My Perekrestok supermarket now stocks Beyond Meat burgers.
I am half way through Richard Lynn’s new biography. Very interesting not just from as an inside view into the world of intelligence research, but as a running commentary on the changes in British society since the 1930s.
This is the current Open Thread, where anything goes – within reason.
If you are new to my work, start here.
https://twitter.com/sophgaston/status/1289221273160003587?s=20
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EeRNCLtWAAUeaFi.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EKy6BlkWkAAs6Ha.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZ33xa9XQAI0yvo.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EeFpVZaX0AEcllV.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dyefi_uX0AAnvAJ.jpg
Coronavirus news from the Onion
https://i.ibb.co/yQKqtw3/corona-onion.jpg
https://www.theonion.com/top-u-s-health-experts-hold-on-to-your-fucking-seats-1842297607
65 billion chickens killed each year – pretty cool.
Was using a new gas container today, probably based off some new safety guideline in California or something. Absolute piece of garbage. Imagine a child-proof medicine bottle, only if you had to apply about 20 pounds of force to it, and if it (full of gas) weighed 40 pounds and, of course, pouring, you had to hold it at an unnatural angle.
Might be slightly less difficult to use on a car, where you could force it against the body. But, wow, I’d almost say that they designed it to try to get people to switch to electric vehicles.
The US is such a banana republic run by despots Trump and Pompeo. I hope they do sell US Tik Tok to Microsoft so Microsoft can say there’s no data sent to China. That’ll shut up the copers who can’t stand the sight of Chinese success. In fact the willingness of ByteDance to sell the US operation and allowing Microsoft a chance to do due diligence a sign that they have nothing to hide.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/31/tech/tiktok-trump-bytedance-sale/index.html
I will meet your Onion bid and raise you one Babylon Bee:
https://babylonbee.com/news/gracious-trump-suggests-delaying-election-until-dems-can-find-a-candidate-who-can-think-clearly
In a most surprising reversal of attitudes – English people are suddenly almost all wearing medical masks indoors. They just switched into opposites, from almost nobody wth masks, to suddenly everyone wearing them.
Although English are still not so much wearing masks when walking outdoors.
Hopefully, it will be enough to stop a second wave. It shows how the English mass behaviour is almost completely subjugated to government advice, and can rapidly change if the government changes its advice.
(Perhaps, the population in Great Britain has one of the greatest conformism to government views, anywhere in the world. By comparison to people in England, on average people in Russia, are a bit more comparatively non-conformist and independent minds.)
Even if most transmission is indoors, I feel Japanese are cleverer doing this, if for nothing else, -stops people needing to touch their face before entering/exiting shops and bars.
Alternate history question for you: If there’s no WWII (due to no Hitler rise to power in Germany in 1933) and thus western Ukraine remains part of Poland up to the present-day, and if the USSR still eventually collapses, does Ukraine (as in, without western Ukraine, which remains part of Poland in this scenario) eventually join the Eurasian Economic Union or something like it? Or would even a Ukraine that would continue to be ruled by the Party of Regions or some similar political party still want to join the European Union if it could or at least to become much closer to the European Union?
Special Report :
The Myth of the 214 IQ :
Since Ron Unz wrote the famous ‘The Myth of Hispanic Crime’ article series, it is time to tackle another myth. It is funny that Ron Unz has the sheer chutzpah to write into his own Wikipedia article that he has an IQ of 214. I never got more uproarious laughter online then when I linked to Ron Unz’s Wikipedia article on a mainstream Republican blog (Instapundit) where others could see that he wrote this claim into it.
The reality is, his IQ is 124, and he once made a typo that came out as ‘214’. RUnzie Baby liked the typo, and decided to propagate the myth. In reality, the highest verifiably tested IQs all top out in the 190-195 range. I guarantee that no one with a verified IQ above 160 thinks RUnzie Baby’s IQ is 214. They will shoot that pretense down with ‘Kung Fu fightin’, fast as lightnin” speed.
Even the fictitious Sheldon Cooper has an IQ of just 187. People of that IQ tend to finish their Bachelor’s Degrees by 17 and their doctorates by 20. RUnzie Baby entered Harvard at 18, and dropped out of the Physics program in his 20s, when a person of an unheard of IQ of 214 ought to have completed his PhD long before the age that RUnzie Baby dropped out.
Plus, a number other decisions are of questionable smarts. For example, if someone runs as a Republican in CA, even back in 1998, that is already a disadvantageous party to run under the banner of in CA. But on top of that, to take far-left positions as a Republican is even more unwise. But it gets worse :
RUnzie Baby campaigned on a high minimum wage (a far-left position) and simultaneously pushes for illegal immigration to not be curbed. Any fool can see that to the extent that a high minimum wage ($12/hr in 1998) can even work at all, you cannot possibly have a large number of illegals willing to work at the market wage, thus moving most labor into a black market that only illegals can partake in. Hence, this combination of polices, if it were to be enacted, is just about the worst obliteration of working-class US citizens one could devise. Hence, the intelligence on display here is questionable.
But, his IQ is 124. That is high, but unspectacular.
Now, the funny part that you all have been waiting for :
An IQ of 124 can fit into a cranial volume of this size :
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a06ec1776fe47bd8bb0b610f83748ddcbd9799cb3df4f2a9e0a5aa8a9a7cdc72.jpg
A superhuman IQ of 214, however, which is well above any known world record, requires a more powerful hardware system. That hardware takes up more volume, and also generates a lot of heat.
Hence, when RUnzie Baby imagines that his IQ is 214, he imagines that he looks like this :
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d6b5cfe0fc6d104c6636614d97e075b7e6375ec65a7aaddb969316e6c815465e.jpg?w=800&h=529
Note the higher temperature being generated by the augmented hardware. The normal human brain consumes 100 Watts, but if your IQ is to be 214, the amount of power consumed also has to double. Let’s call it corresponding 214 Watts.
Heh heh heh heh
I do not understand the hysteria re: China. The biggest strength of the US has always been its network of alliances. China’s diplomacy in Asia has not been subtle, but hamfisted and crude. Trump’s ineptitude will end sooner or later.
Once you get a liberal imperialist regime back in the seat, the US will get to work repairing frictions and restoring their alliance network, with possibly some new entrants (India). The combined GDP of this group far outpaces that of China and always will.
Furthermore, the Cold War 2.0 rhetoric is misleading because China is not an ideological opponent in the same way that the FSU was. Branko Milanovic distinguishes between ‘liberal capitalism’ and ‘political capitalism’. The latter is what China has, which gives primacy to the political sector. One could argue that Korea, Taiwan et al had the same system when they grew at their fastest until they changed under pressure from the US.
As I have long pointed out, China’s total debt to GDP is now already exceeding that of the US in the latest data we have. This may even out due to the Coronavirus, but the point is that China is already hugely saddled with debt despite having 1/6th the income per head of America. When you’re that indebted, your growth model doesn’t really work. Michael Pettis and Matthew Klein’s new book spells out the reasons why. Brad Setser has also written extensively about the severe imbalances in China. Former Chinese PMs spoke about this as early as 2007, but China didn’t reform. A testament to how politically difficult it is, even for a strongman like Xi. And that is assuming he even buys the thesis, which is far from clear.
