New American Military Bases in Philippines

One step closer to a war.

I would suggest that there is a comparable with the US - Philippines relationship.

It’s like the woman from a poor background who decides to divorce her wealthy husband. She gets everything (money) she asks for and they go their separate ways. In time her financial situation changes and she comes back for more. Replace money with protection.

@PalawOne "U.S. forces were evicted from Subic and Clark, the last and largest of their permanent bases in the Philippines, in 1992, amid a nationalist backlash."

When that happened I hoped the US would never return here in any capacity. Nationalism feels really good but it should also have its costs like being on your own in future conflicts that cannot be predicted.

`

Agree with all of your comments, gents.

It's difficult to know what might be best.

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One step closer to a war.
-@Fred

Due to competing national interests as in time immemorial. Prepare. Deal with it. Humanity is not pacifist by nature.

I would suggest that there is a comparable with the US - Philippines relationship.
It’s like the woman from a poor background who decides to divorce her wealthy husband. She gets everything (money) she asks for and they go their separate ways. In time her financial situation changes and she comes back for more. Replace money with protection.
-@Lotus Eater

In this case, the husband pays because the wife happens to be sitting on prime real estate and he cannot afford to allow it to be taken  over by hostile forces. So the wife wants to keep the land for herself which is ok with the husband as long as he can borrow it for strategic purposes in an imminent war. The makings of a true mutual defense treaty. Win win.

One step closer to a war.
-@Fred
Due to competing national interests as in time immemorial. Prepare. Deal with it. Humanity is not pacifist by nature.
-@danfinn

In this case, cash.

The various powers are creating a new version of the cold war, but this time ideology has been replaced with cash.

The US appears to be losing ground rapidly and, like any wounded animal, it could well bite in desperation as it loses its fight for life.

BRICS, led by China, has taken a massive chunk out of the PetroDollar's domination, and even Saudi (the home of the petrodollar) is trading with China in yuan.

Brazil has just completed a massive non-Dollar deal with China, and TotalEnergy in France has started doing deals in yuan.

The Russia/Ukraine mess has scared a bunch of countries as they suddenly realised how powerful the US dollar is as a weapon, so they're starting to lower Dollar reserves in favour of other forms of payment. That particular war has also pushed Russia and China closer, and a good number of countries are joining in as they see far greater benefits in Belt and Road than they do with what is left of the Marshall Plan.

Somebody destroyed the Nord Stream pipes (I'll leave you to decide who the naughty boy was), but the upshot is the US is now selling a lot of far more expensive shale gas to countries who used to be able to buy at far cheaper prices from Russia.

One of the issues is China is now able to buy cheaper gas than Europe can manage, making Chinese goods even more competitive than before.

So what’s the answer to the issue of a soon to die economy? The obvious way is to get better at capitalism, but the lazy way is to militarise as much as possible and hope people believe you about how evil the new enemy is.

On the bright side, armements dealers pay loads in campaign contributions to a whole bunch of politicians, and the shale gas industry is doing the same now they’re selling loads of their expensive gas to countries that previously bought cheaper Russian gas.

The fact this is causing massive problems for people in the UK and EU seems to have slipped by the populations there as they are told the war has caused the price rise, not sanctions decided by a third country.

When it comes to increasing foreign military power in the Philippines, we have to look at everything, not just the propaganda. One also has to look at who is on the make. I’m sure the president of the fine Asian country comes from a lovely family (who I gather might have been involved in the footwear industry as the lady of the house appeared to own a very well stocked shoe shop) is as open and honest as his parents. That means the possibility he has been heavily bribed to accept foreign forces is a non-starter.

Ho hum, we’ll have to see what happens, but the probability of an accidental war just increased.

@Fred Typical throughout the ages. Gold and silver, natural resources, sometimes religion, land, power. Nations that do not represent the interests of the governed always fail. Such is life.

