BRIC+ News & comments

Discussion in 'Business & Economics' started by Billy T, Aug 10, 2008.

  1. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    It's kind of irrelevant whether China's building a brown water or a blue water navy anyhow. China has for more national interest in bullying its own neighbours than in attempting a foolhardy assault on the United States coast, and the United States conversely has orders of magnitude less at stake. China can't dream of claiming California 50 years from now if they can't even take Taiwan in the next 10.

    One danger is that China may calculate that American interests aren't sufficient enough to commit it to defending its Asian allies in a direct military engagement or to engage it in full-scale economic warfare, especially if the initial goals are made to appear limited and based on long-standing claims. Another is that the Chinese calculation might be proven correct and the US public and leadership will allow them to get away with it, just as it has so far done with Putin's gamesmanship in Ukraine.
     
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  3. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Yes I said China has one small 2nd hand aircraft carrier (The Liaoning, purchased from Ukraine, as I recall) That is fact, not a lie. Your links lead me to believe China probably is going to have at least two more in a few years; However, China is also with one immobile air field on a S. China Sea atoll and two more atolls being reshaped to permit them to be used as "unsinkable aircraft carriers." China's economic slow down, may force them to at least delay the mobile aircraft carriers planned. In any case what I said is true. Also I agree with CptBork's post 861: China is much more concerned with reasserting the control over S. China Sea neighbors it had for decades before WWII.

    I said you were ignorant about fact that China's military is defense oriented - not for global power projection. A quite specific, not general statement. I illustrated that with the design of their GPS, which I assumed you were ignorant of as almost all are. It only functions within line sight (for the satellites) of land based stations, where the precise clocks are. Thus, unlike the US's GPS, China's GPS can not guide an offensive cruise missile to a target on the other side of the world.

    If you already knew most of China's military is defensive with essentially zero global power projection ability, then I apologize for saying you were ignorant, but am puzzled how you could know that China's military capacities are both mainly defensive and far inferior to US's global power projection abilities and yet assert China's military is not of a defensive nature as I asserted.

    Perhaps you can support your POV that China seeks global power projection, when even if they had it, the US could quickly destroy it without use of nuclear weapons. For some years I have been posting that WWIII was in progress and China was winning, because it is an economic struggle, not one with military weapons.

    One of China's important recent victories, is well illustrated by cartoon in post 855. All US's "friends" ignored Uncle Sam's request not to join China's AIIB, but they rushed to do so, despite the fact the AIIB will not even be functioning until a few months more.* It is beginning to look like the US controlled World Bank is on it way to becoming a "has been" of the earlier US dominated era.

    Another impotant one, probably soon, but eventually in any case, will be the RMB becoming part of the IMF's SDRs.

    * This may be because the AIIB is not Chinese controlled, but has a more democratic structure.
     
    Last edited: Sep 20, 2015
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  5. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Latest Chinese design.
    This long frontal slope acts like the "tail wing" of a rear drive racing car. IE at high speed increases the wheel force on the tracks well above the weight alone so more wheel torque can be applied without wheels slipping. If US ever gets high-speed rail, it will do the same. Much more economical in energy and ticket cost than airplanes, and faster too, city center to city center, for distances like NYC to Chicago or less.

    But of course, US will need to entirely re-do the rails too. They are in such poor conditions in sections that even "max speed" of US trains often can not be used. China uses long stretches of elevated rails. US may be wise to copy that too, as it solves the "expensive rightaway" problem. IE new high speed rails above old system tracks (except when they curve too rapidly). That allows the existing system to still carry heavy freight, like cars full of coal, etc.
     
    Last edited: Sep 28, 2015
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  7. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    More on post 862 about China's aircraft carrier plans:
    In military matters / plans, Jane's Defense Weekly is an authority, "second to none."

    Thus I was not ill informed or lying when stating China had ONE, second hand, relatively small aircraft carrier.
     
  8. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    That's great, China's getting a new high-speed train. Only about 300 more needed before the country starts noticing a tangible benefit, so look out!
     
  9. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    SUMMARY: Your POV is very false and more than a decade obsolete, but not nearly as obsolete as US's rail system is!

    Yes China's high speed rail is rapidly expanding (both in trains and miles of high speed tracks), but already back in 2013 was a very significant and efficient part of China's city to city low pollution electric transport system - moved twice as many passenger miles at much lower ticket cost than several airplane companies could !
    Here that is graphically, but does not include 2014 or 2015 data. If it were not for the drastic fall in oil prices, China Southern, one of the largest airline companies would be bankrupt by now. - A "historical dinosaur" in China's transport system.

