A sitrep on geopolitical events regarding global world changes April 2022

I can't remember a time when war propaganda has been this intense.

-dwp

Crappy title regarding a strange period of time.

Well,  the world is quickly switching from one uni-polar governmental operation to a multi-polar one. And we are watching it in real time. Oh, sure, the “West” is kicking up a fuss, and the United States is in hysterics, but that will fade in time.

Sometime, hopefuly sooner than later, the United States will decide to scrap the decades old RAND plans and accept a new reality.

However, that will have to be forced by necessity, and the rest of the world is waiting for that moment to come. Hopefully sooner than later, as the longer it is delayed, the larger the risk of catastrophic fiasco.

Here, we continue on our menu of current events, and toss in views of what we all used to have. It is a lfiestyle that predates the neocon monsters that have corrupted the United States government so badly. I hope you enjoy this article.

Been there. Done that.

daily picdump 58 3
Been there.

Young boy picks out a girl

This video has been making it’s arounds. A boy is in a Business KTV, and when the girls come out in the lineup, he runs up and picks a girl immediately. LOL video 8MB

The “news” about China

China is falling apart. Andy day now… any day now… the people will “rise up” and accept democracy™ and freedom™. That’s the narrative, don’t you know. Of course the idiots regurigating this bullshit have exactly zero experience with China. They are fine “cannon fodder”. LOL!

From Drudge Report 8APR22.

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2022 04 08 16 05

The fiction is “off the charts”.

On the domestic side

you will only get it if you are married to a man 11
You will only get it if you are married .

Singapore abstains from UN vote on Russia: MFA says awaiting probe on human rights violation in Ukraine

Singapore suddenly adjusted her pro US foreign policy, they now are not so trigger-happy against Russia.  Abstention in UN vote: MFA says Singapore is awaiting findings on human rights violation in Ukraine

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President Biden tells us what defines America

The joke is on democrazy.

NATO is mobilized to confront China

Orders from the USA.
Ukraine-Russia war: China needs to condemn Moscow’s invasion says NATO boss

Apparently, NATOs intention is to control the world, not self defence :

  • NATO to deepen ties with Asian partners amid China’s refusal to condemn Russia – World – TASS
  • Unreasonable, sinister for NATO to push China to condemn Russia – Global Times

Spicy Bean and Beef Pie

This has everything. Meat pie. Beef. beans, and taste! The key is the unique set of ingredients. But all are commonly available.

exps4622 FM153592D03 18 1b 2
Spicy Bean and Beef Pie.

Ingredients

  • 1 pound ground beef
  • 2 to 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 can (11-1/2 ounces) condensed bean with bacon soup, undiluted
  • 1 jar (16 ounces) thick and chunky picante sauce, divided
  • 1/4 cup cornstarch
  • 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
  • 1 teaspoon paprika
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  • 1 can (16 ounces) kidney beans, rinsed and drained
  • 1 can (15 ounces) black beans, rinsed and drained
  • 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese, divided
  • 3/4 cup sliced green onions, divided
  • Dough for double-crust deep-dish pie
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 1 can (2-1/4 ounces) sliced ripe olives, drained

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 425°. In a large skillet, cook beef over medium heat until beef is no longer pink. Add garlic; cook 1 minute longer. Drain. In a large bowl, combine soup, 1 cup picante sauce, cornstarch, parsley, paprika, salt and pepper. Fold in beans, 1-1/2 cups cheese, 1/2 cup onions and beef mixture.
  2. On a lightly floured surface, roll half the dough to a 1/8-in.-thick circle; transfer to a 9-in. deep-dish pie plate. Trim even with rim. Add filling. Roll remaining dough to a 1/8-in.-thick circle. Place over filling. Trim, seal and flute edge. Cut slits in top.
  3. Bake until crust is lightly browned, 30-35 minutes. Let stand for 5 minutes before cutting. Serve with sour cream, olives and remaining picante sauce, cheese and onions.

Serbia says it was blackmailed over UN vote

I am not really surprised.

Article

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American Diner

Once the go-to hangout spot for American teens and a symbol of opportunity for small business owners, diners are one of the most beloved remnants of mid-century America.

Scattered across the country, diners come in many shapes and forms, from roadside railcar-style establishments to tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurants in the country’s biggest cities.

Here’s what diners looked like during their heyday...

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American Diner.

Republica – Ready to Go (Official Video)

Big British group from the 1990s. They made a splash on the music scene and then faded away. They maintained domestic signifigance for some time, but most of the world remains unaware of them.

Good Map ever of Ukraine.

It’s from the Western leadership. So it’s really not all that accurate. But it’s a good map never the less. You can zoom in, and all that. The actual military territories and Russian locations are entirely deceptive. It seems that Russia has made no gains. But that’s not the intention. This is not World War I. Don’t “pull a Hitler” and maintain 19th century thinking.

2022 04 10 21 48
2022 04 10 21 48

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ok Map

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Beijing warns of ‘forceful measures’ if Nancy Pelosi visits Taiwan

It is possible that China may declare Taiwan airspace a “no fly zone”. If so, in this senario, they will shoot down any Taiwan jet and destroy Taiwan military bases that dare to fire the first shot.
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It’s possible, but not probable.
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Imagine if “Xi the great” follows “Putin the great” to declare a ban on accepting US currency.  What will happen to the Western economies, their cost of living, manufacturing supply chain, currency value, and world confident in Holding US treasury debt?
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The truth is that the United States is playing a zero sum game, and blindly believe in its might with nary a second thought.
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  • US House Speaker is expected to arrive in Taipei on Sunday, according to media reports
  • Beijing says Washington ‘must be fully responsible for the consequences’ if it goes ahead
Article

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Nancy Pelosi postpones Asia trip after testing positive for Covid-19

Imagine that. What “bad luck”.
A US Congressional delegation to Asia has been postponed after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tested positive for Covid-19.

The announcement followed a warning by China that it would take strong measures if the trip included a visit to Taiwan, as media reports in the region had claimed.

Pelosi's deputy communications director Drew Hammill said in a tweet on Thursday that the planned Congressional delegation to Asia, to be led by Pelosi over the two-week Congressional break, "will be postponed to a later date."

"After testing negative this week, Speaker Pelosi received a positive test result for Covid-19 and is currently asymptomatic. The Speaker is fully vaccinated and boosted, and is thankful for the robust protection the vaccine has provided. The Speaker will quarantine consistent with CDC guidance, and encourages everyone to get vaccinated, boosted and test regularly," Hammill tweeted.
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Article What terrible luck, eh?

Railcar style diner

Railcar-style diners were modeled after rail carriages or sometimes converted from the original train cars into stand-alone eateries. Diners were constructed in factories and then shipped to their destinations, much like mobile homes, and were relatively affordable to purchase at just $1,000.

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2022 04 08 15 19

Once they arrived, the utilities simply had to be connected. Since diners, or “lunch cars,” had to be shipped using a truck or railcar, they were designed to be narrow.

AUKUS is “Anglo-Saxon small bloc” to serve U.S. hegemony: Chinese FM spokesperson-Xinhua

It’s pretty obvious, and if you tabulate all the public speeches from the USA and from Australia, you can clearly see that the Chinese spokesperson is just stating facts. Why this is signifigant is that the Chinese government is officially recognizing that a military build up prior to an American invasion / war upon China is the purpose of AUKUS.

Listen to the video full content:

Listen

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New Jersey Diners

At one point, nearly 95% of the shippable restaurants were manufactured in New Jersey.

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New Jersey Diner.

New Jersey’s oldest diner, the Summit Diner, opened in 1929, was rebuilt in 1938, and is still open today.

China and Russian Trade in Yuan

China is buying Russian energy with its own currency, marking the first commodities paid for in yuan since Western sanctions hit Moscow.

Here…

Article 1

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And Here…

Article 2

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Until the Great Depression, most diners could be found in the Northeast.

After World War II ended and the suburbs began to boom, more and more people began opening diners nationwide.

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Typical diner interior.

The small businesses could prove extremely profitable for owners. Since the restaurants themselves were so small, and the kitchens so narrow, not many employees were required.

Sneaker Pimps 6 Underground/Lyrics/Kelli Ali

A top charter in the mid-1990s. I wonder if anyone remembers this song. I think it kind of defined what it was like in those years.

Chinese democracy seems to work pretty good.

In a comparative sense. But America has “American” democracy™. That’s superior Right?

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2022 04 08 14 43

With the implementation of cross-country highways in the 1960s, diners continued to grow in popularity.

Travelers along the new highways could stop off and grab a quick bite at the roadside establishments.

2022 04 08 15 24Interior of a roadside diner.

Many diners featured a row of bar stools along a counter, allowing many people to be served without much effort from the diner’s staff.

Sophie B. Hawkins – Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover

Here’s a “blast from the past”. This song was pretty famous back in the 1990s. It is about… well, you know… there is a person, a certain someone… that you really like. But, you know, there are taboos and you cannot have a relationship with that person.

The way the world works

Yeah. This guy has it all figured out. video 14MB

I Don’t Know Who’s Great Resetting Who Anymore

I don’t think you people understand how big of a deal all this economic stuff that is happening actually is. It’s very difficult even for me to watch it all playing out in real time.

Basically, the whole world had agreed to a US-run financial system that was outside of the realm of politics. Then, the United States decided to violate international law and ban Russia from the global financial system, ostensibly because they believed that Vladimir Putin is a very mean person.

This is not smart. There is no strategy here.

RT:

Global economies will be rethinking how safe it is to rely on the US dollar in their foreign currency holdings, the deputy head of the International Monetary Fund, Gita Gopinath, said on Tuesday.

The statement comes after half of Russia’s forex holdings were effectively confiscated by international financial institutions amid sanctions placed on Moscow following the launch of its military operation in Ukraine.

“We are likely to see some countries reconsidering how much they hold of certain currencies in their reserves,” she stated in an interview with Foreign Policy magazine.

Gopinath said the IMF sees “increasing fragmentation” in global payments systems as one of the consequences of the current events. However, she stated that the US dollar, traditionally considered the world reserve currency, is not likely to suffer an “imminent demise.”

Still, depending on how long the crisis in Ukraine lasts, there could be larger effects, Gopinath said. 

I don’t know how many hardline “everything is a conspiracy” people read this website.

Personally, I’m a moderate conspiracy guy. As a rule, I only publish conspiracies that can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. In terms of my personal mind, I believe some conspiracies that I wouldn’t publish, because I understand they can’t be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

There is some gray area, of course. You can use deductive logic to conclude something without necessarily having all of the facts documented. For example: when the CIA (or one of its tentacles) releases documents admitting to doing some dastardly thing decades earlier, and then says “yeah, but we stopped doing that,” you can deduce that they are almost certainly still doing it.

The logic is:

      • They lied about doing it in the first place while they were doing it
      • They have a history of saying they stopped doing things and then getting caught still doing them
      • If they were doing it in the first place, and nothing has changed, they still view it as worth doing
      • Everything they want to do in secret is done in secret, under the guise of national security
      • They’ve repeatedly demonstrated that there is no consideration of any type of morality in their secret deeds
      • etc.

So, with for example any of the human experiments that the CIA was involved in – whether it be testing chemical weapons on the public or doing mind control techniques on patients in psych wards – you can assume with very high confidence that, given that they’ve admitted to doing these things in the past, they are still doing them now.

Viewing Everything That Happens as a Conspiracy Can Lead to Tangled-Up, Nonsensical Thinking

I am the first person to admit “conspiracies are real.” I am not some rabid person who goes around condemning people as “conspiracy theorists.” I’m always interested in hearing people out. I think I’m about as open-minded as a person can be without having a gaping hole in my head. I like engaging people in discussion of every kind of idea.

The World Economic Forum’s Great Reset is the most obvious conspiracy of the current year. I don’t “believe” in this – I know it is real, because I’ve read their publications, and seen their policies enacted around the world. However, you have to match your beliefs with facts with reality, or you end up getting sucked into a void.

There is a sect of people who think everything is a conspiracy, and use backward logic to explain anything that happens as part of the conspiracy. Again, I don’t know how many of these people there are, and I know that these people tend to be much more vocal on the internet than people who are not in this subculture. But I have seen a lot of people claim some version of “the West is using the Russia conflict to destroy its own economic system on purpose.”

These people are correct in stating that the US and the rest of the West have a plan – this “Great Reset” thing – to make basically everyone poor, jobless, living in state housing and eating state food, ultimately reducing the population so that the elite can dominate the limited resources remaining on earth. (If you follow the WEF documents and presentations, they are very big into the idea that they are going to use emerging technology to basically become immortal, extending their lives through gene therapy and bionic implants and such, so they believe they will need these resources to build an empire in outer space. They literally believe that and you can read it on their website. It’s not a “theory.”)

So, when you see them destroying the global economic system, it is easy to say “see, this is that thing.”

And indeed: they are clearly spinning this stuff in that direction. You see US officials coming out and saying that it’s time to start riding the bus if you can’t afford an \$80,000 Tesla.

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2022 04 08 10 52
Earlier this month Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told American families to buy electric vehicles if they desire gas savings, now he’s telling them to take the bus.https://t.co/r5Iw6UA9cB pic.twitter.com/CKqrviNwDA

— MRCTV (@mrctv) March 22, 2022

This is clearly part of the program, and they’re exploiting the Ukraine situation to push this agenda.

Meanwhile in France, their dictator just came out and said that he’s going to start issuing food rations when everyone starts starving because of a border skirmish in the former USSR.

However, “everything is going according to plan” just doesn’t work, because ultimately, these big decisions on the geopolitical stage regarding the dollar as reserve currency only serve to empower China.

China can’t be sanctioned because they produce too much of what America uses. China has also formed a global trade network that they could use to blockade the United States.

Diners became popular due to their large menus featuring American food staples like hamburgers, fries, and club sandwiches.

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Diners were popular.

Most diners had galley kitchens that made it easier for cooks to move from one dish to another, making service quicker than in a traditional restaurant.

An American couple adopts a Chinese orphan

Heartwarming. video 34MB

Speaking of hamburgers…

awesome photos 2American burgers.

Do you think that I am giving enough airtime to the humble American hamburger, or is more time needed?

Here’s an accurate meme posted by a Chinese official:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that when the West talks about the "int'l community", they mean: pic.twitter.com/RZNOwDymX2

— Lijian Zhao 赵立坚 (@zlj517) March 17, 2022
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2022 04 08 10 50

Saudi Arabia is going to start trading oil in yuan.

Countries are going to start dumping dollar reserves.

America is going to be a third world country, while China becomes the dominant world power.

So then, if you are going to say that this is all going according to plan, you have to say that the US leadership wants to transfer all of its global power to the Chinese.

But why?

That’s where the hang-up is. It doesn’t make any sense why the US and Western establishment would be interested in transferring power to China.

In order to square that circle, you have to really start going into nutty type conspiracies. And when I say “nutty,” I’m saying that not as an insult, but as an objective descriptor. You would have to come up with an explanation as to how China is secretly on-board with the global Western (frankly, primarily Jewish) agenda.

There is no indicator of that, really at all. In fact, China’s culture is virtually the diametric opposite of Western Jewish culture.

I wrote about this in some detail: What About China, Then?

To make it make sense, you are forced into a few necessary assertions, all of which are fantastical:

  • China has a secret deal with Western powers to implement a feminist-anal-tranny-Jewish slave grid
  • China purposefully did the reverse of the feminist-anal-tranny-Jewish agenda instead of a push for democracy (I guess as some kind of fake-out)
  • For some reason, China has refused all Western attempts to “democratize” (another fake-out?)
  • The Taiwan occupation, the Western-backed Hong Kong riots, and every other thing that the US has done to try to undermine Chinese society was part of a massive fake-out (who are they faking out? People on internet forums?)
  • The West has some kind of secret mechanism through which to ensure that China upholds this theoretical secret agreement, which is why they are willing to surrender all global power to China upfront, without any visible guarantees that China will uphold the secret agreement

None of this, to me, is serious in any way. People try to work backwards from what they see happening, then they hit the brick wall of these fantastical and possibly outright nonsensical assertions which are necessary to uphold the logic train they are riding.

There is no way to say this is all part of the plan without saying the plan is to transfer all power to China, and there is no explanation of why that would be the plan.

The hardline conspiracy people will then start listing off a series of allegedly unexplainable questions, rather than confront the underlying hard wall their logic has hit.

For example:

  • Why would the US transfer its manufacturing base to China in the 1990s?
  • Why would the US implode its own economy and status as a world power?
  • Why are the Chinese allowed to invest in Western infrastructure?

These are fair questions and worth considering. But to claim that the only possible explanation is “a secret deal with the Chinese,” despite the stated problems with that theory, is absurd.

My explanations for these questions are simpler: in general, I would answer those questions with “the West made bad decisions.” I would attribute these bad decisions by a decadent and decaying elite feebly attempting to manage complex systems they don’t understand.

With the first question – the issue of transferring the manufacturing base – this was well documented at the time. Western think-tanks explained in a virtually infinite number of white papers and books that when the Chinese quality of living was escalated, they would “democratize” and integrate with the West. Needless to say, that did not happen. Instead, China installed a new Emperor who organized a wide-ranging program to promote ultranationalism and reinforce traditional Chinese cultural values.

Samuel P. Huntington, who died in 2008 at the age of 81, is one of the globalist thinkers who disagreed with the consensus, arguing that China could, unlike Western countries, modernize and still maintain traditional culturally conservative values, which would then make it “unintegratable” into the Western order, which is based on modernist ideas.

