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Are the Democrats about to cook up a fake war

S

StuAzole

Guest
Surfdog said:
China and India getting cheap oil from Russia around all the west's sanctions is a farce of our own making.
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Oil still trades on a world market. Yes, it's a benefit to china in the short term, but any oil they get from Russia is oil they're not taking from us or OPEC. If you want the US to have "energy independence" you should be happy we're giving less of our oil to China.
 
PRCD

PRCD

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Feb 25, 2020
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grapedrink

grapedrink

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A Beach
PRCD said:
This raised some interesting questions about GDP:

We’re told this about CA’s GDP also, but when you drill down into it most of it is FIRE, education, and other services and very little is Ag or mfg - stuff you can eat or shoot at an enemy. How very different than in the early 20th century.
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What's wrong with having a service based economy if someone is willing to pay a high price for it? Providing specialized knowledge based services requires far less of an environmental impact and much higher returns. Commodities, while essential to a certain extent, are a race to the bottom price wise.
 
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PRCD

PRCD

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grapedrink said:
What's wrong with having a service based economy if someone is willing to pay a high price for it? Providing specialized knowledge based services requires far less of an environmental impact and much higher returns. Commodities, while essential to a certain extent, are a race to the bottom price wise.
Click to expand...
Let's look at an example in terms of real power. How does the rate of steel production in China affect the supply chains of global steel inputs? How does it compare to ours? How does the steel production industry feed into the shipbuilding industry? At what rate is China building surface combatants and submarines compared to the US? How many total does each country have? At what rate are we decommissioning them vs. building them? How will this affect which nation controls the global sea lanes of communication (SLOCs)?
 
grapedrink

grapedrink

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PRCD said:
Let's look at an example in terms of real power. How does the rate of steel production in China affect the supply chains of global steel inputs? How does it compare to ours? How does the steel production industry feed into the shipbuilding industry? At what rate is China building surface combatants and submarines compared to the US? How many total does each country have? At what rate are we decommissioning them vs. building them? How will this affect which nation controls the global sea lanes of communication (SLOCs)?
Click to expand...
USA is #3 in the world for steel production. I think we'll be fine and we can produce more if needed. Military use of steel is <5% of what is produced domestically.

I would agree that an economy too heavily weighted in services has the potential to be disastrous, and the same is true with being heavily dependent on commodities (see Venezuela and Russia). Services have potentially near limitless margins and high profitability relative to inputs, but you can't eat them or build a house with them. Whereas commodities are required for everything we build and use, but in terms of profitability they are at the mercy of world markets and the margins are slim.

As with everything, you can make a stronger argument for being strong with both.
 
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PRCD

PRCD

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grapedrink said:
USA is #3 in the world for steel production. I think we'll be fine and we can produce more if needed. Military use of steel is <5% of what is produced domestically.
Click to expand...
I'm actually somewhat encouraged that we still make steel. Our shipbuilding has fallen way behind China. We were the dominant shipbuilder in the world when we rose as a naval power. We are now decomissioning naval ships faster than we're building them.
 
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S

Surfdog

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StuAzole said:
Oil still trades on a world market. Yes, it's a benefit to china in the short term, but any oil they get from Russia is oil they're not taking from us or OPEC. If you want the US to have "energy independence" you should be happy we're giving less of our oil to China.
Click to expand...
Biden admin just giving China our precious Strategic Petroleum Reserves from this latest drainage (at least $6 million worth) meant for domestic emergency only.

Nothing to see here. China pwns Biden.
 
K

kidfury

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Surfdog said:
Biden admin just giving China our precious Strategic Petroleum Reserves from this latest drainage (at least $6 million worth) meant for domestic emergency only.

Nothing to see here. China pwns Biden.
Click to expand...
That's an interesting take
 
D

Driftcoast

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Aug 5, 2002
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Autoprax said:
Did the US invade Russia yet?
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There is still time!

PRCD said:
NATO is a moribund alliance of mostly demographically-dying countries that have no will to fight. They're much like the Persian empire when Alexander invaded or the Roman empire when Attila attacked or the kingdoms invaded by Genghis Khan. These fictional map alliances dissolve when guys with guns show up.
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Did this age well or not now that Finland and Sweden on on their way to join NATO?

Surfdog said:
China is watching the West every move here and taking notes on what they'll be getting away with.
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What have they learned?

casa_mugrienta said:
Fix problems by making problems to fix.

That is US foreign policy in a nutshell.
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Keeping bread on your plate since 1776
 
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