Justin Stuart
Elite Veteran
Location: Plano, Texas
My Posts This: Topic Forum | | Quote |
| I think they have realised the way to become dominant is through commerce and not bombs and bullets.
|
In 1952 when Japan was allowed to regain its indepedence (following post WWII US occupation) and draft a new constitution, one of the articles specifically stated that "Japan shall have no standing army nor be permitted to wage war." It didn't take the Japanese long to overtake the US car market, and soon do the same in every other market. Such rapid progress makes sense. During the last 60 or so years, Japan has spent approximately 0% of its tax income on defense. By contrast, the United States spends roughly 21% of its tax revenue on defense. This equates to about $500 billion dollars a year or about 5% of of the US GDP. US defense spending is approximately 8x that of China.
Could you image what kind of progress the US and GB could have achieved in the last 8 years if we had taken all of the money spent on the war in Iraq and invested it in paying US researchers to develop new technologies which would allow us to gain energy independence? Then we wouldn't be spending all of our money either buying foreign oil or fighting wars so that we can buy more foreign oil.
Just go to any university and look at the PhD programs. The majority of students there are from foreign countries. Japan, China, and now India. Why is this? Because the majority of people from these countries are tired of living in poverty and are willing to fight tooth and nail to climb their way up the socioeconomic ladder. The west has enjoyed a free ride for such a long time that the kids these days no longer find it necessary to learn math or science. They would rather devote their time to learning how to play basketball or practice rap music. The US scientists who guided multistage rockets to the moon using graph paper and slide rules do not exists anymore in the West.
A company who's sole design team consist of Bob Bice and Tim Schoonard will never compete with Align whose design team consists of countless engineers who at 9 years old, while US children were playing Nintendo, were learning how to do CAD design.
They've got us beat, and during the next 20 years China will consume the last remaining vestages of our decadent Western supremacy by buying up our debt to finance our purchase of foreign oil. But the time will come when this debt will become due, and then we'll be lucky to be shopkeepers. I think instead we will be the ones in the factories making low quality swashplates and speaking Chinese.
Now, when can I order my 700G?
MinAir Spectra-G
Trex 450Pro V-bar /Scorpion /JR
Wally Motors//DL Canopies |
