers.

sorry, but this isn't an 'ideology', it's proven facts. In terms of those facts, I see no reason to think that Biology will not 'deal' with humans as it would any other animal species. You, for what it's worth, have given me utterly no reason to think otherwise. All you seem willing to opine is that one 'can't' think that way.

Callmeslick, I'm somewhat young and inexperienced, but I know basically why you believe this. It isn't stupidity, and you certainly aren't alone. One thing is certain, you are guilty of being willfully ignorant--of glazing over the actual causes of human death and suffering in order to believe this biologically-caused population-check business. Why don't you skip your next fishing trip and look into why this is being popularized--what this sort of thinking has caused in our history--what the actual causes of these population checks are!

under experimental conditions, as best as I remember(it's been a few years since I read the literature on this sort of stuff....my thing in real life is immune chemistry, not population dynamics) researchers saw any and all of the following:
starvation, violence against other members of the population, disease and, in wild populations, exposure to predation and low birth rates. Don't these sort of describe what you refer to as the 'causes' of population crashes in humans? Just because we call it the 'Plague' or the 'Great War' or the 'Genocide' or some term related to human language and such, are we really that much different than a bunch of overgrazed wildebest?

callmeslick · Post by **callmeslick** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 5:59 pm

woodchip wrote:Didn't Ehrlich (sp) write a book called "The Population Bomb"...stating the 70's and 80's would see mass starvation? Yet here we are just buzzing along and still breeding out knickers off

what you see now are die-offs around the edges, not a total crash. Hell, if you had a real crash now, given Darwinian outcomes, an American might well keep 'buzzing around'. If you lived in Nigeria or Bangladesh, not so much so.

flip · Post by **flip** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 6:16 pm

There's a devil on my shoulder tempting me to post my monkey video. LOL. Slick, you are maoking none of the obvious distinctions in your comparison.

roid · Post by **roid** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 6:30 pm

meeeeh i dunno about that slick, I LIKE THE CUT OF YOUR JIB but i think i disagree with you on this one.

All predicted Malthusian catastrophes tend to be headed off by technological progress, and i tend to imagine they will continue doing so into the bright foreseeable future.

I've taken a real souring to this "The world is gonna end coz everyone else doesn't act like i do" pseudo-religious apocalyptic kinda stuff. Just coz this one is comming from lovable hippies and we want to hug them, doesn't mean they arn't just as full of ★■◆● just like every other religious apocalyptic prediction. And honestly i think that's where they got it from, our culture has been so influenced by Christian apocalypticism that we have a real trouble actually thinking about the future in any terms other than "unstoppable righteous mega-holocausts".

The media loves a "the world is gonna end" story, but they give very scant publicity to when these arguments are torn apart in academia. Coz apparently those stories arn't as interesting in our current cultural climate.
This is actually one of the things where i can kindof see the point of the political right when they talk about the leftist media. I don't agree that it's a leftist slant, but rather - the left is being rather noisy lately about apocalyptic stories so that naturally automatically makes them the media's best friend. Whoever brings the horrible stories is the media's best friend at any time, the reactionary gullible fucks that they typically are.

(ps: i'm not talking about climate change, academia backs that up super well)

flip · Post by **flip** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 6:41 pm

The DBB needs a like button

Roid, ideals have and will always be at odds with each other and the whole damn world thinks they are right and everybody else is wrong. I, like Slick foresee a crash, or better said a clash of these ideals. The reason I say China is such a threat to our way of thinking is because they have remained autonomous. The rest of the world went one direction and they went another. It makes them extremely strong. All one has to do is look back over the history of the world and the wars that shaped it to dispel all the fantasies a hippie might have

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 7:14 pm

...China's going in essentially our direction, or at least generally close to it. They're not some crazy rogue state; they're a functioning part of the global economy, and they've essentially embraced capitalism on the economic side of things. They still have significant human rights issues, and they tend to saber-rattle a bit once in a while, but at the end of the day, this "clash" is entirely in your head.

