(January 12, 2017 at 12:44 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:(January 12, 2017 at 11:28 am)Crossless1 Wrote: China would never need to fire a shot. They could bring us to our knees by dumping all of the U.S. debt they've purchased. Of course, they'd be hurt badly by such a move (everyone would), but if the shit ever hit the fan they just might decide they could withstand the damage better than us. It's an ace up their sleeve that should give pause to any U.S. administration.
Think of it as the economic equivalent of MAD.
Where china holds us hostage is in the standard of living of the board class of Americans who did not partake in the income growth of this country since 1980. This is an point trumpomatic morons failed to understand. For bulk of trumpomatic Americans, their real income has been stagnating for far longer than China has been exporting shit to the US. The reason why they have not rebelled against piss trickling down economics of the republicans is because China has been keeping the demand for our bonds high for much of last 15 years, which enabled trumpomatic losers to feel they weren't being squeezed by billionaires and republicans because they can borrow money to finance lifestyle their own productivity can't support, and because cheap shit that china exports to us makes them feel their stagnating incomes still allows them to buy more shit, despite the fact that they never partook in any of the economic growth this country experienced since 1990.
It is only because good economic relationship with China that trumpomatic morons support trump and his China bashing. If relationship with China really sours for extended period of time, eventually the trumpomatic morons will find there is no longer cheap money, no longer cheap shit, and they actually have to limit their standard of living by their declining share of total US wealth. Then trumpomatic morons will be lynching trump and his class, rather than voting for trump to "drain the swamp".
Excellent points, all.
I'm only skeptical about the part I bolded -- not that people won't feel the squeeze and have to limit their standard of living but that they will connect the dots and rise up against the people who have been playing them all this time. I've lost almost every shred of faith I used to have that a large enough number of voters can see through the political smoke screen. When things get bad enough, I'd say it's about 50/50 between a genuine populist uprising against the plutocratic system we actually have and the birth of genuine U.S. fascism.
Sheep will always look for a shepherd.
