Vassal states do not have the right to decide for peace. Never sign an agreement with someone who has no authority or power to comply with that agreement. This is Business 101. Otherwise, I have a nice property for sale on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

I have many friends and associates in Germany. They proudly told me that Germany would defy America and do business with Russia and China because it benefited Germany. They all got upset at me for telling them that Germany was a vassal state and, at the end of the day, must comply with American orders. 

Unfortunately, Germany has lost Russia, and it's going to lose China. A lot of good signing agreements with vassal states. This is not to say one won't talk or have agreements, but keep in mind who and what you're dealing with, and be prepared for what will certainly happen. If a vassal state wants to be treated as a sovereign state, the first thing to do is to expel all American soldiers.

Agreements require a lot of trust, especially between states, because you can't sue for breach of contract. Let's call a spade a spade and not pretend that individual vassal states of America can call the shots and have their own peace. It's a pipe dream, no pun intended.

-PM

Typhoon hitting my “neck of the woods”, which is more or less normal for this time of year. It’s not so bad. Just wet and windy. All is functioning normally, though my little girl is worrying about “daddy” and kept on calling on me to see that I was ok.

Today I’m presently a plethora of videos for your entertainment and study. It will jump here and there, but taken as a whole you will get a pretty good picture of what is actually going on globally.

It is a surprising decline of the American led West, and at this point in time I actually wonder if there actually will be “elections” next November. Ah. We will see.

Meanwhile, focus on yourself and your family.

Videos out of the States’ are showing that even well-to-do patrons to private golf clubs are now shoplifting from the pro-shop. Ah. It won’t be long now. Don’t you know…

What is the sleaziest, dirtiest trick an auto insurance company tried to pull on you? Did they succeed?

My husband was in an accident when a woman on her cellphone ran a red light. His car was a nine month old 2015 Mustang GT 5.0 convertible with all bells and whistles anyone could ask for.

The police officer on the scene told my husband the car would more than likely be totaled.

Finally, our insurance company adjuster called to say the car wasn’t totaled because the amount of damage wasn’t within their parameters. I wanted to reach through the phone and throat punch him.

I told him if that was the case, I was putting in a claim for diminished value, adding $4,500 to the amount of the claim. And it they wouldn’t pay it, I was going to get a lawyer.

The adjuster called me back awhile later. “Mrs. Egan, we are totaling the car.”

RBN Saturday Live: Jimmy Dore Joins | Tucker Carlson DESTROYS Mike Pence on Ukraine

An AMAZING VIDEO! Wholly shit!

All of the presidential candidates are interviewed on their policies, and wholly shit, are they a group of morons!

Was there ever a running joke at your workplace that eventually became true?

My boss at the plumbing company was a creature of habit once he showed up at the office. But he always changed his routine on the way to work. He said he did that so he could never “be assassinated” – his own words.

Unless he checked in on his way to the office, I never knew where he was or what time to expect him. So I started the joke “if we don’t hear from Bill by 10:00 am, he must be in jail.”

Years later, our company was doing a drainage work project on the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel as part of its renovation. Bill drove from Pittsburgh to Baltimore for a surprise site visit to make sure our work was on schedule. He told me he was going to meet up with customers of ours while there after the site visit and would be back at work the next day.

The next day went like this.

• 9 am. No word from Bill. Cell phones hadn’t been invented yet, so we were at his mercy.
• 10 am. Dead air. I still didn’t know where Bill was.
• 11 am. Bill’s wife called me, asking if I’d heard from him. I told her no, but it was still too early to start calling hospitals and police stations.
• 1 pm. Bill called. Before I could ask, he said the words I’ll remember until the day I die. “Diane, I’m in jail.” I laughed. “C’mon Bill. Be serious. Where are you?” When he said “Diane, I’m in jail. Don’t tell my wife when she calls”, I knew he wasn’t kidding.

My best boss story ever

After the site visit, Bill and some of our customers went to a bar in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. What Bill didn’t know is the police cracked down on people passing out at the bar and public drunkenness.

One of our customers passed out and fell asleep on the bar. The bartender called the cops. Fourteen cops showed up, ready to arrest everybody. Another one of our customers, Denny, was an ironworker. He was drunk and started m-f’ing the cops who handcuffed the passed out drunk guy. He fell off his barstool. One of the cops raised his nightstick up in the air, ready to hit Denny with it.

Bill was watching the whole thing come down. He didn’t want Denny to get hurt with the nightstick, so Bill walked behind the cop and grabbed the nightstick. He didn’t take it. He just stopped it from coming down on Denny.

Guess who was charged with felony assault on a police officer? You got it, my boss! I called our attorneys so they could start getting Bill out of jail.

Bill’s wife kept calling. I kept lying to her, telling her I’m sure he got tied up at the job site and be patient.

When it was all over, Bill pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, three years probation, and the record expunged after five years. The judge was pissed. He wanted Bill to serve a jail sentence, so we were lucky.

Bill and his wife never mentioned the Baltimore debacle to their daughters. One of the girls got a summer job at the contractor’s office in Pittsburgh a few years later. Bill said they were eating dinner one night. His daughter never looked up from her plate when she asked, “So Dad. How was prison?”

There are no secrets in the construction industry.

My neighbor claims 3 feet of my land belongs to her, due to a survey. Can the county record change the boundary of an existing home boundary for 55 years?

I owned 3 feet over on my neighbors side of the property. I let her use it exclusively for 6 years. She parked her cars on my 3 feet. She built 2 gates on my 3 feet and it wasn’t until she wouldn’t let me fix my roof on that side of the property that I was forced to take her to court. I found out that not only 3 feet were mine. It was an easement in place and 50% of her property is mine. It’s a shared driveway set in place over 100 years ago. It’s nothing she can do about it. She lied in court to no avail. I cut down her gates all because she wouldn’t let me fix my roof. Be nice!

Is China military capable as its says? Could it take over Taiwan if USA steps in. One major concern is the use of nuclear weapons. Would it be safe to say Chinas military is weak. Also, are there nukes in stable condition?

1. Taiwan returned to China from Japanese colonial rule in 1946. Now, Chinese political parties other than the CPC rule Taiwan. Yes, Taiwan’s DPP and KMT are both Chinese political parties. As I understand it, there are also red states and blue states in the US. Since the U.S. is currently governed by Democrats, am I to assume that none of the red states are part of the U.S.?
2. China is capable of destroying the entire United States with a nuclear weapon in 20 minutes because China has the most advanced hypersonic missiles in the world, while the United States is stuck in a rut with its hypersonic missile research that has not been successful so far. Hypersonic missiles have a powerful ability to break through missile defenses, and there are currently no missile defense systems capable of intercepting hypersonic missiles. 20 minutes is short. The end result was that the nuclear weapons on the U.S. missile racks had no time to warm up, and the Chinese hypersonic missiles entered the airspace over New York from mainland China in about 20 minutes. You should be grateful that China is the only country that has made a firm commitment to “no first use of nuclear weapons”, and China never goes around provoking.
3. The Taiwan question is China’s internal affair, which brooks no interference by any foreign force. In front of the Chinese side, the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength. The U.S. side was not even qualified to say such things even 20 years or 30 years back, because this is not the way to deal with the Chinese people.

The US Is Ugly. THIS is Why.

A must watch video. Needs to be said. Scan through the advertisement and the preoccupation with racism. I do not believe that the urban sprawl is due to racism, but rather to greed…

The US is UGLY. How did this happen? How did we get this suburban sprawl that we all have to live with today? And what can we do to improve our communities?

A watch

A certain farmer lost his valuable old pocket watch while working in his barn. It may look like an ordinary, worthless watch, but it had a deep emotional value because this watch was a gift to him from his beloved.

The farmer was very upset and started looking for his watch by turning the straw here and there. After searching for the watch for a long time, he got tired. But he didn’t want to give up his search for his watch, so he asked a group of children playing outside for help. He promised them a good reward to the one who could find his precious watch.

Eager to get the prize, the children rushed into the barn and circled the haystack to find the watch. After a long time of looking for it, by turning the stack of hay around, some of the children got tired and gave up searching. The number of children looking for the watch slowly decreased and only a few tired children were left. They stopped looking for the it. Finally, the farmer also gave up hope of finding it and stopped searching.

When the farmer was about to close the door of the barn, a little boy approached him and asked the farmer to give him another chance. The farmer was so desperate to find the watch that he allowed the little boy to look for the watch again in the barn.

After a while the little boy came out with the watch in his hand. The farmer was happily surprised after all the other children and himself failed to find the watch and the asked the little boy how he managed to find it.

The boy replied:

“I sat at different spots on the ground next to the haystack and tried to hear the ticking of the clock. Quietly listening to it and paying attention to the direction of the sound, made finding the watch much easier. “

The farmer was more than happy to find the watch and gave the little boy the reward as promised

——————————————–

A peaceful and calm mind can think better than an anxious mind. Allow your mind to be still for a few minutes every now and then. Sometimes you just need to relax and listen.

Oh SH*T, Putin and China just watched the US dig its own grave

New numbers just released show the United States is past the point of no return.

While China and Russia make moves to expand the size and scope of BRICS, the U.S. interest payments on its $32 trillion dollar debt will exceed $1 trillion.

Economists believe this is the beginning of the end for US dollar dominance.

What is an experience you had in “the ghetto” you’ll never forget?

When I was in my 20’s I had a job repairing x-ray equipment on site at doctor’s offices, clinics, small hospitals and veterinary offices. I caught a service call to a radiologist office in the heart of Watts. The clinic was across the street from the neighborhood liquor store. In the morning the locals would line up, hang out on the liquor store side In the shade (maybe 20–30). In the afternoon they’d line up on the side of the street the office was on.

I parked, grabbed my tools and went in getting lots of shade from the locals…. What are you doin’ here white boy? I did my repair and went back to my car………. Son of a bitch……the battery was dead. I went back in and asked the x-ray tech what he thought I should do. He asked, “Is it a stick shift (VW squareback). Yes it is. He asked if I had $4.00. (1973–75). I said I did. He walked me over to the liquor store, we bought a gallon of jug wine and went back to the group. He stood in front of the group, held up the jug and said, “My white skinned brother would like to make a contribution to the Neighborhood. He needs a push.”

Next thing I know the whole group is pushing me…..I popped the clutch and off I went. Whenever there was a service call to that office I requested the dispatch. Those folks were nothing but kind to me when I was there. I’d hang out for a bit and shoot the shit with ‘em. I was invited to dinner at one of their homes. Soul food (and kindness) I’ll never forget. Good folks. Respect and kindness can build bridges.

M 7.4 Earthquake Off Alaska Coast – Tsunami Warning Issued

Nation Hal Turner 16 July 2023

A large earthquake, with an initial Magnitude of 7.4, struck off the Aleutian Islands of Alaska at 2:48 AM eastern US time, generating TSUNAMI WARNINGS and EVACUATIONS along the Alaska Coast all the way to Anchorage.

