alreadyis

luckily for us they still need us to buy their products

that's it in a nutshell.

China is quickly growing out of fast hard-working factories, but the product is still being designed in the US or Europe.

On the whole China fails at marketing itself, whether politically (their system is still widely seen as deeply flawed by every other developed country), competitively (they win the largest amount of medals in the olympics but who cares really ? The US's basketball dream team makes everyone well... dream. No one idolizes table tennis players) or economically.

The day China finds a way to market its culture to the world like the US did, then we can talk.

They also have a ton of cheap products designed for Africa. But who care about that :)

dear lord i hate it when basketball-illiterate people call every usa's iteration as the "dream team". ffs that was back in 92. last time i checked there's no middle-aged mj running to the field in tune of alan parsons project.

k white boy from Europe, I'm sorry i offended your huge street-basketball-cred

np brb off to country club to play golf and shit

don't forget the brandy

“Some people that got stranded on an island, and I think it was 6 or 7 were Asians and there was one American and as soon as they were on the island they had to divide up the jobs. And one Asian was given the job of fishing, the other one was hunting, one of them got the job of gathering fire wood. So they all had jobs, and the American was assigned the job of eating. And so at the end of the day, they would all gather around and prepare this feast and the American would sit there and eat it. But he would´nt eat it all, he´d just leave enough crumbs so he could give to the 6 Asians so they could go on and repeat it again tomorrow, spend all day preparing a meal for the American to eat. Now, the way modern economists would look at it, they would say “Well, this American is vital to the whole island economy. Without him nobody would have to fish, nobody would have to hunt, nobody would have to gather fire wood. He is creating all this employment on the island”. But the reality is, every Asian on that island, his lot in life would be dramatically improved if they kicked the American off the island because now they would have a lot more to eat or maybe they wouldn´t have to spend all day hunting and fishing and they can lay on the beach a little bit”.

you can take out the nations and this story works just as well.
common people working so that the fat cats can live like kings

it's like that in china too

Either you misunderstood the story or my intention when pasting it as a reply to your comment ;)

my original comment should make it clear for you that i DO understand the intention of your story.
however you generalize a problem that exists in most societal structures, that's why my followup there

so true, the last remaining job in this society where you can still make a decent amount of money as a normal worker is medicine.
Everywhere else you just get exploited as a slave, the prosperous 70s are long gone ...
Otherwise only way to make money is an own business, or a career in sports or artist, but the distributions of money in these fields resemble a pyramid ..

Already happened as someone above me said.

India and perhaps even Brazil (eventually) could also overtake the US in terms of importance

American Decline: Causes and Consequences

Noam Chomsky

Thoughts USA-ers ??

Noam Chomsky supported Pol Pot.

Santa Claus lives in Finland.

He also said awhile back that he forsees the 21st century belonging to the USA. Despite the fact there are projections that China will overtake the US in just a few years in terms of GDP.

Who wouldn't after this performance :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k08yxu57NA

Economically literate USA-ers buried Chomsky's economics: 1, 2, and 3, just for starters.

Aren't you Polish?

Was I quoting Poles?

You're off topic :)

??? if you get owned, it's better to be quiet than persist.

1st link is full of quotes out of context, but it jumps often from discussing ideas to discussing people. If he don't have valid alternatives this do not make all his observations wrong.
The article in the 2nd link is quite interesting but it fails to consider notions like nation, country and community, i.e. when he is writing about the cage analogy he seems to omit these things.
As first two links contain interpretable content I won't bother with the 3rd.

ouuu right in the canada, why no love? just thoughts from europeans eh? lol

w.e :D I hope they do become leaders innovation obviously that's not the priority of other countries. And maybe they'll cut down on the fake/bogus publication's that they currently produce(no offense some very smart people over there like any large/small body of people). Its not like everyone is gonna get up and say lets be more like china and become communist. Also like many people say communism only works in a capitalist world so it would be silly for everyone to switch over.

FFWD to 1:18 (nice huh)

When I see the chinese do "well" at the olympics I ask myself what price that person paid, I doubt its in fitting with the spirit of the games are supposed to be built on. Nothing but a petty political tool for certain countries.