If anyone wants to understand Huntington’s predictions further, they can read his book “Clash of Civilizations.” It’s kind of boring if you don’t have all the background knowledge, but not particularly difficult for someone with high school level reading skills.

This is the map he gave of the different civilizations that were to “clash” in the modern world:

You can overlay that with the above Chinese meme about the “international community.”

Meanwhile, China has spent the last two decades reaching out to these various other civilizations, and most of them get along very well with the Chinese. During the same two decades, the West has been engaged in brutal, pointless, and very expensive wars, serving no clear purpose anyone can explain beyond “Israeli security interests.” (Those countries could have been conquered a lot easier with Netflix and pornography, but the Jews wanted war. That’s the theme of all of this – the globalist agenda is continually undermined by bizarre Jewish psychology.)

The Chinese have also peddled a lot of influence in the West, primarily through being productive and exploiting the transnational ideology of the West.

Finally, to be clear: I don’t doubt that Western politicians have been bribed or that the Democrat Party in particular has a fair number of Chinese intelligence operatives and assets. The story of Fang-Fang the Chinese spy going around having sex with American politicians seems to be true, and that has probably happened a lot without the spies getting identified. But espionage and intelligence operations fit into my paradigm, rather than the “everything that happens wouldn’t happen unless it was a conspiracy” paradigm.

A glimpse of Japan

So cute. video 11MB

Chinese girl in a furry top

She almost looks like a doll. Sheech! video 2MB

“Does China have running water?”

A typical dumb-ass American viewpoint. video 8MB

‘Til Tuesday – Voices Carry

A blast from the past!

As well as being quicker to make, dishes served at diners were cheaper, too.

Items like pancakes, sausages, meatloaf, burgers, and sandwiches were typically served in the restaurants and still are in diners today.

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Good cheap food was available at diners.

The meals were low-priced, making diners popular even before their rise in the 1950s. During the Great Depression , diners provided an inexpensive way for families to go out to eat.

It’s the Same with Russia

These same kinds of issues come up when talking about how Putin is secretly working for Klaus Schwab – but those arguments aren’t even really important enough to address, because at this point, Russia is a de facto proxy state of China. To elaborate: China and Russia are in a binding alliance, and China is a much more powerful country than Russia, therefore: de facto proxy state – at least as regards Russia’s moves on the geopolitical stage. If China was allied with America, Russia would already be crushed (that’s why so many people tried to warn American planners that they had to choose one or the other).

Putin and the Russians obviously have their own objectives and so on; I don’t think they are a vassal state of the Chinese. But it is clear that Putin made sure the Ukrainian intervention was approved by China, and they would not have approved it if they didn’t think it served their interests. As we’ve seen, it has very much served their interests. Frankly, I am virtually positive that the Chinese knew how the US would react and did the math on how this would play out, ultimately resulting in the collapse of the dollar, and thereby the American Empire.

Meanwhile, by every single fact we are able to observe, the decadent leaders of the West are acting as though Russia and China are Iraq and Libya. It appears that they genuinely believe they can use brute force and threats of brute force to come out on top in this conflict. (It’s also worth mentioning that the West, due to the ultra-low moral character of its leaders and the utter lack of any unifying ideal beyond anal sex, has lost the ability to cooperate cohesively as a single body in the way that the Chinese do.)

Please note: Unlike the theoretical secret deals between the West and the Chinese (or Russia), the deals between China and Russia are very much visible and are largely committed to paper.

The West started this conflict, of course. I don’t know when they realized Russia was going to move into the Ukraine, but they had ample opportunity to prevent it by simply agreeing to the previous status quo. They appear to believe that they can create a protracted conflict in the Ukraine like they did when Russia invaded Afghanistan in the 1980s. That shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the situation. Ukraine has historically been a part of Russia. There is not really any such thing as a “Ukrainian identity” outside of being a vassal state. In the west of the country, they tend to feel closer to Poland, and there is some bad blood all around with regards to the USSR. But none of this is in any way similar to fanatical Islam. The US has backed neo-Nazism as a kind of “Ukrainian ISIS,” but you can’t rally a country around cartoonish neo-Nazism (particularly while the entire leadership of the country is Jewish).

The idea of using neo-Nazis as rebels against a Russian occupation or a Russia-backed government in the Ukraine is nonsensical, and reeks of the kind of stupid thinking that led to America’s Afghan debacle. The US government pays people to lie to them, and when people tell the truth, they get fired and end up on obscure livestream interviews answering superchats. These liars are telling the decision-makers that the Ukraine is Afghanistan and a protracted conflict can be used to drain Russia, which will ultimately result in the collapse of the Putin government.

The fact that they have no idea what they’re doing is blatant in the fact that they are sanctioning the entire Russian race. Putin’s support is going up rapidly among the people, many of whom didn’t like his policies before but now feel compelled to rally around him since they are being attacked personally for their race by the West.

Diners typically operate around the clock, allowing patrons to stop by at any time for a meal.

Since diners are open all night long, many pop culture depictions of diners involve a feeling of loneliness and isolation.

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Diners were open 24 hours.

Edward Hopper’s 1942 painting “Nighthawks” shows a diner and its few occupants late at night. The painting is based on a diner in New York City’s Greenwich Village.

So, China Ruling the World, Huh?

We are clearly facing down a world ruled by the Chinese. A lot of people are uncomfortable with that. But most of the discomfort comes from the idea that the Chinese are somehow going to rule us in the same fashion that the US has ruled the world since World War II. They have no such plans for us. The Chinese have a vision of conquering the world through commerce, rather than war, threats of war, and geopolitical maneuvering.

We started out on the issue of the economic dominance of the US, and that economic dominance is indeed the key to everything. However, US economic dominance was entirely a result of US military might.

The reigning US philosophy for global economic dominance has been: “we will literally bomb you.”

Conversely, the Chinese philosophy has been: “we will sell you high quality products at reasonable prices.”

Chinese people do not really even understand what white people are, and they don’t have very much interest in learning. If a Chinese person outside of the major urban centers sees a white person, they don’t register them as a person, but rather as some kind of weird exotic creature that has popped up in their environment for mysterious reasons. The reaction is similar to if you were walking down the street, and saw Doraemon float in on a cloud.

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Doraemon float in on a cloud.

You might stop and look at him in awe, you might take out your phone and take a selfie, you might just ignore him completely because your brain cannot register the existence of a Doraemon floating around.

This is to say: it’s a purely insular culture, which Westerners do not understand any more than they understand us. As an example: instead of trying to trace their origins as a people, the Chinese believe – and teach children in school – that China has always existed. In their thinking, China is the “Middle Kingdom” that sits between Heaven and a mass of strange barbarians who may be interested in buying products.

When the Mongols consistently raided them, stealing their women and wealth on horseback and riding off with the booty, they said “cannot allow.” Instead of mounting an army to crush the Mongols, they built a gigantic wall, and told the Mongols that if they wanted Chinese products, they would have to buy them at the wall.

It is precisely the same logic as a Chinese immigrant family setting up a store in an all black neighborhood and covering the counter, cash register, and expensive items with bulletproof glass.

China has always been, fundamentally, a merchant empire, and that hasn’t changed. If it were not for the belligerence of the West, they wouldn’t have bothered to build up a large military at all. Historically, virtually every war the Chinese have fought has been a civil war, as they don’t look at the rest of the world as enemies or friends, but rather customers and potential customers.

China has de facto economic dominance over most of Southeast Asia and a lot of Africa. They’ve not interfered with any of these countries’ political processes, and they’ve shown no interest in doing so. I’ve repeatedly pointed out that they should have sent advisors to Burma during their (still ongoing) political crisis, given that they’ve got such a large stake in the Burmese economy, but they did not. Even when it is obviously to their benefit, and the problem would not be difficult to mediate, they stick to a policy of non-interference.

Similarly, they had huge investments in Vietnam, but made no attempt to interfere with the politics there. The locals started to resent Chinese being richer than locals. This ended up in massive pogroms of Chinese businesses in 2014. It didn’t get a lot of media attention in the West of course, but it was a pretty big deal. They burned more than a dozen factories, and were just smashing anything with Chinese characters on it (they can’t visibly tell the difference between each other, because Vietnamese people are really just Southern Chinese). They ended up accidentally smashing or burning a bunch of Taiwanese and even Japanese businesses (I guess they didn’t attack Korean businesses, because Korean characters have that circle thing that makes them really obvious).

Several people were killed. China’s response was basically “this is very disrespectful behavior. We cannot continue doing business with you.” They didn’t threaten them with a war, or try to do regime change. The Vietnamese government said they would secure Chinese investments, and then only arrested two people. (The Wikipedia page on these “protests” is not very good, but might be a starting point for people who want to look into it more.)

China pulled most of their investment, and Vietnam continued to pivot towards America, a country that they had relatively recently had a relatively brutal war with. Some Western-owned factories moved to Vietnam from China, but mostly the result of the pogroms and lack of action by the government to the pogroms just meant more money for Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Indonesia – countries where the local barbarians are more amenable to gentlemanly business practices.

Vietnam has effectively been cut out of the One Belt, One Road project, while the Chinese are doing expensive infrastructure projects and building factories everywhere else. Instead of using Vietnamese ports, China is going through neighboring Laos, Burma, Thailand, and Cambodia, then running a waterway shipping line past Vietnam.

This is why they’re going crying to the US State Department about fishing waters. I guess we’ll see how that gamble works out for them. (Obviously, at some point, they’re going to end up begging for the Chinese to come back – assuming they don’t end up being used in some kind of Western military operation.)

Note this: America still has military in Thailand. However, when push comes to shove, Thais are going to side with the Chinese, because dumping money into a country works a lot better for building stable relations than putting your military inside a country.

Chinese girlfriend material

I call’s ’em as I see’s ’em. video 7MB

Baked Saucy Pork Chops

This little variation on Pork Chops is very, very delicious and so easy to make!

Baked Saucy Pork Chops EXPS SDDJ17 17351 B08 03 2b 31
Baked Saucy Pork Chops

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 2 bone-in pork loin chops (3/4 inch thick)
  • 1/4 cup chopped onion
  • 1/4 cup maple syrup
  • 2 tablespoons water
  • 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
  • 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 teaspoon chili powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  • 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350°. In a large skillet, heat butter over medium heat. Brown pork chops on both sides. Transfer to a greased 11×7-in. baking dish; sprinkle with onion.
  2. In a bowl, mix remaining ingredients; pour over chops. Bake, covered, until a thermometer inserted in pork reads 145°, 15-20 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Pay attention to this;

If the West wants to fight a bioweapons war, the East can do the same thing.

Two COVID Variants Just Combined Into a ‘Frankenstein’ Virus

The first subvariant of Omicron, the latest major variant of the novel coronavirus, was bad. BA.1 drove record cases and hospitalizations in many countries starting last fall.

The second subvariant, BA.2, was worse in some countries—setting new records for daily cases across China and parts of Europe.

After Biden and Blinkedin warned China that serious consequences would occur if China failed to sanction Russia, there have been outbreaks up and down China with this second subvariant BA.2. No other actions occured (aside fromt he mysterious mid-air breakup of a domestic airliner).

Now BA.1 and BA.2 have combined to create a third subvariant. XE, as it’s known, is a “recombinant”—the product of two viruses interacting “Frankenstein”-style in a single host.

With its long list of mutations, XE could be the most contagious form of the coronavirus yet. “From the WHO reports, it does appear to have a bit more of an edge in terms of transmissibility,” Stephanie James, the head of a COVID testing lab at Regis University in Colorado, told The Daily Beast.

But don’t panic just yet. The same mix of subvariants that produced XE might also protect us from it. Coming so quickly after the surge of BA.1 and BA.2 cases, XE is on track to hit a wall of natural immunity—the antibodies left over from past infection in hundreds of millions of people.

Those natural antibodies, plus the additional protection afforded by the various COVID vaccines, could blunt XE’s impact. For that reason, many experts worry less about XE and more about whatever variant or subvariant might come after XE.

Now, it appears that a deadly variant of the BA.2 has been detected in the USA. It's now known as XE.

The subvariant hasn’t shown up in U.S. tests yet. But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t reached U.S. shores. “It might not be detected by the standard analysis pipeline,” Rob Knight, the head of a genetic-computation lab at the University of California, San Diego, told The Daily Beast. Major new forms of SARS-CoV-2 can require tweaks to testing methods.

XE is a nasty bug, owing to potentially dozens of mutations to its spike protein, the part of the virus that helps it grab onto and infect our cells. And it’s a strong reminder that the pandemic isn’t over. Even with widespread natural immunity and highly effective and safe vaccines, SARS-CoV-2 keeps finding pockets of unprotected people—and opportunities to evolve.

Article

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Diners have appeared in pop culture favorites like “Grease,” “Seinfeld,” “Gilmore Girls,” and “Twin Peaks.”

“In the movies, the diner is a special kind of space, a mythic place, a zone of escape,” film critic John Patterson told the BBC.

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2022 04 08 15 31

Suzanne Vega, who wrote the ’80s hit song “Tom’s Diner,” said, “The attraction of the diner is that it’s a sort of a midway point between the street and home.”

Trade is Better Than War

Frankly, if you read Thomas Jefferson – who was not an Orientalist – his vision for America was not dissimilar from that of the “Middle Kingdom” of China. He thought America should base its relationships with other countries on trade, rather than military or political antagonism (let alone moral lecturing).

This thinking was based primarily on the fact that the US had been a colony, and so understood the complexities of running an empire, which requires you to rule over people in foreign lands. Most all of the original American thinkers thought trade was a better way to interact with and influence the world than direct military rule.

Basically, this thinking ended with the Spanish-American war. Before that, America had wars, but they were all basically necessary (the Civil War is obviously complicated, but it was not a foreign war so doesn’t apply here). Because of the alleged sinking of the USS Maine by the Spanish – which turned out to be a fake news hoax – the US did an “intervention” in Cuba, and then “intervened” in the Philippines.

Irony of all ironies, however, the actual first “intervention” in a dumb foreign conflict was the support for the British during the Second Opium War.

The short story is: The US initially refused to get involved, and then were talked into sending a small number of troops by the British. After a few brief skirmishes, the US signed a neutrality agreement with China, effectively abandoning the British to their stupid adventure in global Jewish drug-peddling (the opium racket was run by the Jewish Sassoon family, and the entire scheme of conquering the Chinese by getting all the peasants addicted to drugs was a Jewish plan that the British went along with – the British have a proud history stretching back to Cromwell of cooperating with maniacal Jewish schemes). Then a US Navy commander went rogue and attacked the Chinese in defense of the British, claiming it was a race war, and “blood is thicker than water.” I agree with the sentiment, of course, but not in the context of a Jewish drug scheme on the other side of the planet.

So: our nation’s first stupid foreign adventure was against the Chinese as a part of a Jewish plot – and thus will be our last foreign adventure.

The Dragon’s Breath blows away the Empire of Dust.

Diners brought together people from different economic levels

Michael C. Gabriele, who wrote “The History of Diners in New Jersey,” told the Telegraph that “diners are the state’s ultimate gathering places — at any moment, high school students, CEOs, construction workers, and tourists might be found at a counter chatting with the waitresses and line cooks.”

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American diner.

During the civil rights movement, diners became a popular place for activists to hold “sit-ins” in restaurants that refused to seat black people, despite many of them employing black people to work there.

In 1964, Congress outlawed segregation through the Civil Rights Act, but many diners in the South continued to segregate their establishments, afraid that “seating blacks would drive away white patrons.”

Worse Things Have Happened to Better People

It goes without saying: no Chinaman ever tried to convince my son to cut his dick off. No Chinaman ever flooded my country with immigrants and pornography. No Chinaman ever called me “goy.”

China is not going to invade America. They are going to allow it to commit suicide. Over time, a new order will be established in America, and that new order will have the option of trading with China. Probably, during the chaos of this collapse, China will buy up a lot of the resources in America, and this will mean that a new emerging order will be tied in to the global economic order run by the Chinese. That’s unfortunate, but hey – your son gets to keep his dick.

A world with China as the central global superpower will be peaceful and based on independent countries engaging in voluntary commerce. It’s sad to see people getting so fussy over it.

I get that it’s also sad that the white man is not going to be the dominant force on the planet anymore. But in truth, we haven’t been for a long time. Everything that we associate with Western dominance in the modern age is really Jewish dominance.

Basically, 80 years ago, white people had a big war with each other and the good guys lost. Everything that’s happened since then has been effectively predetermined – a series of chaotic and revolutionary events driven by the chaotic and revolutionary spirit of the Jewish race. The Jews ultimately destroy everything. They can’t help themselves.

So, here we are.

Railcar-style diners are still manufactured in factories today, but they’re much more expensive to purchase and ship.

New diners can reportedly cost more than $1 million to produce, and restoring or renovating old ones can be extremely pricey as well. Instead, many ’50s-style diners in operation today are built on-site to cut costs.

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American diner.

US oil imports from Russia increase by 43%

If you are confused, well; welcome to the club.

In the past week, the US administration has increased its imports of Russian oil by 43%, reaching 100,000 barrels a day.
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Members Of Congress Are Now Using Words Like “Famine” And “Starvation” To Describe What Is Coming

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I have so much information to share with you today, and I will do my best to be brief. But be warned that this article is going to be longer than usual.  Global events are moving so quickly now, and I believe that they are going to move even more rapidly in the months ahead.  Sadly, the changes that we are witnessing will have a very real impact on the daily lives of every man, woman and child on the entire planet.  As I discussed yesterday, a global food shortage has arrived.  In fact, members of Congress are now using words like “famine” and “starvation” to describe what conditions will soon be like all over the world.

