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The End of the American Century?


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American brewing companies are now owned by non-Americans

 

Coors, Miller and soon Budweiser

 

 

I think it is alright. They use American labor and American farm products to manufacture beer.

 

South Africa (Coors Miller) buys a few billion dollars of American medicines; and, Belgium (Anheuser Busch) imports $21 billion worth of products from USA. Trade is still in favor of the USA.

 

 

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Iraq is hardly a problem. USA leadership just doesn't want to look politically stupid if a withdrawal is the target direction. Assuming USA leaves Iraq, I only expect that Iraq will have a civil war for the next 20 years. Sunni and Shiites will k*ll each other until a strong man comes out again. USA can then sell guns and bullets to both sides so that they can k*ll each other faster.

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I think it is alright. They use American labor and American farm products to manufacture beer.

 

South Africa (Coors Miller) buys a few billion dollars of American medicines; and, Belgium (Anheuser Busch) imports $21 billion worth of products from USA. Trade is still in favor of the USA.

 

 

 

Well, because USA is the richest in natural resources specially food products

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That is because China did not have much of a military back then.Now that they bought an aircraft carrier from UK, supposedly for "scrap", but many suspect to pirate the design. Plus the weakening of the US economy and military, one of these days, Taiwan might lose the US security blanket.

 

So do we have to migrate to China and earn $200 per month and consume pirated products? Yao Ming should go back to China. All Chinese businessmen should return to China then

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^ Actually yan dapat ang recovery program ni Obama.....massive arms manufacturing and export....slogan:USA, we arm the world because war is good for business!".

 

That's very near-sighted and uninformed. US gov't is biggest BUYER of arms; 68% of all arms expenditures are by the US gov't. They don't sell arms at all. Private companies like GE and MD do

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That's very near-sighted and uninformed. US gov't is biggest BUYER of arms; 68% of all arms expenditures are by the US gov't. They don't sell arms at all. Private companies like GE and MD do

 

 

It's not near-sighted. Everytime US sells war materials and equipment there is a corresponding economic benefit to the US economy. Also, war munitions and equipment have future maintenance cost and future replacement cost. Examples are: bombs and missiles have to be replaced or used at the end of 15 years; aircraft requires parts replacements; during the Iraq invasion, all defense manufacturing stocks jumped 60% to 200% in market value. The defense industry creates jobs.

 

 

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These are not sold by the US government but by companies which are multi-national. Just like New Jersey Nets operating in the US but owned by a Russian businessman

 

 

Practically all public companies are multi-national because anybody can buy stocks. US defense companies are wholly owned by Americans. I think you are moving out of topic by mentioning basketball team ownership.

 

 

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I think it is alright. They use American labor and American farm products to manufacture beer.

 

South Africa (Coors Miller) buys a few billion dollars of American medicines; and, Belgium (Anheuser Busch) imports $21 billion worth of products from USA. Trade is still in favor of the USA.

 

 

 

that's because more than 60% of the world's food is coming from the US. That's why Americans will never go hungry unlike the rest of the world

 

Garbage collectors aka "basureros" make $450 dollars a week in the USA even in this bad economy. Wait until their salaries go down to $100 dollars a week before we can say the USA is collapsing. Maybe it will happen after 100 years.

 

Also, Alaska has an untapped oil reserve that is bigger than Russia's. It's only a matter of legislation to start drilling new oil wells. The USA is saving Alaska for the rainy days.

 

Russia is so corrupt that it is so hard to make business. You better be a mobster before you can even compete. Very few financial brokerages even trade Russian stocks. Russia's riches are only in the hands of the few. The pensions of old Russians are only $15 a month. Is that really a superpower we are talking about?

 

China and India have a big population that both countries have 4 times more poor people than the total population of the USA. If the USA stopped importing Chinese manufactured products for 1 year, 2 billion will go hungry for a year. There are more unemployed people in China than the entire population of the USA.

 

Iran is no match to the USA. How are they going to attack the USA? Will they use Alibaba's flying carpets? USA's nuclear submarines can level the entire Iran faster than Iran can do any big damage to the USA. Iran's threats are hardly threats because there is no substance to it. American intelligence constantly spies on Iran using spy satellites. Iran's military infrastructure is so easy to target because they are away from the civilian population. At least, Saddam was intelligent to put his military infrastructure in civilian areas. Iran's navy is so pitiful compared to USA's naval fleet in the Gulf. It was all in the news. Iran dispatched speedboats to scare an American frigate ship (like a speedboat can sink a frigate, they wish!).

 

The only reasonable scenario for the USA in the next 50 years is the partial adoption of socialist ideas in government. Also, I expect lowering of salaries of workers through the years.

 

Very nice insight. If they cannot control the growing Latino population some of whom become less important in the American society, they might adopt some socialist practices. Italy and Spain did that already. But it might be difficult for the American society

 

American dominance will never end because the world's best minds always emigrate to the US

Edited by TheSmilingBandit
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that's because more than 60% of the world's food is coming from the US. That's why Americans will never go hungry unlike the rest of the world

 

China is the main producer of wheat and rice, with the U.S. no. 1 in soybeans, etc. The problem is that much of mechanized agriculture is heavily dependent on oil, phosphates, etc. In addition, China, the U.S., and other countries are experiencing problems like topsoil destruction due to extended droughts and floods.

 

The bad news is that much of the U.S. economy, which is based heavily on borrowing and spending and incredible demands for various resources, esp. oil, is now falling apart. That is why prices for various food products in the U.S. and elsewhere are going up.

