Why China is the REAL master of the universe [Freerepublic.com]
Cecil Rhodes, the businessman-imperialist of Africa, the creator of Rhodesia, suffered no flicker of doubt about who were the masters.
"To be born an Englishman," he mused, "Is to win first prize in the lottery of life."
It wasn't idle boasting. In the jingoistic triumphalism of the late 19th century, when waving the Union Jack was a simple pleasure, people sang: "Rule Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves" without any irony. It was a statement of fact.
A quarter of mankind lived under the British flag in the largest empire the world had ever known.
And many of those parts that weren't under Britain's rule - such as the U.S. - had been created by Britain.
../Napoleon III compared China to a sleeping giant and warned: "When China awakes, she will shake the world."
After a long hibernation, China, and her 1.3 billion people - twice the population of the U.S. and EU combined - is awaking almost overnight.
And not just China. The world's second most populous country, India, is industrialising at a historically unprecedented pace.
Their economies are growing on a long-term basis about four times the speed of the UK's and that of the United States. Goldman Sachs, the bank, recently predicted that by 2050, China and India would have overtaken the U.S. to be the world's first and second biggest economies.
We have long heard about the benefits this brings, in terms of plentiful cheap goods from toys to TVs, and huge opportunities for Western companies to sell their wares in these booming markets.
But there are also downsides, which are becoming more apparent. Unskilled workers in the West have become unsettled by the threat to their jobs as production moves East.
The most vulnerable Western workers have found their wages stagnate as they struggle to compete in an increasingly global market place.
And competition for raw materials is pitting East against West.
The economic explosion of China, and to a lesser extent India, has given them an almost overpowering hunger for raw materials with which to build their factories, homes and cars.
Wherever you turn, the rise of Asia is making its impact felt on our existence.
../
China is spending 35 times as much on crude oil as it did eight years ago, and 23 times as much on copper.
As it builds gleaming skyscrapers on its fields, China alone consumes half the world's cement and a third of its steel.
What is happening is so extraordinary that economists have had to invent a new word for it - this is not an economic cycle, but a supercycle, a shift in the world economy of historic proportions.
When demand increases and supply stands still, prices shoot up. Iron, wheat and oil are all at record prices, despite slackening demand in the faltering Western economies.
Typical Daily Mail but entertaining nonetheless.
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