the price of steel

[Wingnut]

<font color="blue"> If the population grows just a little more, or the Chinese palate changes, they will have to import massive amounts of food. Hey, minerals too!

Assuming Australia's population grows at world rates, some time down the road their land and weather will not be dependable enough.
</font>

Don't think that's going to be a problem with China ... first off, they have aggressively regulated their population fo ra great many years, having early on recognized the problem and been able to carry it out by virtue of being able to back up their policies with dealdly force.
The creation of a viable middle class will not aggravate that problem, it will aid it, as affluent countries are all experiencing negative population growth - mitigated only by emigration from poorer nations.

I would think that the exact same thing will be happening in Australia ... plus emigration will be less of an influence as affluence 'infects' the East ..... less reason to leave.

It will be interesting to see what happens once a true world marketplace is in place .... some of our leaders think this will create 'peace in our time' .... and I'm not at all sure they're being too optimistic ...

 

[daedong]

have_blue

web page

I don't think Australia is about to starve, per capita i think we rate very well.

I have not done a search but i was always led to beleive we were world leaders in bauxite mining.

 

[jim_wilson]

Maybe the Chinese have caught on to the fact that having a affluent capitalist society is the best way to regulate your population. I read a book a few months ago by Pat Buchanan called Death of the West that among other things details how most of the Western or "westernized" countries - this includes Japan - are experiencing birth rates low enough that they are "non replacement". This means that on the average every male-female couple produces less than 2 children. The Chinese economy is growing fast enough that they may also experience this phenomenon. While this may sound good on the surface it leads human societies into uncharted territory - typically it is the young that do most of the work and the old reap some benefits from that. With the population growth rate slowing and there being less young to support the old all sorts of bad things can happen - this is the part of the problem we are having with Social Security in this country.

I don't have too much faith in our leaders to predict peace in the future - having been a history buff since I was a kid and having been around people long enough to see how they act I have no confidence in leader/management types ability to predict the future.

 

[varmint]

I learned something yesterday that's worth posting (thanks to NPR- no matter what you think of it, at least they examine stuff beyond Brittany Spears...)
Part of the cost increases in steel, and metals in general, is the out-of-control housing boom in southern China- their stock market, which was growing at a pace that made our dot-com boom look feeble, soaking up trillions of Yen- opps, I mean dollars, was largely driven by the government's selling off of inefficient industries at super-inflated "values" and when that collapsed, big time, all the Yen that needed a parking place started going into the new free-market housing boom. Lots of steel being used. When they "advance" to the stage of buying and driving SUV's, woe is us.

 

[Jim_in_Omaha]

When there is a large and fast increase at some point there is a large and extremely fast decrease. And whats interesting is that with the China boom, the Chinese government (Red) is threatening Tiawan and has threatened American with nukes if we interfere. I'm wondering if they push with any military action what will happen? If something tragic like a major offensive did happen how that would effect the US economy. Shoes might become real expensive but maybe steel will come down..

thx
Jim

 

[jim_wilson]

You mentioned one of the things that is always in the back of my mind - what happens when the inevitable problems occur between China and the US? It is an interesting exercise to think about this - would China be worse off losing their exports to the US - and the resulting affect on their economy - or would the US be worse off losing all the stuff that we now get from China and no longer make in this country? As we export more and more production to China we also export the knowledge to build better and better products. As the US demonstrated during WWII - civilian production knowledge is directly applicable to manufacturing copious amounts of military hardware during wartime. I hope the next time around we don't find out what a manufacturing powerhouse with a population of a billion people is capable of.

 

[daedong]

Jim,

I think it is inevitable that China will be the super power of the future. I just hope they are fair and reasonable with the rest of the world. Keep your fingers crossed.

 

[Darren]

You might want to short Walmart when China gets really serious about moving on Taiwan. If we get into it over Taiwan, Walmart is going to have a lot of floor space to rent out for indoor flea markets. If I was them I'd start putting in a couple of overhead doors so they could also rent storage space for RVs, boats and vehicles. With a little ingenuity they could also convert part of the interior space into self-storage.

In a conflict with China, Walmart's cashflow could dry up in a short amount of time.

 

[mrcaptainbob]

This is a really interesting conversation. I wonder what politcal impact our NOT purchasing stuff from China would have on their actions. Would love to be a fly on the wall to know the give/take between all the countries. Oil wise....I read a few years ago that the estimate for mid-east oil was about another 90 years at the then rate of growth. We use theirs first. How much in another 100 yrs would a barrel of American crude cost on the market? How much is OPEC willing to PAY for it at that time? It's interesting how one country can jocky for politcal position by having what (an)other country(ies) needs. Let's develop a 'need' in that country and then exploit it.
Lot's of interesting ideas on this thread....

 

[varmint]

Vin: I checked out your website, and I recommend it highly! I am curious about your "Halloween Cat" image- do you know if it's a computer fake, or someone actually anesthetized a cat and painted it? I can understand your intestest in the price of steel thread, having seen the houseboat project. Good work!