@Fred BRICS may be convenient for a cluster of countries that will accept each other's secondary currencies. Why not? And after the US military pulls out of Saudi Arabia with their reserves of BRICS, they of course know the US will never sell armaments, agricultural products, appliances, cars etc. in anything other than dollars. France with its new reserves of yuan will be able to buy from China whose currency is government controlled, not free market, not transparent thus not attractive on forex. Even less attractive if they go to war with the West which would paralyze Chinese trade and crash their economy as foeugn trade us halted. You say they have gold? They will need every ounce to fund their Taiwan adventures. The Western currencies trade 6.6 trillion in $ per day, the US dollar being about 3.3 trillion and the Euro being about 1.1 trillion with the JA yen, Aus dollar and CA dollar making up the rest. Now comes the BRICS. Not trillions, maybe billions a few days per year. As an investor I will stick with the major fiats and frankly see very little threat from that basket of secondary currencies. The US has the largest BUYING economy on the world and will never pay using a basket of unstable secondary shithole currencies for actual business transactions. Even if backed in gold they have a problem. Do you know why Nixon took the US off the gold standard? Because, as the gold certificate dollar started going into Asian economies, the holders of the notes began demanding gold for their paper notes. Obviously, after a while the gold reserve would be drained and the currency would be taken out of circulation. Sober, "regular" experts tell us that, yes, BRICS will have some incremental effect but will never replace the currency of a stable superpower and currencies of the big 6 that have huge selling and buying  economies that will accept only the primary currencies preferrably dollars in the case of the largest (US). France and Saudi are playing their political games BAU but Saudi is in dangerous territory wrt national security by rejecting its defense and petrodollar agreement with the US; the prince is a bit unstable himself but is wealthy enough that his carelessness will never.afftet him personally. The petrodollar is important to the US but it is not the be all and end all. We did fine without it before 1974. The dollar will decline a bit until the US recovers its own energy dominance. Billionaire elites mostly of the liberal WEF persuasion will crater without the US printing trillions that they and their hedge funds skim from quaritatuve easing, bank bailouts , covid spending and now supposed "green" energy "investments. Fred, I believe you are over-exagerrating the influence of BRICS and the France trade deal and Saudi carelessly accepting crap currencies. Sure there is an element of truth but your estimation is way beyond reality. And I say that as someone who at heart an isolationist not defending dollar reserve status at all, who prefers to see a self sufficent US, not involved in foreign wars, not having military bases everwhere and with just a regional dollar, perhaps backed in gold and not dependent upon other countries for trade.

And as one guy sprouted 2,000 years ago and got nailed to a tree, many since, instead of spending trillions of bucks on militarizing while there are homeless and starving souls, failing infrastructure and failed health care one has to ask what the problem is, I care little race, religion  or politics and treat all equally as they should treat me, slamming huge amounts of money into world war three? Egos and bombastic A/holes that run our countries that the fools elected and their taxes support.

Happy to live in the boon docks and watch the fools paint a sad picture.

OMO.

Cheers, Steve.

I'm not so sure.

The British Empire died a death after WWI, then finally choked on its own vomit after WWII. Empires tend to meet an end, and those ends are commonly messy.

China's potential new digital currency is set to be backed by Gold, land, RREs, or anything else of actual value, and it has a fair chance of becoming the world’s common exchange unit over the next decade. It’s a gold standard on steroids.

As for Saudi, they know their time is close to an end, as evidenced by their Vision 2030.

The new push will be for RREs and Lithium, so watch out for wars, political destabilisation, and all the stuff we’ve witnessed in the middle east since the 1950s. China is firmly in control at the moment, but there’s always a new WMD or whatever to be had - After all, you can’t invade a country based on lies, can you?

The US Dollar, if memory and a rough overview serves, is used in around 60% of world trade, but a lot of countries have had a wake up call when Russia was sanctioned in such a big way. It’s bound to have scared them, and that might just be the tipping point in the equation. I give it a maximum of 10 years before we see a massive change, probably less.

The problem the US has is the Dollar is backed up by the world’s banks keeping it in reserve. If they drop the Dollar, its value falls in a big way - More so because various US administrations have been printing notes as if there was no end to the good times. China might well be the party pooper, so US military bases are now encircling their country.

As a note, the politics and other BS behind all this is not really much of a thing to anyone that isn't lining their pockets out of the mess, but expats will likely see problems.

If we're lucky enough to avoid an actual shooting war, it might well be expats held on duff charges as hostages or other such nastiness.

If a war actually happens, the US bases are likely to be a target, and that's going to seriously naff up expats all over the region.

Locals will likely be a lot worse off.

And as one guy sprouted 2,000 years ago and got nailed to a tree, many since, instead of spending trillions of bucks on militarizing while there are homeless and starving souls, failing infrastructure and failed health care one has to ask what the problem is, I care little race, religion or politics and treat all equally as they should treat me, slamming huge amounts of money into world war three? Egos and bombastic A/holes that run our countries that the fools elected and their taxes support.
Happy to live in the boon docks and watch the fools paint a sad picture.

