
Originally Posted by
Adam Strange
I'm not sure buying up Canada's oil resources is such a great idea at this point. If the oil companies thought that the reserves were worth a lot, they'd have never sold them off. The world has an oil glut right now. In the latest US govt lease sales, almost no one bid. Evidently, the carbon energy companies have realized they have enough reserves for the foreseeable future. In fact, their proven reserves are sufficient to turn this planet into Venus and end all life more complex than anaerobic bacteria if they are burned. So, I would say that the Chinese are mercantilists rather than capitalists, especially because they are buying up land for crops in foreign countries. This is not a durable strategy, if push comes to shove.
The last time something like this happened was in the mid 1980's, when the Japanese were popularly thought to be ready to take over the world economy as the US economy exported manufacturing jobs and started building IT jobs. The Japanese paid extremely high prices for property on Times Square, and sold it off at a terrific loss a few years later. I believe China's long-term situation is not much different.