re: china - in control
China already does call the shots.
A report in the Weekend Fin Review discusses how the americans have started to wage a currency war with China. The G7 announcement last week, aimed at Japan and China, only amounted to Japan being the good servant and not intervening, China just laughed in there face.
There have been calls in america for a 20% tariff on all imported Chinese goods in six months if they don't revalue the Yuan, funny if the tariffs go on and they revalue 20% in the direction the yanks don't want. (or dump the goods onto the american market)
Also, most of the US treasuries are owned by Asian countries, around 41% are own by foriegn investors. There citizens are among the largest buyers of gold, they are the largest refiner of silver in the world, they're the middle man with North Korea, they hold veto rights in the UN (and have already started backing France and Germany's calls for the withdrawal of the invasion force from Iraq (especially now they've found all those weapons)).
So lets see, they control US interest rates (the PPT has nowwhere near the amount of money the chinese have), the price of gold and silver through increasing supply to there citizens and the supply of refined Silver back to the open market(hope you bought physical, also rumour has it that there buying Gold and Silver through brokers in Australia and New Zealand), they control peace in asia, the UN (when they stand by France, Germany and Russia, and the US has made a complete mockery of themselves in the UN), base metals, and lots, lots more.
Thank god they have no natural energy resources, they still need oil, although Russia will be supplying that soon, even though they've delayed the pipline.
So who is in control, the Joker or the China-man.
oh and don't be fooled, china is the type of country america wants to be, communist/super capitalist, complete control over the people but still having a market economy. When Freddie Mac collapses in early december after they reveal they overstated earnings by around 5-6Bill - http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usatoday/20030926/bs_usatoday/11870865 the US government will have to clean up the mess and take on the mortgages (not that they can afford to).
This is the exact direction the howard governemt is taking us, unfortunately.