My base case has been, and will continue to be, that China will at worst stabilise at the US’s total GDP level and at best go 50% above it. In per capita terms it will not catch up because it won’t be able to attract the best world talent, both due to much lower wages overall and also due to a far less culturally open/attractive/influential society. Its internal talent pool is significant, but that won’t help if its economic model is deeply flawed.
Ultimately, I don’t see how China can counter the US’ network of alliances. Russia is a minnow compared to what the US can marshall. This century may not be as dominated by the US as the last one, but China won’t be nearly as influential/powerful as people assume. I am bearish on India. Hindu Brazil with less crime and better food/culture is my prescription for it.
I never stop being amused by rightoids who think that the left is somehow getting what it wants.
https://twitter.com/wideofthepost/status/1287938340306726912
Even more amusing is the assertion that the DNC is the left.
What’s the gopnik consensus on the Belarus protests: Color revolution, genuine uprising? Basically, who is GayOpping who. Will putlet intervene? They look pretty sizable:
https://i.imgur.com/5A50qlS.png
I don’t see leftists burning down American neighbourhoods and attacking police over marijuana prohibition or a lack of state provided health care.
I instead see them doing that because they want all conversation to be about blackness, to receive attention and to paint their opposition as racist meanies.
They therefore have gotten exactly what they want.
With the bad news all around us, it’s easy to forget that the world is
not completely devoid of beauty. I’m not up on all that’s going on in
the world of the social media but one new phenomenon is that of an influencer
on Instagram. Poland has no shortage of beautiful women, and they
all seem to have their own channels on Instagram with millions of
followers where they make oodles of money as brand ambassadors.
For example, check out Veronica Bielik whose hour-glass figure is
something you hardly ever see in the U.S. Hollywood prefers women
who look like “12-year-old boys with tits.” She has millions of admirers,
and based on the comments they seem to be mostly in W. Europe and
N. America. Influencers like Veronica Bielik seem to circulate between
Warsaw and Miami Beach, or Warsaw and Ibiza. Veronica is an
ambassador for energy drinks which seem far more more popular
in Europe than in the U.S. But then what do I know? I don’t drink
that stuff. The Krupa sisters from Poland have been a big hit on American
TV (Housewives of …), and Polish TV as well.
Poland now has a ton of celebrities whose tortured lives are avidly followed
by housewives, and I suspect, gay men. Ever since the Voice Kids song contests
began 3 years ago in Poland, there is a new crop of celebrities in the form
of 12-13 year-old kids (typically girls) who may have more than a million
followers on IG, and who already go on concert tours around Poland.
Two examples: Roxie Węgiel and Viki Gabor who won two consecutive
Junior Eurovision song contests, and now represent major brands
like Puma. It now seems like every little girl in Poland is taking
singing lessons, and has her own channel on YouTube where she
posts covers of famous songs, typically in English. Poland also has
a lot of rappers (in Polish), like Taco Hemingway or Mata, who can
effortlessly get 200-300 million views for their songs. Considering
that YouTube pays roughly $1 per 1000 views (although they have
complex algorithms for that), this can run into serious money.
Poland attracts tons of students from Iberia under the Erasmus
program who come looking for blondes. This occasionally results
in marriages, and the results are showing up on Voice Kids.
For example, two recent contestants had names like Gabi Coutinho
or Fernandes, 13-14 year-old girls who speak both Polish and
Portuguese/Spanish with no accent. Poland, because of its Catholicism,
is in many ways a Latin culture, so those are marriages made in
heaven.
With no WW2 and subsequent threat from the USSR to drive reconciliation and integration there would be no EU or its various precursor organizations and no EEU either.
Since (Hitler or no Hitler) the only highly credible no WW2 scenario involves no USSR and atleast a partial reversal of German Unification at Versailles we are also looking at a Russian dominated Eurasia by the 21st century.
In such a scenario,the Russian Empire would today have a GDP per capita of at least $30,000 and a population around 500 million.
With such facts on the ground, it is likely that all Slavic countries would voluntarily enter into close strategic partnerships with Russia in the same way that all Anglo countries have close strategic relationships with the US.
Paranoia About Russia in the US
Re: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/us/politics/russia-disinformation-coronavirus.html
Related:
https://www.yonkerstribune.com/2020/07/averko-in-the-new-york-times-by-michael-averko
&
https://markcrispinmiller.com/2020/07/a-visit-from-the-fbi/
Also related, is this pathetic Twitter account, which over the past week, uncritically references Louise Mensch and Molly McKew with gross inaccuracies:
https://twitter.com/EvelynNFarkas?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
A sign of a society about to become comprehensively Pozzed.
‘I don’t see leftists burning down American neighbourhoods and attacking police over marijuana prohibition or a lack of state provided health care.
I instead see them doing that because they want all conversation to be about blackness, to receive attention and to paint their opposition as racist meanies.
They therefore have gotten exactly what they want.’
It’s pretty clear to me the ‘leftists’ got cabin fever from the Virus shutdown; they needed to get out there and party.
People always need to rationalize their behavior, though. Hence the professed concern about ‘racism.’
It was really almost random. Could have been ‘about’ anything.
‘… Since (Hitler or no Hitler) the only highly credible no WW2 scenario involves no USSR and atleast a partial reversal of German Unification at Versailles…’
What’s wrong with a German victory in World War One as a plausible no-World War Two scenario?
In a roundabout way, Karlin might prove to be right:
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/496807-cognitive-decline-biden-brezhnev/
Still have to see who Biden’s VP nominee is and what the eventual vote will tally. Plenty of time still left. To date, not buying that Trump is definitely done.
Nothing wrong but then neither is no German Unification in 1871.
I was trying to think of a credible alternate history scenario in which there is no WW 2 or a similar conflict while keeping changes to major historical events as they have already occurred to a bare minimum.
Arguably, Russia might’ve perhaps (at least for time time being) been better off and smaller. On the latter observation of being smaller, at least for the time being.
Ignorant people, who are so lost in a veil of confusion, that every time they hit themselves in the face they can convince themselves that someone else is responsible, may appear “random”, but that is only because you, and they, are only aware of the long chain of rationalisation that they say brought them there.
“Blackness” and “whiteness” are personas which, while correlative with real life generalised ethnic differences, are non-random stand-ins for their ongoing war within themselves.
When someone states that they are oppressed by either concept, it is usually a moment of clarity. One unfortunately that they then mistake for something external to them. Instead, part of them is using that reified concept (blackness or whiteness) to oppress and exclude another part of themselves; rendering them alienated in the purest sense.
The source of this confusion is the ego, with which I am totally fed up. Listening to people torture themselves, while they scream insipid or loopy rationalisations, to justify them going out of their way to hurt others, in an attempt to relieve their own pain is completely infuriating.
There’s nothing to be done about it, because it is all ridiculously meaningless anyway, so ultimately it is my problem for taking it as anything important. Thus my absolutely valid anger is also misdirected. It should instead be turned on the lying voice in my head that says that I should care, to be a good guy, to be important or whatever. I am those things regardless, so what does it actually matter to me?