For example, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst just told Fox Business that our planet is facing “impending famine”

About 40 to 45 percent of the production in Ukraine will be decreased this year because of the war and the scarcity of supplies that go into the planting season. And we know that Ukraine also supports about 400 million people around the world with its food products. So we do see that we have an impending famine. And I’ve heard from David Beasley at the World Food Bank that he’s now going to have to take from the hungry to feed the starving.

And U.S. Senator Cory Booker has previously warned that we could soon see tens of millions of people “dying of starvation”

“Democrats and Republicans in Congress need to quickly come together and approve emergency global food aid in order to prevent tens of millions of people, including millions of children, from dying of starvation,” Senator Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, told Reuters.

They aren’t exaggerating.

Even Joe Biden recently admitted that food shortages are “going to be real”.

The one thing that could provide a ray of hope would be an end to the war in Ukraine.

But it appears that isn’t going to happen any time soon.  In an interview with Fox News on Friday, Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that his nation will not accept anything less than “victory” in the war…

Special Report’s Bret Baier interviewed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday evening, touching on a wide variety of topics, including what a victory looks like for Ukraine and what Putin is hoping to achieve.

Baier asked the Ukrainian leader at the start of the interview how he believes the “war will end” prompting an explanation from Zelenskyy that only “victory” will be acceptable to his country.

Good luck with all that.

Now that the Russians have pulled their forces away from Kiev to focus on the eastern front, there is a lot less pressure on Zelenskyy to compromise on a peace deal.

And the fact that this conflict has made him one of the biggest celebrities on the entire planet actually gives him an incentive to keep it going.

Meanwhile, millions upon millions of people are already deeply suffering.  In Somalia, we are being warned that an “impending famine” is at the door…

What we are now seeing is impending famine similar to that which occurred in 2010/2011 in which more than a quarter of a million people died – including 133,000 children under the age of five. Although some donors have committed to fund Somalia’s Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) which seeks US$1.5 billion, not even 4% of funding required to meet Somalia’s humanitarian needs have been allocated. Like the novel coronavirus, which had impacted many of Somali households, the Ukraine crisis has driven inflation and rising costs in Somalia, particularly for food and energy, at a time when families are already incredibly desperate.

The reason why the situation in Somalia has become so desperate is because that nation normally gets more than 90 percent of its wheat from either Russia or Ukraine…

Finally, in the Horn of Africa 13 million people are already suffering from hunger. Ethiopia imports around 40 percent of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine, Kenya 30 percent, and Somalia over 90 percent.

Meanwhile, the food crisis in Yemen just continues to escalate.  One man that was recently interviewed admitted that he and his family “live like ants”

Experts are warning that the world faces a historic famine. The war in Ukraine is only one of many problems plaguing the global distribution of food.

In Yemen, Ghalib al-Najjar skips meals so that his children have enough food. He says he and his family “live like ants or fish…we eat what we can find.”

In Peru, rapidly rising prices for fuel and food have sparked massive nationwide protests

An ongoing wave of violent protests in Peru shows how the Russian invasion of Ukraine is affecting markets around the world, sparking unrest and deepening political divides.

Rising fuel costs originally triggered the protests, which started last week, but quickly intensified into large anti-government demonstrations with marches and road blockades.

So far at least six people have died in the chaos, and protesters continue to block at least nine major roads.

In Afghanistan, it is being estimated that 95 percent of the entire population does not have enough food to eat right now…

Afghanistan has faced grave hunger crises before. Two decades ago, people in the country were so hungry they resorted to eating wild grass.

But the situation in the country now is unprecedented.

Exacerbated by an unusually cold winter and the worst drought in decades, the economic upheaval that came with the Taliban takeover has left 95% of Afghans without enough food.

We haven’t seen anything like this in a really long time.

Overall, the World Food Program is warning us that “285 million people face starvation”

The World Food Program estimates that 285 million people face starvation.

The head of the World Food Program, former South Carolina Governor David Beasley, says the world food supply already faced a catastrophe before the war in Ukraine.

“We’re so short of funds already, and now with Ukraine, we’ve got 50-percent rations for people, for example, in Yemen, I’ve just cut 50 percent rations for eight million people. Niger, 50 percent rations, Chad 50 percent rations. And 50 percent don’t have anything, those who are in extreme need,” Beasley said.

Of course this is just the beginning.  As I specifically warned in Lost Prophecies and 7 Year Apocalypse, conditions will eventually become far more severe than they are at this moment.

Here in the United States, nobody is starving just yet, but the cost of living is escalating at a frightening pace.

According to a Bloomberg report, the average U.S. household will need to spend 5,200 dollars more just to have the same standard of living as last year…

“Inflation will mean the average U.S. household has to spend an extra $5,200 this year ($433 per month) compared to last year for the same consumption basket,” Bloomberg Economics reports.

Having to spend an extra $433 per month to get the same is a hefty, even gargantuan ask for anyone — especially parents who are already struggling to keep a roof over their kid’s heads and food on the table.

And our historic supply chain crisis just continues to get even worse.

In fact, the wait times for computer chips just hit another all-time record high

The wait times for semiconductor deliveries rose slightly in March, reaching a new high, after lockdowns in China and an earthquake in Japan further hampered supply.

Lead times — the lag between when a chip is ordered and delivered — increased by two days to 26.6 weeks last month, according to research by Susquehanna Financial Group.

The system is crumbling all around us, and we really are in the early stages of a full-blown economic implosion.

Initially, it will be the poorest nations that suffer the most.

Millions upon millions of innocent people don’t have enough to eat right now, and that number will rise with each passing day.

Normally, most Americans don’t pay too much attention to what is happening on the other side of the world, but food scarcity is growing in the United States too.

So if you and your family have enough food to eat tonight, you should be very grateful, because at least for now you are one of the lucky ones.

What Chinese houses look like

You know, you can easily see glimpses of China by looking at the backgrounds in the Douxing videos. here, we have a girl dancing in the front of her home, and in her living room. I can tell you that this is normal. This is what China is like, and to all those people who mistakenly believe that the Chinese nation is going to collapse any day, well… don’t hold your breath. video 2MB

Quick Chicken and Dumplings

Using precooked chicken and ready-made biscuits, this hearty dish is comfort food made simple. It’s the perfect way to warm up on chilly nights.

Quick Chicken and Dumplings EXPS CHKBZ18 45977 B10 19 2bC 6
Quick Chicken and Dumplings

Ingredients

  • 6 individually frozen biscuits
  • 1/4 cup chopped onion
  • 1/4 cup chopped green pepper
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 4 cups shredded rotisserie chicken
  • 3 cans (14-1/2 ounces each) reduced-sodium chicken broth
  • 1 can (4 ounces) mushroom stems and pieces, drained
  • 1 teaspoon chicken bouillon granules
  • 1 teaspoon minced fresh parsley
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried sage leaves
  • 1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper

Directions

  1. Cut each biscuit into fourths; set aside. In a large saucepan, saute onion and green pepper in oil until tender. Stir in the chicken, broth, mushrooms, bouillon granules, parsley, sage, rosemary and pepper.
  2. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; add biscuits for dumplings. Cover and simmer (do not lift cover while simmering) 10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a dumpling comes out clean.

By the 1970s, the rise in fast-food restaurants led to a decline in the popularity of traditional diners.

As McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King restaurants continued to pop up nationwide, it became difficult for small business owners to compete with the huge corporations also selling cheap, convenient food.

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American diner.

While there were reportedly over 1,000 diners in New York City around 30 years ago, just 398 remained in 2015, according to a Crain’s New York Business article citing the city’s Department of Health records at the time.

England talks. China does.

video 4MB

Indonesia, Australia face limits in coal exports to Europe ahead of Russian ban

First Australia took a hit in coal exports to China, now their remaining market of Russia is also disappearing. <Insert snide remark here.> Article

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How You Know Tech is Grinding to a Halt

One way to view civilization collapse is to say that every nation dies when its marginal costs exceed potential profits. This means that each action is so encumbered — red tape, taxes, unions, corruption — that none of them are worth doing.

At that point, people stop trying to improve things and simply make do with what they have or stop using it. In this way, even technological civilizations revert to third world subsistence agriculture.

The Soviets went out hard because they imposed the burden of socialism on every action. The West has done the same with insurance, unions, high taxes, regulations, and diversity costs.

Individual industries do it too. You may notice that every software product you own is blighted with constant trivial updates, and that almost every company wants to sell you a “service” instead of a product.

For example, why own a software package like Microsoft Office when you can pay a monthly fee to use an online service “in the Cloud” (translation: on servers owned by someone else)? Makes sense, until you realize you are re-buying the software every ten years.

Microsoft realized it had a problem with Windows XP, Windows 7, and Office 2007: if you do something right enough, people will never buy another product unless forced. That means you need to downsize your company.

In other words, the end result of Microsoft would be to make a really good operating system and software, then fire everyone but five guys who answer the emails and keep selling the stuff.

Businesses need to find new horizons in order to stay ahead of this, just like societies constantly need new goals to avoid stagnation, but with all of the regulatory, tax, and affirmative action costs, they cannot afford to do that.

Instead they become rent-seekers, having built something great and now trying to extract as much money out of it as possible. Consequently they want you to pay them fifty bucks a month, however they have to justify it, so they can count on consistent profits and limit their size accordingly.

These are signs of a sick economy, and that usually means a sick society, since it has made crazy-stupid decisions to the point that it no longer operates as an economy but as a tax and rent-seeking cash cow.

All of that is extracted from the average wagie, which means that he pushes his employer to find ways to make more money in the world outside of his borders, at which point globalism — effectively created by unions driving labor offshore at the same time that democracy decided that with the Soviets out of the way, it might as well complete what it started in WW1 and take over the world — becomes a ruthless profit-seeking activity.

We saw this starting two decades ago when grocery stores began offering those little customer loyalty cards. If you got the card, you got better prices and enough coupons to keep you coming back.

As long as they got their $50 a month out of you, life was easy for them. Multiply that amount times their number of consumers times twelve and they know their baseline revenues, which enables them to keep hiring their friends and other bloat.

Software updates are another variation on this. They ship you “free” updates every month that eventually require you to upgrade your gadget because it cannot handle the bloat and waste of the new updates.

When margins overwhelm profit potential, everyone turns into a rent-seeker. “I have this title or ownership, therefore hand me things.”

Entropy wins at that point. No one can act to improve anything, and everyone forms a little hugbox dedicated to preserving the gimmedats of the status quo.

A civilization avoids this state by doing two things: first, it cuts external costs so that margins do not overwhelm profit potential, and second, it socializes mature products by granting monopolies that then cut staff.

If, for example, we decided that Microsoft Office 2019 was the best that an office suite could ever get and had no flaws, it would make sense to transfer it to another authority which would be five guys in an office with a monopoly and no interest in expanding it.

That would force Microsoft to find new fields to till, new mountains to climb, and new visions to dream instead of milking the past in a rent-seeking pattern that ends with everyone paying them a subscription fee just to enjoy normal tools.

We know that tech is grinding to a halt because it has invented nothing new for a long time. The grand visions of Google sputtered and died; Facebook has turned into Second Life; Twitter now seems like a good place to go get state propaganda but not much else.

This means that transition is on the wind. The old ways no longer work. Every time you see a service fee or update, console yourself with the knowledge that this is simply a grave being dug for worldwide democracy and the NWO.

Having a really bad day

daily picdump 36 3
A bad day.

“I wish I could buy property in China”

video 7MB

Diners today face an uncertain future.

In New York City, few original diners remain. However, the recent embracing of nostalgia — think, the rise in speakeasies — has also revitalized the typical American diner.

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American Diner.

A recent addition to New York’s Soho neighborhood is the trendy ’50s-style Soho Diner, part of the Soho Grand Hotel. Other New York diners, like the Waverly Diner and the Empire Diner, have managed to keep their doors open despite changing tastes.

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CIA tries to import insects that devistate crops

China inspects all packages. It’s a 100% full scan policy. This is because for decades, the United States has been busy introducing plagues, insects, and viruses to destroy China via destruction of it’s food base, and in any and all forms. This is known as “hybrid war”.

China has not retaliated…yet.

But if and when they do, the United States will collapse like the house of cards that it is.

This is typical, and apparently it’s a common enough event. Once discovered, the Chinese then send the packages on (minus the insects) and watch who gets the packages. Then the person just disappears after their mandatory interview with the PLA. video 3MB

Meanwhile in India

daily picdump 25 3
Meanwhile in India.

How Are Those Sanctions Working Out, Guys?

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Unfortunately, the sanctions the US put on Russia do not appear to be harming Russia at all, even as they are furthering the destruction of the economy of the West, and setting the stage for a collapse of the dollar as reserve currency.

Russia has just announced that if Europe wants its oil, they’re going to have to pay in rubles. This will heavily reenforce the ruble, of course. Presumably, it will make up for most or all of the damage that the sanctions have caused.

RT:

 Russia will now accept payment for gas exports to “unfriendly countries” in rubles only, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with the government on Wednesday.

The president explained that Russia plans to abandon all “compromised” currencies in payment settlements. He added that illegitimate decisions by a number of Western countries to freeze Russia’s assets destroyed all confidence in their currencies.

“I have decided to implement in the shortest possible time a set of measures to change the payments for – yes let’s start with this – for our natural gas supplied to the so-called unfriendly countries in Russian rubles, that is to stop using all compromised currencies for transactions,” the Russian president said.

“It doesn’t make sense to deliver our goods to the EU and the US and get paid in dollars and euros,” he added. 

For those who don’t know the details: it is impossible for Europe to shut off Russian gas any time soon. They will literally freeze to death, or have to figure out some kind of wooden steam system.

People were saying Russian might just shut off the gas and let Europe deal with the situation, but this is much better.

The ruble bottomed out on March 7, and has been largely recovering. It’s only down 13% over the month of war.

If you consider that Russia is currently under the most severe economic sanctions in history by the most powerful economic entity in history – it’s not looking too bad.

That 13% isn’t going to affect anyone’s life in Russia, it only affects international trade. Not a big deal. No one in Russia is suffering from this, unless you consider being denied PornHub, Netflix, and McDonald’s as “suffering.”

This ultimatum to Europe will give it its 13% back.

Meanwhile, the Russian stock market, which was closed on the day of the incursion into the Ukraine, was reopened and is doing fine.

RT:

 Russia’s stocks continued to rise sharply on Thursday as the Moscow Exchange reopened for limited trading this week, after suspending most of its transactions on February 28.

The ruble-based MOEX benchmark went up more than 11% to 2,743 points. The dollar-denominated RTS index of leading Russian stocks was down slightly, to 888.59 points.

The Moscow Exchange resumed trading in 33 Russian equities, including shares of Gazprom, Sberbank, Aeroflot, and other domestic firms. Oil majors Rosneft and Lukoil were both up by 20% and 16%, respectively. Aluminum company Rusal rose more than 14%, while Norilsk Nickel jumped more than 22%. 

So, basically, the US operation against Russia has been like a situation where a guy breaks into your house and is waving around a gun at your family, then he goes ahead and puts the gun in his mouth and blows his own brains out. You’re going to have to clean the brains off the wall, and repair the locks on the door, but otherwise you’re going to be good. The intruder, however, is not so good. He’s just blown his own brains out.

This is all happening very quickly.

It’s hard to keep up with.

But the US has effectively committed a very public suicide in the name of a bizarre moral signaling campaign about how they are very good people and so oppose the very bad Russians.

It now looks to me as though this thing was planned over a very long period of time. Since the Maidan, Russia, presumably working with China, has set a trap for the United States in the Ukraine. They knew that after the revolution, the West wouldn’t be able to help itself, and would move NATO forces into the country, and NATOize the country, and so they planned the response – and understood the US response.

There had to be an invasion, because they had to get the US to act in this deranged way, which is the result of both unfathomable hubris and the general degrading of the culture into a state of nonstop moral panic.

The US has already lost.

Putin has demonstrated hypersonic missiles in the Ukraine. These cannot be shot down by any of NATO’s missile defense systems, meaning if NATO tries to attack Russia conventionally, Russia can strike targets across Western Europe. Moreover, there is just no way to invade Russia.

The only remaining options are to back off or start a nuclear war.

It is looking like they will do some kind of chemical attack false flag hoax in the Ukraine, but I don’t even understand what purpose that serves. The only people who will believe that are the “international Community,” which America is already dragging down to hell with them.

There are other theories. Alex Jones and others are saying that Western intelligence is planning to assassinate Joe Biden and blame Russia. That seems a bit outlandish, but I guess you never know. Still, I don’t really see what purpose that would serve. Russia can just say they didn’t do it. Then what changes?

The wheel is already turning.

The jig is up.

The Church – Under The Milky Way

Continuing with the 1990s theme, perhaps a reader or two might remember this little gem…

Meanwhile in America

daily picdump 50 3
The American way.

Rufus respects his flag

Inside of China. video 3MB

Rufus protects his sister

Family. Rufus. It’s all about a greater purpose. video 1MB

Do you want more?

You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.

New Beginnings 3

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Articles & Links

Master Index

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  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
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Hey someone is going to give me 18.5 million dollars! What do you know!

Wow! Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts. Eh?

"I am Mrs amelia freya, a widow suffering from a long illness. I have some funds I inherited from my late husband, the sum of (US$ 18.5 Million) my Doctor told me recently that I have serious sickness which is a cancer problem. What disturbs me most is my stroke sickness.

