'Radar anomaly' triggers airspace closure; senator warns of EMP risks amid balloon, unmanned...

This is just too cute. Everyone is now alarmed about the potential of these balloons to carry a fission/fusion device, capable of generating an Electro-Magnetic Pulse Disturbance (EMPD). I admit that it is a clever plot twist for a spy or Spec-Ops movie. However, China's economy is really rugged right now and were they to EMP us, they could very well be saying bye-bye to us buying their little bits of junk for at least 9 to 12 months. Since we actually account for north of 30% of their GDP, the civil strife and discord from widespread hunger would just about drive the last nails into the Communist Party of China's coffin. Now some will say "your numbers are wrong, the US only makes up 17-19% of their GDP". What Left-wing economists tend to forget is that the lower percentage is derived only from the percentage sold directly to the US. Quite often these economists fail to consider Chinese sales to third, fourth, or fifth party providers in non-US countries for placement in products destined for the US market. If we get EMP'd you can be 90% certain that other high level 1st world purchasers (our allies for the most part) will have significantly less to spend as well. Without US consumerism, the world is "economically speaking" a very dark place. We definitely don't do as well as we previously did without SE Asia, the African Sub-Continent, or Central and South America. China in the last 20 years has become the greatest colonial power that the world has ever seen. However those locales where Red China is in the ascendancy have such a low standard of living that they cannot possibly replace the US and the West in disposable wealth for consumer purchasing. If China's ruling elite are smarter than ours we have more to fear from our own government than we do from them in the SHORT term.