doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com OT-What to see in Bejing?

Greg,
Nearly all of modern societies, ourselves included, have either reverse engineered or copied many things to advance. Were there burdens/costs with the relationship we have with Japan? Of course. I suppose we could have taken other paths with them as we concored them; made Japan a US territory, suppressed their freedoms and economy, isolated Japan, or even anilated every Japanese person. But none of those options are 'the American way' nor wiser paths IMO. Making an ally is always better. Sure it cost. A friend that costs you nothing is just an acquaintance that can't be relied on when the chips are down.

Anyone that thinks continued isolation of China is good is ignoring the obvious; a friend is always better than an enemy. Will it cost us? Sure, big time. Will we benefit? Sure, big time. It may be the thing that heads off the end of humanity on earth from nuclear war. Even Nixon saw that far. So, it may be the best legacy we can leave our children. Isolationist views by us and others fueled the Cold War and nearly cost everyone everything. Hopefully, we're past that.

No, we won't be able to sit on our collective arses and stay ahead of the world based on our father's hard work, we'll have to hoe our own row, as will our children.

Great post, Chuck!

Having grown up with folks whose lives were very badly messed up by WW2 and the nasty actions taken by many nations before, during and after, including the USA, your second paragraph resonates very nicely with me.

Trade or war? -- way too simplistic, especially since war has all too often been used as a means of controlling trade, perhaps for all of human history.

Niklas

Chuck, that's all great, but understand that no one within our government will ever take steps to ensure there is any equity in trade. You assume there will be parity when in fact it will be a lopsided affair, more so as time goes on.

Reverse engineering? Keep in mind the Chinese pay no heed to patents or licenses or intellectual property rights. You are involved in airplanes? What will you think in 15 years when the orders dry up and your legal department has no way of stopping the flood of Chinese built planes that are identical to yours?

We can argue all day the nuances of China's growth but the bottom line is that the present day greed and shortsightedness of the American people will make this country a slop mess for generations to come. We're living high today by writing checks our grandchildren will have to cover.

China is a friend now because they need us to be a friend.

I'd love it if you printed this and taped it to your wall and read it again in 20 years and tell me who was right:

"You can decide to get into bed with an 800lbs. gorilla - but he'll be the one who decides when you get out of bed."

If worried about [liberal voice] the chillldren [/liberal voice] becoming bootblacks, have them study math, science and learn a second language. Get them to play piano not nintendo.

The nanny state is not going help the Sports Communications majors supervise a team of Chemical Engineers.

What good will a Chemical Engineering degree or a mechanical engineering degree do when there are no more jobs for the above professions in the US? Do you think only blue collar work can be outsourced?

Now the piano part is great - we can play music for each other. Very useful.

Well then Greg, what do you propose? Putting our heads in the sand is not going to stop the world from evolving or revolving.

I'm not all that worried about our business being stolen. I'd worry more if our country's leaders said we won't do biz with or acknowledge China. Our biz is founded on continued advancement in technology. Copying will only get them to yesterday's technology. The hard part is getting in front to be the leader. China operators have been buying hundreds of our planes for three decades now. We just announced additional sales today.

In a numbers game - yesterday's technology can be over-whelming.
...and they do have the numbers.

Doom, gloom, giving up, or wishing for the government to Fix The Problem can be outsourced to Russia, Zimbawe, or New Orleans. I don't think the Chinese will bid on the job.

Personally? I avoid buying Chinese products whenever possible. I'll pay multiple times more for US products. I'll bet there are plenty of dog owners who wish they'd avoided Chinese products.

On a larger scale, I encourage others such as yourself to consider your buying habits. My efforts may be small but at least I try.

If the American people sent a message to companies, maybe companies would think twice before sending production to China. Then your brother in St. Louis would still have a job and we'd be a stronger nation to boot.

The Chinese have bought your planes for decades because they have not had the know-how or the tooling to make their own. Rest assured the day they will have both is coming very soon. It sounds like you are the one expecting China to remain subservient to the US. They won't.

In the next war, will we buy own tanks and guns from China? I hope so, because there won't be enough factories here to convert.
Maybe in the next war we can all drink beer and sell each other insurance policies.

Now you've done it! You've gone and brought beer into it. Beer wars? I'm for it.