The Obama Presidency

**Bojack** · 12 Dec 2010, 11:48 PM

Originally Posted by Drewbacca

Isn't Europe facing widespread economic uncertainty and dissent right now?

Was this directed at me or someone else? Europe's economic issues don't really play into what I posted since I was more less speaking globally. It seems folly to assume that there's no chance we can't be taken or fall from our cozy position at the top. So I asked Gooch what would happen if we lost out on ours having the true fiat currency of the world. If we're the ones making magic money what's to say some one else can't?

**MarsKitten** · 12 Dec 2010, 11:55 PM

Sorry for some reason civil war looked like fucking revolt. I'm a moron.

Civil war, how do you figure?

**Gooch** · 13 Dec 2010, 12:20 AM

(Too much snow here, too little sex tonight)

I have to lean towards Yoshi's assessment. China is still very young regarding the Party, which really began with a Mao Zedong led peasant revolt in 1949. They have severe human rights issues (look at the Nobel Prize fiasco), they have extreme financial/economic repression with 2/3 of the population essentially still in third world living conditions while the coastal population thrives (households are subsidizing exporters), worker suicides, worker strikes/revolts for wage increases, threats of unemployment, and unemployment in the US means reduced consumption, in China it means malnutrition. The 2012 transition to the 5th generation of the Party will be interesting.

Watch this video. While not always accurate, George Friedman has a geopolitcal understanding and perspective like few others (I don't know any personally) and I find him to be an invaluable source of information. Bojack, if you watch this, this will give you a bit of background perspective as to how difficult it will be for another nation or group of nations to usurp the US hegemony, especially considering how proactive the US is in terms of maintaining its position of power. I am a huge fan of Friedman.

**Vasteel** · 14 Dec 2010, 01:36 AM

Gooch: Thank you for enlightening me as to the nature of the US National debt. What then stops the US government from spending even more than it does? Why not pour billions into infrastructure and research? Is inflation that precarious, is it simply too many ignorant people calling the shots, or something else?

Also, at what point does the 'surrogate' value of the currency actually reach equilibrium with hard resources, and is there an equation that models this?