China incline USA decline? America now has an open society but few Americans have the Critical Thinking skills and intellectual sophistication required to maintain that status. The question becomes: "can a democracy survive in a world where technology is driving change at a very rapid pace?” Darwin informs us that if a species cannot adapt to its changing environment that species will soon become toast. I suspect that China represents an example of how such a fact plays out. China, an authoritarian form of capitalism, is likely destined to become the dominant power in the 21st century because an authoritarian system can better adapt to a rapidly changing world. America displays a nation unable to quickly adapt to a rapidly changing world. Karl Popper argues, in his book The Open Society and Its Enemies, that all ideology shares a common characteristic; a belief in infallibility. The concept Popper illustrates in this book sounds much like the concept of a liberal democracy but his concept is more epistemological than political. It is based upon our imperfect comprehension of reality more than our structure of society. Such infallibility is an impossibility, which leads such ideological practitioners to use force to substantiate their views and such repression brings about a closed society. Popper proposed that the open society is constructed on the recognition that our comprehension of reality is not perfect—there is realty beyond our comprehension and our will cannot compensate for that lack of comprehension. Even though the will of the power structure can manipulate the opinions of the citizens sooner or later reality will defeat the will. Truth does matter and success will not always override truth—truth being reality.
I would argue that many have the skills to maintain that status, but a loud and uneducated minority are obsessed with impeding progress and change.
Thread's title MAY have it backwards as China is now passing thru the "Lewis turning (or tipping) point." Watch video here: https://screen.yahoo.com/end-migrant-miracle-china-lewis-095732042.html However, automation (greater production per worker + massive industrialization of agriculture) may "save China" and show that in the end, the one child policy built exactly the demographic distributions a modern society needs: lots of consumers of the automated production world needs.
America has already deteriorated into a saturated fat sandwich culture. Everything in USA is decided for the sake of big corporations, at that point public opinion is only heard if it is will affect negatively the company, thus a favorable media show is created to make it seem like companies do care about people. FDA for example has done numerous test trials with "inconclusive results" that favor in lieu of the pharmaceutical companies and not those who are suffering from a disease. Subway sandwiches now have the same component that car tires have and people in USA eat that. Obesity and Autism is on the rise. Ethnic and Social violence is rising too. If you think Ferguson and Baltimore are just isolated cities, you are wrong. That is not to mention the ever-growing debt that USA has and is not paying back. But the sad part is, Americans are made from lies told by the Hollywood films, promising them riches. They are so stupid that will believe anything written in the US magazines and TV channels. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Read much Time magazine, eh? Russia is far better place than USA is. With all the CNN propaganda Americans have been fed, the rest of the world knows better.
Umm how's that? The Russian economy is getting worse by the day. The Russian military, as before, is getting a very big piece of the pie while the rest of business don't get much at all to help them during the economic slowdown. Not many Russians traveling abroad and food supplies are becoming a problem there as well. BEFORE the current standoff between the Kremlin and the West over Ukraine, it was already clear that Russia’s economic model, of strong energy exports fuelling domestic consumption, was running out of steam. In 2007, on the eve of the global financial crisis, Russia’s economy grew by 8.5%. Last year growth was a meager 1.3%. Now the outlook for businesses there is looking gloomier. With pro-Russian separatists seizing government buildings in eastern Ukraine, amid talk of a full-scale invasion, firms of all kinds fear a tightening of American-led sanctions, a cut-off of foreign lending and investment, and a further fall in consumers’ confidence. For domestic firms, a bigger worry than the sanctions imposed so far is the risk of losing access to foreign loans, and what that will mean for investment, productivity and growth, says Elena Anankina of Standard & Poor’s, a ratings agency. Western lenders are likely to honour existing loan deals. But they may be reluctant to provide fresh financing. Rusal, an indebted aluminium producer, is among the Russian firms most exposed to this. Some state banks, such as Sberbank and VTB, have indicated they are ready to fill the gap left by Western lenders. But Ms Anankina wonders how long they will be able to do so. Indeed, some Russian banks themselves depend on Western loans. With capital flight hitting $60-70 billion in the first quarter of this year alone, investment in domestic production—what the spluttering economy needs most of all—will be even harder to come by. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...1IGQDw&usg=AFQjCNH_Brq3dPvkskv26vPkUOzfcJgEoA
