American citizen living in Germany here.

I get asked often about how long I will stay in Germany and why Germany. I want to stay indefinitely and the reason why is precisely because the USA is not the best country in the world (there is no such thing). I am treated better and have more opportunities in Germany.

Here are some things that I can do in Germany that I could not do in the USA.

• I can go to the doctor without fear of bankruptcy, without having to argue with insurance companies, without receiving random medical bills at a later date.
• I and my husband can have a child and get paid maternity and paternity leave.
• I can go to university without taking on debt.
• I get 30+ days of vacation each year that I am encouraged and expected to take.
• I can feel secure in my job because they cannot fire me without cause. There is no such thing as so called “employment at will” laws.
• I can raise kids who are bilingual in an environment that values bilingualism.
• I can drink in public places. I can crack open a beer or wine on the sidewalk, in a park, on public transit, nearly everywhere.
• I don’t have to worry about taking a bullet at my place of work (I’m a teacher). When I do have kids I won’t have to worry about them being shot in school either. In fact I don’t have to worry about guns at all because they just aren’t prolific here.
• I don’t have to worry about CPS (Child Protective Services) being called or being arrested if I let my kids be independent and go do things by themselves. It’s considered normal for even a 6-year-old to walk to the bakery by themself, go to the park by themself, and to walk to school by themself… even in big cities.
• I don’t have to leave a tip because I know that my servers are paid fair wages. My servers don’t push me out of a restaurant when I am finished eating. I can sit and enjoy a drink and conversation and I can let my server know when I am ready to leave.
• I don’t have to worry so much about nudity. People here tend to have the perspective that it’s just a body and being nude is generally not illegal.
• I don’t need to have a car to get just about anywhere. I can use public transit.
• I have more freedom of movement. As a woman, I can walk around alone in a big city at 2 in the morning and feel safe. I experience far fewer (nearly zero) instances of street harassment.
• I don’t have to tolerate religion being shoved in my face on a regular basis. Yes, people here can be religious too, but they nearly always keep it to themselves.

Heard of this company?

They are one of the world’s most famous EPC companies, known for successfully delivering megaprojects around the world. It is not an exaggeration Bechtel can build entire cities, industrial complexes, and power grids from scratch.

Fifty years ago, that was rather special, because Bechtel already had a CV that included the Hoover dam, and BART. In more recent years, Bechtel’s major projects include Boston’s Big Dig, and the Channel tunnel linking the UK with France.

Pretty impressive, by any standard. If you have a difficult civil engineering project, Bechtel is the go-to contractor if you need been-there, done-that expertise. It has been the top U.S. contractor for 21 consecutive years, according to the ENR.

How much revenue did the top U.S. contractor generate last year?

About $25.5 billion.

Now let’s cross the Pacific to China, a flight from first world to third to look at the Chinese competition.

What’s China’s Bechtel?

I would wager a bet very few have heard of this company:

CSCEC, or the China State Construction Engineering Corporation.

What was their revenue in 2019?

1.2 trillion RMB, or $171 billion—almost 7 (yes, 7!) Bechtels worth of business.

With a list of completed projects that include:

That is what one third world EPC is capable of, in terms of sheer scale and complexity.

What’s my point?

Fifty years ago, Bechtel was special, and operated in the rarefied air of exclusivity.

Two decades into the new century, third world “upstarts” operate on way greater scale and have just-as-impressive references.

The difference this time? They are significantly cheaper and faster while staying on-spec.

Which is the same story you will find across the industrial spectrum. There may be few Chinese brands you’re aware of, but I bet there are numerous Chinese-made products in the average household, especially critical components of electronics found in everything from throwaway flashlights to the latest iphone.

China has consistently delivered on-spec products at unbeatable prices and speed for decades. That is why she is the world’s factory—entirely on merit.

I once asked an industry veteran why businesses are unable to resist the allure of China. He explained it wasn’t a matter of choice. If his competitor moves his factories to China, he has to follow suit or risk irrelevance within a decade. In other words, business models are turbocharged with Chinese production. Unless you have a niche market with moats and high walls, you die, even if you are brontosaurus size.

All that talk about IP theft and forced tech transfers is way off base. The companies that went to China made decisions with their eyes wide open. They caught the prevailing wind which blew them into China’s embrace. In fact, many couldn’t wait to get in bed with the Chinese after catching wind of their competitors’ bottomline post-China.

