quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: We don't need or want to beat China at a ground war. Following that same theory though, there's no nation on earth that could beat the US at a ground war at home either. Besides, we'd have help, they wouldn't, not that either of us would need it. All we'd need is some strategic bombing, which even with limited operations in Afghanistan, and fully committed to Iraq is well within our capabilities. We have carriers totally uncommitted to Iraq, and B-2 and F-117 bombers that China still can't touch with their radar. Our defense budget, as many here like to point out, as almost doubled in the last eight years, we have tons of pretty little bombs to drop, especially with the JDAM mods that cheaply turn a dumb bombs into smart ones.
If the US decided to violate all common-sense and attack China over a provocation that warranted a couple sentences in a military report, the US would not have help. Well, it would....in the form of psychiatrists that would try to find out what the heck was wrong with our leadership.
As many have pointed out:
1) You can't have a direct war between two nuclear powers and expect either side to "win." There is no winning for anyone but the cockroaches. 2) As a corollary, there will not be a ground war in the US OR China. 3) There will not be a air war above China either, for the same exact reason. If the US starts hitting targets in China from carriers, how do you know they won't be mad enough to take the whole task force out with a nuke. How many lives are you willing to risk over that bluff? A thousand? A million? How about several hundred million? How do you know North Korea won't decide to up the ante and do it themselves? An air war is a no-go. 4) The US starting a proxy war wouldn't unblind the satellites, it would cost American lives and the US economy while accomplishing not one thing.
Let's face it, the Pentagon wouldn't be in favour of a war and even if it was, American business interests trump military interests. America is not going to start a war.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Btw, people don't seem to understand what would happen if China were to stop buying (or especially, sell off) the US debt they hold.
The Chinese currency would revaluate upward, making Chinese products more expensive around the world, so other countries would buy less. Simultaneously, American products (and those of other nations with currencies closely entwined with the dollar) would become cheaper in China, so they'd buy more.
This would actually be a good thing for the Chinese and the US, but trying to perform the shift all at once would hurt both in the short term. It would almost certainly hurt China far more, though. The dollar is at approximately the right value against most currencies, so we wouldn't experience major shifts in trade except with China and anyone pegged against them. China, however, has an artificially depreciated currency, and would revaluate against most of the world, making their economy have to drastically retool in a short period of time.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Reticulum, predicting national economy rankings 40 years in the future is a poor joke. Too many random and unforeseeable events make it impossible.
Blayne, first of all, WTF is WCS? Second, your numbers for Chinese nukes are just silly, as 30 seconds of googling shows. 2500?
Our nuclear weapons on submarines alone number around 2000. We could wipe out China (as in, all of it) before it had a chance to respond.
Of course, that would likely end modern civilization around the world as we know it, but that's life (or death, as the case might be).
There will be no major nuclear confrontation with China. Even if they launched first, they'd be utterly wiped off the face of the planet.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Explain to me how if possible to nuke a nation before they have a chance to laucnh? Doesnt it take sveeral minutes for ICBMs to reach their targets? Isnt that enough time for an immediate counter nuking as proposed by MAD?
Whether or not you could turn a country into a parking lot is irrelevent, it is not possible to nuke a country that has nukes and not get nuked in kind else the USA or the USSR wouldve nuked each other by now.
Would tyouy be wuilling to push that button if there is any chance that by doing so you murder tens of millions of your own people?
IP: Logged |
quote:Explain to me how if possible to nuke a nation before they have a chance to launch?
That's actually one of the purposes of a boomer fleet, Blayne. If you know where enemy silos are located, you can target them with your first strikes and significantly reduce their ability to retaliate. This is why the Russians were so determined to build mobile launch platforms.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yes, if we launch first from submarines and airplanes within a relatively short range of the targets (for instance, from a ways off the coast), then the nuclear weapons will be destroyed (along with the rest of China, if we so desired -- we have enough nukes on our submarines alone to do it several times over) before China's leaders even know they've been attacked.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
fugu: Sorry, so China is the second largest holder of US national debt, and not the first. Doesn't even begin to change the analysis enough to make it a likely proposition for the US to start a war.
