How will the United States fall? Who will take their place?

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@ Stardust

When arriving in China, most Westerners are immediately struck by the absolute conviction of the Chinese people in the superiority of their culture and way of life.

'Freedom' and 'rights' are very hazy notions indeed: what one society considers a freedom or right (such as the right to consume alcohol), another society considers to be a harmful non-action by the government. Many Chinese do not believe there should be an information disseminating service allowed to catalogue and opine upon the supposed mistakes of the government.

 

Chinese or not sometime they will come to realise that they would be better off with a fair government. Alltough fair is very relative...

A good example would be the great depression when the people started to talk about socialism and, I think, if it had been longer the US would have been a socialistic country today.

 

Erm...yeah, and you know why ? Because the majority of the Chinese people never had the chance to look beyond the horizon their government set out for them. They simply don't know anything better. If you don't believe me, i suggest you seek out some people who grew up in China, but were lucky enough to build up an independant existance elsewhere.

Do those same Chinese also know that in other countries people are allowed more than one child per familie ?

 

The chinese can IIRC have two children, if the firstborn is a girl, so that they wouldn't get rid of the girl, since having a boy is considered culturally more necessary by the common people.

And if they wouldn't have the limitation on having children, China and it's people would be in a worse condition than they are now, closer to many African countries. Famine would be a huge problem because of the eventual overpopulation and they're already having a hard time. Not to mention about the ecological disaster an overly large population will bring about.

Population control is a good thing, especially if the major part of the population is undereducated, who simply have more children than educated people. In third-world countries having many children is having a large workforce helping at the daily chores and bringing money to the family. It's really tragic that when everybody thinks this way, the results will be disastrous. And without proper contraception and the knowledge about it, married couples really don't have viable options to have smaller families.

 

Over population is a major problem in both Africa and China. The issue is how do you police it without exterminating people or placing restictions upon the people of these countries?

What China is doing might be viewed as horrible, undemocratic and a lack of basic freedoms but you can't expect people to police themselves. A government's job is to ensure a country is the best it can possibly be and sometimes the people of the country are going to have to give up a few liberties in order to achieve that. I mean it's not an unresonable manner to deal with overpopulation now is it?

You can't describe the method that China is using to deal with a problem as horrible or wrong if your country has never had to deal with the same problem. All things considered, China is dealing with their problem in the most humane manner possible.

 

I live in a overpopulated country and i can say that China is doing the right thing.

When something can be found too much, value of it goes down. It seems this law applies to human life too. If you play C&C Generals you could understand me, just look at Red Guard's or GLA Rebel's price.

[ September 02, 2006, 16:35: Message edited by: Dengo ]

 

I think the facto a lot of people are forgetting is the role energy will play in the future. In the past, the middle east has had the major control in world energy supplies, and that has made them a recognizable power, but they haven't had much of anything else, so an otherwise powerless group became powerful through the dominant supply of energy.

I'm not saying it will happen tomorrow, but we all know that petrolium isn't going to last forever, and alternatives are already well on the way. All of these alternatives look good for the US, though some of them look good for other nations, too. If the middle east looses dominant control of global energy and that control is instead split between, say, the US, China, India, and maybe Brazil (just to name a few major possibilities), the US is looking to be a major contendor at the very least for a while yet.

All in all, while the old rules do still seem to apply, there are undeniable new rules that are taking effect, too.

 

I believe coal is going to be the hydrocarbon of choice once oil becomes too precious to use as an energy source. It just so happens that the U.S. is to coal what Saudi Arabia is to oil. There are a number of companies (CONSOL Energy Inc. being a major one) whom are working on methods of turning coal into gas. Unfortunately, coal is a much dirtier natural resource than oil, and it is not just upon burning it---there ain't nothing uglier than a strip mine, and using coal to replace oil will require many of them. Hopefully some bright kid with a beaker will figure something out before we have to resort to the mining alternative.

 

Right... and that is different to how the people of USA (and New Zealand for that matter) view their own ways of life how exactly?

 

Well, China indeed seems to be growing in power very quickly. Who knows what it will be in the next ten years?
So I would say China has good chances of becoming the new top-dog.
But does this mean we will need to start teaching Chinese in schools if it happens?

Althought I can bet Russia will be wanting their share of power as well, even if it will be in vain. Only time will show...

 

In fact, oil can be produced from coal but it is very inefficient. IIRC for 1 lt of oil, approximately 5 kg of coal is used. Also it needs more energy than it produces, so you lose energy by doing it

 

And there are just plain better alternatives. My money's on hydrogen fuel cells backed by nuclear, solar, wind, water, and geothermal plants, which pretty much means large nations with mid-high tech will win out. Another real possibility is the whole ethanol stream, which means nations with food surplus win out.

Also remember that fusion, whether by hot or cold means, may be as little as 40 years away, so don't rule that out. And then there's always the possability of some Crazy Eddie scheme working out and changing everything.

 

Actually, the number 1 company in the world is ExxonMobil (United States). Number 2 is General Electric and number 3 is Microsoft. Wal-Mart is number six or seven.

Wal-Mart is the largest in terms of revenues, but not profits or market cap. Also, that company is so heavily in debt that it really isn't worth that much.

You confused creditor and debtor. You're also a little mistaken.

The United States is currently the world's biggest debtor. It is also, by far, the biggest creditor.

That's the same reason I wouldn't bet on the EU beating out the US anytime soon. Quite a few European countries are running up checks that their economies can't cash. Germany and France come to mind quickly here, but I think a few others (Sweden, for example) may be in the same boat. The U.S. capital markets produce 1 trillion dollars a year. That's what allows us to stay afloat while racking up this debt. The European countries don't have anything to compete with that.

And yet, energy isn't even close to being the biggest industry in the world.

 

No, but look at how much power it holds. It may not be the biggest industry in terms of money, but how many wars have been started over fast food? How often have nations surrendered in war because they're supply of IT was cut off? Energy may not be as huge money as some other things, but it holds political power like no-one's business. Same thing with nuclear technology, not a huge revinue generator there, but look at all the international hooplah over North Korea developing it.