That is Chinas' answer to doing well in the olympics, by taking children from their homes as kids and putting them in camps to manufacture success so their flag and anthem can be played and try and convince the world they are big and strong. I seen animals who have been abused in a similar principle, they become hollow. They are alive, but dead on the inside.

They have no spirit, they just have lots of people they are prepared to treat like shit.

Sooner or later, that will self implode like all communist states.

Brtain and USA rule the modern world people want to be more like us, when was the last time someone wanted to be more like russia, or india, or china?

It just doesn't happen and never will. Without the UK and USA, the world would be a much darker place.

What do you think of China's one child policy?

I think there are already too many so anything to halt them is a good thing.

they are doing it right, unlike africa and arabian countries

Aids/poverty/etc will keep the Africans in check.
I'm sure the US will turn the middle east into a glass bowl sooner or later, its just a matter of time before it gets really messy.

nope, it won't ...
in nigeria they have all like 7 kids ...
all these african nations nigeria, ethiopa, etc. are expected to double/triple in the next 50 years ...
you know btw, iran/ethiopia had like 17 million people still in the 1940s ... ? they both have like 80 million now ... in only 60-70 years ...
and they won't stay there, many will make their way to europe ...

I know they will, i live in the UK, i witness everyday how the country is getting worse due to mass immigration.

All it will do is lead to civil war. Until then you'll get called a racist for pointing it out. Until then they fill places with shit then scratch heads when society is going down the pan and pulling in different directions and its never going work ever.

Its a bit like Germany and the euro, they need to make it work not because they believe in it, but because they think making it work would be easier than going back to individual currencies and making a fool of themselves, even though over 50% of Germans want the DM back because they know they are the one's that have to prop up Europe and when Germany need help, there will be no money.

Anyone who doesn't like mass non-white immigration is a naziwhowantstokill6millionjews.

Kinda afraid me to see people comparing Iran to Ethiopia. By the way you might also check what was the population density in US in 1940, same for FR, DE, UK, Spain and all other countries around the world basicaly.

It's i think also easy to say that you are a racist and uncultured person with small to none logical usage. So i will not. Maybe one day you will start asking the good questions and shift your mindset.

I am not racist ...
immigration can actually be a good thing ...
if the right people immigrate, i.e. qualified people that have job opportunities ... but tbh. I dont see any sense in getting unqualified people here to do something good to them, it will stay negative, if they are without job opportunities they wont be happy here and resent others, there are already a lot of low qualified native people without job opportunities ...
but I have to admit germany is a completely racist country ... the most important thing in germany is to be a pure german (what is also a joke if you read about the origins of blackcolored hair in european people) ... in germany they only want people of different background to do work, that noone else wants to do ... if you are not german, but have education/qualification standard that easily doubles that of the average of them, they still prefer instead their germans ... there is a reason high qualified jews like einstein or the chess worlc champion lasker were kicked out of the country, they want their race in the country, they dont want qualified people ... also you want see any honorary stuff in germany of them, einstein was a much more successful physicist than max plank, still you dont see any einstein institutions here, dont see any honors to the chess word champion neihter ...

"if the right people immigrate"

They do not though. Thats the problem, they just import the problems from that country those people try to escape from which their peers are responsible for making.

All that happens is everyone pulls in different directions, go to London for a day, its a fucking shit fest of foreigners where no one cares about anyone. Where entire areas are now no go cos all the immigrants try to make it like home.

Where i live, we have not yet been invaded, we have a common interest and goal.

England is now one of the least patriotic countries in europe cos their GVT filled it with foreigners so much so that they no longer know who their identity and thats been done in a couple of decades.

