"The End of Arrogance"

[Starglider]

Bit late responding but this idiocy caught my eye;

US external debt is $10.45 trillion compared to $13.8 trillion GDP. In comparison UK with a GDP of $2.7 trillion has an external debt equal to that of US or $10.45 trillion, Germany with a GDP of $3.32 trillion has a debt of $4.489 trillion, France with a GDP of $2.56 trillion has a debt of $4.396 trillion.

If you'd bothered to put even a trivial amount of thought into what you were typing, perhaps you'd have noticed that the UK having a public debt over four times its GDP is an insane notion. The actual UK public debt is £614.4 billion, which is 43.2 per cent of our GDP and roughly $1.09 trillion (as of March 2008, according to the Office of National Statistics). I don't have the data to hand but I'm pretty sure your figures for France and Germany are bullshit too - for one thing the CIA world factbook shows them at 64.7% and 66.8% of GDP. The US public debt is much higher than the developed nation average even going by percentages, and that's without considering the composition of the economy.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Wall Street is not the entire service sector. And no indication that it, as a whole, is gone.

No, and indeed, it doesn't have to. To bring an economy down, you only need to blow up the finance sector. The rest will follow.

In other words Social Security, pensions etc. That is a huge problem and one which most developed countries will face as will China in the future. But this is not external debt.

External or not, that is debt that needs servicing, probably even more so for the national matters of caring for the retired, unwell and less fortunate in society. It is glossed over, sadly, because people bring up the dreaded socialism idea again which Americans loathe.

China also imports half of it's oil. Will it's economy be affected by the rising cost of energy? How is having resources closer not relevant? Transportation costs are lower, infrastructure is cheaper, you can protect it more easily.

China has a trillion bucks of trade surplus to use for that. The prices will rise for everyone, only for the US it will be a bigger problem than elsewhere. Of course no one gets off an ailing economy, as with nuclear war, it is a matter of who is less fucked over by it.

US accounts for 42% of Venezuelan exports while China accounts for 3.1%. In imports US accounts 26% while China accounts for 6%. While many countries have had their production flat the consumption in US also hasn't increased significantly over the past decades. Unlike Chinas. Where exactly will China find these new untapped resources that US cannot?

I said winning contracts, I didn't say they had gotten the majority. And China has the advantage of geography in this respect, as well as the bonus of better trade relations with its surplus. The Saudis have already stated they are pissed at America for urging more oil be pumped, something which has led to OPEC being left in tatters. With the major energy finds being further away from the States, and the Chinese and rest of Asia taking priority in many deliveries this summer, it is clear who is going to have to try harder to stay in the game in the future. Remember, a bidding war is not something you want to get into here, and with the US needing VLCCs to deliver that oil, while China can use pipelines as well, it becomes a very tight market.

I didn't say they will be using Iraq and Afghanistan as staging points for an invasion merely that they can influence the region through it. Russians are commodity exporters which means all other commodity exporters are basically rivals to them. I won't debate the morality of going to war in Iraq and of course loss of every single life is regrettable but 4000 soldiers in 5 years is not that much nor is $3 trillion if the reward for sucessfully dominating Iraq is influence over the entire region.

Nor did I mean to imply they would be staging posts for invasion. They are, however, not going to change the balance of power either. Additionally, I don't see how they've reigned in Iraq yet, to say nothing of the ME, which will forever be chaos as far as I can see. The US is increasingly seen as a waning power and laughing stock thanks to these conflicts. It's only a matter of time before the public over there gets to breaking point and forces a pull out, which removes any advantages - if any - being over there offered.

Which reserve currency is that and what other nations can replace US market as a destination for Chinese exports? Secondly the dollar is currently recovering from his low.

The ruble has been considered along with the euro, though the recent euro problems leave the second option there a little less enticing. A basket of currencies could be used, as has been talked about with oil trading, but that needs to be decided on with even more debate. While the dollar has shown an increase lately, this is seen as a temporary blip thanks to the bailouts and rescue plans talked about recently, among other things (commodities have been quite volatile too). The overall trend is down, and the US economic problems now won't help that if they push the printing presses flat out. Being one holding the bag last is not in anyone's interests regarding T-bills and US bonds etc. that could lose all sense of value with Bernanke's helicopter drops.