Nonetheless, it isn’t random. It is perfectly clear and explicable, if you can just bear to look.
These people are the alpha and omega of their own suffering, and any deviation from that message is lying to them, enabling them and doing them a great disservice.
Your link says he served “proudly and with distinction”.
Watch this video–and get ready to laugh at the 1988 Biden–not proud, and no distinction:
Poland now has a ton of celebrities whose tortured lives are avidly followed
by housewives, and I suspect, gay men.
Poland is starting to look like the most pozzed eastern – oh sorry, central – European country. Bringing in thousands of American soldiers, many of them rapists who lust for white women, is obvious next step.
I grew up in Britain in the 1980s. If you have to seek inspiration from Neil Kinnock, that is pretty desperate.
He lost the election and then stuck his snout into the trough in Brussels.
Well, this scenario was almost for real: if Russia didn’t support Serbia after Austo-Hungarian monarchy ultimatum, Entante will colapse, Germany will defeat Freance and force France and later Russia to be junior partner in german-dominated ‘union’. Probably majority of slavs will be driven out east to Asia and south to Africa. Germany had a few colonies in Africa, fate of native population was similar to USA natives.
This was discussed on another post. For Russia, the ideal situaton would have been to have stayed in the war until the end and therefore to have had a table at Versailles. Barring that, German victory would have been the next best option. Assuming the Germans would not have tolerated Bolshevism long-term on theior border, it would have meant loss of what Russia does not have anymore anyways (the Baltics, Ukraine, the Caucasan Republics) but about 60-80 million additional Russians today plus none of the terrible cultural and political destruction that the Bolsheviks inflicted upon Russia due to the likely rule of some German-friendly reactonary White regime. The “cost” of not having been a second-place superpower for 40 years would have been worth it.
If the Bolsheviks were to stay in power, there would likely would at least have been some Cossack Republic, a Russian Taiwan, spared Bolshevik rule. Plus no genocidal World War II, so still millions more Russians in the world.
In this case, no World War I. Germany keeps getting stronger and stronger relative to France and UK, Russia keeps getting stronger at an even faster rate. So year by year Russia’s position improves. Perhaps in a few decades Germany will reach an accommodation with it, and together these two conservative Continental powers rather than Anglos will set the global tone. Or, worst case scenario, in a few decades, the world would unite against the Russian juggernaut in order to try to contain it. But this wouldn’t be worse than our timeline (World War II) anyways.
Global dominance by Europeans continues. Further Europeanization of Indochina and Arab lands. Much of Southern Africa such as sparsely populated Namibia might become like Australia or North America. German East Africa might become a relatively civilized and comfortable place like Bermuda.
You still have an 82 iq Street Shitter.
The US wealth is predicated on dollar hegemony.
Once there are cracks in the system and capital starts to flow elsewhere, even slightly, the whole system starts to tumble for the west since even slight interest rate increases threaten the western wealth bubble.
‘Well, this scenario was almost for real: if Russia didn’t support Serbia after Austo-Hungarian monarchy ultimatum, Entante will colapse, Germany will defeat Freance and force France and later Russia to be junior partner in german-dominated ‘union’. Probably majority of slavs will be driven out east to Asia and south to Africa. Germany had a few colonies in Africa, fate of native population was similar to USA natives.’
There are two problems here.
First, there’s no reason to think World War One breaks out if Russia doesn’t support Serbia; there may just be a local war between Austro-Hungary and Serbia — or no war at all. Indeed, it’s been argued (The Sleepwalkers), that absent Franco-Russian encouragement, Serbia would have just given way and accepted Austro-Hungary’s ultimatum.
Second, the quasi-genocidal ‘slavs driven out’, etc. owes more to the thinking of 1941 than to that of 1914. People just didn’t seriously harbor such designs in 1914. Then too, if Russia has stayed out, why and how is Germany going to force her to do anything?
Now, of course if war doesn’t break out in 1914, that doesn’t mean it never breaks out; I tend to see the whole nationalist paradigm that obtained in that era as guaranteeing general war eventually.
However, how that war plays out is quite unknowable. Tsarist Russia may well win the war that comes in 1920, and then no Bolsheviks, etc.
In a no-WWI scenario, I suspect that an eventual German-British alliance against Russia might actually not be too unreasonable. Basically, the blocs would look like this:
-Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, Britain, Romania, Italy, possibly Japan
-Entente: France, Russia, Serbia, Montenegro
Who exactly am I forgetting to mention here?
On page 161 of Adam Tooze’s The Deluge, it states that Imperial Germany was strongly willing to seriously consider returning Ukraine to Russia after overthrowing the Bolsheviks in Russia in exchange for German economic control and economic domination of Russia as a whole:
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Deluge/HC7aCwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=restoration%20russia
Of course, the crucial question here would be just how exactly would Germany actually be able to enforce this economic control and economic domination in the long(er)-run when a Russia that controls Ukraine would have a population and economy significantly larger than that of Germany in the long(er)-run.
It sounded like Kinnock had a great “life story”–at least Biden thought so–I have no clue whether Kinnock’s “life story” was true or not. 🙂
ROTFL
EPIC FAIL, Redacted Epstein Documents Can Be Unredacted By COPYING And PASTING to Notepad
https://www.bitchute.com/video/tUQx3eAF7ms/
https://thejjreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/ccelebritiesnicole-denison-1-copy.jpg
When flight attendant Nicole Denison recently returned home to her husband and two toddlers, she found her bartender/fitness trainer husband having intercourse with another woman. Nicole flew into a rage and landed a punch to her husband‘s eye, giving him a shiner. She then smashed his guitar into a wall. Fasten your seatbelts: She was arrested and went to jail. She will suffer consequences. We live in a time when one can punch a policeman, and smash a store window, without being arrested.
If I was her husband I would brick up the kitchen window so she can’t look outside when she’s doing the dishes. Punishment enough I say.
He always wanted to be Prime Minister, even on Sunday School outings as a child. There was no barrier for a clever boy to go to university in his time. That said, the Callaghan’s always thought of him as Glenys’ boyfriend when they hosted student discussions at their house in Cardiff. She was the outstanding one at the time.
Sun Yat-Sen, Mao, Chu Deh. You also forget the Central Bankers. What about Japan?
Perhaps analogous to modern Western attempts to contain China.
Some other hypothetical review include:
WW I starting in 1916-1917 as opposed to 1914. Related –
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/03/22/reexamining-russias-past/
I did mention Japan here.
Very possible, but it’s worth noting that those attempts are hardly what one can describe as successful. After all, China is simply way too populous and way too smart for it to be successfully contained by the West. Honestly, I don’t think that the West would even be capable of preventing China from reconquering Taiwan in the mid- or late 21st century short of using nukes.
Here on the US side of the pond we have our “betters” at Yale figuring out how to convince us to take the vaccine:
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04460703?term=Vaccine&cond=Covid19&cntry=US&draw=2
How Congress Maintains Endless War – System Update with Glenn Greenwald
Debt levels don’t really matter for sufficiently automated economies that are sovereign in their currency. All money is fiat and can created as much of it as you want with a few keystrokes on a computer. This applies to EU, US, Japan, and increasingly China and Russia (Russian inflation has been running under target for quite some time now).
