China’s leader says he is worried about Treasuries: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/business/worldbusiness/14china.html?hp
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What do you know? I was told by some on this forum that all this debt we are growing is ok because we sell bonds. We don’t have to worry about paying them because all we have to do is print more money.
Don’t worry, the USD will never collapse because we are the US and are above the economic and monetary laws. If we were another country our stock market would have plunged after reaching 14k and the housing market would have crashed. But it’s different here 
The irony of China buying our debt…
The economy crashes…
China’s response - cut taxes and spend money they have
USA response - spend money we don’t have and get it from China
Will the real free market country please stand up.
Don’t worry, the USD will never collapse because we are the US and are above the economic and monetary laws. If we were another country our stock market would have plunged after reaching 14k and the housing market would have crashed. But it’s different here
Indeed. If you travel the world - particularly in third world and developing countries and even more so in countries that the U.S. has had some direct involvment in - say Vietnam or Cambodia, you will realize that despite what goes on in the U.S. or the rest of the world, and despite even negatibe feelings towards the U.S., people in these countries treat American Dollars like gold!! They hoard American $$$ whenever and however they can. I sometimes wonder how many U.S. dollars are stuffed under mattresses, in millions of homes and hovels around the world??
On the topic - The Chinese do have a right to be concerned. I was reading in the Economist recently that The Chinese like most Asians treat money very differently than in the U.S. - they save at an astounding rate of 50%( hence all the U.S. dollars stuffed in Mattresses) whereas I think the U.S. savings rate is and has been in the negatiove digits recently!!
Ironies indeed.
Our ability to criticize China for things like human rights violations is compromised. It has been for a long time in the eyes of the rest of the world, but our criticizing China now would seem like the same thing as Rick Santelli calling defaulting home owners “losers.”
Also, FWIW, I’ve read that there are 100 million Christians in China (and growing). Just this last week a poll came out showing the decline of Christianity in the US. So you could say that communist China is more “Christian” than democratic America.
It will be interesting to watch, as the US declines, how graciously we surrender the title of Super Power.
**It will be interesting to watch, as the US declines, how graciously we surrender the title of Super Power. **
Throughout history, empires rise and eventually fall. ** **
The Chinese, the Romans, the Greeks and our best buddies the British, all had very strong empires at one time or another.
We will remain strong militarily, but have lost much of our economic power. Then again, so has the rest of the world.
While the Chinese have more economic power now, their short and long term economic success depends a lot on what happens in the US, so I think we are safe - for now.
**Also, FWIW, I’ve read that there are 100 million Christians in China (and growing). Just this last week a poll came out showing the decline of Christianity in the US. So you could say that communist China is more “Christian” than democratic America. **
Here is hoping that some of these Chinese Christians will come over and be missionaires to the US, specifically the Northeast US - based on % of evangelical christians are now considered a lost people group - oh the irony…
I don’t know what the unofficial rules are. I’m assuming their more lax in the LR. No hijack intended. But to respond to your post about missionaries to America, it’s already happening.
Haven’t seen any Chinese missionaries, but I’ve seen them from India and Eastern Europe.
There’s always hope. I believe the US as a nation will never return to the Christian roots it once had. (That should bring sighs of relief in the LR!) But i do believe there will be a revival of Christianity on a large scale.
As far as the Northeast goes, it doesn’t look good. This article in the Atlantic might interest you. (The author of this article would probably disagree with the idea of a Christian revival in the US).
It will be interesting to watch, as the US declines, how graciously we surrender the title of Super Power.
Our military spending exceeds that of the rest of the world combined… so I don’t see us reliquishing that anytime soon. That sad thing is the way our “leaders” have sold us out for the last 30-40 years. We were told that huge trade deficits, budget deficits, and a negative savings rate were no big deal. Now we are screwed.
“Our military spending exceeds that of the rest of the world combined… so I don’t see us reliquishing that anytime soon”
I’m sure the Soviets thought the same thing in the late 80’s.
It only took Bush and the republican party, along with the neo-conservative movement and the “fiscal” conservatives 8 years to bring down the biggest and greatest economy in the world.
Our reaction to 9/11 (a mere 3 planes) was to bankrupt our economy in the middle east. AQ could not have even imagined a better result.
Our only hope is that Obama’s plan works, or we’re really screwed.
//Our only hope is that Obama’s plan works, or we’re really screwed.//
I hope there is more to the plan than adding more to the debt in two years than what Bush and Congress added in the last eight years.
No reason to worry, we can let this thread die now as all worries of a US Treasury / USD collapse are over. Obama said it’s all sound and safe
http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a2wQxvrqmg4k&refer=home
Actually, China has no where to go. The bonds of every other government have higher yields than the U.S. The default risk of Germany. France, whomever are 2x - 3x that of the U.S. Further, if the Chinese undermine the value of U.S. treasuries they will simply undermine themselves since they can’t trade out of their existing position even if the wanted. Their dependency on exports leaves them no other option; we make up 40% of their GDP.
Actually, the new budget in this “Era of Fiscal Responsibility” is going to start out by going 1.75 trillion in the red. I missed the part in economics where it says we should put ourselves down a financial hole so deep we won’t see the light of day for at least 3 generations in order to right our badly-listing ship.
It seems we’re still addicted to a “buy it now, pay for it later” mentality. And this time, to buy it, we’re taking out another huge mortgage on this country’s future, with loans courtesy of the Chinese. Are we sure they even share the same vision for this world that we do?
T.
Thanks, there’s the analogy:
Crew: Captain, we discovered a major leak that could sink the ship, we are miles from port and the engine is crippled.
Captain Obama: Pull the drain plugs.
The decline of the West isn’t a political issue. It’s a cultural one.
We spend money for instant gratification rather than long term investment. We don’t know how to stay in long-term relationships. Our institutions are petrifying. And we continue to remain in denial of our real problems while we look to someone in Washington DC to fix them for us.
On the topic - The Chinese do have a right to be concerned. I was reading in the Economist recently that The Chinese like most Asians treat money very differently than in the U.S. - they save at an astounding rate of 50%( hence all the U.S. dollars stuffed in Mattresses) whereas I think the U.S. savings rate is and has been in the negatiove digits recently!!
I was reading in the Zero Sum Solution (written in '85) that our savings rate (then 5%) was untenably low and less than half that of other industrialized countries. Also, if we continued to have large trade deficits, budget deficits, and sold our debt to foreign countries, we could do nothing but decline. Everything he warned about has only gotten worse since then. The reason it has taken this long to “feel” it is because you can ride an accelerating debt wave for awhile, but a crash is inevitable.
It only took Bush and the republican party, along with the neo-conservative movement and the “fiscal” conservatives 8 years to bring down the biggest and greatest economy in the world.
No… it started with Reagan and even before that.
Our only hope is that Obama’s plan works, or we’re really screwed.
There is nothing anyone can do at this point that will solve the problem. Adjustments needed to be made decades ago.