Reply #239: yeah, they are

[krispos42]

Their economic indicators are stronger than ours. More personal savings, they run a good budget, they are are still a manufacturing economy instead of a finance/investment/real estate economy. We have massive debt on both a national and personal level. Easy-breezy credit cars, home equity loans, etc., mean that our great economy is built entirely on consumer credit. We actually have a negative savings rate! And out wealth flows out of our nation's borders into the hands of our enemies. Oil money funding the Middle East, manufacturing money funding China. And they they lend that money back to us, with interest. So if China decided to cash in the trillion dollars in treasury bonds they own, what happens then?

The world economy tanks. But China would come out of it better than we would, because we have further to fall from out lofty posts. Power is relative.

If you read "American Theocracy" by Kevin Phillips, it will scare you pretty damn well. And Phillips is a conservative!