Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is?

[DJ]

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Tinkerer wrote:<br /><br />If it continues on its present course, I expect that some time between 2015 and 2050 China will be the dominant world economy. If so, it will expect to and will be capable of exercising the international power that the US currently does, and will be able to back it up with greater military force than the US can.<br /><br /><br />Agree-100%<br /><br />Americans, don't care. Not a good thing, for Americans.<br /><br />Fat, dumb, and happy, comes to mind.

 

[Dunaruna]

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Understood DJ.<br /><br />"see above" meant that you agree with everything above. I could have also meant that the above posters hated America - no harm no foul <br /><br />Aldo

 

[Tinkerer]

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Originally posted by Dunaruna:<br /> Understood DJ.<br /><br />"see above" meant that you agree with everything above. I could have also meant that the above posters hated America - no harm no foul <br /><br />Aldo

I was in the same boat. All is well.

 

[Tinkerer]

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Originally posted by DJ:<br /> Tinkerer wrote:<br /><br />If it continues on its present course, I expect that some time between 2015 and 2050 China will be the dominant world economy. If so, it will expect to and will be capable of exercising the international power that the US currently does, and will be able to back it up with greater military force than the US can.<br /><br /><br />Agree-100%<br /><br />Americans, don't care. Not a good thing, for Americans.<br /><br />Fat, dumb, and happy, comes to mind.

I suspect Americans care as much as we do, but when the major corporations and government policies and world trade deals drive the local manufacturers out of business because they can't compete, what else can you do but buy the stuff that's on the shelves?<br /><br />At least in the US you've still got some serious domestic manufacturing capacity left and trade policies and advantages that protect your industries a lot more than ours. We're steadily running ours down in a lot of areas and buying the goods from overseas with income earned from raw materials and exports of intangibles in fragile markets like tertiary education.<br /><br />You don't need a Ph.D. in trade economics to work out that a country that gets $1 for a pound of raw material and buys it back at $4 in finished goods won't be able to maintain its standard of living indefinitely. <br /><br />We're getting away with in part at the moment because the finished goods are coming in from China and elsewhere below the cost of our raw materials. Used to be the same with Japan. We haven't been able to afford a lot of their stuff for years. <br /><br />Unless Africa opens up as the next great source of cheap labour and manufactured goods, which I don't think is likely, sooner or later we're stuffed!

 

[achris]

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Update on Chinese exports. <br /><br />Friend of mine has just got back from China, he works there, and he said they have just finished one of their annual trade fairs, for export orders. In 10 days they had 124,000 orders valued at a total of 8 BILLION dollars US.<br /><br />Bit of a worry!<br /><br />Chris.......

 

[dogsdad]

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

I've always said free markets are a good thing, but the way the world is conducting trade with China is just wrong. China can force the Chinese people to work at whatever wages they dictate. They can then drive prices down, capture world markets, and reinvest their profits in their military. In the meantime the flood of Chinese goods at ultra-low prices on the world market essentially puts labor in the free world in competition with what amounts to slave labor in China.<br /><br />There's something very wrong with that picture. Too many western business people are so eager to cash in and get that easy and quick dollar today---without any thought for tomorrow.<br /><br />I have little faith in the idea that China's economic development is slowly opening China up, westernizing it, or driving it more towards capitalism. The communist government may be using capitalism as a means to an end (essentially using capitalism to destroy capitalism), but the Chinese people will not see the benefits---at least not for long. The Chinese communists have a stranglehold on their society, and they will do whatever is necessary to maintain the status quo.<br /><br /><br />-dd-

 

[Tinkerer]

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Originally posted by dogsdad:<br /> I've always said free markets are a good thing, but the way the world is conducting trade with China is just wrong. China can force the Chinese people to work at whatever wages they dictate. They can then drive prices down, capture world markets, and reinvest their profits in their military. In the meantime the flood of Chinese goods at ultra-low prices on the world market essentially puts labor in the free world in competition with what amounts to slave labor in China.<br /><br />There's something very wrong with that picture. Too many western business people are so eager to cash in and get that easy and quick dollar today---without any thought for tomorrow.<br /><br />I have little faith in the idea that China's economic development is slowly opening China up, westernizing it, or driving it more towards capitalism. The communist government may be using capitalism as a means to an end (essentially using capitalism to destroy capitalism), but the Chinese people will not see the benefits---at least not for long. The Chinese communists have a stranglehold on their society, and they will do whatever is necessary to maintain the status quo.<br /><br /><br />-dd-