[AdmiralKanos]

OK, let's try an example: suppose I issue a paper that says "If I grow to a height of ten feet tall by my fiftieth birthday, you will get a billion dollars". Now let's also suppose that many investors are remarkably stupid, and actually believe me. Let us further suppose that those investors are '"savvy", which on Wall Street means that they don't invest their own money. No, they invest other peoples' money, either by borrowing from lenders or convincing people that it's a great investment.

Now suppose that people start fighting over this piece of paper, and cause its value to skyrocket. Have I created wealth? According to Kane Starkiller, I have, and it's not imaginary. Even though it's based on a completely imaginary premise, it is not imaginary according to his criteria; it is just as tangible as a business which makes fifty thousand widgets a day or a huge copper mine.

But what happens if someone starts to question my ability to grow to a height of ten feet? Or if someone starts to question whether I can actually come up with a billion dollars on my fiftieth birthday, assuming I do in fact grow to this spectacular height? Then the whole house of cards comes tumbling down, but guess what: I still get to walk away with a lot of money, as did any of the investors who bought into this scam but got out in time. According to Kane Starkiller, I created wealth for the nation by doing this, and so did all of those speculators.

[NecronLord]

He seems to be unable to differentiate between becoming wealthy and creating wealth in the economy as a whole which is - as anyone who's not a wall street bonobo could tell - what we're talking about. The Great Train Robbers got wealthy, but I don't think anyone would call train robbery a wealth generator.

[Admiral Valdemar]

That is basically the foundation of all these problems. As Ilargi put it over at TOD.com today:

Let me put this as simple as I can: For any deal -perhaps bet is a better word here- to be finalized, the buyer -loser- will have to be able to pay up. If not, then what? This is called counterparty risk.

Say you go to the racetrack and put a bet on a horse. Your bookie allows you (he knows you got some cash) to take that ticket and use it as collateral for a bet on the next race, without knowing the outcome of the first. Rinse and repeat. You place a thousand bets. You're now in over your head, but your bookie doesn't realize that. Plus, it works like a shine as long as your horses win, which they do for a while. So did Charles Ponzi. But...

And that's by no means the entire story. Your buddies want in on the free manna from heaven deal. So you sell them the risk on the risk on the risk on the risk of all your layered and leveraged bets (they, too, know you got some cash). They then take the tickets to the bookies' window as collateral for another bet. Again, rinse and repeat. And they too have friends who want in. Rinse and repeat.

This is how this scheme got to be as big as a quadrillion dollars. This is also why the consequences of the by now inevitable losses will be far more severe than you understand.

Just imagine that you, the first one to place a bet, see your first horse lose, or even just your thousandth, and follow the chain of friends and events from there. The essence is that risk has been used to collateralize risk, which only works on the way up.

Yes, there is a standard procedure to handle these events. The bookie volunteers to redesign your kneecaps.

[Kane Starkiller]

It is remarkably obtuse to respond to a thread saying "our society's method of measuring wealth has become meaningless" by appealing to the way our society does things.

Actually the OP article stated that specifically US is loosing it's economic dominance specifically to Asia. Since Asia, and more specifically, China experienced the huge economic growth precisely by emulating US capitalism the OP was obviously not about societies measure of wealth in general being meaningless.

The validity of this statement is highly dependent upon circumstances. Water is also available in enormous quantities.

It was an analogy. And it doesn't change the fact we attributing enormous value, as in millions of dollars, to a small chunk of diamond is no less arbitrary than attributing it to the latest escapade of Paris Hilton.

This conclusion does not follow at all from your previous statement. How do you equate demand pricing for tangible assets to arbitrary valuation of intangible assets?

What is equal is arbitrary value assigned to them. Again Paris Hilton's latest haircut is no less deserving of earning her millions of dollars through a magazine interview than small diamond on a ring.

Depends on how you define "wealthy". If much of your wealth is based strictly on speculation, it can vanish overnight, as happened in Japan two decades ago and as is happening today in America.

If you sell steel and energy prices go up your wealth can also disappear.

If you'd bothered to put even a trivial amount of thought into what you were typing, perhaps you'd have noticed that the UK having a public debt over four times its GDP is an insane notion. The actual UK public debt is £614.4 billion, which is 43.2 per cent of our GDP and roughly $1.09 trillion (as of March 2008, according to the Office of National Statistics). I don't have the data to hand but I'm pretty sure your figures for France and Germany are bullshit too - for one thing the CIA world factbook shows them at 64.7% and 66.8% of GDP. The US public debt is much higher than the developed nation average even going by percentages, and that's without considering the composition of the economy.