roid · Post by **roid** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 7:38 pm

yeah flip when it comes to China i am a little concerned, coz i can't see into their future. A part of my just wants to shrug it off as fearing what i don't understand. Another part of me wants to actually talk about it, but never gets to, coz it's generally too busy countering ridiculous (often outright racist) logic that dominates most of said threads.
Because they have a .... well they essentially have the longest history of any CIVILISATION ever. So when dealing with them i get this feeling of dealing with some old dangerous sublimed species, "who knows what they're capable of" my brain keeps repeating. (please shutup brain)
A lot of it is the inherent "respect for elders" tied into Chinese (ok fine, most Asian) culture, which has been somewhat eroded from most other western nations. Now don't get me wrong, i'm not saying respect for elders is bad, but it does subtly encourage a kindof blind authoritarianism. I basically think it's somewhat in conflict to the ideas of meritocracy, egalitarianism, and (dare i say post-modernist) moral relativism (ie: question everything) that IMHO are a cornerstone of our modern western democracies.
I'm quite curious to see how this ends up absorbing into our global village, i'm trying to remain optimistic and tell myself that it's probably hopefully not all going to go terribilly wrong.

flip wrote:I, like Slick foresee a crash, or better said a clash of these ideals. (ed note: strike mine)

I'm gonna take this outof context coz it suits what i want to talk about, and just talk about that first bit as if you never disclaimed it with the 2nd bit... (:P)

The problem i have with that foreseeing of a crash, is that it's so obviously biased from your upbringing. You are religiously predisposed to that crash yes? So... it's not really an intellectually clean assumption to make. Sure you can look up supporting evidence for it, there's plenty of it. But because that bias is there, you'll never be entirely sure that you have really been able to outrun your confirmation bias and make a reasonably objective appraisal of all of the evidence available to you.
People from an upbringing influenced by the gaia hypothesis and other religiously inspired ecology worship viewpoints (ie: A LOT OF US) also suffer from a similar bias. This is why i can't align myself fully with green groups, they are just so obviously biased and unable to rise above their own ideological inheritance (eg: blanket opposition to nuclear power and genetic modification, and the rampant chemo-phobia they encourage, etcetc).

I like to bring this up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy
So many people believe these things with an outright religious zeal, it's not rational.

flip · Post by **flip** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 8:03 pm

First off, I'm not talking about an apocalypse. I'm just saying they are a threat, for reasons I gave and many of the ones you just gave. It would be less than to honest to say your not correct to some extent about predisposition, but nothing current has helped to ease it any either. I have been observing these changes since the late 80's. A sequence of events over the last 30 years that has continuosly pushed the world towards centralization. On top of that, it's most certainly the only choice at this point, to have a centralized government that can centrally control all the world's resources. I just have no faith that's it's gonna be a great, and could cite many previous examples to support that suspicion. There are human rights violations in China because they are managing everything centrally and the whole's needs takes precedence over an individuals right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It may be normal evolution of society as a whole, but I hate to see the ideal of the individual swallowed up once again.

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Sat Apr 07, 2012 5:51 am

Roid, this is some of the best posting I've seen from you...perhaps the best. Kudos.

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Sat Apr 07, 2012 7:42 am

While plagues and wars may be “natural” the flaw in the hypothesis is that few of these events ever happened while population was at a critical mass.

There are a few valid examples tho, perhaps Easter Island.

