Post: #51

(03-20-2015 07:03 PM)Giovonny Wrote:  The Chinese-Nicaraguan mixed girls will be hot!



...

I was thinking about this the other day but, am I alone in thinking that full blooded Asian chicks are way hotter than half blooded ones of any combination?

Post: #52

The Chinese are not taking over the world. They are headed for a massive collapse sooner rather than later.

Their empire is built on a foundation of quicksand. They are a nation of largely uneducated peasants with an inefficient system of government based on universal corruption.

Their level of socioeconomic development is incredibly far behind USA/Europe/Japan.

As for this project? I am guessing it never gets finished due to a lack of financing.

It shouldn't even be built.

It will be a horrible thing for Nicaragua and cause massive environmental devastation. Ometeppe and Lake Nicaragua is a jewel of Central America.

The average Nicaraguan will see zero benefit. Some will be used as slave labor during the construction, although the Chinese have a history of using as many of their own domestic slaves as possible on foreign projects.

In fine Latin American tradition, rent seeking politicians have already taken massive bribes from the Chinese, helping to ensure that profits are siphoned off and the national interests of Nicaragua are not taken into consideration even to the slightest degree.

Post: #53

The US still has a dominant Navy and controls all the major trade routes. I am glad that the Chinese are becoming successful and expanding their influence. Do men really want to give more power to a President Hillary Clinton or a President Elizabeth Warren? America is now a leftist country and China represents capitalist enterprise at its best.

Post: #54

The US getting offended about this project while at the same time complaining why is Russia offended concerning Ukraine would really be the height of hypocrisy.

Post: #55

(03-21-2015 11:19 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  The US getting offended about this project while at the same time complaining why is Russia offended concerning Ukraine would really be the height of hypocrisy.

Plus this is free trade which has been pushed by the US all around the world.

I don't really see the problem with Chinese building a new canal.

Post: #56

(03-20-2015 11:35 PM)Tuthmosis Wrote:  Those empires rose and fell. Meanwhile everyone in the world carries iPhones, eats McDonald's, is getting fat on Starbucks Milkshakes, and speaks broken (American) English. The United States went from a few coastal colonies to dominate an entire continent that was populated by sovereign Indian nations and other European empires. That continent is bigger than most of punk-ass Europe, not including Alaska or the Hawaiian Islands, and was replete with natural resources. And, unlike those other "empires," the United States didn't lose those possessions; they're just "states" now. Even after decolonization, it has de facto colonial power over Puerto Rico, Guam, and Virgin Islands--not to mention all the various puppets it's controlled by proxy right up to the present. Players all over the world log into this--an American website, operated by an American in American English--for game advice. Wannabe gangstas all over the world "rap" in American English and pantomime American body language. Even the sluts all over the world copy our sluts.



Meanwhile, the British are back to being stuck on that burnt-out depressing island with shitty internet connections, the lispy Spanish are straight broke, and the French are stubbornly condescending to the world despite the fact that all the shit they accomplished happened hundreds upon hundreds of years ago--including that oversized coat-hanger that they're so proud of.

So I reiterate:



And add this:

I'm talking about historical colonialism, of which we engaged in comparatively little. You're conflating that with expansionism and cultural imperialism, which are two similar (but not the same) left-wing bugaboos that people who don't like our country still flagellate themselves over.

Post: #57

I don't know if this will actually work. Massive public works projects are prohibitively expensive, as most of Latin America learned during the 1950s. Then there's the fact that there will probably be "mysterious" delays throughout the job.

Post: #58

Bit by bit they're buying it all up.
Patriotism aside, it's difficult to knock the financial clout.

Post: #59

(03-21-2015 10:38 AM)VolandoVengoVolandoVoy Wrote:  Their level of socioeconomic development is incredibly far behind USA/Europe/Japan.

The average Chinese person does not have the standard of living of the average European/American/Japanese but I think that does not matter.

The elite in China still sit atop possibly the largest, or if not certainly the second largest economy in the world. Their economy is continuing to grow, and they treat it as a "problem" if growth slows from 10% down to single digits. Their populations is incredibly smart, smarter on average than the U.S., so their potential is not limited to their peasant-farming past.