The discussion of who would "win" a nuclear war is academic. Before we can even start to consider who would win such a war, the question is who would start it. You would need a US leadership that could ignore the economic cost of a nuclear war and want as its legacy being the first administration to start a thermonuclear war. Even Bush isn't that dumb and hopefully the US leadership can only improve from here.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I thought our boomer fleet had been significantly slashed over the last decade since the fall of the Soviet Union. How many Ohios are we still operating?
Also wondering, are the Chinese ballistic missiles based on Russian ones? If so, they can only have them fueled for so long before they have to unfuel them, service them, and refuel. The Russians never really had to worry, they had enough weapons to keep everything in rotation, but the Chinese have nothing close to that capacity. If we picked the right moment to launch, they wouldn't stand a chance of hitting us back. But I don't know the specs on their ICBMs.
Mucus -
Heh, I wasn't suggesting we launch a ground war or NUKE them over trade impasses or spying issues. Blayne was the one who brought up military intervention, and here we are, as always, talking about who will beat or nuke who, when in all liklihood, this entire argument is purely academic.
Edit to add: China is decades away from a nuclear fleet that can compete with us. Even if they steal enough technology to make it viable, they are still decades away in experience and training, though I'm betting they can buy that from the Russians for a tidy sum. Russia was at least a decade behind us when they got out of the game. In sonar, training, advanced weaponry, silent running and every other area, we're a generation ahead of China. They'd better get started now, but for the next 30 years, most of their subs, barring an explosion in ship building, are going to have a US sub RIGHT behind them profiling their sonar characteristics, following, intercepting trasmissions, and learning all about them, and the Chinese will be none the wiser.
posted
So the laser is either supposed to overload the CCD on the satellite's camera, or the laser is intended to apply enough heat to the satellite to do some damage.
To overload the CCD the laser would have to pinpoint and track the camera lens. The Chinese would have to know where on the satellite the lens is located. Also, there would be an angle beyond which, there would be no blinding effect. Considering that a CCD has a pitted surface, to be effective the laser beam would have to be nearly perpendicular to the CCD. The Chinese would have to know the angle at which the lens is mounted. Of course, we've probably given them the blueprints, so they would know exactly where everything is.
Applying enough heat to do damage at that speed and distance would be very difficult. You've got to track the same point on the satellite long enough for enough heat to build up. And that point you're tracking would have to be a vulnerable point, not just a random section of what would usually be highly reflective metal.
The State Department is probably just seeing recordings of occasional bright flashes from the same pinpoint on the ground that last maybe a second at the most.
Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by skillery: To overload the CCD the laser would have to pinpoint and track the camera lens. The Chinese would have to know where on the satellite the lens is located.
All laser beams spread, and it is not necessary (or even technologically possible) to only aim specifically at the lens of a spy satellite to temporarily shut it down.
Permanent damage is different.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Unless they've come up with a viable way of solving blooming issues.
But they'd need a fairly large facility to do that. I can't imagine we wouldn't have noticed it before now.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Blooming, when the beam defocuses and spreads while is hits atmosphere and air and such on its way toward the target. I don't know if it's the "technical" term or not, but it's the one I most often hear used to describe the problem.
There ARE ways to solve blooming, but most of them would be so incredibly expensive, and time consuming as to not be worth the benefit, not for satellite blinding anyway. For satellite destroying maybe.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
That's what I thought you meant. I've never heard of a countermeasure that would work for a beam travelling through the entire atmosphere. But I'm not up-to-date on laser tech.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm not super up to date either. From what I've read though, there are some theories on ways to stop blooming past the atmosphere, mostly having to do with large, large mirrors or some other type of array. I think I read somewhere (other I think, than Tom Clancy), that one of the most hopeful future arrays would be a giant diamond mirror basically to focus the beam and punch it through anything. With the recent advances in artificial diamond creation, more for industrial and commercial applications than for jewelry, it looks like more of a future reality than a crazy theoretical pipe dream.