Having known my condition, I decided to donate this fund to a good person that will utilize it the way I am going to instruct herein. I need a very honest and God fearing person who can claim this money and use it for Charity works, for orphanages, widows and also build schools for less privileges that will be named after my late husband if possible and to promote the word of God and the effort that the house of God is maintained. 

I do not want a situation where this money will be used in an ungodly manner.That's why I'm taking this decision. I'm not afraid of death so I know where I'm going. I accept this decision because I do not have any child who will inherit this money after I die. 

Please I want your sincere and urgent answer to know if you will be able to execute this project, and I will give you more information on how the fund will be transferred to your bank account."

Sometimes when something is too good to be true, it actually is.

The Trojan Horse

From HERE.

In the tenth year of the Trojan War, despairing at their inability to take the city by storm, the Greeks resorted to a cunning little stratagem.

Truth be told, “little” may not be the proper word for it, because the central part of the plan – devised by who else but Odysseus – included the construction of an enormous wooden horse.

Almost everybody knows why it had been built and who lay hidden inside the hollow belly of the statue.

However, the whole story is a bit more complicated than that; and it includes several memorable episodes you can find out more about below.

The Stratagem

Epeius and the Construction of the Horse

Now, for Odysseus’ plan to work, the Greeks needed a master-engineer; fortunately, they did have one in their ranks: Epeius.

True, he had the reputation of being a coward, but as far as architecture was considered, there weren’t many people on the planet who could rival him both in knowledge and vision.

He needed no more than three days and just a few helpers to build a huge hollow horse of fir planks, felled on Mount Ida.

Following the advice of Odysseus, Epeius also installed a trap-door on one side of the wooden horse, and engraved large letters on the other:

“For their return home, the Greeks dedicate this thank-offering to Athena.”

The Heroes in the Horse

Once the Wooden Horse had been built, Odysseus proceeded to persuade the bravest and the most skillful of the Greek warriors present at Troy to climb, fully armed, into its belly. Some say that there were 23 of them, while others speculate with numbers between 30 and 50.

Either way, we know for sure that, in addition to Odysseus, Menelaus, Diomedes, Neoptolemus, Acamas, Sthenelus, and Thoas were also there.

Even though hesitant and scared stiff, Epeius joined the party as well: he was, after all, the only one who knew how to operate the trap-door.

The Rest of the Plan

Once the night had fallen, the remaining Greeks burned their tents and, led by Agamemnon, sailed off to the nearby island of Tenedos.

The plan was to stay there for a night and then go back to Troy. Odysseus’s first cousin, Sinon, was the only one left behind; and for a reason: he was supposed to signal them the appropriate moment for their return.

Source: https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/The_Myths/The_Trojan_Horse/the_trojan_horse.html

The Discovery of the Trojan Horse

Priam, Thymoetes, and Capys

At break of day, the Trojan scouts were met with a sight that must have been beyond joyful: the camp of the Greeks lay in ashes, deserted and all but empty. Priam and his sons immediately went out to witness this miracle with their own eyes; and, of course, the only thing they could find there was a giant wooden horse dedicated to Athens.

They stood in wonder for some time, before Thymoetes suggested that they should take the horse into Troy and pull it up to Athens’ citadel. Capys, however, had other ideas.

“We should hurl into the sea this false Greek gift, or underneath it thrust a kindling flame, or pierce the hollow ambush of its womb with probing spear! Athene favored the Greeks for far too long...”

Priam was in favor of Thymoetes’ proposal: since the horse was an offering to a goddess, desecrating it didn’t seem to the king of Troy as such a great idea.

Laocoon’s Warning

At that very moment, hurrying down from the citadel and followed by a large crowd, the Trojan priest Laocoon started shouting from afar:

“O unhappy men! What madness this? Who deems our foemen fled? 

Think ye the gifts of Greece can lack for guile? Have ye not known Ulysses?... 

This is all a trap. 

Trust not this horse, o countrymen, whatever it may bring!

I fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts.” Saying that, Laocoon whirled a spear in the direction of the Horse. Numerous cheers followed this fearsome act:

“Burn it!” 
“Pierce it!” 
“Hurl it over the walls!”

Sinon Clarifies His Presence

This argument was interrupted by the arrival of Sinon, brought in chained by a couple of Trojan soldiers.

Now, it is difficult to say whether Odysseus had planned for this part as well, or whether the Greeks merely had a stroke of luck; be that as it may, it was Sinon who eventually convinced the Trojans to roll the horse through the Gates of Troy.

He explained to Priam that the Greeks, weary of warring and downcast after the death of Achilles, had deliberated leaving Troy for a couple of months, and they would have done that much earlier if not for the bad weather.

Calchas, the most famous Achaean prophet, announced that the only way for the winds to be appeased was through human sacrifice; the scapegoat he pointed his finger at (in a nice touch to the story, supposedly “bribed by Odysseus”) was none other than Sinon himself.

However, the favorable winds sprang up before the ceremony took place, and Sinon managed to make his escape in the confusion.

Sinon’s Explanation of the Wooden Horse

“Let’s say that we believe you, Sinon,”

Replied Priam.

“But what’s with the horse?”
“Oh, that! It is merely a placatory gift to Athene, who stopped helping the Greeks after Odysseus and Diomedes stole a statue from her temple.”

“Nonetheless,”

Priam had a good follow-up question;

"Why make it so huge?”

But Sinon had an even better answer:

“So that you are unable to bring it into the city. 

For Calchas had prophesized that If you defile it, a horrible ruin – o, may the gods bring it on Calchas rather! 

– would come on your throne; however, if you manage to wheel it to your own citadel, then you will become a ruler of all Asia and invade Greece.”

The Death of Laocoon

“Lies, all lies,”

Cried Laocoon.

“Every word he uttered sounds as if invented by Odysseus! Believe him not, Priam!”

However, it is difficult for one to blame the king of Troy for not taking the Trojan priest seriously when, just as he was saying this, two serpents swam out of the sea and strangled Laocoon and his twin sons.

In reality, the snakes were sent by Apollo in punishment for when Laocoon once slept with his wife in front of Apollo’s image; to the eyes of the Trojans, however, they were a sign of the gods: Sinon had obviously spoken the truth, and Laocoon was punished for lying and throwing a spear at the Horse.

The Bloody Celebration

Helen and Deiphobus

With much effort, the Trojans dragged the Wooden Horse inside their Gates, consecrated it to Athene, and started wildly celebrating their victory.

During the festivities, Helen and Priam’s son Deiphobos sneaked to the wooden statue.

As Deiphobus was observing it in marvel and patting its planks, Helen amused him by calling out the names of the Greek heroes in the voice of their wives. It is not known whether Helen was a part of the plan as well, and this was a whim of overconfidence, or whether she was merely joyful, but, owing to either displeasure or eagerness, many Greeks were tempted to leap out of the horse at this point – especially Menelaus and Diomedes.

However, Odysseus restrained them all, patiently waiting for the proper moment for him to enact the final act of his devious plan.

The Attack

At midnight, just before the seventh full moon of that year had risen, Sinon slipped through the Gates of Troy and kindled a beacon – the signal Agamemnon had waited for to return with the Achaean fleet to shore.

An hour or so later, in the dead silence of the night, Odysseus raised his sword and ordered Epeius to unlock the trap-door.

Echion was the first one to jump out of the horse; being too eager and reckless, he fell and broke his neck; the rest used Epeius’ rope-ladder.

Soon enough, Agamemnon’s army stormed through the open gates.

Not even the gods could save Troy now.

The Trojan Horse Sources

Most of this story is told by Virgil in the second book of the Aeneid, which you can read here in Dryden’s rhymed version, and here in Theodore C. Williams blank verse translation; for a summary of the same events, consult the epitome of Apollodorus’ Library.

Source: https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/The_Myths/The_Trojan_Horse/the_trojan_horse.html

Conclusions

Throughout the West, people are using the “hook” of financial gain to manipulate others. We all know that this is a trick, but what kind of a trick? I argue that it is a hidden (potential) crime wearing the outer skin of respectability. Like the Trojan Horse.

You expect one thing, and then (once the strap is sprung) something else manifests.

Whether a wooden horse, a business proposition, an email promising to send you millions of dollars, or some other otherwise unusual benefit or arrangement.

Often the vices are used to spring the trap, with greed, lust and vanity being the most common.

Be very careful when anyone tries to appeal to one of your vices. It could very well end up being very dangerous.

So what do you do?

If something is unusual, like finding out you had a great uncle Metallicman that left you 50 million dollars, or to give a copy of your passport and bank information so that you can get a loan at 3%, or anything related, stop… just stop.

Go for a nice long walk.

Go all by your self into a lone cafe, or coffee house.

An American Diner.

Sit down.

Look up at the menu.

See if there is a special, or maybe a daily special that you can eat. I tend to go for the specials, and the soups. But that is just me. Don’t you know.

Place an order.

Place your order with the waitress.

And forget about everything.

Eat a nice sandwich (maybe a blue plate special) wash it down with a cup of coffee, and forget about the “news” or anything else.

Typical diner fare; Three sunny-side-up eggs, buttered whole-wheat toast, hash brown potatoes, and country-style chicken-fried pork.

Then just go for a walk down the lane.

Most traps disguise themselves as “unusual events promising enormous profit“.

Ignore it all.

Move on.

A cup of “Joe” in an American diner.

Remember, the reason why Athens moved the Trojan Horse into it’s gates was because they believed that in doing so they would have the benefits provided by the God’s themselves.

Don’t allow others to hurt your by manipulating your mind by your propensity toward vices.

Finally…

One day after I wrote this article, I got this…

Liewe Gelukkige Wenner!

Dit is vir ons aangenaam om u in te lig oor die uitslag van die
Internasionale Aanlyn Loteryprogram op 1 Desember 2021, wat 'n poging
is om geesteswetenskappe te help van die ernstige globale ekonomiese
krisis as gevolg van (Coivd-19). Nommer: SMLL / 2021 / -968091 / 21,
wat die 1ste kategorie gewen het. U is dus geregtig op 'n enkelbedrag
van $2,000,000.00 (Twee miljoen Amerikaanse dollars). Ons moedig jou
aan om jou trustee te kontak deur die inligting hieronder te gebruik
vir bekragtiging en meer inligting oor die gebruik van jou prys.

Mnr Brian Luke
E-pos: usalotery2@gmail.com

Groete,
Mnr Williams Poker.
Internasionale Lotery (Koördineerder).


Dear Lucky Winner!

We are pleased to inform you about the outcome of the International
Online Lottery Program on December 1st, 2021 which is a bid to help
humanities from the severe global economic crunch as a result of
(Coivd-19). Number: SMLL / 2021 / -968091 / 21, which won the 1st
category. You are therefore entitled to a lump sum of $2,000,000.00
(Two million United States dollars). We encourage you to contact your
trustee using the information below for validation and more
information on redeeming your prize.

Mr. Brian Luke
Email:  usalotery2@gmail.com

Regards,
Mr. Williams Poker.
International Lottery (Coordinator).

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Law 9 of the 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene; Win through your actions, never through argument

This is the full text of law #9 from “The 48 Laws of Power” written by Robert Greene. This specific law is titled “Win through your actions, never through argument.” I personally believe that this most basic of laws should be taught in elementary school. Once you master it, you realize that your life is in your hands and under your control. For only with you doing things, and taking action, can you win any argument. This law is not for the passive. This law is not for the sheep. This law is for the self actuated that live among us within society.

This law is something that I have learned and appreciated over time. Don’t explain. Demonstrate.

And if people “don’t get it”, well then… it’s not your problem.

And while I am at it…

Alpha Males never explain or justify their actions. They are never on the defensive. They never try to convince any one of any thing. The weaker beta-males do.

Be yourself. Anything less is below you.

LAW 9

WIN THROUGH YOUR ACTIONS, NEVER THROUGH ARGUMENT

JUDGMENT

Any momentary triumph you think you have gained through argument is really a Pyrrhic victory: The resentment and ill will you stir up is stronger and lasts longer than any momentary change of opinion. It is much more powerful to get others to agree with you through your actions, without saying a word. Demonstrate, do not explicate.

TRANSGRESSION OF THE LAW

In 131 B.C., the Roman consul Publius Crassus Dives Mucianus, laying siege to the Greek town of Pergamus, found himself in need of a battering ram to force through the town’s walls. He had seen a couple of hefty ship’s masts in a shipyard in Athens a few days before, and he ordered that the larger of these be sent to him immediately. The military engineer in Athens who received the order felt certain that the consul really wanted the smaller of the masts. He argued endlessly with the soldiers who delivered the request: The smaller mast, he told them, was much better suited to the task. And indeed it would be easier to transport.

The soldiers warned the engineer that their master was not a man to argue with, but he insisted that the smaller mast would be the only one that would work with a machine that he was constructing to go with it. He drew diagram after diagram, and went so far as to say that he was the expert and they had no clue what they were talking about. The soldiers knew their leader and at last convinced the engineer that it would be better to swallow his expertise and obey.

After they left, though, the engineer thought about it some more. What was the point, he asked himself, in obeying an order that would lead to failure? And so he sent the smaller mast, confident that the consul would see how much more effective it was and reward him justly.

When the smaller mast arrived, Mucianus asked his soldiers for an explanation. They described to him how the engineer had argued endlessly for the smaller mast, but had finally promised to send the larger one. Mucianus went into a rage. He could not concentrate on the siege, or consider the importance of breaching the walls before the town received reinforcements. All he could think about was the impudent engineer, whom he ordered to be brought to him immediately.

Arriving a few days later, the engineer gladly explained to the consul, one more time, the reasons for the smaller mast. He went on and on, using the same arguments he had made with the soldiers. He said it was wise to listen to experts in these matters, and if the attack was only tried with the battering ram he had sent, the consul would not regret it. Mucianus let him finish, then had him stripped naked before the soldiers and flogged and scourged with rods until he died.

THE SULTAN AND THE VIZIER

A vizier had served his master for some thirty years and was known and admired for his loyalty, truthfulness, and devotion to God. His honesty, however, had made him many enemies in the court, who spread stories of

his duplicity and perfidy. They worked on the sultan day in and day out until he too came to distrust the innocent vizier and finally ordered the man who had served him so well to be put to death. In this realm, those condemned to death were tied up and thrown into the pen where the sultan kept his fiercest hunting dogs. The dogs would promptly tear the victim to pieces. Before being thrown to the dogs, however, the vizier asked for one last request. “I would like ten days’ respite,” he said, “so that I can pay my debts, collect any money due to me, return items that people have put in my care, and share out my goods among the members of my family and my children and appoint a guardian for them.” After receiving a guarantee that the vizier

would not try to escape, the sultan granted this request. The vizier hurried home, collected one hundred gold pieces, then paid a visit to the huntsman who looked after the sultan’s dogs. He offered this man the one hundred gold pieces and said, “Let me look after the dogs for ten days.” The huntsman agreed, and for the next ten days the vizier cared for the beasts with great attention, grooming them well and feeding them handsomely. By the end of the ten days they were eating out of his hand.

On the eleventh day the vizier was called before the sultan, the charges were repeated, and the sultan watched as the vizier was tied up and thrown to the dogs. Yet when the beasts saw him, they ran up to him with wagging tails. They nibbled affectionately at his shoulders and began playing with him. The sultan and the other witnesses were amazed, and the sultan asked the vizier why the dogs had spared his life. The vizier replied, “I have looked after these dogs for ten days. The sultan has seen the result for

himself. I have looked after you for thirty years, and what is the result? I am condemned to death on the strength of accusations brought by my enemies. ”The sultan blushed with shame. He not only pardoned the vizier but gave him a fine set of clothes and handed over to him the men who had slandered his reputation. The noble vizier set them free and continued to treat them with kindness.

-THE SUBTLE RUSE: THE BOOK OF ARABIC WISDOM AND GUILE, THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Interpretation

The engineer, whose name has not been recorded by history, had spent his life designing masts and pillars, and was respected as the finest engineer in a city that had excelled in the science. He knew that he was right. A smaller ram would allow more speed and carry more force. Larger is not necessarily better. Of course the consul would see his logic, and would eventually understand that science is neutral and reason superior. How could the consul possibly persist in his ignorance if the engineer showed him detailed diagrams and explained the theories behind his advice?

The military engineer was the quintessence of the Arguer, a type found everywhere among us. The Arguer does not understand that words are never neutral, and that by arguing with a superior he impugns the intelligence of one more powerful than he. He also has no awareness of the person he is dealing with. Since each man believes that he is right, and words will rarely convince him otherwise, the arguer’s reasoning falls on deaf ears. When cornered, he only argues more, digging his own grave. Once he has made the other person feel insecure and inferior in his beliefs, the eloquence of Socrates could not save the situation.

It is not simply a question of avoiding an argument with those who stand above you. We all believe we are masters in the realm of opinions and reasoning. You must be careful, then: Learn to demonstrate the correctness of your ideas indirectly.

OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW

In 1502, in Florence, Italy, an enormous block of marble stood in the works department of the church of Santa Maria del Fiore. It had once been a magnificent piece of raw stone, but an unskillful sculptor had mistakenly bored a hole through it where there should have been a figure’s legs, generally mutilating it. Piero Soderini, Florence’s mayor, had contemplated trying to save the block by commissioning Leonardo da Vinci to work on it, or some other master, but had given up, since everyone agreed that the stone had been ruined. So, despite the money that had been wasted on it, it gathered dust in the dark halls of the church.

