Malthus to China Potpourri

[alan2102]

Alan, I think the point you're missing is that development, of any kind, creates
more problems than it solves.

Not true.  Economic development solves many more problems than it creates, up to
a certain level of income -- approximately 10K/year.  Below that are all the
problems of underdevelopment, including malnutrition, disease, non-sanitation,
high infant mortality, high fertility (and thus, eventually, population), and so on.
It is a mess.  It is vital to bring everyone up to that level, approximately. Beyond
that level is a different matter.  Benefits fall off, rapidly, and begin to reverse.
We live in the quintessentially OVER-developed society -- the U.S.A. -- so it is much
easier for us to attune  to the problems of over-development. But the problems of
under-development are no less real, and are suffered still by many more people
than those of us with the opposite problem.  Sub-saharan Africa, for example!
 

  I have read much of what you posted and while I agree that planning is vital,
and it's a good thing they've targeted a reduction in growth, anything short of
steady-state or actively reversing development is a losing proposition.

Why?  Do you really mean to say that no incremental steps toward the goal of
steady state can do any good?  In my view, ALL progress toward anything (at
least any material thing)  involves incremental steps.

  Even conservation and efficiency is misleading because, as per Jevon's paradox,
it leads to greater use of resources by expanding the application of the resources
to other activity or to a wider population. 

Jeavon's paradox is an amusing idea, but it is not taken seriously. It has
no credibility as a general phenomenon.

China is still operating within the technology and progress worldview,

As indeed they MUST, still, at this stage of their development. Remember: they
still have several hundred million people who are dirt-poor. They CANNOT leave those
people in that miserable state.  It would be immoral.  Their per-capita income is still
in the $6-8K range -- too low. They need to continue operating within the technology
and progress worldview, for perhaps another generation.  WE, on the other hand...   

so it just amounts to changing the window dressing rather than a structural change.

Over time, window dressing changes become structural changes.  We begin with
baby steps. Then, big-baby steps.  Trajectory is everything.

  Even hunter gatherers were unsustainable (eg. megafauna extinctions). 
Humans, by our very nature, do not appear to be capable of sustainability.

Geez! That's a tad stringent, don't you think?

I've concluded, rightly or wrongly, that small self-sufficient regulated (not
through infanticide or abortions but through preventative measures)
populations that have greatly reduced their use of technology, practically
to zero, is the only viable solution for long-term human survivability. 

You first. Set an example for the rest to follow.

In short, we should seek to work within the boundaries of ecological niches.  But I
don't see that happening without an evolutionary change or bifurcation of the
species.  Homo sapiens will use all the available resources until they no longer can. 
Then we'll just be stuck with our useless ingenuity.  That's if we don't further disrupt
the ecological equilibrium (unlikely based on our history) we depend on before arriving
at that point.
I see two options: Evolve or Perish.  Evolution sometimes gets it wrong, I think we're
a case in point.  What China is doing is clearly better than what the West is doing,
but it still falls way short.  Nature doesn't reward for effort, only for success.

You may be right. Time will tell!

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[alan2102]

Will a 410 billion yuan government project be enough to finally
rid China’s cities of unsafe drinking water?   

Answer:  NO!

But it is a great step toward.

Hey, give 'em some slack, RE!  They're only 60 years in to a project (development
of good municipal water systems) that we started on a HUNDRED and sixty years
ago.  You know -- back when the British were butt-fucking the Chinese.

Things take time, for gosh sakes. You don't decide to build the Great Pyramid,
and then schedule the placement of the capstone for the day after tomorrow!

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[RE]

Hey, give 'em some slack, RE!  They're only 60 years in to a project (development
of good municipal water systems) that we started on a HUNDRED and sixty years
ago.  You know -- back when the British were butt-fucking the Chinese.

In case you haven't noticed Alan, "Cutting Slack" and "RE" in the Same Sentence is an Oxymoron on a par with "Military Intelligence" and "Jumbo Shrimp".

The fact they are only 60 years into this project simply justifies another Tag Line I use with respect to the Chinese, which is that they came in a Day Late and a Yuan Short on the Industrialization paradigm.  They arrived at the Party when the last Keg was already needing to be tipped to get out any Beer. The Chinese are gonna have the worst Hangover here also, they built an Industrial Infrastructure to make stuff nobody can afford to buy anymore.  They sure will not be selling $500 I-phones to the Foxconn workers who make them paid at $2/day, and their Eurotrash Clients are Fresh Out of Credit now, the Spanish and Greek Cards have already been Cancelled.