Talent doesn’t matter because talent will go where the customer is. All advanced economies are based on consumption of services (in US, this is something like 70-80% GDP). In US, 50% of consumption is created by the top 10% of the population, or something like 30-40 million people.
In China, even today, their consumer class is something like 300 million people. Their top 10% is 130 million consumers alone. In a couple of decades, their consumer class will have more people than US has in total. In terms of market size, this will be an order of magnitude difference.
Even more importantly, while Chinese fake their GDP data with ghost cities and bridges to nowhere, US fakes its GDP data with healthcare (18% GDP) and financial services (30% GDP). While Chinese at least learn how to build stuff, US services are completely parasitic and non value added.
US healthcare is mostly overpriced labor and administration costs, $4 trillion per year buys you a few elite facilities but the rest is underwhelming. Finance is a joke of a sector – a monkey on crystal meth could do their job. Push a random number on a screen and create whatever amount of money you want. When you get in trouble, get Federal Reserve to do the same thing for you.
Also, basing the economy on healthcare growth is morbid. Chinese bridge to nowhere is at least doing some good, even if for a few people. US economic growth literally depends on people getting cancer and going bankrupt because that makes healthcare stocks go up and finance lawyers and accountants rich. Very disturbing.
Unlike the young non-violent violent protesters (:-) ), I have no magic solution to offer for this stuff.
The fraud is worldwide, the world is too interconnected–when the leaders of all major nations are sociopaths there is no good fix–and even if it was torn down the public has gotten soft and dumbed down and most would be part of the problem rather than part of any solution.
It’s not that fake. In terms of material stuff America is noticeably (perhaps other than the bottom 10% in urban ghettos or isolated trailer parks ) wealthier than most of Western Europe and Americans have significantly more $$ to spend than do western Europeans. It is not, of course, nicer. But much of this is because of inherited historical artifacts and nature rather than material goods.
I can’t wait for 5 to 10 years from now and see how everything goes.
I never understand why indians like to talk big and do so little.
At least the Chinese have some back bone.
Why do people and countries still want to be house niggers? It is 2020. House niggers are in fashion again?
That is why PPP matters. It is why all major world organizations uses PPP.
Mayhaps you will more comments if you start posting coronavirus conspiracy articles like the others here?
So why do white people in the US have a lower life expectancy than White people do in Western Europe, maybe stuff funded by debt does not equal quality of life, or maybe social pressure to accumulate stuff in order to keep up with the others wipes years off the average people lifespan? Or maybe Americans may earn more, but work longer hours to more unhealthy workplaces and work culture translating to shorter lifespan? Or maybe compared to Western Europe, workaholic culture causes more lifestyle diseases which wipes years of life expectancies.
Jews
To get rid of a big war in Europe soon after ICE is developed, you need to go all the way back to 1389 and make the truce of Leulinghem a permanent peace.
As a bonus, you might get Burgundy from sea to sea (from Antwerp to Marseilles, that is), and possibly Czech and Hungarian Ministries of Naval Affairs for teh lulz (Hungary had access to Adriatic around 1400, and Bohemia under Luxembourgs was close to gaining access to Baltic (before Hussite wars started, that is). Also, if the crusade goes as planned, Ottomans don’t ever get Constantinople.
Hypocriberals.
They are fatter and more sedentary. More people have larger and more luxurious automobiles. In some expensive subdivisions one can see an obese family visiting another obese family, going from one huge house to another, not by walking two blocks but by using personal golf carts (this is more common down South, wealthier northerners are more into hiking and such).
Despite being fat and sedentary, American whites have a life expectancy that, while lower than that of western Europeans, is still higher than in most of Eastern Europe (Slovakia, Estonia, Croatia, etc. – among non-western Europeans, only Czechs live longer than do white Americans). This is probably due to America’s lavish healthcare system.
This is also a factor, certainly. Less vacations, longer work hours.
‘Some other hypothetical review include…’
From the point of view of a world congenial to modern sensibilities, the most attractive outcome might have been the war going more or less as it did until 1916, then peace breaking out.
At least some figures among the Central Powers were open to a negotiated settlement by that year — and I imagine Russia was as well. If Germany continues with her 1915 offensive successes in the East into 1916, and rather than staging Verdun, simply lets the French and British butt their heads against the wall in the West, then Russia could have been driven out of the war prior to the Bolshevik Revolution, Poland becomes a German satellite, and there’s a status quo ante peace in the West.
Russia becomes an unstable constitutional monarchy perhaps drifting into a socialist republic, Germany finds the Social Democrats rising inexorably to power, France is bloodied enough to finally forget about Alsace-Lorraine, Britain is confirmed in her aversion to Continental Wars, and the United States never enters the war and is insufferably smug.
…and we’re highly unlikely to get either Hitler or Stalin!
Americans can print free money to a greater extent than Western Europeans can because European Central Bank and Bank of England are subordinate to the Federal Reserve. US gets to set the policy and the quantity of money available.
Americans are richer because that $26 trillion of government debt (and 10’s of $trillions of private sector debt) become social security checks so that old people can pay rent and buy cat food, and war corporations can pay good wages to their employees etc.
Money is debt and it buys nice things. This works because US has like a dozen of aircraft carrier groups and a willingness to use them, so there are no objections. EU is a sidekick to this, so their public debt is something like $11 trillion. They are $15 trillion short (just on the government side), so they can’t buy nice things.
For that matter, if you gave Russia that free $15 trillion, life in Russia would be amazing and all poverty would disappear.
Japan is weird in this but thats because Japan is not a country but rather a money laundering center for carry traders. Japanese money is not for Japanese people, it exists so that Wall Street executives can buy supertankers of cocaine.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/10/business/jpmorgan-msc-gayane-cocaine-seizure/index.html
They work longer hours which results in unhealthy eating habits and sedentary culture?
What could be helpful is a brief guide on how to invest (as a foreigner) in the Russian equity market.
I’m tempted to buy a few shares of SBRCY; but are there any good funds with a low expense ratio, or a portfolio of select equities that you could suggest?
That would have been great.
Liberalism is a negative identity, it has no ontological foundation except the crass contrarian take of NAXALT (not all things are X).
Will enforce this by preventing group or ID formation,
Liberalism is just a big power vacuum||
https://twitter.com/mr_scientism/status/1139272398497374209?s=20
Well now antia learns about horses and it is a bit of an eye opener for them
America is not the country people think it is.
This stuff is not going to get as far as some think.
Obesity correlates with poverty in America, does it not? These obese people zooming about in gold carts in wealthy neighborhoods aren’t really the wealthy ones – I’ll concede that maybe in some part of Middle America they are, but Middle America has represented a smaller and smaller slice of America as a whole ever since 1965. The wealthy class are the Silicon Valley technocrats drinking the green smoothies and doing trendy exercise regimens, and they certainly are as trim as their cousins on the Continent.