This was where things stood until some Florentine friends of the great Michelangelo decided to write to the artist, then living in Rome. He alone, they said, could do something with the marble, which was still magnificent raw material. Michelangelo traveled to Florence, examined the stone, and came to the conclusion that he could in fact carve a fine figure from it, by adapting the pose to the way the rock had been mutilated. Soderini argued that this was a waste of time—nobody could salvage such a disaster—but he finally agreed to let the artist work on it. Michelangelo decided he would depict a young David, sling in hand.

Weeks later, as Michelangelo was putting the final touches on the statue, Soderini entered the studio. Fancying himself a bit of a connoisseur, he studied the huge work, and told Michelangelo that while he thought it was magnificent, the nose, he judged, was too big. Michelangelo realized that Soderini was standing in a place right under the giant figure and did not have the proper perspective. Without a word, he gestured for Soderini to follow him up the scaffolding. Reaching the nose, he picked up his chisel, as well as a bit of marble dust that lay on the planks. With Soderini just a few feet below him on the scaffolding, Michelangelo started to tap lightly with the chisel, letting the bits of dust he had gathered in his hand to fall little by little. He actually did nothing to change the nose, but gave every appearance of working on it. After a few minutes of this charade he stood aside: “Look at it now.” “I like it better,” replied Soderini, “you’ve made it come alive.”

Interpretation

Michelangelo knew that by changing the shape of the nose he might ruin the entire sculpture. Yet Soderini was a patron who prided himself on his aesthetic judgment. To offend such a man by arguing would not only gain Michelangelo nothing, it would put future commissions in jeopardy. Michelangelo was too clever to argue. His solution was to change Soderini’s perspective (literally bringing him closer to the nose) without making him realize that this was the cause of his misperception.

Fortunately for posterity, Michelangelo found a way to keep the perfection of the statue intact while at the same time making Soderini believe he had improved it. Such is the double power of winning through actions rather than argument: No one is offended, and your point is proven.

THE WORKS OF AMASIS

When Apries had been deposed in the way I have described, Amasis came to the throne. He belonged to the district of Sais and was a native of the town called Siuph. At first the Egyptians were inclined to be contemptuous, and did not think much of him because of his humble and undistinguished origin; but later on he cleverly brought them to heel, without having recourse to harsh measures. Amongst his innumerable treasures, he had a gold footbath, which he and his guests used on occasion to wash their feet in. This he broke up, and with the material had a statue made to one of the gods, which he then set up in what he thought the most suitable spot in the city. The Egyptians constantly coming upon the statue, treated it with profound reverence, and as soon as Amasis heard of the effect it had upon them, he called a meeting and revealed the fact that the deeply revered statue was once a footbath, which they washed their feet and pissed and vomited in. He went on to say that his own case was much the same, in that once he had been only an ordinary person and was now their king; so that just as they had come to revere the transformed footbath, so they had better pay honor and respect to him, too. In this way the Egyptians were persuaded to accept him as their master.

-THE HISTORIES. HERODOTUS. FIFTH CENTURY B.C.

KEYS TO POWER

In the realm of power you must learn to judge your moves by their long- term effects on other people. The problem in trying to prove a point or gain a victory through argument is that in the end you can never be certain how it affects the people you’re arguing with: They may appear to agree with you politely, but inside they may resent you. Or perhaps something you said inadvertently even offended them—words have that insidious ability to be interpreted according to the other person’s mood and insecurities. Even the best argument has no solid foundation, for we have all come to distrust the slippery nature of words. And days after agreeing with someone, we often revert to our old opinion out of sheer habit.

Understand this: Words are a dime a dozen. Everyone knows that in the heat of an argument, we will all say anything to support our cause. We will quote the Bible, refer to unverifiable statistics. Who can be persuaded by bags of air like that? Action and demonstration are much more powerful and meaningful. They are there, before our eyes, for us to see—“Yes, now the statue’s nose does look just right.” There are no offensive words, no possibility of misinterpretation. No one can argue with a demonstrated proof. As Baltasar Gracián remarks, “The truth is generally seen, rarely heard.”

Sir Christopher Wren was England’s version of the Renaissance man. He had mastered the sciences of mathematics, astronomy, physics, and physiology. Yet during his extremely long career as England’s most celebrated architect he was often told by his patrons to make impractical changes in his designs. Never once did he argue or offend. He had other ways of proving his point.

In 1688 Wren designed a magnificent town hall for the city of Westminster. The mayor, however, was not satisfied; in fact he was nervous. He told Wren he was afraid the second floor was not secure, and that it could all come crashing down on his office on the first floor. He demanded that Wren add two stone columns for extra support. Wren, the consummate engineer, knew that these columns would serve no purpose, and that the mayor’s fears were baseless. But build them he did, and the mayor was grateful. It was only years later that workmen on a high scaffold saw that the columns stopped just short of the ceiling.

They were dummies. But both men got what they wanted: The mayor could relax, and Wren knew posterity would understand that his original design worked and the columns were unnecessary.

The power of demonstrating your idea is that your opponents do not get defensive, and are therefore more open to persuasion. Making them literally and physically feel your meaning is infinitely more powerful than argument.

A heckler once interrupted Nikita Khrushchev in the middle of a speech in which he was denouncing the crimes of Stalin. “You were a colleague of Stalin’s,” the heckler yelled, “why didn’t you stop him then?” Khrushschev apparently could not see the heckler and barked out, “Who said that?” No hand went up. No one moved a muscle. After a few seconds of tense silence, Khrushchev finally said in a quiet voice, “Now you know why I didn’t stop him.” Instead of just arguing that anyone facing Stalin was afraid, knowing that the slightest sign of rebellion would mean certain death, he had made them feel what it was like to face Stalin—had made them feel the paranoia, the fear of speaking up, the terror of confronting the leader, in this case Khrushchev. The demonstration was visceral and no more argument was necessary.

The most powerful persuasion goes beyond action into symbol. The power of a symbol—a flag, a mythic story, a monument to some emotional event—is that everyone understands you without anything being said. In 1975, when Henry Kissinger was engaged in some frustrating negotiations with the Israelis over the return of part of the Sinai desert that they had seized in the 1967 war, he suddenly broke off a tense meeting and decided to do some sight-seeing. He paid a visit to the ruins of the ancient fortress of Masada, known to all Israelis as the place where seven hundred Jewish warriors committed mass suicide in A.D. 73 rather than give in to the Roman troops besieging them. The Israelis instantly understood the message of Kissinger’s visit: He was indirectly accusing them of courting mass suicide. Although the visit did not by itself change their minds, it made them think far more seriously than any direct warning would have. Symbols like this one carry great emotional significance.

When aiming for power, or trying to conserve it, always look for the indirect route. And also choose your battles carefully. If it does not matter in the long run whether the other person agrees with you—or if time and their own experience will make them understand what you mean—then it is best not even to bother with a demonstration. Save your energy and walk away.

GOD AND ABRAUIM

The Most High God had promised that He would not take Abraham’s soul unless the man wanted to die and asked Him to do so. When Abraham’s life was drawing to a close, and God determined to seize him, He sent an angel in the guise of a decrepit old man who was almost entirely incapacitated. The old man stopped outside Abraham door and said to him, “Oh Abraham, I would like something to eat.” Abraham was amazed to hear him say this. “Die, exclaimed Abraham.”It would be better for you than to go on living in that condition.”

Abraham always kept food ready at his home for passing guests. So he gave the old man a bowl containing broth and meat with bread crumbs. The old man sat down to eat. He swallowed laboriously, with great effort, and once when he took some food it dropped from his hand, scattering on the ground. “Oh Abraham, ” he said, “help me to eat.” Abraham took the food in his hand and lifted it to the old man’s lips. But it slid down his beard and over his chest. “What is your age, old man?” asked Abraham. The old man mentioned a number of years slightly greater than Abraham’s old age. Then Abraham exclaimed: “Oh Lord Our God, take me unto You before I reach this man’s age and sink into the same condition as he is in now. ” No sooner had Abraham spoken those words than God took possession of his soul.

-THE SUBTLE RUSE: THE BOOK OF ARABIC WISDOM AND GUILE, THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Image: The Seesaw. Up and down and up and down go the arguers, getting nowhere fast. Get off the seesaw and show them your meaning without kick ing or pushing. Leave them at the top and let gravity bring them gently to the ground.

Authority: Never argue. In society nothing must be discussed; give only results. (Benjamin Disraeli, 1804-1881)

REVERSAL

Verbal argument has one vital use in the realm of power: To distract and cover your tracks when you are practicing deception or are caught in a lie.

In such cases it is to your advantage to argue with all the conviction you can muster. Draw the other person into an argument to distract them from your deceptive move. When caught in a lie, the more emotional and certain you appear, the less likely it seems that you are lying.

This technique has saved the hide of many a con artist. Once Count Victor Lustig, swindler par excellence, had sold dozens of suckers around the country a phony box with which he claimed to be able to copy money. Discovering their mistake, the suckers generally chose not to go the police, rather than risk the embarrassment of publicity. But one Sheriff Richards, of Remsen County, Oklahoma, was not the kind of man to accept being conned out of $10,000, and one morning he tracked Lustig down to a hotel in Chicago.

Lustig heard a knock on the door. When he opened it he was looking down the barrel of a gun. “What seems to be the problem?” he calmly asked. “You son of a bitch,” yelled the sheriff, “I’m going to kill you. You conned me with that damn box of yours!” Lustig feigned confusion. “You mean it’s not working?” he asked. “You know it’s not working,” replied the sheriff. “But that’s impossible,” said Lustig. “There’s no way it couldn’t be working. Did you operate it properly?” “I did exactly what you told me to do,” said the sheriff. “No, you must have done something wrong,” said Lustig. The argument went in circles. The barrel of the gun was gently lowered.

Lustig next went to phase two in the argument tactic: He poured out a whole bunch of technical gobbledygook about the box’s operation, completely beguiling the sheriff, who now appeared less sure of himself and argued less forcefully. “Look,” said Lustig, “I’ll give you your money back right now. I’ll also give you written instructions on how to work the machine and I’ll come out to Oklahoma to make sure it’s working properly. There’s no way you can lose on that.” The sheriff reluctantly agreed. To satisfy him totally, Lustig took out a hundred one-hundred-dollar bills and gave them to him, telling him to relax and have a fun weekend in Chicago. Calmer and a little confused, the sheriff finally left. Over the next few days Lustig checked the paper every morning. He finally found what he was looking for: A short article reporting Sheriff Richards’s arrest, trial, and conviction for passing counterfeit notes. Lustig had won the argument; the sheriff never bothered him again.

Conclusion

Why do you argue?

Is it because you want to show someone your point of view? Is that why?

But they don’t see it because they have different experiences and a different mindset. So don’t bother wasting your time. Your time is too valuable.

Act and live your life on your terms and forget about everyone else.

Story time…

I well remember the last time when I gave a fuck what people thought.

I was in a KTV, in China (of course).

Chinese business KTV, a pretty standard practice.

I had two girls with me (bought for me, don’t ya know). One was on my left thigh feeding me (those green sweet) grapes and the other was singing some sobby love ballad (in Chinese, that I had no clue about) on my right. I was enjoying the moment, chewing on some grapes and drinking Johnny Walker Red with Green Tea (long story, not too popular these days) and checking my social media.

It was a long day where I had ate this fantastic meal of lord only know what, and signed some contracts and made some agreements. Now it was time to relax and celebrate.

What was I doing?

Dumb-ass me was checking my social media. Back then, I was still addicted to it.

At that time, I was commenting on a website called “Free Republic” (I have since been kicked off of it, too bad – their loss) and some jackass was riding on all my comments. He just went on and on about on how filthy, stinky and polluted China was. He said he knew because he visited it back in 1998, and he knew what he was talking about. He had spent four long days in “that filthy cesspool” and couldn’t wait to leave.

And you know what?

I didn’t respond.

But, I did stop eating the grapes and slid my right hand on the chick to the left of me’s dress and cupped her soft breast. She smiled (as they all do when I do that) and I started to nibble on her neck. (KTV’s are all “hands on” and all the time. It’s pretty much a normal, not a lecherous thing, to do.) That got the singing gal to come over and start massaging my back. Oh … yeah. things got really fun after that.

Soon afterwards, I was up there singing “Better than I used to be“, and while everyone was clapping and cheering me on, I’m sure that no one knew what I was singing about. But my aide did know English, and she couldn’t get over the lyrics to “MacArthur Park”. LOL. Heh. he. (She kept on saying… “do you know what you are singing? Do you know what the song is about?”)

“Someone left the cake out in the rain, and it took so long to make it, and took so long to bake it, and I’ll never have that recipe again! Oh no!”

And you know, that’s a part of what my life is. Don’t you know. It’s fun. It’s spending time with interesting people, and playing with them. It’s about eating delicious food, and just being who you are and not giving a rat’s ass if you are politically correct or not.

Anyways. That was one of the last times I commented on that site.

Because I was the one having fun, and the rest of the people on social media, well, there were all just full of horse shit. To them, everything outside their house was gray, dark and dirty. When they turned on the movies, it’s all war, war, war, or FBI investigates serial murders, or child abductions by pedio’s or magic superheros who got bit by radioactive spiders…

It’s nonsense.

And when they try to communicate to me; the person outside their box, they cannot possibly imagine what it is like. Because they have been PROGRAMMED to fear everything outside.

So, fuck him.

What he right or wrong? Was I good or bad? I don’t know. What I do know is that I was having fun, and he was probably at home alone typing in the dark trying to convince me that I was wrong to enjoy China like I do. And, well, he would never, ever believe what happened later on that night, and up until six am when they both turned into pumpkins…

Actions.

Always remember that your life becomes [1] what you think about, and [2] what you do. And in that calculus, lies no one else. And if someone doesn’t like your behaviors, well, fuck them. You owe nothing to strangers. Just go forth and have a great time. And let it be well understood that that is what I am actually doing.

Life is too short not to enjoy life.

Go forth. Make new friends. Have new adventures, experience all the wonderful things that life has available for you. That means good food, great drink, fun companions, and “memory makers”. Ah. Memory Makers like this fine young lass here…

Do you want more?

I have more posts along these lines in my Happiness Index here…

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America is going to lose World War III. Accept that fact, and plan accordingly. Here’s why.

American elites remain out of touch with everyone, our institutions are broken, and some people on the Left and the Right are still in denial about how bad things have gotten. Yet, they continue to play their games, oblivious that they are treading on dangerous territory. As the rest of the world has gotten stronger, better, healthier, the United States has grown corrupt, slothful, and evil. Eventually there will be a point where these two dichotomies will cross.

It will probably be the result of some American “push” which would involve military action (of some sort) designed to exert pressure on a major Asian nation. This is already ongoing, but at some point in time, it will get “hot” and “loud”. As such, America is unprepared to the consequences that will result.

Here we talk about this.

Not the first to say that America is going to collapse…

I am not the first to point this out.

I do believe that it is the most obvious thing on the face of the planet. What I argue, in other postings, is that this collapse is inevitable. And as such, it should be “managed” so that a “new and improved” America may result.

(It’s) Sort of like Isaac Asimov’s foundation series of stories..

It is 12,020 G.E. (Galactic Era). For more than 12,000 years, the human  race—thanks to hyper-space traveling technology—has colonized the Milky  Way Galaxy in the form of a far-reaching Galactic Empire. 

The Galactic  Empire, whose failures have started to outnumber its successes, is still  able to hide its faltering behind the Gordion Knot of a social,  economical and political mess comprised of millions of habitable worlds  and over 500 quadrillion people. 

The oppressive and authoritarian rule  of Emperor Cleon I is at its peak. 

Young mathematician Hari Seldon,  hailing from a backwater planet called Helicon, arrives at the Galactic  Capital, Trantor, to present his latest research at a mathematical  convention. 

Having become associate professor at a considerably young  age, Seldon proposes a new field of science that could be used to  predict the future actions of the galactic society and humanity. 

He  cites the law of mass action, explaining that advance mathematical  calculations can analyze the aggregate behavioral data of an enormous  number of people to deduce the patterns of behavior of the masses.

-  Asimov 101: Your Ultimate Guide to the 'Foundation' Series 

Of course, the wealthy elite, and the “deep state” won’t have any of this.

They still want to maintain the pre-2016 uni-party oligarchy. But forces, far larger than their desires have set things in motion.

It’s like a large locomotive that is on the path to smash right into a solid granite mountain. It cannot be stopped easily.

Other opinions on this, from both the Left and the Right side of the political spectrum have written about this. You can read some of these articles here…

Not the first to say that America cannot win World War III…

Like my statement that America is in decline, others have also voiced agreement that America is not equipped to fight a major war against a major superpower.

Well, here is yet another article, and I think it is pretty well-written and I would like to include it here.

Check it out…

The following is an article titled “Why America Is Set to Lose the Next War” and it was penned by Angelo Codevilla. It’s quite good. All credit to the author, and I would recommend a visit to the American Mind website from whence it was first published.

Our elite forces are not so elite.

News that the wargames which the RAND corporation runs for the U.S. government show U.S. forces getting “its ass handed to it” by Russia and China have elicited disbelief: “how could this possibly be?”

The short answer is that the U.S. armed forces are utterly corrupt: the very definition of parade ground forces, superbly equipped, fabulously paid (to look good)—but utterly incapable of winning the wars that our even more corrupt national security establishment defines for them.

Corrupt, and un-serious.

Specifically: U.S. forces fail in the wargames, and would fare worse in real life, because they would be sent to fight the Chinese for control of the Western Pacific, and Russia for control of areas west of the Niemen river, as well as north of Crimea.

The Chinese and Russians, respectively, would enjoy advantages in these areas.