The Chinese are...



RE

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[alan2102]

The fact they are only 60 years into this project simply justifies another Tag Line
I use with respect to the Chinese, which is that they came in a Day Late
and a Yuan Short on the Industrialization paradigm.  They arrived at the
Party when the last Keg was already needing to be tipped to get out any Beer.
The Chinese are gonna have the worst Hangover here also, they built an
Industrial Infrastructure to make stuff nobody can afford to buy anymore.

Wellll, we haven't got into the decoupling issue yet. I can address that
tomorrow. For the moment, suffice to say that I think you'll be surprised at
how non-U.S. demand picks up the slack. And as far as arriving late: you'll
be surprised there too, I'm fairly certain.  They arrived late to modernity, and
are segue-ing in to post-modernity (renewables) at a remarkable clip. There's
plenty of party left, as I believe you'll see if you live long enough. It just won't
be here in the old US of A, for a long time.


  R.E.'s IGNORANT, MEAN* & BIGOTED*  VIEWS ON CHINA ARE...


* "useless eaters"



[I could not resist, RE. I just could not resist.]

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[RE]

Wellll, we haven't got into the decoupling issue yet. I can address that
tomorrow. For the moment, suffice to say that I think you'll be surprised at
how non-U.S. demand picks up the slack. And as far as arriving late: you'll
be surprised there too, I'm fairly certain.

I'll be surprised when Pigs Fly also. You have Decoupled from REALITY.

  R.E.'s IGNORANT, MEAN* & BIGOTED*  VIEWS ON CHINA ARE...

...I could not resist, RE. I just could not resist.

No subsidiary licensing available for stealing my Graphic Metaphors!  Exercise some creativity and find your OWN!

RE

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[RE]

  R.E.'s IGNORANT, MEAN* & BIGOTED*  VIEWS ON CHINA ARE...

* "useless eaters"

Emphasis Mine.

The "Useless Eaters" quote has variously been attributed to Winston Churchill and Henry Ford, and is used by me here tongue-in-cheek.  It does not just represent the Chinese, but ALL the excess Poor People of the world the Illuminati would like to dispense with.  Below, a few Quotes from many of the principal pundits of the Eugenics Movement

Useless Eaters Beware: Agenda to Depopulate Earth  (continued)
by STEPHANIE R. PASCO (INFOWARS)

 The schools therefore use the means described earlier to combat family attitudes that favor jingoism (nationalism) we shall presently recognize in nationalism the major obstacle to development of world mindedness. We are at the beginning of a long process of breaking down the walls of national sovereignty. UNESCO must be the pioneer."


Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution, 1991:

"In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill (this is absolute proof that man made global warming is a fabrication).... But in designating them as the enemy, we fall into the trap of mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself."


Mikhail Gorbachev:

"We must speak more clearly about sexuality, contraception, about abortion, about values that control population, because the ecological crisis, in short, is the population crisis. Cut the population by 90% and there aren't enough people left to do a great deal of ecological damage."


Aldous Huxley, Brave New World 1946:

"There is, of course, no reason why the new totalitarians should resemble the old. Government by clubs and firing squads, by artificial famine, mass imprisonment and mass deportation, is not merely inhumane (nobody cares much about that nowadays); it is demonstrably inefficient and in an age of advanced technology, inefficiency is the sin against the Holy Ghost."


Aldous Huxley, Lecture named Population Explosion 1959:

"Let us ask ourselves what the practical alternatives are as we confront this problem of population growth. One alternative is to do nothing in particular about it and just let things go on as they are The question is: Are we going to restore the balance in the natural way, which is a brutal and entirely anti-human way, or are we going to restore it in some intelligent, rational, and humane way Try to increase production as much as possible and at the same time try to re-establish the balance between the birth rate by means less gruesome than those which are used by nature - by intelligent and human methods? There are colossal difficulties in the way of implementing any large-scale policy of limitation of population; whereas death control is extremely easy under modern circumstances, birth control is extremely difficult. The reason is very simple: death control - the control, for example, of infectious diseases � can be accomplished by a handful of experts and quite a small labour force of unskilled persons and requires a very small capital expenditure."


Barry Commoner, Making Peace with the Planet:

"There have been 'triage' proposals that would condemn whole nations to death through some species of global 'benign neglect'. There have been schemes for coercing people to curtail their fertility, by physical and legal means that are ominously left unspecified. Now we are told that we must curtail rather than extend our efforts to feed the hungry peoples of the world. Where will it end?"

Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, April 28, 1997, Testimony before Congressional Committee: "There are some reports, for example, that some countries have been trying to construct something like an Ebola Virus, and that would be a very dangerous phenomenon, to say the least. Alvin Toeffler has written about this in terms of some scientists in their laboratories trying to devise certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic specific so that they could just eliminate certain ethnic groups and races; and others are designing some sort of engineering, some sort of insects that can destroy specific crops. Others are engaging even in an eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves. So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations. It's real, and that's the reason why we have to intensify our efforts, and that's why this is so important."

Jacques Cousteau UNESCO Courier 1991:

"In order to save the planet it would be necessary to kill 350,000 people per day."


Jacques Cousteau, Population: Opposing Viewpoints:

"If we want our precarious endeavor to succeed, we must convince all human beings to participate in our adventure, and we must urgently find solutions to curb the population explosion that has a direct influence on the impoverishment of the less-favoured communities. Otherwise, generalized resentment will beget hatred, and the ugliest genocide imaginable, involving billions of people, will become unavoidable."

"Uncontrolled population growth and poverty must not be fought from inside, from Europe, from North America, or any nation or group of nations; it must be attacked from the outside -- by international agencies helped in the formidable job by competent and totally non-governmental organizations."

Bertrand Russell, The Impact Of Science On Society 1953

"I do not pretend that birth control is the only way in which population can be kept from increasing War has hitherto been disappointing in this respect, but perhaps bacteriological war may prove more effective. If a Black Death could be spread throughout the world once in every generation survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full� The state of affairs might be somewhat unpleasant, but what of that? Really high-minded people are indifferent to happiness, especially other people's. There are three ways of securing a society that shall be stable as regards population. The first is that of birth control, the second that of infanticide or really destructive wars, and the third that of general misery except for a powerful minority..."


Henry Kissinger, 1978:

"U.S. policy toward the third world should be one of depopulation"


David Rockefeller, 2000:

"We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order."


David Rockefeller: Memoirs 2002 Founder of the CFR:

"We wield over American political and economical institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as internationalists and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political structure, one world, if you will. If that�s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it."


David Rockefeller


"We are grateful to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine & other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promise of discretion for almost 40 years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plans for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. Thomas Ferguson, the Latin American Case Officer for the State Department's Office of Population Affairs (OPA) (now the US State Dept. Office of Population Affairs, est. by Henry Kissinger in 1975): "There is a single theme behind all our work - we must reduce population levels," said Thomas Ferguson, the Latin American case officer for the State Departmentï Office of Population Affairs (OPA).

"Either they [governments] do it our way, through nice clean methods or they will get the kind of mess that we have in El Salvador, or in Iran, or in Beirut. Population is a political problem. Once population is out of control it requires authoritarian government, even fascism, to reduce it. "The professionals," said Ferguson, "aren't interested in lowering population for humanitarian reasons. That sounds nice. We look at resources and environmental constraints. We look at our strategic needs, and we say that this country must lower its population -- or else we will have trouble.

"So steps are taken. El Salvador is an example where our failure to lower population by simple means has created the basis for a national security crisis. The government of El Salvador failed to use our programs to lower their population. Now they get a civil war because of it. There will be dislocation and food shortages. They still have too many people there." (1981)


Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, April 28, 1997; Testimony before Congressional Committee:

"And advanced forms of biological warfare that can target specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool."


Sir Julian Huxley, UNESCO: its Purpose and its Philosophy:

"Political unification in some sort of world government will be required� Even though� any radical eugenic policy will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, it will be important for UNESCO to see that the eugenic problem is examined with the greatest care, and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake so that much that now is unthinkable may at least become thinkable. In the early 1950's, former Communist Joseph Z. Kornfeder expressed the opinion that UNESCO was comparable to a Communist Party agitation and propaganda department. He stated that such a party apparatus 'handles the strategy and method of getting at the public mind, young and old.' Huxley would lard the agency with a motley collection of Communists and fellow travelers.

President Richard Nixon believed abortion was necessary as a form of eugenics to prevent interracial breeding

Theodore Roosevelt to Charles B. Davenport, January 3, 1913, Charles B. Davenport Papers, Department of Genetics, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.:

"I wish very much that the wrong people could be prevented entirely from breeding; and when the evil nature of these people is sufficiently flagrant, this should be done. Criminals should be sterilized and feebleminded persons forbidden to leave offspring behind them. The emphasis should be laid on getting desirable people to breed."