That's the mystery, isn't it?<br /><br />Western business treats China like it's a free or capitalist economy while we have no idea what the people who control the means of production and everything else in China really want, or how they got to be or remain in control, or what they're going to do with their rapidly increasing power.<br /><br />The PRC is so far ahead of Western businesses in exploiting them that it's total joke.<br /><br />You get nothing for nothing.<br /><br />What happens when the US, like Australia is energetically doing, has lost most of its serious manufacturing capacity to China?<br /><br />Who makes the rules when we can't even make our own u n d e r pants and saucepans?<br /><br />There's a certain Marxist prophecy fulfilment here: Capitalism's greed for profits will be its own downfall.<br /><br />One thing is for sure: The ridiculously overpaid corporate and financial characters in the West who deliver this financial and power bonanza China won't be the ones who pay for it like the average person does.

 

[kenimpzoom]

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

I was just talking to my wife about this. She is Thai. Her grandmother told her stories about what the Japanese did to the Thai people when they invaded. Luckily she avoided all of it.<br /><br />Ken

 

[achris]

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Originally posted by KenImpZoom:<br /> I was just talking to my wife about this. She is Thai. Her grandmother told her stories about what the Japanese did to the Thai people when they invaded. Luckily she avoided all of it.<br /><br />Ken

They were called 'comfort stations'. Not very comfortable for the people who were required to service the Japanese troops!

 

[Vlad D Impeller]

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

I don't care much about the China Taiwan issue, after all is'nt Taiwan Chinese territory? thats a matter for them to sort out by themselves, and they probably will sooner or later.<br />What worries me is this huge trade imbalance with China, and the vast amount of chinese money that is financing our gigantic deficit which we are lumbering on the future generations of this country. In my view China is on the fast track of being "The Company Store"

 

[dogsdad]

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Tinkerer, on this issue we are in agreement.<br /><br />I've said that the CEOs and Boards of Directors should be required to go and live in the countries to which they export jobs. Permanently.

 

[dogsdad]

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

My stepmother was in the Bataan Death March. She was just a little girl at the time. Her mother and father were missionaries. Her father died in captivity. <br /><br />For years after their return to the USA, she has told me, she would lick her plate clean after each meal. Older people often went without food to feed the little ones, so you can only imagine how hungry the captives were.<br /><br />The Japanese were far more brutal in other campaigns.

 

[phatmanmike]

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Originally posted by DJ:<br /> See above.<br /><br />America HATERS-Rule! But, choose to live here?<br /><br />Hmmmm!

just cause i live here, does not mean that i have to agree / like everything or even ANY thing that this country's government does or did.<br /><br />my 2 cents.<br /><br />ps, why isnt there a "cents" key, there is a dollar$ key...hmmmmm<br /><br />cents

 

[rodbolt]

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Vlad<br /> ya better care about the tiawan issue. while I agree that China has always claimed that island and by all accounts it does belong to the chinese, if the use military occupation it will put the US in a bad situation. best I can tell with what limited resources I can find a law was passed some years ago requireing the US to militarily defend that country in event of a chinese military takeover. its my belief though that the chinese will occupy Tiawan like they did hongkong, as long as the money flows to china it will be business as usual.<br /> the history behind the china-Tiawan conflict is shrouded in 1950's anti-commie propaganda and obscurity.

 

[Xcusme]

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Hmmm, there is a cents key....example. 56¢

 

[cbnoodles]

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Originally posted by Xcusme:<br /> Hmmm, there is a cents key....example. 56¢

Where in the heck did you find that? What are you typing on, a typewriter? I haven't seen a cents key on a computer keyboard since I threw out the IBM OS2.

 

[Xcusme]

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

Re: Is the Japanese government stupid, or do they think the rest of the world is

OK, OK, I cheated (just a little bit)....<br /><br />I usually use a small text editor program called Text Pad to post replies, here on the forum. I type a reply and then use the spell checker. I then do a copy/paste back into the iboats posting form.<br /><br />Text Pad allows you display and pick characters from the ANSI character set ANSI SET. <br />Within Text Pad, I pick the 'symbol' I want, and it's displayed in my text.<br /><br />Example:<br /><br />Copywrite... ©<br />British Pound ... £<br />Registered..... ®<br /><br />Stuff like this comes in handy too... 5¼.....13½......6¾.....<br /><br />You get the idea.....<br /><br />Now that's MY 2¢ on the matter!