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    I don't have data but think their load factor is < 0.5 now. Even with low cost fuel that is far below "break even" in the US.

    For domestic city to city transport China is moving to a low pollution high-speed rail future, not stuck in the inefficient, high pollution, "airplane past."
    China has many dozens like those shown below in service for some years now. The one shown in post 863, is the fourth generation version !

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    I'm not sure, but think I have seen this maintenance terminal in a wider field of view photo. - IE it (or the one I saw) can hold eight trains at same time.

    You and too many Americans have their heads in the sand and think of China as it was two decades ago. Not as a world leader in many fields, graduating ten time more well trained engineers than the US does each year now with the world's fastest, most powerful computers for more than a decade now, by Wired Magazine's test! America needs to pull its collective heads out of the sand before it is too late. - China is winning WWIII, an economic war.
     
    Last edited: Oct 1, 2015
  10. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    2 things as the second largest class currently in existence( third once the queen elizabeth's launch) doesn't constitute relatively small. And no you are ill informed and lying when you claimed that because china has at least 3 more carrier hulls laid down. you claimed there carrier was solely for training flight to the atolls they have probably illegally claimed.
    do really not understand how claiming they were building less carriers than they are is lie. i get that your intellectualy dishonest but are you seriously that stupid. you claimed they had 1 carrier with no intention of aquiring more. something that was KNOWN to be false 2 years ago.

    All you have shown is your biased hack billy. China military is not defense orientated. that you believe that says a lot for your ignorance. its not they are moving to an offensive based military. carriers aren't defensive weapon

    How can I know something that isn't true. please stop repeating propaganda. i don't care if you apologize for lying about my knowledge level but i will not allow your ignorant

    what is it with you demanding i prove arguments i'm not making? I have never never claimed china was pushing for global power projection. thats been your strawman because as we have seen your your pathologically dishonest a proven liar and incapable of haveing your dishonesty and lies shown to the world. your little more than an ideological and intellectual thug. your not going to bully me in to accepting your lies billy. china is getting ready to face an economic collapse its hardly winning anything.

    yeah you and fucking gloom and doom anti americanism. your hack billy.


    you lie get called on your lies and than lie again pretending you didn't make your original claims. so are you going to admit you lied or are you going to continue to move the goal posts and use straw man arguments?
     
    Last edited: Oct 1, 2015
  11. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    First part is true - I said they had one aircraft carrier - and now add: a second hand one so small many fighter bombers can not take off from it fully loaded. Smaller aircraft carriers do exist, but only for helicopters, not fixed wing planes.

    I never said "with no intention of acquiring more." Those are words you stuffed in my mouth.
    In fact I said in post 862 (with important part now bold):
    " China's economic slow down, may force them to at least delay the mobile aircraft carriers planned. In any case what I said is true. Also I agree with CptBork's post 861: China is much more concerned with reasserting the control over S. China Sea neighbors it had for decades before WWII."
    and you even quoted me saying that.
    You need to quote my supposed lie.
    I will not defend the words you stuff into my mouth and then claim I lie. In what post number am I stating China has no plans for more?
     
    Last edited: Oct 2, 2015
  12. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Best to know all you can in a struggle with a clever adversary fighting you in an economic war.
     
  13. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    And you think America hasn't done anything in the last 20 years either? High speed trains aren't an economical or feasible way to deal with the daily transport needs of 90% of China's population. It does make for nice propaganda when ordinary Chinese wonder why they still have the same tired old corrupt bureaucrats in charge, and it'll be a lovely little addition for wealthy Chinese and western tourists. I happen to be an advocate for more trains in general, but high speed trains are a money trap except in very specific markets with high concentrations of wealthy travellers. There are plenty of private companies and governments that have discussed and studied implementing high speed trains in the US and Canada, and there are perfectly good reasons why few have chosen to move forward with such plans thus far.

    When China was building nuclear plant after nuclear plant to keep up with the economic growth caused by US investment, the world media neglected to mention how far more effort was being placed in new coal power plants clogging up the air. Now the same is being done focussing on a couple of high-speed trains serving less than 1% of the population, while the market for cars and smog continues to skyrocket and the vast majority of the ordinary Chinese citizen's needs continue to be unmet.

    As for the engineering bit, China has a reputation for graduating students who are trained in passing specific diploma exams rather than demonstrating practical knowledge and competence. Doubtless it graduates many qualified professionals from its schools who do quality work wherever they go, but I don't think you've justified the assumption that the majority are truly as competent and qualified as the average western grad. Furthermore, there's the issue of supply and demand, and it's entirely possible China will end up with a generation of unemployed engineers seeking work overseas, while numerous other trades go unfilled because everyone was herded into engineering school by scheming communist bureaucrats with embezzled homes in California who think they can see 30 years into the future.