Hint: look up "external debt".

No, and indeed, it doesn't have to. To bring an economy down, you only need to blow up the finance sector. The rest will follow.

Well whether the whole thing will go down remains to be seen.

China has a trillion bucks of trade surplus to use for that. The prices will rise for everyone, only for the US it will be a bigger problem than elsewhere. Of course no one gets off an ailing economy, as with nuclear war, it is a matter of who is less fucked over by it.

What makes you think Chinese economy would be better off? If it looses it's market the profits of their factories go down. We have seen how sensitive their own stock markets are to politics in Congress these days. What makes you think their factories won't go under?

I said winning contracts, I didn't say they had gotten the majority. And China has the advantage of geography in this respect, as well as the bonus of better trade relations with its surplus. The Saudis have already stated they are pissed at America for urging more oil be pumped, something which has led to OPEC being left in tatters. With the major energy finds being further away from the States, and the Chinese and rest of Asia taking priority in many deliveries this summer, it is clear who is going to have to try harder to stay in the game in the future. Remember, a bidding war is not something you want to get into here, and with the US needing VLCCs to deliver that oil, while China can use pipelines as well, it becomes a very tight market.

But do those pipelines exist now and what is the cost of building them? AFAIK only Kazakhstan oil pipeline is operational and it accounts for something like 15% of the total consumption. Secondly if US is urging for more oil to be pumped what do you think China will do? It's need grow far faster than US.

OK, let's try an example: suppose I issue a paper that says "If I grow to a height of ten feet tall by my fiftieth birthday, you will get a billion dollars". Now let's also suppose that many investors are remarkably stupid, and actually believe me. Let us further suppose that those investors are '"savvy", which on Wall Street means that they don't invest their own money. No, they invest other peoples' money, either by borrowing from lenders or convincing people that it's a great investment.

Now suppose that people start fighting over this piece of paper, and cause its value to skyrocket. Have I created wealth? According to Kane Starkiller, I have, and it's not imaginary. Even though it's based on a completely imaginary premise, it is not imaginary according to his criteria; it is just as tangible as a business which makes fifty thousand widgets a day or a huge copper mine.

But what happens if someone starts to question my ability to grow to a height of ten feet? Or if someone starts to question whether I can actually come up with a billion dollars on my fiftieth birthday, assuming I do in fact grow to this spectacular height? Then the whole house of cards comes tumbling down, but guess what: I still get to walk away with a lot of money, as did any of the investors who bought into this scam but got out in time. According to Kane Starkiller, I created wealth for the nation by doing this, and so did all of those speculators.

It is not my criteria. It is the criteria of the society. And you can use that money to buy a house, a car, a plane etc. In other words tangible things. Again I was responding to the OP article which stated that current crisis will result in economic dominance shifting from US and to Asia. Since Asia follows the exact same economic laws as US this example of yours is pointless.

Again it was not my intention to defend the people in Wall Street or the economic system which allows people to make millions of dollars by buying stocks and then reselling them tomorrow for a higher price while doing no real work which happens in Shanghai as well as New York. I was responding specifically to the notion that current crisis means the end of US economic dominance.

[Kanastrous]

I think a diamond has more practical utility, than does Paris Hilton. Depending upon size and clarity, or course.

[Admiral Valdemar]

What makes you think Chinese economy would be better off? If it looses it's market the profits of their factories go down. We have seen how sensitive their own stock markets are to politics in Congress these days. What makes you think their factories won't go under?

They have the infrastructure in place to start anew after a crash. The same cannot be said of the US or many other First World nations today. After '29 and WWII, the US had a huge trade surplus, no debt, was exporting energy and most manufactured goods in the world. It's the reverse today.

The fact is, China is better able to weather this storm. It will be hit by it, but it will not be sunk. Americans have zero savings and very little to offer a world that isn't awash in money.

It's "lose", by the way.

But do those pipelines exist now and what is the cost of building them? AFAIK only Kazakhstan oil pipeline is operational and it accounts for something like 15% of the total consumption. Secondly if US is urging for more oil to be pumped what do you think China will do? It's need grow far faster than US.