Hmm, well if that is so, then why are you living in the US and not Mother Russia? If that were so, why is the "rest of the world" not immigrating to Mother Russia? If that were so, then why are Russians immigrating to Europe and the USA, anywhere but Mother Russia. If that were so, then why is the first thing Russians do with their ill gotten wealth is to offshore it in Europe and the USA? If that were so, how do you explain the fact most men die by the age of 63 in Mother Russia. Is the World Health Organization part of your CNN conspiracy? Because the World Health Organization ranks Russian healthcare at #130 our of #190, well below the Cook Islands and even Syria. http://thepatientfactor.com/canadia...zations-ranking-of-the-worlds-health-systems/ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/b...s-find-tougher-times-as-money-flees.html?_r=0
Frankly, that is very funny. Unlike Mother Russia, the US and the West have a free press. It's one of those many pesky little details you like to ignore. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/09/us-russia-media-idUSBRE9B80I120131209 In the Index of press freedom, Mother Russia is in the lower quartile of nations, even Qatar and Somalia have more press freedom than Mother Russia, again one of them pesky liitle facts which keep getting in your way. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index
And where is the rational basis for your assertion Americans don’t have the critical thinking skills and intellectual sophistication necessary to maintain its status? China is certainly a rising power. But it is coming from a very low place and faces a number of significant issues. How China navigates those challenges remains to be seen. But China’s economy is very dependent on exports. And it could collapse just as quickly as it arose. As you correctly point out, China is an authoritarian state and historically authoritarian states have been innately unstable. In order for China to replace the US, it needs to transform itself from an economy dependent on foreign demand to an economy based on domestic demand. It is not at all clear China can manage that transformation. And where do you get this notion that “America displays a nation unable to quickly adapt to a rapidly changing world”? Where does that come from? Where is the evidence to support that notion? How many of the modern innovations were developed in the US or with US sponsorship? Can you say the word most? The US has been and continues to be a hotbed of innovation and change. So how do you square that to your belief the US in unable to adapt and change? The US is in a constant state of change driven in no small part by our rapidly advancing technology. There have been tremendous changes over the years and those changes are accelerating at an ever increasing rate. As with China, the fate of the US isn’t etched in stone either. If the US falters into decline, it won’t be because of China or any external threat. It will be the result of internal decline. It will be because of self-inflicted wounds (e.g. Republican threats to cause a US debt default). What will happen is anyone’s guess. There are new challenges on the horizon for the US (e.g. the rise of Republican entertainment and its effect on US politics) and technology in the coming decades technology will have tremendous impacts on humanity. How we weather and manage those changes will have enormous impacts on all of us. The world is transforming, and I think in a good way. After WWII the US was the preeminent military and economic power accounting for more than half the world GDP. The US now accounts for a quarter of the world GDP not because US GDP has declined, because it hasn't, but because the rest of the world, which had been devastated by war, had recovered. And now, even small undeveloped parts of the world are growing their economies. The economic pie is getting bigger. That isn't a bad thing. That is a good thing. We need to stop thinking of ourselves as individual nations but as world citizens. The problems we face as a species require us to work together as a species and not as individual nations. We as a species will rise together or fail together. This nation concept which has served us in the past is becoming antiquated by our technology.
That is not so clearly the case as you imply/ assert. For example the value of the Ruble vs. the Dollar has climbed 33% in the last three months; but is down nearly 60% from it all time high at end of 2011 by Bloomberg data. Also: Even your own link, in paragraph you did not quote, states: Russia still has large reserves, mainly in dollars, and like China has done for more than a year is reducing the dollar fraction of its reserves that are in dollars - They fear collapse of the dollar's buying power. Both the ruble and the yaun are now appreciating in value WRT the dollar, so perhaps others have that fear too.