    America and its democratic allies have a long history of building megaprojects both with and without private assistance. When there's sufficient market demand or it appears there will be market demand in the future, private companies have typically stepped in and accomplished great things. When there was little to no market demand and a government official decided to plow forward with a pet project anyhow, it has nearly always ended up in unmitigated disaster and waste.

    Even if China were on the right path towards waging and winning an economic war against the United States, at best all they've done so far is fire the opening shots. The latest economic data from China - which is itself mostly based on the overhyped lies communist butt kissers tell their bosses - would seem to indicate that the war effort isn't going so well at the moment, which perhaps also means it would be the perfect time to go rape some Filipinos (kind of like raiding the neighbouring tribe's village to steal all their corn).
     
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  14. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    True High speed train are for people traveling between cities that would take about three hours travel by car. For this travel range China is leaving the "airplane age" with high speed trains, which are electric, not direct CO2 sources, and certainly not polluting at 30,000 feet. Also they are much more efficient so have much lower passenger fares.

    Now (2015 ending) in China, there are about three times more passenger miles* delivered by high speed trains than by airplane, and when fuel prices return to even only $75 / barrel, most if not all, of China's domestic flights will cease as non-completive, in both cost and speed (city center to city center) with high-speed trains.
    * This fact is linear extension (conservative) of the "more that twice as many passenger miles as airplanes" in 2013 given in the first quote of post 866.

    For average Chinaman, they have subways. Beijing's metro has the world's highest passenger miles and Shnghai has the longest total miles of all the world's metros.
    See photos of both (will not post for me) and these facts stated at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems

    Please tell one "good reason" why the trip from say NYC to Chicago is by air, when that makes much more pollution and it is several times (>10 ?) more costly per ticket compared to modern Chinese high speed train. NYC to LA is faster by airplane and well off people will pay ~10 times higher price to save a few hours.
    When China was building nuclear plant after nuclear plant to keep up with the economic growth caused by US investment, the world media neglected to mention how far more effort was being placed in new coal power plants clogging up the air.[/quote]True of most coal fired plants and many smaller less efficient ones are being closed; however, China leads the world in super efficient NEW coal fired plants - The "super critical steam" designs, which England is starting to copy as they get almost 50% KWH from the same quantity of coal.

    It is my bedtime now. I'll try to respond (with facts a like above) to your opinions expressed in the remainder of your post tomorrow. In the meantime, try to find some documentation for your claimed opinions. I 'll try tomorrow to find the post by someone who is very familiar with the best Chinese engineering schools as his job is to hire their graduates for work in the USA. Chinese engineering schools are very tough to get into - much higher rejection ratios than MIT etc.
     
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2015
  15. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    A typical scene through out China, not large city. (Beijing etc.)
    Original caption was:
    "Passengers queue to board trains at the railway station of Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province, Oct 1, 2015."

    SUMMARY: China is no longer "stuck" in the high pollution, high ticket cost, airplane age. The masses can afford to travel to their home villages for holidays.

    * That is, roughly speaking, China's entire population went back home and then returned to their city jobs during National Day holidays.
    You may want to "re-think" your unsupported post 870 claim:
    "High speed trains aren't an economical or feasible way to deal with the daily transport needs of 90% of China's population."

    Truth is that on average 100% of Chinese are traveling several times each year by high-speed rail as that they can afford that, but not airplane travel; but yes for daily commutes to work they use buses, bikes and metros - One has world's largest annual passenger miles and another has most Km of tracks in the world.
    You do America a dis-service by repeating false beliefs about how backward China is. We need to understand our WWIII enemy, not belittle it.
     
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2015
  16. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Trying to copy photo
     
  17. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    I don't mean to be dismissive of China's economic might. It's a huge nation with a lot of land and a lot of people, and it's made massive strides forward in modernizing its infrastructure and industry. All the same it's still producing but a tiny fraction of what the United States produces; for every bullet train built in China, you have all sorts of trains, aircraft and next-generation technologies being developed and applied at an even greater rate throughout the US and EU.

    I think you're committing the fallacy of looking at a Pyongyang-type communist showcase meant for domestic propaganda and international intimidation, and mistaking it for the whole of North Korea, so to say. China's number one economic flaw (and eventual downfall) isn't being Asian or un-American, it's simply the matter of a fundamentally centrally-planned economy in a brutally autocratic country overwhelmed with corrupt bureaucrats, trying to compete with a free market economy in which personal liberties are valued and protected, and production is planned and developed based on existing and projected supply and demand.