U.S. forces, configured as they are because of inter- and intra-Service corporate priorities, because of military-industrial collusion, and above all because of the national security establishment’s self-regarding prejudices and proclivities, are not based, sized, or equipped seriously to contest those advantages.

Above all, they lack realistic plans for doing so.

In sum, U.S. forces would lose these wars because of classic mismatches between ends and means. All entirely foreseeable. I repeat: Corruption.

The wargames dealt only with operational/tactical factors on the conventional level in the theaters of operation. But China and Russia are nuclear powers whose missiles can deliver nuclear warheads to the U.S.

Neither has been shy about pointing out that they might force the U.S. to choose between its objective in their back yard and the loss of one or more American cities.

Moreover, longstanding U.S. policy, most recently reaffirmed in 2019, is not to have any equipment that can defend against Russian or Chinese missiles.

If, perchance, Chinese or Russian forces should have difficulty disposing of U.S. challenges, raising the nuclear specter would surely force the U.S. side to reconsider why we engaged in war in others’ back yards without the capacity to protect ourselves at home.

Since nuclear weapons are fully integrated into Russia’s ground forces, this rude awakening would likely come in the course of ordinary operations.

On the Chinese side, we might well see the annihilation of Guam. But, one might respond, “U.S. nuclear missile forces are so superior to China’s!” Sure. Superior for what? What good would killing a couple of million Chinese do?

What forces against what, where, to do what, is the nub of the military matter. The Chinese and Russians, respectively, have good strategic, operational, and tactical answers. The U.S. side does not.

The Chinese want to control the Western Pacific militarily largely from the land. They began by building hundreds, perhaps thousands, of medium-range missiles able to cover the sea out to the eastern edge of Taiwan, making them largely invulnerable by emplacing them in caves or on mobile platforms.

To this they added excellent aircraft with cruise missiles, and diesel-electric submarines that would be placed—still and quiet—to wait for the U.S. carriers.

Then, they developed the DF-21, a ballistic missile that can adjust course on re-entry and kill a carrier with a nuclear warhead.

And then, they pushed that defensive envelope outward by building a network of artificial islands in the South China Sea, the military value of each exceeding that of several carriers.

China’s control exists.

To try undoing it with current bases and equipment, the U.S. would have to send at least four irreplaceable carrier battle groups across the Pacific to battle their way through Chinese defenses.

The full health of America’s satellite network is a prerequisite for such an attempt.

But the Chinese are certain to attack that network. Since the U.S. has precisely zero means of protecting against kinetic ASATs, we must assume something less than precise functioning of numerically vastly inferior forces whose perfect functioning is essential to their operation in an enemy environment.

Guam, and Yokosuka, over a thousand miles away from the action, would be the only nearby bases.

The U.S. has studiously avoided fortifying Taiwan.

But even assuming perfect functioning, the U.S. offensive in the Western Pacific would consist of a contest of attrition, in which China has the overwhelming advantage. There is no substitute for strategic vision.

China has it, the U.S. does not.

On the Russian side, the strategic objective is equally clear: maintain superiority in an area well known to, and easily reached by, the home team against what the Americans can bring from far away.

The area east of Poland, between Lithuania and northern Ukraine, was the scene of the great Soviet summer 1944 offensive that crushed the Wehrmacht.

One or perhaps two combat brigades would be the maximum that the U.S. could deploy to that area, probably by air through Warsaw.

Russian operations would consist of encirclement by land and denial of resupply by air through its formidable S-400 air defense system. Russian operations envisage a minimum of combat and maximal exploitation of the theater’s distance from U.S. power.

The operational objective would be to turn U.S. troops into hostages.

The same would apply to the southern theater—except that U.S. operations there would be aided by a U.S. carrier battle group in the Black Sea—another reservoir of hostages.

For a half century, the U.S. military-industrial-national-security establishment has been getting America’s collective ass kicked around the world. As patriotic Americans have bled, their superiors have gone to Valhallas in their retirement villas and as experts on Fox News.

It’s past time for Americans to realize how overpraised and overpaid this bunch really are.


Angelo Codevilla is a Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute and professor emeritus of International Relations at Boston University.


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How the USA can win a Trade War with China

As I write this, the “Trump trade war with China” in on it’s third year. It has been one heck of a roller-coaster ride, and today I can definitely say that, contrary to what the mainstream American media reports, China is just happy as can be waiting the “trade war” out.

  • China is not starving, ready to collapse towards famine.
  • There aren’t layoffs of millions of people
  • Huawei hasn’t collapsed, and sitting by waiting for America to develop 5G technology

Here, we review the current state of affairs between the USA and China in the building “cold economic war”, and then investigate options that can move the trade war as a positive win for America. Because right now, it is just floundering. And the only ones really getting “dinged” by it are the Americans that have to pay higher prices for their manufactured products.

This article is all about making America #1.

But first, we need to see things as they actually are. Not as how we want them to be. In many cases that means that we must erase some preconceived notions that we might hold dearly.

To help a person that has collapsed in the street, you need to know WHY he collapsed. Was it heat stroke? A heart attack? A gun shot wound? Or, was he just sleepy. You need to know the TRUE situation in order to provide the proper assistance.

Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.

The Lose-Lose scenario

At the start of the Donald Trump presidency, myself and others sincerely believed that the trade disagreements between the USA and China could be resolved. We believed in a win-win scenario. One in which both side so the table came back with something resembling success. A win-win for everyone.

But, unfortunately, that did not happen.

Instead, what developed was a policy of “lose – lose”. That is to say, that both sides would lose. However, the idea was for Chinese to lose much more than America would. Thus it would be a positive gain for America, and thus provide the USA with a greater amount of bargaining power.

  • The USA would lose a little bit, but recover quickly.
  • The Chinese would lose a lot, and maybe not recover for decades.

Personally, there is no doubt in my mind that this lose-lose strategy is a NeoCon strategy.

Because it is complete and utter nonsense, and has no bearing what so ever on reality.

As such, it is no surprise that it would be enforced, embraced and cultivated by Neocons within the trump administration. For every time it looked like the trade issues would be resolved, there would be some kind of problem. And each and every problem resolved around a Neocon-related issue.

I like to point my fingers at war-monger extraordinaire John Bolton, but I could be wrong.

To Bolton, the support of allies is proof of US military weakness, not diplomatic strength and he is yet to meet an arms control agreement he likes. The latest casualty amidst their wreckage of the pillars of the US-crafted global order is the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
To Bolton, the support of allies is proof of US military weakness, not diplomatic strength and he is yet to meet an arms control agreement he likes. The latest casualty amidst their wreckage of the pillars of the US-crafted global order is the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

How and Why

Why in the heck would anyone really want a lose-lose situation? Really, it’s crazy right? I mean, why go to a restaurant that has discount week-old meals for a cheap price when you know that you are going to get sick afterwards? Why do it?

Maybe on the HOPE that there is a CHANCE that you won’t get sick.

The understanding on how anyone would possibly want a lose-lose trade agreement is clear once you see the distortions of reality that neocons live under.

  • China is forever a third-world nation.
  • America is a long-term first-world nation.
  • China is dependent on the United States for labor, food, and status.
  • America doesn’t need China, and we can reopen all our factories again easily.

Each and everyone of these assumptions parrot the American mainstream press. And, as such, each and everyone is completely and absolutely wrong. It’s what Americans WANT to believe, not what is really going on.

PHOTO---China is not what the American mainstream press says it is. Instead it is something else. The mainstream American press produces "news" and "reports" that appeal to American emotions. Not to provide them facts and information. Remember, the only way that America can operate efficiently is with a just and well-informed populace.
China is not what the American mainstream press says it is. Instead it is something else. The mainstream American press produces “news” and “reports” that appeal to American emotions. Not to provide them facts and information. Remember, the only way that America can operate efficiently is with a just and well-informed populace.

People!

A healthy America requires an educated and well-informed populace. Otherwise, America is doomed to suffer through the mistakes of the mass-mob, as well as the manipulations by those that control them.

Changing things around.

Right now, the trade situation is at a standstill.

  • China is waiting everything out. They will let events play out. For they play “the long game’.
  • America is willing to suffer though events as they transpire. They believe that China is feeling the same kinds of pressures that Americana feel. For Americans believe that the Chinese, just like Americans, play the “short game”.

The only thing is… China just isn’t experiencing any kind of serious pressures.

In reality, for the Chinese owned businesses, it’s all just a slight down-tick in trade and a very slight increase in prices on imported goods. The ones that are hurting are the American businesses that operate within China. They are feeling the vast brunt of the trade-wars, as well as their support networks. Most of which are HK based.

 "The Trump administration made a very serious miscalculation in launching the ‘trade war’ with China. It believed that either, or both, the leadership of China would submit to the Trump administrations threats or the Chinese population would not be prepared for a serious struggle with the US. Both calculations have proved entirely wrong. China’s leadership did not surrender to but hit back against the US attacks. Furthermore anyone who follows China’s domestic discussion, on what is now by far the world’s largest internet community, knows that this line was strongly supported by the Chinese population." 

- China prepares for economic ‘prolonged war’ with Trump 

The big issue in China today, and I can tell you this personally, is that there is a global slowdown going on. This slowdown was triggered by the Trump Tariff wars, but was not caused by them. The global slowdown was forecast for years, and China has long prepared for it.

The Chinese play the "long game" and plan in terms of centuries. American play the "short game" and plan on quarterly results (once ever three months).

Thus, as far as the tariff situation is concerned, they are just content to let things play out and allow America to eat itself alive…

Chinese reaction to the Trump Tariff Wars.

China is playing the “long game”. America is playing the “short game” (quarter by quarter). In this situation, the “long game” favors China. The “short game” harms America.

One of the reasons why these authoritarian regimes like China are much  more popular in the eyes of millennials around the world than among  older generations, is that the younger people feel at least China  focuses on the future, invests a huge part of their economic product  into the future, and have a plan. 

Look at the United States. Look at  these countries today. They’re unable to focus on anything beyond next  month. They can’t even formulate a budget. They can’t get anything  through Congress. And all they’re doing is embarrassing themselves. 

-McAlvanay

In the long run, the United States can be harmed immensely unless this situation does not turn around.

First Steps

The very first thing that needs to happen is to do a deep purge of the neocons in the White-house.

President Trump's agenda is at odds at the neocon agenda. In many ways they are direct opposites.

These people do not want any kinds of win-win trade situation. Instead, their world view is one of “us vs. them”. They believe that there can only be two types of people in the world; The “hammers” and the “anvils”.

Neocons hold a mid-1850s midset.
Neocons hold a mid-1850s mindset. They think in terms of nations, wars, and geographical conquest. They do so at the expense of understanding the Earth as a living (kind of) organism that we all inhabit.

Here’s my narrative on one of these neocons. Open it up, as it will open up in a new tab. Read it. All neocons are the same. They do not love America, American conservatism or tradition. They love power and empire building.

Asshole

They believe that there can only be one leader in the world, and that is the United States. They believe this because we have “democracy!” (whatever the heck that is supposed to mean). The rest of the world is to live under our subjugation.

No other relationship is possible.

Now, Donald Trump did actually purge neocon John Bolton from his staff, and then immediately contacted Xi Peng in China wanting to resume trade talks.

The American media of course does not associate the firing of Bolton with China. To them, it's all just a coincidence. Bolton was fired for other reasons, like Saudi Arabia, North Korea, and Syria.

According to the mainstream American press, calling China and Bolton’s firing within minutes of each other was just a coincidence. Nothing more.

What China is

The way that Donald Trump tells it, China’s manufacturing sector is  close to collapse, fatally wounded by Washington’s tariffs on Chinese  imports.

 Last month the American president was celebrating how China’s supply  chain was “breaking up like a toy because companies are moving out”. A  few days later he talked again about how Beijing was desperate to call a  halt to the trade row. “You know why they want to make a deal?” he  crowed. “Because they’re losing their jobs, because their supply chain  is going to hell and companies are moving out of China and they’re  moving to lots of other places, including the United States.”

 But if Trump’s tariffs really are designed to torpedo China’s manufacturing base, he may have to think again.

 Washington will have announced levies on about $550 billion of  Chinese goods, when the full tariff quotas come into effect at the end  of this year. That could affect up to 5% of China’s manufacturing  capacity, according to calculations from Qu Hongbin and Jingyang Chen,  two economists at HSBC.

 But the impact of the tariffs isn’t going to be the same across the  manufacturing sector at large. Much depends on the type of goods being  made. Lower-end, more labour intensive industries such as furniture and  textile production are taking the biggest hit, with companies shifting  their factory lines to countries like Vietnam, Cambodia and Bangladesh.  

-Week in China

China is many things. One thing it is not is what the neocons think. China has leap-frogged the USA in so many areas that it’s just too tiring to elaborate upon. Maybe one or two videos might help add some perspective in this matter.

Some facts. (Opens up in a separate tab.)

China's Global Leadership

But maybe we can ignore the charts, tables and figures. Not everyone can follow them. (Given the really poor state of education in the United States today.)

Rather than the charts of facts and figures that I have in other posts, some informal quick peeks into what is going on in China might be refreshing. Here are things that are EVERYDAY sights in China, but that you will not see in the United States.

For starters…

One of the first things that people are beginning to see when they cross into China and go through Chinese customs is a robotic customs officer. They will instruct you to input your biometics into the Chinese data base.

The robots, named Xiao Hai, have state-of-the-art perception technology and are able to listen, speak, learn, see and walk. Ten robots have started working as customs officers at three ports in China’s Guangdong province, authorities said. They were the first batch of intelligent robots, to be used by Chinese customs at the ports of Gongbei, Hengqin and Zhongshan, Xinhua news agency reported.   The robots, named Xiao Hai, have state-of-the-art perception technology and are able to listen, speak, learn, see and walk. Based on a specialized customs database, the robots can answer questions in 28 languages and dialects, including Cantonese, Mandarin, English and Japanese.   There are some particular problems they cannot solve, and customs officials said they will link the robots to their customer service hotline in the future. With face recognition technology, the robots can detect suspicious people and raise an alarm, according to Zhao Min, director of Gongbei customs.
The robots, named Xiao Hai, have state-of-the-art perception technology and are able to listen, speak, learn, see and walk. Ten robots have started working as customs officers at three ports in China’s Guangdong province, authorities said. They were the first batch of intelligent robots, to be used by Chinese customs at the ports of Gongbei, Hengqin and Zhongshan, Xinhua news agency reported.
The robots, named Xiao Hai, have state-of-the-art perception technology  and are able to listen, speak, learn, see and walk. Based on a  specialized customs database, the robots can answer questions in 28  languages and dialects, including Cantonese, Mandarin, English and  Japanese.  

There are some particular problems they cannot solve, and  customs officials said they will link the robots to their customer  service hotline in the future. With face recognition technology, the  robots can detect suspicious people and raise an alarm, according to  Zhao Min, director of Gongbei customs. 

Then, once you leave customs, you walk out into the bright daylight and confront traffic. China has traffic galore as they are a very populous nation.

Check out this MICRO VIDEO of the amazing traffic technology being implemented in Chinese cities this year…

Chinese traffic lights. As 3D holographic laser light presentations. Meanwhile the USA is still using 1960’s technology in traffic control.

It’s not even funny how much the Chinese have pushed ahead of American technology. While American industry has been hiring “Diversity officers” to hire employees based on minority “disadvantage”, China doubled down and only hires and promotes on merit.

The Chinese are a serious people. They do not play around.

Their products are excellent. For instance, when President Trump shut off all the Huawei 5G products and development in the United States, China said fine. You see most of the Apple, Motorola, and LG products are all designed in China. (Aside from some leadership positions.) Not in the United States.

There will be a retreat in technological, educational, and manufacturing leadership. The attempts by Donald Trump to thwart the global strategic trade supply chain has not been successful, and only aggravates an already dire situation.
There will be a retreat in technological, educational, and manufacturing leadership. The attempts by Donald Trump to thwart the global strategic trade supply chain has not been successful, and only aggravates an already dire situation.

So all the Chinese workers, the engineers, the developers and the designers, they are all inside China. They live in China. They are Chinese, and are paid Chinese wages and salaries. So when the United States government started to crack down on this outsourcing, they politely bowed, and left. They left the American owned companies. They walked across the street. And then they joined the Chinese owned companies. No problem.

With this influx of American-trained talent, China just took off.

They sprinted ahead and are now galloping forward at a healthy clip. The American companies are now in a kind of funky planning stage on how to react to the disruptions in their supply chains.

Check out this MICRO VIDEO of the latest wrap-around visual technology in the new Huawei phones. Pretty darn impressive.

Almost all communication products are designed in China. So if American companies cannot hire the Chinese engineers to make the products, the Chinese companies would instead,

And of course, there is there growing drone and robotics industries. Both of which has dwarfed anything in the United States.

For instance, today all public fireworks displays in China come along with these lighted drone formations. These make an enormous three dimensional visual canvas. This is, I must admit, quite visually stunning. When I first saw this in 2014 I was stunned. And today, it is so very commonplace that no one seems to give it a second thought.

Check out the impressive swarm drones in this MICRO VIDEO below…

Chinese swarm drones.

It’s like those super modern high-speed trains everywhere. “Oh that thing? What you’ve never ridden in one before?”

High speed rail is fast, cheap, clean, economically and ecologically friendly. It is accessible, and a great way for getting from one point to another. There are no long TSA lines. The seats are big, roomy, and the ride is comfortable and smooth. And the cost. Well, the cost is about 1/6 the cost of an airline ticket.

Read more (opens in a separate tab) here…

Why no High-Speed rail in the USA?