Other things I've read have to do with pulses and burning the air in front of the beam to reduce bloom. But I think the easiest way is just to create a laser in vaccuum, that makes bloom almost irrelevent with regards to air, though with all the microparticles in space, especially the junk around earth, I don't know how big a problem that would be.
Basically, for the Chinese to have created a beam powerful enough to strike JUST the camera lens on a satellite even in LEO, and sustain the laser long enough to do damage would be a major accomplishment, and would almost have to come from a large facility, nothing even close to mobile or easily hidden from satellites. The main bonus they have working for them would be that they have a large country to hide it in, but the problem is with a laser, it could easily be followed back to the source.
And I think satellites could be hardened to withstand the blast of an enemy low powered laser, which might be all they need, as I don't think China has the capability to build powerful lasers that can punch that far into space without blooming issues.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Mucus: no, China is the 4th largest holder of US debt. By far most of the debt is held either by the government itself or the American people. Only about one third is held abroad.
As for high tensions being devastating because of that, not really. If they hold the debt, it doesn't matter if there are tensions. If they sell off all or a lot of the debt at once that might have some negative effect in the short term, though a much bigger one on them. However, significant tensions between the US and China would increase the willingness of others to purchase US debt as a hedge against currency fluctuations (tensions always do), so there'd be plenty of people to buy it. Our economy would hardly notice it.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:
Although the Chinese tests do not aim to destroy American satellites, the laser attacks could make them useless over Chinese territory.
So far all it says is that over a particular stretch of territory America is unable to illegial spy on another country.
So I have to ask whats the big deal?
If a Spyplane flew over the USA and took pictures of several sensitive military isntallations would you be peeved?
IP: Logged |
posted
Once the target starts to vaporize, you've got the problem of the vapors blocking the beam.
I've seen the use of a little air nozzle to blow the vapor off to the side in a case in which a carbon dioxide laser is used to scribe text on silicon wafers.
I wouldn't be surprised if Chinese nationals were involved in the design and construction of our spy satellites. Consider how many high-end science and technology college courses in the U.S. are attended or taught by Chinese nationals.
Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged |
Although the Chinese tests do not aim to destroy American satellites, the laser attacks could make them useless over Chinese territory.
So far all it says is that over a particular stretch of territory America is unable to illegial spy on another country.
So I have to ask whats the big deal?
If a Spyplane flew over the USA and took pictures of several sensitive military isntallations would you be peeved?
Yes! I'd jump in my F-16 and see how close I could fly to it, I'd even hold up a paper with my email address on it so close they could read it! I'd keep doing that until one day I get too close and clip the plane thus sending my plane crashing. My body would never be found, but thats OK! My bosses would capture the plane as it makes an emergency landing on Chinese soil. They would then gnash their teeth and moan at American claiming their huge slow manuevering plane must have swerved at the more agile jet. They would bill the US for parking their plane on Chinese soil somewhere to the tune of several million dollars. The US would send a bill back for the exact amount the Chinese billed for wrecking the plane in the first place. We'd then disassemble the plane (obviously for espionage purposes) and ship it back to the US and fly their pilots back too.
quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Btw, people don't seem to understand what would happen if China were to stop buying (or especially, sell off) the US debt they hold.
The Chinese currency would revaluate upward, making Chinese products more expensive around the world, so other countries would buy less. Simultaneously, American products (and those of other nations with currencies closely entwined with the dollar) would become cheaper in China, so they'd buy more.
This would actually be a good thing for the Chinese and the US, but trying to perform the shift all at once would hurt both in the short term. It would almost certainly hurt China far more, though. The dollar is at approximately the right value against most currencies, so we wouldn't experience major shifts in trade except with China and anyone pegged against them. China, however, has an artificially depreciated currency, and would revaluate against most of the world, making their economy have to drastically retool in a short period of time.
Exactly - China's economy and ours are far too intertwined for either to go to war with the other. China wasn't trying to provoke us by blinding our satellites - they know that's unbelievably dumb for them, financially. And they didn't do any lasting harm. If anything, they made us smarter about our satellites.