OMO.

Cheers, Steve.
-@bigpearl

You can ignore what is going on or you can try to understand but it affects everybody the same.

@Fred If the world's banks drop the dollar all at once, its value falls in a big way due to lack of dollar demand. But where do they dump it? Rubles? BRICs? Or maybe a gold backed yuan where China promises to exchange for gold bullion on demand? And people must believe China would actually do that and CN will never again devalue they currency as they do when they need to increase their exports. The US screwed up with the dollar sanctions but then most countries have no intent to invade countries and threaten WWIII to cause sanctions to be made against them. But it was a very unwise move and will incrementally reduce the percentage of US dollars traded in forex. Oversimplifying, the resulting lack of newly printed dollars will certainly deprive hedge funds and bankers (bailouts too) and the billionaires of interest free or low interest money from which to accumulate wealth at the common man's expense.

To chose which one is the lesser of two evils, I will say US over China in the context of being allies with the Philippines. I spent a good amount of time in China in the 90s and was treated as a valued guest. I know how much fear they have with their government. Corruption is much more than you see in the Philippines. If we can do a quick poll, which would you pick?

Fred said; Bla Bla Bla

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China imports $300 billion dollars worth of chips. China's chip technology is years behind, their high grade chips are low grade compared to the world. Their chip technology is only good for auto's & appliances.

The lid is tamped down on them receiving the technology. For the real facts Google: U.S. chip controls threaten China's technology ambitions.

For the real facts Google: U.S. chip controls threaten China's technology ambitions.
-@Enzyte Bob

As the US depends on China.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202210/1276781.shtml

Trade is global and the answer is be the best, not try to limit, ban, and threaten.

For the real facts Google: U.S. chip controls threaten China's technology ambitions.
-@Enzyte Bob

*********************************************************
As the US depends on China.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202210/1276781.shtml
Trade is global and the answer is be the best, not try to limit, ban, and threaten.
-@Fred

*****************************************************

The only influence China has is with the Basket of Deplorables who shop at Walmart who will not be able to buy China's cheap, shoddy and crappy products. Hey that resembles me when living in the states.

I can't see China most advance combat ships and planes using Toaster Chips to stand up in modern warfare.

A little nation like Taiwan is more technically advanced than China.

When cherry picked information, insults, and slurs are used instead of reasoned argument. it's not worth bothering with.

Nor are you Fred, full of sh1t as per usual.

Cheers, Steve.

@PalawOne With the current political and economic crisis in the U.S. today, I don't think the government and people realize the importance of projecting military presence around the world to keep their own borders and international interests secured. It's sad but the U.S. is losing grounds militarily around the world.

Fred said . . . . When cherry picked information, insults, and slurs are used instead of reasoned argument. it's not worth bothering with.

****************************************

Reasoned arguments? How about these?

There once was a poster named Fred

Whose arguments were quite clever

He reason with cite

Sources without insight

But was never was quite right

He once had a pair of undies

Whose elastic was shot to smithereens

They would be hanging on the line

Ageing like old wine

Well, if we're down to trolling ...

@PalawOne With the current political and economic crisis in the U.S. today, I don't think the government and people realize the importance of projecting military presence around the world to keep their own borders and international interests secured. It's sad but the U.S. is losing grounds militarily around the world.

-@Aeta Tribe

I disagree. The US is projecting MILITARY power with little or nothing to stop it. After all, with a military that size and far greater war experience than any other country, who could challenge them?

Military power is a reaction to losing global financial power.

While the US was obsessed with fossil fuels, China invested heavily in renewable energy and a new generation of travel ... now they're ahead of the world in that and, more importantly, RREs, Lithium, and other strategic resources.

As I mentioned earlier, the F35 depends on Chinese controlled parts, as does pretty much every other high tech weapon the US uses.

It’s quite true the US is easily more advanced in chip tech, but China was a farming country suffering from a bad dose of communism not all that many years ago.

The Soviet union dies for a number of reason, but its massive debt, military budget, and rubbish standard of living for many of its citizens were well up there. After its war in Afghanistan failed (Remember when the Afghans  were freedom fighters instead of terrorists?), that was pretty much the end of that.