Pipelines are far more useful than tankers in the long run, and given China's ability to produce large engineering works in short time, any such project would be a doddle compared to how other nations would go about it. In any case, as I have stated, growth is not what the Chinese should be worrying about. They've overheated their economy with such insane growth, they need only maintain some semblance of industry and wealth for the people (or rather, redistribute it better) and batten down the hatches. The Chinese have no problems in convincing people to send more stuff their way when it comes to market, which was my point.

On top of that, China doesn't have the horrible bureaucracy of the US, for instance, which impedes any mega-projects like nuclear power plants or other public works. At least the Party's ruthlessness brings about some benefits for the masses, unlike the US administration today screwing anyone who isn't super rich quite royally.

[NecronLord]

I think a diamond has more practical utility, than does Paris Hilton. Depending upon size and clarity, or course.

And this is how value is subjective. Paris Hilton can provide useful, practical services. A diamond just looks pretty (well, it has industrial use too, but that's clearly not what you're talking about).

[Kanastrous]

I think a diamond has more practical utility, than does Paris Hilton. Depending upon size and clarity, or course.

And this is how value is subjective. Paris Hilton can provide useful, practical services. A diamond just looks pretty (well, it has industrial use too, but that's clearly not what you're talking about).

I was thinking about diamond's industrial applications. And its scientific applications, too.

What useful, practical service, does Paris Hilton provide (aside from the 'services' that any female person, or any other human being is able to provide)?

[NecronLord]

I think a diamond has more practical utility, than does Paris Hilton. Depending upon size and clarity, or course.

I was thinking about diamond's industrial applications.

Huh. Those cutting diamonds are really chosen for their claity eh?

And its scientific applications, too.

What useful, practical service, does Paris Hilton provide (aside from the 'services' that any female person, or any other human being is able to provide)?

Saying that such uses are commonly available doesn't mean one can't place greater value on them than on a shiny.

[Kane Starkiller]

OK are any of you guys working for the CIA? Because just as I was debating this World Factbook updated US external debt from 10.45 trillion to 12.25 trillion and industrial growth was changed from +0.5% to -1.7%. Chinas economy was updated from 6.999 trillion to 7.099 trillion and growth from 11.4% to 11.9%
I'll take this a sign and bow out from the debate for now. See how it turns out.

[Starglider]

Hint: look up "external debt".

You do realise that it makes absolutely no sense to talk about gross external debt? I mentally corrected it to 'public debt' when you started talking about raising taxes to 100% to pay it off, which is nonsensical for private debt. Most nations with strong finance industries will have a large gross external debt, simply through having investment banks that accept deposits from oversees (which they then reinvest globally). The UK's external debt is unusually large simply because it has an unusually strong finance sector for its size - UK registered entities also own an unusually large amount of global assets, with the net effect for the economy just being what's skimmed off in management fees. .

[Kanastrous]

Huh. Those cutting diamonds are really chosen for their claity eh?

I was thinking more of applications like sensor windows for space probes and military surveillance equipment, where clarity counts. Obviously bort diamonds are a different grade entirely.

What useful, practical service, does Paris Hilton provide (aside from the 'services' that any female person, or any other human being is able to provide)?

Saying that such uses are commonly available doesn't mean one can't place greater value on them than on a shiny.

Well, what *are* those useful, practical services, that she provides?

[Admiral Valdemar]

OK are any of you guys working for the CIA? Because just as I was debating this World Factbook updated US external debt from 10.45 trillion to 12.25 trillion and industrial growth was changed from +0.5% to -1.7%. Chinas economy was updated from 6.999 trillion to 7.099 trillion and growth from 11.4% to 11.9%
I'll take this a sign and bow out from the debate for now. See how it turns out.

FM² added to that, no doubt, and that figure will only get larger as more and more banks and other financial institutions are bailed out by the government. At least until they run out of money (well, they never can, but you know what I mean).