People! Seriously, China got started about four decades ago, and kept on running. They are moving forward, and perhaps (from their point of view) it’s a good thing that people are oblivious just how quickly and far that they are advancing.

So you know they are advancing in robotics, and in synthetic memory and minds. How about sex toys? Are you aware of the quality and scope of the Chinese sex toy industry? It’s taking the world by storm, I’ll tell you what.

PHOTO-- Off the shelf standard sex doll. This one is warm to the touch, can talk and converse (in multiple languages) and has some limited mobility circuits.
Off the shelf standard sex doll. This one is warm to the touch, can talk and converse (in multiple languages) and has some limited mobility circuits.

Here’s another sex doll.

They come in a wide range of styles, shapes, weights and performance. Personally, if you are desirous of purchasing a sex robot, I would advise getting the premium model. They come with additional features that help mitigate the price tag amount.

PHOTO--This sex doll has limited functionality, being more a doll rather than a robot. However, it is totally and completely customizable. You can select anything from eye color, skin tone, body softwness, height, check size, and many other attributes.
This sex doll has limited functionality, being more a doll rather than a robot. However, it is totally and completely customizable. You can select anything from eye color, skin tone, body softness, height, check size, and many other attributes.

The point here is that everything from custom genetic designed pets, electric vehicles, to yes, even sex dolls are made in China and they are made well in China.

No one in America is apparently aware of this.

Go ahead, ask an American “China expert” on [1] the gongbei robotic customs officers, the [2] holographic traffic gates at cross-walks, the [3] 5G integration of Shenzhen, or [4] to name all the different makes and models of electric cars debuting out of China this year. He can’t.

And thus… he’s no “expert”.

Just an actor, pretending. He found a nitch a few years back and has been milking it over the years. But, you know, China is not America it’s rate of change is about 20x that of America’s. You need to really pay attention to keep up with all the changes.

Or else you will just be regurgitating “sound box” echo chamber narratives from like-minded individuals.

One of the many, many new housing subdivisions in China.

John Bolton actually stated in late September 2019 that (I am paraphrasing) “… the tariff wars has sent China back twenty years…”.

Twenty years, eh?

Ah, the ignorance is great in this one. Either that, or he has a tumor in his head. It’s a typical characteristic of neocons, don’t you know.

 Most of the companies in the US–China Business Council (an  organisation of about 200 American firms that trade with China) think  that investment will continue to flow. A full 97% of the council’s  members say their operations in China are profitable, and 87% report  that they have no plans to relocate any of their activities to other  countries.

 Some of the difficulties of ‘reshoring’ manufacturing jobs back to  the US were brilliantly revealed by the recent Netflix documentary American Factory too (see WiC464).

 In the meantime there is little sign that the Chinese supply chain is  being eroded, because of the tariff pressure from Washington.

 “Trump’s claim that an exodus of foreign firms will force China to  capitulate to US demands to settle the trade war is wishful thinking at  best,” Lardy concludes. 

-Week in China

Knowing the trade situation as it is, what can be done to salvage it?

That’s what this article is all about.

It’s about us taking a pragmatic, realistic look at the way things are, not at how we wish them to be, and planning on implementation of changes for our own personal benefit.

Let’s look at each issue and figure out how we can reduce or ameliorate the situation successfully. In so doing, let’s tackle the American mainstream (conservative & liberal) narratives. Let’s do it one, by one, and see how we can migrate things into “our” favor.

It sure beats sitting in a dark closet and trying to shoot darts at a target that we cannot see. Eh? Or, to put it another way. We don’t want to go around to tree after tree, pissing indiscriminately.

American mainstream media reporting on the trade wars.
American mainstream media reporting on the trade wars.

Here’s some Mainstream media issues, and what the “informed” American populace thinks about China. Let’s take each one, dissect it, and see what we can do about it. OK.

  • $500 B trade deficit.
  • Global Supply Chain.
  • Made in China is bad.
  • China is ripping the USA off!
  • Chinese are unable to buy American products.
  • Chinese products are poor quality, simple and break down.
  • Chinese workers are slaves that labor for nothing.
  • Fair Trade
  • Dumping products
  • Stealing IP
  • They are dirty Commies!
  • Tariffs will bring back jobs.

For starters let’s tackle the A-#1 reason why the trump Tariff Wars exist in the first place. It is because America is losing $500 billion dollars every year to China, and we (pretty much) need to reduce that amount in order for America to be vibrant, healthy and prosperous.

[Issue 1] We are losing $500 billion every year to China

This is based on the fact that we have a trade deficit in goods for about $500B. This is a fact, Jack.

But, what is the composition of that deficit? Where within that composition can we move things to our advantage, and what parts should we ignore as hopeless?

Well, when we study the deficit we note that it is only based on products. It doesn’t include services. And in this area we have a surplus with China. We export those services to China. There are things that they cannot do, but we can. It’s our strength.

I propose that we increase our strength in this area. Work on our strengths, not play to our weaknesses. No matter how good it sounds politically. Give and take.

We provide services. They give us products.

Why not put a tax on the services that we supply to China? That tax can then be used to offset the tariffs that Americans must pay in imported products.

Play on our strengths. It’s a win-win for Americans.

PHOTO---This is a big win for Americans!

[Issue 2] The Global Supply chain.

Then there’s the global supply chain.

Today we have a global business environment, and no wishing for the “good old days” is going to put that “Genie back into the lamp”. That “train has left the station”.

China imports a lot of natural resources and components from other countries to manufacture and assemble the finished goods. China buys chromium from Africa, and that goes into the metal alloys in cell-phones, drone motors and automobile electronic chip-sets.

Now, China does import other raw materials.

And yes, they do import a lot of raw materials out of the United States. And, no, I’m not talking about wheat, rice, and barley. I’m talking about uranium, and other precious metals that we have. Not to mention coal. China wants our coal. China wants our natural gas. Why not give it to them?

…at a price, don’t you know.

Again, that little bit of extra cost to buy from Americans can be used to offset the imbalance in tariffs. It would be a win-win for the American consumer.

Continue our exports to China, only raise the prices on them. Not prohibitively high, but gradually over time. Another win – win for Americans. Be smart. Think long term.

PHOTO---This is a big win for Americans!

[Issue 3] Made in China.

Not every product made in China is Chinese.

It’s not. Many Japanese, British, German, French, and yes… American products are made in China. Actually 40% of “Chinese” exports are actually products of foreign (multi-national) corporations based in China. Many of which are American owned.

You’d never hear that in the American mainstream media.

Like Apple and their iphone. Like all those hobby drones that you can buy in the stores. Like the automobile electronics found in all the Fords, General Motors and other American cars. They are all American, but manufactured in China.

They are all American products, manufactured, designed and built in China.

Check out this graph…

Chart of the Chinese exports of goods, broken down by resource type, over athe last ten years.
Chart of the Chinese exports of goods, broken down by resource type, over the last ten years.

Thus, all these “Chinese” goods, aren’t really Chinese at all. They may be American, Japanese, South Korean, German etc.

You see, it’s easy to consider trade as products from one nation to another. But the fact is that the way business, and manufacturing is conducted today does not resemble in any way the old “made here, stays here” formula.

We need to take that into account.

We could by law, force American companies to make their products in America. That is, forbidding them to manufacture parts and components outside of America. It would be a law specifically targeting “supply chain management” outside of the USA.

American products should be made in America. We can still buy from China, but those products that are made by American companies need to be made in America.

No tariffs that Americans need to pay. More jobs for Americans. Yet another win-win.

PHOTO---This is a big win for Americans!

[Issue 4] China is ripping us off!

This is pretty much the narrative. It doesn’t matter if you are an American Conservative, a liberal, or a member of the American mainstream media, this is the mantra.

  • Cheap junk in Walmart – China’s fault!
  • High prices for iPhones – China’s fault!
  • Power tool breaks – China’s fault!

US oligarchs and corporations decided to move American jobs abroad not China.

China smiled and took the business. But, seriously, their attitude was "Meh, whatever!". You see, everyone was coming to China to manufacture their products. America had to stand in line.

They raked in the profits, and gave the American consumers some benefit in being able to purchase inexpensive goods.

They came to China with bucket loads of cash. They promised the Chinese the world and gave them blueprints, technical specifications and trained them how to make their products. Then they sat back, drank their chardonnay while the money poured in.

US oligarchs and corporations decided to move American jobs abroad not China.  They raked in the profits, and gave the American consumers some benefit in being able to purchase inexpensive goods.
US oligarchs and corporations decided to move American jobs abroad not China. They raked in the profits, and gave the American consumers some benefit in being able to purchase inexpensive goods.

Yes.

Never forget, US consumers and businesses benefit from inexpensive Chinese goods and labor. So, let’s not blame China for the lost manufacturing jobs. If you want to do something about it instead of eternally complaining then…

…ONLY BUY AMERICAN.

What’s so darn hard about that?

So stop your moaning and groaning. Start today. Stop buying anything that even resembles something imported. Period. You cannot change the world, but you can change your little part of it. Begin now. Begin today.

PHOTO---This is a big win for Americans!

[Issue 5] They don’t buy our products!

This is another outright lie that is somehow broadcast in the United States. The actual reality is quite different. The Chinese place a high value on American products. In fact, in terms of personal value, to a Chinese person, owning a Buick is about equal to owning a Lamborghini. Yes!

It’s one of those jaw-dropping things that boggles the mind of most Americans. For in America, a Buick is considered a robust typical family car. While in China, it is considered the height of luxury, good taste, while at the same time being fiercely loyal to one’s family.

  • In China, the Mary Kay company gives her top saleswomen pink Buicks.
  • Perhaps that’s all part of the reason why GM sells more cars in China than in the US.
  • Not to mention that Apple sells more iPhones in China than in the US.
  • For United States semiconductor giant, Qualcomm, 65% of their revenues come from China.
  • Boeing sold 1000 planes to China in the last five years. 

In fact, most major US corporations consider China as their #1 or #2 market. 

So, yes, China has a very open market and it buys a lot of American services and goods, but a lot of them happen to be made in China. Similarly, corporations such as Starbucks, McDonald’s, KFC etc. profit enormously from their thousands of branches in China.

Starbucks continues to open thousands of new stores each year, mainly outside of the North American market. The company has a five-year plan with several goals to continue driving growth. Starbucks wants to be the employer of choice and invest in those employees who continue to deliver superior customer service. Starbucks has always been on the forefront of valuing employees, especially its part-time staff. The company has stated it will grow to 30,000 locations globally and work on creating new reasons for customers to visit its stores throughout the day.
Starbucks continues to open thousands of new stores each year, mainly outside of the North American market. The company has a five-year plan with several goals to continue driving growth. Starbucks wants to be the employer of choice and invest in those employees who continue to deliver superior customer service. Starbucks has always been on the forefront of valuing employees, especially its part-time staff. The company has stated it will grow to 30,000 locations globally and work on creating new reasons for customers to visit its stores throughout the day.

The Chinese love, just love American products. If you really want to offset the trade imbalance between the two nations, then sell more products to China. This means a retail presence inside of China and far greater social and industrial brands than what is presently established.

The Chinese end up buying more American products (especially if they are made in America) and the Americans take home more money. The Chinese are willing to PAY MORE money for an American product just by virtue of it’s reputation. Don’t squander this advantage.

Sell more products to China, they will be happy, and the Americans will be raking in the money. It’s a win – win for America.

PHOTO---This is a big win for Americans!

[Issue 6] Chinese products are crap

If Chinese products are crap, why do Americans keep spending $500 billion a year on buying crappy things?

Are Americans stupid, or powerless to change things? Is it that the deplorable Americans are just uneducated simpletons. Not hip to the wily ways of the Chinese?

Is that the narrative?

This narrative makes no sense. Not really. Everyone seems to think that all China makes is the cheapest toys in Walmart, but it’s only Americans that makes the computers, iphones and drones that fly in the sky.

Wrong! The roles are actually the reverse.

Don’t forget that BMW manufactures most of their cars in China.

BMW debuted its Vision Future Interaction Concept, a Mirrorless i8 Concept and its Internet of Things concept. It’s a very large suite of new technologies and it’s all extremely impressive. However, BMW wants to make it disappear into the background and make it invisible to customers.
BMW debuted its Vision Future Interaction Concept, a Mirrorless i8 Concept and its Internet of Things concept. It’s a very large suite of new technologies and it’s all extremely impressive. However, BMW wants to make it disappear into the background and make it invisible to customers.

Also, iPhones, Nike shoes and Prada bags are all made in China.

And Chinese brands like Huawei and OnePlus are actually beating Apple. So it’s not as if Chinese can’t make high-end, high-quality products.

They can, and they do.

We need to recognize the true and real state of things. That way we can best be able to decide on courses of action that actually work.

Instead of the progressive liberal Marxist "feel good" legislation.
A polarized world.

That said, if you pay someone $1 an hour, don’t expect amazing products that will last for a lifetime. You get what you pay for.

You can only pick two.
You can only pick two.

Also, Chinese corporations are working their way up the value chain. Chinese high-end smartphones (Xiaomi and OnePlus) are already #1 in large consumer markets such as India; and, within five years, Chinese electric cars will be globally popular as well.

Chinese electric vehicles dominate. More Chinese electric vehiles are made in China than the rest of the world combined.
Chinese electric vehicles dominate. More Chinese electric vehicles are made in China than in the rest of the world combined.

To understand how to take advantage of the global situation, you must first understand it as it exists. We need to see things as they are. Not as we want them to be. That way, we can leverage the situation towards our very own benefit. It will be a win-win for Americans.

PHOTO---This is a big win for Americans!

A win-win for Americans.

LeEco announced its investment in a joint venture between Aston Martin and Faraday Future, a direct competitor of Tesla, further signalling its intentions in the space. The front of the car features an LED loop that can be lit in different spots such as indicators or fog lights. The rear passenger doors, known as ‘suicide doors’ open from a hinge at the rear, as opposed to the front. They’ve also waived a previous law that protected home-grown companies from being gutted by foreign competition, as long as they invest in electric technology.

That’s led to a boom in EV startups such as NextEV and CH-Auto who, along with LeEco, could turn the car industry on its head. Especially given the size of China’s domestic market has now surged past America’s to become the largest economy in the world. Chinese EV companies have also been poaching talent from the likes of BMW to help make China the electric car center of the world.

[Issue 7] Everything in China is made by slave labor

It’s not.

The Chinese have a much stronger work-ethic than Americans have. We might not want to hear it, but it is true.

There is nothing good or bad about it. It has do do with society. The higher percentage that Americans have for leisure transmits in more time to attend church, more time for personal education, and more time to spend with the family and making the best of the life that one has. Let the Chinese work themselves to the bone. Americans don’t need to as we have what is known as work-life-balance. It’s a good thing… for us.

Let others live their lives as they want. If they want to work 12 hour days and on Saturdays, let them. Live and let live.

They also have different laws, different customs, and different culture. Thus comparing labor in China to that of the USA is like comparing apples to oranges.

Here is a brief comparison between three factories. One is an American non-union factory. One is a union American factory. One is a Chinese factory. One of the first things that the astute reader will notice that, aside from the pay, there is little else of value that the union provides the employees.

The second thing that you will notice is that the Chinese employee is granted all kinds of things that an American would never, ever be provided with. Like free housing (as in a personal apartment), free internet, three free meals a day, and many other things unheard of in the United States.

Factory comparision spreadsheet
This is a quick generalized comparison between factories in the United States compared to factories in China. It is a gross simplification on many levels. However there are some things that need to be taken into account. firstly, the Chinese make far less money than their American counterparts. On the other hand, they get many perks and things that Americans can only dream about.

If you want to buy a product at Walmart, and you like it’s price, then go for it.

Sears tried to compete against Walmart, and lost. They offered better quality, warranties, and (for a spell) better working conditions in the factories that supplied the products to them.

It didn’t work.

When I buy something made in Wisconsin, I do not know about the working conditions that the product was created under. What I do know is that I liked the product and so I bought it.

China’s electric vehicle start-up Nio launched its first mass-produced model over the weekend, in a home market marked by competition with companies such as Tesla.  The ES8, which starts at 448,000 Chinese yuan ($67,765) is half the starting price of Tesla’s 836,000 yuan ($126,470) Model X in China.
China’s electric vehicle start-up Nio launched its first mass-produced model over the weekend, in a home market marked by competition with companies such as Tesla. The ES8, which starts at 448,000 Chinese yuan ($67,765) is half the starting price of Tesla’s 836,000 yuan ($126,470) Model X in China.

Complaining about situations beyond your control, outside of your understanding, and trying to moan and groan about it is fruitless. If you think that the Chinese labor like slaves, then DON’T BUY CHINESE PRODUCTS, and shut the heck up.

It’s a win win.

PHOTO---This is a big win for Americans!

[Issue 8] We want Fair Trade and China must lower their tariffs

It’s not as if the only thing that stands in the way of US progress is China’s tariffs. Consider that we imported 8 million cars last year.

We imported Eight Million cars.

Eight / Million / Cars.

Maybe we should buy American goods, before we demand that others buy American products. Eh?

Imported vehicles to the United States. Most of the vehicle imports to the USA come from Canada and Mexico. While China is certainly the leader in automotive manufacture by volume, type, and differentiation, it hardly exports any vehicles to the United States.
Imported vehicles to the United States. Most of the vehicle imports to the USA come from Canada and Mexico. While China is certainly the leader in automotive manufacture by volume, type, and differentiation, it hardly exports any vehicles to the United States.

Also, even if China eliminates their tariffs on our exports, US corporations will find that it’s still cheaper to manufacture goods in China, rather than making them here and shipping them over.