The quake struck in the Pacific Ocean as shown on the map below:

TSUNAMI WARNING BUOYS WENT INTO “EVENT” MODE:

TSUNAMI WARNINGS were issued:

WEAK51 PAAQ 160721
TSUAK1

BULLETIN
Public Tsunami Message Number 2
NWS National Tsunami Warning Center Palmer AK
1121 PM AKDT Sat Jul 15 2023

Ukraine LOSES 30% Of Bradleys To Russia, Tucker Carlson DESTROYS Ukraine Liars

Its a “pulse” on American society. Please check it out, and skim though the promotional commercials.

The comment section is a classic example of a “Bot swarm”. Ukraine as the topic…of course.

https://youtu.be/re_94PXEDoE

If the U.S. isn’t a democracy anymore, then what are we?

I’ll give you a straight answer. The US isn’t a democracy. Never was. And don’t give me the crap about how the US is a representative democracy. The US wasn’t a “representative” democracy either, considering all the gerrymandering and voter suppression.

No. The US is, and has always been, a plutocracy, as in “rule by the wealthy.”

In the eyes of the founding fathers, only land-owning white men were qualified to vote, despite claiming “all men are born equal.” It was never about equality. It was always about money.

Yes, black people can vote, and so can women.

But there’s also Citizen United Vs. FEC. Sure, you can argue “representative” democracy or one person, one vote, whatever. It doesn’t matter when only the rich and powerful feed millions of dollars in election campaigns.

And I think you knew. Otherwise, you wouldn’t get all evasive and argue on the semantics of representative democracy or direct democracy. You know something isn’t right with American “democracy.” Because deep down in your heart of hearts, you know we never had democracy. We have rich people manipulate the elections to protect their interests.

Funny thing is, regular American people are so blinded by this American exceptionalism that they really believe we have the best, most perfect democratic system in the world, and any change would be “against the intention of the founding fathers,” whatever the fuck that means.

I once wrote an answer about how we should remove money from politics. No more citizen united, no more super PAC, no more campaign donations, no more lobbyists. Pay politicians the median wage of the district they represent. No more housing and commute vouchers. No more vacations.

An army of people come and tell me if we don’t pay our politicians exorbitant amounts of money, they’ll inevitably become corrupted, they’ll take bribes, they’ll embezzle money.

It is literally blackmail, and yet we all seem to be perfectly OK with it.

The US doesn’t have democracy, representative or direct. The US never had democracy from the get go, representative or direct.

What the US had was Colonialism, Imperials, an economy built upon slavery, and now plutocracy.

Google’s Decision to Revoke Huawei’s License Comes Back to Bite Themselves.

Recently, data from analysis agencies showed that the market share of iOS has reached a new record high, while the market share of Android has fallen by more than 60%, indicating a decline in Android’s influence on the smartphone market. All of this may be related to Google’s decision to stop authorizing Huawei.

https://youtu.be/3laPHZbcszg

What are some reasons why someone might not want to immigrate to Canada or Australia?

Well, let’s talk about Canada

1. This is changing fast, but if you have some sort of professional qualifications (physician, dentist, engineer, nurse, teacher, etc.) be prepared to essentially start from scratch to prove you’re qualified to do the job. Now, it’s probably true that some people with foreign qualifications really shouldn’t be practicing, and it’s also true that professionals from other countries have devastating drawbacks that means they’ve got stuff to learn (for example, doctors don’t talk down to patients in Canada) but you may be seeking out a job that’s several levels down from what you might expect.
2. Canadian weather is… how should I put this…. cold at times. If you’re from Europe, you’re going to find it cold. If you’re from Asia or Africa, you’re probably going to find it VERY cold. If you’re from Scandinavia or southern South America, it probably won’t be too bad, but for just about everywhere else, you’re going to find it cold even in Toronto, which from a Canadian perspective is downright pleasant in winter. If you’re a good driver, you will find snow will turn you into a terrible driver. It turns Canadians into terrible drivers too, but they adjust fairly quickly after the first snow.
3. Parts of Canada are isolated. It’s a big country. Now, if you live in Toronto, it’s easy to get anywhere. If you live in Winnipeg, it’s not quite so easy. If you live in St. John’s or Victoria, getting anywhere is a major hassle, even if you have a car (can you say “ferry trip”?) St. John’s Newfoundland is closer to ENGLAND than it is to Vancouver. Flying is really the only way to get around the country in any reasonable time – there’s very little rail service and outside the most populated parts of the country, it’s not unusual for major communities to only have a two-lane road joining them (particularly in parts of British Columbia because of the mountains).
4. Housing is expensive. Pretty much everywhere. Quebec has the lowest housing prices, and Northern Ontario is not too bad, but property is expensive in almost all Canadian towns and cities. There’s really nothing anywhere near Toronto that’s affordable, and that includes places that really can’t be described as “commuter communities”.
5. Cellular phone plans are expensive. Except in Saskatchewan (only one company, but it’s owned by the province). Typical plans are expensive and have limited data.

Green Acres – Oliver Has A “Temper Transom” (1968)

Afghan Chicken Kabobs

Ingredients

• 1 cup yogurt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground red or black pepper
• 3 tablespoons garlic, finely minced
• 1 1/2 pounds chicken breasts, boneless, skinless, cut into chunks
• Flatbread such as lavash, pita or flour tortillas
• 3 tomatoes, sliced
• 2 onions, sliced
• Cilantro to taste
• 2 lemons or 4 limes, quartered

Instructions

1. Mix yogurt, salt, pepper and garlic in a bowl. Mix chicken with yogurt and marinate 1 to 2 hours at room temperature, up to 2 days refrigerated.
2. Thread chicken on skewers and grill over medium hot coals.
3. Place warmed pita bread on plates (if using tortillas, toast briefly over flame), divide meat among them, top with tomato and onion slices and cilantro and fold bread over. Serve with lemon or lime quarters for squeezing.

Yield: 4 servings

What is it like to be discreetly wealthy?

I’m a plump middle-age woman who lives in a tract home. I’m invisible; people look right through me. I am worth close to USD $10 million.

I was a single mom who raised her kids and ran a little home-based business. (No, I didn’t get anything from my ex-husband.)

I buy my clothes from Ross and Target, and live in a small home a couple miles inland from wealthy beach cities. (The U.S. median size new home is about 2400 sq ft; mine is 1700 sq ft.) God has been good to me.

People know that I run a successful company, but most people assume my parents founded it. I don’t correct them even though I find it amusing and somewhat offensive.

I give away 25–30% of my annual income to charity.

US Neocons Accept Only Total Dominance Over All Parts Of The World

This is the second part of the Q&A session to Professor Sachs’ interview in Vianna, filmed on June 12, 2023. He answers four brought questions, including about the Maidan coups, US plans for Eurasia, and his personal experiences of US strategists excluding Russia from their designs for a post-Soviet Europe.

Why does Western media (especially the ones from the US) always target China?

They know China will successfully pass the US in every measurable way they think is important.

China has the largest navy by number and tonnage…and with the most modern fleet, their shipyards are able to spit out 6 type 55 large destroyers a year from one yard. In the are able to build one LHD helicopter carrier type 75 a year, and now building the type 76. They also have the largest submarine fleet to match and have increased build numbers across the navy with support ships, more large logistics ships to add to the 12 already available.

They have five theater commands of their new stealth J20 squadrons, and have increased the build capacity, the have the new J11, as well as the J35 stealth carrier being finalized in pre production.

And this…

When it comes to ground troops, China have been focusing on autonomous ground support drones, submersible autonomous drones, hypersonic intercontinental missiles, hypersonic super high spy drones, mass cluster drones, and automated processing of counter strike drones.

China have all this to defend the people of China, their waterways and the safe passage of their trade routes.

They learnt once what happens to China if they don’t have the ability to defend itself…and it will not allow that to happen again…but it scares the West because, they think China might do to them, what they did to China.

Good…because fear of China will make them respect China’s position and people.

American companies want to trade in Yuan instead of USD

I can confirm that many of my European, and American companies are now trading in Yuan instead of USD. Surprised me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WBpSoOocVo

China BANS export of World’s Thinnest Hand torn-steel in RETALIATION to US Sanctions

On June 28th, China Baowu Steel Group Corporation rolled the world’s thinnest “hand-torn steel” in the field of non-oriented electrical steel. It measured an extremely thin 0.1 millimeters, making it the thinnest “hand-torn steel” ever produced.

It is the first time in the annals of the steel industry anywhere in the world that a full-process manufacturing of ultra-thin non-oriented electrical steel measuring 1250 millimeters in width and having a thickness of 0.1 millimeters has been successfully completed.

As a direct consequence of this, China is now the industry leader in the research and manufacturing of wide ultra-thin non-oriented electrical steel. The quantity of ultra-thin, non-oriented electrical steel that has a thickness of 0.1 millimeters or less is considered to be one of the primary indicators of a nation’s ability to produce special steel as well as its level of technological innovation.

This type of steel, which was once monopolized by a select set of countries, is now used in a wide variety of products, including high-tech medical equipment, airplanes, consumer electronics, and electric cars, among other things.

The China Baowu Steel Group Corporation has been working very hard to accomplish its long-term goal of “building a top-notch global demonstration enterprise of high-quality silicon steel and thick plates.” In March of this year, they rolled the world’s thinnest 0.1 mm high-grade non-oriented silicon steel, which came after they rolled the world’s thinnest 0.15 mm steel in March.

China has now placed a restriction on the shipment of hand-torn steel made in the nation to the US because of the product’s high value addition in high precision and high technology there is a significant amount of demand for hand-torn steel on the marketplaces in both Europe and the United States.

The Japanese made a silly assumption when they thought China would never be able to develop something like this, it is estimated that Japan stands to lose lot of business on an annual basis as a direct result of the worldwide demand that would follow the Breakthrough of local hand torn steel to 0.015 millimeters in China.

Japan used to charge exorbitant price for this steel and refused to sell machinery to make it in China. Now China has turned the tables on Japan who stands to lose sizable chunk of its business due to monopoly.

During the research process, the company adhered to independent innovation, overcame multiple key core technical problems and broke through the limits of existing equipment.

It not only breaks the monopoly of foreign technology, but expands the rolling width to 1250mm for the first time in the world.

This crucial breakthrough has made the company the first in the world able to produce 10,000 tons of 0.1-millimeter wide ultra-thin non-oriented electrical steel per year, ranking first in the world in annual production capacity and China is refusing to sell this to the US.

Please note that there is not enough production of this steel in the world and this steel has been produced in China after 711 failures!

27% of Orders Shifted Away！Facing Competition from China, Foxconn Must Prepare for the Worst！

During the early years of Foxconn’s brilliant development, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook almost exclusively gave iPhone manufacturing contracts to Foxconn, earning the company the nickname of “Apple’s designated manufacturer”. After all, Foxconn’s founder Terry Gou had earned massive profits by relying on Apple orders, allowing Foxconn to dominate China’s manufacturing industry and even earning Gou the title of Taiwan’s richest person.

https://youtu.be/IKiRhIhpOSE

What has China done so far to gain self-sufficiency in making highly miniaturized chips and GPU for which the US has placed sanctions on them?

A lonely old man was silently sharpening a sword in the corner, sharpening a sword that he didn’t know when he would have the chance to go to the battlefield. People passing by noticed it and spit on him, or kicked him. The lonely old man continued to sharpen the sword. He believes that when his homeland does not have a sword on the battlefield, no matter how rusty his sword is, it can fight for his homeland instead of being slaughtered.

