No war with Iran? LETS FIGHT CHINA

[East Coast Hustle]

I wouldn't want the germs that can survive in Tucson.

[Reginald Ret]

Your avatar lady is giving me douche chills.

It got ME all hot & bothered.

You're SICK, Mister. 

How's everything? You've been kind of scarce. Holidays rocking, I hope!

I've been sick.  So I took to my sick bed, and played Civ5 and read Eric Flint novels until my immune system drove out the horrible chest cold thingie.

Civ5? Fucking horrible game. It is doing horrible things to my weekends. And evenings. And nights. And uhm, i need to get up in about 5 hours, I just need to get the "I beat Civ5 without it crashing" headrush out of my system. I finally figured out the settings that don't turn it into a Blue Screen Error Bingo game.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Your avatar lady is giving me douche chills.

It got ME all hot & bothered.

You're SICK, Mister. 

How's everything? You've been kind of scarce. Holidays rocking, I hope!

I've been sick.  So I took to my sick bed, and played Civ5 and read Eric Flint novels until my immune system drove out the horrible chest cold thingie.

Civ5? Fucking horrible game. It is doing horrible things to my weekends. And evenings. And nights. And uhm, i need to get up in about 5 hours, I just need to get the "I beat Civ5 without it crashing" headrush out of my system. I finally figured out the settings that don't turn it into a Blue Screen Error Bingo game.

You can nuke your own cities, you know.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I wouldn't want the germs that can survive in Tucson.

Survive?  They drag you into an alley and beat the shit out of you.  The police do nothing, because they're too busy scrunching their eyes shut in their squad cars and trying desperately to not shit themselves.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Is every day Black Friday in Tucson?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Is every day Black Friday in Tucson?

No, it's too hot to get that excited.

[Reginald Ret]

Your avatar lady is giving me douche chills.

It got ME all hot & bothered.

You're SICK, Mister. 

How's everything? You've been kind of scarce. Holidays rocking, I hope!

I've been sick.  So I took to my sick bed, and played Civ5 and read Eric Flint novels until my immune system drove out the horrible chest cold thingie.

Civ5? Fucking horrible game. It is doing horrible things to my weekends. And evenings. And nights. And uhm, i need to get up in about 5 hours, I just need to get the "I beat Civ5 without it crashing" headrush out of my system. I finally figured out the settings that don't turn it into a Blue Screen Error Bingo game.

You can nuke your own cities, you know.

Hmm, I'll have to try that.
I did declare war with no other reason than 'I was bored'.
The declaration came in the form of nukes on his everything.
Then i sent my soldiers into the nuclear wasteland to slaughter the last few survivors in his cities.
Surrender was not acceptable. One nuke was badly aimed and pissed off a city state so i made peace with them and bribed them into liking me again. Those people are weird, they get nuked and just get over it for a little bit of money.

[Payne]

Your avatar lady is giving me douche chills.

It got ME all hot & bothered.

You're SICK, Mister. 

How's everything? You've been kind of scarce. Holidays rocking, I hope!

I've been sick.  So I took to my sick bed, and played Civ5 and read Eric Flint novels until my immune system drove out the horrible chest cold thingie.

Civ5? Fucking horrible game. It is doing horrible things to my weekends. And evenings. And nights. And uhm, i need to get up in about 5 hours, I just need to get the "I beat Civ5 without it crashing" headrush out of my system. I finally figured out the settings that don't turn it into a Blue Screen Error Bingo game.

You can nuke your own cities, you know.

Hmm, I'll have to try that.
I did declare war with no other reason than 'I was bored'.
The declaration came in the form of nukes on his everything.
Then i sent my soldiers into the nuclear wasteland to slaughter the last few survivors in his cities.
Surrender was not acceptable. One nuke was badly aimed and pissed off a city state so i made peace with them and bribed them into liking me again. Those people are weird, they get nuked and just get over it for a little bit of money.

"Japan".

Except they haven't really forgiven us... Just as your city state is waiting for it's opportunity.

[Reginald Ret]

Your avatar lady is giving me douche chills.

It got ME all hot & bothered.

You're SICK, Mister. 

How's everything? You've been kind of scarce. Holidays rocking, I hope!

I've been sick.  So I took to my sick bed, and played Civ5 and read Eric Flint novels until my immune system drove out the horrible chest cold thingie.

Civ5? Fucking horrible game. It is doing horrible things to my weekends. And evenings. And nights. And uhm, i need to get up in about 5 hours, I just need to get the "I beat Civ5 without it crashing" headrush out of my system. I finally figured out the settings that don't turn it into a Blue Screen Error Bingo game.

You can nuke your own cities, you know.

Hmm, I'll have to try that.
I did declare war with no other reason than 'I was bored'.
The declaration came in the form of nukes on his everything.
Then i sent my soldiers into the nuclear wasteland to slaughter the last few survivors in his cities.
Surrender was not acceptable. One nuke was badly aimed and pissed off a city state so i made peace with them and bribed them into liking me again. Those people are weird, they get nuked and just get over it for a little bit of money.

"Japan".

Except they haven't really forgiven us... Just as your city state is waiting for it's opportunity.

It is a good thing i quit while i was ahead then, i had no more nukes and all what was left of my army was wandering around a radioactive wasteland.

[Cain]

>And we know how much value Asian societies put on face.

This seems flawed. Sure, there is "face" at stake, but in the all-in-all, there is also, oh, I dunno, their whole fucking economy.

wonder what percent of their manufacturing sector would collapse if we decided to say fuck it and engage a full embargo on them tomorrow. China would go from a "almost relevant" to "shit tier" nation over night...

Their whole fucking economy is going to be totalled by increasing tensions in the East China Sea?  What?

And while we're playing speculative games that have virtually nothing to do with the topic at hand, I wonder what would happen if China stopped lending money to the USA?

"During a sudden stop, the US interest rate would jump from 2.9 percent in 2014 to 5.5 percent in 2015," write Timothy J. Kehoe, Kim J. Ruhl, and Joseph B. Steinberg," authors of the report.  "A sudden stop would cause a sharp contraction in construction output and employment, even more severe than during the collapse of the recent US boom."

Worse, the negative consequences wouldn't stop with construction. They would spread to the largest sector of the US economy, consumption, as household real incomes will fall. "U.S households would suffer a real income loss of $330 billion (1992 USD), 5.2 percent of 1992 U.S. GDP, compared with a scenario in which the saving glut had never occurred. That is, the total cost of disorderly sudden stop would be 16.1 percent of 1992 U.S GDP, or over $1 trillion ($689 billion plus $330 billion)."

[Cain]

China wouldn't be allowed to call in the debt. One main reason our debt is so large right now is because so many countries wouldn't think twice about lending to us for the simple fact that we always pay our debts back, with interest, on time.

That's cute and, in theory, correct insofar as the US has not defaulted so far.

The actual reason is that investors are irrational and dumb, always looking for a quick way to make a buck, and a nuclear power is not going anywhere anytime soon.  You can easily be a deadbeat with nuclear weapons, as Russia and Pakistan have proven. 

There's also the whole "global reserve currency" thing.  You know, the means by which the US gets cheaper loans than other states, and gives it a comparative advantage worth in excess of $100 billion per year.