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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (329672)	3/21/2007 1:10:32 PM
From: combjelly	Respond to of 1575420

"And China is on the same resources/war path with it's growing military." My gut tells me that unless the game changes somehow, the US and China will brush up against each other in the 2020-2030 time frame. Now there are several ways the game can change. The most likely at the moment is that China has a whoopsie and is no longer a factor. There are several ways this can happen. There is growing tensions between the coast, where all the development is occurring, and the interior, where nothing is happening. As the disparity grows, so will the tension. Another is the aging leadership, too many marched with Mao and they are getting really old, although they are starting to address this one. Finally, they don't have a functioning banking system. Their about of bad paper is shockingly high, making Japan at their peak look like pikers. Money is handed out on the basis of personal connections, not on project viability. So, while their construction industry is booming, and in many cities cranes dominate the city, too many of those projects are doomed to failure. So China has some rough water to navigate. Now the US has several game changing cards it can play. The prospect of collapse is not nearly as high, but isn't zero either. The US has a lot more pro-active things it can do. For example, being well on the way to energy independence is one way. Let India and China fight over the supplies. Develop composite replacements for areas where we now use steel and other metals. Now true, most existing composites have significant petrochemical components. But that can change. The idea is to be independent of the basic raw materials because they are going to be in short supply. Some, like oil, steel and copper, we can supply to the others, at nice prices. Others, we just won't be concerned with. It is easy to foresee a conflict over these materials. It only seems smart to dodge that particular bullet.