 

American dominance will never end because the world's best minds always emigrate to the US

 

That's only because the U.S. was able to borrow and spend readily for four decades thanks to a dollar propped up by rigged credit ratings. That is no longer possible.

Edited by TheSmilingBandit
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Master Paeng, very nice opinion. But pls verify your data on the world's top wheat producers. Thanks

 

That's only because the U.S. was able to borrow and spend readily for four decades thanks to a dollar propped up by rigged credit ratings. That is no longer possible.

 

Correct. Economically speaking however, the US seems to dictate the world market because of the presence of American companies in practically all parts of the world. The 2nd biggest chain of supermarkets in China now for example is WalMart (next to the French Carrefour) which is also the biggest company in the world.

Edited by TheSmilingBandit
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The only category where China can dominate is population. But even that can be overtaken by India soon.

 

China is the main producer of wheat and rice, with the U.S. no. 1 in soybeans, etc. The problem is that much of mechanized agriculture is heavily dependent on oil, phosphates, etc. In addition, China, the U.S., and other countries are experiencing problems like topsoil destruction due to extended droughts and floods.

 

The bad news is that much of the U.S. economy, which is based heavily on borrowing and spending and incredible demands for various resources, esp. oil, is now falling apart. That is why prices for various food products in the U.S. and elsewhere are going up.

 

Chinese agri products are just enough for Chinese consumption so they rarely export them. If American companies in china close down, china will become one of the poorest countries in the world

 

does it mean another country can overtake the influence of American brands and products like Nike, starbucks, Walmart, guess, to name a few? which country can match the food production of the US?

 

China of course. But not in terms of exports

Edited by TheSmilingBandit
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If the US economy falls, the rest of the world follows also

 

The only category where China can dominate is population. But even that can be overtaken by India soon.

 

A little sarcastic there hehehe. The main problem in China is that their people receive very little salary. So how can they compete globally in terms of spending to spur up the economy?

Edited by TheSmilingBandit
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Master Paeng, very nice opinion. But pls verify your data on the world's top wheat producers. Thanks

 

I got the data here:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_wheat_production_statistics

 

which comes from FAO.

 

Correct. Economically speaking however, the US seems to dictate the world market because of the presence of American companies in practically all parts of the world. The 2nd biggest chain of supermarkets in China now for example is WalMart (next to the French Carrefour) which is also the biggest company in the world.

 

That should be the case because Walmart is one of the largest corporations in the world, but the country also has one of the highest levels of debt, a dollar that is essentially propped up by rigged credit ratings, something like a quarter of its debts controlled by China, and economic growth based essentially on borrowing and spending.

 

And it's running out of bullets needed to borrow more.

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The only category where China can dominate is population. But even that can be overtaken by India soon.

 

...

Chinese agri products are just enough for Chinese consumption so they rarely export them. If American companies in china close down, china will become one of the poorest countries in the world

...

China of course. But not in terms of exports

 

In relation to that,

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRIC

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That should be the case because Walmart is one of the largest corporations in the world, but the country also has one of the highest levels of debt, a dollar that is essentially propped up by rigged credit ratings, something like a quarter of its debts controlled by China, and economic growth based essentially on borrowing and spending.

 

And it's running out of bullets needed to borrow more.

 

This is mainly a misconception when a foreign country buys Treasuries from the US. The country that 'sells' treasury notes is still in control and market forces still dictate the prices; also, no country can just turn treasury notes into cash and get the same price. Assuming China sells 1 trillion dollars in notes, China will be lucky to even get half of that in cash today due to market forces. And, if China gets cash for it, what does it do with the cash? Do they reinvest it in another note with the same level of security as a US Treasury Note? Or, do they leave it in a vault until it depreciates? China would be better off waiting for the notes to mature than to sell it. The US has a lot of debt but a big amount of that is also local debt - meaning the US government will pay the debt to private American citizens. Also, the US is one of the countries that a lot of money saved by private citizens for their retirement - very few countries have this. American private citizens have several trillion dollars in retirement savings. Rigged credit ratings?!! If it is rigged, so why is there a market correction right now? Remember, there are 250 million Americans in the land mass of USA while there are 1.2 billion Chinese in the same amount of land mass. Who do you think will go hungry first? The Chinese were even lucky to put money in US Treasury notes coz if they didn't they would have ended up like the Middle East financiers which put their money in risky stocks and securities. I work in the US mutual fund industry, and 1 trillion dollars can be represented by one American mutual fund company. There are hundreds of American mutual fund companies. What it means, is that 1 trillion dollars is readily available from American private citizens. Just a twist, this 1 trillion dollars in private American citizen's money is invested around the world. Do you get the picture? The problem of the US government right now is simply big government spending and they are trying to make it reasonable by cutting down on the bureaucracy - what it mean is less government employees and less spending. So, if the US government is able to cut down size, the problem is solved. Cutting down the size of US government is a hard task since the country is used to big spending. If it was food, there is no problem in the US. People get fatter in a recession coz government still gives free food. Homeless people in the US can still eat at McDonald's everyday and still have money for cigarettes and alcohol courtesy of the US government.

 

Stop the doomsday scenario. If you haven't been to a First World country, like Japan, US or Europe, you likely don't have a good picture of what wealth means and how it works. Also, the US has already seen the worst of a financial crisis of the century, the Great Depression. This recession is not even close to that.

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