[Plantagenet]

Revisiting the Impact of Thucydides Trap, Great Filter, on China's future with new perspectives........ I believe very soon the US will attempt to nuclear blackmail China (if it hasn't happened already in backdoor communications) and to an extent also hold hostage its own US allies/vassals and the rest of the world with threat of nuclear doomsday if everyone doesn't jump on the US-led China-containment bandwagon...

I think thats highly unlikely.

Joe Biden just had a summit with Putin and he threatened Putin with horrible consequences if there was more Russian hacking of US businesses..... and what happened? The Russian ignored Biden and now we're got the biggest hack of all time going on. And how did Biden respond to this new hack? Biden tried to hide from the press and then he lied and pretended he didn't know Russia was behind this latest hack.

Joe Biden is a wimp.

Putin isn't scared of Biden and neither is China. Biden is a senile old fool who doesn't scare anyone. The last thing in the world Biden is going to do is try to use nuclear blackmail against China or anyone else. Its far more likely the Chinese are blackmailing Biden by threatening to release what they know about bribing Hunter Biden (and Joe).

As you all know, recently Xi committed China to be carbon neutral by 2060

Thats going to be very difficult for them to do as China is continuing to build large numbers of coal=fired power plants. Xi is lying.....isn't that obvious?

Money is just a mere abstract symbolic token representation of the ability of cheap and abundant higher EROEI(Energy Returned on Energy Invested) energy to do 'work' on our behalf.

Actually no. Thats not the definition of money.

The US .... is the global hegemon and..... it collects its rent by taxing/usurping the wealth of the rest of the world (QE infinity and other great harvestings)... .

The US is not taxing or usurping the wealth of the rest of the world. Printing money in order to do QE has nothing to do with taxing other countries.

America is so wealthy ....because its managed to use its military empire to basically enslave and colonize the rest of the world

The US has not enslaved or colonized the rest of the world.


Yoo-hooo......rest of world.......will you be our slaves? How about paying us taxes? NO? DARN!!!!

Cheers!

[Tanada]

The US .... is the global hegemon and..... it collects its rent by taxing/usurping the wealth of the rest of the world (QE infinity and other great harvestings)... .

The US is not taxing or usurping the wealth of the rest of the world. Printing money in order to do QE has nothing to do with taxing other countries.

Cheers!

This is the only part of your message where we differ Plant. Here is the thing, the US Dollar is the recognized world reserve currency. This means every country involved in international trade to a large extent denominates that trade in US Dollars. When the world agreed to this system the USA promised that the dollar would remain fully convertible and that we would not abuse the trust of the rest of the world.

Technically you can still convert your dollars to any other currency more or less on demand. Since 2008 the USA has been very seriously abusing the trust of the world by significantly inflating the dollar with "Quantitative Easing" and related measures that have deliberately reduced the value of every other dollar that was already in existence from 1973-2007. Today there are quite literally trillions of new digital dollars circulating through the world economy which has placed a very real burden on all other currencies. Many of those foreign currencies also did their own versions of digitizing currency as a way of not suffering too badly from US actions, but not every country has that option and many even with the option had no desire to digitize new currency into existence with the profligate carelessness of the USA. It is not a tax per se but it is a heck of a surcharge on the world economy none the less.

[rangerone314]

Recent watched the original series Star Trek episode "Patterns of Force" with my sons. (the one with the Nazis). My oldest son pointed out how John Gill (doing his speech at the end) seemed just like Biden.

If you want a laugh, look up that clip on YouTube.

[Plantagenet]

This is the only part of your message where we differ Plant. Here is the thing, the US Dollar is the recognized world reserve currency. This means every country involved in international trade to a large extent denominates that trade in US Dollars. When the world agreed to this system the USA promised that the dollar would remain fully convertible and that we would not abuse the trust of the rest of the world.

Technically you can still convert your dollars to any other currency more or less on demand. Since 2008 the USA has been very seriously abusing the trust of the world by significantly inflating the dollar with "Quantitative Easing" and related measures that have deliberately reduced the value of every other dollar that was already in existence from 1973-2007. Today there are quite literally trillions of new digital dollars circulating through the world economy which has placed a very real burden on all other currencies. Many of those foreign currencies also did their own versions of digitizing currency as a way of not suffering too badly from US actions, but not every country has that option and many even with the option had no desire to digitize new currency into existence with the profligate carelessness of the USA. It is not a tax per se [emphasis added] but it is a heck of a surcharge on the world economy none the less.

I can't see where we even differ on this.

I said the US doesn't tax other countries....and you said" It is not a tax per se "

OK...so we agree the US doesn't tax other countries.

AND, I agree with you that there are a multitude of other financial entanglements between the US and other countries, including the denomination of much international trade in US dollars.

AND, you are 100% right that the US is intentionally devaluing the dollar by running huge deficits, doing multiple QE programs, and just printing way too many dollars and giving them away.

AND, when the US does this it hurts other countries who hold US debt or reserves of US currency because their value goes down as the value of the dollar goes down.

But it isn't a tax......its a side effect of the financial gyrations the US is going through to be able to manage its own huge debt. By devaluing the dollar and triggering off inflation, the US is effectively reducing the debt held by China and other foreign countries.

A more accurate way to describe this is to say that the Chinese and other foreigners who trusted the US government to maintain the value of the dollar made a bad investment......and now they are going to "take a haircut" i.e. lose money on their bad investment.

And its not just foreigners......every US retiree who spent decades paying social security taxes and now is counting on social security or on their savings to get them through their old age is also going be hurt.....because when the value of the dollar goes down and inflation rises, social security and cash and savings lose value.

Basically the US government is being a bad financial actor here.....and its going to hurt just about everyone except the few who are wealthy and who own lots of property and assets that will go up with inflation.


Wow! The US Government is printing so much money they as well be throwing hundred dollar bills out of helicopters! This is great! .......or is it?

Cheers!

[JuanP]

"China to US: Two can play at technological war"
https://asiatimes.com/2021/07/china-to- ... gical-war/

I think the Chinese will win this war.

[Plantagenet]

"China to US: Two can play at technological war"
https://asiatimes.com/2021/07/china-to- ... gical-war/

I think the Chinese will win this war.

Possibly.

But China remains a dictatorship and Comrade Xi seems determined to have the CCP exert direct control over China's tech businesses.......and that may cause problems if it winds up restricting the freedom and creativity of China's best scientists and business leaders.

Cheers!