It is understood that Huawei has found a way to break through the U.S. chip sanctions, namely the double-layer structure Kirin chip, which is the use of 8nm process technology. For the 8nm process flow, China’s manufacturing industry has been produced to reach this level, to be Huawei Haisi overcome various design problems of the double-layer structure, to be more mature, more stable and further improve the level of domestic 8nm process, it is estimated that 5G Huawei Haisi Kirin processor will be the return of the king.

When the Android operating system first came out, no phone manufacturer wanted to use it. Because it was particularly stuck and the user experience was particularly bad.

At that time, Huawei was the first to use Android OS, and was involved in the construction and improvement of Android OS.

Many of the codes of Android OS were originally contributed by Huawei’s engineers, and many patches were made to it in the later years, which led to the status and good user experience of Android OS today.

At that time, Huawei could have developed an independent operating system by itself, but Huawei chose to build and improve the Android OS with Google.

Android OS has today’s market and Huawei’s strong support is inseparable. But Google is black-hearted and has no gratitude.

As soon as the White House issued a sanctions order against Huawei, Google was the first to jump out and flip out, sweeping Huawei out of the door.

Today, Huawei has developed its own Hongmeng operating system, removing all the code written by Google engineers.

Those who questioned the similarity between Hongmeng OS and Android OS should now understand that Android OS itself is the biggest beneficiary of Huawei.

If the Hongmeng OS is a copy of Android OS, with Google’s market position, will it let Huawei go?

---

In a 2011 Bloomberg interview, Musk burst out laughing when the reporter suggested BYD as a potential rival for Tesla in the electric vehicle space. “Have you seen their car?” Musk replied, adding that he didn’t see BYD as a competitor at all.

However, just recently at the Shanghai Auto Show, BYD made a big splash.

---

Why did the U.S. launch a chip ban on China and not other countries? This is because the leading trend of the United States in the field of chips is about to be surpassed by China, and it is only a matter of time before China surpasses the United States in the field of chips, and sooner or later, it will surpass the United States.

The U.S. sanctions against Chinese chips are unfair commercial competition, and at best serve as a bit of a delay, and do not stop the trend of China overtaking the United States.

Once China surpasses the United States in the field of chips to achieve mass production, the price of global IT computers and smart phones will drop significantly, becoming an electronic commodity that everyone can afford to consume.

The Media Doesn’t Want You To Know THIS About China

Index:

00:00 - Introduction to China 
01:04 - Welcome to Podcast 
03:35 - Why Did You Come to China Now? 
04:51 - How I Help Americans Understand China 
08:01 - Is It Difficult to Build Bridges Between US and China? 
09:20 - Why Countries Need to Think For Themselves 
11:17 - How Meng Wanzhou Changed Canada/China Relations 
16:45 - Why People Now Trust YouTube and Podcasts 
18:05 - Why China Will NOT Invade Taiwan 
22:22 - How Conservatives Misunderstand China 
25:22 - Why Westerns CEOs are Coming to China 
27:17 - Why Decoupling from China is IMPOSSIBLE 
31:07 - Why America is So Divided and Polarized 
35:40 - How the Media Uses Fear Against China 
41:45 - Problems Facing China in the Future 
42:42 - Inflation and Wealth Gap in the United States 
46:00 - How Misinformation Is Destroying Society 
51:23 - Australia Spending $368 Billion on Nuclears Subs 
52:54 - Why the Global South is Choosing China 
56:10 - How the Chinese Perceive Other Countries 
58:29 - The Rise of Chinese Nationalism 
59:58 - Can You Be Proud to Be Chinese? 
1:03:29 - Chinese Perceptions of America 
1:04:35 - Were the Beijing Olympics Successful? 
1:05:56 - How Chinese React to American Actions 
1:06:39 - Why You Need to Speak Chinese in China 
1:09:44 - Expectations for Visiting China in 2023? 
1:10:58 - How Do You Speak to Americans About China?
1:15:00 - Gun Culture in US and China 
1:19:29 - Free Speech in US and China 
1:21:36 - The Right to Vote in China 
1:24:12 - Why the US and China Need to Work Together 
1:28:30 - Problems with US Foreign Policy 
1:34:20 - Can China Avoid a War with the US? 
1:36:02 - Truth About Russian Sanctions 
1:37:58 - Why US China Tensions Will Increase 
1:39:38 - The Chinese Government Is Smarter Than You Think 
1:41:41 - The Future of Humanity 
1:42:42 - Conclusion

How likely is the fall of Taiwan?

Two imminent events will provide a more sensible prediction.

One is the ECFA that China is scrutinizing against unfair treatment from Taiwan that has given Taiwan over $150 Billion trade surplus with China alone. If China terminates the ECFA, Taiwan’s economy will go down in a tail spin. Guaranteed.

The second one is the upcoming election on Jan 13, 2024. If the DPP wins, AND continues its hostility propped up by US, that may leave China no alternatives but to launch a blockade/trade ban. It’s really perplexing why some Taiwanese still support the DPP knowing the dire consequences. “Ignorance may be remedied, but stupidity is fatal.”

Poor Cat Left To Decompose While She Is Alive | Rescue Before And After

What are the biggest technologies that China had the best of the best?

Areas where China owns core technology and licenses it

• 5G Base Stations (67 Countries pay license fees to Huawei including India)

Areas where China owns core technology fully but doesn’t license it and instead directly applies it :—

• Battery Panels
• Batteries for Electric Vehicles
• Z3 Solar Panels
• Elevated Maglev System
• Triple Stack Gaming Algorithm (Tencent)
• Four Reaction Thorium Salt Reactor (TS-4)
• Fighter Aircraft Thrust Engines
• Chip manufacturing equipment (28 nm and above)

Areas where China is developing core technology but hasn’t fully commercialized the same :—

• Long Grade Fusion
• Advanced Chip manufacturing equipment (14 nm)
• Immunotherapy
• Advanced Digital Optics
• Superconductors
• Genetic Seeds & Vertical integration

China has invested over $ 330 Billion (2 Trillion Yuan) in these areas over the last decade

Commercialization is expected in the next 4 years (By 2027)

Areas where China is yet to develop prototype core technology but is still in research stage :—

• Commercial Aircraft Engines
• Advanced Chip making equipment (<= 7 nm)
• Advanced Medical Equipment
• DRAM and High Memory Chips
• Advanced Internet Applications

This is where the West can still throttle China today

China needs another Decade to develop and commercialize the above or maybe even 15 years with all these restrictions

3 Hiker Deaths with Unanswered Questions… What REALLY Happened?

What is a slap-in-the-face job offer?

A few years ago, I was approached by the HR of a large game company. They are beefing up their operation team in the mainland China region and looking for an operation producer.

It seemed like a really good opportunity, something I’d been doing for over 5 years when they approached me. I enjoyed doing it and had a lot to offer.

I went through the first round of phone interview with HR. They’re very happy with me, but in order for the hiring process to move forward, I must play their game and level up to lvl30. It is a requirement of their company.

I mean, OK. I can understand you want your employees to be familiar with the ONLY product you have. Sure. (have you wondered why you can never get another product off the ground? I mean… have you thought about not hiring <insert your game> fanboys for every single position?)

Anyway, I found it a nuisance but decided to put in the effort. I had some peripheral interests in their game, I don’t particularly like it, I don’t particularly dislike it. The gameplay just felt like a chore to me. But I bit the bullet and leveled up.

After I got to level 30, I went through the second interview with HR.

Again, they’re very happy, telling me I was the most promising candidate so far.

Come to the first round of company interview, I had a two-hour conversation with the team lead of their China operation team.

I did a bit of research on the guy and found out that he actually had less experience than me. I was already working on big title games when he had just graduated. And this was his first industry job (he worked at an e-commerce company before that).

And the interview made his lack of experience abundantly clear. Despite being the team lead, he really didn’t know much about the general game market in China, or player behavior. I sat there for two hours answering his basic questions and explained Chinese market concepts with real-world examples and my own experiences. It feels more like a seminar than an interview.

At the end of the interview, he became somewhat agitated, almost rude. I didn’t quite know why at the time. I thought I nailed it.

Now that I think back, he was probably getting anxious because he knew I had more experience than him.

Anyway, 2 days after the interview, their HR came back and said the team lead had a very positive impression with me but found that I lacked experience in some areas. And I wasn’t qualified for their operation producer position. But they’re willing to offer me the operation coordinator position, with a performance review in 6 months. At which time, the company might promote me.

I laughed so hard, wrote an email to HR explaining what happened during the interview and how their “team lead” was green as hell, that I would not accept their original offer even if they doubled the salary, because I did not want to work with a guy like that. And I wished them all the best. (I made it very clear that I have no problem with the recruiter, who had been very helpful. I could feel her frustration of the outcome since she let it slip that the company had been trying to fill this position for a very long time).

I uninstalled their game, happy that I never need to touch that thing again.

A few years after that, a prominent game news website published an exposé about this company’s toxic culture of racial discrimination, sexual harassment, and crunch culture.

I already landed my current position for a couple of years and was very happy with my position. As I read the article, I told myself:

“Dodged a bullet there.”

Richard Feynman the safe-cracker

---

While he was working on the Manhattan project, Feynman developed a hobby where he would crack open the safes at Los Alamos. The safes involved inputting 3 numbers between 0 and 99. A possible passcode could be 97-34-04.

In total, there were a million possible combinations. On the average, it would take you a month if all you did, day and night, was dedicate your time to work through the combinations.

After tinkering around with it, Feynman noticed that the safes weren’t mechanically perfect and had a tolerance of ±2 on each number.

For example if 17-42-49 was the set passcode, 15-44-47 and 16-43-51 would also open the safe. With this piece of knowledge, Feynman could check every 5’th number and reduce the number of combinations to 8,000. If you worked through all the combinations, the safe could be cracked, on average, within 6 hours.

Feynman also noticed that most people will set their safe to a some kind of a date in the past. With 30 days in a month, 12 months and some year between 1900 and 1942 there are quite a few combinations. But taking into account the tolerance of the mechanism, there were only 162 combinations. With these few combinations, it would take Feynman 6 minutes to crack the safe on average.

So Feynman would go into his colleagues offices carrying a big bag with screwdrivers, picks and all sorts of things people would think you cracked a safe with. 6 minutes later he’d come out of the office with a cracked safe without even using the materials. Sometimes if he’d finish early, he’d wait for a while and then come out with some sweat on his brow and deceive his colleagues into thinking that cracking a safe is hard physical work.

Everyone at the Manhattan project thought Feynman knew how to use picks but he just cracked safes using human nature, the tolerance of the mechanism and his artful deviousness.

You’ll NEVER guess what the SIMPONS predicted. Again? DOH!

The US has been trying hard to incite wars in Asia. Who will be Asian country’s US style of democratic Zenlesky so that he will make his country the same as Ukraine?

Possibly, Thailand. The US proxies just won the Thai elections. Video 1 is one of many videos of Brian Bertelec explaining how the US Endowment for Democracy and other NGOs are trying to take over Thailand’s government.

Video 1. Brian Bertelec on Thailand’s Move Forward Party and the US Endowment for Democracy.

