Indeed very enlightening deliberations of the two consummate minds on a subject of growing global interest. I am printing it out to take with me to my weekend vacation for a closer read. :-) But in the meantime, now that I believe I have found the masters, I'm inclined to post a question or two, maybe vaguely related to the topic of this thread: Recently, here in Chicago, I had an opportunity of meeting with some business elites at a private event. One of the gentlemen, who apparently owns a major US toy company with several factories in China said that he couldn't believe how Shanghai had changed in the last 10 years that he had been in/out of China. He argued that an average Chinese lived a much better life now than only a few years ago. I did some research afterwards on that topic but couldn't find a whole a lot that could potentially back up his claim. I am wondering what the experts' (like of ISO/Poonte dais') observations are on the area of less glamorous issues of human development in China. That is one. The gentleman also suggested that China might not suffer much even if the US stops Chinese imports. His point was that China had now identified a solid consumer base in the country itself, and was soon going to be a self-supporting economy in case of a sudden pullout of the foreign investment. So I guess my question to the experts is if that is really the case. What will happen to China if, lets say, the West stops buying the cheap Chinese goods? Is there a substance to what seems to be a rapidly inflating Chinese economy? Thanks! Echoes