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[ChairmanPoo]

Clearly Obama will die in office without naming a successor causing the US to fracture into numerous smaller nations each under a different president claiming to be the rightful heir to the USA.

WIN. I see you've read Chinese history.

Actually I was meaning the Diadochi, but okay. 

The allusion is ambiguous enough to apply to many historical situations. It's not like ol' Lex was the only ruler in history to croak without naming a successor (though his last words are actually quite badass, if he actually said that)

[RedKing]

Clearly Obama will die in office without naming a successor causing the US to fracture into numerous smaller nations each under a different president claiming to be the rightful heir to the USA.

WIN. I see you've read Chinese history.

Actually I was meaning the Diadochi, but okay. 

LOL. Well, you rarely had an Emperor die without a successor, but you certainly have several instances where a dynasty fell without a clear replacement, leading to "Warlord" periods where everybody was fighting to be the next Emperor. Much of Chinese politics is geared towards preventing the "failed state" outcome, because in Chinese thought, this is the worst possible outcome. Even a harsh, oppressive state is better than no state at all.

[Heron TSG]

Spoiler: So I hear the republicans hired a new ad manager. (click to show/hide)

[andrea]

to the credit of this ad, it never said nations failed because of socialism. The ad says that nations failed because they turned their back on the principles that made them great, which means socialism only in the specific case of USA. There is no contradiction with communist china being still great in that context, because it was founded on socialism and dictatorship. In fact, using the ad-logic, china would actually fail with freedom and capitalism.

This however doesn't change the fact that the ad still has little to no historical basis. While it could be argued that the romans failed because radical change of customs ( they changed a lot in their millennium of history, mainly when great conquests began), I fail to see how did british empire and the greeks turned back on the principles that made them great. They rather died because of old age, when their historical time was over. ( I am ready to change opinion on this, however, should anyone know more than me)

what is funny is that the parody ad is probably most similar to what a chinese professor would say.

[RedKing]

Personally, I think one of the principles which made us great was an open border and brining in metric buttloads of immigrants. Shame on you for trying to make us turn our back on the principles which made us great, Republicans! You're working for the Chinese, aren't you? AREN'T YOU??!?

[smigenboger]

I wonder if the Rally to Restore Sanity/Rally to Keep Fear Alive will do even the slightest to raise awareness on this silly ad campaign, or if it'll just add fuel to the ridiculous pile of bullshit.

[Nikov]

...it'll just add fuel to the ridiculous pile of bullshit.

Truth.

[Eugenitor]

I'm just waiting for China's one-child policy, with which every family still wants a male heir, to reach its inevitable conclusion.

[Nikov]

When China's manpower boom hits retirement age, or if the Chinese government realizes its unmarried male population is eligable for the draft?

[Eugenitor]

Edit: eh, never mind. The numbers aren't what I thought they'd be. At least not the official ones. It's still pretty bad.

[Nikov]

So the former, got it. Don't forget the economic collapse when the shrinking workforce has to support the elderly through government programs. It is a communist, I mean, "state-sponsored capitalist" nation after all. The people expect the state to provide for people who can't provide for themselves anymore.

[alway]

IIRC, the one child policy was meant primarily as a short-term solution, so I wouldn't be suprised to see it being phased out in the next decade or so. As for the gender gap, it's around 600m f to 700m m, so while pretty bad (100m) it probably won't be nation-ending bad.

[Eugenitor]

The state should be able to do that, but not when it's the entire society that has the problem. I was more concerned with the sex disparity but the girls are surviving. Somehow. If the one-child policy was actually fully enforced it'd be a lot more dramatic, but blind eyes and corruption save the day again.

This is China. They're going to solve the retirement business by just letting them die.

[RedKing]

Meh. The one-child problem isn't as big as it's made out to be for two major reasons: the growing middle-class in China and good, old-fashioned local corruption.

Contrary to popular depictions, forced abortion is not the rule for 2nd, 3rd, etc. children. Instead, it's a steep fine that the family has to pay (about $5000 last time I checked). When the family is rural and poor, the fine is insurmountable and abortions take place.

When the family is urban and well-off, $5K may be a reasonable price to pay for a young couple who wants a 2nd child. Alternately, with the right bribes and/or guanxi (roughly translated as "connections/favors"), local officials can be persuaded not to report the birth.

The male/female thing is a major problem, but as the demographic pressure on young males increases, I think you'll see the stigma of a non-Chinese wife decrease. To put it another way, a half-Chinese grandchild is better than no grandchild at all.


As to the problem of supporting the elderly...well, let's just say the iron rice bowl has a lot of holes in it. Nikov, you said it yourself...they're a state capitalist system, not a Communist one. It's sadly ironic that the Chinese Communist Party now regularly sides with businesses against workers and quashes attempts by labor to self-organize.

[Vercingetorix]

If you think that's bad...some guy here in Ohio is running ads somehow blaming NAFTA for trade with China and job losses, complete with scary images of swarms of inscrutable Chinese people and depictions of their "wacky" culture involving one of those dragon dances.  Now, that's not to say I don't believe more steps should be taken to have equitable trade relations with China, but the scaremongering is kind of disturbing.