Notice the elevated proportion of those 25–34? That translates into tens of millions jobs that won’t be filled by those coming after them (the 10–24).

China is facing a labor crunch in the coming decade. Thankfully, it is not a nightmare because China is now at $10,000 GDP per capita, firmly third world. Which means there are plenty of third world jobs in the economy. Like assembling iphones. Or making plastic flowers. What the demographics tell us is older factories making low-margin goods will find it difficult to replace labor in the tight market, and fade into obsolescence. Wages will rise, fueled by better qualified youth from improving education outcomes.

Demographics is destiny and it is the inevitable labor crunch that will bring about an end to cheap China. This is the real reason why the Chinese themselves are moving low margin production offshore. Trump’s trade war is merely a friendly shove towards an unavoidable future.

What is this MIC 2025? In short, it is a push towards self-sufficiency in these key sectors:

MIC 2025 seeks to raise the domestic content of core components and materials to 40 percent by 2020 and 70 percent by 2025.

Which is where the economy has to evolve anyway, due to the changing labor structure. MIC isn’t about Chinese brands taking over the world. Rather, it is about Chinese brands developing home-grown technology to compete more prominently in the domestic market. This is no different from any country. Toyota and Panasonic dominate the Japanese market, so does LG and Samsung in Korea and GM and Apple stateside.

There is nothing sinister about MIC 2025, except it will make Chinese brands more visible. Which cuts into the “easy money”—branding. That is why CSCEC isn’t attacked like Huawei. Expect ever wilder conspiracy theories about how evil Chinese are taking over the world by robbing and stealing everyone blind, as Chinese brands creep up the domestic, then global brand visibility index.

Good luck trying to stop MIC 2025, because seriously, other than illegal tariffs, the rechurning of Taiwan/HK separatism, and a multidimensional and broad-base media flame war, America has not provided alternatives to MIC 2025.

The Chinese consumer will ask, do you have anything 90% as good but half the price?

The answer is no, which answers the question too.

Asia’s future takes shape in Vladivostok, the Russian Pacific

by Pepe Escobar, posted with the author’s permission and widely cross-posted

Sixty-eight countries gathered on Russia’s far eastern coast to listen to Moscow’s economic and political vision for the Asia-Pacific

The Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok is one of the indispensable annual milestones for keeping up not only with the complex development process of the Russian Far East but major plays for Eurasia integration.

Mirroring an immensely turbulent 2022, the current theme in Vladivostok is ‘On the Path to a Multipolar World.’ Russian President Vladimir Putin himself, in a short message to business and government participants from 68 nations, set the stage:

“The obsolete unipolar model is being replaced by a new world order based on the fundamental principles of justice and equality, as well as the recognition of the right of each state and people to their own sovereign path of development. Powerful political and economic centers are taking shape right here in the Asia-Pacific region, acting as a driving force in this irreversible process.”

In his speech to the EEF plenary session, Ukraine was barely mentioned. Putin’s response when asked about it: “Is this country part of Asia-Pacific?”

The speech was largely structured as a serious message to the collective west, as well as to what top analyst Sergey Karaganov calls the “global majority.” Among several takeaways, these may be the most relevant:

• Russia as a sovereign state will defend its interests.
• Western sanctions ‘fever’ is threatening the world – and economic crises are not going away after the pandemic.
• The entire system of international relations has changed. There is an attempt to maintain world order by changing the rules.
• Sanctions on Russia are closing down businesses in Europe. Russia is coping with economic and tech aggression from the west.
• Inflation is breaking records in developed countries. Russia is looking at around 12 percent.
• Russia has played its part in grain exports leaving Ukraine, but most shipments went to EU nations and not developing countries.
• The “welfare of the ‘Golden Billion’ is being ignored.”
• The west is in no position to dictate energy prices to Russia.
• Ruble and yuan will be used for gas payments.
• The role of Asia-Pacific has significantly increased.

In a nutshell: Asia is the new epicenter of technological progress and productivity.

No more an ‘object of colonization’ 

Taking place only two weeks before another essential annual gathering – the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Samarkand – it is no wonder some of the top discussions at the EEF revolve around the increasing economic interpolation between the SCO and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

This theme is as crucial as the development of the Russian Arctic: at 41 percent of total territory, that’s the largest resource base in the federation, spread out over nine regions, and encompassing the largest Special Economic Zone (SEZ) on the planet, linked to the free port of Vladivostok. The Arctic is being developed via several strategically important projects processing mineral, energy, water and biological natural resources.