It does, but I saw this in a Texas suburb in 2014 where houses cost about $800,000 at the time (similar houses in the Northeast would be around $2 million, I’d guess double that in the Silicon Valley area), they are probably more expensive now. A friend had moved to that area and I joined him as he was shopping for a house. It was rather amazing. I took a picture. The kids weren’t too big:
https://i.imgur.com/PqkZ56o.jpg
Correct, wealthy people are thin in the Northeast also.
Are you willing to commit to a more definite prediction? What do you predict will be the GDP of China, the US, and India in 2040?
Yes what is wrong with a superpower holding genocidal racism as an ethos?
“pounded in the butt by my own butt”
To be frank if you want to talk about silofication and bubbles among liberals, does it not happen here also in this forum? I mean I notice that the people here do not interact often with the people in Steve Sailer’s and Audacious Epigones forums, although I do notice that the there are quite a few common members in those two forums.
Maybe Unz should try to do some gatekeeping here and try to lower the noise to signal ratio in this website? And for those who say that he does not do any gatekeeping whatsoever, or that do gatekeeping is necessary at all, I notice that Ron does not allow ancient astronaut and lizard people advocates to post here right? So he does do some gatekeeping right? And Greg Cochran would beg to differ about the quality of the evidence posted by the coronavirus skeptics advocates here vs. the moon landing hoax and lizard people advocates.
‘Yes what is wrong with a superpower holding genocidal racism as an ethos?’
Do you seriously think ‘a superpower holding genocidal racism as an ethos’ describes Wilhelmine Germany?
‘Correct, wealthy people are thin in the Northeast also.’
And in the Northwest. In the provincial center I live in, the women at least can be sorted into class by weight:
100-150 lb: college educated, will walk to a new SUV.
150-200 lb: average: husband has a good job.
200-400 lb: Walmart shopper.
I exaggerate a tad, of course — but the distribution is there.
I apologize for misreading your post which was about WW1, Nobel prize laureates Kipling and Bergson had denounced German nationalism as thuggish and inhuman, its no wonder part 2 of German Nationalism which has many supporters here espoused genocidal racism explicitly.
No, Poland is now a normal country. Normal countries have tons of
celebrities – actors, actresses, singers, athletes, writers, and now social media
influencers – whose lives are avidly followed by their fans. Poland has
always had a very lively culture – it’s a country of storytellers. For
example, on a per capita basis Poland has won more Nobel Prizes in
Literature than either Russia or the United States.
As an illustration, there is a new brilliant female singer in Poland.
She is 22, and her stage name is Sanah. She seemingly came out of
nowhere with a ton of songs in the genre of storytelling. She already
won several Fryderyks, major cultural awards. Because the virus
has largely bypassed Poland (it has only had 45 deaths per million
– less than one-tenth the rate in the U.S.), Sanah, like many musicians,
is touring again, attracting huge crowds of fans. Check out her
single “Melodia.”
Re: Coronavirus has largely bypassed Poland
True, except that in the last week or so there have been hundreds
of additional cases (which when they involve people under 65 are
largely harmless) for three reasons, (1) Recent presidential campaign
obviously involved throngs of people, many not wearing
a mask. The politicians in fact hardly ever wore masks, and shook
people’s hands everywhere, (2) Postponed (due to lockdown) summer
weddings, (3) Massive tourism – people were happy to get out of the
house, and attacked the Baltic Sea beaches (as well as Croatia) and
the mountains with vengeance – Zakopane, the Alpine resort in the Tatra Mountains,
was overbooked and very expensive.
I used to think that for a quick proxy to the mental health of the country, one could use a negative logarithm of its Eurovision audience. (Poland doesn’t look all that bad, by the way, at least compared to Scandinavia)
https://twitter.com/ScottMGreer/status/1289944662220967936
Just in case anyone’s curious, here are the numbers for the countries I could find recent Eurovision audience data for:
https://i.imgur.com/lVt48LP.jpg
Note TV audience data is notoriously shoddy, even more so than opinion polls.
I find it surprising how resistance to mask wearing, social distancing and lock downs has become a left wing thing. Not what I would have expected.
In the UK at least, conservative voting types seem the most in support of the rules and the most likely to be angered by those ignoring the rules.
I’m surprised how popular Eurovision seems to be in the UK considering we almost always come last and have practically zero chance of ever winning it.
Although Britain constantly coming last in a song contest is laughable considering the British music industry eclipses that of any other European country by a wide margin, it’s all political.
The British love to watch Eurovision ironically, mocking the inability of continentals to make good pop music.
I find it surprising how resistance to mask wearing, social distancing and lock downs has become a left wing thing. Not what I would have expected
Funny how it is the complete opposite of the US.
I’m pretty sure he meant the US and Soviet Union, which genocided an awful lot more civilians than the Third Reich.
In reply to #13 Thulean Friend
China’s economy is already 25% greater than the US’ in PPP terms. You have no idea about the explosion of China’s spirit in innovation and entrepreneurship in recent years, as indicated by China’s unicorns.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1096928/number-of-global-unicorns-by-country/
“The British love to watch Eurovision ironically, mocking the inability of continentals to make good pop music.”
Hilarious British take by Anthony Lane on Eurovisions:
Only Mr. God Knows Why: The meaning of the Eurovision Song Contest by By Anthony Lane
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/06/28/only-mr-god-knows-why
They’re using the cringe flag. Butthurtbelters.
High chance the US teams up with the Russkies
The whole debt crisis in China seems to be wishful thinking, if not out right projection. The government debt is 48% of GDP and there’s a guess that local government debt is that again. Generally this is compared to the national debt of western countries rather than the combined debt of local and national governments. Needless to say most of the west, and certainly japan is far worse. And China is growing faster, has higher inflation which amortises debt and largely owes the money to itself. To state banks. Fairly easy to write it off, or reduce payments. Although china is happy to let companies die too. 70M jobs were lost in public owned companies in the initial economic transformation. In any debt crisis they could forgive some loans and let unproductive companies die off
As for China needing smart workers from around the globe, there are three answers. The idea that the movement adds significantly to GDP is weak, the US is hardly booming and probably gets more skilled workers than anywhere. In fact the US boomed during its era of immigration restriction. Secondly Western workers live in compounds in Saudi to make money, China is far better, if the money is there they will come. Thirdly a country with 1.4B people with an average IQ of 105 doesn’t need to import smart people.
To slow down to only achieve 50% above the US GDP (from parity now) Chinese growth would have to converge to western levels in the next few years, the existing trend of 6.6% would see them double by 2030, and again by 2040. This year is of course different as the Chinese will merely grow 4% or so, but western countries will fall by perhaps 10%. In short we would know in a few short years if you are correct.
Don’t assume that the EU will join the anti Chinese alliance. The USSR was deep in Europe, China is not a threat. And the EU has pushed away from the US alliance (as has Russia and turkey) in the trump era and before – partly because of the unreliability of the US. In future a US President who is hostile to Europe (ie a radical anti white) is a distinct possibility. Then all bets are off.
Mommy vs Commie
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/08/how-olivia-de-havilland-and-ronald-reagan-beat-the-hollywood-communists/
This is incorrect. Solvency is not an issue with China, because they are not stupid and borrowed like drunken sailors in foreign (hard) currencies as many other EMs did, but all the debt in the system still has to be accounted for. Japan is a perfect example of this.
