Tuesday, September 04, 2007

USA / Australia Love In... plus some other "asian" types....

Perused the morning news... more chatter about Security and GWB's arrival today.  Yes, he is the President of the United States, but lets not forget there are another dozen or so world leaders here this week.  What is the Chinese Premier / President / Dictator (???) thinking?  Is he ready to talk about environment and import / export treaties?  Given that China is about to overtake the US (if they already havent) as the #1 economy in the world, shouldnt Johnny Howard be talking to him more than the red-neck hack from Texas?
 
GWB is on the way out and his party probably wont be relected... so why are we fettering him with goodwill and love when really we should relegate him to the back row and be more up front with our Asian neighbours.  Oh thats right, its because they're "yella" and we dont like their slanty eyes!  Oh, I forgot that Johnny is a closet racist and condones One Nation philosophy.
 
"If they dont look like us, then they're not one of us"
 
Thank God that the Middle East nations arent part of APEC... imagine the hysteria then!
 
Oh, and can the owner(s) of the 9 rocket launchers in Sydney please make their way to the nearest police station for questioning.
 
Thank you.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I absolutely abhor GWB and the nightmare he has made of America's domestic and foreign policy for the last 8 years, but is the goon squad in China any better?

I think if you did a little homework on researching China, you'd find that their record on human rights abuses and squashing other freedoms that Australians enjoy (or take for granted?) is far far worse than what GWB and his cronies have orchestrated in the last 2 terms.

Americans will turn things around in the next election, just wait and see. Even the most hard core, conservative, pro-Bush clients I have all hate his guts now and want him out. The next guy (or probably girl) in the White House cannot do a worse job, that much is for sure.

Clay, I consider you to be a well-educated man with informed opinions on most issues, but your ignorance is shining through on this one. Most economists peg China's GDP around 11% to 16% of the United States. Even though their economy is growing faster (roughly double the 5% rate of the United States) most economists believe that in the best case scenario it will take around 40-50 years for China to meet (not exceed) the U.S. economy's output, and many economists believe it is simply not possible. (10% growth rate is unheard of for developed nations)

I'm pulling most of these figures from memory as I did a 40 page paper on China vs USA economic influence for my Masters in SE Asian studies during the 2003 Apec summit in Bangkok. If you care to see sources, etc I can get around to pulling them for you.

Clay said...

Fool, this is exactly why I post a blog... always happy to hear other peoples opinions!

As a) an American and b) given you live in SE Asia, I am sure you are much more well versed than my cobbled together thoughts over my morning coffee...

However, I do think you are failing to take in one fact and that is that the US economy is slowing (and their massive expenditure in Iraq is not helping) whilst the Chinese economy is escalating.

Therefore the gap is shrinking at an ever rapid rate, and with all due respect, when was the last time any American published anything that was not pro-American in comparison to another nation.

I think you will find here that the rhetoric in Australia is that China is already a world economic super power, which sort of colours your view that it is only 10-15% of the American economy.

I am not an economist, I havent done any research but am an avid reader of world / national political issues and I am truly curious how a nation that has led the world to a huge state of imbalance that is having such large issues on its own domestic front like the SubPrime issue can be feted upon by our national leader (who himself is a joke) to the detriment of perhaps spending his time and efforts elsewhere....

To our current PM, if it aint American, its not worth discussing... but that is very flawed view for what I have said above.