This article is heavy on the videos. To get the full impact of the message, you need to watch all the videos in order. There are some in the audience that are much younger and have second-long attention spans. To which I suggest that you leave MM and never return. We cover long and detailed concepts there, and you acquire knowledge over time, not by sound-byte.

Watch the videos.

OK, with that being stated. We begin with a neocon war-hawk who hates China and would be happy if all 1.5 billion Chinese died. Yup. I am talking about Arkansas Senator, pencil-neck Tom Cotton.

Tom Cotton was a Congressman before he became a Senator

Arkansas’s 4th congressional district is a congressional district located in the southwestern portion of the U.S. state of Arkansas. Notable towns in the district include Camden, Hope, Hot Springs, Magnolia, Pine Bluff, and Texarkana.

His solution to help his Arkansas voters is NOT to fix the roads, the schools, the homeless, the lack of jobs, the gun violence, or the drugs.

No.

It is to attack China.

Tom Cotton moves to ban China from buying US land

Three minutes from FOX “news”.

Ah, he has this “hard on” about China. China! China! China!

Why doesn’t he concentrate on his own people in Arkansas? Well, he was elected to “do something”. Now, lets take a good hard look at what he has actually done for the good people of Arkansas…

We start with his “stong hold”. Pine Bluff, Arkansas where they LOVE him….

PINE BLUFF Arkansas

This is Arkansas. This is right in the “heart” of the area that elected this person to Congress, and then got him elected to the Senate.

This is what he represents, and has represented for the last ten years. Since 2012.

Look at how well he helped the people that elected him…

Pine Bluff 2023.

Now, do not be mistaken. Arkansas is not as good looking and as well maintained as Pine Bluff. We have to see the “bad sections” as well.

A large proportion of his electorate comes from the rural areas surrounding this major metropolis. This is how he was able to help them for the last ten years. Watch and look…

ARKANSAS: The Bleakest Towns I’ve Ever Visited – The Dying, Forgotten Delta

This is what the rural sections of Arkansas look like. It ain’t pretty.

And now let’s look at the people who live in Arkansas and voted for people like Tom Cotton. Eye opening…

Interview with an Arkansas “Redneck”

Yup. This is pretty typical of Arkansas.

So these people, living in this place, voted for this jack-ass Tom Cotton, to help them. And what does he do?

Oh he decides to risk global thermonuclear war against China! Not only is China much larger, bigger and stronger than anything that remains intact in the United States, but it does not FUCK AROUND.

Tom Cotton comes up with all sorts of ideas about CHINA, but nothing about his own people.

This is common throughout America. Do not fix the problems. Just blame other people. The further away they are from you the better! It’s the American Way, don’t you know.

Here is a good write up about California…

Do you think America is falling apart?

Not by MM. -MM

I live in a wealthy suburb on the outskirts of Silicon Valley in California; trees, flowers, birds, mostly nice neighbors of diverse backgrounds. On the surface, it seems a wonderful place to live, and in many respects, it is, however, if I look out my front window, I see this:

The electricity is distributed via overhead lines, due to an underinvestment in infrastructure: last month, I lost power for over 36 hours because it got a little windy (the world headquarters of Apple, Facebook, and Google are within a ten mile radius of my place). When I ride my bike to the local supermarket this evening, I will have to be careful not to slip on a large and growing patch of gravel on a road that hasn’t been repaired for many years: this, in one of the wealthiest parts of the wealthiest country in the world.

The above is a map of the SF Bay area, a densely populated part of California with an almost continuous ring of urban development. As you would expect, the traffic can be pretty bad, so you might expect that there would be a single circular light rail system linking the many cities around the bay; there is not: if I want to travel from my place to Fremont by rail alone, the quickest way with the most frequent service is via San Francisco. US infrastructure is truly abysmal.

Why is America in such poor shape, with its crumbling roads, crappy power distribution, and pitiful public transport systems? It is because Americans have been propagandized for decades into believing that “liberty” is the ultimate virtue, and this “liberty” is so valuable that it justifies the cost of living as a selfish asshole under a dysfunctional government. “Raise taxes to pay for public infrastructure?” “Jeez Louise; over my dead body! Taxation is theft, government is bad!” For much of the 20th century, America defined itself against the collectivist USSR, and the fatuous argument was made that since everything was under the control of the state in the USSR, the US government should do as little as possible, apart from outspending the evil Commies in national defense.

The infrastructure is just one symptom of America’s degradation: the streets of major cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles are filling up with homeless drug addicts, leaving the sidewalks littered with tents, needles, and human waste. Next to nothing is done for these people because it is seen as “their problem” that they are mentally ill, and lack access to mental health services and affordable housing. The irony is that there are so many of these people now that they have become everyone’s problem. Retailers in downtown SF are closing down their stores because the conditions in the streets are keeping paying customers away, whilst the cops barely regard shoplifting as a crime.

The only way this person lying on the ground can guarantee access to shelter and minimal medical care is to go to jail. Land of the free…

The US is run by an oligarchy of libertarian fantasists, who have spent so long sucking hallucinogenic bile from the withered teats of Ayn Rand that they have lost all contact with reality. The government is not entirely to blame for the current situation; a lot of the social problems are the result of the narcissistic counter culture that started in the 1960s, but now that these problems are getting worse, the question is, can the government continue to pretend that they don’t exist, or that there is somehow a “free market” solution to mass shootings, drug addiction, and homelessness?

Living in my little enclave, with its fragile electricity supply, and crumbling roads, it’s easy for my neighbors and I to think that things aren’t so bad, but in under an hour, I can travel to SF and see scenes exactly like the one in the last photo. Whilst people are constantly harping on about whether the Democrats or the Republicans are better or worse than each other, they are ignoring the fact that both parties have done nothing to seriously address the severe decay that is undeniably afflicting America’s social and physical fabric.

Now…

Back to Tom Cotton. A neocon that is watching the United States crumbling around his feet. And where the only battle that must be fought is at the exact opposite side of the globe.

He comes up with all sorts of ideas.

Not for Americans. No.

Ideas to “stop” China. What ever the Fuck that is supposed to mean.

Brilliant ideas such as pulling American manufacturing out of China to barely developing nations such as India…

APPLE BEGS China DUE TO SUPPLY Components constraints

So the USA media is hyping about how Apple left China.

This is what they are NOT TELLING YOU.

https://youtu.be/Yf-rjmVOWxc

Yield of Apple products in India Quality is so low that the yield rate is <50%.

Video to reference is HERE. It’s in Chinese and placed here for reference only. Not actually to watch.

Why China’s socialist economy is more efficient than capitalism

Long. Long. Long. Ugh. If you cannot handle this massive tome, skip it. Just look at the graphs and move on. It's a snoozer! Avoid unless you are really into that kind of thing. For reference only. -MM

By John Ross (Posted Jun 06, 2023)

The difficulty the U.S. faces in its current attempts to damage China’s economy was analysed in detail in the article “The U.S. is trying to persuade China to commit suicide”. Reduced to essentials, the U.S. problem is that it possesses no external economic levers powerful enough to derail China’s economy. The U.S. has attempted tariffs, technology sanctions, political provocations over Taiwan, the actual or threatened banning of companies such as Huawei and Tik Tok etc. But, as always, “the proof of the pudding is in the eating.” Taking the latest period, during the three years following the beginning of the Covid pandemic, China’s economy has grown two and a half times as fast as the U.S. and six times as fast as the E.U..

Therefore, as the previous article put it, in the economy the U.S. cannot “murder” China—even although it can create short term problems. Furthermore, unlike with Gorbachev, whose illusions in the U.S. led to a centralised political collapse of the CPSU, the disintegration of the USSR, and an historical national catastrophe for Russia, the policies of Xi Jinping and the CPC are centrally protecting China and socialism.  As the U.S. cannot pursue a course of “murder”, therefore it is forced to attempt an indirect route to get China to commit “suicide”—that is, to try to persuade China to adopt policies which will damage it.

Given that economic development underlies China’s success, one of the most central of all U.S. goals is to attempt to persuade China to adopt self-damaging economic policies. Enormous resources are therefore poured into spreading factually false propaganda regarding China’s economy. This also has the secondary goal of internationally attempting to persuade others not to learn from China’s economic success—because an understanding of the reality that China’s socialist economy is more efficient and successful than capitalism would be a devastating ideological blow to the U.S..

A crucial part of this false propaganda is to try to get accepted as “truth” claims about China’s economy which are entirely false—as basing policies on “facts” which are untrue would naturally lead to wrong policies. One of the most important of these false claims is that China’s socialist economy is “inefficient” compared to capitalism—or, more specifically, that investment in socialist China is inefficient in creating economic growth compared to capitalist America or in general compared to capitalist countries.

Naturally, socialism’s goal is not abstract economic efficiency, it is people’s well-being. But an inefficient economy, in the long term, would be incapable of maintaining the maximum well-being of the people. Therefore, how efficient an economy is constitutes an important issue in economic development. Claims that capitalism is more economically efficient than capitalism, usually put in the form of U.S. claims of the “inefficiency of socialism”, consequently has at least two purposes.

First, most immediately, to attempt to persuade China that as its investment is allegedly “inefficient” it should be reduced. As discussed in the earlier article, “The U.S. is trying to persuade China to commit suicide”, a key U.S. goal to get China to reduce its level of investment in GDP. This is because that same policy was successfully used earlier by the U.S. to derail its competitor economies of Germany, Japan and the Asian Tigers.

Second, more generally and ideologically, this claim that China’s investment is inefficient, and capitalism’s is efficient, is an attempt to undermine and discredit socialism and promote capitalism.

In summary, such propaganda is an attempt to spread two interrelated falsifications.

• First, that China’s investment is inefficient in promoting economic growth.
• Second that this “inefficiency”, which doesn’t actually exist, is due to socialism as opposed capitalism.

As will be systematically factually shown below, the exact reverse of these claims are true. Socialist China’s investment is much more efficient in creating growth than in capitalist countries such as the U.S.. As will be shown, this efficiency of China is integrally linked to the socialist character of its economy.

As usual the method will be used to use the wise Chinese dictum to “seek truth from facts”. The first section of the article will establish the facts showing the greater efficiency of China’s investment. The second section will demonstrate that the reasons for this lie in the socialist character of China’s economy.

Trends in China’s ICOR

Turning from current international comparisons to historical developments, Figure 1 shows China’s ICOR since 1966, again taking a five-year average for both GDP growth and the percentage of fixed investment in GDP in order to remove inevitable purely short-term fluctuations caused by business cycles. The starting date is taken as 1966 because that is after the end of the period of disruptions caused by the Great Leap forward.

The trends are clear.