[Big Orange]

The reckless, unnecessary cutting down of manufacturing for the sake of generating profit for a minority of temporary managers and shareholders, as mentioned by Wong, is unfetted Neoliberalism in practice, and it has slowly been impoverishing most of America and Britain in recent decades (but hey mobile phones and TVs are slightly cheaper ). In the UK it is pretty dumbshit that our nuclear power is mostly under the control of a French energy corporation, that we the public likely have to pay more for it through inflated taxes (since big business moved in on our utilities in the 80s), while a company like Cadbury-Schweppes decided to pack up factories and export them to Poland when Britain has much of it's manual work taken up by Eastern European immigrants (while also not thinking about the negative trickle down effects on the local economy after closing down the plant and having the extra cost of fuel for importing from an overseas factory).

America had a deep financial crash in the 1930s similar to today's, but at least it had a much bigger manufacturing base and more fossil fuels then get over it, a luxury not afforded to it now. All thanks to the Chicago Boys who couldn't think forward more than six months without their brains melting.

[Darth Wong]

The validity of this statement is highly dependent upon circumstances. Water is also available in enormous quantities.

It was an analogy. And it doesn't change the fact we attributing enormous value, as in millions of dollars, to a small chunk of diamond is no less arbitrary than attributing it to the latest escapade of Paris Hilton.

What makes you so sure of that? Diamonds have certain physical attributes which make them valued, not just now but over the long term. You can bullshit about how their value is no less ephemeral than that of Paris Hilton's celebrity status, but I will take something that has consistently retained significant value for the last four thousand years over the latest flash in the pan. That's the problem with ephemeral "value" which you never addressed: it is the kind of "value" which can literally disappear overnight. It is far less stable.

Depends on how you define "wealthy". If much of your wealth is based strictly on speculation, it can vanish overnight, as happened in Japan two decades ago and as is happening today in America.

If you sell steel and energy prices go up your wealth can also disappear.

Again, you happily gloss over the difference in stability with this convenient black/white fallacy.

[Ryan Thunder]

What if we gradually changed to energy as currency? A joule is a joule, and you can't make up energy out of nothing.

There we have it. No bloody inflation, and you can't bubble it.

Granted there is the issue of inefficiencies in storage mediums, but what's a joule here and there?

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

The technocrats of the 20s-30s did come up with an economic system that used energy as a form of currency. Sort of. They called it Energy Accounting. M. King Hubbert, Howard Scott, et al were instrumental in the development of the system and its theory of energy determinants. It was actually a major competitor of the New Deal, but it's apolitical nature did them in.

They wanted to base the system on an objective physical measure of production and consumption power--a resource based energy economy where items "price" would reflect the actual physical variables and correspond to the total real physical production capacity.

They wanted this system also in part because of what you said: it would be non-savable, non-transferable, resistant to inflation, etc. They actually did propose a system of measurement based on joules, ergs, etc.

Economists basically said the engineers should shut the fuck up and stick to building things.

[Crayz9000]

Economists basically said the engineers should shut the fuck up and stick to building things.

Or, in other words, they couldn't stomach the possibility of an economy based on reality and instead wanted to be content with cooking their books in ivory towers.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

In a roundabout way, yea. It was wildly unpopular with economists, but perhaps because the members of Technocracy had an outward disdain for economists and businessmen. A lot of their attitudes stemmed from the engineering progressives and Veblen.

It was a fascinating idea. Unfortunately, Scott himself wasn't an official engineer. He was more akin to a self-styled figure or an Edison-type, so the media, economists used that on top of them not being economists to ad hominem the organization and ignore their actual engineers just by association. The organization slowly began to associate it's public image with that of Scott, however, and he wasn't very good at PR, often alienated the public and business (He once said that if businessmen and economists didn't go along with the plan, they would get a bayonet up their asses. So that probably didn't endear them to him).

But the movement did attract quite a sizable number of respectable figures and scientists. E.g. Fred Ackerman, Dal Hitchcock, Hubbert, Rautenstrauch (he was the head of Columbia University's first Indust. Engineering programme). There's an amazing philosophical heritage behind the whole idea.

It's a rather tragic story how close they came, but then died out. They refused to take their ideas and make them political. They wouldn't allow politicians into their group, they wouldn't run for office. They were content with just sitting back, educating the population, and waiting for the system to crash, eventually. In some ways, their original members predicated issues of Peak Oil, resource mismanagement, etc, but they were largely ignored by the economists of the period.

There is still a very small number of them still in existence with a core group of engineers promoting the idea. It's largely confined to the Pacific Northwest in the US and Canada. But they are so old that they aren't going to last much longer. Their ideas might get new life in new organizations like SEA, though, which have a lot in common.