So it’s perfectly fitting that Austria’s former foreign minister Karin Kneissel, self-described as “a passionate historian,” quipped about her fascination at how Russia and its Asian partners are tackling the development of the Northern Sea Route: “One of my favorite expressions is that airlines and pipelines are moving east. And I keep saying this for twenty years.”

Amidst a wealth of roundtables exploring everything from the power of territory, supply chains and global education to “the three whales” (science, nature, human), arguably the top discussion this Tuesday at the forum was centered on the role of the SCO.

Apart from the current full members – Russia, China, India, Pakistan, four Central Asians (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan), plus the recent accession of Iran – no less than 11 further nations want to join, from observer Afghanistan to dialogue partner Turkey.

Grigory Logvinov, the SCO’s deputy secretary general, stressed how the economic, political and scientific potential of players comprising “the center of gravity” for Asia – over a quarter of the world’s GDP, 50 percent of the world’s population – has not been fully harvested yet.

Kirill Barsky, from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, explained how the SCO is actually the model of multipolarity, according to its charter, compared to the backdrop of “destructive processes” launched by the west.

And that leads to the economic agenda in the Eurasian integration progress, with the Russian-led Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) configured as the SCO’s most important partner.

Barsky identifies the SCO as “the core Eurasian structure, forming the agenda of Greater Eurasia within a network of partnership organizations.” That’s where the importance of the cooperation with ASEAN comes in.

Barsky could not but evoke Mackinder, Spykman and Brzezinski – who regarded Eurasia “as an object to be acted upon the wishes of western states, confined within the continent, away from the ocean shores, so the western world could dominate in a global confrontation of land and sea. The SCO as it developed can triumph over these negative concepts.”

And here we hit a notion widely shared from Tehran to Vladivostok:

Eurasia no longer as “an object of colonization by ‘civilized Europe’ but again an agent of global policy.”

‘India wants a 21st Asian century’

Sun Zuangnzhi from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) elaborated on China’s interest in the SCO. He focused on achievements: In the 21 years since its founding, a mechanism to establish security between China, Russia and Central Asian states evolved into “multi-tiered, multi-sector cooperation mechanisms.”

Instead of “turning into a political instrument,” the SCO should capitalize on its role of dialogue forum for states with a difficult history of conflicts – “interactions are sometimes difficult” – and focus on economic cooperation “on health, energy, food security, reduction of poverty.”

Rashid Alimov, a former SCO secretary general, now a professor at the Taihe Institute, stressed the “high expectations” from Central Asian nations, the core of the organization. The original idea remains – based on the indivisibility of security on a trans-regional level in Eurasia.

Well, we all know how the US and NATO reacted when Russia late last year proposed a serious dialogue on “indivisibility of security.”

As Central Asia does not have an outlet to the sea, it is inevitable, as Alimov stressed, that Uzbekistan’s foreign policy privileges involvement in accelerated intra-SCO trade. Russia and China may be the leading investors, and now “Iran also plays an important role. Over 1,200 Iranian companies are working in Central Asia.”

Connectivity, once again, must increase: “The World Bank rates Central Asia as one of the least connected economies in the world.”

Sergey Storchak of Russian bank VEB explained the workings of the “SCO interbank consortium.” Partners have used “a credit line from the Bank of China” and want to sign a deal with Uzbekistan. The SCO interbank consortium will be led by the Indians on a rotation basis – and they want to step up its game. At the upcoming summit in Samarkand, Storchak expects a road map for the transition towards the use of national currencies in regional trade.

Kumar Rajan from the School of International Studies of the Jawaharlal Nehru University articulated the Indian position. He went straight to the point: “India wants a 21st Asian century. Close cooperation between India and China is necessary. They can make the Asian century happen.”

Rajan remarked how India does not see the SCO as an alliance, but committed to the development and political stability of Eurasia.

He made the crucial point about connectivity revolving around India “working with Russia and Central Asia with the INSTC” – the International North South Transportation Corridor, and one of its key hubs, the Chabahar port in Iran: “India does not have direct physical connectivity with Central Asia. The INSTC has the participation of an Iranian shipping line with 300 vessels, connecting to Mumbai. President Putin, in the [recent] Caspian meeting, referred directly to the INSTC.”