What’s at stake here isn’t China’s solvency, but rather its dynamism. A country which is racking more total debt/GDP than a country six times as rich per head is telling you its growth model is flawed. Growth models must change over time. What was appropriate 10-15 years ago is not necessarily going to be now, much less in the future.
My position on China is intermediate. They will reach, and possibly surpass, the US but by no more than ~50% in size. Even if the latter happened, they can’t match the US network of alliances and China is too introverted to even try. They will be big enough to disrupt uncontested US hegemony but not powerful enough to reshape it to their own tastes.
Is this why Lebanon is currently experiencing hyperinflation? Even a supposedly ‘serious’ country like Turkey is on the brink of a currency crisis. Finance is not easy. The fact that MMT is not properly understood by many people even in ‘hard currency’ countries is a testament to that fact.
I’m talking about total debt to GDP. The IIF estimates that China is already north of 320% of GDP as of Q1 of 2020. That’s higher than many advanced countries at much lower incomes. China should not be this indebted at such low income levels.
What matters is how many ‘inventor immigrants’ you can draw, not overall levels. In that category, the US is and will remain the unparalleled leader. China can draw from 1.4 billion, the US can draw from 6+ billions. And even a significant share of China’s inventors would go to the US if relations were less frosty. Trump’s histronics on student visas etc is a sideshow, a deathrattle of the GOP, not a new national policy with any significant grounding among American elites.
The US had something like 3-4 TFR during its immigration restriction days from 1924-1965. Those numbers are obviously insane by today’s standards, not least for China. Still, I don’t think overall population growth matters as much as many conventional neoliberals do, so it’s not a hill I’m going to die on.
This is true, but just having lots of smart people isn’t enough. It didn’t help China begin the Industrial Revolution despite China not nearly being as far behind as many eurocentric historians claimed (the ‘California school’ did useful work here). The fish rots from the head. If unwise decisions are taken at the political level, China’s smart fraction will invariably suffer and/or be stifled. Having lots of smart people is a necessary precondition, not a sufficient one on its own.
Good thing they didn’t grow it on his head.
https://www.foxnews.com/health/man-penis-infection-arm
PPP is a failed meme. Not even the Chinese themselves use it in their debates on these matters. I am well aware of Chinese tech innovation. I hold stock in several of their companies, which have done well for me.
Still, geopolitics matter. Just ask Huawei and now ByteDance (owner of TikTok). China’s internal market is big. But total world GDP is ~100 trillion, of which China is merely 14%. The US+Europe+Japan+Australia+Canada+UK+SK/TW etc is closer to half of total world GDP. China has nothing to counter except a poor and substandard also-ran like Russia and a collapsing shithole like Pakistan.
Japan’s main problem is population decline of 500,000 per year. This is like Hiroshima and Nagasaki going off in their shopping malls every year. This literally kills their consumption, makes it hard to grow GDP. Also, they are a source of loot for Wall Street. Otherwise, they do OK and their debt is not really an issue.
Chinese will have their own demographic problems, but their debts will be retired with 0 interest rates etc. Same as everywhere else.
China is growing at 6%, far more than developed economies. US can barely push 3%, and that’s with 5% budget deficit. There is lack of dynamism alright, but not in China. China is growing fine. Their debt is needed to create credit markets that rival the West, so that their money printers can go brrrr just like developed economies. No debt = no domestic credit market = you are vulnerable to Wall Street if you want to finance big projects. Thats the main Russian problem. Russia is awesome – 2% growth with 2% budget surplus and 3% inflation are dream numbers for any demographically constrained major economy. US is physically incapable of balanced budget. But Russia needs domestic credit market to make that money printer go brrrr. Otherwise, their nominal GDP growth rate will be constrained and productivity improvements will be difficult to achieve.
Lebanon is getting rid of their external debt. Hyperinflation and default is a fast and easy way of doing so compared to deflationary depression where you try to keep up with payments in foreign currency. As for Turkey, lol, they have been running 40-60% inflation for most of their history. Current 20% is not that much given their printing habits.
The key factor in inflation is demographics. To have inflation you need to breed consumers that shop and demand goods at higher prices. That is the case in Turkey, Lebanon, US in the 70’s (first baby boomers hitting the market) etc. It is not the case in Japan, EU, US is getting there, and even deadbeat basket cases such as Ukraine (they have depopulated enough to have 2% inflation now). China and Russia will be in the same boat.
No major economy with declining population will be able to hyperinflate (barring supply shocks such as wars blowing up automated factories), no matter how much they want to. Deflation is our future. In this scenario, finance boils down to printing to infinity to cover debts, something a crystal meth monkey can do.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, blame the ‘left’ when, in fact, the left-supported BDS is the MOST censored and suppressed voice in the US. More Occam’s blindfold.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/HMKDI0jrHmI/
Ontario published Covid-19 antibody statistics yesterday, and race and income statistics (these ones exclude long term care/retirement home residents and Aboriginals) a few days ago.
About 4 times more people have had it than officially counted, but 1.5% in Toronto is nowhere near Moscow (over 20%) or New York. This with non-mandatory masks and largely cosmetic lockdown.
https://cdn1.savepice.ru/uploads/2020/8/4/5f5373def70a41e2576932db897eface-full.png
Whites and East Asians are underrepresented at almost the same rate, all others overrepresented. Indians doing the third best are quite surprising (I saw before that Brampton had more and slower falling community cases than its less Indian neighbor towns).
https://i.cbc.ca/1.5669329.1596136760!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_780/covid-19-cases-among-ethno-racial-groups.jpg
It is better to be healthy and rich than sick and poor:
https://i.cbc.ca/1.5669364.1596137567!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_780/covid-19-cases-by-houshold-income.jpg
Chinese government doesn’t use PPP because they do not want to disturb the U.S. regime furthermore. They are already paranoid enough as it is.
China is the world’s largest trading nation. How can it achieve this with the rest of the world against it? What you said is nonsensical.
That meme has no empirical basis.
Implying you should buy their headline figure. Even if you were to do so – and many don’t – then they are getting that growth by a massive debt binge. They went from 200% of total debt/GDP to north of 300% in a single decade.
It shows quite clearly that their old growth model needs updating. Michael Pettis has written about this eloquently.
Two things need to be kept seperate. China is not in danger of a solvency crisis. However, even if you control your own currency and issue debt in it, domestic players still need to service their debt burden. As debt rises in the system, it crowds out financial resources for productive investment by firms and clogs up the banks. This is what happened in Japan, far before any demographic (non)issue came into play.
Russia has terrible demographics yet had elevated inflation for most of the last decade. Israel’s population growth has been much faster yet their inflation has been much lower in the same period. Your understanding of these issues is banal.
They are? News to me. External debt certainly isn’t being getting rid of. They have defaulted but their obligations remain. Argentina tried the tactic of ignoring external debt after they went into a default in the early 2000s. New York hedge funds confiscated their ships more than ten years later.
That’s a true story.
Because China was a genuine integrator/reformer at least up until the early 2000s. It gave all the signs that it was willing to make peace with a US-hegemonic system. There’s a contentious debate now playing out whether the Chinese were hoodwinking the yanks all along or if something genuinely changed in their internal dynamics. FWIW, I am leaning towards the latter.