It’s not about nations. It’s about the oligarchy and the companies that they control.

Let’s not forget that the US already has a lot of protectionist tariffs, quotas, barriers and subsidies for various products and business sectors. Every government in the world has to cater to its people and special interest groups.

Finally, since WWII, the US has enjoyed an extraordinary privilege of being able to easily print the global reserve currency and wantonly borrow from the rest of the world.

Be careful what you wish for.

For a true “level playing field,” all currencies must be equal, which Americans won’t easily accept. Yeah. Can you just imagine if China could sanction western countries and arrest western CEOs for violating Chinese sanctions! Like the USA does.

Be careful what you wish for.

Most Americans, American companies, and the company stockholders would be most unhappy if China began to play to the same rules that the United States have implemented over the last four decades.

I would advise that we get on the good side of China. With China as a friend we can merge with shared benefit. Treating them as an enemy does the opposite. Work together for the betterment of all. It’s a win – win for everyone.

PHOTO---This is a big win for Americans!

[Issue 9] They operate at losses and dump products

It is true. There are some state-operated Chinese entities that keep operating while losing money and simply rolling over their debt. China allows that to create employment for its people and also, sometimes, to capture the global market.

However, US corporations such as Amazon, Uber, Netflix and others do the same as well.

Nothing new here.

Moneys flow toward utility. The Chinese fund factories. The USA funds institutions.

China is a nation that values work, labor and production. America is a nation that values medicine, social reconstruction and government, As such, China will make the products that Americans will use under regulation.

It’s just the way things are.

China is a nation that values work, labor and production. America is a nation that values medicine, social reconstruction and government. You can easily see where all the money is going in America. Just look at the top three items. As such, China will make the products that Americans will use under regulation.

Truthfully, the only difference being that the US corporations are subsidized by commercial banks and the Federal Reserve Bank. While the Chinese factories are subsidized by the Bank of China.

We need to recognize that within the framework of utility. When we do, and grasp the true nature of things, it becomes easier to accept the truth. China makes the things that Americans use. Embrace that reality. It will be a win – win for Americans.

PHOTO---This is a big win for Americans!

[Issue 10] They steal our IP

IP = Intellectual Property.

Most of these accusations are unwarranted.

It makes for great arguments, and a pretty decent media platform from which to espouse upon, but really, it’s just nonsensical. No one is sneaking around “stealing things”.

The Chinese company just buys an American company fair and square. Then , since they own the patents and the equipment and the intellectual property, they can do with it as they wish.

Carpetbaggers     

In general, the term  “carpetbagger” refers to a traveler who arrives in a new region with  only a satchel (or carpetbag) of possessions, and who attempts to profit  from or gain control over his new surroundings, often against the will  or consent of the original inhabitants. After 1865, a number of  northerners moved to the South to purchase land, lease plantations or  partner with down-and-out planters in the hopes of making money from  cotton. At first they were welcomed, as southerners saw the need for  northern capital and investment to get the devastated region back on its  feet. They later became an object of much scorn, as many southerners  saw them as low-class and opportunistic newcomers seeking to get rich on  their misfortune. 

If China is stealing our IP, how come Tesla just opened a new plant in Shanghai and Boeing just announced a new factory in China?

If China is a thief, how come Intel Corp. has funded Horizon Robotics, a Chinese startup?

If China is a threat, why does Warren Buffet own 10% of BYD, China’s biggest electric car manufacturer?

Every western hi-tech firm — Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Dell etc. — has branches in China and they wouldn’t do it if China is just stealing their IP. They are not stupid. Are they?

Yes, China required transfer of technology in many industries, but it was a voluntary, consensual business transaction. Driven by greed to conquer the Chinese consumer market, western corporations obliged. Also, arrogance made the West assume that Chinese copycats will never be good enough.

Fast-food giant McDonald's is selling a controlling stake in its China business to a group of investors led by state-owned Chinese conglomerate Citic in a deal worth up to $2.1 billion, the companies said Monday.  The transaction is part of a global business overhaul being carried out by the American company to keep up with changing tastes that have resulted in declining sales.  Under the terms of the deal, Citic Ltd. and its investment management unit Citic Capital will acquire 52 percent of the business while another partner, Washington-based private equity firm The Carlyle Group, will own 28 percent. McDonald's will retain a 20 percent stake.  About two-thirds of the China operation's 2,640 outlets, including 240 in Hong Kong, that are now owned by McDonald's will be refranchised. The China business, which employs more than 120,000 people, is valued at up to $2.1 billion, according to the agreement.  Under McDonald CEO Steve Easterbook's restructuring plan launched in 2015, the company wants franchisees to take over more company-owned outlets, giving local managers more decision-making power to respond to Asian customers.
Fast-food giant McDonald’s is selling a controlling stake in its China business to a group of investors led by state-owned Chinese conglomerate Citic in a deal worth up to $2.1 billion, the companies said Monday. The transaction is part of a global business overhaul being carried out by the American company to keep up with changing tastes that have resulted in declining sales. Under the terms of the deal, Citic Ltd. and its investment management unit Citic Capital will acquire 52 percent of the business while another partner, Washington-based private equity firm The Carlyle Group, will own 28 percent.

There are definitely problems with Chinese espionage and those must be opposed and stopped. However, most people confuse blatant theft of intellectual property with it being given away. And for the last couple of decades, the American companies did just that. They gave the technology away so that the American company owner can make enormous profits in the transaction.

America lost it’s technical edge, so that a hand-full of individuals could profit from it. These Americans sold out America so that they could become filthy, filthy, rich.

For America to become great again, we need to arrest and imprison those that gave away our strengths, our knowledge, our technologies, our resources for their own personal profit. They should be in jail instead of drinking chardonnay in one of their many mansions. It’ll be a win – win for Americans.

PHOTO---This is a big win for Americans!

[Issue 11] But they’re commies!

In spite of China’s “communist” party, CCP, what they have is a unique mix of socialism, capitalism and Confucianism. Don’t treat them as a cardboard cutout, a cartoon of something evil. They are not, and you should be ashamed to fall for the 1930’s-era propaganda template.

Chinese communism is NOT the same kind of communism that we Americans have come to think of. It is something all together different.

The private sector is vibrant — [1] 90% of new jobs are created by private enterprises, [2] venture capitalists are investing more in Chinese startups than in American counterparts, [3] the upper middle class is growing rapidly (200 million), [4] there are 3.5 million millionaires and [5] two new billionaires were created every week last year.

Two new millionaires every week!

China is not your textbook “communist” country.

While the Chinese government is certainly authoritarian, relative to western democracies, it has accomplished an economic miracle over the last four decades that’s unprecedented in human history.

800 million people were lifted out of poverty and the GDP grew 40-fold in 40 years.

That’s why 84% of Chinese trust their government and 68% say that the government is the best institution to lead the country to a better future.

To understand how we can “beat the other team”, we need to understand who they really are, what their tactics are, how they call their plays, and their strengths and weaknesses. It will be a win – win for Americans.

PHOTO---This is a big win for Americans!

[Issue 12] Tariffs will bring back jobs

Tariffs can only bring back jobs if there are American alternatives to the Chinese products. That way the tariffs will price the Chinese products at a disadvantage to American products. And the consumers will want to buy American products.

But…

  • The vast majority of products under the Trump tariff schedule has no comparative American-made alternative.
  • Thus it will be the American consumer that will be paying the tariffs, as they will have no other alternatives.

This is a real big problem, and perhaps the real heart of the problem with the “trade wars” today. We need to realize how legislative actions produce unintended consequences…

In the 1990's Bill Clinton and his Democrat controlled Congress, single-handedly devastated the American ship-building industry. You see, they laid a "wealth tax" on boats. As they (incorrectly as it turned out) that only wealthy people could afford yachts, and small boats.

What happened, is that everyone stopped buying boats. As a result the entire ship-building industry collapsed. It took decades to recover, and even today it is just limping along.

You see, most of the products that Americans buy comes from China, and that there are zero alternatives. This is a problem. This is a really big problem.

Factories do not grow on trees.

You cannot snap your fingers and immediately start making televisions sets, drones, robots, kitchen appliances and shoes from nothing. You need talent, knowledge, machinery and a skilled and talented work force.

But, you do know, that most of the American work force does not have this background. Their background is in the service industries.

Thus creating a factory, or even moving it from China to the USA is a very difficult thing to do. Check out this link (opens up in another tab).

The logistics of relocating a facotry from China back to the USA.

You see, Trump’s 10% or 25% tariff on Chinese goods won’t create enough incentive for most manufacturers to start building products in the US. At the most, US companies will simply move the manufacturing to other developing nations such as Vietnam, Thaliand etc. Moreover, Chinese Yuan has already fallen 10%, thus largely neutralizing the first round of tariffs.

Considering that every major business/lobbying group, corporation and economist is against tariffs and trade wars, it’s highly unlikely that jobs are going return from Asia, Mexico and elsewhere.

Tariffs and retaliatory tariffs can also lead to a big loss of jobs or even a recession. There have already been endless stream of stories about layoffs and lost sales.

While it’s true that some Japanese and German automakers who want to avoid confrontations may build new assembly plants in the US, others may be forced to relocate some existing factories from the US to Europe and China to avoid the cross-border tariffs.

  • Make a favorable environment for other nations to put their factories in America.
  • Reduce regulations so that the factories will want to move to America.
  • Limit the taxes on employers, and on workers so that the American factory worker has a chance to compete.

It will be a win-win for Americans.

PHOTO---This is a big win for Americans!

Conclusion

There won’t be any winner in the trade war. China in 2019 isn’t China in 1990. We should stop treating it as such. That is crazy.

At the same time, the West should be mindful of history — the Opium Wars and the following Century of Humiliation are etched in the Chinese national psyche. China has worked very hard and sacrificed a lot in the last forty years; and they’re not going to give up their dreams. They are a nation of achievers.

The Chinese are a serious nation and do not play around. If this trade situation is not handled carefully, things can turn really bad for America. It’s not going to be anything like Americans expect.

(Aside from the total collapse of America at every level...) I think there are two other options. 

One would be a crisis and defeat.  That is something we have not experienced in America. What that would  look like we can only speculate by looking at other examples of defeated  nations, what has happened to them, and how they have adjusted to their  post-defeat role. 

You might look at the defeated Axis powers after  World War II as an interesting test case, and we have written a little  bit about that. One thing that might even be most disturbing of all, is  that no real crisis ever ultimately expresses itself, which actually,  oddly enough, may be the worst outcome of all. 

That is to say,  everything we see about our world today, the rich getting richer, the  poor getting poorer, democracy sort of ebbing away, people feeling  powerless over their political lives, people feeling less and less a  sense of civic participation or belonging, and we have kind of turned  that up. 

There is an interesting book by Tyler Cohen. He is a very  popular writer now, he wrote Average is Over and The Great Stagnation. He wrote a recent book called The Complacent Class.  If you want to read a book about America’s future in the absence of a  fourth turning, read that book. 

The real rate of return gets lower and  lower, we kind of approach the stationary state, productivity growth  kind of ebbs to nothing, we become a kind of nominal market society, but  one in which all the markets are dominated by a few very large  companies with enormous market power and concentration. 

In that kind of  society, highly stratified, not feeling at all like what we think of as  being America, is, I think, the scariest one, one in which global  problems, problems of global order are not rectified. And it is one that  disturbs me the most. 

-McAlvany

So, let’s get rid of the zero-sum mentality, drop the aggressive posture, come up with tangible goals, and negotiate with respect and a smile.

The tariffs have slowed China’s economy, which grew 6.6 percent in 2018, its slowest rate in almost three decades.
The tariffs have slowed China’s economy, which grew 6.6 percent in 2018, its slowest rate in almost three decades. Meanwhile the United States grew an amazing 1.7 percent. The most astounding growth in decades.

For goodness sakes. Everyone can win. We just need to stop playing the neocon war – war -war game. It’s going to really… REALLY harm the United States. And I do mean BIGLY.

So, let’s think smart. Address things as they really are, and work for a win-win for everyone. Now is the time to do it.

PHOTO---This is a big win for Americans!

12OCT19 Update

 Trump said the U.S. and China have "agreed in  principle" on a preliminary trade agreement. Trump acknowledged that  differences remain on major issues on which the two countries are  divided, but the White House still decided not to push ahead with a  planned increased to tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods next week.
The move would have raised those tariffs to 30% from 25%.

"There's  too many factors at play for him to just issue threats to governments,  China's or anybody else's, to just follow along with what he says," said  Wang, referring to the U.S. president's previous threats to slap  additional penalties on Chinese goods.

-USA Today;  Senior China adviser: Trump to blame for delays in securing final trade deal, says China has been 'accommodating' 

Links about China

Here are some links about my observations on China. I think that you, the reader, might find them to be of interest. Please kindly enjoy.

The US involvement in the HK "Democracy Now" movement.
Chinese reaction to the Trump Tariff Wars.
China's Global Leadership
Popular Music of China
The logistics of relocating a facotry from China back to the USA.
Hong Kong and the NED CIA operations.
Chinese weapons systems
Chinese motor sports
End of the Day Potato
Dog Shit
Dancing Grandmothers
Dance Craze
When the SJW movement took control of China
Family Meal
Freedom & Liberty in China
Why are Americans so angry?
Evolution of the USA and China.
Ben Ming Nian
Beware the Expat
Fake Wine
Fat China
Business KTV
How I got married in China.
Chinese apartment houses
Chinese Culture Snapshots
Rural China
Chinese New Year
Trade Wars

China and America Comparisons

As an American, I cannot help but compare what my life was in the United States with what it is like living in China. Here we discuss that.

SJW
Playground Comparisons
The Last Straw
Leaving the USA
Diversity Initatives
Democracy
Travel outside
10 Misconceptions about China
Top Ten Misconceptions

The Chinese Business KTV Experience

This is the real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find in the British tabloids and an occasional write up in the American liberal press. This is the reality. Read or not.

KTV1
KTV2
KTV3
KTV4
KTV5
KTV6
KTV7
KTV8
KTV9
KTV10
KTV11
KTV12
KTV13
KTV14
KTV15
KTV16
KTV17
KTV18
KTV19
KTV20

Learning About China

Who doesn’t like to look at pretty girls? Ugly girls? Here we discuss what China is like by looking at videos of pretty girls doing things in China.

Pretty Girls 1
Pretty Girls 2
Pretty Girls 3
Pretty Girls 4
Pretty Girls 5

Contemporaneous Chinese Music

This is a series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music in China. It is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at that, all that I am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews. However, this series of posts should serve as a great starting place for investigation and enjoyment.

Part 1 - Popular Music of China
Part 3 -Popular music of China.
Part 3 - The contemporaneous music of China.
part 3B - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 4 - The contemporaneous popular music of China.
Part 5 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 5B - The popular music of China.
Part 5C - The music of contemporary China.
Part D - The popular music of China.
Part 5E - A happy Joe.
Part 5F - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 5F - The popular music of China.
Post 6 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Post 7 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Post 8 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 9 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 10 - Music of China.
Post 11 - The contemporaneous music of China.

Parks in China

The parks in China are very unique. They are enormous and tend to be very mountainous. Here we take a look at this most interesting of subjects.

Parks in China - 1
Pars in China - 2
Parks in China - 3
Visiting a park in China - 4
High Speed Rail in China
Visiting a park in China - 5
Beautiful China part 6
Parks in China - 7
Visiting a park in China - 8

Really Strange China

Here are some posts that discuss a number of things about China that might seem odd, or strange to Westerners. Some of the things are everyday events, while others are just representative of the differences in culture.

Really Strange China 1
Really Strange China 2
Rally Strange China 3
Really Strange China 4
Really Odd China 5
Really Strange China 6
Really Strange China 7
Really Strange China 8
Really Strange China 9
Really Strange China 10
Really Strange China 11
Really Strange China 12
Really strange China 13
Really strange China 14

What is China like?

The purpose of this post is to illustrate that the rest of the world, outside of America, has moved on with their lives. That while they might not be as great as America is, they are doing just fine thank you.

And while America has been squandering it’s money, decimating it’s resources, and just being cavalier with it’s military, the rest of the world has done the opposite. They have husbanded their day to day fortunes, and you can see this in their day-to-day lives.

What is China like - 1
What is China like - 2
What is China Like - 3
What is China like - 4
What is China like - 5
What is China like - 6
What is China like - 8
What is China like - 8
What is China like - 9

Summer in Asia

Let’s take a moment to explore Asia. That includes China, but also includes such places as Vietnam, Thailand, Japan and others…

Summer Snapshots 1
Summer Snapshots 2
Summer Snapshots 3
Summer Snapshots 4
Snapshots Summer 5
Summer Snapshots 6
Summer Snapshot 7
Summer Snapshots 8
Summer Snapshots 9
Summer Snapshots 10
Summer Snapshots 11
Summer Snapshot 12

Some Fun Videos

Here’s a collection of some fun videos taken all over Asia. While there are many videos taken in China, we also have some taken in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Korea and Japan as well. It’s all in fun.

Some fun videos of China - 1
Fun Videos of Asia - 2
Fun videos of Asia - 3
Fun videos of Asia - 4
Fun Videos of Asia - 5
Fun videos of Asia - 6
Fun videos of Asia - 7
Fun videos of Asia - 8
Fun videos of Asia - 9
Fun videos of Asia - 10
Fun videos of Asia - 11
Fun videos of Asia - 12
Fun videos of Asia - 13
Fun videos of Asia - 14
Fun Videos of Asia - 15
Fun videos of Asia -16
The best way to cook marshmallows.

Articles & Links

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