Crucially, India not only supports the Russian concept of Greater Eurasia Partnership but is engaged in setting up a free trade agreement with the EAEU: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, incidentally, came to the Vladivostok forum last year.

In all of the above nuanced interventions, some themes are constant. After the Afghanistan disaster and the end of the US occupation there, the stabilizing role of the SCO cannot be overstated enough. An ambitious road map for cooperation is a must – probably to be approved at the Samarkand summit. All players will be gradually changing to trade in bilateral currencies. And creation of transit corridors is leading to the progressive integration of national transit systems.

Let there be light

A key roundtable on the ‘Gateway to a Multipolar World’ expanded on the SCO role, outlining how most Asian nations are “friendly” or “benevolently neutral” when it comes to Russia after the start of the Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine.

So the possibilities for expanding cooperation across Eurasia remain practically unlimited. Complementarity of economies is the main factor. That would lead, among other developments, to the Russian Far East, as a multipolar hub, turning into “Russia’s gateway to Asia” by the 2030s.

Wang Wen from the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies stressed the need for Russia to rediscover China – finding “mutual trust in the middle level and elites level”. At the same time, there’s a sort of global rush to join BRICS, from Saudi Arabia and Iran to Afghanistan and Argentina:

“That means a new civilization model for emerging economies like China and Argentina because they want to rise up peacefully (…) I think we are in the new civilization age.”

B. K. Sharma from the United Service Institution of India got back to Spykman pigeonholing the nation as a rimland state. Not anymore: India now has multiple strategies, from connecting to Central Asia to the ‘Act East’ policy. Overall, it’s an outreach to Eurasia, as India “is not competitive and needs to diversify to get better access to Eurasia, with logistical help from Russia.“

Sharma stresses how India takes SCO, BRICS and RICs very seriously while seeing Russia playing “an important role in the Indian Ocean.” He nuances the Indo-Pacific outlook: India does not want Quad as a military alliance, privileging instead “interdependence and complementarity between India, Russia and China.”

All of these discussions interconnect with the two overarching themes in several Vladivostok roundtables: energy and the development of the Arctic’s natural resources.

Pavel Sorokin, Russian First Deputy Minister of Energy, dismissed the notion of a storm or typhoon in the energy markets: “It’s a far cry from a natural process. It’s a man-made situation.” The Russian economy, in contrast, is seen by most analysts as slowly but surely designing its Arctic/Asian cooperation future – including, for instance, the creation of a sophisticated trans-shipment infrastructure for Liquified Natural Gas (LNG).

Energy Minister Nikolay Shulginov made sure that Russia will actually increase its gas production, considering the rise of LNG deliveries and the construction of Power of Siberia-2 to China: “We will not merely scale up the pipeline capacity but we will also expand LNG production: it has mobility and excellent purchases on the global market.”

On the Northern Sea Route, the emphasis is on building a powerful, modern icebreaker fleet – including nuclear. Gadzhimagomed Guseynov, First Deputy Minister for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic, is adamant: “What Russia has to do is to make the Northern Sea Route a sustainable and important transit route.”

There is a long-term plan up to 2035 to create infrastructure for safe shipping navigation, following an ‘Arctic best practices’ of learning step by step. NOVATEK, according to its deputy chairman Evgeniy Ambrosov, has been conducting no less than a revolution in terms of Arctic navigation and shipbuilding in the last few years.

Kniessel, the former Austrian minister, recalled that she always missed the larger geopolitical picture in her discussions when she was active in European politics (she now lives in Lebanon): “I wrote about the passing of the torch from Atlanticism to the Pacific. Airlines, pipelines and waterways are moving East. The Far East is actually Pacific Russia.”

Whatever Atlanticists may think of it, the last word for the moment might belong to Vitaly Markelov, from the board of directors of Gazprom: Russia is ready for winter. There will be warmth and light everywhere.”

I’m seeing way too many answers saying that there are very few fat girls in China – when nothing could be farther from the truth.

Here’s a fat Chinese girl… they are everywhere in China.

There’s an important disclaimer to be made though – fat in China doesn’t mean the same thing that “fat: does in the US.

American “fat” girl…

Seeing someone that would qualify as morbidly obese is incredibly rare in China – I would be hard-pressed to recall the last time it happened to me. That being said, there’s morbidly obese, and then there’s overweight. And being overweight is becoming a problem in China.

• American “fat” = Morbidly obese
• Chinese “fat” = Overweight. Big boobies. A few extra pounds / Kilos.