Different people place different values on this. A very low value in countries like Russia and China, where people still living have seen their neighbors starve to death. They want strong effective leadership. Even what constitutes "human rights" is very different there than in the US, where masses have never starved. China, for example, thinks US ignores very basic human rights, such as access to medical care for ALL or a roof over your head at night for ALL, instead of some with cardboard over them and the sidewalk or alley pavement as their "mattress." Elementary school books in China often have a photo of some homeless bum sleeping on NYC street with the lights of time square as the background. A very high percentage of the Chinese, are in full support of their CCP government and wonder how long the US can continue function with it dysfunctional government and growing debts. They are proud of what they have accomplish - Now the world's largest traders (both imports and exports, separately) and by many measures the world's largest economy and certainly the world's greatest creditor nation. But, I agree, as stated in post 3, how the future treats China is not clear. The world's fastest and largest urbanization is coming to it end. Wages may soon stop growing in real terms by double digits. China is definitely at the "Lewis point."
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Not what one expect for failing country.* - Russia buys one million ounces and increases gold reserves by another 2.6% in March - Russia sees gold as important monetary and strategic asset in stealth currency wars - Large purchase by Russia who normally buy some 300,000 ounces a month - Russian gold reserves, at nearly 40 million ounces, are now fifth largest in the world - Russia likely coordinating gold reserve accumulation with ex-Soviet States - Concerns regarding euro and crisis in erstwhile reserve currency, the dollar - Gold remains central to international monetary system - Central banks continue to accumulate large volumes All above from: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-...ack-russia-buys-one-million-ounces-gold-march * Buying more each month and Russia, in 2014, bought 1/3 of all the gold that central banks bought! China with/wo Russia can destroy the dollar any time it wants to, just by issuing gold backed bonds paying higher interest rate than US can afford. Not only would their gold backed RMB bonds become rapidly the preferred reserve currency for central banks, but much higher interest rates would be required to get foreigners to finance any significant fraction of the US's growing debts. That means "rolling the old debt" becomes much more costly than it is now, while the dollar is the least ugly whore in the fiat money whore house. More people wonder every year if there is the gold claimed at Fort Know, and if there is, who owns it (has it been leased out)? This too may be approaching a "tipping point" forcing the first independent audit in six decades. Although not at Fort Knox, many wonder too why German's gold will only be returned over a seven year period when small fraction of US Air Force heavy lift cargo planes could return it all in less than a day. Is it leased out?
The original post is 6 years old, but it clearly is wrong about autocratic regimes being more adaptable than free ones. In principle it is possible for them to turn on a dime if they want (See: Stalin), but the reality is that they rarely do it to advance and at best only do it to catch-up. But more specifically because autocratic regimes serve their own status quo, they have virtually no incentive to innovate beyond playing catch-up. The proof of this comes from looking at the companies that are shaping the world today: where is China's Google? Apple? Samsung? Roche? There is virtually nothing in the way of innovative technical content coming from China because China simply doesn't value it.
On what evidence do you base that assertion? The USSR failed precisely because of its authoritarian system. Central planning is too cumbersome, uninformed and unresponsive to keep up with a rapidly changing world. It survived, first, by dissipating the surplus leftover by the overthrown government. Then it lurched along for several decades by simply annexing the nearby countries and dissipating their surplus. Finally when that was gone too, the system collapsed. The USA policy of maintaining the world's largest military, because we could (barely) afford it, forced them to squander about half of their GDP on their own military, and this of course hastened the process greatly. China is, admittedly, in better shape than the USSR. It has a history of simply absorbing all conquerors and emerging stronger for the experience. The Mongols and the Manchus are now part of China's gene pool and its culture. The last conquerors were the communists, and the Chinese did the same with them, by absorbing bits of communism into a hybrid capitalist/communist/Confucian system that somehow seems to work for them. But I doubt that they'll be able to keep it going. So far they've been taking advantage of the USA's penchant for offshore outsourcing. But this is already changing, as Mexico has in one generation changed itself from an economic disaster into a middle-class country. It's far cheaper to ship raw materials and finished goods over a land border than across an ocean. We can station American managers in their factories, who can come home and see their families on weekends. The average made-in-China product has 5% U.S. content; the average made-in-Mexico product has 40%--more work for Americans! Not to mention, all the Chinese want is our money, while the Mexicans want our hearts. They have loved us (in the face of tremendous discrimination and manipulation) since we freed them from French occupation (any article on Cinco de Mayo will explain that). We can trust Mexico. Considering that the majority of those rapid changes originated here, that is a rather strange thing to say.