The US stooges are in the Orwellian-named Move Forward Party. The US picked Pita Limjaroenrat to be its head stooge and candidate for prime minister. Check out this propaganda piece from the BBC:

However, the US stooge just failed to get a majority vote in Tailand’s legislature:

Anyway, the US wants to turn Thailand into another neoliberal-client-state toilet and possible site for a future US proxy war. I think Biden has so financially damaged the US that the proxy war in Taiwan will never happen.

Iran’s top general urges enhanced defense-security cooperation with Pakistan

Saturday, 15 July 2023 1:54 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 15 July 2023 3:50 PM ]

Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Baqeri (R) and Pakistan’s Chief of the Army General Asim Munir (L) meet in Tehran on July 15, 2023. (Via IRNA)

Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Baqeri says Iran and Pakistan should enhance military relations and boost joint defense-security cooperation in the region.

Baqeri was meeting on Saturday with Pakistan’s Chief of the Army General Asim Munir, who is in Tehran at the head of a high-ranking delegation.

The top Iranian general said the record shows the two neighboring countries can count on the improvement of cooperation in various fields.

Over the recent years, Tehran and Islamabad have been working towards enhancing relations, not least bilateral economic ties and mutual efforts aimed at combating terrorism in the areas that straddle the border.

On July 9, four armed terrorists and two Iranian police officers were killed in an attack on a police station in the southeastern city of Zahedan, the capital of the province of Sistan and Baluchestan.

Sistan and Baluchestan borders Pakistan and Afghanistan. It has been the scene of several terrorist attacks against civilians and security forces in recent years.

Iran says its intelligence and security apparatus will never abandon pursuing terrorist groups even beyond the borders.

Iran-Pakistan cooperation will uproot terrorism: IRGC commander

Also on Saturday, Chief Commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Hossein Salami said the expansion of interaction between Tehran and Islamabad would uproot terrorists and establish sustainable security in border areas.

In a meeting with the Pakistani army chief, Salami underscored the importance of promoting cooperation to fight terrorist groups and annul security threats posed to the border areas. He said security challenges and clashes on the Iran-Pakistan border are in line with the “dangerous policies of the arrogant system to sow bloody discord among Muslims.”

The senior Iranian commander said the IRGC was ready to promote economic cooperation with Pakistan through a border secured jointly by the armed forces of the two countries.

The Iranian commander said West Asia has always been affected by international political forces. “There are powers who do not tolerate unity and coherence among Muslims.”

The IRGC commander emphasized that the United States, Israel and their allies have been the prime advocates of wars against the countries in the Muslim world over the past four decades.

The Pakistani army chief, for his part, urged the development of defense and security cooperation with Iran. Pakistan, Munir said, is ready to settle security challenges and counter terrorist acts in border areas.

NO MORE TOLERANCE! China Cancels Lithuanian Cargo Transport line | The Nightmare Has Just Begun!

Between China and Europe, there is the most important freight channel in the world – the China-Europe Railway Express, which has a length of more than 10,000 kilometers and has become an important link for logistics and transportation between China and Europe.

Since its operation began in 2011, the operation of China Railway Express has brought huge economic benefits to China and European countries.

As of the end of 2021, China-Europe Railway Express has made 18,376 trips throughout the year, sending more than 130 million tons of goods.

Recently, however, China plans to cancel Lithuania’s transportation line in the China-Europe Railway Express and look for alternative routes that bypass Lithuania.

This decision will have a severe blow to Lithuania’s economy and may even lead to the demolition of more than 200 existing railway tracks in the country.

So, what did Lithuania do to offend China? What kind of losses will Lithuania suffer once it withdraws from the China Railway Express?

https://youtu.be/VuKLYXvNbqo

Would the structural engineers for the Twin Towers have known there was a risk of pancake collapse from the top down?

Yes of course. The structural engineer would have understood the risk.

It’s a real person with a name who had the last word on the design of the structure.

His name is Leslie Robertson. He was a young man when he designed the structure of the Twin Towers. He was seventy years old when the attack happened.

It wasn’t a pancake collapse. It’s the wrong description. But it was a collapse that was clearly initiated from the top and which progresssed downwards.

And yes, of course, Leslie Robertson, who was the main structural engineer for the Twin Towers, and who was very young when he got the job, would have understood very well that there was a risk of total collapse, beginning from the top down, if the support structure were sufficiently compromised far enough down from the top floor of the building. He would have known very well what would result if, say, all columns that carried the weight to ground were suddenly cut on one floor low enough down from the top of the building. The whole top of the building would then fall, and after it fell through the distance of one story, the rest of the structure could not possibly stop the momentum.

Now that is not what happened in the real collapse, which is much more complicated, but it’s a good first approximation, and Robertson would certainly have understood that it could happen in principle.

He has talked at length about the considerations that went into his design. He planned for the towers to be able to withstand an impact of a large jetliner, and that they did.

This implies that he knew that there could be a danger of sudden or very fast collapse, making evacuation of the building in such an event essentially impossible. So the structure was built to withstand such an insult.

You can’t possibly imagine that he would ever have advised people to just stay in the buildings after an airliner impact, while a fire was raging? No one in the world could possibly be that crazy. He would have told them to get the hell out as quickly as possible, despite having designed the structure to withstand the initial damage from such an impact. The plan was of course to evacuate the buildings as quickly as possible if they were struck by an airliner.

The towers in fact performed as designed and stood for a time after the impact that was long enough for many, many people to get out. But the insult to the structures caused by (1) impact (2) fireball and (3) fire, was just too great. People were trapped above the impact floors because most fire escape stairways were cut and because the elevators were not usable in case of a fire. Most people above the impact zone in the second tower to be struck died if they did not leave immediately after the impact on the first tower. Most people below the impact zones in both towers survived. They walked out of the towers.

Robertson would also have understood the danger of fire, and the general weaknesses that steel develops as it is heated. He would have known that it becomes softer and also that it expands with heat, both of which are big problems.

He also said that he did NOT design for a subsequent fire in the event of an aircraft impact.

In my opinion it was simply not possible to simulate such a fire when the design was being done. It would have required supercomputing and empirical research into fires that simply did not yet exist.

The fire protection system in a building is also in the architect’s purview.

It isn’t strictly speaking the direct concern of a structural engineer.

Robertson said he has regretted many times not making the buildings even stronger than they were, that then maybe the towers would have stood longer and more people would have survived. He has said he regrets insisting on having ultimate control of the whole project even though an older more experienced engineer was proposed and could have shared the work.

He died recently, at the age of about ninety.

His firm worked on a 977 foot tower in the rebuilt WTC complex. I hope he found some peace.

What happened wasn’t his fault.

A Paralyzed Cat Lying On Sidewalk Crying For Help And No One Paid Attention Rescue | Before & After

Chicken Karaahi
(Traditional Pakistani Chicken)

Karaahi refers to a utensil resembling the wok.

Ingredients

• 1 kg chicken pieces
• 1/2 kg diced tomatoes
• Garlic paste
• Chopped coriander leaves
• 7 or 8 green chiles
• 5 whole red peppers
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 tablespoons oil

Instructions

1. Take the chicken pieces and marinade in the garlic paste.
2. Heat some oil in a wok (known as “Karaahi”) and add red peppers to brown.
3. Add the marinated chicken to the wok. Let the chicken cook on low flame until it becomes slightly tender.
4. Add the diced tomatoes mixing them thoroughly with the chicken. Let this cook also on a low flame for 15 minutes and then serve it by garnishing it with green chiles and coriander.

What is your most memorable cultural shock?

It’s been 12 years since I moved to Germany from Iran and here are some cultural shocks that dawned on me over the years:

• Less air pollution and cleaner streets. Whenever we returned to Germany and I stepped outside, I instantly felt the waft of clean, crispy air filling my lungs. Less smoke, more greenery, wind turbines in the rural areas, less gasoline-fueled cars.
• Promotion of independence. In Germany, it’s common to move out of your parent’s house when you’re of age, even earlier. In Iran, however, you often see functioning, grown-ass adults with full-time jobs still living at their parent’s house and not knowing how to cook a basic meal. Many learn to drive when they’re in their mid-twenties and get by with taxis and trains.
• No hijab. Just recently, I wore a tank top with a short skirt and sandals, let out my long hair, and went about doing my business. In Iran, I run the risk of getting arrested with that get-up.
• Sexuality. Exploiting your sexuality is an absolute, 100%, bang-on taboo topic in Iran. A sin. Which I guess isn’t surprising. This leads me to:
• Homosexuality. It’s normalized, or rather close to being normalized in Germany and Europe in general. In Iran, you’ll certainly get arrested by Islamic law when you come out as lesbian, bi or gay.
• Sex before marriage. No biggie here, unless you’re a conservative Christian. Alternatively, you’d be safer if you keep that to yourself in Iran. I actually once found a bag of condoms hidden in the deep-end corner of an Iranian grocery store. I almost squeaked with joy =)
• Houses with gabled roofs. Like the one below. The slanted roof provides weather resistance and you see tons of houses like this in Germany. Comparatively, skyscrapers and buildings with square rooftops are constructed in Iran because it rains less there and you need more security against thieves.

• Security. Back when I lived in Iran, I had to lock the main door and two other “doors” made of metal when I was alone at home. Also, I wasn’t allowed to leave the house alone as a girl. In Germany, you usually start going to school alone when you’re around 6–7 years old.
• Fewer rooftops. One of my favorite activities after a rough day in Iran was to go to the rooftop and yell. Sometimes I played music, danced, and let myself get carried away by the evening breeze. I often saw other people doing the same thing and we waved at each other. Contrarily, I’ve never witnessed anybody on the rooftop in Germany. Ever.
• Poverty. Poverty isn’t as big of an issue here and there aren’t as many people who are starving or barely getting by. In Iran, poverty is prevalent all over the country. If you see trash anywhere, chances are there are tons of stray cats and dogs as well as some homeless people around it, barely finding a piece of bone to munch on.
• Respect towards animals. Animal abuse is very common in Iran. In Germany, you can sue someone if you witness them hurting an animal, or the Tierschuzverein (animal protection shelter) will take the animal away from the abuser.
• No dress code. All schools in Iran have a dress code. Most schools in Germany don’t.
• Mixed gender schools. All schools in Iran up to college are separated by gender. I was vehemently surprised when I moved to Germany and our school was mixed gender.
• Driving culture. If there is a cow in the middle of the street in Iran, people will drive around it. You’ll hear honking everywhere. Intersections are incredibly chaotic because nobody follows traffic regulations. More accidents, more traffic and chaos, and way more noise. In Germany, you need to follow the regulations, and your driving license costs around 2000 to 3000 Euros. In Iran, it costs 50–100 Euros. You don’t need to have any basic knowledge of laws before starting your first driving lesson in Iran.
• Abortion and contraception. Abortion is illegal in Iran and people are less educated on contraception. In Germany, it’s standardized to have a talk with your gynecologist when you’re around 14 years old to learn about contraceptives.
• Female rights. In Iran, a woman is not allowed to initiate divorce if the husband doesn’t agree UNLESS she had him sign a contract prior to marriage granting her those rights. Needless to say, female rights are prevalent topics in Germany and some left-wing political parties constantly stand up for them.
• Public displays of affection. PDA in Iran is not tolerated by the government. In Germany, as long as you’re not an exhibitionist in the children’s playground, you can do whatever you want.
• Coffee instead of Chai. The main drink in Iran is chai with something sweet, like baklava. In Germany, people mainly drink coffee with a pastry.
• Alcohol. Forbidden in Iran, but the elixir of life in Germany. I didn’t feel fully integrated here until I could finish my beer.