Theodore Roosevelt:

"Society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind�. Any group of farmers, who permitted their best stock not to breed, and let all the increase come from the worst stock, would be treated as fit inmates for an asylum�. Some day we will realize that the prime duty, the inescapable duty of the good citizens of the right type is to leave his or her blood behind him in the world; and that we have no business to permit the perpetuation of citizens of the wrong type. The great problem of civilization is to secure a relative increase of the valuable as compared with the less valuable or noxious elements in the population. The problem cannot be met unless we give full consideration to the immense influence of heredity.  I wish very much that the wrong people could be prevented entirely from breeding; and when the evil nature of these people is sufficiently flagrant, this should be done. Criminals should be sterilized and feebleminded persons forbidden to leave offspring behind them. The emphasis should be laid on getting desirable people to breed."


By Carl Teichrib:

"The Georgia Guidestones, a massive granite edifice planted in the Georgia countryside, contains a list of ten new commandments for Earth's citizens. The first commandment, and the one which concerns this article, simply states; "Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature."


Robert Walker, former chair of PepsiCo and Proctor & Gamble on water:

Water is a gift of nature. Its delivery is not. It must be priced to insure it is used sustainably.

Ted Turner makes the radical statement that, "A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal,"

Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood, funded by the Rockefellers) said in her proposed The American Baby Code, intended to become law:

"The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it."

This is the woman (Margaret Sanger) whom Hillary Clinton publicly declared she looked up to, during the 2008 presidential debates.

Here is a short list of some advocates of eugenics; Alexander Graham Bell, George Bernard Shaw H. G. Wells, Sidney Webb, William Beveridge, John Maynard Keynes, Margaret Sanger, Marie Stopes, Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Emile Zola, George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, John Harvey Kellogg, Winston Churchill, Linus Pauling, Sidney Webb, Sir Francis Galton, Charles B. Davenport Futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard (who wanted to create a Dept. of Peace):

"Out of the full spectrum of human personality, one-fourth is electing to transcend�One-fourth is ready to so choose, given the example of one other�One-fourth is resistant to election. They are unattracted by life ever evolving. One-fourth is destructive. They are born angry with God. They are defective seeds. There have always been defective seeds. In the past they were permitted to die a natural death - we, the elders, have been patiently waiting until the very last moment before the quantum transformation, to take action to cut out this corrupted and corrupting element in the body of humanity. It is like watching a cancer grow. Now, as we approach the quantum shift from creature-human to co-creative human the human who is an inheritor of god-like powers the destructive one-fourth must be eliminated from the social body. We have no choice, dearly beloveds. Fortunately you, dearly beloveds, are not responsible for this act. We are. We are in charge of God's selection process for planet Earth. He selects, we destroy. We are the riders of the pale horse, Death. We come to bring death to those who are unable to know God the riders of the pale horse are about to pass among you. Grim reapers, they will separate the wheat from the chaff. This is the most painful period in the history of humanity..."

Henry Kissinger


Alexander Haig is quoted referring to the US State Department Office of Population Affairs, which was established by Henry Kissinger in 1975. The title has since been changed to The Bureau of Oceans, International Environmental and Scientific Affairs:

"Accordingly, the Bureau of Oceans, International Environmental and Scientific Affairs has consistently blocked industrialization policies in the Third World, denying developing nation�s access to nuclear energy technology�the policies that would enable countries to sustain a growing population. According to State Department sources, and Ferguson himself, Alexander Haig is a "firm believer" in population control.

Although the above stated quotes should be sufficient to prove that the elitists in power have definite intent to depopulate this planet to what they deem to be a sustainable level. Some will argue these are only opinions and are of no real consequence. I will now move on to providing bits of documentation showing this is a plan that has a worldwide scope of influence.

You have to understand when I am refering to the Iluminati here and their plans.  My Plan is DIFFERENT.  My Plan is to get rid of THEM before they get rid of US.

Bring on the Orkin Man.

RE

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[alan2102]

Wellll, we haven't got into the decoupling issue yet. I can address that
tomorrow. For the moment, suffice to say that I think you'll be surprised at
how non-U.S. demand picks up the slack. And as far as arriving late: you'll
be surprised there too, I'm fairly certain.

I'll be surprised when Pigs Fly also. You have Decoupled from REALITY.