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Sat Apr 07, 2012 10:30 am

Spidey, will we get out of this mess through "technology developments" like humans have done in the past, or have we finally reached the limits to what we can accomplish with our brains in time to save us from certain doom.

callmeslick · Post by **callmeslick** » Sat Apr 07, 2012 12:13 pm

flip wrote:There's a devil on my shoulder tempting me to post my monkey video. LOL. Slick, you are maoking none of the obvious distinctions in your comparison.

what distinctions? My principles apply to all species, and are very simple.

callmeslick · Post by **callmeslick** » Sat Apr 07, 2012 12:15 pm

Top Gun wrote:...China's going in essentially our direction, or at least generally close to it. They're not some crazy rogue state; they're a functioning part of the global economy, and they've essentially embraced capitalism on the economic side of things. They still have significant human rights issues, and they tend to saber-rattle a bit once in a while, but at the end of the day, this "clash" is entirely in your head.

there is the reason I am concerned on a simple lack of resource front. Yes, China is going in our direction, and if they ever get the saturation of motor vehicles the US has, we will deplete the known supplies of the planet in around 6-10 years.

flip · Post by **flip** » Sun Apr 08, 2012 7:38 pm

I don't get this " China is going our direction" ★■◆●. Maybe they are just kindler and gentler than I am, but if I saw the position I held in the world, as in China's case, i damn sure wouldn't be "following along". I'd be setting the standard and precedent and throwing my weight around. Things like, "na, piss off, we'll just build our own space station", and " Well, what if our money is under-valued, what you gonna do about it?"

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Sun Apr 08, 2012 8:13 pm

I remember war, before it was cold.

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Mon Apr 09, 2012 6:05 am

Isaac wrote:I remember war, before it was cold.

You must of missed the Battle of the Bulge.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Mon Apr 09, 2012 7:13 am

woodchip wrote:
Isaac wrote:I remember war, before it was cold.
You must of missed the Battle of the Bulge.

You must have missed the silly reference I was making!

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Mon Apr 09, 2012 7:23 am

You must of missed mine too.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Mon Apr 09, 2012 7:27 am

woodchip wrote:Uuhhhh.. err... yeah... You must of missed mine too... I bet.. uh.. yeah.

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Mon Apr 09, 2012 2:48 pm

flip wrote:I don't get this " China is going our direction" ****. Maybe they are just kindler and gentler than I am, but if I saw the position I held in the world, as in China's case, i damn sure wouldn't be "following along". I'd be setting the standard and precedent and throwing my weight around. Things like, "na, piss off, we'll just build our own space station", and " Well, what if our money is under-valued, what you gonna do about it?"

Aren't they doing that already?

callmeslick · Post by **callmeslick** » Mon Apr 09, 2012 3:22 pm

flip wrote:I don't get this " China is going our direction" ****. Maybe they are just kindler and gentler than I am, but if I saw the position I held in the world, as in China's case, i damn sure wouldn't be "following along". I'd be setting the standard and precedent and throwing my weight around. Things like, "na, piss off, we'll just build our own space station", and " Well, what if our money is under-valued, what you gonna do about it?"

why create the unnecessary hassle? Maybe, Flip, the issue here is that you view reality through American eyes. Many other cultures, I suspect China amongst them, take a much more patient, long-term view than your average American. They can wait, and they will. Why work to destroy what will easily fall before you if you wait?

flip · Post by **flip** » Mon Apr 09, 2012 3:25 pm

Isn't that exactly what I am saying? Maybe, if you weren't a "progressive", you would agree that we should do something now then.

callmeslick · Post by **callmeslick** » Mon Apr 09, 2012 5:25 pm

flip wrote:Isn't that exactly what I am saying? Maybe, if you weren't a "progressive", you would agree that we should do something now then.

sadly, what we need to do is what the 'Progressive' President has been trying to get done: Rebuild infrastructure, ramp up our entire educational system, subsidize cutting edge businesses trying to gain a foothold in coming industries(ie non-petroleum energy sources, electric vehicles, all manner of similar stuff). In other words, do as the Chinese are doing. Why do you think the Chinese own 95% of the worlds solar panel business? Where do you think they are headed with so many students getting advanced scientific degrees? This stuff shouldn't be some sort of 'left-right' debate, it should be supported by all of us. But, since Barack Obama suggests it, and has from before his election, half of the elected officials can't support it, or try and make the ideals work. Sad. Really, really sad.