This isn't to say they're immune from a recession here or there, or some sort of political crisis, etc. But don't doubt that over the long-run, China's power, wealth, and all that will continue to grow.

Post: #60

Well, I'm not really worried about this; if the canal is completed successfully it will serve as another indicator of the present age we live in which one country does not dominate the entire world and instead has to compete with a few other powers. I'm not too thrilled with the Latin-Chinese hybrid but then again I'm not too thrilled about Asian girls in general; it's all fine and dandy if you like them but they are not my cup of tea. Perhaps I'll be able to save a bit on daily things if the guys in Panama are forced to reduce fees to compete!

If the project fails then the Chinese would have managed to waste tonnes upon tonnes which they are very good at. It would only add to the growing Chinese debt which could burst at any moment now.

PS: I wouldn't worry too much about the American debt.

Oh yes, I'm so privileged you literally can't even.
Interested in joining the FFL? I tried (and failed).

Post: #61

Why would anyone care if China comes here? Why care about American interests at all? America doesn't represent my best interests, or any man's interests, so I stopped caring about the fate of this doomed country a long time ago.

Post: #62

Post: #63

(03-21-2015 12:35 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  

(03-21-2015 10:38 AM)VolandoVengoVolandoVoy Wrote:  Their level of socioeconomic development is incredibly far behind USA/Europe/Japan.

The average Chinese person does not have the standard of living of the average European/American/Japanese but I think that does not matter.

The elite in China still sit atop possibly the largest, or if not certainly the second largest economy in the world. Their economy is continuing to grow, and they treat it as a "problem" if growth slows from 10% down to single digits. Their populations is incredibly smart, smarter on average than the U.S., so their potential is not limited to their peasant-farming past.

This isn't to say they're immune from a recession here or there, or some sort of political crisis, etc. But don't doubt that over the long-run, China's power, wealth, and all that will continue to grow.

I disagree that their population is smarter on average than the US. The quality of US universities and academic/scientific output is light years ahead of China.

Also, much of their "growth" is a mirage. For one thing, their statistics are falsified and exaggerated to a huge extent.

For another, much of their growth, and a significant part of their economy is based on huge, inefficient state owned companies supported by huge loans that state controlled banks are forced to give. Many billions of dollars of loans are non performing and should be written off, but this would destroy the official balance sheets of several banks. So the whole house of cards wobbles, the problem is papered over, and the crash will come. There are tons of apartment buildings built that are empty, huge municipal structures that are unused. So much fucked up and unnecessary production of many things due to a perverse system of distorted incentives.

Post: #64

VVV,

Average IQ scores by country:

Post: #65

(03-21-2015 03:36 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  VVV,

Average IQ scores by country:

Here's the problem though, those numbers are bullshit. And even if you accept his bullshit numbers, Lynn's "calculations" showed an average Chinese iq of 100, and an average US iq of 98.
A reverse GIS search showed that the source for your map is a poorly conceived book called Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_Differ...nce_(book)

In a 2008 review of the data used in Lynn's book, Hunt and Wittmann[4] write:

"The majority of the data points were based upon convenience rather than representative samples. Some points were not even based on residents of the country. For instance, the “data point” for Suriname was based on tests given to Surinamese who had migrated to the Netherlands, and the “data point” for Ethiopia was based on the IQ scores of a highly selected group that had emigrated to Israel and, for cultural and historical reasons, was hardly representative of the Ethiopian population. The data point for Mexico was based upon a weighted averaging of the results of a study of “Native American and Mestizo children in southern Mexico” with result of a study of residents of Argentina. Upon reading the original reference, we found that the “data point” that Lynn and Vanhanen used for the lowest IQ estimate, Equatorial Guinea, was actually the mean IQ of a group of Spanish children in a home for the developmentally disabled in Spain. Corrections were applied to adjust for differences in IQ across cohorts (the “Flynn” effect), on the assumption that the same correction could be applied internationally, without regard to the cultural or economic development level of the country involved. While there appears to be rather little evidence on cohort effect upon IQ across the developing countries, one study in Kenya (Daley, Whaley, Sigman, Espinosa, & Neumann, 2003[5]) shows a substantially larger cohort effect than is reported for developed countries."