Funny you should mention REALITY, RE.

Snippets only; full text (worthwhile) at the link:

"Anyone who continues to argue that a Chinese decoupling from
America's economy is impossible at this point is truly beyond
hope [or: out of touch with reality]."

----------------------

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-china-ready-pull-plug

09/16/2011 08:23 -0400

Submitted by Brandon Smith from Alt Market

Is China Ready To Pull The Plug?

There are two mainstream market assumptions that, in my mind,
prevail over all others. The continuing function of the Dow,
the sustained flow of capital into and out of the banking
sector, and the full force spending of the federal government
are ALL entirely dependent on the lifespan of these dual
illusions; one, that the U.S. Dollar is a legitimate safe
haven investment and will remain so indefinitely, and two,
that China, like many other developing nations, will continue
to prop up the strength of the dollar indefinitely because it
is "in their best interest". In the dimly lit bowels of Wall
Street such ideas are so entrenched and pervasive, to question
their validity is almost sacrilegious. Only after the recent
S&P downgrade of America's AAA credit rating did the
impossible become thinkable to some MSM analysts, though a
considerable portion of the day-trading herd continue to roll
onward, while the time bomb strapped to the ass end of their
financial house is ticking away.

[...snip...]

China Discreetly Moving To Dump U.S. Debt

China has been tip-toeing towards this for years, and has
openly admitted on numerous occasions that they plan to
institute a break from U.S. debt and the dollar in due course.
Anyone who continues to argue that a Chinese decoupling from
America's economy is impossible at this point is truly beyond
hope.

[...snip...]

Delusions of Chinese dependency on the U.S consumer still
abound, and those who suggest a catastrophic dump of U.S. debt
and dollars in the near term are liable to hear the same
ignorant talking points we have heard all along:

"The Chinese are better off with us than without us."

"China needs export dollars from the U.S. to survive."

"China isn't equipped to produce goods without U.S.
technological savvy."

"America could simply revert back to industry and production
and teach the Chinese a lesson."

"The U.S. could default on its debts to China and simply walk
away."

"The whole situation is China's fault because of their
artificial devaluation of the Yuan over the decades."

And on and on it goes. Though I have deconstructed these
arguments more instances than I can count in the past, I feel
it my duty to at least quickly address them one more time:

U.S. consumption of all goods, not just Chinese goods, has
fallen off a cliff since 2008 and is unlikely to recover
anytime soon. China has done quite well despite this fall in
exports considering the circumstances. With the institution of
ASEAN, they barely need us at all.

China is well equipped to produce technological goods without
U.S. help, and if Japan is inducted into ASEAN (as I believe
they soon will be), they will be even more capable.

America will NOT be able to revert back to an industrial based
economy before a dollar collapse escalates to fruition. It
took decades to dismantle U.S. industry and ship it overseas.
Reeducating a 70% service based society to function in an
industrial system, not to mention resurrecting the factory
infrastructure necessary to support the nation, would likely
take decades to accomplish.

If the U.S. deliberately defaults on debt to China, the global
reputation of the dollar would implode, and its world reserve
status would be irrevocably lost. We won't be teaching anyone
a "lesson" then.

[...snip...]



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[RE]

Funny you should mention REALITY, RE.

I read Zero Hedge every day for the last 4 years or so.  I doubt I have missed too much over there since the Tyler Durdens and the rest of the Piglets repeat themselves all the time.

When China "decouples" from the Dollar all hell will break loose.  In CHINA more than anywhere else!  They are fucked Six Ways from Sunday over there.  It is  a MERCANTILIST economy, and when they decouple, ALL their "savings" from the last 20 years of SLAVE LABOR go WORTHLESS.  Meanwhile, the Industrial Plant they built over the last 20 years is LOADED in Debt, and none of it can pay off.  They cannot build the Renminby into a currency of any value based on a lot of completely WORTHLESS shit they cannot pay off on in Dollars EITHER as long as the Dollars actually hold some value here.  They are so fucked it is not even funny really.

The Chinese are

Everybody KNOWS, that's how it GOES

RE

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[g]

Quote EndIsNigh" Alan, I think the point you're missing is that development, of any kind, creates more problems than it solves."

I wish China well and all of us for that matter. It is most difficult to envision where the resources are going to come from to support these projections. Especially where the Chinese have already created and auto oil based economy much like the US and Europe. The pictures that have been posted on DD of the pollution and destruction of the environment in China are also just too much to handle. Something has to give. 