Yellen’s Visit To China Has Failed

Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen visited China. There she tried to press the worlds biggest economy on several issues.

• Yellen, in Beijing, Criticizes China’s Treatment of U.S. Companies – NY Times, July 7, 2023
• Yellen Urges China to Step Up Climate Finance Investments – NY Times, July 7, 2023
• U.S. Raises Pressure on China to Combat Global Fentanyl Crisis – NY Times, July 7, 2023

None of these points are in China’s interest. In the U.S. Chinese companies are treated badly. U.S. financed climate investments in foreign countries, which are small, usually come with additional extraordinary demands that benefit the donating country rather than the receiving one. China does this differently. Fentanyl is not a global problem rather a specific U.S. one the causes of which are general social problems China and other have avoided to have.

The last demand Yellen made was even more crazy. She called for a full turn of China towards neoliberal policies:

“I pressed them on our concerns about China’s unfair economic practices,” [Yellen] said, citing barriers to access for foreign firms and problems involving intellectual property. She added that a more market-oriented system in China “would not only be in the interests of the U.S. and other countries. It would be better for the Chinese economy, as well.”

Would China be where it is today if it had privatized its banking system and state owned companies? Would China be richer if it had let U.S. vulture funds buy up and bankrupt Chinese companies? Would it have managed to lift 800 million of its citizens from poverty if it had followed the economic advice of the U.S., the IMF or World Bank?

The answer to these questions is of course an emphatic “No”.

Why Yellen thinks she can impress China with advice for a ‘more market-oriented system’, even as the U.S. blocks Chinese investments, sanctions Chinese companies and limits sales of certain products to China, is beyond me.

Yellen’s visit failed to achieve anything. She had some talks with Chinese officials but achieved nothing. She lectured and made demands that no one in China will be willing to fulfill.

The Chinese side for one seems unimpressed by her performance:

Yellen mentioned multiple times the US is seeking a healthy competition with China rather than a “winner-take-all” approach. While this may sound good, the key lies in how we define “healthy competition.” Is it a US-style one in which the geopolitical appetite of the US is satisfied while China unconditionally cooperates? Or is it based on mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation? The root cause of the challenges in the China-US relationship lies in Washington’s flawed perception of China. Unless the issue of the ‘first button’ is addressed, no matter how wonderful the ideas and wishes may be, they will remain nothing more than castles in the air.

Unless the U.S. accepts China as equal the relations between the countries will not turn around. The U.S. can grow with China only when it accepts that China is different from itself and has its own path towards further development.

As neither is the today’s dominant viewpoint a further deterioration of the relations, largely to the disadvantage of the U.S., is the most likely prospect.

Posted by b on July 10, 2023 at 9:28 UTC | Permalink

NO MORE TOLERANCE! China Cancels Lithuanian Cargo Transport line | The Nightmare Has Just Begun!

That’s right, Lithuania believes it is so important that it has to dictate the rules to China.

But it hasn’t counted right, scandalously pushed by US pressure it has taken the most harmful decision for its trade and development.

When he will be faced with billions of debts due to the lack of income that the China-Europe Railway Express brought him he will go to the USA, or Taiwan, to ask for support and the USA, as they always have done…

Will turn away or sell him a lots of second hand weapons, Lithuania is another of those ridiculous countries that pick on China because the USA tells them to.

https://youtu.be/VuKLYXvNbqo

A little story

It was Christmas Eve 1942. I was fifteen years old and feeling like the world had caved in on me because there just hadn’t been enough money to buy me the rifle that I’d wanted for Christmas.

We did the chores early that night for some reason. I just figured Daddy wanted a little extra time so we could read in the Bible. After supper was over I took my boots off and stretched out in front of the fireplace and waited for Daddy to get down the old Bible.

I was still feeling sorry for myself and, to be honest, I wasn’t in much of a mood to read Scriptures. But Daddy didn’t get the Bible instead he bundled up again and went outside. I couldn’t figure it out because we had already done all the chores. I didn’t worry about it long though I was too busy wallowing in self-pity.

Soon he came back in. It was a cold clear night out and there was ice in his beard. “Come on, Matt,” he said. “Bundle up good, it’s cold out tonight.” I was really upset then. Not only wasn’t I getting the rifle for Christmas, now he was dragging me out in the cold, and for no earthly reason that I could see. We’d already done all the chores, and I couldn’t think of anything else that needed doing, especially not on a night like this. But I knew he was not very patient at one dragging one’s feet when he’d told them to do something, so I got up and put my boots back on and got my coat. Mommy gave me a mysterious smile as I opened the door to leave the house. Something was up, but I didn’t know what..

Outside, I became even more dismayed. There in front of the house was the work team, already hitched to the big sled. Whatever it was we were going to do wasn’t going to be a short, quick, little job. I could tell. We never hitched up this sled unless we were going to haul a big load. Daddy was already up on the seat, reins in hand. I reluctantly climbed up beside him. The cold was already biting at me. I wasn’t happy. When I was on, Daddy pulled the sled around the house and stopped in front of the woodshed. He got off and I followed.

“I think we’ll put on the high sideboards,” he said. “Here, help me.” The high sideboards! It had been a bigger job than I wanted to do with just the low sideboards on, but whatever it was we were going to do would be a lot bigger with the high side boards on.

Then Daddy went into the woodshed and came out with an armload of wood – the wood I’d spent all summer hauling down from the mountain, and then all Fall sawing into blocks and splitting. What was he doing? Finally I said something. I asked, “what are you doing?” You been by the Widow Jensen’s lately?” he asked. Mrs.Jensen lived about two miles down the road. Her husband had died a year or so before and left her with three children, the oldest being eight. Sure, I’d been by, but so what?

Yeah,” I said, “Why?”

“I rode by just today,” he said. “Little Jakey was out digging around in the woodpile trying to find a few chips. They’re out of wood, Matt.” That was all he said and then he turned and went back into the woodshed for another armload of wood. I followed him. We loaded the sled so high that I began to wonder if the horses would be able to pull it. Finally, he called a halt to our loading then we went to the smoke house and he took down a big ham and a side of bacon. He handed them to me and told me to put them in the sled and wait. When he returned he was carrying a sack of flour over his right shoulder and a smaller sack of something in his left hand.

“What’s in the little sack?” I asked. Shoes, they’re out of shoes. Little Jakey just had gunny sacks wrapped around his feet when he was out in the woodpile this morning. I got the children a little candy too. It just wouldn’t be Christmas without a little candy.”

We rode the two miles to Mrs.Jensen’s pretty much in silence. I tried to think through what Daddy was doing. We didn’t have much by worldly standards. Of course, we did have a big woodpile, though most of what was left now was still in the form of logs that I would have to saw into blocks and split before we could use it. We also had meat and flour, so we could spare that, but I knew we didn’t have any money, so why was he buying them shoes and candy? Really, why was he doing any of this? Widow Jensen had closer neighbors than us; it shouldn’t have been our concern.

We came in from the blind side of the Jensen house and unloaded the wood as quietly as possible then we took the meat and flour and shoes to the door. We knocked. The door opened a crack and a timid voice said, “Who is it?” “Lucas Miles, Ma’am, and my son, Matt, could we come in for a bit?”

Mrs.Jensen opened the door and let us in. She had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The children were wrapped in another and were sitting in front of the fireplace by a very small fire that hardly gave off any heat at all. Mrs.Jensen fumbled with a match and finally lit the lamp.

“We brought you a few things, Ma’am,” Daddy said and set down the sack of flour. I put the meat on the table. Then he handed her the sack that had the shoes in it. She opened it hesitantly and took the shoes out one pair at a time. There was a pair for her and one for each of the children – sturdy shoes, the best, shoes that would last. I watched her carefully. She bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling and then tears filled her eyes and started running down her cheeks. She looked up at my Daddy like she wanted to say something, but it wouldn’t come out.

“We brought a load of wood too, Ma’am,” he said. Then turned to me and said, “Matt, go bring in enough to last awhile. Let’s get that fire up to size and heat this place up.” I wasn’t the same person when I went back out to bring in the wood. I had a big lump in my throat and as much as I hate to admit it, there were tears in my eyes too. In my mind I kept seeing those three kids huddled around the fireplace and their mother standing there with tears running down her cheeks with so much gratitude in her heart that she couldn’t speak.

My heart swelled within me and a joy that I’d never known before filled my soul. I had given at Christmas many times before, but never when it had made so much difference. I could see we were literally saving the lives of these people.

I soon had the fire blazing and everyone’s spirits soared. The kids started giggling when Daddy handed them each a piece of candy and Mrs.Jensen looked on with a smile that probably hadn’t crossed her face for a long time. She finally turned to us. “God bless you,” she said. “I know the Lord has sent you. The children and I have been praying that he would send one of his angels to spare us.”

In spite of myself, the lump returned to my throat and the tears welled up in my eyes again. I’d never thought of my Daddy in those exact terms before, but after Widow Jensen mentioned it I could see that it was probably true. I was sure that a better man than Daddy had never walked the earth. I started remembering all the times he had gone out of his way for Mommy and me, and many others. The list seemed endless as I thought on it.

Daddy insisted that everyone try on the shoes before we left. I was amazed when they all fit and I wondered how he had known what sizes to get. Then I guessed that if he was on an errand for the Lord that the Lord would make sure he got the right sizes.

Tears were running down Widow Jensen’s face again when we stood up to leave. My Daddy took each of the kids in his big arms and gave them a hug. They clung to him and didn’t want us to go. I could see that they missed their Daddy and I was glad that I still had mine.

At the door he turned to Widow Jensen and said, “The Mrs. wanted me to invite you and the children over for Christmas dinner tomorrow. The turkey will be more than the three of us can eat, and a man can get cantankerous if he has to eat turkey for too many meals. We’ll be by to get you about eleven. It’ll be nice to have some little ones around again. Matt, here, hasn’t been little for quite a spell.” I was the youngest. My two brothers and two sisters had all married and had moved away.

China’s Pulling Power: Almost 4,000 Scientists Return Home, US Unable to Stop Them.

Why does the United States maintain a world-leading position in technology? It’s because the U.S. attracts top talent from around the world, as people from various countries come to study, settle, and work in the U.S. and even obtain American citizenship. With the support of talent, U.S. tech companies have gained core competitiveness.

https://youtu.be/kuQovxdroIA

Will China loose world dominance of manufacturing in the coming years

No

US should stop playing tricks with China; otherwise, it will capsize: Global Times editorial

By Global Times Published: Jul 14, 2023 12:10 AM Updated: Jul 14, 2023 12:05 AM

In the past couple of days, the US has suddenly brought up the “all-purpose spare tire” of hyping up issues related to China – the so-called Chinese hacker problem. The spokesperson of the US White House National Security Council claimed that US officials have discovered China-based hackers exploiting vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s cloud service to breach email accounts in the US. They then notified Microsoft, which later conducted tracking and investigation.