Post: #66

http://thediplomat.com/2015/03/why-do-pe...-collapse/

Quote:Why Do People Keep Predicting China's Collapse?

The Chinese party-state is certainly facing decay — but so are most Western democracies.

The temptation to make predictions about China is probably irresistible, because it is arguably the most important contemporary case in international relations. Thus, a few Western observers have risked their professional reputations by acting as prophets. Perhaps the most (in)famous is Gordon Chang, who published The Coming Collapse of China in 2001. “The end of the modern Chinese state is near,” he asserted. “The People’s Republic has five years, perhaps ten, before it falls,”

China didn’t collapse, as we all know. “So, yes, my prediction was wrong,” he admitted in an article (“The Coming Collapse of China: 2012 Edition”). But he remained convinced about the imminence of a Chinese apocalypse and offered a new timeline: “Instead of 2011, the mighty Communist Party of China will fall in 2012. Bet on it.”

Gordon Chang may be dismissed as an opportunist who tries to make a fortune — political and/or economic — out of sensational rhetoric about China. But not so with David Shambaugh, a well-respected China scholar at George Washington University who heretofore has been rather cautious in his assessment of China. In a March 6 Wall Street Journal article, he portrayed the Chinese party-state as struggling for its last breath. “The endgame of Chinese communist rule has now begun, I believe, and it has progressed further than many think,” he wrote. “We cannot predict when Chinese communism will collapse, but it is hard not to conclude that we are witnessing its final phase.”

Shambaugh’s article was nothing less than a supersize bombshell in the China field, especially in light of the fact that the Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping’s leadership seems to be revitalizing itself through a series of important measures. And these measures — particularly the anti-corruption campaign and the drive for the rule of law — appear to have significantly bolstered popular support for the new leadership. Shambaugh actually published a book in 2008 that offers a rather favorable assessment of the party-state’s abilities to adapt to new challenges in the first decade of the 21st century.

It is unclear what caused Shambaugh’s sudden about-face. Some speculate that he was merely trying to get a foreign policy position in the post-Barack Obama administration. Others contend that he is the Chinese version of a “mugged” liberal converted to a conservative, that Shambaugh is deeply upset by Chinese leaders’ intransigence on fundamental reforms.

Whatever the motives behind Shambaugh’s nirvana, there is no denying that China is facing myriad daunting challenges. China is sick — but so is every other country in the world, though each country is sick with different symptoms, for different reasons, and of different degrees. Take the United State as an example. The world’s oldest democracy may also strike one as terminally ill: appalling inequality, dilapidated infrastructure, declining public education, astronomical deficits, rising political apathy, and a government that can hardly get anything done. In his bestseller Political Order and Political Decay, Francis Fukuyama described the American body politic as being repatrimonialized, ruled by courts and political parties, and gridlocked by too many veto points. Across the Atlantic, many European democracies are facing similar problems, particularly financial insolvency. Yet nobody has declared the coming collapse of American democracy or European democracy. Why?

Because many Western analysts (dating back at least to Seymour Martin Lipset) subscribe to the view that as long as political institutions are viewed as legitimate, a crisis in effectiveness (e.g., economic performance) does not pose fatal threat to a regime. Thus even in the darkest days of the Great Depression, according to this view, America’s democratic institutions remained unchallenged. By contrast, if a regime is already deficient in political legitimacy, a crisis of effectiveness (such as an economic slowdown, rising inequality, or rampant corruption) would only exacerbate the legitimacy crisis. China is widely believed to be a prominent case that fits into this line argument.

China might be facing a performance crisis, but whether it is also facing a legitimacy crisis is debatable. Beauty is in the eyes of beholder; so is legitimacy. If the Chinese party-state could survive the riotous years of the Cultural Revolution and the existential crisis of 1989, why couldn’t it manage to survival another crisis? In fact, a more important question for Western observers is why the Chinese Communist Party has managed to stay in power for so long and to produce an indisputably impressive record of economic development.