• From 1966-76 China’s ICOR rose sharply from 2.0 to 6.5. This was a serious negative development, a more than tripling of ICOR in a 10-year period, meaning China would have had to invest more than three times as high a percentage of GDP to maintain the same economic growth rate—or that if the level of fixed investment in GDP had remained constant China’s economic growth would have fallen to only one third of its previous level. The damaging economic consequences accompanying the political events of this period in the Cultural Revolution is therefore obvious.
• After 1976 China’s ICOR began to improve—it had reached 5.1 by 1978. Following the systematic introduction of Reform and Opening Up in that year a prolonged improvement began and China’s ICOR fell to 2.5 by 1988. This showed the great improvement made by Reform and Opening up to China’s economic efficiency—international comparisons during this entire period are analysed below. This huge rise in the efficiency of investment following Reform and Opening Up launched the beginning of China’s “economic miracle” after 1978.
• China’s ICOR then remained very low for two decades, rising only to 3.3 by 2007. Given the increasing level of China’s economic development in this period, the transition from a low-income economy first to a low-middle income economy and then to an upper middle-income economy, this was an extremely good performance. The reason for this is that, as analysed in detail below, it would be expected that as an economy becomes more developed its ICOR will increase—this is predicted by Marx’s analysis of the rising organic composition of capital. Consequently, an increase in ICOR from 2.5 to 3.3 over a 19-year period, during which China underwent huge economic development, was extremely impressive—as international comparisons analysed below demonstrate. Furthermore, China’s average growth rate did not fall significantly during this period as its percentage of fixed investment in GDP was also increasing, from 31.1% of GDP in 1988 to 37.9% of GDP in 2007. This offset a rising ICOR so China’s GDP growth rate remained essentially the same. This illustrates a simple but crucial point: because as an economy becomes more developed its ICOR will increases it will inevitably slow down if its percentage of fixed investment in GDP remains constant. But this economic slowing is not inevitable as is sometimes argued—if the percentage of fixed investment in GDP rises at least as fast as ICOR then an economy will not significantly slow as it becomes more developed. This is exactly what occurred with China from 1988 to 2007. The slowing of an economy as it becomes more advanced is therefore not inevitable, it is a choice which is determined by a decision not to raise the percentage of fixed investment in GDP in line with the increasing ICOR which occurs with economic development.
• From 2007 China’s ICOR rose sharply to reach 7.4 in 2020. It is this trend that those who claim China’s investment is inefficient by international standards sometimes point to. But unfortunately, they make two fundamental factual errors. First, they fail to make international comparisons—it will be seen that the ICOR of other countries was also rising rapidly after 2007, in most cases by far more than China. That is, China’s worsening ICOR after 2007 was not some specific deterioration in China but a part of a process occurring internationally—one clearly created, given the dates involved, by the international financial crisis which started after 2007 and during which China actually performed better than almost every other major economy. Second, they fail to note the historical dynamic that as an economy becomes more developed its ICOR rises—and China is now approaching a “high income country” level by World Bank standards.

Rising ICOR with economic development

Analysing first the rising ICOR which occurs with economic development, then in the founding work of modern economics, The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith had already analysed that with increasing economic development fixed investment would play a greater role in economic growth—and that the percentage of fixed investment in the economy would rise. This was repeated by Ricardo. It was made a foundation of Marx’s economics in his analysis of the rising organic composition of capital. It was reiterated by Keynes. Milton Friedman attempted to claim this claim was not accurate, but he made an elementary factual error in analysing only the U.S. economy and not international trends.

One of the manifestations of this increasing capital intensity of production with economic development is that ICOR rises as an economy becomes more developed. Thus Figure 2 shows the historical reality that the ICOR of developed/high income economies is higher than the ICOR of developing economies—to take the latest data, for the five years up to 2021, the average ICOR of developing countries was 8.2 but the average ICOR of high-income economies was 15.3.

This, of course, has clear consequences for China as it undergoes economic development. It means that as China makes the transition to a high-income economy its ICOR should be expected to rise—such a rise would not reflect inefficiency but simply the effects of economic development. Whether China’s fixed investment was inefficient could, therefore, not be established by showing that its ICOR had risen with time—as such a process would naturally occur with economic development. Inefficiency could only be established by a comparison to current economies at a similar stage of economic development—the comparisons, to be valid, would have to be with current economies, and not with historical cases of economies, due to the overall international rise of ICOR which has taken place particularly since 2007 and which is analysed below. This rise in ICOR is the first trend which affects China with economic development and shows why analyses which do not make international comparisons are invalid.

Comparison of China to other developing economies

Given this trend that ICOR will rise with economic development the relevant question is whether China has maintained its advantage in efficiency of investment compared to other countries? Figure 3 shows that the answer to this is clearly yes. Not only is the ICOR of developing countries lower than that for high income economies but China’s ICOR is lower than that for the average of developing countries. For all periods, except for the five years leading to 1976, China’s ICOR was lower than the average for developing countries. Taking the latest data, for 2021, the average ICOR of developing countries is 8.2 and for China 7.1. As China is by now one of the most highly developed of developing countries, and will in only a few years become a high income economy by World Bank standards, this shows the strong efficiency of China’s investment.

Section 1—the high international efficiency of China’s capital investment

Incremental Capital Output Ratio (ICOR)

As an opening aside it may be noted that the present author was taught at an early age that when a theory and the facts, the real world, do not coincide there are only two things that can be done. A sensible person, following the scientific method, abandons the theory: a dangerous one abandons the real world, that is the facts. But as will be seen there is a variant of this second position—that is simply to invent “facts” which are quite untrue!. A typical case can be taken from Business Week, where it was claimed:

It takes $5 to $7 of investment to generate a dollar’s worth of gross domestic product in China, versus $1 to $2 in developed regions such as North America, Japan and Western Europe.¹

Similarly Western economic analyst Charles Dumas claims:

China is incredibly good at wasting savings through misallocating investment.²

It is in fact very easy to factually test these claims and show they are false. How much must be invested to generate a dollar’s worth of GDP is a perfectly standard and well-known economic measure—the Incremental Capital Output Ratio (ICOR). ICOR is defined as the percentage of GDP which must be invested to generate one percent GDP growth. Therefore, the lower the ICOR—provided it is a positive number, representing economic expansion and not contraction, the more efficient investment is in generating growth. The results of such standard measurements of ICOR are unequivocal. China has to invest significantly less than the U.S., Japan or Western Europe to generate a “dollars’ worth” of GDP—i.e. China’s investment is more efficient in generating economic growth than the Western economies.

Starting with the most recent results, the factual situation regarding efficiency of fixed investment in generating economic growth is shown in Table 1—which gives ICORs for the world’s 20 largest economies. These together account for 80.4% of world GDP. If the Eurozone as a whole is included, and also South Africa, so as to include all BRICS countries, then the Table shows the ICORs for countries and economic regions accounting for 83.9% of world GDP—i.e. for all economies which have a major impact on world growth.

Taking a five-year average, to avoid the effects of purely short-term shifts in the business cycle, China had to invest 7.1% of GDP to generate 1% of annual GDP growth. It may immediately be seen that China’s investment was characterised by its extremely low ICOR in terms of international comparisons—i.e. its extremely high efficiency in generating economic growth. China was the second best out of the world’s 20 largest economies. In particular, China’s ICOR of 7.1 was more efficient than the US’s 10.0, the Eurozone’s 22.4, Germany’s 30.3, the U.K.’s 70.1—not to speak of Japan’s ICOR which was a negative number, showing that its economy contracted despite its investment.

Therefore, the claim that China’s investment is inefficient in producing economic development is simply a lie. There is nothing secret about the data from which this can be calculated, it is perfectly publicly available. Anyone who spreads falsifications that China’s investment is inefficient is consequently simply engaged in propaganda, not in serous economics.

The implications of this fact that China’s investment is extremely efficient by international standards will be considered below after the facts are further explored.

The impact of the period since the international financial crisis

While the increasing level of economic development of China would by itself have led to an increase in China’s ICOR a second international process has been taking place since the international financial crisis which has been negative for all countries—in particular high-income economies. Figure 3 shows this clearly. As can be seen the ICOR for both high income and developing economies, and therefore the international average, has worsened since 2007.

• ICOR for developing economies rose from 3.5 in 2007 to 8.2 in 2021.
• ICOR for high income economies rose from 8.0 in 2007 to 15.3 in 2021.
• The world average ICOR rose from 5.8 in 2007 to 10.9 in 2021.
• China’s ICOR rose from 3.3 in 2007 to 7.1 in 2021.

Therefore, the worsening of China’s ICOR from 2007 to 2021 was not some process specific to China, representing part of a specific inefficient process within China, but was part of an overall international process in which ICOR rose globally. However, within this overall deterioration, China’s efficiency of investment in generating growth remained better than the average even for developing countries—whose efficiency of investment in generating growth itself remained better than that for high income economies. Regarding major economies, as noted at the beginning, China’s efficiency of investment in generating growth was ranked second out the world’s 20 largest economies.

Comparison with the U.S.

Because comparisons are frequently most specifically made between China and the U.S., the ICORs for the two countries are shown in Figure 4. As may be seen China outperforms the U.S. in the efficiency of investment in generating growth in all periods. Figure 3 and Figure 4 show clearly that claims such as that by Business Week quoted at the beginning, “It takes $5 to $7 of investment to generate a dollar’s worth of gross domestic product in China, versus $1 to $2 in developed regions such as North America, Japan and Western Europe,” are simply fraudulent—“fake news”. China has to invest less dollars to generate a unit of growth than the U.S.—as well as Europe or Japan.

Explanation of China’s ICOR worsening

Putting these trends together it can be clearly seen why China’s ICOR would have increased since 2007 and why it is entirely misleading not to make international comparisons. Two macro-economic processes were occurring.

1. China is making the transition from a developing to a high-income economy, that is to more capital-intensive production, therefore its ICOR will go up.
2. There has been a general global worsening of ICOR under the impact of the international financial crisis and China is part of that trend—China cannot completely escape the consequences of the overall international economic situation.

Therefore, a rise in China’s ICOR after 2007 is entirely to be expected. The relevant measure is therefore the international one—that is, how has China’s efficiency of investment in producing economic growth changed relative to other current economies at a similar stage of development. The factual answer is clear. China’s efficiency of investment is in terms of international comparisons extremely high—in particular superior to the U.S. Europe and Japan, as well as compared to other developing countries. What is factually striking is not that China’s investment is inefficient in generating economic growth, that is a propaganda falsification which serious economists should not be taken in by, but how highly efficient China’s economy is in terms of international comparisons.

Having established the facts, as opposed to the myths, the question is then obviously why is China’s investment so efficient?

Section 2—Socialism is why China’s investment is so efficient

Explanation of the facts

Turning from establishing the fact of the high efficiency of China’s investment, in terms of international comparisons, to explaining it, it will become clear that the overwhelming reason for China’s very high efficiency of investment is due to the socialist character of its economy. In particular, it results from China’s extremely strong anti-crisis macro-economic strength which flows from possessing a socialist economy compared to capitalist ones. To clarify this, given that the most frequent international comparison made for China is with the U.S., this will be concentrated on. Furthermore, this automatically deals with the other cases of high-income economies—as, while the U.S.’s efficiency of investment in creating growth is less than China’s, it is superior to the other major capitalist economies such as the EU and Japan.

