# Is this 'Transfer of wealth to the east' BS? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 8, 2011, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-transfer-of-wealth-to-the-east-bs/595634 "2011-09-08T18:15:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2011, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-transfer-of-wealth-to-the-east-bs/595634/1 "2011-09-08T18:15:25Z")
> **[The years since 9/11 already look like a detour, not the main road of history...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/sep/07/9-11-september-11-us)** > > Timothy Garton Ash: The defining feature of world politics in the long term will not be Islamist terrorism, but the shift in power from west to east This article got me thinking, why are people bordering on obsessed with this apparent transfer of wealth? For me personally, it seems that people are observing our recession and their weathering of it as some sort of defining shift in power. The way I see it is that China is in a more precarious position than realised, due to its social contract with its people of always bringing economic prosperity, if a recession in China were to happen in the near future, that government is too rigid to properly overcome it. It just seems to me as cheer leading for our decline. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-transfer-of-wealth-to-the-east-bs/595634/2 "2011-09-12T23:11:10Z")
BS or not, who cares? Why aren’t people making equally as big a deal about how much richer California is than Mississippi? Asians are people too. The economy is like global warming; due to inevitable fluctuations, some places are warmer than others, and some times are warmer than others, but the overall trend is up. It’s not a zero sum game. Complaining about the Chinese having jobs, or India getting richer, always seems like straight up racism to me. Sorry, I said it. Protectionism is racist. Or at the least, xenophobic. That’s in addition to being wrong economically. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-transfer-of-wealth-to-the-east-bs/595634/3 "2011-09-12T23:18:42Z")
That said, I agree that our response to 9/11 has helped ruin our economy. Trillions of dollars down the drain, millions of war veterans, hundreds of thousands with PTSD, tens of thousands of amputees and thousands dead, a massive increase in the police state and massive reduction in human rights… that hasn’t helped our economy. I’m not going to say that it _caused_ the recession, but I’ve got a hunch it was a big part. Either way, I don’t think the Chinese had much to do with it. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-transfer-of-wealth-to-the-east-bs/595634/4 "2011-09-12T23:21:44Z")
Everything **DrCube** says is right. ---
**Author:** ![HubZilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ccd318/32.png) [@HubZilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HubZilla)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-transfer-of-wealth-to-the-east-bs/595634/5 "2011-09-13T02:01:09Z")
Late 80s/early 90s, we heard all this before about Japan.