I'm not concerned about China, personally. I am way more concerned about North Korea.
Posts: 1006 | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
It's unrelated to the subject, and I know it's been said before, and will be said again, but please... for the love of all that is holy, Blayne, please type your responses in word using spellcheck and then post them. As is it is remarkably difficult to read your posts
all in all I have to agree with Libbie... there's too much of a cold-war aspect to any conflicts with China. Much as there's a lot of bluster on either side both sides are I think smart enough to realize that we can't have any kind of conflict and actually have the world survive. It's the smaller countries that have to fear us, and in turn we have to fear. It's wierd to think about, but those countries that know we have the capability to come in and topple regimes etc that are much more likely to do stupid and desparate things that would incite us to do exactly that.
Posts: 1038 | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by TheGrimace: ...It's wierd to think about, but those countries that know we have the capability to come in and topple regimes etc that are much more likely to do stupid and desparate things that would incite us to do exactly that.
Why on Earth would one nation incite another to invade it?
The only situation I can see your point coming from is the Isreal-Lebanon conflict, and in reality none of those countries did anything stupid or desperate just to recieve attention from the US or the UN. I think its safe to say that many countries do the opposite, as cited here.
Posts: 1158 | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
They don't have to intentionally incite an invasion.
For example, it could be said that Saddam's cat-and-mouse games with arms inspectors throughout the 90s incited the 2003 Iraq War (or at least provided a rationale for it). But Saddam had his own reasons for doing so: to appear strong against the foreigners both domestically and in the Arab world, etc.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by TheGrimace: ...It's wierd to think about, but those countries that know we have the capability to come in and topple regimes etc that are much more likely to do stupid and desparate things that would incite us to do exactly that.
Why on Earth would one nation incite another to invade it?
The only situation I can see your point coming from is the Isreal-Lebanon conflict, and in reality none of those countries did anything stupid or desperate just to recieve attention from the US or the UN. I think its safe to say that many countries do the opposite, as cited here.
I read in Time that the leader of Hezbollah said had he known Israel would react in the way it did he would not have kidnappted the soldiers.
Take whatever he says with a grain of salt, its easy to admit error right after everyone claims that you won in the conflict, and everyone thinks that victory demonstrates Allah's favor for your cause.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
To tell the truth I really didn't know where he was coming from with the statement its just I thought that maybe he was referring to the conflict in Isreal. I didn't pay very close attention to it so I thought there might have been some evidence supporting his claim that nations incite invasions from the conflict over there.
Posts: 1158 | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by TheGrimace: It's unrelated to the subject, and I know it's been said before, and will be said again, but please... for the love of all that is holy, Blayne, please type your responses in word using spellcheck and then post them.
posted
Soap, no, I wasn't referring to Israel at all (though some of the same concept does apply there as well).
It's basically the nature of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) and what people have been touching on throughout this discussion.
In the cases of the Cold War or here with the US vs China the very fact that a conflict would be so incredibly devastating is why it's not going to happen. This is going to manifest itself in a combination of at least two things: 1) Each side is going to get more leaniency than others (i.e. violating WTO rules, violating UN resolutions, refusing to comply with non-proliferation or war crimes treatys etc...) 2) Each side is going to have to temper some of it's desires (i.e. not invading Taiwan, not being as strict as they'd like when addressing the issues from #1).
I'm not saying that any of the smaller nations are inviting invasion, but I'm saying their position does allow for it a great deal more than China.
i.e. Iran, Iraq, North Korea etc... in part because they are in a more desperate situation (on the world politics front) are more likely to actively/publicly engage in more threatening weapons development/deployment, aggressive actions towards their neighbors etc...
Though, now that I think more about it though it may just be that we are more willing to pay attention and react to the little guys when they do something to piss us off, whereas China would have to do a LOT before we'd be willing to get in even a sideways conflict.
but in any case, if you want to apply the situation to Israel, then I'm sure there is something of this situation going on. Palestinians may have the feeling that at any moment the IDF would come in and attack, and so as a result they are more likely to move in desparation (invoking terrorist actions) which in turn causes the IDF to move in. It's all a viscious cycle.
