Reply #64: It would not be in China's interest to kill us. [View All]

[pattim]

China's economic "miracle" is quite frankly on legs as shaky as our own. The Chinese government worries it's sitting on a bubble--which is why they still peg their currency by and large to ours; they see us as a necessary stabilizing force in the world economy. But they need us. America is the source of China's growth. Without American demand, American capital, and American investment, there is no Chinese 8% annual growth. Their economy is utterly linked to ours--as is most of the world's. Europe and Asia can not "cut us off," any more than you could "cut off" your left hand's blood supply or we could "cut off" the rest of the world from American demand and capital--and globalization is only drawing nations closer.

And any comparison to the Soviets is bunk. We have a few problems, yes. But these times are not apocolyptic. Not at all. Our economy is sluggish, but has been in worse shape. And we have no resemblances to the Soviets. The Russians had a centrally planned economy with a bankrupted center. We have a largely self-correcting free-market economy. Our economy leads to boom-bust cycles, and we're headed from boom to bust, made worse by George W. Bush's terrible failures as a president. But that's much more recoverable than the Soviet economy. We have more capital, we have a worldwide trade network, we have a broader economic base, and we aren't in the middle of some boneheaded perestroika/glastnost overnight socioeconomic revolution.

And when have we had leaders who were <i>not</i> bloated, corrupt pigs? That's a pretty damn recurring theme through American history. Go to the nearest college library, and look through their microfilm archives of old papers. Read the editorial cartoons. We've had bloated plutocrat rulers since the Gilded Age.

Oil is the biggest problem, but once again is not the end of the world. It will likely cause a depression, but not the end of civilization. We have nuclear plants, and we will build more. We have ethanol production capability. As it becomes economically viable to switch, we will switch. Will it be hard? Yes. It will be nasty, and it will lead to at best a recession, at worst a depression. But America has survived several depressions, and we will survive several more.

Should taxes be raised? Yes. But are we hollow? Are we headed for destruction? No and no. That's outright alarmism, and such patently untrue justifications for policies, as right as the policies may be, only end up sapping support for those policies.