As you have been told before, the Russian central bank is propping up domestic gold producers. It costs nothing for the Russian state to print rubles and exchange them for gold and the Russian state will likely need to sell gold when its foreign cash reserves have been depleted. So it's a logical move by Russia. But it isn't the miracle you are looking for. There isn't anything magical about gold. Gold is just another commodity, a commodity that humans like to dig out of the ground at great effort and expense only to rebury it in vaults.
Russian government does not directly buy gold produced in Russia. All miners must, by law, sell their production to a small set of authorized dealers. They in the past did sell most of it foreign buyers and small part to domestic users - jewelry makers etc. However, sanctions have made the foreign buyers "few and far between." (I don't know, and would like to, if China is a buyer.) The government as become the buyer of "Last Resort." Bought 240 tonnes in 2014 and only 245 tonnes were produced. These 240 tonnes are now part of Russia's central bank reserves but more value than that added gold has been spent ( in dollars) from the reserves, so Russian reserves have decreased a little. (assuming PoG does not surge up.) I.e. the fraction of Russia's reserved in gold has increased and that in dollars has decreased. Russia, like China, is getting out of the dollar, (Russia could have sold the gold for dollars, at least to China.) but it is hard for China to get out of dollars in her reserves significantly when earning every year a huge dollar trade surplus. (A new monthly record, I seem to recall reading for April or March, if that is the latest data.) China does not want to drive the price of gold way up while still buying - more than any one but India occasionally.
I'm not an expert, but think the Chinese Google, is larger than Google and Hatchie is larger than Samsung, which I think is Korea, not US. China is world leader in vaccine development: Made one for swine flue in a few weeks instead many months as in the west. This rapid production of anti-viral agents is why the Bill & Malina Gates foundation buys most of the vaccines it uses from China - they are not cheaper, just better. Apple may be (or under Jobs was) unique - I don't know. China leads the world in solar panels (both use* and production) - I think same is true of wind power and "smart grids." They have very advance high speed trains where as the US is still running many that belong in museums. Quality road bed is half the secrete and China has more of it than rest of world's total! Choperated world's first commercial Mag levitation train a more than 15 years ago. For more than a decade now, China has had the world's most powerful computers - by western evaluation. Only Brazil is a close 2nd in the development of hydro-power and Brazil beat all the world in environmentally friendly electric generation and cars. Excuse my "French" but by far Brazil greatest release of Green House Gases, comes for its cattle farts and mainly their belches. As I said, I'm no expert, but China graduates four or five times more technical Ph. D.s than the US does every year and leads the world in patent applications (Those engineers are not without tasks.) * China will add three times more solar cell power in 2015 than US did in 2014. Solar cells are always made in panels the size a couple of men can easily install (or smaller) and generally speaking, are more economical if they do NOT track the sun per annual KWHs generated. (I.e. a few more provide the same output at less capital cost than those that do have sun tracking motors, controls, etc.) Very modular for "roof top" installations. Note the panels being installed in photo below have no latitude tilt. - Possibly to avoid wind torques in the "once in 30 year storm" ? Also note the rows are about a panel length apart but contact each other side to side. That, and their lack of tilt, will double the rain fall on ground between the rows and the panels are higher than need be, unless cows will graze the rows of growing grass. The Chinese lead the world in solar cell production and use and knows what is best (most innovative and economical way to use.). See these facts in photo below. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Well, even if everything you asserted were true, it doesn't make China an innovator or able to respond quickly to changes. All the technology you referenced was developed elsewhere, mostly in the US. China is a good copycat nation, but an innovator it is not. China is good at copying and stealing technologies from foreign nations, but innovation, not so much. China, like Mother Russia is an authoritarian state. You don't get ahead by thinking differently.