The fundamental process which is involved, and which particularly creates China’s advantage compared to the U.S. in ICOR, can be seen from Figure 5. This shows that the worsening of U.S. ICOR, that is the efficiency of its investment, was not at all a smooth process. It was characterized by two specific periods of huge deterioration which were so severe that they affected average efficiency of investment over the entire period. These were a more than doubling of ICOR to 26.8 in the period leading to 2011, that is following the international financial crisis, and a rise to 16.8 in the period leading to 2020 in association with the Covid induced recession. In short, economic crises led to a sharp worsening of U.S. ICOR, to a severe fall in the average efficiency of U.S. fixed capital investment.

To illustrate clearly the long-term cumulative effects of such crises, and to smooth out the extreme short-term spikes, Figure 6 shows a longer term, 10-year, average for U.S. and China’s ICOR. The long-term cumulative worsening of U.S. ICOR under the impact of its successive economic crises is clear. In short, the fall in the efficiency of U.S. capital investment was particularly associated with crises in the U.S. economy.

Economic slowdown and rising ICOR

Regarding the more precise explanation of this worsening of U.S. ICOR, it should be recalled that the latter is by definition GDP growth divided by the percentage of fixed investment in GDP. If ICOR has risen therefore one of two processes must have occurred—or both.

• The first is that the rate of GDP growth has slowed.
• The second is that the percentage of fixed investment in GDP has increased.

But while in principle either could have taken place factual examination shows that the worsening of U.S. ICOR since 2007 is entirely due to its economy slowing and none of it is due to an increase in the percentage of fixed investment in GDP.  U.S. gross domestic fixed capital formation was 22.3% of GDP in 2007, remained slightly below that level in the entire period after 2007, and was to 21.4% of GDP by 2021. Therefore, zero percent of the worsening of U.S. ICOR after 2007 was due to an increase in the percentage of fixed investment in GDP, and the entire worsening of ICOR was due to the slowdown in the average annual growth of the U.S. economy.

This process of economic slowing is shown in Figure 7. The U.S. went through two sharp recessions with negative growth—economic contraction of 2.6% in 2009 and of 2.8% in 2020. The contraction of the U.S. economy in crisis years sharply slowed its average growth rate and therefore raised its ICOR.

In contrast, while China’s economy slowed since the beginning of the international financial crisis, that is it could not entirely escape the negative consequences of the post-2007 financial crisis and the Covid pandemic, despite these international crises China never experienced in this period a year of economic contraction—unlike the U.S.. Consequently, the U.S.’s much weaker anti-crisis macro-economic capacity than China explains the superiority of China in efficiency of investment compared to the U.S. and is the primary explanation for the deterioration of U.S. ICOR—that is for the worsening of the efficiency of U.S. investment.

The fall in investment

Turning to what explains the much greater weakness of the U.S. than China in anti-crisis capacity it is crucial to understand factually what actually occurs in a major recession and the different behaviours of investment and consumption during it.

Consumption is a much higher percentage of GDP than fixed investment in the U.S.—in 2007, on the eve of the international financial crisis, consumption was 82.5% of U.S. GDP compared to 22.3% for fixed investment. This therefore sometimes leads to the false assumption, formed by not studying the facts, that it is falls in consumption which primarily creates recessions. But this commits a simple arithmetical error. The fluctuations in investment in the U.S. economy are so much more violent than the fluctuations in consumption that, despite the fact that investment is a much smaller percentage of GDP than consumption, it is fluctuations in investment which actually primarily control the U.S. business cycle—and in particular which create its recessions. This may easily be seen by looking at the facts.

Between 2007 and 2009, the latter being the worse year of the U.S. recession created by the international financial crisis, then overall U.S. GDP declined by 2.5% adjusting for inflation. The inflation adjusted fall in U.S. household consumption, which accounts for 82% of total U.S. consumption, was 1.5%. But the inflation adjusted fall in U.S. private fixed investment, which accounts for 82% of U.S. fixed investment, was 27.6%—almost twenty times as severe as the fall in consumption.

Figure 8 shows that, in current prices, between 2007 and 2009 U.S. household consumption rose by $145 billion and U.S. government consumption by $235 billion—a total rise in consumption of $380 billion. But this entire increase in consumption was more than offset by $508 billion fall in gross fixed capital formation. That is, the post-international financial crisis recession was overwhelmingly created by the fall in investment, not in consumption.

Moreover, depreciation of fixed capital during this period was $119 billion. Consequently, the fall in U.S. net fixed investment was even worse than that of gross fixed investment—a decline of $626 billion. Therefore by 2009, the U.S. capital stock was lower than in 2007, lowering U.S. potential for long term growth. In summary, the U.S. recession after 2007, and therefore the worsening in U.S. ICOR, was due to the fall in U.S. fixed investment during the international financial crisis after 2007.

The reason the U.S. was unable to control this fall in investment is equally clear. The U.S. is a capitalist economy. That means, by definition, its dynamic is determined by decisions of private capitalists. If these capitalists decide not to invest the economy goes into recession—which, in turn produces an increase in ICOR. There is no U.S. state sector sufficient to offset this. Private ownership of all the main means of production therefore produces weakness in the U.S. macro-economic crisis mechanisms.

China’s socialist anti-crisis macro-economic mechanisms

In contrast to the U.S. Figure 9 shows what occurred in China in 2007-09, faced with the international financial crisis. In 2007 to 2009 China’s GDP, in inflation adjusted terms, rose by 20.0%. Looking at current prices, it may immediately be seen that there was no fall in fixed investment of the U.S. type. On the contrary, in current prices, China’s gross fixed capital investment rose more rapidly than any other major component of GDP—increasing by $890 billion. compared to $511 billion for household consumption and $233 billion for government consumption. China’s fixed capital depreciation in this period was $356 billion. Therefore, China’s net fixed investment rose by $534 billion. China’s capital stock was significantly greater in 2009 than in 2007, increasing its potential for long term growth—in sharp contrast to the U.S. trend.

The reason that, unlike the U.S., China’s fixed investment did not fall is also quite clear. China is a socialist economy with a large state sector and state-owned banks which entirely dominate its financial system. Following 2007 state investment, and financing of private investment by state owned banks, could be and was used to prevent a fall in fixed investment. In contrast, the private capitalist U.S. economy had no such anti-crisis mechanism. In summary, China’s large state-owned sector gave it much stronger macro-economic anti-crisis mechanisms than the U.S. The fact that China suffered no decline in output in any year during the international financial crisis, in turn, limited its rise in ICOR. So, it was the strength of China’s state sector, by preventing a fall in investment, which prevented recession and ensured China’s superior ICOR to the U.S. The macro-economic strength given to China by its state sector thereby ensured the high overall efficiency of China’s investment in generating growth.

Economic trends during the Covid pandemic crisis

Turning now to what occurred in economies during the Covid pandemic, not all national accounts data is yet available, but the overall pattern is clear. First, Figure 10 shows that China’s economy far outperformed the U.S. during the pandemic period. In the three years 2019-2022 China’s GDP grew by 13.3% compared to the U.S.’s 5.2%. That is, during the pandemic China’s economy grew by more than two and a half times as fast at the U.S..

Regarding the internal structure of the U.S. economy during this period the changes in current prices in the main domestic components of GDP are shown in Figure 11. As in 2007-2009 there was a substantial increase in household consumption, of $2,970 billion. Government consumption also rose by $581 billion. Gross fixed capital formation also rose, by $838 billion, but this was insufficient to offset fixed capital depreciation of $848 billion. Therefore, U.S. net fixed capital formation fell by $10 billion—given the margin of error, and the small measured contraction, it is probably best to state that the rise in U.S. net fixed capital formation during this period was approximately zero. Clearly there was no significant addition to U.S. capital stock during 2019-2020—and there may have been no addition at all, or even a marginal fall.

Turning to China, complete internationally comparable national accounts data is not yet available for the entire pandemic period. Nevertheless, comprehensive national accounts data is available for part of this period, and the more limited data until the end of 2022 leaves no doubt as to the overall pattern. The fundamental contrast in pattern with the U.S. is the same as in the post 2007 recession.

Starting with the comprehensive national accounts data which is available for China for 2019-2021, Figure 12 shows that once again increase in gross domestic fixed capital formation was the single biggest contributor to China’s GDP growth in this period at $1,311 billion—as compared to $1,200 billion for household consumption and $428 billion for government consumption. This contrasts sharply with the U.S. pattern where, in 2019-2021, household consumption rose by $1,510 billion and gross fixed capital formation by $458 billion. Internationally comparable data for depreciation is not available for China after 2020 but given the fact that in 2020 fixed capital depreciation was $333 billion, and there is no reason to suppose it remotely reached almost $1,000 billion in 2021, it is clear that China’s net fixed capital investment was positive in the period 2019-2021.

Turning to 2022, internationally comparable national accounts data for China is not yet published. But it is clear from the data which has been released by the National Bureau of Statistics that the same pattern continued. This shows that in 2022 total consumption accounted for 1.0% of the increase in GDP, gross investment for 1.5%, and net exports for 0.5%. As inventories are only a small part of that figure for total investment, this clearly shows that the contribution of fixed investment to GDP growth remained the leading contributor to China’s GDP growth in 2022 and therefore also for the period 2019-2022 as a whole. This is the exact opposite of the U.S. pattern in which household consumption was the leading contributor and fixed investment low.

The stabilizing role of China’s state investment

The reason for the high contribution of fixed investment to China’s GDP growth during the pandemic period is also clear. Figure 13 shows the way in which China’s state investment, during a crisis, could be used to offset the decline in private investment. As the Wall Street Journal noted regarding China’s system of a socialist market economy, without understanding the significance of what it was saying in terms of the superiority of China’s socialist system:

Most economies can pull two levers to bolster growth: fiscal and monetary. China has a third option. The National Development and Reform Commission can accelerate the flow of investment projects.³

Examining the detailed pattern during the pandemic in China, in both the peak Covid crisis year of 2020 and during the economic slowdown of 2022, the increase in private investment fell to very low levels—1.0% in and 0.9% in 2022. But overall fixed investment remained significantly higher—2.9% in 2020 and by 5.1% in 2022. The reason for this was that in those years China’s state investment could be and was significantly increased—a rise of 5.3% in 2020 and 10.1% in 2022. This produced a strong anti-cyclical effect in preventing a more severe decline in investment. In contrast, during 2021, when the economy was recovering and private investment was rising relatively strongly, the rate of growth of state investment was reined back to 2.9%.

