Assuming no one is insane enough to resort to nukes (something I wouldn’t risk for lumber and beef bits btw), I’d be very interested in how a nation like China would be able to do more than partially defend itself from conventional attack…let alone hit back at the US. This of course leaves aside why China, who has their own agenda, “throws in their lot with the rest of the world”. Myself, I’d bet on the US in a conventional war and even give good odds. Of course, any US victory would be completely pyrrhic…as would a victory in the unlikely event that the ‘rest of the world’ decided to go after us with hammer and tongs and the more unlikely event they could actually defeat the US. I guess we’d all go down together for soft lumber and beef bits…
Sad really.
-XT
p.s. The ‘beef bits’ thing had me rolling on the floor.
As a guess, I’d say the next world war will be primarily economic. If China goes to war with the U.S., it will be by doing things like trying to destabilize the U.S. dollar, or threatening countries to stop dealing with the U.S., or something like that. Probably in very subtle ways, as an attempt to cut the U.S. off from critical resources and markets. The Chinese tend to take the long view. If they can hold U.S. economic expansion a point or two behind theirs, they can simply wait until they catch up economically, and then it’s 3-1 in terms of population and capacity to produce.
But I don’t think China can keep its current rate of growth without major changes in governance. A relatively free China isn’t going to attempt to economically sabotage the US or any other country, since the cost of such sabotage isn’t just paid by the US, it would be paid by China as well. As a rule of thumb, to harm some other country economically requires doing at least as much harm to your own economy. This can be done if the people benefiting from the economic war are in power but the people harmed by the economic war are diffused. But it isn’t very likely to happen if China is even moderately free. China has to have economic freedom to sustain economic growth, and declaring economic war against the US is going to crush their economy. When China’s economy stops growing, that’s when Communist Party officials start being strung up from lampposts.
In any case, what exactly does this have to do with nationalizing the Canadian oil industry? Is anyone, even the OP, willing to defend the idea?
Its turned into an ‘Evil US!’ rant thread. I don’t think anyone (seemingly not even the OP) is going to step up and defend nationalization of Canada’s petroleum industry so we’ve branched off into the fantasy of the world rising up in rightous wrath and smiting those evil American’s…putting us in our place. Always a popular theme.
Really, Brazil? I’ll let the other continue doing their fine job of debating the merits of nuclear war over minor trade issues. But, seriously, Brazil? At best, it’s 9th in the world economy, like 10% unemployment, and GDP out put, I don’t know, 15x’s less than the US, and output per worker is just as staggering. Like China, they are super-dependent on the US – they just don’t have the money to back themselves up when the world economy goes into a tailspin (unlike China, for whatever good that will do when the people revolt against Communist party).
First, I didn’t say I wanted WWIII; I just think it’s an interesting thought experiment to see how it would go. You guys are always so Doctor McCoy; just because I’m talking about something doesn’t mean I’m advocating it.
Second, Brazil has been on the verge of bankruptcy, which would cause little harm to its already depressed economy, but cause serious havoc in the world economy. Actually, doing a little research, it looks like Japan is more likely to tank financially and bring the rest of the world economy (read U.S. dollar) down with it. We’re global, baby; nobody dives without affecting everyone else now.
Now, bringing this back to nationalizing Canada’s petroleum industry. We started discussing NAFTA, which has a bearing on Canada’s petroleum industry, and we got off on a tangent about how the U.S. obviously has no intention of honouring any parts of its trade agreements that it doesn’t feel like honouring, and from there we moved on to the U.S. history of stepping on international toes. I was just extrapolating a wee bit to the part where the rest of the world gets tired of the U.S.'s “Might Makes Right, and who’s going to stop us?” attitude.
Start a thread on it. I’d love to explain to you why, if we disreguard such small things as economic collapse, the US would romp over the likes of China if they joined the Coalitian of Anti-American Countries Alagamated (CACA). Its called force projection. It WOULD be an interersting topic to kick around.
So, you are saying Brazil (or maybe Japan) is a threat to the US economically…if they tank? Um…ok. I’ll sort of kinda buy that. If Japan tanks the US will certainly be hurt economically. The converse though is a bit more interesting. If the US tanks the entire world will probably go tits up. Which is kind of what people were trying to get at when you were talking about all these countries banding together to smack down the bad ole USA.
So, leaving aside the ranting (and ridiculously inaccurate) aspects of this paragraph, are you still advocating Nationalization of Canada’s petroleum industry? If so, can you answer some of the earlier questions posed to you (the best ones were probably by Lemur866 and El_Kabong if you want to start there) in the thread?
Okay, leaving aside WWIII for now, Lemur has asked some good questions. First, I think calling it nationalization is an error - this discussion should be about re-patriation of Canada’s petroleum industry. The first step for that is to immediately stop any more foreign investment, and gradually work at buying back shares from foreign investors and souring the milk for foreign investors to stay invested in Canada’s industry, while sweetening the milk for domestic investors. Taxes would not need to be raised to do this; the Canadian government is already running a surplus. This just needs to be made a priority.
Second, how it affects me personally is that if the company I work for part-time doing Oil & Gas property taxes doubles its business, I could theoretically double my hours. I don’t see how all those O & G dollars staying in Canada for Canada’s non-renewable resource would have a negative effect on Canada’s economy.
The Canadian government is already an investment manager - they manage our employment insurance fund and our pension funds, for starters. I don’t envision re-patriation of Canada’s petroleum industry as being wholly a government operation - I would see a lot of Canadian companies investing in it as well.
The only question I see from El_Kabong is regarding NAFTA. I believe a gradual withdrawal of foreign investment could be done within the existing framework. We do have room within the treaty to increase and decrease trade volumes.
I missed this in the first go-round - yeah, softwood lumber and beef are major trade issues in at least two of Canada’s 10 provinces.
You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to. But one thing on which the rest of the world will agree; it’s nationalization. Splitting semantic hairs won’t change the perception.
Well, at this point NAFTA ceases to exist; if both Canada and the USA are going to ignore its provisions, it’s going to fall apart, and now the tariffs we’re bemoaning in the softwood lumber industry will be applied to most industries. You cannot apply different rules to Canadian investors versus American or Mexican investors; that’s one of the most important parts of the Agreement.
I’d love to explain to you why, if we disreguard such small things as economic collapse, the US would romp over the likes of China if they joined the Coalitian of Anti-American Countries Alagamated (CACA). Its called force projection. It WOULD be an interersting topic to kick around.