A decade ago, sure, there were very few overweight people. But today, especially among the younger generations, you are seeing a giant boom in fat Chinese girls.

Recent articles in Forbes and The Guardian point out that obesity in China is actually HIGHER than in the US.

I think those statistics should be taken with a grain of salt (especially since they might not look at variance – see my morbidly obese point above), but they are indicative of a trend. China is getting fat.

This picture is taken from a fat camp. You read that right. It’s a summer camp where parents send their kids so they lose weight.

In my opinion, this is primarily due to three reasons:

• Fast Food Culture: Yup, blame the West on this one. But China was quick to pick up on the trend with its own domestic brands like Yonghe Wang. People are getting busier, have more income, and yes, prefer not to waste time on cooking. Enter fastfood.
• Few hobbies.  You know what’s strange in China? I’ll write a whole post about this at some point, but there is an incredible absence of hobbies. Usually it’s zero hobbies, or ONE hobby that they’re REALLY into. This is changing a bit with the post-90s generation, but even then, the hobbies tend to be more lifestylish (learning how to make cakes) rather than sporty. And the reason for that is China’s national exam, the Gaokao, which basically has kids being pushed all the way til they’re 18 to study as HARD as they can to get into a good uni. Evenings? Extra tutoring. Weekends? Extra tutoring. Want a break? Here, watch TV or play a video game on the iPad. There’s no time for sports (especially since athletes are actually kinda looked down upon – with a few exceptions, back off Yao Ming fans – but you wouldn’t tell your father in law you enjoy playing football).
• Grandparents: So you know that old joke about grandma force-feeding you stuff? Well it’s the same in China, with two big differences. The first is that these grandparents are starting to have only one grandkid – so there’s extra attention paid there. There’s also the fact that the grandparents taking care of the kid while the parents work is pretty much mainstream here, and you have a perfect storm – there’s no way that kid is not getting fat.

Alright, with that out of the way, let’s tackle the question: are fat girls discriminated against in China?

The short answer is yes.

China is HIGHLY obsessed with beauty. There’s a reason why major cosmetics brands (and I invite Megan Cox to help fill in some details if I miss anything here) group countries by regions – except China. Perfect white skin, perfect hair. There’s an obsession with the damage pollution is having on your skin. There’s a craziness over the single/double eyelid debate (double is better apparently).

More importantly, your beauty is a VERY important social status symbol. If you have poor skin and poor teeth well, it’s probably because you can’t afford the good stuff.

So just with that, you can imagine that fat girls are already facing an uphill struggle.

If they want to work consumer facing jobs, it’s even more difficult. The anti-discrimination rules have a lot of leeway in them when it comes to enforcement, and it’s a rare day when your waitress at the restaurant, or the shop keeper in the nice branded store, is overweight. Desk jobs are easier – but not always as a lot of the senior managers doing the hiring are still male, and may prefer a nice-to-look-at employee…

A really interesting additional point is that fat boys don’t have the same stigma attached. Fat girls will be poked in the belly by grannies and told to lose weight. Fat boys will get an extra serving (you’re too skinny!). Success for a girl is highly dependent on looks, success for a guy is far more on earnings.

Soul Train Line Dance to Earth Wind & Fire’s – Mighty Mighty

When people knew how to dance.

UK Couple’s Home Renovation Leads to Rare Coin Hoard Worth $280,000

“Joseph and Sarah clearly distrusted the newly-formed Bank of England, the 'banknote' and even the gold coinage of their day because they (chose) to hold onto so many coins dating to the English Civil War  and beforehand. Why they never recovered the coins when they were really easy to find just beneath original 18th century floorboards is an even bigger mystery, but it is one hell of a piggy bank,” CNN quotes Edmund as saying.

The Case for a New American Civil War

by Dmitri Orlov for the Saker blog

Will the USA hold together through 2024? Earlier this year Covid-related complications took the life of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the bombastic perennial leader of Russia’s Liberal Democratic Party. He was known not just for his inimitable oratory but also for the uncanny accuracy of his predictions. For example, he predicted the start of Russia’s Special Military Operation in the Ukraine almost to the day—months before the fact and at a time when nobody else had much of a clue as to what would happen. Another prediction of his reads as follows: “There won’t be a US presidential election in 2024 because there will no longer be a United States.”

Will he turn out to be prescient on this count too?

Let’s watch!