The reason that China’s overall investment could remain high was only due to the large size of China’s state sector. To be precise in making a comparison to the U.S., in 2022 only 16%, less than one sixth, of U.S. fixed investment was in the state sector, accounting for only 3.4% of GDP. Given this extremely small size of the U.S. state sector even a very high percentage increase in U.S. state investment would be unable to prevent overall U.S. fixed investment from falling—to offset a 10% fall in private investment U.S. state investment would have to rise by 50%.

In contrast, China’s large state sector, means it is possible to stabilize China’s investment level with much lower increases in state investment. In short, China’s large state sector is an extremely powerful anti-crisis mechanism. This, in turn, because it sustains economic growth, prevents the type of severe crisis increases in ICOR seen in capitalist economies such as the U.S.. China’s large state sector, therefore, has a powerful effect in keeping China’s ICOR down and maintaining a high level of investment efficiency.

Seek truth from facts or abandon the real world?

Finally, what are the conclusions that follow from these facts? And why are entirely false claims made that China’s investment is inefficient in generating economic growth which are in fact are the complete opposite of the truth?

This comes back to the point made at the beginning of this article of what happens if the real world, the facts, and a theory do not coincide?

According to the theory of those who believe Western capitalism is a superior economic system, a capitalist system must be more efficient than a socialist one. But as the facts contradict this theory then science would demand that the theory be changed or abandoned.

But that would lead to a conclusion that was against capitalist ideology—it would have to be accepted that China’s, a socialist country’s, investment was more efficient in producing economic growth than the U.S., Europe, and Japan.

That is, it would have to be accepted that China’s socialist system was much more efficient in its investment than the Western capitalists—which is clearly an evidently unacceptable conclusion!

Therefore, instead of abandoning the theory the real world has to be abandoned—instead of following “seek truth from facts” Western propaganda has to invent facts and abandon the real world!

[The Chinese version of this article was published at Guancha.cn.]

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Notes:

• ↩ Bremner, B. (2007). ‘The Great Bank Overhaul’. In P. Engardio (Ed.), Chindia (pp. 204-210). New York, US: McGraw Hill.
• ↩ Dumas, C., & Choyleva, D. (2011). The American Phoenix. London: Profile Books.
• ↩ Orlik, T. (2012, May 29). Show Me The China Stimulus Money. Retrieved February 11, 2014, from Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303674004577433763683515828

Vessels seeking to pass through the Strait of Hormuz must communicate with Iranian naval forces in Persian.

“Any ship that wants to pass through the Strait of Hormuz must inform us of its nationality, type of cargo, and destination in Farsi, and if it does not do this, we will definitely go after it,” Tangsiri said on Friday.

He also recalled that Iran was not allowed to control the Strait of Hormuz during the Pahlavi era, reiterating, “But now, vessels passing through this strait, including ships, warships, and any boats, must introduce themselves in Persian.”

Iran has time and again vowed to give a decisive response to any hostile move in the Strait of Hormuz that seeks to disrupt the security of the strategic waterway.

The Islamic Republic has also made it clear that it views US military presence in the region as a threat to its national security and a destabilizing factor in regional countries.

For a reason its called “Persian gulf” aka Gulf of Fars.

Prepare for the worst case scenario

You send American ships to the Taiwan Strait and then provoke the Chinese and then you also send Diplomats in Taiwan, encouraging them to claim independence and then somehow the Western media still has the face to ask “Why is China preparing for war” because they are being threatened. That’s the only answer to all of this Military spending that has been rising in these recent years, you are threatening them and of course China is forced to be prepared for any major risk

When will there be roads connecting major cities in Australia?

Oh fer fuck’s sake … where do some of you people get your incredible lack of knowledge from.

EVERY major and minor city/town/village/hamlet is connected by road in Australia … how the hell do you think we ride our kangaroos around safely?

“Future Utopia”: The Supercool and Detailed Illustrations by Ori Toor

Interlude for some art.

Based in Tel Aviv, Israel, Ori Toor is a freestyle illustrator and avid doodler. In his distinctive surreal style, he is obsessively drawing worlds to live and get lost in. There is no sketching or planning. It’s all about improvising.

More: Ori Toor, Instagram, Facebook, Behance h/t: weandthecolor

THIS is Why China is MORE Convenient than America | Foreigner in China

Pennsylvania Dutch Meat Loaf

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds ground beef
• 1 cup fresh bread crumbs
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 medium green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 (8 ounce) can Hunt’s tomato sauce, divided
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 3/4 cup water
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar, packed
• 2 tablespoons prepared mustard
• 1 tablespoon vinegar

Instructions

1. In a medium bowl, lightly mix beef, bread crumbs, onion, green pepper, 1/2 can tomato sauce, egg, salt and pepper. Shape into a loaf in a shallow baking pan.
2. Combine remaining tomato sauce with remaining ingredients. Pour over loaf.
3. Bake at 350 degrees F for 1 1/4 hours. Baste the loaf several times during baking.

Yield: 6 servings

The Ukrainian Counter-Offensive Had No Chance. NATO Failed To Explain That.

The ‘west’ pushed Ukraine into a hopeless counter-offensive based on false assessments and wild expectations.

Russian troops were claimed to be weak, untrained and unprepared for an Ukrainian attack. On the other side it was claimed that the freshly mobilized Ukrainian men which received ‘western’ weapons and training would have the necessary quantity and quality to overcome Russian defenses.

Ukrainian troops, as well as the public, were told to believe that bullshit.

Lord Bebo @MyLordBebo – 0:55 UTC · Jun 23, 2023

NATO training explained by an Ukrainian POW
-> Psychologists trained them to not be afraid and that Russia is exhausted and weak …
Embedded video From Maimunka News

Any rational and neutral military assessment showed a far more realistic picture. One in which Russia would always defeat the planned counter-offensive.

At the end of 2022 the Ukrainian army had been exhausted and had been already been destroyed twice. The Russians had first destroyed large parts of the original equipment of the Ukrainian army and then the Soviet era equipment that was brought to Ukraine from former Warsaw Pact nations.

More importantly they had killed or wounded many of the experienced non-commissioned staff (Sergeants etc) and lower rank officers of the Ukrainian military that command and are the core of each company. The newly mobilized Ukrainian forces did not have the knowledge or training necessary to replace them.

‘Western’ equipment is more complex than Soviet era stuff.  It also requires more specialized maintenance. The Ukraine received a zoo. The many types of equipment and the many incompatible kinds of ammunition they use are a logistic nightmare.

‘Western’ training for the mobilized Ukrainian forces did not bring up more capable soldiers than Soviet training would have done. Those who watched NATO stumble in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya should have recognized that.

Russian on the other side mobilized 300,000 soldiers who mostly had been contract soldiers before they had returned to private life. They received extensive refresher training. They now mostly get paid more than in their civilian life which certainly helped to increase their motivation.

Russia also changed the structure of its military. The main Russian fighting force in 2022 was made up of Brigade Tactical Groups (BIG). Each of them was part of a garrison brigade which next to the one contract soldier BTG had additional battalions that were mostly training conscripts. Under Russian laws the conscript battalions could not be used on foreign ground.

The fighting BTG’s had few real infantry soldiers. Next to their 9 infantry platoons they had 8 artillery and 5 auxiliary platoons. Of a total of some 800 plus soldiers in a BTG only 200 were actually infantry that could man the trenches. The whole structure was too big and too difficult to command.

After the mobilization had brought up enough men the Russian military changed from BTGs to a mobile brigade structure. Under a higher commander the brigade holds two or three battalions that each consist of three or four companies of mobile infantry or tanks. Most of the artillery and auxiliary troops of the former BTGs are now concentrated under the brigade structure and can be used more flexible wherever they are needed. The tooth to tail ratio in the frontline battalions is now much higher than in a BTG and the whole structure is easier to command.

Above the newly structured brigades are now division commands which have additional assets like air defenses, attack helicopters and electronic warfare units. They direct the brigades within a wider front and with a bigger picture in mind.

While a lack of contract infantry necessitated the BTG structure of 2022 the additionally mobilized forces allowed in 2023 to return to the more efficient classic structures of battalions under brigades under divisions. All this was visible through the reports from the Russian military which had stopped to mention BTGs and changed to brigade numbers. For an unbiased military mind it was easy to see that this new Russian force would be a more balanced and better one.

Satellite pictures had shown for months that the Russian troops were building extensive defense structures like trench lines and anti-tank barriers. They are by the way still adding to them.

In the spring of 2023 the Ukrainian army was much weaker than when the war started. The Russian military had grown and was stronger. It also had well prepared positions. ‘Western’ politicians, the propagandized public and military commands failed to recognize those facts.

NATO had simulated the Ukrainian counter-offensive:

Logic dictates that any responsible use of the KORA simulation system would have predicted the failure of the 47th Brigade’s attack. According to The Washington Post, the officers of the 47th Brigade “planned their assaults and then let the [KORA] program show them the results – how their Russian enemies might respond, where they could make a breakthrough and where they would suffer losses.” The KORA simulation allowed the Ukrainian officers to coordinate their actions “to test how they’d work together on the battlefield.”

Given that the Ukrainian force structure was insufficient to accomplish the mission-critical task of suppression, there was no chance for the Ukrainian forces to accomplish the actual assault requirements of a breaching operation – the destruction of enemy forces on the opposite side of the obstacle barrier being breached. The Ukrainians, however, came away from their KORA experience confident that they had crafted a winning plan capable of overcoming the Russian defenses in and around Orekhov.

When one examines the structure of a KORA-based simulation, it becomes clear that the system is completely dependent upon the various inputs which define the simulation as a whole.

They probably thought the Ukrainians could actually win. But when one uses wrong estimates for the fighting powers of each side as input of a simulation the output will always be garbage.

The real world results are now in. The Ukrainian counter-offensive has failed.

The weekend edition of the German business daily headlines: “This isn’t a counter-offensive. It is a bloody crash test.”

It is now time to acknowledge that the ‘western’ military assessments and its expectations were completely wrong:

In its early phases, Ukraine’s counteroffensive is having less success and Russian forces are showing more competence than western assessments expected, two western officials and a senior US military official tell CNN.

The counteroffensive is “not meeting expectations on any front,” one of the officials said.

According to the Western assessments, Russian lines of defense have been proving well-fortified, making it difficult for Ukrainian forces to breach them. In addition, Russian forces have had success bogging down Ukrainian armor with missile attacks and mines and have been deploying air power more effectively.

Ukrainian forces are proving “vulnerable” to minefields and Russian forces “competent” in their defense, one of the Western officials said.

Even the neoconservative Institute for the Study of War was forced to eat some tiny bits of craw and to acknowledge the competence of the Russian forces:

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) responded to the Ukrainian attack with an uncharacteristic degree of coherency and praised Southern Military District elements for repelling the attack and regaining lost positions.

Anyone who thinks that coherency is uncharacteristic for the Russians should go back and read up on Operation Bagration which showed what a well prepared Russian military can actually do.