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[alan2102]

I wish China well and all of us for that matter. It is most difficult to envision where
the resources are going to come from to support these projections. Especially where
the Chinese have already created and auto oil based economy much like the US and
Europe. The pictures that have been posted on DD of the pollution and destruction
of the environment in China are also just too much to handle. Something has to give.

I agree that the buildup of the auto infrastructure and industry in china is  a HUGE
mistake -- their biggest single mistake, IMO.  They are handling most things in a highly
intelligent and forward-looking manner, with the glaring exception of that.  I really must
emphasize that on my next private video telecon with PM Jiabao and his staff. 

I emphatically do NOT agree that the lurid "pictures that have been posted on DD
of the pollution and destruction" are meaningful, or reflect a situation in China that
is "just too much to handle."  Pictures usually (though not invariably) contribute the
equivalent of an emotional outburst to an otherwise-rational discussion. You can
come up with horribly ugly, or sublimely beautiful, pictures of any place or any thing
you like. In fact it is a trivial exercise, with the bing/google image databases. I could
easily come up with a  series of stunning civilization-of-the-future and wouldn't-
ANYONE-want-to-live-there photos of China, but I don't, because they would
contribute nothing to the discussion. Yes, OF COURSE there are all those beautiful
things, as well as all those ugly things, in China.  Big deal. 

I say: dump the freaking  facebook photo bullshit, and SHOW ME SOME NUMBERS.
GIVE ME SOME HARD FACTS.   That is, if you want to convince me.

Hrrrumph!   

 

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[alan2102]

When China "decouples" from the Dollar all hell will break loose.  In CHINA more
than anywhere else!  They are fucked Six Ways from Sunday over there.  It is  a
MERCANTILIST economy, and when they decouple, ALL their "savings" from
the last 20 years of SLAVE LABOR go WORTHLESS.  Meanwhile, the
Industrial Plant they built over the last 20 years is LOADED in Debt, and
none of it can pay off.  They cannot build the Renminby into a currency of any
value based on a lot of completely WORTHLESS shit they cannot pay off
on in Dollars EITHER as long as the Dollars actually hold some value here. 
They are so fucked it is not even funny really.

RE, your habit  of heavily  peppering your text with upper-case and
BOLDFACED words is reminiscent of of my own.  IT IS  AN
unfortunate habit,  HOWEVER, when the  typographical EMPHASES
are used  as a substitute for -- rather than to supplement -- quality
argument with documentation.

I welcome your posting of quality arguments, with documentation, for your
assertions.

Once again, and in brief:

"When China "decouples" from the Dollar all hell will break loose. "

Agreed.

"In CHINA more  than anywhere else!"

Not agreed. Transiently, things will be chaotic in China, yes. Not more than
anywhere else.

"They are fucked Six Ways from Sunday over there."

In some ways, but a LOT less than elsewhere.

"It is  a  MERCANTILIST economy, and when they decouple, ALL their "savings" from
the last 20 years of SLAVE LABOR go WORTHLESS."

Rubbish. The only way that anyone could write such a sentence is by way of the most
assiduous ignoring of all the facts I've posted on this thread. That's intellectually
dishonest.  You are welcome to your own opinions, but not to your own facts.
China has invested $trillions in critical infrastructure, including those so-called "ghost
cities" that Ash mentioned (I'll get back to that one); this stuff is not going to just suddenly
disappear ("go worthless").  Further, the Chinese are aggressively accumulating PMs and
rare earths, and in other ways are diversifying out of the dollar, as fast as they can. Neither
will that stuff  "go worthless". They know that some of their treasuries will wind up going
to money heaven, but they are transitioning as fast as they can. Very smart. They are NOT
going to be caught flat-footed when the dollar goes south, even though they will of course
take some losses.

If you truly believe that  "ALL of their savings will go worthless", then you really are out
of touch with current reality; perhaps living in a 1990 or 2000 time-warp.  That's the
doomer equivalent of the pollyanna's belief in the tooth fairy.  Two sides of the same
deluded coin.

"Meanwhile, the Industrial Plant they built over the last 20 years is LOADED in
Debt, and  none of it can pay off."

Note well those words: "THE INDUSTRIAL [SYSTEM] THEY BUILT OVER THE LAST
20 YEARS".  Yes!  It exists! They built it!  It is huge!  It is HEAVY!  It is functional!
And it is not going away! No matter what the global finance vultures do, it is not
going away, and they will NOT let it lie fallow for long, and neither will the billions of
people in this world who are hungry for a better life. Mankind will not be crucified
on a cross of (THEIR) finance capital.  Mankind in general, that is.  Though the U.S.
might be.