Zhirinovsky is by no means alone with making such a prediction. Recent opinion polls show over 40% of Americans expressing apprehensions that a new civil war is likely to break out over the next decade or so. Perish the thought that the good people surveyed had performed an independent analysis, based on which they were able to compute the probability of a civil war! By now, the vast majority of the people in the US have been conditioned to perceive reality as a mosaic composed of short news clips, sound bites, scenes no longer than can fit between two television commercials and miniature narratives that present this or that imaginary object in a positive or a negative light. They think that a civil war is likely because that’s what they have been told through mass media or the invisibly yet relentlessly chaperoned social media.

The oligarchy, which controls all of the above, is toying with two alternative business plans.

Plan A, which is more profitable and less risky, doesn’t feature a civil war while Plan B, risky though still profitable, does.

In either case, the profits accrue from confiscating wealth from the population; with Plan A, less of that wealth gets blown up, hence more profit. But Plan A requires securing complete obedience and docility from an increasingly distressed and restive population.

Paraphrasing Klaus Schwab, they have to put up with having nothing and pretend to be happy (as a condition for being allowed to stay indoors and fed).

To keep the US population at bay, the oligarchy must keep it supplied with vast quantities of junk food, liquor, drugs and pornography. And in spite of all the propaganda urging people to sort themselves into a rainbow of genders, most of them sterile, some women may still manage to get pregnant, refuse to have an abortion and actually give birth to children, preventing the population from shrinking as fast as the dwindling resource base. “Listen, women are getting pregnant every day in America, and this is a real issue,” quoth VP Kamala Harris. In spite of the politically incorrect term “women”—wombed men, that is—her message is crystal clear: her fellow-Americans should be spayed and neutered like the proper domestic animals she thinks they are. Your pets aren’t sterilized, don’t you now; they are transgender! Doesn’t that sound much more fashionable?

But what if the junk food, liquor, drug and pornography pipelines run dry up faster than the population can be whittled away using LGBT propaganda and free and plentiful abortions? Then it would be time for Plan B, where Americans get to shoot at each other using all of the small arms in their possession. A combination of Plans A and B is also theoretically possible, where the blue, democrat states are kept placated and pacified, and in fear of the red, republican states, where civil war rages and corpses litter the roadsides while, in turn, the red state denizens are kept deathly afraid of wandering into blue territory for fear of having their children castrated and their sacred guns confiscated. But such a precarious balance may be hard to strike and a far more likely scenario is one of stable disorder, where the oligarchy pools its most valuable human resources into a few well-defended enclaves while allowing the rest of the populace to succumb to internecine strife.

But neither Plan A, nor Plan B can address a major looming problem: how to discharge (cancel, that is, rather than fulfill) the responsibilities of the US federal government. The major ones are Social Security, SSI, Medicare and defense. Roughly half of US households receives significant financial help from the federal government while defense is the largest welfare program the world has ever witnessed. The US federal debt is already astronomic and amounts to roughly half of the world’s GDP. If it were a physical object, it would be plainly visible from outer space with the naked eye. It is still growing by leaps and bounds, with the 2022 budget deficit forecast to exceed $1 trillion, down from around $2 trillion the previous two years, but still a staggering amount.

How long this financial farce can continue is anyone’s guess, but with all the major creditor nations now in a race to sell off their US debt holdings, the writing is plainly on the wall. How to shed the twin burdens of foreign creditors and domestic dependents? Here, having a civil war that sacks Washington, DC and disbands the federal government would be most efficacious. Whatever local political structures remain would repudiate the federal debt as onerous and utterly preposterous and refuse to take over federal defense spending and social support programs; problem solved!

Joe Biden seems to be thinking along these lines already. In a recent speech in Philadelphia, he said: “For those brave right-wing Americans… if you want to fight against the country, you need an F-15. You need something little more than a gun.” Does he, with his son Hunter, have some F-15s they would like to sell to those brave right-wing Americans? Note that he mentioned F-15s, not F-35s: he’d like to furnish ancient yet effective, combat-ready aircraft for performing bombing runs against the US capital, not gold-plated, bug-riddled, never-quite-ready-for-combat boondoggles like the F-35. But before Washington, DC is ready to be struck from the political map, some major looting has to take place, via a major bout of political corruption.