ISW also writes:

Russian forces appear to have executed their formal tactical defensive doctrine in response to the Ukrainian attacks …

Well, what did the ISW ‘experts’ expect? That the Russians would use their manuals as toilet paper and run away when the turkey shooting begins?

In their utter stupidity the neoconservatives probably really believed that.

The assessments made did not acknowledge the dubious quality of freshly stood up Ukrainian forces. They did not acknowledge the changes and growth in the military structures on the Russian side. They failed to recognize the quality of the Russian fortifications and military capabilities and the deep roots of their doctrine.

The results are the consequence of ignoring reality, of seeing what one wants to see.

The politics of this war demanded that the ‘western’ side wins. NATO military was biased towards that. Instead of telling the politicians what a realistic outcome would be it delivered hopeful assessments that defied reality.

In consequence the Ukrainian military suffered many unnecessary casualties and lost the initiative.

Let’s hope that at least some folks will learn from this.

Posted by b on June 23, 2023 at 17:16 UTC | Permalink

Shaker Pickles

Ingredients

• 20 small to medium cucumbers, sliced
• 10 onions, sliced and slivered
• 3 1/2 cups sugar
• 3 cup white vinegar
• 1/3 cup salt
• 1 teaspoon alum
• 1 teaspoon celery seed
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 tablespoon pickling spice (optional)

Instructions

1. Do not heat vinegar and spices.
2. Mix all ingredients and pour over onions and cucumbers in jars.
3. Place jars in refrigerator.
4. Shake jars once a day for 6 days. Pickles are ready to eat on the 7th day.

Pickles will keep in the refrigerator for 3 months.

Jackson, Mississippi Is The Worst Place I’ve Ever Seen

I used to live in Hattiesburg, which is about a 40 minute drive south. This is what it looks like in 2023. This is a MUST watch video. Know what the United States is today.

Given that China is having a lot of success in many areas such as economic one, why doesn’t it show the details of their policies to the surrounding world and more transparency but instead enforce censorship?

This is an International Court of Business Disputes and Settlements

They settle business disputes between Companies from all countries working in China.

Do you know their procedures? The Systems? The Procedures?

They are all in compliance with International Business Practices.

The Average Settlement Time for a Normal Dispute is 87 Days and for a Prolonged Dispute is 141 Days.

If the Judgment is not acceptable to the Foreign Company – China allows the same Foreign Company to register a case in a Court in their own country – and accepts the Judgment of that Legal System.

That is how Transparent things are.

The Judgments are so fair that only 16.5% of the Judgments have been refused and taken to foreign courts.

Meanwhile in India; Our Bharat

We follow our own procedure – Court to Court to Court with Supreme Court making decisions they have no clue about.

The average case resolution period – 6 Years and 83 days

If the Judgment is not acceptable to the foreign company – They have no choice but to go only to the ICJ where it will take another 3 years at the very least to get a decision. They cannot file in their own countrys courts.

Almost 94% of the Judgments have been appealed in India.

Thats how Opaque things are.

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Do you know almost all Chinese business give Foreign Bank Guarantees to ensure that their customers and clients are relaxed. You have guarantees from DBS, JP MOrgan, RBS , Citibank etc that ensure that the Customers dont fear a Chinese Bank dominated by the CCP running things and strangling projects.

They use US and UK accountants as well

Our very own Bharat – has only SBI guarantees as per Archaic Procedures. SBI Guarantees sometimes need Co Guarantees from other banks (Like Adani case in Australia).

They have local accountants as well.

Thats the difference.

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China is far more transparent than India is in everything but Politics where they are a closed book.

GARY: The USA’s Most Dangerous City? What I Actually Saw

This is a city in the CENTER of the United States “Industrial Heartland”. So if you are dreaming about the United States catching up to China, then here is where the rebuilding will occur.

Take a good look around.

Gary has fallen onto bad times, but this is the center of American Industry access, and resources. You cannot just pick a virginal plot of land without rail, roads, and power generation randomly.

Has globalization backfired for the west?

No, but it has been very poorly implemented by elected western governments.

Here are some of the problems:

• Western governments did not have effective training programs to replace and retrain workers which were displaced when their manufacturing jobs were exported;
• Western governments and societies did not foresee the degree of displacement created by the combination of technology and globalization, and this led to the rise of extremist voter sentiment in the form of Brexit in the UK and the election of Trump in the US;
• In spite of democracy, governments in the west have been dominated by the financial sector and the leading universities; this has led to a kind of elitist tunnel vision, which gave rise to a “burn the house down” mentality, in the form of Brexit and Trump;
• A rising rich/poor gap has led to social instability which has not yet reached its logical culmination.

Chester, Pennsylvania | What Happened?

Here is another city in the American “Industrial Heart-land”. Pennsylvania, as well as Ohio, were the center for American industrial might.

This is what it looks like today.

Anyone who is trying to tell you that “somehow” industry is going to start returning back to the Untied States is lying to you.

US law vs nonus law: is it true that circumstantial evidence has little weight in US courts?

Let me describe a circumstantial case.

On July 2, the defendant purchased handgun from a local gun dealer, filling out the necessary forms and using their drivers license as identification. They also bought ammunition appropriate for the weapon.

The defendant is 6′8″ tall, Caucasian, weighs 300 pounds with a muscular build and has their hair cut into a Mohawk and dyed red.

Later on July 2, someone sees a large Caucasian man take a ladder out of a large green van and put it up against the plate glass of their neighbor. They then see the man shatter the glass with a sledge hammer and enter the house through the smashed window. They call 911 and while they’re on the phone with the police, six loud popping sounds are heard.

The police arrive on the scene and they find a dead man in bed with covers with five bullet wounds, and the CSI team finds an additional bullet embedded in the floor beneath the bed. A gun is found outside the bedroom door. The front door is open. They find scratches on the white paint on the outside window frame. Forensics notes that the six bullet holes show no burn marks, so the gun must have been fired at least a meter away from the bed. However, they also find a note next to the dead man, printed in purple ink on an ink-jet printer saying “Forgive me, but I cannot live with myself after accusing an innocent man, George “Big Red” Johnson of 123 Main Street of bank robbery. He didn’t do it and I only identified him because I’m an asshole. Yours truly, Brian Carter”.

The police do a further inventory of the home and find no ink-jet printer on the premises. They also find the dead man’s ID identifying him as “Bryan Carter”. They also find fingerprints on the gun.

The police obtain a search warrant for 123 Main Street an find a green van parked in the garage. They find a ladder and forensic analysis shows there are paint chips that match the window frame at the crime scene.

George Johnson is soon apprehended at a nearby bar. When questioned, several patrons and the bartender say he was bragging about how he offed the witness to a bank robbery he committed three months ago so now the D.A. will have to drop that case.

The fingerprints on the gun turn out to be Johnson’s

All of this is circumstantial evidence. At trial, Johnson claims that he’s the victim of mistaken identity and that the witnesses at the bar are lying. He claims the forensic evidence is all a plot by the police to discredit him.

In fact, the vast majority of cases, in the U.S. and elsewhere, are made up of circumstantial evidence. In this case no-one saw Johnson shoot Mr. Carter. That’s “direct evidence”. It’s rare. It’s not necessary. As long as the circumstantial evidence that’s accepted by the jury as true, in it’s totality, supports only the conclusion that the defendant committed the crime, the jury is entitled to convict.

Driving around California

Perhaps the United States can build up it’s industry in California….

What are some of the most egregious examples of unethical marketing practices you have come across?

1- This one, in which we see how the company blatantly lies saying that the product comes in a paper bottle, but when you open it… PLASTIC.

2- Then, we see this yogurt container that makes you believe that the product itself has pieces of fruit, but when you finish it you realize that in reality those “pieces of fruit” are only part of the container.

3- Disney sticker book, it supposedly has 1001 beautiful stickers , but when you open it you realize that almost all the stickers are colored squares that serve as margins. In fact, the person who bought the book and denounced this on social networks, made the account and actually of those 1001 and one sticker, 738, are these colored squares.

4- A sugar package, which says:

“natural sugar”

But behind the package it says that “the word natural refers to the name of the product and does not explain that the product is actually of natural origin.

These are just four examples of predatory marketing practices towards consumers, you always have to be very attentive to the fine print of what you buy, companies will do anything to sell.

South Korea being administered slow poison by US

“We used to have the largest trade surplus with China. The president’s tough line against China has cost us 15 consecutive months of trade deficits” — South Korea’s opposition leader.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol aligning with the US and Japan while shifting away from China was exacting a toll on the country’s economy, the leader of the political opposition said Monday.

Addressing the National Assembly plenary session, the main opposition party leader said ties with China “have gone downhill” since Yoon took office, accusing the president of “having given up on diplomacy.”

“We used to have the largest trade surplus with China. The president’s tough line against China has cost us 15 consecutive months of trade deficits,” he said.

“For stabilization and recovery of the economy, we must build supply chains with China once again.”

The opposition leader said there were a “myriad of issues” South Korea could be addressing together with China. One of them was the country’s response to Japan’s plan to release wastewater stored at the now-defunct Fukushima nuclear power plant.

He called the water — which the Japanese government said would be treated and diluted — “nuclear waste” and that releasing it into the ocean an “act of terrorism.” For South Koreans in the fishing industry, the water’s discharge was “a death sentence,” he said.

He added that Yoon “took away” the chance for Japan to apologize for forced labor and other atrocities dating back to Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. “Eighty years on, Japan is still refusing to apologize or even acknowledge the historical facts,” he said.

He came under fire for echoing Xing’s criticism of the South Korean president for supposedly “deteriorating relations” with Beijing. The Democratic Party head, deviating from Yoon’s stance on Taiwan, also said South Korea supported China’s “One China” policy.

Remember, unlike Japanese Yen, the South Korean Won is not a hard currency.

I Went To The Saddest Place In The United States

I lived in Shreveport, Louisiana.

This is where I lived. So, do you all think that I should return?

Who was the most successful actress who started her acting career as a “Bond girl”?

The difficulty here is that almost every woman who was successful and cast as a “Bond girl” had done some other things before getting cast in a Bond film; and this goes back to (again) putting the lie to the idea of the “overnight success.” Even the most beautiful and talented women have usually done a lot of bit parts first.

For example, Diana Rigg was excellent, but she had already been appearing in the hit BBC show “The Avengers” before being cast in “Her Majesty’s Secret Service.” Ursula Andress was the original “Bond girl” in “Dr No,” in the early 1960s, but she’d already had a career, as a “starlet,” in the 1950s and had already (quite famously) been known for dating James Dean!

I think the best example might be Jane Seymour, who had done relatively little before she was cast in the first Roger Moore outing, “Live and Let Die” (1973). I think she had done one TV show at that point; but it had been very recent, and I don’t know if it was seen in the United States. Anyway, right after “Live and Let Die,” she got a lot of attention and did a string of films and made-for-TV movies. And I remember seeing her not long ago (well, it doesn’t SEEM long ago) in the Owen Wilson comedy, “Wedding Crashers.” She still looked terrific.