The matter has been extensively covered by the US media, causing a lot of fanfare. Subsequently, anonymous US officials jumped out and said they could not make a judgment on whether it is truly related to China. This reveals their sense of guilt, because they have never been able to present evidence.

They always surreptitiously throw mud at China and then retreat, trying to avoid a possible retaliation from China. This process and technique have become so familiar to the US that they can execute it skillfully even with their eyes closed.

Let’s look at the initial source of the news, which is the US White House National Security Council. Nowadays, in the US and Western countries, everyone can imagine what it implies for institutions with “national security” in their names. In the past, such news was often released by the US National Security Agency, which is essentially the US cyber command, the world’s largest hacker organization. This time, the news is released by the White House National Security Council instead, but it does not change the fact that the US is engaging in “thieves crying thief.”

Let’s take a look at the timing chosen by the US for this hype. It is reported that the hacked emails allegedly involved US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. On July 13, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce disclosed that it was in communication with the US regarding Raimondo’s visit to China, while also calling for lifting the unilateral sanctions on Chinese companies imposed by the US. In other words, Raimondo is about to visit China if nothing else. Is it a coincidence that the US suddenly reveals a Chinese hacker attack incident at this time? Based on the consistent approach of the US side, it is possible that they are using this as a means to gain the upper hand in public opinion and a bargaining chip for negotiations regarding Raimondo’s visit to China.

Just before US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to China in June, the US hyped a round of “Chinese hacking incidents.” The whole process is almost the same as this time. But last time it was said that Chinese hackers had been “targeting critical US infrastructure and pursuing development of capabilities that could disrupt critical communications infrastructure between the United States and Asia region during future crises.” This time, it was claimed that “Chinese hackers” had breached e-mail addresses, and the attack was also said to have been discovered in June.

If we observe the recent years of the US hype about “Chinese hackers,” there is a general pattern. These incidents usually occur at critical points in China-US relations, coinciding with a period of “lack of progress” in issues related to China in the US. Thus, “Chinese hackers” or “Chinese spies” are timely fabricated to fill the void. Whether it’s hackers or spies, the US is an expert in this field and knows that such smearing is difficult to prove or disprove. It only causes trouble for others, and that’s the intended purpose.

The current China-US relationship is at a crucial, delicate, and uncertain juncture. The high-level communication between the two countries is recovering relatively quickly. However, the unfavorable winds and countercurrents emerging from the US side have largely interfered with the positive progress brought about by communication.

On July 13, Wang Yi, director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, met US Secretary of State Blinken on the sidelines of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia.

It was the second meeting between the two in a month. The US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry and US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo are both due to visit China in the near future.

This has raised expectations in the international community for a turnaround in China-US relations. China always holds an open and welcome attitude toward such communication and exchange, but we advise the US not to play dirty, otherwise, it will not only get a slap in its face, but also ruin the opportunity for the US-China relations to return to a healthy and stable track.

How and Why the US Cannot Recover: Is It a Failed State?

You can do it

There once lived two boys in a village. Both of them, the bestest of friends, the elder one 10 years of age and the other 6.

Once while playing and without realising, the two boys went a little far away from their village. Lost in their games, the elder boy slipped and fell into a ditch, partially filled with water. Not knowing how to swim, scared, the boy started shouting. The younger boy looked around for help, but couldn’t find a single person as far as his eyes could see. Suddenly, the boy saw a bucket attatched to a rope, and without wasting any minute, threw the bucket into the ditch for his friend. The 10 year old boy hung on to the bucket while the 6 year old pulled the rope with all his might. He kept trying and was finally able to pull his friend out of the ditch.

Overjoyed at this achievement, the two friends hugged and danced. But suddenly, the thought of their villagers came into their mind. They feared that the villagers would scold them for their carelessness. But much to their surprise, nothing like this happened. In fact, the villagers couldn’t believe what they heard. How could a 6 year old boy, who couldn’t even lift a bucket full of water, pull a 10 year old out from the ditch?!

None of them believed the boys, except for an aged man who was considered to be the wisest in the village. He applauded the boys for their bravery and courage.

On seeing this, the villagers decided to ask the old man whether the story was real or was it all a lie?

To this the wise, old man replied, “The question here is not whether the story is real or not, but the question is, how could a mere six year old boy, pull a ten year old from the ditch? “

The man said, “It was because at the time of the incident, there wasn’t a single person in the vicinity, to tell the small boy that he couldn’t do it. Not even the boy himself. “

Luciano Pavarotti – Una furtiva lacrima (sub_ english) Reaction

Do Hong Kong protesters know that focusing on police abuse is what the CCP want you to target, rather than democracy? Isn’t it better to focus on the goal, rather than making it personal?

How can they focus on a goal when they don’t have a clear goal?

The Hong Kong demonstrators have made several major mistakes which will lead to their final demise:

1. They have insulted ordinary mainland Chinese visitors to Hong Kong, insulting and making fun of them, when in fact they need their support.
2. They have confined their complaints only to what they personally experience in Hong Kong. If they are going to have more broad appeal, they will have to expand their complaints and message to something mainland Chinese can also identify with. But they are too stupid to do so.
3. By waving British and US flags and singing their anthems, they give mainland Chinese the idea that they are in favor of western colonialism. There is a term in Chinese for Chinese who support western colonialism: 汉奸 which means “traitor”. Even those mainland Chinese who don’t like the Chinese Communist Party cannot support colonialism in any shape or form.
4. The demonstrators have tailored their message to a non-Chinese audience, but what can a non-Chinese audience do in terms of meaningful support? Nothing.

ITS HITTING THE FAN! SO I’M LEAVING!

Breaking News: Large RADIATION SPIKE in Eastern Ukraine!

World Hal Turner 15 July 2023

Something seems to have happened in Ukraine.  There is a VERY large and VERY unusual, sudden, RADIATION SPIKE in eastern Ukraine;  **NOT** near any nuclear power plants.

The spike is being registered on Ukraine Radiation Monitor #34304 in the town of Kolomak, Ukraine, shown on the scalable map below:

As of 10:08 PM EDT on Saturday night here in the USA, the Radiation Monitor over in Ukraine is now reporting 9410 nSv/hr.

To give you an idea of how sudden and dramatic this change actually is, this same radiation monitor recorded a level of just 87 nSv/hr for days and weeks prior. 

CLEARLY, SOMETHING SIGNIFICANT INVOLVING RADIATION HAS TAKEN PLACE.

You won’t believe what this TRANS activist said! It’s getting out of control!

You’d think that a convicted kidnapper and attempted murderer MAY not be your best spokesperson for a movement, right? Well, that is what happened in London at this weekend’s Trans Pride event and now some people are understandably concerned.

What is the likelihood of China’s current economic boom leading to a crash?

Unlikely

Very very unlikely

Luckily China managed to identify the problems in time

It’s why you will see a slowdown in China’s growth and some sluggishness in the next 2–4 years

China has managed to stop their real estate bubble from growing more and bursting

Instead they are subsiding the bubble gradually and reducing its size

The Size of the Bubble could have reached a whopping 100 Trilion Yuan by 2030

Luckily they managed to contain it and the worst hit to the economy is estimated at around 3.6 Trillion Yuan ($ 500–600 Billion)

They managed to convert their boom into innovation and global power

To this day NO NON WHITE NATION managed this feat

Round One is :— Handling the excess surplus cash generated and putting it into various areas or avenues

Round Two is :— Build Indigenous Supply Chains

Round Three is :— Develop Core Technologies and Strong Domestic Economy

Round Four is:— Sustain the Economy through Global Dominance and Capital Markets

Round Five is :— Try not to collapse and give way to the next person in line to take charge

Japan lost at Round One

China won Rounds One and Two and is at Round Three now

US is at Round 5

China’s Infrastructure LEADS the World (Americans in Shock)

In this video, we take a look at China’s amazing infrastructure and how it’s far surpassing America’s in terms of design and construction.

China’s amazing infrastructure is making America jealous, and many Americans are in shock. They won’t believe it! This is Guiyang city in Guizhou province.

Guizhou is a very mountainous region and is famous for it’s world class bridges, highways and tunnels. America just can’t compete.

China has been building an absolutely stunning amount of new infrastructure over the past few years, and the world is just won’t believe it.

From bridges to highways to airports, China is doing an incredible job of making a mark on the world stage.

From the massive bridges to the world’s fastest railways, China is putting the US to shame with its amazing new infrastructure. If you love infrastructure projects, then this video is a must for you!

From placing restrictions on Micron to Gallium, what are the reasons behind China’s new aggressive response to American sanctions?

If I were to ask the question to my Chinese friends, I’d be accused of being a deliberate fool, and rightly so.

There are currently >1,300 Chinese corporations and >300 Chinese citizens under a spectrum of unilateral sanctions by the United States. This number is increasing by the month, targeted to hurt but frivolously justified.

China’s counter-sanctions?

Less than 100 in total, or two orders of magnitude.

In simpler terms, China is sanctioning single digit American entities for every 100 America has on its sin list. The ones on the China list were mostly complicit in doing harm to the core issue of Taiwan and Hong Kong.

China, however, has raised the counter-sanction game recently. For the first time, it is going after core American interests, beginning with placing Micron on the unreliable supplier list, followed by export control of gallium and germanium.

Still, that pales in comparison with the broadsword attack on China’s tech sector, and Chinese companies (and indeed, yellow-skinned asians) stateside.

If this is “Chinese aggression”, how is American “competition” characterized? Outright geopolitical war with intent to kill?

If one were honest, he’d admit China is “aggressive” because it is seen as illegitimate, whereas the hegemon can do no wrong.

Reasoned debate goes out the window, because deep-seated prejudice is deaf and blind to alternate framings of the world.

‘DC Corruption RUINING AMERICA’ – This MUST To Be Stopped NOW! | Col. Macgregor

Colonel Douglas Macgregor shares inside intel on the Russia-Ukraine war with Stephen Gardner. Ukraine is losing and NATO knows it. Zelenskyy is in a silent battle between selling out Ukraine to get money for Ukraine and losing his life or position. The Corruption in DC is unfathomable. The amount of money being siphoned off Americans is criminal. Ex-Cia Ray McGovern is right, the military-industrial complex is making profits off the lost lives of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers and no one cares because they aren’t American men and women.

Unlocked: A Century of American Economic Warfare

Financial war…what is it good for…unintended consequences…say it again!

Hi and welcome to this March 4th, 2022 episode of Peter Lee’s China Threat Report. Today, I’m going to apply an Asian perspective on a hot button issue in the Ukraine conflict: financial warfare by the United States and European Union against Russia.

Leveraging US global financial dominance to stick it to the other guy has been a mainstay of US foreign policy ever since the US government reamed out Great Britain and the English pound in the 1920s.

Today, more of the same.

If you’ve been following the news, you know that the US and EU announced sanctions on Russian banks, sanctions that included some cutoff from the SWIFT settlement system and also provided a carveout for energy exports.

The financial sanctions were not totally unexpected and to an extent an exercise in financial kabuki distracting from the continued trade in energy.

Russian energy exports account for 25% of European consumption and US and EU plans for reaping geopolitical benefits from the Ukraine conflict apparently don’t involve a crippling increase in oil costs to, for instance, $200 a barrel.