And when they say something, they call them racist. Immigration in the UK is a ticking time bomb. The tolerance around it can change very fast and wont get any better over time.

also:
http://www.indexmundi.com/iran/population.html

http://www.indexmundi.com/ethiopia/population.html

these nations have never won anything in the olympics, amounted never to anything in the world politics ...
of course they use the olympics as a tool for power, they want their nation to be better than other nations ... they offer their athletes who get gold medals a life in luxury, etc. while in the west they dont get much more than a thank you ... though have to admit most athletes in germany can get jobs in military/police for lifetime if they want ...
who cares anyway for olympia, is running around in a circle fun?
is swimming 100 m fun? is driving in some velodrome with your bike for 1000 m exciting? Will any of these athletes do these sports for leisure after their career finished ... ? Nope ... just artificial sports which are done for the pure purpose of competition, if you dont get a medal or national championship in these sports your time is more a less a complete waste ...
and in triathlon, a sport done for leisure by many people there is only one distance right now, many many amateurs do sprint, olympic, half ironman and full ironman distance in real life, while there are close to zero people driving with their bikes in some velodrome or doing rawing on a boat ... and in swimming for example there are many distances where there is not much difference (hence phelps can win so many medals, not because he is so good, but because many of these disciplines are very very similar) ... also horse riding is a complete joke, the horse should get the medal, the rider is just some manager ...

Wow, just wow, rarely have I seen so much misinformed bullshit in one post

You don't know the first thing about swimming, just shut it.

write again if you have any arguments, otherwise just stfu

in swimming for example there are many distances where there is not much difference (hence phelps can win so many medals, not because he is so good, but because many of these disciplines are very very similar)

I bet you couldn't tell me the correct answer to this question: In how many different strokes is Micheal Phelps a world class swimmer?

what do you mean by stroke? ... I actually do swimming myself because its part of triathlon ... I do mainly crawl, but I can also do backstroke, butterfly or breaststroke ...

doesn''t change a thing ... swimming still remains mostly an artificial sport, most girls when ending their socalled swim career won't swim again for leisure or something ... unlike cyclists, runners ... you know we are playing quake for fun, even players like fatality still play quake for fun ... I am just saying I am not really a fan of artificial sports done for the sole purpose of competition, which don't provide any greater meaning to the athlete ...

and if you refer to phelps and think his 20 medals are justified ... the only thing I can say is ... it's fascinating how everyone seems to admire him instead of questioning if the swimming disciplines might not be too similar ... it's maybe a bit unfair to other athletes who don't have chances to "collect" so many medals ... take triathlon for example there a big differences in the 4 common distances, everywhere someone else is world champ ... still right now there is only 1 distance in olympia ... un there are literally thousands of amateurs ... for swimming beyond the age of 18 there are only national/university teams and noone else

I picked up triathlon myself recently, I have my background in swimming tho. I've been a swimmer for 10 years and have won medals on a national level in Germany. Don't act as if you knew anything about swimming because you're a triathlete since they're traditionally pretty bad swimminers, although they've become a little better after they allowed drafting. In traditional non-drafting races like IM or IM70.3 they're still lolbad (I won't fault them tho, swimming just doesn't carry any weight when you're only in the water for 50 minutes in an 8h+ race) - the only respectable swimmer over these distances has been Jan Sibbersen and Andy Potts.

About Phelps - you should consider that almost half (8) of his medals have been won through relays and yes 200m free solo and in a relay are very similar, duh.

Also Phelps hasn't dominated the 100m fly by any means, he just always came through at the olympics especially his 2008 win was quite lucky. Speaking of 100m distances there was also a controversy about him swimming in the 4x100m free relay because he hasn't shown any results there until 2008 and hasn't started at the US trials. All in all he could've easily won 4-6 medals less had he not been so lucky over the 100fly and had he not been nominated for the 4x100 freestyle relay.

His 200m freestyle dominance in general came in the later stages of his career and isn't really surprising since all swimmers train at least a good 80% in freestyle stroke, hence everyone will be somewhat competitive and most are highly competitive, which is why the 100m freestyle are the most prestigious event.

The only disciplines over which he has been consistently dominating throughout his career were the 200m fly, 200m individual medley and 400m IM. His victories over 100m distances just came because he is THAT great a swimmer even if you know your shit and take a look at the 100m races you'll notice that he doesn't have the physical requirements for it and that his true home are the 200m races.

About similarities between distances, different distances have different physical requirements, the only distances that may share some similarities are the 200 and 400m distances but only because the athletes with more endurance coming from the 400m have started to crush the sprinters over the 200m in recent years. Traditionally the 200m freestyle were up for grabs between swimmers coming from 100m and the ones from the 400m+ disciplines especially during the times of Popov, van den Hoogenband and Thorpe. I think all I'm trying to say is that even the tri "sprint" distances are actually very much hardcore endurance sport that have nothing to do with actual sprinting, how could you even know the difference between a 20 second and 2 minute race when you never raced anything comparable.