By the way, I just confirmed that yes, she CHOSE the same name as one of Henry VII’s wives. She was not born “Jane Seymour” but Joyce Penelope Frankenburg.

China is going to set up a military base in Cuba!

Go China go!

China is planning to set up a new joint military training facility in Cuba which is only 100 miles away from Florida’s Coast this means that China could be sending troops right to US doorstep and also spy on its military installations in the Southeastern U.S.

But why is China doing this?

Well according to some intelligence officials this is a likely response to the USA’s involvement in Taiwan which is a self-governing island that China claims as its own territory Taiwan is also about 100 miles away from China so you can see the parallel.

Here China has been increasing its military pressure on Taiwan and the U.S has been supporting Taiwan’s defense and security this has led to a lot of tension and confrontation between the two nations.

Tit for tat from China.

Pennsylvania; for centuries the home of American industry…

How should China retaliate against the Huawei ban?

No, China should continue to act as the rational player, and let the rest of the world see how insane and irresponsible Trump’s America has become. By staying rational, it will win.

The other reason for not retaliating is that retaliation would play into the hands of nationalists in China, who are just as irrational as Trump, and much more violent. Nationalism is China’s pandora box; once it is opened, there is no way to put the angry genie back into the box again.

The Americans attack China at every turn now, but they don’t know that the Chinese Communist Party is the force for reason in China. Anything else would be much MUCH worse, and MUCH more violent.

Was the relative crudity of the MiG-25 a surprise to the U.S. Air Force once they had a chance to look at it after the 1976 defection of the Soviet pilot in Japan?

In grad school I took a memorable seminar with the remarkable military analyst, historian, and cold warrior Edward Luttwak

Without any preamble, Luttwak began the class with a detailed, technical description of the superiority of NATO weaponry over Soviet equivalents. He gave a couple of examples, gauging interest around the table, and going on till our eyes began to glaze over. All this was obvious. The Soviet Union with its repression and lockstep culture couldn’t begin to compete with American ingenuity.

Then Luttwak took something out of his bag and slammed it down on the table with a huge bang, terrifying every one of us. It looked like this:

A Soviet bayonet from World War II.

After our breathing returned to normal he proceeded to describe about half a dozen features on this knife that demonstrated extraordinary utility and creative design. He went from there to describe the MIG 25, and features like the obsolete vacuum tube electronics that performed better than the supposedly more advanced US electronics.

The lesson of the day was: letting your prejudices lead you to underestimate your enemy is a potentially fatal mistake.

KENSINGTON , PHILADELPHIA

I once dated a girl from here. Though, it was much nicer then. Sigh. What the fuck happened to the USA?

What do you think is the best way to balance the needs of commuters and businesses when it comes to parking facilities near public transportation hubs?

Oh dear god no!

Let’s talk abut transit oriented development. This is the idea that if you have a transit stop, you should build as much density around it as is humanly possible.

But, of course, we don’t do that. Instead, we build massive parking lots.

“But Steve”, you say, “won’t that get people out of cars and onto transit?”. To that I answer “no, it won’t, it will ensure that all the land around the transit station will be developed as low density and car dependent”

So let’s take a look at some monstrosities

Welcome to Pickering, Ontario and the Pickering stop on the GO Transit Lakeshore East line, the “gold standard” for GO train service. That white building at upper right is a parking garage. At lower left, you have more transit parking. Between them is the world’s longest pedestrian bridge, which crosses Canada’s busiest highway, the 401.

This is the “Garage Mahal”, a parking garage at Bloomington Road and Highway 404 in York Region. There is no train nearby, and none are planned. This garage is solely for people who are catching the GO bus to downtown Toronto down Highway 404 and the Don Valley Parkway. There is nothing anywhere near it and the housing developments in the area are generally very large houses on very large lots.

Here’s the parking garage at the GO Burlington station, which is on the Lakeshore West GO Train line.

Now, over to China. Here’s a brand new subway station in the middle of nowhere

But here’s what they did with it, and it only took seven years

On the TTC, Bessarion station was derided when it was opened 20 years ago as being in a very low density neighbourhood with no other transit connections. Here’s what it look like now

But, frankly ,this is not a new idea

This is Roncesvalles Avenue in Toronto. It’s one of the most desirable neighbourhoods in the city. However, you will notice the street car tracks and power supply for the streetcar. It was there long before the neighbourhood was.

So, if you build a transit station around cars, you will create more traffic because the only reasonable way to get to the transit station is by car .If you build a transit station for people, you will create dynamic neighbourhoods with affordable housing, services, and people who walk to the transit station.

Steubenville, Ohio | Remains of a Rust Belt

One of the first places to die when the the United States “leaders” decides to off-shore industry was Steubenville, Ohio. It used to be a busy and thriving city. With rail, coil, oil, and just about every kind of industry one can think of.

It dies, and never had the opportunity to return. Bad government policies, a lazy and complaisant population, and poor planning destroyed this area. All the other videos shown so far will end up looking like Steubenville.

Yes.

America in 2023 looks like a real-to-life Zombie horror movie, or some post-nuclear war fiasco.

Anyone who thinks that the United States can “take on” China is simply delusional. They are ignorant, silly, and trying to manipulate you. Do not believe them.

What are some reasons that you, personally, would not want to visit or live in the United States?

Originally Answered: What are some reasons that you, personally, would not want to visit or live in the US?

Contrary to the general belief of outsiders’ on Americans living in crowded cities or high rise buildings, majority of people actually live in suburbs and suburban type houses. I lived in midwest a couple of years and was never sorry to leave that behind:

Coming from a crazy densely populated city (Istanbul), my first impression was actually a heart-felt admiration. Those huge spaces between the houses which makes an invisible border protecting the personal space, the perfect order (dotted by little gray squirrels), impression of self-sufficiency of people living in those independent units, little ponds (or lakes as some call).. I really wanted to shake hands with the guy who designed that ideal civilized life style.

But, sorry, a year was more than enough in the suburbs. The perfection starts to feel oppressive soon. Why is there so much green space if no one is doing anything on it? There are no people out there, anywhere, but in the cars. Then the cars drive into the garages, you catch a glimpse of humans, and they disappear. Even the squirrels are anti-social, they bark at you, like they claimed the outside world to themselves already. I just wish they put there and then one house diagonal to the street, just to break the symmetry, ignite a spark of curiosity in the brain. Nay, this is not perfection, it is simplification, it is mass production, sorry but it is death dull.

An Unfolding Tragedy: The Impossibility of Doing ‘Anything Other’

By Alastair Crooke

June 19, 2023

The conditions that gave rise to the golden era that created the ‘Comfort Generation’ no longer are available, Alastair Crooke writes.

The Tragedy that besets the West today consists, on the one hand, of the sheer impossibility for it to continue doing what it has been doing – yet matched only by its impossibility to do anything other.

Why is this so? It is because the conditions that gave rise to the golden era that created the ‘Comfort Generation’ no longer are available: Zero interest credit, zero inflation, a colluding media, and cheap energy ‘subsidising’ a shrinking and increasingly sclerotic manufacturing base (at least in Europe).

Those decades were the West’s fleeting ‘moment in the sun’. But it is over. The ‘periphery’ can manage on its own, thank you! They are doing nicely – rather better, in fact, than the imperial hub these days.

The deeper paradox is that all the easy choices are behind us. And the headwinds of debt, inflation and recession are now buffeting us fiercely. System ‘unravelling’ is already present in the form of government and institutional weakness: the ‘system’ lacked the will to take difficult decisions when it could. Easy choices then were still available, and the easy way invariably was the one taken.

The élites had absorbed the self-centred, spoilt-child ethos of the ‘me’ generation. The Permanent Class indulged themselves,abdicating all concern for their deeply disdained ‘peons’. They brought the present crisis upon themselves. They wiped out two hundred years of financial responsibility in about 20 years.

It is however, what it is – and that is where we are at. And even though it is now increasingly understood

that the West cannot persist as if ‘all is fine’ – even as the Rulers try to continue the money printing, the bailouts and with the media narrative washing away their mistakes – they do sense the crisis, the coming ‘Turning’.

So, put plainly, this constitutes the paradox: It is already obvious that to continue doing what western élites are doing in Ukraine touches on the definition of madness (to keep on repeating the same thing, matched only by the conviction that ‘next time’ the outcome will be different). The question that ‘hangs’ is the impossibility of ‘doing anything other’.

The Washington Post casts

doubts:

“As Ukraine launches its long-awaited counteroffensive against entrenched Russian occupiers, both Kyiv and its backers are hoping for a rapid retaking of strategically significant territory. Anything less will present the United States and its allies with uncomfortable questions they are not yet prepared to answer”.

“As he heads into next year’s re-election campaign, Biden needs a major battlefield victory to show that his unqualified support for Ukraine has burnished U.S. global leadership, reinvigorated a strong foreign policy with bipartisan support and demonstrated the prudent use of American military strength abroad”.

The impossibility of ‘doing anything other’ than continuing the conflict will be promoted vigorously: Biden needs it, (the weapons provided to Ukraine did not go far enough…), and further, six geopolitical ‘Swing States’ (Brazil, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Turkey) are at risk of aligning with the Russia-China Axis

, unless Putin is seen to be humiliated:

“[We must act] to prevent a significant weakening in the U.S. position in the global power balance. With the Swing States’ refusal to line up behind the United States on the Russia-Ukraine war, or competition with China, many of these key countries are already drifting away. The threat of a Sino-Russian co-optation of an expanded BRICS — and through it, of the global south — is real, and it needs to be addressed”.

Put starkly: The U.S. must persist in Ukraine. Why? To save the now threatened ‘Rules-Based Order’.

The impossibility of doing other (than keep escalating in the hope of at least ‘freezing’ the conflict, as a long favoured U.S. default option) will be portrayed as compelling. Simply said, the Permanent State lacks the courage to take hard decisions – to say to Moscow, ‘Let us put this unfortunate episode (Ukraine) behind us. Dig out those draft treaties you wrote in December 2021, and let’s see how we can work together, to restore some functionality again to Europe’.

And of course, the ‘impossibility of doing anything other’ applies in spades to the western economic system. The structural contradictions make anything ‘other’ than bailouts and spending more than is earned impossible. It is culturally hard-baked into the self-centred, spoilt-child ethos of the ‘Comfort’ generation who are the western élites. A failure of culture – of courage to face hard choices with integrity.

This is the western paradox. A Greek tragedy is one in which the crisis – at the heart of any ‘tragedy’ – does not arise by sheer mischance, for which no-one is really to be blamed, or could have foreseen. The Greek sense is that tragedy is where something happens, because it has to happen; because of the nature of the participants; because the actors involved make it happen. And they have no choice, but to make it happen, because that is their nature.