In 2003, Andrew Nathan from Columbia University put forward a theory of authoritarian resilience to explain why the Chinese Communist Party didn’t follow in the steps of the former Soviet Union. In a January 2015 article, he argued that instead of showing signs of an embattled regime, Beijing is actually on a path of authoritarian resurgence, supporting similar regimes and seeking to roll back democratic changes both at home and abroad. One of his central messages is that authoritarian resurgence reflects democratic decline. “Because the appeal of authoritarianism grows when the prestige of democracy declines,” he wrote, “the most important answer to China’s challenge is for the democracies to do a better job of managing themselves than they are doing today.”

“All societies, authoritarian and democratic, are subject to decay over time,” wrote Francis Fukuyama. “The real issue is their ability to adapt and eventually fix themselves.” The Chinese party-state is certainly undergoing policy decay — just like most Western democracies — but it is too early to call the Chinese patient terminally ill.

Post: #67

Good video about the decay of the American empire and its tenuous future:

Post: #68

VVV,

The data behind that map may be suspect, I don't vouch for this particular map or book.

However the fact that the Chinese have a high average IQ is attested by every sort of study there is, as well as simply living a day in your life where you come into contact with different sorts of people.

http://akarlin.com/2012/08/analysis-of-c...9-results/

http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/u...ations.pdf

You can poke holes in any individual study but the collective weight of any kind of intelligence tests or academic tests which are G-loaded (ie test for general intelligence) shows the same thing over and over: Chinese people are smart. Denying that is like saying women are just as strong as men.

Post: #69

I don't care how high the Chinese test on IQ tests, the amount of stupidity that occurs here on a daily basis undermines any belief in "smarter."

They have a very education focused culture and a history of rice agriculture (which requires much stronger math skills that wheat agriculture). But this hasn't translated into smarter thinking.

I doubt there are many cultures less logical than the Chinese.

I meet some very smart people here, but they are the exception.

My personal theory is that the Chinese success in the last few decades is that when you have a population of 1.6B, despite all the failures and underachievement, someone is going to get lucky every once in a while.

China's relatively stable government since the 80's has allowed China to become a hotbed of manufacturing and foreign investment, something that Vietnam (for example) has screwed up royally, by simple stealing all the investment that comes into its country.

But I wouldn't write up their success based on them being smarter.

The whole reason that I'm making a very good living here in China is because every single person in this country believes that there is some inherent advantage in putting a white person in the same room as their children and letting the English magically manifest itself. I see 700 kids a week, 680 of them for only 40 minutes. It's a joke that anyone with have a brain would realize will result in no serious lingual achievement, but people here have no critical thinking skills, so they keep paying me just to show up and make my face available, one time slot at a time.

Of course China is looking to increase its relative power to the US (and Russia). This is what powerful nations do.

But they'll sooner rule the world than fix all of the horrible problems at home.

The US and especially Canada, the UK and Australia (and a whole bunch of Western Europe) even in a bad decade (SEE 2008-2018) is still offering a much higher standard of living than China comes close to.

The smart thing for the US and the Western world to do in the next two decades is to take our massive amount of acquired wealth and societal value and learn how to stabilize a comfortable standard of living for its people, without depending on constant economic growth to do so. If we could accomplish that, we'll be light years ahead of the Chinese no matter how many canals they build.

Post: #70

(03-21-2015 07:47 PM)Suits Wrote:  The smart thing for the US and the Western world to do in the next two decades is to take our massive amount of acquired wealth and societal value and learn how to stabilize a comfortable standard of living for its people, without depending on constant economic growth to do so. If we could accomplish that, we'll be light years ahead of the Chinese no matter how many canals they build.

Never going to happen. The West is cannibalizing itself in order to maintain the meager growth that is currently has by doing quantitative easing, keeping interest rates artificially low, bailing out banks, raising taxes, adding more regulations, fudging their growth stats, etc....

All the Chinese have to do is not fuck up and they will come out on top. Say what you want about the Chinese communist party, but at least they get shit done. The West can't do anything anymore.

