Iran

[Monroe]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxBz1GQAxnY

I really question Bush's stablitiy. He knows the Republican party is going to lose the next election so if he gets the Democrats in a big enough mess the Republicans can win the follow up.

That's my thinking on it anyway. Things were looking good in Afghanastan so he goes to war with Iraq. Looking good in Iraq goes to war with Iran?
I'm not so sure China would allow that which could be very very bad.

[Granitehewer]

you want to worry about the peoples' republic of china, take the recent american-russian exercises in the amur region or the contested oil rich spratly islands....its a powder keg, with fuses dotted around the world, but still unlikely to ever be anything more than a contained war at best.

[Granitehewer]

what the PRC politburo is doing is manipulating trade legistlation, and running up huge deficits, threatening to cancel big business contracts,with money that isn't even theirs, as leverage to weild against foreign dissenters, its a horrendous mindset, 'the middle kingdom complex', sam huntingdons' ''clash of civilisations'' is good reading for china and iran

[DSG2k]

running up huge deficits

Really? Oh hell that's alarming. Aren't the Chinese still locking their currency to the dollar?

I don't know nearly enough about economics to comment, but I'll do so anyway:

If my currency was locked to the dollar, I'd run up huge deficits, ruin the American dollar (because, being China, I fairly readily could), then pay it off with investments in other currencies, unlock from the dollar, and bingo . . . I'm hurt a little bit for awhile, and then I'm debt-free. But the US and everyone tied to us (meaning the rest of Asia especially) is hurt a lot.

Then I'm sitting pretty, debt-free, with the manufacturing base and the military toys almost completely paid for.

The only flaw I see is the notion that foreign money wouldn't be flowing in quite so well for cheap Chinese manufactured goods, both as the world economy suffered from the US economic trouble and as other currencies had difficulty.

Unlocking from the dollar, I'd have to be sure that my currency didn't go crazy in value so as to keep the trade balance in my favor . . . unless my goal was basically to buy the world in a fit of communist irony.

Any of this make any sense? I realize economists probably don't frequent the board (we'd be out making money doing nothing instead of doing nothing for free), but input is appreciated.

[Granitehewer]

The PRC has a substantial amount of capita and assets locked to the dollar, but are also transferring some of their assets into other currencies (thus harming the dollar), as unfortunately did several other nations recently (malaysia, singapore- both regarded as little chinas, due to the ethnic mix and cultural affinities of areas of the population), the excuse was the instability of the american market.
The politburo almost has the ingrained cultural concept that it is the middle kingdom, a central power with surrounding states that should instinctively adopt the role of vassal and subordinate.
The PRC regard america, as the han regarded the roman empire; as Ta Ch'in/great chin, almost like a parallel power at the opposite end of the scales, and using economics as a weapon(including establishing faculties for governmentally condoned hackers), in the governmental and 'private sector' is part of the new doctrine of certain branches of the peoples' liberation army.
Obviously am not being a sinophobe here, at least hope it doesn't come out that way.