It is only in the last decade, especially as Xi moved away from the Western system, that these things started to become questioned in Western capitals. By then, China had already achieved a great deal. Facts on the ground, as the Israelis like to say.
The question is what happens going forward. China will quickly learn that it cannot take on the whole world. The US still has a much more formidable set of alliances it can array against Beijing and it will soon be run by liberal imperialists, who have historically been much more apt at this game than the floundering blomph in the WH.
China’s competence at this game should not be overestimated. Its recent actions against a neutral observer like India displayed shocking incompetence. Modi genuinely wanted to move past Western hegemony and reached out to Xi by spending considerable political capital. Only for Beijing to publicly humiliate him and forcing him to burn that bridge forever. At a time when more and more countries are joining up against Beijing, they merely add fuel to the fire for a few patches of worthless desert land. Very foolish!
I’m not super surprised. Mask usage has been fairly good in India, though the country’s poorly underfunded medical system has not done well in coping. India’s leadership also took the issue seriously early on (in stark contrast to Brazil or the US).
In Stockholm, a huge overrepresentation is also found among Africans (especially Somalians) and Arabs. Seems to be a familliar pattern. I’ve seen similar findings from the UK, US etc.
Part of this could be to density of living. It is quite common with multigenerational homes in these communities. Though part must also surely be lack of care. Either way, Western countries have largely been unimpressive in our handling of this crisis while East Asia has been flying with all colors.
Unfuckingbelievable:
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/expert/terrell-jermaine-starr/
I agree with you on this, it shows that Chinese leadership suffers from deep paranoia and insecurity. Chinese border on Himalayas is already better than Indias, with couple buffer states like Nepal and Bhutan between. There is nothing there to achieve for Chinese in the longer run, other than pushing India in the arms of USA. Even if China could annex its claimed regions like Arunachal, what it would help on the stage of world politics? But China is not as alone you claim and USA’s prestige is falling little by little. Even if the liberals would be ruling, forces of social change that have been unleashed in USA, are very hard to but back in the bottle. China has a very good and close relationship with Myanmar, Russia, Iran, North Korea and with Central Asian countries, also Philippines isnt as leaning to the west as it was before.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/get-ready-sino-iranian-grand-alliance-166042
SMDH.
(bolding mine – //H.)
Had he had a luck of growing up in a bordello, he’d also have a perfect understanding of the ways the government operates. /s
You know that they have their own currency right? As long as their creditors are domestic (and the domestic creditors have ample savings to fund the debt bubble, not at all a certain assumption since chinese consumer debt is also rising) then debt driven investment should not be a problem. That said the Chinese central bank is still not resorting to buying corporate bonds which they can do to help with the debt rollover situation. That said China already has terrible asset price inflation in the form of expensive real estate.
Deleveraging properly will mean a lost decade of 2 to 3 percent growth, I do not know if the Chinese are willing to do that, they are likely banking on productivity gains from AI to be the silver bullet. I mentioned that the Chinese can resort to indefinite MMT to keep the debt bubble going.
East Asian economies tend to have a lower per capita GDP compared to countries like Austria, the Netherlands, and Germany because large sectors of their economy, like the service sector and SMEs, are not efficient. China may have an even larger part of its economy being unproductive in the form of state-owned enterprises. So China may actually top out with an economy slightly larger than the US, and then slow down to a 2 to 3 percent growth from there, which is about the level of Croatia or Poland in terms of per capita GDP. So far we have no proof that what works well at a midsize country level for East Asia can work well when scaled up by a factor of 10 to 20 in terms of population. Even a China that tops out at 1.25 times the level of US GDP is still a power to be reckoned with, and can push the US sphere out influence out to Guam or Wake Island from the first island chain. As for authoritarian governments, as long as they can provide a standard of living for the Chinese middle class comparable to what the Polish, Malaysian, or Croatian middle class have, they can keep going indefinitely.
What does production have to do with this? Robots don’t go shopping and consumption is a large part of GDP even in Japan.
https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00705/
Japanese are dying out at a rate of ~500,000 per year and are being replaced with 200,000 immigrants. I strongly doubt immigrants have the same consumption power at the Japanese who are dying, but even if so, Japan is still losing 300,000 consumers per year. Hence lack of GDP growth. Dead people don’t buy stuff.
Its about the same debt growth rate as in the US, but Chinese need it more – they have more people so they need more debt to fund new factories, apartments etc. This doesn’t strike me as unusual.
They refinance their debt service at ever lower rates, and if that’s not enough, restructure the terms to extend the payment plan. Inflation eventually takes care of the principal. Which is why central banks are desperate trying to raise inflation rates, but they are fighting technology and demographics, so they don’t do a good job. This is also why UBI is inevitable – Central Banks must increase consuption of the poor if they want to reach their inflation targets. UBI is the only way to do it without cause Soviet style sector imbalances.
Debt IS the financial resource, there is no such thing as ‘crowding out’. Where do you think corporations get their money to build factories and houses? They borrow it. When balance sheets get clogged, they sell those loans to Central Banks. Where do you think corporations get their customers? When old people get their Social Security checks and employees of war corporations get their paychecks funded by government deficit. Old people and war profiteers use government defict to pay mortgages and buy cat food, so corporate investments in cat food factories and houses make sense and this gets recorded as ‘GDP’ and grows productivity.
Japanese per capita GDP is actually growing fairly nicely.
https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/gdp-per-capita
And thats despite Plaza Accord and destruction of Japanese export driven growth model (Japan hasn’t really been a net exporter since Fukushima). But they got over it, their main problem is ‘per capita’ shortage.
Russian inflation has been generally declining. They had a spike in 2014-2016 caused by oil price collapse, but that coincided with population growth during those years which didn’t help inflation matters (a good chunk of Russian population growth is migration of adult Russians, unlike baby boom, adult migrants arrive as full grown consumers, and in Russian case, probably at the same level of wealth as general population). In 2018, Russian population resumed decline with predictable impact on inflation.
Israel, yea… they have fast growing religious communities and slow growing secular ones. That is true – for religious and military orders consumption and demographics may not be necessarily related. Religious people don’t run to the malls at every opportunity.
They are, you just don’t know it yet. Argentina settled vast majority of their debt (93%) for 30 cents on the dollar. True, some hedge funds held out and forced full payment on the remaining 7%. But Argentinians went out and sold 100 year (lol lol lol) bonds that they promptly defaulted on. And they got IMF money. It was a pretty good deal. In general, as US influence declines, the ability to collect on dollar debts will decline as well. You will see more and more 3rd world countries defaulting and walking away from their dollar obligation. As world trade declines due to pandemic and economic nationalism, and automation eliminating labor arbitrage, the need for dollar funding will decline as well. The dollar will still be the reserve currency of choice underpinning the world trade. But world trade will not be as important anymore. So instead of being the King of the Beach, The Dollar will be the King of the Sandbox.
Much of that is going to things like empty convention centers, empty malls and empty condos, try to actually think, if the debt was going to productive causes then the amount of debt needed to increase GDP by a point would not have been increasing since 2008.