Basically the larger world powers seem to stand just on the brink of entering that cycle full-force for fear of what that would mean to themselves and everyone else. Unfortunately the smaller nations tend to get sucked in more readily.
Posts: 1038 | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Mucus: no, China is the 4th largest holder of US debt. By far most of the debt is held either by the government itself or the American people. Only about one third is held abroad.
As for high tensions being devastating because of that, not really. If they hold the debt, it doesn't matter if there are tensions. If they sell off all or a lot of the debt at once that might have some negative effect in the short term, though a much bigger one on them. However, significant tensions between the US and China would increase the willingness of others to purchase US debt as a hedge against currency fluctuations (tensions always do), so there'd be plenty of people to buy it. Our economy would hardly notice it.
My original quote was
quote: China is currently the largest foreign purchaser of US governmental debt.
A. While China is living through one of its greatest historical bubbles, the United States is going though one of the biggest twin scares of the last decade -- the deficits in trade and in the federal budget. What seems to be especially worrying is the foreign ownership of US debt.
Recent US Treasury statistics indicate that almost one third of the debt is held by the Central Banks of Japan and China, and by several central banks in the European Union. This makes the United States susceptible to a major threat that either banks will stop purchasing Treasury Bills or start selling them massively.
Some warnings are already emerging. Recently some central banks in Europe have announced that they will sell off a large portion of their dollar securities out of worries about the twin deficits causing a downward slide in the US currency. Also the central banks of Russia and the United Arab Emirates have allegedly claimed that they may shift out of the dollar in 2007 for the same reason. So the United States must be aware of potential big players' flight from their securities.
If you add to that picture the additional pressures due to tensions, gas prices going up, a US consumer cutting back on purchases, reduced trade in both directions, pre-existing obligations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and so forth, its not a pretty picture.
You're right, if selling bonds was *all* China did, then the economy could deal with it. But with all the above factors, then you have the makings of a perfect storm that could trash *both* economies. And since the US administration is much more dominated by business interests than China's you can bet that they'll go that much further to avoid any problems, let alone tensions. It is just arrogant to say that the economy wouldn't notice it.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Mucus: no, China is the 4th largest holder of US debt. By far most of the debt is held either by the government itself or the American people. Only about one third is held abroad.
Wait, I'm confused. The American government owes itself money?
About the intertwined economies, let's not forget Norman Angell and "The Great Illusion". He wrote a book proving that, due to their globalised economies, the Great Powers would hurt themselves so badly by going to war that no rational statesman could consider it. It was published in 1911.
Economic interests are not the only possible interests.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Oh, and as for business dominating the American government, that may be true; but it's expressed over the long term, in the slow crystallisation of laws and departmental policies. War, on the other hand, is a fairly sudden affair; even if Bush has a lot of friends in the oil industry, would he necessarily consider them when he thought about how to respond to, say, an invasion of Taiwan? Would the Congress, if he asked them for a DOW? On a single decision that has to be made quickly, business influence doesn't seem that decisive; it's not as though the politicians would call up their favourite CEOs and ask them what to vote.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
The US administration is not more dominated by business interests than China's. Quite the opposite, in fact. China is heavily interventionist among businesses, including using force to change ownership, whereas the US is the most laissez-faire of the major powers (scary as that is).
Its not really possible for all those people to shift out of the dollar and result in some devastating effect. They can't just magically make the debt they own vanish (without losing serious capital and doing the US gov't a spectacularly good turn), they have to sell the debt to somebody else. If a lot of people want to sell debt off, that excess market supply of debt will drive the price of US debt down, until demand again equals supply. Suddenly our debt is an attractive instrument again, albeit after a currency revaluation.