    Why do you suppose it's Tesla motors that's taking the electric vehicle world by storm, and not some government-sponsored Chinese company run by a greasy Triad boss?

    I suppose we're agreed on China dreaming of if not preparing for and actively waging an economic and political war with the United States, and I've personally advocated for a complete end to all trade, travel and diplomatic relationships between the US and its democratic allies vis-a-vis any non-democratic country which isn't in a hurry to rectify their little tyranny problem. In the meantime nonetheless, as long as China's economic and political model fundamentally depends on slave labour and investment from liberated democracies, it's never going to be capable of overtaking them.

    Addendum: Those high-speed trains aren't an environmentally-friendly solution if they're being powered by coal-fired electricity, which continues to be the go-to source for most of China's energy supply.
     
    Last edited: Oct 6, 2015
  18. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Not true of manufactured goods. China is the world's factory; but of services, like insurance and global banking, yes it is true. Even England provides more of these "paper work" services.
    Also not true for goods and services in the market place. The "invisible hand" of Adam Smith, not the CCP, determines what is available there. China has far fewer permits and license required to open a new business than the US has - you just do it, if you think you can make a profit. You don't need a permit to cut some one's hair, sell soup,* or even to practice "traditional medicine" etc.

    You are correct, when it comes to making major long-term investments. They are centrally planned. High capital cost things like high-speed rail, new ports, the N/S water transfer project, new cities, subways, dams, power plants. etc.
    Also not true, even now, on a passenger mile basis. Trains are very energy efficient compared to airplanes and can deliver 40 or so more passenger miles with the same energy expended! But in the future when China, which is the world leader alternative energy systems installed each year, uses much less fossil energy, China's trains will be more than 100 times more environmentally friendly than US's airplanes for city to city travel (per passenger mile delivered).

    * China has a different approach to regulation of the market place - does not need millions of regulators at all the various levels of government. For one example of how costly and inefficient the US system is: In Howard MD, where I built a house, the county code required hot water pipes to be copper; but the adjoining county, allowed the use of plastic pipes rated for hot water service. I call this "bureaucratic pre-regulation."

    China uses "post-regulation." If, for example, the soup you sell uses your grandmother's recipe, which has a tiny pinch of arsenic in it you will be OK, until a few customers begin to eat their lunch there every day. Soon the medical services will note that the new rash of arsenic illness patients all were regular customers at your restaurant. So it will be closed, and you heavily fined, if not do some jail time, and you will be bared from ever selling any food again. You are an anti-social danger to the community.

    If you do something really bad, like kill 16 or so babies with the toxic additive you added to your watered down milk so it tricks the tests. - Still shows the normal protein content, then you will pay with your life. Eight top executives who did that all were executed in less than a year - not after 25 years of court appeals, as in the US. At the major wholesale level, China does have safety standards, especially for food and electrical appliances, with inspections at the production and distribution centers - Sort of a much smaller "FDA" but "post regulation."
     
    Last edited: Oct 8, 2015
  19. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    SDDS now, SDR soon (less than a year, I predict.) and the AIIB functioning by year's end, making more investment than the World Bank in 2016.
     
  20. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Are you a paid Chinese agent?
     
  21. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    No. I try to inform with facts as far too many Americas think of China, our WWIII enemy, is backward and only advances by stealing or copying from the west.

    They don't know that for more than a decade, by Wired Magazine's tests China has had the world's fastest, most powerful computer, OR
    Has the world's fastest trains and most Km of high speed track, with very heavy ridership (several times more than the domestic airplanes and on average every Chinese uses them for two trips back to his village for holidays each year. OR
    That the Bill & Linda Gates foundation buys most of their vaccines from China, not because they are cheaper (they are not) but because they can be made for a new viral outbreak more quickly* than in the west. OR
    China is the world's largest importer and the world's largest exporter. OR
    That China is the world's greatest creditor nation, not like the US, which is the world's greatest debtor nation. OR
    That China is installing three times more PV generation capacity than the US is in 2015, and much more wind power. OR
    That China invented and developed "supper critical steam" power plants that get nearly 50% more KWHs from each lump of coal.

    In part, these "firsts & greatest" are due to China graduating nearly 10 times more well qualified engineers than the US does annually.

    "My honor and my life are one. Take my honor from me, and my life is done." - Shakespeare King Richard II.
    I don't shill for China, but am more like Paul Revere, giving my time and energy to spread the alarm (about GW too.)
    US is losing WWIII, an economic and global dominance war, and few even know we are already in it.