All in all I could say pretty much the same thing about triathlon since Macca has destroyed his competition over the olympic distance and went on to win 70.3 and long-distances races. I do realize that these wins have come at different points during his carreer and he had to work incredibly hard for the transition and that once you go IM theres pretty much no coming back as we have seen.

I also can't attest to you saying that swimmers don't have fun swimming post-career. Our perception might obviously differ since we draw our experiences from a way different sample size.

PS: My first post might've been a bit harsh, I want to apologize for that. Ignorance like that just angers me sometimes :D

Edit: One thing I've missed, you're wrong about there being different world champions over every tri-distance. Crowie is both IM70.3 and IM world champion, so kiss that argument goodbye. Unless you are talking ITU middle/long distance which I don't consider the true world championships.

Edit2: Also this talk about artificial sport is complete bullshit. Even if you end your cycling, long-distance running or any other endurance sport carreer you can easily stay competitive until your early 40s as an amateur. In comparison Phelps is considered old and will end his carreer at age 27! And please don't tell me that the ability to stay competitive doesn't play a role for an endurance athlete. I mean is gymnastics an artificial sport in your opinion because 50 and 60 year olds aren't running around doing backflips all over the place?

you know your stuff ... good post ...
maybe you right about phelps ... still you see good athletes of a certain stroke compete on different distances at the same time like 200 m/400 m ...
its true triathletes are not good swimmers, its hard to get good at swimming if you begin in your mid twenties/thirties, I myself am happy if I get under 35 minutes in 1900 m ;-) ... in this regard I heard also swimming clubs are so competetive, that they wont accept childs above 10 years of age, because they are already too old, which is a bit sad imho. ...
your argument is also true that endurance sports can be done also when you are older ...
you are also right 70.3 and full ironman are a bit similar, probably also sprint/olympic are similar ...
but the sport for leisure point is still not true ... most olympic sports are purely competetive, you cannot really do them just for fun

I agree that people don't leisurely shot put or high jump but that doesn't mean it isn't/wasn't fun for them or that they weren't passionate about it.

I see things a bit differently about different strokes/distances. I mean you have athletes being competitive in completely different sports because they have the same physical requirements. Take Claudia Pechstein as an example she used to be a world class speed skater and transitioned over to track cycling and had some good results in her late 30s or Marion Jones, she's been a sprinter, long jumper and won a NCAA title in basketball and later played a season in the WNBA. Obviously they are weird examples because of their history with PEDs but it goes to show that you can be great at many different sports if they have the same physical requirements and the workout in one sport/discipline directly benefits the other.
Granted, swimming makes things a bit easier to get good in different disciplines because training in crawl stroke probably has a more direct impact on your butterfly performance than running has for a long jumper there's still massive differences between strokes and you usually don't see breastroke swimmers be competitive in any other discipline, whereas good fly or backstroke swimmers usually are on a good level over freestyle as well.

Are there even real sprint-triathlon specialists? I was under the impression that, that distance is really just something for begginers and hobbyists.

So you've beeen starting at some 70.3s? My dream would be to start at the first 70.3 in Berlin next year :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIzBaSiWdRA
You've probably seen it already but that video displays a close to perfect crawl technique, if you ever have some questions feel free to shoot me an iM :)

Another edit: What you should also consider is that the acrobatic and more strength-oriented sports are very taxing on the athlete's body. I had huge problems with my back and knees at age 16 already and it's still haunting me today. You'll see a lot of former athletes do some endurance sport to keep their fitness and health but for they just can't do their sport anymore or avoid it because they don't want to fuck up their bodies any further.
Also I remember quite fondly that on every saturday the oldest member of our club came over to swim some and he was well over 80 back then, he told us stories about how he became a German champion in vienna back in the day and showed us some photos :)

What I forgot to touch on is clubs not accepting kids over 10 years old. It depends on the size of the club really, bigger clubs will provide training for beginners and hobbyists, others don't because they simply don't have enough coaches, enough lanes in the poool etc. the smaller clubs around here are usually train in a public 25m pool, they just have it closed twice a week so they can have their practices. The one big club on the other hand has a 50m x 25m pool more or less for themselves all the time they just have to give one lane to the recreational club members a few times per week and the hobby training groups come in after the competitives, for the lack of a better word right now, are done with their training.

the culture of the us maybe ...
but england? come on? englands time is over since 18th century, sorry to say that ...
remember last year in london, that will be the future of your beloved country .... and also 20-30 years later for the rest of west europe ...
truth is you have to find a way to move away from europe ...