Not to mention that if the trade deficit is so worrisome, this will do wonders to 'fix' it. When more US debt is being sold by foreign governments than bought, that means people in the US are buying the debt. That means US savings goes up, and that means the trade deficit goes down (income-expenditure identity and all that).
And of course, this is all in the short term. We'd probably have a four or five year recession in a worst case scenario -- depression wouldn't set in unless we suddenly started intervening a bunch in the economy. That's bad, but hardly earth-shattering. Life goes on.
If we start trying to futz with our currency, or intervene in the trading of debt, or any of a million other heavy-handed interventionist measures, then we'll have a major economic problem. We're chugging along just fine and likely will even if there's a big bump along the way. The ones frantically trying to adjust their economy with draconian regulations on intermediary goods (like metal production) are the Chinese, because they know they're in for a big crash if they don't deal with the imbalances caused by their currency futzing.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Wait, I'm confused. The American government owes itself money?
Part of this is a 3-card monty game the government has played between the Social Security system and the general budget for years. It's basically pledges to pay the SS fund sometime in the future for funds that are already past due to it. Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Rakeesh: Of all the statements you could have trouble with, thats the one?
China was still killing businessmen up until the Cultural Revolution. Businessmen weren't even allowed into the party until Jiang Zemin's Three Represents. Meanwhile, the influence of companies and lobbyists from the industry is well documented for both the Republicans and Democrats, both of which are in name (and in spirit) capitalist while the CCP is still socialist, (in name, if not toally in spirit).
Hu Jintao's background (and Jiang Zemin) were engineers and many top party officials are military. Bush was an oilman and Cheney was the CEO of Haliburton.
Weird thing to have doubts about.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by fugu13: The US administration is not more dominated by business interests than China's. Quite the opposite, in fact. China is heavily interventionist among businesses, including using force to change ownership, whereas the US is the most laissez-faire of the major powers (scary as that is).
I think we have either a spectacular case of miscommunication or a problem with semantics. China is able to use force and dictate what businesses can do precisely because they aren't dominated by business interests. The businessmen can complain all they want about the strange economic policies that the Chinese leadership has and they will not be heard. The US is laissez-faire precisely because they are dominated by business interests, they've embraced the theories behind a free market economy so well that they've even gone to war to *protect* free trade.
We *must* have a difference in definition or something.
As for how likely people are going to be selling securities, I'm going to listen to a top economist that's on the front page of CNN before I listen to "random guy on the Internet".
Edit to add:
One important point though for Taiwan: Quote anything that I've said, all of my points have been sticking to the OP scenario of the US starting a war over spying. I've always maintained that the US would never start a war. I'm pretty sure I never said anything about whether *China* would start a war
posted
China also wont start a war either they want world opinion to be always on their side and spent the last 2decades building it up, America has void to protect Taiwan yes but also insisted that Chen maintains the status quoand reprimended Chen after he aboloished the unification council and went against his word form the 1997(?) agreements. Taiwan wont de jure declare independance and Beijing knows miantaining the status quo gives Beijing more time to dominate the eocnomics of Taiwan.
IP: Logged |
posted
I think the disconnect is that I'm talking about how China frequently uses force on behalf of one business to coerce another business. The first business is often state-owned, but not always, and it is still a business.
Given our extremely good growth record and improving welfare for just about everybody, it would seem our economic policies are pro-people, not pro-business.
Also, the blog I linked to with the graph is a highly ranked economics blog (frequently linked by Mankiw and Cowen, for instance), and they share a similar perspective.
Speaking of Mankiw and Cowen, here are some links that might be of interest. They are two of the top economists in the US and the world.
The person you are quoting is an international finance economist. My arguments are tending towards typical macroeconomic arguments, with a splash of international finance. Some of the things I say are almost identical to those presented as macroeconomist arguments (they're practically textbook answers, after all).
It certainly isn't a resolved point, but my arguments are just as listen-able to as those you linked. The doom and gloom arguments get a lot more play in the media, but there are plenty of major economists sitting on the side of no big deal.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
edit: this is particularly important for underscoring that all debt sold is bought by somebody else. The only question is who.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