Post: #71

(03-21-2015 07:47 PM)Suits Wrote:  China's relatively stable government since the 80's has allowed China to become a hotbed of manufacturing and foreign investment, something that Vietnam (for example) has screwed up royally, by simple stealing all the investment that comes into its country.

Suits:

Could you elaborate on this? I assume you mean that the government basically confiscates the assets of foreign investors by means both fair and foul. Am I right?

Q

Post: #72

(03-21-2015 08:09 PM)Easy E Wrote:  

(03-21-2015 07:47 PM)Suits Wrote:  The smart thing for the US and the Western world to do in the next two decades is to take our massive amount of acquired wealth and societal value and learn how to stabilize a comfortable standard of living for its people, without depending on constant economic growth to do so. If we could accomplish that, we'll be light years ahead of the Chinese no matter how many canals they build.

Never going to happen. The West is cannibalizing itself in order to maintain the meager growth that is currently has by doing quantitative easing, bailing out banks, raising taxes, adding more regulations, fudging their growth stats, etc....

No, you're right. The West, particularly the USA, is not going to do the smart thing.

But we don't need to blame the Chinese or anyone else for our own failings and lavish selfishness.

Quote:All the Chinese have to do is not fuck up and they will come out on top. Say what you want about the Chinese communist party, but at least they get shit done. The West can't do anything anymore.

The Chinese communist party gets the easy stuff done. Building a massive subway system in Beijing from nothing to everything in 15 years....done. Lowering the average daily commute in Beijing from 2.5 hours to something reasonable and liveable? Not by a long shot. It is absolutely do able, of course, but they are too busy coddling the wealthy idiots who want to buy a car and sit in traffic all day.

Western China is a hell hole. Real fifth world stuff. Completely uncivilized. Barely accessible places where there is no law enforcement or real government presence. You wouldn't be able to find your way in and out of these places.

The CCP has pulled off some impressive accomplishments with a style of leadership that the West could learn from, but to think that they can do whatever they wish to is simply incorrect.

They're just doing what they can to try to keep this country from sinking into complete chaos, which is a real concern.

Post: #73

(03-21-2015 08:14 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  

(03-21-2015 07:47 PM)Suits Wrote:  China's relatively stable government since the 80's has allowed China to become a hotbed of manufacturing and foreign investment, something that Vietnam (for example) has screwed up royally, by simple stealing all the investment that comes into its country.

Suits:

Could you elaborate on this? I assume you mean that the government basically confiscates the assets of foreign investors by means both fair and foul. Am I right?

Q

Yes, that's what my understanding is.

I'm not saying that all foreign investment has be confiscated in Vietnam, but the government there has pulled a Cuba enough times that MNCs are hesitant to base operations there.

Post: #74

China's fantastic development in the last decades is explained by three factors:
1. The Banksters needed a cheap supplier of manufactured goods to expand the credit bubble indefinitely without causing inflation and so not to have to deal with massive opposition inside the USA and Western Europe. The deal was clear: there would be a massive influx of resources to industrialize China overnight, the markets would be open to such goods, but under the condition that China would have to buy US bonds with their new riches, so all those dollars could be pumped into Wall Street. Pretty much the same deal the US got with the Gulf petromonarchies to create the petro dollar.
2. Chinese have always been frugal people. Whether they live in China, the US, Mexico, Brazil, etc., Chinese people LIVE TO WORK, they don't understand life in any other way.
3. China, as other Asian societies, is very nationalistic and there's a consensus that everybody (Governement, people, capital) have to work in a path if this is benefical to the country. Today, it's the embracement of State-capitalism, a combination of an Atheist Socialist political dictatorship with an agressive capitalist industrial machine. They can flood the World with their products (every day more sophisticated, no longer cheap crap) while having Internet social networks banned. They can create brand new cities in a record time to relocate its gigantic population while forcing their women to have only one child. If tomorrow they decide it's good for China to embrace Confucianism (to block both Christianity and Islam) and to allow women to have more children, they are going to do it without thinking twice, not because they are now less autoritarian and more 'liberal', but because they envision it as a nationalistic goal.

Post: #75

Why does anyone care about this? Are we paranoid of a canal-gap?