The US may have got the ball rolling with rock n roll, but the UK by and large have probably been the most influential at least int terms of music in the 20th century.

there was this chinese kid who won gold in london and was then told right after that both her grandparents had died and her mum developed breast cancer (that info was kept from her for a year because it was thoguht that it would affect her training) pretty fucked up.

but useful imo, both for the kid and China. It's the usual opinion that seems bizarre when looking the issue from the outside but that seems plausible in a first person perspective (a life of training ending up in nothing).

Asian parents :D

there's this KOF/SF player, Xiaohai ("Little boy"), that won SBO a few years ago (no small feat in a single elim tourney vs 99% Japs) and placed Top8 at Evo this year in SF4.

he would play in the arcades as a kid supervised by his dad. when he would lose a match, his dad would give him a correction :D

yes they will be number one world economy, 2016, i dont think so, but it will happen sooner than later maybe 2020-2030. Which does mean jackshit in itself, gdp-wise europe/usa/canada/australia will be ahaed atleast till midcentury, it doesnt mean either that China will dominate the stage like europe did or the usa after ww2, it just means that we will enter a multipolar world with china as a dominant factor, among them usa/europe but also brazil and india.
this means more competiton but that isnt a bad thing. in the end the world will have to cooperate more or it will lead to disaster, the only thing one can be worried about, but i guess it will work out, we can see what happend in history when giants clashed and what happend when the cooperated so the incentives a clear.
Innovation wise, lol , germany alone had more patents than china last year, so all the west together will outinovate china for a bit, but sure they will be number one sometime this century, why? because they are 20% of world population, simple is that. but they will face huge challenges, like dextruction of their enviornment an ever older growing population and tensions from the ever richer getting middle class that demands more "demoracy", the list goes on, but dont be scared, be happy that the world in 2050 will be a better place for more people than ever before.
All that fearmongering on the news is just to get things in parliaments passed , like minimum wages lowering and stuff.
I for one welcome the chinese space project because this will grab americans by their balls, and soon we will see a nasa/esa mission to moon and mars, before china gets there ,)

"and they will innovate much more so than any other country"

On that part you are 100% wrong.

THe reason I said that is because they have such a huge population. Especially educated population.

or i have degraded little less os then all specific county?

It will be the downfall of all known systems.

LOL NO RUS&?)))))
Putin will rebuild USSR and unite with Chin aand then what? We'll see US of LOL and EU of Arabia heheh

Putin likes money too much to do such things

good thing americans hate it so much.

The biggest record in growth in population number is still israel.

escaping death makes you horny little fuckers

and bricking people up in a wall makes you a great builder!

Obviously japan will take over with their culture of cute cat dog zebras and their military robots.

buncha economists in here, rite? dude, who participates in political discussions on internet websites full of pseudointellectuals? yeesh.

tyryl has spoken

you just did!

Certainly hope so. Great country with fantastic culture and history. Main thing they do not practice democracy and they will only succeed if they keep away from democracy.

Already happened as someone above me said.

When China reaches the highest GDP, The ordinary Chinese will be poor:ish for a long time to come, westerners'll benefit from the immigration of chinese nerds and cheap labour. However, China will not be transforming to the likes of USA/UK, they will be more like Russia, more keeping to themselves. I would argue that even Germany will keep on having bigger cultural impact to the world with their creative sector than China.

I am german and I really regret what this country culturally has become ... its achievments are close to zero compared france/britain if you count take the the post ww2 era ... and feel almost ashamed when I watch german films or read books of german authors ... it's just so sad, they blow away so much money for complete garbage productions