[NecronLord]

The technocrats of the 20s-30s did come up with an economic system that used energy as a form of currency. Sort of. They called it Energy Accounting. M. King Hubbert, Howard Scott, et al were instrumental in the development of the system and its theory of energy determinants. It was actually a major competitor of the New Deal, but it's apolitical nature did them in.

They wanted to base the system on an objective physical measure of production and consumption power--a resource based energy economy where items "price" would reflect the actual physical variables and correspond to the total real physical production capacity.

They wanted this system also in part because of what you said: it would be non-savable, non-transferable, resistant to inflation, etc. They actually did propose a system of measurement based on joules, ergs, etc.

Economists basically said the engineers should shut the fuck up and stick to building things.

The problem with this, is a lot of people do useful things, say, most of the service sector, that don't actually produce anything easily measurable in joules. Are these services completely worthless? Of course not. But the means of pricing them in a technate is essentially arbitary or hokum-pseudoscience. As soon as you divorce your kilojoule-dollars from actual energy that can be measured, it has become an ordinary currency, that's just pricing things in a freaky way.

Of course, the actual plan of the 'technate' was to give everyone equal energy credits. Which is basically a command economy. And eveything is assumed to work in a nice clockwork command economy, because it's 'scientific'. Which tends not to work so well (the counter is that capitalism doesn't work so well, but I don't see why the default assumption should be that a technate's ruling 'meritocracy' would actually work any better than say, communist government - especially given the Leader's love of saying things like 'Bayonets will line up those who wilfully refuse to join the movement.' can we say 'Would Be American Stalin'?), even with the best of intentions.

[Kane Starkiller]

What makes you so sure of that? Diamonds have certain physical attributes which make them valued, not just now but over the long term. You can bullshit about how their value is no less ephemeral than that of Paris Hilton's celebrity status, but I will take something that has consistently retained significant value for the last four thousand years over the latest flash in the pan. That's the problem with ephemeral "value" which you never addressed: it is the kind of "value" which can literally disappear overnight. It is far less stable.

In other words we have been worshiping shiny stones far longer than shiny celebrities and therefore that worship is far more ingrained into the society. Fair enough that certainly makes investing in diamonds more secure than investing in the latest "trend setter" girl. But again, it doesn't make their values any more or less arbitrary which was my point.
In fact your decision to choose diamonds over Paris is based strictly on speculation: that diamonds will continue to be as stable as they have been over the past millennia and Paris will not.

[NecronLord]

In other words we have been worshiping shiny stones far longer than shiny celebrities and therefore that worship is far more ingrained into the society. Fair enough that certainly makes investing in diamonds more secure than investing in the latest "trend setter" girl. But again, it doesn't make their values any more or less arbitrary which was my point.
In fact your decision to choose diamonds over Paris is based strictly on speculation: that diamonds will continue to be as stable as they have been over the past millennia and Paris will not.

A highly reasonable assumption. Diamonds do not age. Paris Hilton will.

My statement that such a person can be assumed to have higher value is entirely dependant on not being able to trade either commodity on - in which case, Paris Hilton can be used, with some minimum training for any number of things that don't require particular intelligence or skill, wheras a diamond has no great value to me, beyond being cool. If, on the other hand, one can sell the diamond and for example hire someone else to do the same jobs, or market Paris Hilton to reality TV shows to make a steady revenue stream, then the situation becomes more complex.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The technocrats of the 20s-30s did come up with an economic system that used energy as a form of currency. Sort of. They called it Energy Accounting. M. King Hubbert, Howard Scott, et al were instrumental in the development of the system and its theory of energy determinants. It was actually a major competitor of the New Deal, but it's apolitical nature did them in.

They wanted to base the system on an objective physical measure of production and consumption power--a resource based energy economy where items "price" would reflect the actual physical variables and correspond to the total real physical production capacity.

They wanted this system also in part because of what you said: it would be non-savable, non-transferable, resistant to inflation, etc. They actually did propose a system of measurement based on joules, ergs, etc.

Economists basically said the engineers should shut the fuck up and stick to building things.

How I wish this had become reality. One wonders how different our world would be today. I can only imagine this system to be similar to that of the RTS Total Annihilation.