What was new was the announcement that foreign exchange reserves of the Russian Central Bank would be frozen in the United States and the European Union.

Russia’s total foreign exchange reserves—convertible foreign currencies and securities and gold held by the central bank amount to around $630 billion dollars. That’s a war chest that Russia expected to deploy to defend the value of its currency on the international exchanges and control the cost of debt service and imports.

Apparently over half that money is held in vulnerable EU and US jurisdictions.

My amateur speculation is that the US and EU decided that, once energy exports were carved out, a supplementary method was needed to inflict a satisfactory level of pain on the Russian economy, so that financial sanctions wouldn’t look too empty and ridiculous.

So Escalate!

Freeze Russia’s foreign exchange reserves, cripple the Russian central bank’s inability to intervene, and then invite the currency markets to hammer the ruble!

Which is happening. The ruble has lost about half its value.

Answering the interesting question of how well this foreign exchange reserve freeze was thought out? will, I guess, have to wait a few years while the memoirs of bankers and diplomats get massaged into print.

Note we’re currently talking about just a freeze of funds, not a seizure. Not yet anyway.

Maybe that was the EU mindset when they decided to do this: This is just a freeze, a temporary expedient to find a way to stick it to Russia while we still buy its oil and gas.

But, you know…US-led sanctions have a way of hanging around and becoming permanent.

And now I think seizure is never going to come off the table, with the inevitable agitation that Russia pay reparations to compensate for the damage it’s inflicting on Ukraine.

The disgrace of the US seizure of Afghanistan’s foreign exchange reserves provide a precedent.

At the Taliban takeover, the United States first froze the $7 billion in Afghan foreign exchange reserves it held; then it made the unilateral decision to seize the money and turn over half of it over to the families of 9/11 victims and use the rest to fund some Afghanistan humanitarian endeavor.

With this context, perhaps Western strategists should be focusing their attention on Russia’s growing conviction that unfreezing of its reserves in the EU and US is less likely than a permanent freeze, seizure, and confiscation…

…and with, therefore Putin should be thinking of turning off the energy taps to Europe while he’s still got the leverage & compel the West to let Russia liquidate its US dollar and Euro holdings to buy gold or Chinese yuan.

The other angle, of course, is America’s number one strategic competitor, that’s China.

China has $3 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, that’s five times what Russia’s got.

And what undoubtedly attracted China’s attention is the apparent US success in winning the EU to its united front financial warfare vision, at least for Russia and at least for the time being.

Using energy (for Russia) and trade (for China) to wedge the EU away from the United States is a dream that, at least for now, remains a dream.

China has to prepare for the eventuality that, when the balloon goes up over Taiwan, it will possibly be subjected to integrated US-EU financial warfare.

And it will have to adjust its financial defenses accordingly.

This state of affairs has attracted the attention of the people who really care about money and there are somewhat nervous discussions of what happens now that weaponisation of the US central position in the global financial system is recognized as a potential threat to any and all nations.

As John Sindreu put it in the Wall Street Journal, If Russian Currency Reserves Aren’t Really Money, the World is In for a Shock.

Well, to inject some economist humor here, the world is in for a Schacht.

That’s “Schacht” as in Hjalmar Shacht, the genius central banker who created international space for the inconvertible and near worthless Reichsmark during the Weimar and Hitler years.

And Schachtian economics—that’s the cultivation of bilateral transaction zones for trade settlement using an nonconvertible currency—is where in my opinion the PRC is going to be headed as it continues to internationalize the yuan, dedollarize (and now de-Euroize) its trade and foreign exchange reserves, and shield itself from the threat of US financial warfare.

Whether intended or not, whether the consequences were fully thought through or not, the financial and economic decoupling of the PRC away from the West will accelerate.

That’s a long term goal of the China hawks that will please US strategists eager to keep the whip hand in Europe, and perhaps will dismay the business-minded moderates who have been herded aboard the anti-Russia bandwagon.

As to whether this outcome reflects a long term strategy of the US or ad hoc improvisation to the opportunity presented by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, well, I doubt self-serving backgrounders or carefully curated memoirs will tell the true story.

But a quick look at the past history of US diplomacy illustrates the fatal allure of financial warfare, a disregard for consequences, and outcomes that look a lot like failure…at least look like failure before the hagiographers and revisionists get to work.

First up, the granddaddy of modern US financial warfare is, I think, FDR’s regime of sanctions, suasion, and freezes implemented against Japan in the runup to the Pacific War.

I think it’s rather well known that a cutoff of US oil supplies kicked off Japan’s military push into the Dutch East Indies and the attack on Pearl Harbor.

What is perhaps less understood is that some hard-line anti-Japan bureaucrats—hey, we might call them “hawks”—exploited the ambiguity in Roosevelt’s strategy to push the US and Japan into war.

Fortunately, there is a book, a wonderful book I might add, by Edward Miller called Bankrupting the Enemy. It is wonderful because it reveals the inner dynamics of the US-Japanese economic relationship, which was one of near total Japanese dependency on the US for exports and financial facilities as well as commodities like oil.

It’s also wonderful if you, like me, you believe an entire chapter on the desperate battle between Japanese raw silk and American nylon to conquer the legspace of American womanhood is a pinnacle of historical writing; you’re going to like this book.

The US measures against Japan started out as sanctions, actually a license system for strategic goods. In theory, Japanese purchasers could apply for a license which the FDR administration, in pursuit of its larger policy goals of national and economic security, might or might not grant.

In the immortal word of a historian, the intent was to “bring Japan to its senses, not to its knees.”

Well, knees is what Japan got, courtesy of Dean Acheson.

The licensing system was rather disingenuously framed as a measure to conserve strategic materials for US use.

The big daddy was oil, of course, and, even though America was actually awash in oil, the US government talked up an oil shortage to explain limitation of exports to Japan.

Then, after Japan invaded southern Indochina in July 1941, FDR approved a freeze on Japanese assets in the United States, to be administered by an interdepartmental committee of State, Treasury, and Justice Departments bureaucrats.

The asset freeze, unlike the product licensing, was unambiguous financial warfare designed as an instrument of deterrent/coercive/whatever you want to call it diplomacy.

Even if the US government approved export licenses to Japan, another license from the freeze committee was needed to unblock Japanese assets to pay for that particular shipment.

Dean Acheson, at the time a deputy Secretary of State, was the dominant figure on the freeze committee, and he didn’t approve release of any funds to pay for Japanese purchases, most significantly for two shiploads of US petroleum products that had already been licensed in July.

Acheson subjected Japanese diplomats to several months of leisurely chainyanking without issuing the licenses and on November 22, 1941 wrote a self-congratulatory memo noting that exports to Japan had been “slashed to nil”.

As Miller mordantly notes in his book, November 22 was also the day “the last of six Japanese aircraft carriers arrived at Hitokappu Bay in the Kurile Islands, from where they would sail four days later for Pearl Harbor.”

The idea that Acheson goaded Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor is, of course, contested ground.

However, I think there’s a reasonable case that, if Roosevelt had kept dribbling out oil to Japan instead of implementing an unambiguous blockade, Japanese strategic decision making and US preparedness might have evolved in different directions, maybe involving less-than-total war and not requiring the merciless strategic and atomic bombing of Japan.

As to whether Acheson was single-handedly foreclosing diplomacy to indulge his anti-Axis militancy, there’s no paper trail showing knowledge or approval of his draconian licensing practices either at the State Department or from the White House.

During the summer of 1941, the higher levels of the US government were preoccupied with European matters and apparently didn’t have the bandwidth to second-guess Acheson’s diddling with the licenses for the two Japanese oil tankers.

Then again, when news of Acheson’s actions did percolate up the decision-making chain, FDR did nothing to reverse them, either because he had previously encouraged them in the signature FDR fashion, that is to say sub rosa, ambiguously and deniably …or Roosevelt decided that the political, diplomatic, and strategic hassles of a policy U-turn at this late date were simply too great, and he just let events take their course.

In addition to Miller’s book, primary source enthusiasts can consult the State Department documents for this event, which are conveniently on-line.

Anyway, let’s remember the takeaway from the Pacific War: 1) financial warfare 2) implemented on spurious pretenses 3) administered by an unaccountable government operation 4) dominated by headstrong hawks determined to exercise or abuse their discretion that 5) provoked an unexpected geostrategic surprise and 6) ended up with a big nuclear bang.

That’s the template that was followed by the next story in this episode, one that has enormous current relevance: the secret US attack on the Chinese financial system launched by US hawks in 2005.

You lucky subscribers to Peter Lee’s China Threat Report are pretty much the only people who get to hear this story, since the campaign and its disastrous conclusion have been pretty thoroughly memory holed by the incompetent zealots who executed it.

With that preamble, let’s proceed with a discussion of the signature piece of US financial warfare in the 21st century so far: the attack on North Korea via Chinese banks.

The outward manifestation of the 2005 campaign was the designation by the US Treasury Department of a tiny bank in Macau, Banco Delta Asia or BDA, as a bank of “primary money laundering concern” because it was purportedly laundering North Korean “Supernotes” a supposedly undetectable counterfeit of our precious $100 bill.

The designation was the application of a vague section of the Patriot Act designed to impede terrorist financing, but that had been seized upon, reinterpreted, and repurposed by Dick Cheney’s crew of hawks as a financial warfare and regime change weapon.

By its mere announcement the Treasury designation, as intended, provoked a complete severing of Western banking relationships with BDA and a run on the bank. The bank went bust and went into receivership.

Subsequent reporting revealed the Supernote excuse to be, to use an unkind term, unadulterated and completely unsubstantiated flapdoodle.

The real purpose of the designation was to intimidate all international banks with the threat of an arbitrary Patriot Act designation, cutoff from the global financial system, and instant insolvency…unless they cooperated with the US program against North Korea—that’s a program that by 2005 under Dick Cheney, had pivoted from nuclear diplomacy to regime change via financial warfare.

As Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s ex Chief of Staff told me, yes, Me! Your humble scribe, there was originally a program of financial pressure targeting North Korean illicit activities.  It was designed to support a dual track of pressure and engagement on nuclear and missile issues through the Six Party negotiations.

However, in the first crazy post-Powell years of the second Bush administration, it got hijacked by the hardliners, and converted into a unilaterally implemented regime change weapon.

Wilkerson said:

I believe that once we had gone, John Bolton and others put the [initiative] to use as a stand-alone policy to attempt to force regime change in Pyongyang by drying up the money with which Kim Jong-il essentially kept his generals happy.

…

[In President Bush’s second term] other people, John Bolton, Bob Joseph took away the dual track. They lusted after it, got ahold of it [the illicit activities initiative], went whole hog [to use it to destabilize North Korea].

And once the hawks gained control of the North Korea operation, they ran it through the Treasury Department’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence which, by design, staffing, and by function creep, was an investigatory, regulatory, and enforcement black box controlled by hardliners with no public process or accountability, even to the rest of the US government.

Amazingly, even when the Bush administration and the State Department under Condoleezza Rice eventually tried to reverse course, the OTFI refused to withdraw the money laundering designation; and when the State Department agreed to return $25 million in North Korean deposits frozen at BDA to Pyongyang, the Treasury Department actively resisted.