As virus scientist Fyodor Lisitsin said, the Chinese and other Asians adhere to European guidelines for anti-epidemic measures of the 1830-1970s. Europeans themselves just forgot or wilfully ignored them.
https://fvl1-01.livejournal.com/106430.html
https://tshop.r10s.com/b16/87b/9d3e/890c/409c/00a6/dcf6/116ae89e1854ab3a295add.jpg
https://img0.etsystatic.com/000/0/6167109/il_570xN.250464066.jpg
https://dn.truthorfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/08131248/1918-spanish-flu-family-portrait-cat-face-mask-1024×536.jpeg
There’s a lot to be said for that. One argument I’ve seen over and over again from various East Asian writers is just how impactful SARS was for a lot of these countries; building state capacity and lived experience. For most Western nations, the last big scare was much further back. People forget and memories are short.
if only we had people to populate those empty malls and condos. 🙂 Generally, yes, if you are building 2 apartments per day but you are breeding or importing only one net renter per day, you will have a problem with empty condos. This is why we have our overlords pushing for elimination of immigration restrictions – they need bodies to fill all those condos.
You are also correct about debt efficiency decline when it comes to raising nominal GDP. This happens because most of new money created by debt go to the rich who by definition have all the money already to satisfy their consumption. So new money does nothing but speculation on the financial markets and velocity of money in real economy plunges, which in turn accelerates deflation and forces banks to print more debt just to keep things from falling apart.
Our overlords on the technocratic side realize that which is why they support Basic Income ideas, and Federal Reserve discusses ‘recession insurance bonds’ where they create a digital account for every American and dump money into it at any hint of recession.
Consumption is GDP and consumption must be maintained at all costs. Modern economy does not need workers, there are plenty of those, in vast excess. But it does need consumers, badly, so that credit can flow. Pumping money to the bottom of the food chain will address the debt inefficiency you speak of.
THE FUTURE OF BITCHUTE: SO BRIGHT I GOTTA WEAR SHADES
https://www.bitchute.com/video/DN40fpRK_tA/
The Net Tightens on Ghislaine! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS (first few minutes are muted)
You are confusing geopolitics with trade. As long as there is money to be made, Western companies will not stop trading with China and as a result, China cannot be isolated. This is totally different from the situation of Soviet Union.
As for China-India relationship, Modi is a Hindu extremist who is attempting the annexation of Kashmir. Furthermore, India is moving toward the U.S. camp no matter what China does:
https://asiatimes.com/2020/07/jaishankars-pro-us-strategy-pushing-india-into-trouble/
Metrocide
https://stuartschneiderman.blogspot.com/2020/08/american-cities-committing-urban-suicide.html
Well, the levels of racism, anti-semitism and class (IQ) warfare are beyond countenance on some parts of this side. I often consider leaving. It was interesting to hear some counter culture arguments once but that is getting old.
You are confusing geopolitics with economics and trade. Western companies will continue to trade with China as long as there is money to be made. Foreign companies will continue to invest and operate in China despite COVID-19. https://twitter.com/SpokespersonCHN/status/1290639526646358016. 3,00-4,00 thousands of Chinese students are studying overseas. Chinese make 130-140 million trips overseas every year. China has BRI, AIIB, and will soon sign the RCEP with ASEAN and a slew of other countries. I do not see how China can be isolated.
India is far from neutral to China. Modi is a Hindu extremist who is attempting to annex Kashmir, which is a direct treat to China’s strategic partner Pakistan. Furthermore:
https://asiatimes.com/2020/07/jaishankars-pro-us-strategy-pushing-india-into-trouble/
India made quite a few decisions that provoked China and contributed to the onset of the conflict, such as supporting Taiwan, increasing participation in the QID, prohibition of Chinese investments in India, and refusing participation in the RCEP. China did not lose India. India lost China.
https://asiatimes.com/2020/06/indias-strategic-illusions-delusion-and-hallucinations/
Today it’s all coming full circle.
https://i.imgur.com/juuij9m.jpg
Right wing anti-maskers have ironically found common ground with third world immigrants who are in general the biggest violators of COVID-19 rules.
What I find ironic is how Breitbart types, etc, will usually be opposed to COVID-19 rules, except when immigrants violate the rules and then they’ll suddenly feign support for the rules and outrage that immigrants are not following them.
I think their indignation hides a jealousy and bitterness that they don’t have the gumption to flout the rules like a lot of the non-whites do.
Anti-racism is the ultimate in class warfare. You think it helped the poor whites in Boston when they were bused into black schools? You think it helped them when their ethnic neighbourhoods were broken up? When their rent was fantastically increased? Do you think it helps them to be pushed away from the economic centers? To be discriminated against through affirmative action?
A lot of upper class people just sneered at them while calling them names. Of course, they could send their children to private schools and afford the expensive neighbourhoods.
Might have something to do with moderation, and also the open thread.
Is the 999 Rubles label the price of those Beyond Meat burgers? That’s about £10.40, I’m shocked at how expensive they are in Russia. Is this because of import duties or something?
It looks like the same pack in UK supermarkets costs about £4.40, and even that I would consider quite expensive for two vegan burgers.
https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1291019960450342913
You forgot to add the conspiratorial lunacies. But there is no reason to venture outside AK’s comments section.
In fact, I don’t read much of any other authors on this site. Fred Reed has a very engaging writing style, regardless of what he says, and so does Derb. Sailer has good takes but, again, his comments section quickly degrades. Saker’s endless ramblings can also be good for laughs.
FYI, The Atlantic wants women to know what a drag it is to be a mother.
https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/614896/
I see you aren’t interested in making definite long term predictions of GDP for China and the US. GDP estimates are the foundation for clear thinking about relative national power so either you haven’t thought thoroughly or you are afraid of getting it wrong by being too specific. There is a long history of China pessimists being too pessimistic. You cite favorably Michael Pettis but he does not have a good track record.
https://www.thestreet.com/economonitor/emerging-markets/some-predictions-for-the-rest-of-the-decade
I was thinking recently, “British” pop singers like Dua Lipa and Rita Ora really sum up what a globalised dump this country is.
Firstly, there seems to be absolutely nothing culturally British about either, they behave entirely like American pop stars/celebrities and I imagine most non-British people would assume them to be American.
Also, if they have any allegiance to anywhere at all, it will be to Albania/Kosovo, not the UK. I think the production of these globalised, de-nationated (if that’s a word) people is particularly a British phenomena.
Dua Lipa has a very pleasant London bourgeois accent.
Yes, and sometimes an individual who remembers makes a big difference. British Columbia happened to have a doctor who had worked on the ground with SARS and Ebola in charge of its public health. Being a province with one of Canada’s three megacities and most ties to the initial Chinese outbreak spot, it could be on par with Ontario but ended up much less affected.
https://cdn1.savepice.ru/uploads/2020/8/6/1999a3e9610959d5614b98570b39fa6f-full.png
Not that their health system is perfect (they have more deaths from opioids than anywhere else), but it proved comparatively competent in epidemiology.
The term used to be deracinated. It was applied to returning soldiers no longer comfortable with the confines of Yorkshire or Geordieland or wherever.