    I am trying to wake up the US, get its collective head out of the sand. Know your enemy is the first rule of war. **

    * China made the most effective vaccine for swine flu in five weeks, not the 5+ months doing that in the west takes.

    ** I fear Pogo was correct 40+ years ago when he said: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
     
    Last edited: Oct 8, 2015
  22. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    No you don't BillyT, you inform with "misinformation". You have been and continue to be a cheer leader for the People's Republic of China. You ignore inconvenient facts, add facts, distort facts and make some up in order to put a positive spin on the People's Republic of China. A lot of your "facts" have been repeatedly disproved, but that hasn't prevented you from repeatedly asserting they are true. That's normally considered a lie BillyT. As has been repeatedly pointed out to you, China isn't the largest importer of goods and services. The US is the largest importer of goods and services.

    You have been and continue to be an advocate for China. You certainly are not the unbiased arbiter you want people to believe you are. If you were an unbiased arbiter you wouldn't need to ignore inconvenient facts, spin facts and make others up (e.g. China being the largest importer).[/QUOTE]
     
  23. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    True China might be producing more manufactured goods than the US at the moment, while Western nations make a far greater proportion of their profits through services and "paper work", but those manufactured goods are specifically meant for Western markets, and only those Western markets are able to supply the services, in the quantities needed, to justify producing and selling those manufactured goods in the first place. Furthermore, innovation and cutting-edge industrial development continue to occur almost entirely in the West rather than in the People's Republic, whilst the latter focusses on using computers built with western technology, operating on a western-built information network, to try and steal those innovations in order to keep up.

    Personally, to balance the market properly, I believe the US and allied nations must, in stages, begin to apply the same labour and environmental standards to imported goods as are applied to domestically-produced goods. Such policies would decisively tilt the economic playing field and force the Chinese government to reckon with the hundreds of millions of unfed masses who've been left behind by its economic leaps forward and the associated corruption and stagnation it's produced.

    Not true; in order to open a major business in China and receive the necessary access to financing and government infrastructure, you need to have friends inside the Communist party; that's why so many Chinese entrepreneurs go abroad to make their fortunes rather than tapping the booming market at home. Deregulation occurs in China precisely where regulation is most needed, to deal with quacks, frauds and chronic industrial polluters. You think it's beneficial for a society and its economy if quack doctors are free to sell crushed rhino penis as an alternative cure for cancer? Oh and for the record it was centralized, poorly-planned government attempts at modernizing China's medical system which flooded it with all those quack doctors in the first place; Mao sent them off to medical school hoping they'd learn something useful, but most of the students just learned to wear a lab coat while sticking with their traditional non-empirical nonsense.

    No, my point was that many major investments are NOT centrally-planned. Private companies are just as capable as governments (and often vastly more so) in identifying future needs and market demands, and the free market provides plentiful mechanisms for financing viable projects even when they take several decades and tens of billions of dollars to complete. The major difference is that in private industry, those who are good at what they do thrive, grow and evolve, while those who can't adapt to changing circumstances lose their market capitalization. In public industry, tax payers are milked to cover for any cost over-runs or other forms of mismanagement, rather than axing the elected officials responsible (aside from a token fall-guy who's usually only partly responsible).

    Even when the US government goes forward with a massive project of its own, dating back to the times of Eli Whitney and the birth of the industrial revolution, it traditionally outsources its projects to local geniuses and lets them come up with sink-or-swim solutions to the assigned problems, rather than handing out buckets of cash to select government friends. Being a Canadian citizen myself, I can give you more than enough examples of massive centrally-planned government spending going to utter waste, while the most successful long-term projects in the country (such as the still-profitable oilsands industry) have been funded on private initiatives, with local governments practically bragging about their lack of involvement on the business end.

    High speed trains might pollute less than aircraft, but if they're running on coal-fired electricity, they're generating enormous sums of pollution all the same. Even if China builds nuclear, solar, wind or hydro plants to power those trains, that means other applications requiring those energy sources will have to turn to fossil fuels instead. In any case, the important thing is that you've got a lot of "will be's" in your statements, and they're still a very long way off (possibly even generations) from being "is" statements.

    You actually think the people who commit those sorts of violations expect to be caught in the first place? Do you think a 25-year sentence for murder or rape isn't enough to deter the people who commit it, but tacking on an extra 10 years will surely make them think twice about it before they act?

    You forgot to note that when that famous baby milk scandal errupted, the first violation led to minor slaps on the wrists and heart-sworn promises from those same executives never to do it again. They only got executed the second time around because it was bringing bad publicity to the Party.
     

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