"They cannot build the Renminby into a currency of any value based on a lot of
completely WORTHLESS shit they cannot pay off on in Dollars EITHER
as long as the Dollars actually hold some value here."

What is that "worthless shit" to which you refer?  Their industrial system?

"They are so fucked it is not even funny really."

Thank you, professor R.E., for your astute and compelling views.
I'm going to attach your extensive annotated bibliography as a pdf file,
since I know that many of our readers are eager to explore the scholarly
underpinnings of your work.

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[Surly1]

Who do you really think will suffer when China decouples from the dollar?

Let me confess I know little about China aside from what I read, and I trust what I read here more than what I find anywhere else, because it's been filtered by some good minds.

But just on the basis of one of your "thought experiments," in my simple mind that, when TSHTF, even an empty "ghost city" is worth more than a handful or worthless, non-negotiable paper.

What China has is the ability to make stuff. And a grateful world, even aside form the FSA, is buying. China has the rare earths market by the nuts. They have several large shitloads of people. And they are able to manifest the collective will to act in their own self-interest, and their efforts in green energy are testament to that.

In 50 years, assuming there is indeed an "in 50 years" in human scale, what do you suppose China will look like, as opposed to what the FSA will look like? Joe P posted an interesting article http://metrotimes.com/culture/sign-of-the-times-1.1344652about Detroit; is that the future of the FSA? China could lose two thirds of their population and still be by far the most populous country on earth. . .


Just not seeing why China is "toast" by your logic. Yeah, they have a certain exposure to dollars, but they have already announced their intention to get off the crack pipe.

I look at what has happened over my lifetime, ever since chief felon Nixon "opened the door" to China? It looks to me like China has been playing chess, while the US is convinced the game is checkers, and they are wiping up the board with us. Am sure they are delighted to watch us hollow out our economy with useless wars and endless imperial adventures. While they sit and wait. We think in quarters; they think in decades. It may well be US, rather than the Chinese, who are "toast."

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[alan2102]

China has invested $trillions in critical infrastructure, including those so-called
"ghost cities" that Ash mentioned (I'll get back to that one); this stuff is not going
to just suddenly disappear ("go worthless").....
Note well those words: "THE INDUSTRIAL [SYSTEM] THEY BUILT OVER THE LAST
20 YEARS".  Yes!  It exists! They built it!  It is huge!  It is HEAVY!  It is functional!
And it is not going away! No matter what the global finance vultures do, it is not
going away, and they will NOT let it lie fallow for long....

This calls for expansion.

China's savings exist in several forms, including one that is almost never discussed:
concrete and steel.  Yes, concrete and steel.  How so?  How are these things "savings"? 
Well, it takes a whole lot of energy to make (and transport, and install, etc.) concrete
and steel.  It takes a huge amount of energy and money to build a modern
urban/industrial system -- which is what they've done (and are doing) -- and much of it
is tied up in the hard physical realities of concrete and steel. And once you've initially
created that system -- once you've built the concrete/steel roads, bridges, buildings,
terminals, factories, tracks, machine tools, etc., etc. -- you've GOT it, for a very long
time, perhaps a century or more.  It endures. Further, a great deal of it is
recyclable. Because of this endurance, and recyclability, it takes MUCH less energy and
money  to maintain such a system, versus building it for the first time from scratch.
And, while maintaining things on that much-reduced budget, the system continues to
grind-out all kinds of useful and vital things.

So, it should be evident now how concrete and steel (configured as sensible, functional
infrastructure) is a form of savings, or investment -- and a much more secure form of
savings than any fiat currency!  Concrete and steel, configured as I said, are money in
the bank, or better than money in the bank, because IT WILL NOT DISAPPEAR, no
matter what the finance vermin do, and you can keep on using it for decades and
centuries -- indeed you can keep on using it to create real wealth, and meet real human
needs, whether  or not you "make money" in the process. Get it?  China's savings in the
form of physical  infrastructure --  running into many $trillions by now -- far outstrip their
treasury  holdings, and are certainly much more important than their treasury holdings,
though the latter get all the headlines.

