China is actually gonna collapse on itself when the US goes into a depression. China is built on foreign trade money, most of that money coming from the US, hate to say it but once the US has to back out, China is likely to collapse, because it has a tiny upper class, tiny middle, and massive lower. There aren't enough upper classmen to spend a lot to support the economy, and the lower class are too poor to do anything, a societies economy is fueled by the middle class because they have the money to spend and there are enough of them. Unfortunately China has no real middle class. Anyways, on China's best day it's GDP is still 1/3 of the US's on it's worse day.
That is not consistent with what I have been reading. Do you have any support / references / links preferable?
Though Normans were like "cousins" to the English(Anglo-saxons at that time), it still had the effect that what came after became obsessed for a good looong time to rule the isles...then control all it's waterways to never get invaded by massive armies that occasionally spring up on the continent. You know, pretty much the attitude that created the English->British->anglo speaking empire, that is only now showing signs of regression/recession to eastern power.
Gee, Billy, you've got a thousand years to play with, and you think that something happening right now is important. That is just so parochial it's embarrassing! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Where's your perspective? We don't even know if it is important yet. Why is the current shift of power from US to China any more important than any other shift of power (to the Mongols, to the Ottomans, to the British) all the way through the centuries. And the fact that you put event in " " shows you know it is really a "process". The great thing about Colon was that his discovery made a lot of noise, stirred a lot of interest, and encouraged a lot of others to follow. It was the START of the biggest migration that ever happened. It led to the rise of Atlantic Europe, a group of hitherto backward countries at the outer fringe of civilisation. Of course, if he had sunk with all hands on the return journey his discovery would have been of no importance at all. But he didn't. Of course, if there had been no gold there would have been no gold lust, bloodshed and conquest. But there was. So, please, stop complaining that Colon's voyage only turned out important because he happened to live in this universe and not in an alternative one! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Billy T, the problem is that outside of the city, the vast majority of people work in factories, farms, and other low level manual labor jobs. Now if you are working a low level job your getting low level pay. The fact is that the conditions outside of the city are absolutely terrible in comparison. Sure it's not absolute poverty, but it really is not much better. And the evidence for this is the fact that China esports craploads of goods. This means that the focus is on selling to other countries, this means making as many factories as possible. Meaning that the focus is on working in factories which give low pay, low support, and require nearly no education unless you are running a higher end job.
I talked to a friend of mine who has recently been over to China, doing of all things setting up manufacturing out sourcing. A worker over there... say has a industrial accident ... loses a hand perhaps.... he's fired... doesn't get anything ... no severance... no disability... no workers comp. He's fired because they hired someone with two hands and now he only has one. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! remember that next time you buy something made in china
To be honest. I was just waiting to see if any of the Star Wars fans ventured out from their cave of a thread.... I would have rather gone with the marshall plan, or a world war. Although Star Trek, was the first major hit sci fi series. It's arguable that without Star Trek, there would have been no Star Wars, as sci fi popularity was arguably established by ST.. But it's before my time..
Huh? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Anyway: computer revolution, thanks to this guy.
Except for your sentence I made bold these are still just your quite general assertions; I do however admit that averages salary is low in China still, but their salries in purchasing power terms are increasing, not decreasing as in the US for the last 8 years. Also more workers are geting higher paying jobs The combined effect of this was that domestic buying was up 18.8% (2007 vs 2006) and 22% (2008 vs 2007). Also in all months thus far of 2009, Chinese have bought more new cars than Americans have! The CCP's stimulus plan is bigger than that of the US wrt the GDP. Last month the Chinese GDP was growing at 8.3% as China stimulus is taking hold. The just finalized health care plan is 3% of GDP over 3 three year - that should get the Chinese to spend more and save less. (They save 40% of their income and have no significant debt. Only 3% even knew what a credit card was a few years ago - may be 5% now do.) If they were to behave like Americans, use credit cards, buy now and pay later, etc. their current purchasing power easily exceeds that of all Americans. Admitedly in part because their are four times more of them. Yes your now bold sentence is evidence of an economy that needs to boost domestic consumption as world trade drops*, but you seems not to know that Germany exports more than China does. So if that is you only “evidence” then what you say applies more to Germany than China. ---------------- *Last month US exports hit a 40 year low! Let hear some facts to counter these, instead of just your repeated opinion.
The Mongol conquest and domination of Russia, between 1236 AD and ca. 1600, when the Russian Tsars started pushing them back. Russia and Asia have been on bad terms ever since; the Russian reaction, once they had shaken off the Mongol yoke, was to conquer Russia--ie to put as much land as possible between themselves and Asia. They reacted that way in the west as well, mainly because of the religious division of eastern and western Europe between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.
The assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand. The bombing of Pearl Harbor. "The shot heard round the world." in 1775 Lexington, Massachusetts. Marco Polo's travel to China. Black death epidemic in Europe around 1350.
Those are all important events and the present world would probably be very different if even one of them had not happened; However, there are a million such world changing events that surely happen in the last 1000 years, but not a well known and not possible to be sure they actually made any difference. I will just conjure up one to illustrate. Madam Curie's husband, also a scientist (and an absent mined one too) was in deep thought when he step off a curb right in front of a horse drawn carriage. He was knocked down and a wheel went over and crushed his skull, "spilling his brains out onto the cobble stones." I put last part in quotes as when I was between 10 & 12 my MD father had some evening office hours, and I was deposited in the local library during them. I was working my way alphabetically thru the biographies shelf, skipping some, but read the one Madam Curie's daughter had written. I can still conjure up the images and feeling she created in me with perhaps not those exact words but something quite like them. Suppose, Perrier Currie had lived and diverted their studies up some less fruitful path and radio activity were discovered 35 years later in China, etc. My point is that even unknown events that are quite discrete in time and space can (and very probably have) drastically change the world's evolution to its present state. I see no reason to select any one of them as "most important." What I think is most important is trends, which are made of thousands of individual events, that change the world in ways that would still have essentially the same outcome even if some of the individual events did not happen. For example, I am pretty sure WWI would have happened about when it did if the bullet had missed Arch Duke Ferdinand. Certainly WWI (or WWII) is a good candidate for the most important event. Both were, IMHO, like the current event I suggested, made up of many individual events, none of which were essential to the end result, which was a shift in the global center of power and influence to the West (as is happening now, IMHO.) The only reason I select the shift of power to China from the US is there is inherent in "important” the idea of "to whom." For me, that "whom" is me and my children & grand children. Their lives will be quite different if China dominates the world and US economically collapses. ------------- This can also serve as my reply to River Ape's post 25.
Probably something really "insignificant", like a random woman removing lint from a dryer at a specific time and place.
The great Chicago fire was caused by cow's kick of a lantern so not even a human event required to change history.
'Cows With Guns'--excellent song:Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! The Treaty of Tordsailles (sp?) between the Portugese king and the Pope, dividing the New World between Portugal and Spain. It gave the Portugese a reasonable toe-hold in the New World, and allowed them to eventually expand throughout most of the Amazon watershed. Thus they established a vast country which was not ruled by Spain, and arguably prevented the overall uniting of the South American continent which may have proceeded if Spain had held hegemony over the whole land-mass and Brazil had not existed.
It is interesting to speculate what the world would be like if, for example, only Portugal had all of South America. Unlike the Spanish who mainly wanted to steal gold from the natives (while making feeble efforts to convert them to Christianity) the Portuguese were more like the English in North America and built settlements. To some extent this may just have been due to the Pope's division which gave all East of the line to Portugal and thus they had the non–Caribbean coast. Portugese speaking Brazil gets its name from the name of a tree*, which has reddish wood from which a red dye, for use in royal and Church robes, can be extracted and is a good wood for construction, resists insect attack, also I think. This was the first industry in the new world (if one does not count killing natives to take the gold off their bodies.) Then came the coffee and rubber economy eras of Brazil. Point is that the Portuguese developed the resources of the land and were doing so ~100 years before there were significant settlements in North America. If unified under Portuguese rule, perhaps the current roles of South and North America might have been reversed? I.e. North America dominated and exploited by South America and Europe for several centuries? BTW, the Spanish boat loads of gold wrecked the Spanish economy with terrible inflation. You do not need fiat money to make uncontrolled inflation. Any money supply rapidly increased in excess of productive capacity growth will do that. ---------------- * Once it was the dominate tree in Brazil's coastal rain forests, now it is rarely found, so extensive was its exploitation. Brazil is blessed with rapid elivation rise from the coast. Winds from the sea climb these hills and mountains dropping rain, but not all of it. Excepting mainly the Amazon, the rivers tend to run to the west, providing abundant water for agriculture and also power from the world's largest hydro-electic dam (On the Western border with Paraguay) controlling the flow of the world's 7th largest river. See this Dam, selected as one of the "seven wonders of the modern world" by US Society of Civil Engineers, at: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2248244&postcount=84 PS it is "very green" as the power it provides Brazil avoids burning 434,000 barrels of petroleum every day!