This is the deeper implication that flows from today’s tragic dilemma that might well segue into a full unfolding of tragedy in what would correctly be defined as a western ‘war of choice’.

What happened? The nature of the élites changed. The inflated sense of self-importance and self-indulgence displaced that of integrity and looking ‘truth in the eye’. Where are those with stature? Instead we have an élite that believes that there was ‘no risk’: No state, no person nor institution that could resist the heft of combined financial western power weaponised against them.

The backlash however, has started. Anger grows as public discourse debates endlessly ‘the absurd’ (“What is a woman?”) whilst everyone gives up on ever fixing the deeper issues at stake.

In Neil Howe and William Strauss’ 1997 work, The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy, the co-authors “reject the deep premise of modern Western historians that social time is either linear (continuous progress or decline) or chaotic (too complex to reveal any direction). Instead we adopt the insight of nearly all traditional societies: That social time is a recurring cycle”.

In the Fourth Turning, the crisis arrives. This, the authors write, is when institutional life is reconstructed from the ground up, always in response to a perceived threat to the nation’s very survival. “People and groups begin to pitch-in as participants in a larger community”.

This possibly represents the dizzying political realignment now under way – the scrambling of all of the traditional categories and leaving in its wake just two sides; not left and right, but insider and outsider.

But Malcom Kyeyune cautions

:

“The ruling elite is increasingly angry and bitter that the ruled no longer listen; the ruled, for their part, are bitter that the system so obviously doesn’t act in their interest, nor does it even really pretend to anymore. We might actually wake up one day only to find that neither politicians nor voters think ‘democracy’ is doing very much to help them anymore”.

This reflects very much the sense that western civilisation’s survival is at stake. The process is likely to reshape western politics along a new faultline, one which finds expression in the confrontation between those wishing for a ‘Green’ upending of human society; a ‘Trans’ world for children; easy immigration; the radical re-ordering of power between ‘Identity’ groups in society; changing of the very nature of Western culture – and those viscerally opposed to all of the above.

Downtown Zhuhai Driving, the Most Livable Garden City in Guangdong, China

This is where I live today.

Assholes call me a “traitor” for leaving the United States and moving to the horrible Communist China…

The contrast between the USA and China is amazing!

Did you know that the Statue of Liberty has chains around its feet?

Hum….

What was your biggest life shock when moving back to the USA?

Our family moved to Europe in 2010 and came back to the US in 2016. The biggest life shock for us when moving back to the USA was the increased cost of living and the fast-paced life.

We lived in one of the poorest countries in Europe at the time as social workers/missionaries in Albania. So, for us, the cost of living was quite low. And, we lived quite comfortably, even with some luxuries that many Albanians could not afford. Simple things like a 3-bedroom apartment, a car, and something as simple as water provided directly by the city rather than a gravity fed water tank from atop the roof. Ironically, even with these things we still lived below the average American with a household income of $40,000 for a family of five.

We came off the field in 2016 and moved back to the US. Specifically, we moved to a small suburb south of Dallas in Midlothian, Texas. We thought we would settle into a small town drawing an income not too different than the one we had in Albania.

Boy, were we naive. We were particularly struck by the high prices of housing, food, and healthcare. And, we were also struck by the fast paced life. We had only been gone just shy of six years, and it seemed like life had changed so much in the US during that time. We didn’t remember prices being so high. Nor, did we remember living such a fast paced life.

My wife and I both landed decent jobs, drawing a household income well over what we used to have. And, even this could hardly pay the bills.

We didn’t live extravagant lives. A modest 3-bedroom home, with two used cars, and used furniture donated to us from churches and private donors. And, my wife and I got burned out real fast dealing with the hustle and bustle of American life. Up at the crack of dawn, get the kids ready for school, dealing with bumper-to-bumper traffic, road rage, be at work by 8:30 sharp, working overtime, return home in rush hour traffic, picking up the kids from school, take them to soccer practice, come home and get ready for the next day and go to bed. We hardly had time to prepare our own meals, therefore, we often ate fast food. It wasn’t a healthy choice, but it was quite convenient amidst a busy life.

Honestly, we hated it.

My wife got burnt out working as a an administrator at a nursing home. Difficult boss, rigid, with strict rules and policies. We hardly had any money left over after paying the bills, especially medical costs since I didn’t have health insurance (my job was considered part time because I worked 35 hours per week).

We really missed the laid back life of Albania.

Life was slower paced there. Where rest was a daily part of life. Shops closed at noon for a couple of hours and people went home to take a nap, or gather at the local cafe and have coffee (or raki) with friends. And, we really missed the affordability of basic necessities such as fresh fruit and vegetables for mere pennies, rent was a mere equivalent to $400/mo. Utility bills no more than $200/mo. Clothing and shoes less than $10 per item. And, socialized healthcare with only minimal fees.

But, while in the U.S. we finally decided to make another move.

As fate would have it, I landed a new job opportunity located in a small rural town in Rust Belt America in northwestern Pennsylvania. It is in the Appalachian region of America where the per capita income is $25,000 per household. 20% of its populace live below the poverty line.

It is a depressed area full of blight, drugs, unemployment, crime, and poverty.

It is in this area, that I worked as Pastor of Community Ministries for a Lutheran church where I was was primarily responsible for engaging with and connecting churches to the community through a variety of social initiatives and programs. It is here where I helped lead a food distribution ministry that provided hot meals to an average of 300 people of low income in the community per month.

The good news?

We finally found a place in the US where we could actually afford to live, and live a slower paced life similar to Albania.

Housing is very affordable, utilities are affordable, food, and clothing are affordable.

Unfortunately, gas/petrol is high, and so are taxes. Nevertheless, people drive slow here, no traffic.

Many places only work a 37.5 hour work week. Time to be at work is flexible. People value the quietness, tranquility, and slow paced life here that we have found quite invigorating. And, no keeping up with The Joneses.

As a result, we have been able to catch up on our bills and become nearly debt free.

Our kids are growing up in a small town and not pressured by performance or popularity measures that we often experienced in the city life. Sure, it’s not perfect, and we gave up some conveniences (after all Pizza Hut is fine dining here). But, all and all, we like it here.

Sorry, this was probably much more than what you wanted to read.

Shanghai 2023 Night Walk

This is China. Soak it up!

Have you, while repairing a computer, ever found anything that made your jaw drop?

I was a kid, and we had a nice “family computer” that my techie father arranged, complete with a batch file “games menu” and everything.
A 286 IBM PC, similar to this:

Anyway, I was playing something and all of a sudden a very loud BANG!!
It sounded like it was coming off the back of the monitor.
Everything was still working fine, so I chucked it off to some bizarre occurrence, but twenty minutes later and BANG!! it goes again. Being a kid, I still wanted to finish my game, so I kept at it for at least another BANG!!
Eventually I got scared, and stopped using the pc until my dad got back from work.
When he did, we powered the pc on and waited, and yep, we got the BANG!! again.
My dad took the monitor back to the store/lab to check it out, but after a couple of days they said they couldn’t find anything wrong with it. We were puzzled – what the heck could be going on?? Does it only happen when it’s running warm in our room and not the cold lab?
On a hunch, my dad decided to open the computer case and look at the PSU it had on the back, because it’s the only other place that has high enough voltage to produce such loud noises. As an electrical technician he had all of his equipment ready to try to figure out the cause.
Lo and behold, one of the big capacitors was split open in half. No need to bust out the Fluke meter…
The pc just kept on running as if nothing was the matter, but once that capacitor couldn’t handle the load it discharged itself catastrophically and was ready for another round. I’m still amazed nothing else got damaged and the pc kept working like that.

What are some unwritten social rules everyone should know?

• Don’t point out a flaw in someone else’s appearance unless it can be fixed in a minute.

Example: Okay: piece of food on teeth, bit of dirt on face, unfixed collar, etc.

Not okay: crooked teeth, uneven eyes, old clothes, etc.

• Do not swipe left or right if someone shows you a photo on their phone.
• If someone whispers something to you, you whisper back. Also, it is rude to whisper around other people, especially if you’re with them.
• If you’re going out to dinner with other people, and they’re paying, don’t order the most expensive things.
• For buses, trains, or lifts, always let people exit first before you get on.

• Don’t leave your grocery cart in the middle of the grocery aisle while you go off to fetch something. Park it nicely beside something, not dang in the middle of the aisle.

• When you’re entering the room of someone you’re very familiar with (for example, a best friend or a same-sex sibling) at least knock or call out to announce your entrance. No matter how close you are to someone, it is never okay to barge into their personal space unannounced.
• Don’t ask for something when you can see the person only has one left (for example, gum, cigarette, piece of cake, a blue pen, etc.).
• You do not have to be nice to people are serving you, but what you do have to be is not rude. Don’t take your bad day out on someone who is only doing their job.
• Always say please and thank you. Sounds simple but you’d be surprised at how many adults who don’t do this. Just because you’re an adult doesn’t give you the right to stop practicing manners.
• If you are a guest at someone else’s house, always make an effort to clean up, at least clean up the space you occupy. Make up the bed you slept in, etc.
• When exiting a room or an elevator along with other people, wait for the people nearest the exit to leave first.

• Unless it’s acceptable in your culture, always chew with your mouth closed, especially when you’re in the presence of other people.
• Always make an effort to participate fully when someone tries to involve you in a polite conversation. Answers to questions like, “how are you, what have you been up to, etc.” should always be finished with “and how about you?”
• If you borrowed someone else’s car and used their gas, fill it up before you return it.
• When you’re walking in a public space where there are other people, be self-aware. Be aware of how you’re moving. If the path is small, do not block it by moving like a snail while on your phone. Don’t zig-zag on sidewalks, don’t fill the entire width of the sidewalk.

Edited to add some points provided by the lovely people in the comments:

• Please don’t leave your shopping cart in a parking space. Be considerate & put it away.
• Don’t start a coffee morning in the middle of the aisle. The cafe is down the road, mate.
• Don’t heavily fondle the produce and then put them back on the shelf.
• Don’t ram my backside with your trolley to get past, just say “excuse me please”.
• Don’t stop when you get off an escalator there are other people coming up behind you.
• As you’re walking, don’t stop in a doorway. “I’ve seen people do that while on their phones all the time and they seem to be oblivious to the fact that they are blocking traffic.”
• Return a borrowed item as soon as you’re done with it, not when the owner finally realises they need it and it’s missing.

The betrayal of Hong Kong

To the west, the once swashbuckling Hong Kong is now a wounded city, living under Beijing’s jackboot. Its fate is lumped together with Xinjiang’s, as alleged victims of autocracy.

Nothing is further from the truth. By a leap of logic, the US and its allies have weaponized this falsehood.

What is at play is a swing of the pendulum—from extreme lawlessness to restored order.