I betcha you didn't hear anything about that on DeflationDoomGloom.com!  I KNOW you
didn't.  I've been there. It takes a long time to figure this stuff out, after climbing out of
the (doomed?) matrix of doomerism.  And it is important to figure it out, because not
figuring it out means being caught in the web of lies that the banksters have spun.

A funny thing about the Deflationista Doomers (DD'ers; not to be confused
with Doomstead Diner-mavens, though there is surely some overlap!) is that they
buy-in so uncritically  to that which the vultures of global finance want us to think.
The DD'ers believe that we are utterly dependent on them and their money, and
that without them we would collapse, helplessly and permanently,  into ruin. 

This is EXACTLY what they want us to believe; it is as  though a script written in the
bowels of JP Morgan or Citigroup. At root it is the idea of money uber alles; that
money can buy ANYTHING; money RULES; and all that goes doubly for THEIR money.

That's what they want you to believe. And along with that goes a sort of blindness
to real wealth and the sources of real wealth, such as physical infrastructure.

How could the DD'ers have fallen into this trap, given that they are quite intelligent
and their analyses are often astute? Somehow they did, as they now exhibit gross
over-valuation of money, with simultaneous blindness to real wealth and its sources and
mechanisms of conveyance. (The same blindness prevails in them with respect to
precious metals, though that is a subject for another time.) In this blindness they reflect
one symptom of the West's disease, having to do with confusion of money with wealth,
and the substitution of money FOR wealth, or true value. At the end of the day, it
amounts to the substitution of the false for the true.
 
I'm not saying that money is not important; it IS. It is a tool, and we need it.  But this
extreme worship of money goes way too far. It is I think a form of idolatry; the worship
of a false god;  a sin, in the J/C tradition.

Yes, money is important, but we are bigger than money.  Money does not have the
last word; WE DO.

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[Surly1]

China's savings exist in several forms, including one that is almost never discussed:
concrete and steel.  Yes, concrete and steel.  ... And once you've initially
created that system -- once you've built the concrete/steel roads, bridges, buildings,
terminals, factories, tracks, machine tools, etc., etc. -- you've GOT it, for a very long
time, perhaps a century or more.  It endures. Further, a great deal of it is
recyclable. Because of this endurance, and recyclability, it takes MUCH less energy and
money  to maintain such a system, versus building it for the first time from scratch.
And, while maintaining things on that much-reduced budget, the system continues to
grind-out all kinds of useful and vital things.
//  China's savings in the form of physical  infrastructure --  running into many $trillions by now
-- far outstrip their treasury  holdings, and are certainly much more important than their treasury holdings,
though the latter get all the headlines.

Here's hoping the Chinese do a better job maintaining their infrastructure than we do. Infrastructure in the northeast, as in much of the nation, is in great disrepair. We continue to focus on the current quarter, while the Chinese are thinking multiple decades out. In the real world, and when the conduits fail, real world STUFF would seem to trump a handful of worthless IOUs.

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[alan2102]

when TSHTF, even an empty "ghost city" is worth more than a handful or worthless,
non-negotiable paper.

EXACTLY. WORTH FAR MORE.

What China has is the ability to make stuff.

EXACTLY. THAT'S WEALTH.

China has the rare earths market by the nuts. They have several large shitloads
of people. And they are able to manifest the collective will to act in their own
self-interest, and their efforts in green energy are testament to that.

THANK YOU.

Am I correct in assuming that what I've been posting here has influenced
your thoughts?  Or did you come to these conclusions independently?

In 50 years, assuming there is indeed an "in 50 years" in human scale, what do
you suppose China will look like, as opposed to what the FSA will look like?

What is the "FSA"?  The Fucked States of Amerika?

Just not seeing why China is "toast" by your logic.

That makes two of us.  Except that I'm not seeing much logic. Just BOLD-FACE
table-pounding.

Yeah, they have a certain exposure to dollars, but they have already announced
their intention to get off the crack pipe.

Just an "intention"?!  Ha!  It is well underway. WELL underway.

I look at what has happened over my lifetime, ever since chief felon Nixon
"opened the door" to China? It looks to me like China has been playing chess,
while the US is convinced the game is checkers, and they are wiping up the
board with us.

Damn good metaphor, which sums poetically what I've been saying (awkwardly)
with all this boring factual crap.

Am sure they are delighted to watch us hollow out our economy with useless
wars and endless imperial adventures. While they sit and wait. We think in
quarters; they think in decades.

"Decades" ---> CENTURIES. 

It may well be US, rather than the Chinese, who are "toast."

It quite obviously IS.

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