The Ukraine, which has been Joe and Hunter Biden’s personal playground for years now, has been used as the main money-laundering hub. Of the over $10 billion the Biden administration has spent on the Ukraine so far, very little has actually made it to the Ukraine; the rest was used to line some pocket or some political campaign coffer or other right in the US. Of the weapons that did make it to the Ukraine, at least a third was sold on the international black market by the Kiev junta.

Even the weapons that did make it to the frontlines are being briskly traded away by foreign mercenaries and shipped off to parts unknown. The bits of it that do filter through to the troops get blown up or taken as trophies by the relentlessly (though very slowly and carefully) advancing Russians. Over the course of the Special Operation, the Russians have amassed quite a treasure trove of hugely expensive yet rather ineffectual, overcomplicated and quite fragile weapons systems that cannot be maintained in the field and were abandoned by retreating Ukrainians.

Another major bit of extra income has come from the sale of a major portion of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China and other foreign nations: 300 million of the 700 million barrels have now been sold and the SPR now stands at its lowest level in 40 years. This is an interesting result, given that the shale oil bonanza peaked in 2019 and, with the drilling now concentrated in a single patch of the Permian Basin, and that, given very high depletion rates, it is set to be reduced to a trickle in as little as 2 or 3 years. Although fact checkers from fake news media outlets have cried foul, entities associated with Hunter Biden are said to have been involved.

Of course, we’ll never find out the full details because Hunter Biden is magic, having been placed far above the law: if he gets away with pedophilia, drug dealing, transporting hookers against state lines and other such crimes, then what’s a little (or a lot of) white-collar crime between fellow-crooks? Not to be outdone by his son, Biden-père and the rest of the democrat establishment appear poised to steal the midterm congressional elections in the most obvious and blatant way possible, making it impossible to continue to claim that the US is still any sort of democracy at all. Once the message that democracy is dead and that Washington is a den of thieves has been drummed into everyone’s heads, the path will be cleared for the opening salvos of Plan B.

But what if those “brave, right-wing Americans” on whom Biden seems to pin his hopes don’t come through and Plan B peters out with a whimper rather than go off with a bang? What if they just sit around in bars blubbering into their beers, then go home and polish their guns? Well, don’t expect the Russians or the Chinese to help! They could put the US out of its misery—but they won’t. The Russians are all stocked up on sunflower seeds (their choice over popcorn); likewise, the Chinese have stacked away plenty of rice chips. They will sit back and watch this pan-Eurasian celebration of Schadenfreude, not lifting a finger to help.

Peng Liyuan is the wife to the most powerful man in China.

“Before Xi came to prominence he was only known as the husband of Peng Liyuan”.

Ms. Peng was way way more famous, popular, and a famous celebrity on stage and TV for hundreds of millions, way before China even knew her husband.

Super talented soprano, she is well liked for her soaring renditions, which she has been performing for citizens and troops since she was 18 years old.

She is definitely very smart as well. Books are written about her.

Rare indeed for a first lady who looks like a model but is ranked as a major-general. Even with DVDs.

She knows her most important duties to Mr Xi and to China. (Charity, AIDS program; Earthquake, Rural Education, Ambassador for anti-tobacco; Ambassador – tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS for the World Health Organization, etc).

Does she have an expensive materialistic taste?

I really doubt it, she is too smart and sensible for that. Mr Xi, too, is too smart and principled for that.

All Chinese would be very proud to see her shine in her nicest clothes. She represents the high elegance of the modern Chinese woman and is a great ambassador for China wherever she goes.

Copies of her overcoat, handbag, scarf and shoes appeared almost immediately in online stores.

The “Chinese First Lady” chooses to wear Chinese brands rather than draping herself in foreign luxury labels. This wins her wide praise. Yet, her sharp sense of style won her a place on Vanity Fair’s international best dressed list in 2013 (her friend Michelle Obama just missed the list).

See, she is smart.

I think she is about the best companion Mr Xi Jinping could ever have. “He is one lucky man – “..decided within 40 mins that she will be his wife”. Peng shared that she deliberately wore ugly army trousers just to test his character”. I guessed she wore no luxury things either.

And they always look so cool and smart together.

EDIT:

Ma Ke is the local designer often quoted as associated with Ms Peng. She has described Ms Peng’s current style as “neat, simple, elegant but with a strong presence.” She added she wasn’t concerned with presenting a “first lady” style as she is with presenting an image of a modern Chinese woman who is “independent-minded, affectionate and full of strength”.

Putin Lays Out How U.S. Caused Its Own Inflation Crisis

Spot on.

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