Treasury even threatened commercial banks that Condoleezza Rice had approached with a money-laundering designation themselves if they agreed to handle the North Korean funds.

Finally, the US government was only able to return the funds by turning over the transaction to the only US—dollar financial institution in the world not vulnerable to Treasury sanctions: the US Federal Reserve. The money went to the New York Fed, was wired to a Russian bank in Vladivostok, and delivered to North Korea.

With this perspective, let’s return to the takeaways from Dean Acheson’s 1941 execution of a financial blockade against Japan. They were:

1) financial warfare 2) implemented on spurious pretenses 3)  administered by an unaccountable government operation 4) dominated by headstrong hawks determined to exercise or abuse their discretion that 5)  provoked an unexpected geostrategic surprise and 6) ended up with a big nuclear bang.

I think the parallels between the anti-Japanese and anti-North Korea efforts are pretty obvious for items 1 through 4.

Let’s talk about item 5 and 6: the unexpected geostrategic surprise and the big nuclear bang.

When the US Treasury designated BDA as a “bank of primary money laundering concern” the North Koreans recognized it for what it truly was and, for that matter, what the US hawks eventually admitted it was: financial warfare against North Korea.

When the BDA designation was announced,  US pretended it nothing to do with North Korea and refused to discuss it at the Six Party nuclear talks,.

North Korea withdrew from the talks in September 2005 and went home.

And, in October 2006, North Korea detonated its first atomic bomb.

Oops.

The anti-Nork hawks midwifing a nuclear-armed North Korea is universally ignored in US discussions of the brilliant US financial warfare strategies, just as historians tend to skate past the possibility that Dean Acheson triggered Pearl Harbor with his maximalist anti-Japanese sanctions.

But the story’s not over.

In response to the North Korean nuclear test the Bush/Rice axis decided to return to the Six Party Talks.

The North Korean price tag: return $25 million dollars in North Korean funds frozen at BDA.

Not so fast!

In opposition to the State Department and the White House, the Treasury Department hawks spent three months in 2007 using the gyrations described above to block the return of the funds; not simply out of institutional pique, but because they recognized the $25 million was the condition for resuming the Six Party Talks and they were trying to sabotage their resumption.

All in all, one of the more remarkable instances of institutional insubordination in recent American history, at least that I know about, and a reminder of the eagerness of hawks to wield—and seize control—over America’s most powerful weapon.

Not the atomic bomb.

US domination of the world financial system.

The Obama administration anxiously reasserted White House control over the financial warfare machine.

Nevertheless, in recognition of the importance of sanctions weapon, the chief architect of the BDA fiasco, Stuart Levey, the director of the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at Treasury, was the highest level official of the outgoing Bush administration, other than Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, retained by Team Obama.

And of course, beyond everything else, there was China.

BDA had been targeted by the Treasury Department because its chairman, Stanley Au, was politically connected to the PRC.

As David Asher, the zealot-in-chief in charge of the North Korean gambit, testified before Congress:

Banco Delta was a symbolic target. We were trying to kill the chicken to scare the monkeys. And the monkeys were big Chinese banks doing business in North Korea…and we’re not talking about tens of millions, we’re talking hundreds of millions.

Since 2005, in other words, the People’s Republic of China has been acutely and directly aware of the US weaponisation of its central position in the global financial system to target China…and alert to the possibility that this powerful weapon may be seized by, or put into the hands of, maximalist anti-China zealots.

The PRC subsequently gained experience in defensive financial warfare by setting up a separate financial settlement systems to tap dance around US secondary sanctions on trade with North Korea and Iran.

Even the US threat to the PRC’s central bank foreign exchange reserves isn’t a new development.

US anti-PRC enthusiasts have already talked about targeting the PRC’s foreign exchange reserves, particularly the trillion dollars or so its reserve bank, Bank of China, holds in US government securities.

Under Trump, there was a proposal that PRC foreign exchange assets be seized as reparations for Covid-19 at $10 million dollars per life lost; thanks to the US success in racking up Covid deaths, that would be a cool ten trillion dollar payday, which is more than three times the PRC’s stated forex reserves.

Given this history, there is no surprise that the PRC has been preparing against US financial warfare for well over a decade, by internationalization of the RMB to wean its trade from US dollar transactions, by developing an alternate to SWIFT for electronic settlement, by shifting its reserves out of the dollar into gold and the Euro, by digitizing the yuan, and by hardening its economy against US sanctions by stockpiling commodities.

The US/EU jointly announced freeze of Russian Central Bank assets is a major unwelcome escalation. At the same time, it’s simply the biggest and most recent exclamation point in the chronicle of US financial war, hopefully of course, not to be punctuated by the geopolitical surprise and nuclear bang that seem to dog America’s efforts.

I expect the full measure of US financial warfare to be deployed against the PRC sooner or later, not necessarily to destroy a geopolitical and systemic challenger, or in the service of preserving US military and economic pre-eminence in Asia, or to protect the plucky island asset of Taiwan, but simply to protect the US global financial hegemon franchise.

A US assault might be triggered for whatever pretext comes to hand if and when it looks like the PRC appears close to success in creating a parallel global financial system that threatens the primacy and power of the US dollar regime.

I am not completely averse to the conspiracy theories that the ferocity of the US response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, like the campaigns against Qaddafi and Saddam Hussein, were provoked by the stated plans of these supremos to de-dollarize their energy transactions.

The United States has cultivated, defended, and exploited its central position in the global financial system for geopolitical gain for a century; the PRC has been learning to fight back for the only the last 15 years.

The outcome is uncertain.

Will US power and experience prevail, or will it be once again undercut by hubris, incompetence, and ill-considered escalation?

Will the PRC be able to shield its vulnerabilities and protect its economy and finances, or will its rookie financial warriors be overwhelmed by the hardened US veterans?

I will say that, as PRC capacities and networks grow, the countermeasures needed to crush them will probably become more extreme.

Beating up on Libya, Iran, Venezuela, Afghanistan, and even Russia is one thing; going after the People’s Republic of China requires a higher level of tolerance for risk, pain, and possible failure.

Let’s review the template for US financial warfare a la Japan and North Korea one more time:

1) financial warfare 2) implemented on spurious pretenses 3)  administered by an unaccountable government operation 4) dominated by headstrong hawks determined to exercise or abuse their discretion that 5)  provokes an unexpected geostrategic surprise and 6) ends up with a big nuclear bang.

In case of a conflict, I wouldn’t be too surprised if the US hopscotches over the traditional sanction and secondary sanction stages to roll out the ultimate financial weapon in the US arsenal—the asset freeze, with the threat of eventual asset seizure—sooner rather than later.

The next financial war looks to rage more fiercely…and more catastrophically than the one now burning between the West and Russia over Ukraine.

Hopefully the US-China financial war won’t end up with a big nuclear bang, like the other ones did!

Well, that’s all for this episode. Thank you for listening, reading, and supporting Peter Lee’s China Threat Report. Stay well, stay safe, and, I guess, think about buying gold…or maybe investing in canned goods.

What was the craziest thing a mechanic said about your car?

That it was unsafe to drive and that he couldn’t release it to me.

So yes, as you all see, I’m a chick nursing student. I’m also 30, a military vet (Army), and have always, ALWAYS, done ~90% of the work on my vehicles. The only things I can’t do are balance tires (I don’t have the tools) and some of the large work that requires things like cherry pickers and whatnot (Again, I don’t have the tools).

So. Like any good vehicle owner whose vehicle has sat for a long period of time without being driven: after getting back from a 6 month mobilization that left my little Toyota SR5 truck sitting in dry storage, I went through and did maintenance. Checked and replaced my fan belts, air filters, spark plugs, oil and fuel filters, did an oil change and radiator flush, checked the battery and connections, checked my brake pads and alignment, swapped out my winter tires for summer tires, cleaned out my truck and replaced my winter survival gear with summer survival gear (because yes, that is a priority where I lived), etc.

Last but not least, I added injector treatment to my fuel tank, filled my tank, and took my truck to have the tires balanced by a Les Schwab tire place. Now, because of other errands I had and because I had just spent 6 months in unpleasant sandy areas in uniform, I dressed up. Heels, dress slacks, silk blouse, well-tailored jacket, hair up in a bun. Dressed like that, I dropped my truck off, agreed that I needed the tires balanced and that was it, and was told that it would be about an hour.

Awesome. I was about to walk off to go to my other errands down the block when I noticed through that big glass window the Les Schwab places have that they were already pulling my truck into the bay, so I decided to wait. And being the interested person that I am, I watched as two guys started to pull my tires off my truck, and a third, the man who had taken my keys and agreed that I was only asking for my tires to be balanced, sat in the driver’s seat jotting down notes on a little notepad.

After about ten minutes, the third guy with the notepad came back inside and walked over to me and explained that, during his free assessment of my vehicle, he found a lot of safety issues that needed to be corrected.

“Like what?” I asked him.

“Well, it’s like this,” he responded. And then proceeded to rattle off a list of ten or twelve items from his note pad that he had noticed in his “free assessment”. Fan belt needs replaced, overdue for oil change and radiator flush, fuel and oil filters are shot and have to be replaced, brake pads are shot and have to be replaced, alignment is totally out of whack and ruined my tires, which now have to be replaced instead of just balanced …. Everything on his list were things I had just checked and/or replaced. He ended with this:

“I’m really sorry miss, but your vehicle is one big safety problem. I can’t release it to you to drive in the condition it’s currently in.”

… Keep in mind, not only had I just done all this work, most of it on his list, but he had never once opened the hood of my truck. You can’t look at the majority of what I have listed here, or that he had on his list, without opening the hood of the vehicle.

…

After a moment of consideration, I asked him how much he thought it would be to make it “road worthy” … he screwed up his face and did some “math” in his little notebook.

“A rough estimate? $3,700. But it could cost more because your vehicle is technically an import, and the parts can be hard to find.”

I asked to speak with the manager, and was told that the manager was “out for the day”.

I then responded with: “So you’re telling me that, unless I get $3,700 worth of work done on my vehicle, you can’t release my vehicle to me, the rightful owner, because it isn’t safe or road worthy.”

“Yes.” He continued on with this babble of apologies and explanations in a sly, fakely apologetic condescending tone, and asked if there was anyone I could consult with about a repair this large, or if there was anyone who could give me a ride home. I asked him to give me a couple of minutes, and walked out into the parking lot and got on my phone out of earshot from him or his mechanics, who were still balancing my tires.

And promptly got on the phone with the sheriff’s department.

When I explained everything to the officer, he promised to be out in fifteen minutes to help me “clear the matter up”.

I walked back inside and told that mechanic, with the sweetest smile I could conjure, that I would have someone here presently to help me with the matter. I also asked him for the list of repairs needed along with his quote so I could discuss it with my “friend” who would be arriving shortly.

He happily handed me the evidence to his arrest and even signed his name on it for me, so that I could “get in contact with him if I needed more than today to consider the repairs and costs.”

The cherry on top of the whole thing was, the absent manager walked in just in time to see the employee get handcuffed, and I got a free tire balance service because of what the now former employee tried to pull.

I have a best friend named Cat

It’s a forever kind of thing.