I found this article to be a good read on what happens if China wins a record forty gold medals.

The Olympics: Let's root for China - MSN Money

Excerpt
"
The Olympics: Let's root for China
A strong showing by the home team in this summer's games would be good for everyone. Here's why China's gold-medal haul could affect the global economy.

By Jim Jubak

In the days after the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics begins at 8:08 p.m. Aug. 8, I'll be watching the games to root on my favorites (go, Dara Torres!), bask in the improbable, and live and die with the underdogs.

But I'll have one eye on the Chinese Olympic team and its gold-medal total. The number of golds won by the Chinese delegation of 639 athletes, the most sent by any country, could set the direction of the Chinese economy for the next year.

The magic number is 40. That would probably be enough gold medals to give China the biggest haul of any country in the Olympics. And even if it left the country slightly behind the U.S. in golds, it's enough. It would be a 25% gain from the 32 gold medals China scored at the Athens games in 2004. Anything less would be a major disappointment.
"

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As of this moment, China needs only 5 more Golds to hit that mark.

They still have a week.

Overall Medal Standings - The official website of the BEIJING 2008 Olympic Games

While I root for the Chinese team so that their economy will be more stable, I would like to see the Chinese stop being so hard on themselves. Maybe a huge metal count (not just gold) would make the Chinese psyche a bit stronger. I read an article in Time a few weeks ago about the country's shame and how the Olympics could pull the Chinese out of their century-or-longer funk. I didn't really know about the funk (though I could've guessed by some of the posts on here), but hope that if gold metals are what the Chinese need, I hope they get them.

Will golds help get more Chinese men laid? I sure don't require him to show me one.

I think it's good that China gets a lot of medals. However, I think the Chinese should spend more money on promoting physical fitness and well being amongst its everyday, average citizens. Most Chinese ppl have really bad physique and fitness, and I think that does more to down-grade its national image than the olympics would upgrade it.

And in the interest of promoting better health and fitness, the Chinese could begin by doing something about the rampant smoking habit. Smoking has become so much a part of the everyday social practices in China that it is customary for Chinese people to offer cigarettes as an act of meet and greet and to reinforce established relationships. It’s not perfect, but one Chinese company has taken a major step toward addressing the smoking problem with the e-cig.

Fuck whatever you read about China in a Times article or any other Western media outlet.


It doesn't actually matter what China wins. People are going to think whatever they want to think about China regardless of how many medals they win. If China wins the most medals, people will just think it's only because they have 1.3 billion people or the government grows athletes. If China doesn't win the most medals people will think China sucks because they have 1.3 billion people and can't even win the most medals on their home turf.

That's due to the sheer ignorance and stupidity on the part of those reporting for the media outlets as much as pure malice.

Anyone here recall the commentaries by that fuckwit commentator on NBC during the opening ceremonies where he said that the Silk Road was established during the Tang Dynasty ( actually it was first established back in the Han Dynasty seven centuries earlier) and referred to Tai Chi as a form of "Karate"?

Wanna know something scarier than hell? The retarded asshole who made those dumbfuck comments was touted as being an expert on Chinese history.

Remember that the next time you're tempted to without question swallow the shit being fed to you by the MSM.

Some is stupidity, some is malice, but alot of it comes from our inability to see things as China would. Let me explain.

Here in the U.S. most of our economic and political policies affect the present or near future. On the other hand, most of China's policy decisions are set in place with the future in mind, and by future I mean 10 years minimum. So when Western analysts try to figure out what is going on in China, they usually get baffled as many of China's decisions seemingly don't make sense, because we view them through our lense of instant gratification.

This article is all fine and good speculation, but I'd be more surprised if China didn't know what it's direction would be post-olympics before they submitted their bid to host them in Beijing.

I don't think we're going to see bubble economies in China like most of the rest of Asia even with their economy heating up right now. In all actuality, just because the economic boom is occuring rapidly, doesn't mean the bottom is going to fall out. China is huge and has an even huger pool of human labor. It can support the economic growth.

As for inflation in China, I'm more apt to put it's blame on China's long-term economic policy of pegging the yaun to the dollar. Which was a genius move, cept they didn't forsee for the incrediable defecit spending of Bush, and so they have had to let the yaun-dollar peg relax a bit. Considering that the dollar inflated at 5.6% in July, this is about where I would expect China's inflation rate to be at .

Overall I think the notion that somehow China's economic and political morale is tied up in how many gold medals they win