The US also has a massive national debt, a crazy military budget, and terrible poverty amongst its population. US support for Ukraine, especially the economic sanctions against Russia, worried a lot of countries who are looking for a less politicised currency to conduct transactions in. The oil sanctions have compounded that mistake as countries such as India simply gave the US the finger and bought a lot more Russian oil than ever before - It’s cheaper, so they did it. The US, realising they could do nothing about it, gave India an exception in the hope of not looking like powerless fools - they failed.

Add how fuel price rises caused by sanctions and buying more expensive US shale gas has messed up the UK and EU, and other countries with more brains are out of it. That means they buy non-Dollar.

The British empire died over around 40 years, but a letter from Singapore to London would take several weeks to arrive back then. Things move a lot faster in today’s world.

Looking at this last year or so and the differences in how international financial deals are changing, I give it a decade or so before the US has 2 choices - Start a world war in a last ditch attempt to remain the world’s most powerful nation, or withdraw back to the states.

Sadly, so far their military expansionism makes it look like the former is more likely.

@Fred I believe you are anti-american pr China sympathizer.

Based on your comment history.

sekmet, from what I have read Fred is gone, not to post on this Philippines site any more,,,,,, thank god.

Cheers, Steve.

sekmet, from what I have read Fred is gone, not to post on this Philippines site any more,,,,,, thank god.
Cheers, Steve.
-@bigpearl

I'll bet he still reads the comments and it must really torture him not to be allowed to respond 😂 Hey Fred, if you are reading this know that I do not miss your long winded anti US rants 😂

I'm not an American but I'll drink to that. Seems an educated man with a very bias view on reality. Any way I am a simple man and as said to Fred and members, rant all you like but we are powerless to change where the world is now.

Cheers, Steve.

... we are powerless to change where the world is now.
Cheers, Steve.
-@bigpearl

Does your government allow you to vote? Are you permitted to email your representatives? Can you express opinions to change people's minds? Remember, the people managing world affairs are extremely small in number; if the people objected to them in any substantial way, they would lose their power, including democracies, tyrannies and elite power centers like the WEF.

Public opinion matters. Share it. Don't be a defeatist and give up on the pretense that we can do nothing.

danfinn, While  I respect your views, reality does bite. I voted for idiots for 45 years and all are fools, those small number of fools that the populous voted for? Lie cheat and steal.

While sure public opinion matters and you can oust a government and at times a dictator though that takes longer, the point is the next fool the people vote for will be no better.

I took my name off the electoral roll 4 years ago knowing I wouldn't be back to play a part in what is simply a circus, left or right they all get booted and start again.

Look at France, up the retirement age from 62 to 64, the riots and crap going down there is B/S. Australia was always retire at 65, then many years ago the government put the age up to 67, sure there were disgruntled people but no riots or social discord, I care little as apparently after paying copious amount of tax I will never see a government pension, oops, my bad, I worked too hard.

Opinions are like noses, easy to pick but still no answer.

OMO.

Cheers, Steve.

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Bob, and others, please let go of it. I would like to request that we have some civility here. Despite the fact that Fred argued his points relentlessly, I don't believe he made personal attacks on anyone here, or distasteful comments. And he is no longer here to defend himself. The fact that we do not agree with someone's personal or political views is no justification for that type of behavior and goes against forum rules.

Bob, please let go of it. I would like to request that we have some civility here. Despite the fact that Fred argued his points relentlessly, I don't believe he made personal attacks on anyone here, or distasteful comments. The fact that we do not agree with someone's personal or political views is no justification for that behavior.
-@pnwcyclist

Suggestion: Don't take the high ground, nobody cares. I actually agree with Fred's detractors. Opinions fall into freedim of speech. Let the moderators do their job (and they apparently have).

Well I care, and that's reason enough. But thanks for your opinion.

Personal attacks are against forum rules, for good reason.

***

Hello everyone,

Please note that some off-topic posts were put aside from this thread.

We request members to refrain from posting political opinions/analysis on the forum.

Thank you in advance

Bhavna

@pnwcyclist I have not seen any actual personal attacks, my gosh, just a little bit of jest which is funny. provided we don't take life too seriously. And also some spirited debate in which one gives opinions of the others arguments ( example: "Full of sh!t"). But that is attacking an argument, not a person. Never confuse serious debate with personal ad hominem attacks.

@sekmet Don’t have Amercan influence in the Asian region and watch how fast China will take over all your pitifully armed countries. You will be speaking Chinese and looking down at there shoes. They are communists and only know one thing, too rule and take with the power they think they have. Beware don’t kick the sleeping giant!!!