The indisputable truth is that for 23 years following the handover, Hong Kong was granted full freedoms never allowed under British rule. Beijing faithfully honored the letter and spirit of “One Country Two Systems”. Agitators had plenty of wriggle room to rampage and run amok, a la Trump insurrectionists. Except in Washington, it lasted only one day. But here, the sound and fury of rioting reverberated for over 9 months. No government, East or West, has ever tolerated a year-long street unrest.

The fight was purportedly over universal suffrage. But instead, they sold us a deadly populist democracy or mob rule. One person one vote is meaningless when democrats themselves offer no credible leaders to compete against establishment candidates. They are, one and all, grandstanders who play to the camera, with callous disregard for people’s livelihood. Their moral authority rings hollow, the fight being over an abstract concept. They can talk the talk, but can’t walk the talk.

From day one, activists played by their own rules, not even bothering to pay lip service to “One country, two systems”, brazenly sloganeering for the downfall of the CCP and spewing anti-Beijing venom. It escalated into an insurgency, a messy civil war, with no one challenging the moral merits of their cause. These absolutists demanded absolute surrender. Compromise was not in their vocabulary. They adopted populist democracy as practiced by the bombastic Donald Trump and his British sidekick, Boris the buffoon. The more lies and more crimes the better, so long as they profit from the mess. Both left their respective society divided and devastated. Copycat Hong Kong, predictably, suffered the same fate. These political snake oil salespeople were too busy playing heroes and getting photo ops with the likes of Nancy Pelosi.

But for Hong Kong, the price was huge.

In their frontal assault on social order, they “threw the baby out with the bath water”, plunging the city into anarchy. Hong Kong descended into a land of the lawless, thanks, ironically, to a misguided law professor and his equally misguided cabal of collaborators. Gone with the tear-gas was its legendary rule of law, the backbone of democracy.

The aftermath has rippled across the Taiwan Strait. With One-Country-Two-Systems discredited, the dream of a peaceful reunification died on the vine, breathing new life into the faltering fortunes of the separatist Taiwan leader. America turned Hong Kong into a pawn in its geopolitical game, pushing China to the brink of war over Taiwan. The unrest is in truth an act of subversion and treason.

People should ask: With amoral leaders like Trump and Boris, who needs one person one vote? Local activists were barking up the wrong tree. Despite being cheek-by-jowl with the mainland, they were woefully ignorant of their own country. Umbilically linked to their former colonial master, they blindly worshipped all things British, behaving like “bananas”– yellow on the outside but white on the inside. They paralyzed the legislative chamber and politicized the serious business of government. To them it was all a show, played for the benefit of their offshore puppet masters in London and Washington. These headline hunters hallucinated about winning the Nobel Peace Prize, while fear stalked the city. Universities, no longer oases of peace and tolerance, became battlegrounds. At least two university presidents went into hiding after the security cameras covering the President’s lodge had been tampered with. Mainland academics’ offices were trashed, and mainland students had to scurry across the border to safety. An unarmed citizen was set on fire in front of TV cameras. The old decent Hong Kong was no more. Only Yellow or Blue camps exist, for pro-and anti-government camps respectively. Friendships are fractured; blood relationships are ruptured. Livelihoods are lost and the economy has gone south, with no dialogue across the political divide. Is this the Promised Land they have pledged to deliver?

Hong Kong has earned the dubious title of “protest capital of the world”, proof of freedom galore. Compounding the chaos were local officials insulated from reality by their high pay and coveted perks. Outplayed and outmatched, they let troublemakers sell Hong Kong down the river.

Order is now restored. But local leaders should be wary of wielding the National Security Law as a blunt instrument, lest it inadvertently undermines One-Country-Two-Systems. With its special character, Hong Kong has a unique role in China’s strategic development, a role no other mainland city can play. This time, be sure we give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. Locals should stop poking their noses into Mainland affairs—that’s not a restriction on freedom, that’s honoring Two Systems. Focus instead on livelihood matters, most notably affordable housing and reviving indigenous culture like our road-side eateries. Forget populist democracy, a bankrupt idea to which we are culturally allergic. Time heals all wounds. Let Hong Kong do what it does best: capitalizing on opportunities, near and far. Above all, let this city hum again with harmony.

Secret INSANE SEX Lives Of Mennonite People

Now for some fun. Learn something for a change.

BRICS problems, BRI solutions

While the five original BRICS states have their geopolitical differences, they are finding enormous common ground on the geoeconomic front as trade volumes surge and trade routes multiply.

By Pepe Escobar

JUL 24, 2023

As the BRICS approach the most important summit in their history on August 22-24 in Johannesburg, South Africa, some fundamentals need to be observed.

The top three BRICS cooperation platforms are politics and security, finance and the economy, and culture. So the notion that a new BRICS gold-backed reserve currency will be announced at the South Africa summit is spurious.

What is in progress, as confirmed by BRICS sherpas, is the R5: a new common payment system. The sherpas are only in the preliminary stages of discussing a new reserve currency which could be gold or commodities-based. The discussions within the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), led by Sergey Glazyev, by comparison, are way more advanced.

The order of priorities is to get R5 rolling. All current BRICS currencies start with an “R”: renminbi (yuan), ruble, real, rupee, and rand. R5 will allow current members to increase mutual trade by bypassing the US dollar and reducing their US dollar reserves. This is only the first of many practical steps in the long and winding road of de-dollarization.

An expanded role for the New Development Bank (NDB) – the BRICS bank – is still being discussed. The NDB may, for instance, grant loans denominated in BRICS gold – making it a global unit of account in trade and financial transactions. BRICS exporters will then have to sell their goods against BRICS gold, instead of US dollars, as much as importers from the collective west would have to be willing to pay in BRICS gold.

That’s a long way away, to put it mildly.

Frequent discussions with sherpas from Russia and also independent financial operators in the EU and the Persian Gulf always touch on the key problem: imbalances and weak nodes inside the BRICS, which will tend to serially proliferate with the imminent BRICS+ expansion.

Within BRICS, there’s a wealth of serious unsolved dossiers between China-India, while Brazil is squeezed between a list of imperial dictates and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s natural drive to fortify the Global South. Argentina has been all but forced by the usual suspects to “postpone” its admission request to join BRICS+.
And then there’s the weak link by definition: South Africa. Squeezed between a rock and a hard place, the organizer of the most important summit in BRICS history opted for a humiliating compromise not exactly worthy of an independent Global South middle-ranked power.

South Africa decided not to receive Russian President Vladimir Putin and opted instead for the presence of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – as Pretoria first suggested to Moscow. The other BRICS members validated the decision.

The compromise means that Russia will be physically represented by Lavrov while Putin will participate in the whole process – and subsequent decisions – via videoconference.

Translation: Putin tested Pretoria and exposed it to the whole Global South as a fragile node of the “jungle” – actually the Global Majority – easily threatened by the western “garden” gang and not a real independent foreign policy practitioner.

St. Petersburg-Shanghai via the Arctic

This South African decision by itself raises serious questions about whether BRICS-led geopolitics is just an illusion.

Geoeconomically though, the group has entered a whole different ball game, illustrated by the multiple BRICS interconnections with the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Chinese trade with BRI nations increased 9.8 percent in the first half of 2023 – compared to the same period last year. That contrasts sharply with the 4.7 percent overall contraction of trade between China and the collective west: Down with the EU by 4.9 percent, and down with the US by 14.5 percent.

Chinese trade with Russia, meanwhile, alongside exports to South Africa and Singapore, raised exponentially by 78 percent. As an example, late last week, a Chinese cargo set sail from St. Petersburg loaded with fertilizers, chemicals, and paper products. It will cross the Arctic and arrive in Shanghai in early August.

Zhou Liqun, chairman of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Russia, went straight to the point – this is just the start of the “routine operation of the Arctic freight shipping route between China and Russia.” It’s all about “the security of logistical channels” inbuilt in the Russia-China strategic partnership.

The Arctic Silk Road, from now on, will be increasingly strategic. The Chinese can keep it open at least from July to October every year. And as a bonus, a warming Arctic allows better access to oil/gas resources. A trademark “win-win” – no wonder since 2017 the development of the Arctic Silk Road is part of BRI.

All of the above shows a sharp shift in the Chinese commercial drive towards the Global South. Trade with China’s BRI partners now amounts to 34.3 percent of China’s total global trade in terms of value – and that number is rising.

From the UAP railway to the Greater Bay Area

On the Russian front, all eyes are on the 7,200 km-long, multimodal International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) – which alarms the collective west as a de facto replacement of the Suez Canal. The INSTC cuts shipping costs by about 50 percent and saves up to 20 days of travel compared to the Suez route.

INSTC trade – via ship, rail, and roads linking Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, India, and Central Asia – should triple over the next seven years, as Russian Transport Minister Vitaly Saveliev noted at the recent St. Petersburg forum. Russia will invest over $3 billion in the INSTC up to 2030.

Increasing trade between Russia, Iran, and India via the INSTC connects to something that until recently would be regarded as a UFO: the Trans-Afghan Railway.

The Trans-Afghan will emerge as a follow-up to something very important that happened last week, when Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan signed a joint protocol to connect the Uzbek and Pakistani networks via Mazar-i-Sharif and Logar in Afghanistan.

Welcome to the UAP railway – which could be hailed not only as a BRI but also as a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) project – where Tashkent and Islamabad are full members, and Kabul is an observer. Call it a much-needed trade corridor doubling up as a classic Chinese “people-to-people exchange” platform.

The Uzbeks estimate that the 760 km-long railway will reduce travel time by five days and costs by at least 40 percent. The project could be finished by 2027.

The subsequent 573 km-long Trans-Afghan Railway has already got its road map: it’s bound to connect the intersection of Central and South Asia to ports on the Arabian Sea.

All of the above expands Chinese trade in several directions. Which brings us to a fascinating symbiosis in progress between south China and West Asia – symbolized by the Greater Bay Area.

As Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman turbo-charges his immensely ambitious Vision 2030 modernization project, the Greater Bay Area is being hailed by Saudis as no less than “the future of Asia.”

Every investor from Jeddah to Hong Kong knows that Beijing is aiming to turn the Greater Bay Area into a prime global tech center, centered in Shenzhen, with Hong Kong playing the role of privileged global finance hub and Macau as the cultural hub.

The Greater Bay Area, not by accident, is a key BRI plank. As a whole, the nine cities in Guangdong, plus Hong Kong and Macau (more than 80 million people, 10 percent of Chinese GDP), will be configured as an astonishing first-class economic powerhouse by 2035, largely overtaking Tokyo Bay, the New York Metro Area, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

With Saudi Arabia aiming to become a full member of both BRI and SCO, Beijing and Riyadh will turbo-charge their tech cooperation on top of energy and infrastructure.

All eyes on South Africa next month are on how BRICS will work to solve its internal issues while organizing the expansion to BRICS+. Who will get to join the club? Saudi Arabia? UAE? Iran? Kazakhstan? Algeria? The top two BRICS countries, China and Russia keep investing in a geoeconomic roll that has dozens of countries lining up to join.