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[RedKing]

Man, we're not agreeing on ANYTHING lately. 

Destabilizing the PRC is about the worst fucking thing on the planet right now. With the global economy more or less fucked, our best hope is that the countries who are still growing act like a tugboat and tug our asses back to some semblance of normality. Human rights frankly don't mean shit if 1/3 of the population is starving (like in the 60's) and another 1/3 is streaming into every other country in range. The refugee situation from Guangdong alone would swamp Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Man, we're not agreeing on ANYTHING lately. 

There is only one solution. Top of the RBC center, with bowie knives, at dawn. Only one of us leaves.

Or alternatively, we can flip for Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base, first person to use their force to sucessfuly purge South Carolina of all life and occupy the Triangle wins.

[RedKing]

Aha...I had forgotten our mutual loathing of Carolina Inferior. All is forgiven.

[SalmonGod]

With the global economy more or less fucked, our best hope is that the countries who are still growing act like a tugboat and tug our asses back to some semblance of normality. Human rights frankly don't mean shit if 1/3 of the population is starving

Am I the only person who finds the notion absurd that food ceases to exist if we flub up our imaginary number games?  If we weren't so enslaved to common usage of the term economy, which seems to me quite often unhinged from reality, I don't understand why we couldn't work around these problems more sensibly.

[RedKing]

With the global economy more or less fucked, our best hope is that the countries who are still growing act like a tugboat and tug our asses back to some semblance of normality. Human rights frankly don't mean shit if 1/3 of the population is starving

Am I the only person who finds the notion absurd that food ceases to exist if we flub up our imaginary number games?  If we weren't so enslaved to common usage of the term economy, which seems to me quite often unhinged from reality, I don't understand why we couldn't work around these problems more sensibly.

Food doesn't cease to exist. Effective means of distribution do. A lot of people live in places where food is not grown anywhere nearby.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

RedKing is indeed correct. We already have enough food to physicaly feed everyone on Earth for quite a while. It's just that either it isn't getting to them or they can't afford it. That's the cause of starvation these days.

[SalmonGod]

Because it's controlled by entities with no motivation to care about the lives of others that do not benefit them, and we only accept these conditions because it's all obfuscated behind the language of economics...  If the economy collapses completely, to the point that the established order of it disappears, I would hope that this situation would actually get better as the centralized stranglehold on resources ceases to obstruct better distribution.

[olemars]

The one in Zengcheng is what I'd keep my eye on. There are roughly 210 million "floating people" (liudong renkou) -- internal illegal immigrants -- and I'm assuming this is what the article meant by "migrant workers". These are Chinese who have moved from the countryside or smaller cities into the major coastal cites looking for work. They're a great source of ultra-cheap labor with no legal rights, but like all migrant workers they typically get the shit end of the stick, even from their own countrymen. They're blamed for rising crime, they're accused of stealing jobs and depressing wages, and they typically kicked out of town when the local Party officials decide to make a show of doing something about it. Liudong renkou riots, if they grew widespread, could be a serious problem.

I remember on my visit to Beijing a few years back I noticed a few jobs I hadn't considered before:
There were people mopping the sidewalks.
There were people washing the trees along the sidewalks. With sponges, leaf by leaf.
There were rows and rows of people chiseling a chessboard pattern on a huge plaza, millimeter by millimeter. It looked like the most dreary job imaginable.

Apparently there were a few million people living in a sort of tent city outside Beijing who had come there seeking their fortune. A lucky few got the posh jobs described for almost 0 wages. Doubt it's gotten any better since. The illegal street vendors who routinely got picked up by roaming police buses probably had the better end of the stick. Don't know where the buses put them though.

[Siquo]

Am I the only person who finds the notion absurd that food ceases to exist if we flub up our imaginary number games?  If we weren't so enslaved to common usage of the term economy, which seems to me quite often unhinged from reality, I don't understand why we couldn't work around these problems more sensibly.

Nope, you're not alone. However, there's as of yet no better distribution system than capitalism. Every planned one has failed, so far. Sadly.

[Aqizzar]

More importantly, the doomsday scenario described would be a collapse of the international economy, wherein businesses would fold for lack of credit, workers would go unpaid for lack of funds, and basically the whole global production, shipping, and distribution system grinds to halt due to the its reliance on having a solid banking foundation.  I think it's a wildly ridiculous scenario myself, especially the idea that there would be any significant degree of starvation in the developed world.

[Jackrabbit]

We'd just eat the poor*. Hell, I do it from time to time to stay in practice.

*or rich, depending on your status, but I'd remind you I can purchase a gun so keep the fuck back.

[nenjin]

A well prepared Hassenfeffer is worth the risk.

[Puzzlemaker]

It would be awesome is Libya stopped getting blown up.

[PTTG??]

We'd just eat the poor*. Hell, I do it from time to time to stay in practice.

*or rich, depending on your status, but I'd remind you I can purchase a gun so keep the fuck back.

An amazing symbiosis of user and avatar. Just out of curiosity, where would you keep your gun?

[Nikov]

Me too.  I can't imagine his reasoning for not following proper procedures.

Of course, I'm also annoyed that actions are being taken against him, while certain other leaders in recent history have done far less justified things on false pretenses with dire consequences, and have gotten away with it completely.

Authoriza­tion for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002,[1] Pub.L. 107-243, 116 Stat. 1498, enacted October 16, 2002.

You can argue it wasn't justified, on false pretenses, and with dire consequences (and we can argue for a HELL of a long time and derail this thread for no gain to either party whatsoever [thus we probably shouldn't]), but he did get Congressional approval before the action. Obama has not and he's got all of three days to do his homework. If he blows it off, the House has grounds to impeach him. I'm not sure if they should or not, but if they certainly can. A two-thirds majority in the Senate is nearly impossible to evict him from office, but the impeachment would still stand.

Really, I can't believe he was so careless about this.