Cold war 2.0

[Virtual ghost]

Pentagon: US arms industry struggling to keep up with China

NATO militaries struggling to spend their budgets

Ukraine updates: Russia shot surrendering troops, says Kyiv

Vietnam reels from historic €11.4 billion corruption scandal

Lula visits Berlin to reset Germany-Brazil relationship

India PM Modi's BJP sweeps polls in 3 states

 

[Virtual ghost]

Moscow raises troop levels, citing Ukraine war, NATO expansion

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

To put that amount into perspective, Lehman Bros had $639b in assets and $613b in liabilities on the day it collapsed.

How can Chinese regulators allow a bank to get that far underwater?

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Oh also the Yemeni Houthis just fired missiles at our Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer the USS Carney in the red sea.

 

[Virtual ghost]

To put that amount into perspective, Lehman Bros had $639b in assets and $613b in liabilities on the day it collapsed.

How can Chinese regulators allow a bank to get that far underwater?

The answer to your question is probably pretty simple: China basically only mimics market economy.


In other words this means that there is no genuine financial liability since here the system is just trading internally. The money simply belongs to the system instead of individual of some kind. Actually this way of doing things can work pretty nicely in many situations (like crisis). However if you push things too far the situation will simply fall apart on the level of pure financial math.

Therefore if you have a more permanent crisis and little of legal oversight it is easy to walk into this trap. Since you only mimic the market and thus it is easy to make wrong turns. Since in this case it is much harder to see right from wrong than in genuine market.

This is basically what can be described as "late stage Communism". Where the compass isn't really working anymore and everything got lost in a maze of debt and overconfidence in the system. While there isn't private initiative that can turn the ship around.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

The answer to your question is probably pretty simple: China basically only mimics market economy.


In other words this means that there is no genuine financial liability since here the system is just trading internally. The money simply belongs to the system instead of individual of some kind. Actually this way of doing things can work pretty nicely in many situations (like crisis). However if you push things too far the situation will simply fall apart on the level of pure financial math.

Therefore if you have a more permanent crisis and little of legal oversight it is easy to walk into this trap. Since you only mimic the market and thus it is easy to make wrong turns. Since in this case it is much harder to see right from wrong than in genuine market.

This is basically what can be described as "late stage Communism". Where the compass isn't really working anymore and everything got lost in a maze of debt and overconfidence in the system. While there isn't private initiative that can turn the ship around.

Agreed, I also think China has a general problem with reporting opaqueness. By which I mean we can't trust the state to report figures accurately (they've been doing this since at least the cultural revolution where farms and districts would misreport crop yields in order to please the gov't). Hell we can't even really trust the figures coming out of the US gov't at this point, Biden admin's assertion that this years Thanksgiving food was cheaper than before being instructive (not to mention the ways we report employment and a host of other things).

So given that we can't trust the Chinese gov't on almost any of its numbers, it's not a stretch to think that habit is endemic to the business community there as well.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Agreed, I also think China has a general problem with reporting opaqueness. By which I mean we can't trust the state to report figures accurately (they've been doing this since at least the cultural revolution where farms and districts would misreport crop yields in order to please the gov't). Hell we can't even really trust the figures coming out of the US gov't at this point, Biden admin's assertion that this years Thanksgiving food was cheaper than before being instructive (not to mention the ways we report employment and a host of other things).

So given that we can't trust the Chinese gov't on almost any of its numbers, it's not a stretch to think that habit is endemic to the business community there as well.

As soon as you have country that isn't even pretending to be a democracy you should take all of their numbers with the grain of salt. The is because autocratic government can just forge numbers and there is no one to check them. This is exactly why I claim that democracy is worth saving no matter what. Because without that mechanism you are literally nowhere. Because in that case you can only live day by day and hope everything is going to be ok. However then people at the top will start to do the same thing through the change of generations. What creates leadership that is also static and lost in their heads ... and then you basically get that "mass sleepwalking" by which Communism is famous for.


Critical thinking requires data, so if there is no reliable data critical thinking is dead by default.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Venezuela looking like its gonna invade Guyana (for oil I think?)

 

[Virtual ghost]

Venezuela voters back territorial claim on region in Guyana

Here is more on what is going on in Venezuela.
This is basically pure land grab attempt, which is designed to take over oil reserves. Which are good back up for the west in the terms of energy. Therefore if Venezuela goes in the collective west will have to react. Due to practical reasons and due to sending a clear message.

In way this is pure repeat of Iraq, Kuwait, US situation/war that was some 30 years ago.
But in a world that is running out of resources this will become more and more common problem.

 

[Virtual ghost]

US threatens ‘appropriate responses’ after Iran-backed assault on commercial ships

How to stop Ukraine’s NATO bid from derailing Washington summit

 

[The Cat]

Everyone carrying water for authoritarianism is carrying water for their own eventual place on their own chopping block.
​

 

[Virtual ghost]

Netherlands — 2023 general election

The results for Netherlands show large last minute surge for the far right (grey). Therefore if this happens in federal elections next June we could all wake up in brave new world. Since that would change the nature of EU (which is the world's 3rd largest economy behind US and China).

Shock poll, far right got to be the largest party in the parliament. However new after election polling suggest that they continue to get new support. The polling average isn't changing all that much, however the gray dot that represents the polling result is way up there (it is gray so it is hard to see). While mainstream continues to lose support.

What suggests that federal elections in 6 months will be "very very interesting". In other words if the result of those elections is right wing heavy that is signal that Trump is coming back as well. After all he was first elected on the wave of Brexit. So if the whole EU goes right that will evidently spill into US a few months later. Since the problems are pretty much the same, global picture is what it is and the internet will still be full of memes from federal EU elections. Therefore all of this should be observed as pieces in the much bigger picture.

 

[The Cat]

 

[The Cat]

 

[Virtual ghost]

French hunters’ lobby launches EU election bid


Just when it seemed that far right could score some sizable gains in the federal EU elections the multiparty system has decided to show its face.
In other words this isn't just a new party in France since they want to rally similar people across the union and make new parties all over the union. What is in order to make completely new political block in EU politics and institutions. The new block would represent farmers and rural people in general. Center right is too much into big business and free trade. While far right is just toxic. Therefore since these people don't feel represented they gathered and now they are building new federal block that should stand on it's own. I mean if this starts to roll you can pretty much forget everything I said about this election. Especially since this could completely decimate far fight. Plus it will also become questionable who will come first with new block in the game. Since this would make a whole new dynamic between the groups. If this starts to roll this is basically "all bets are off" card.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Ireland to vote on valuing women outside ‘the home’

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

French hunters’ lobby launches EU election bid


Just when it seemed that far right could score some sizable gains in the federal EU elections the multiparty system has decided to show its face.
In other words this isn't just a new party in France since they want to rally similar people across the union and make new parties all over the union. What is in order to make completely new political block in EU politics and institutions. The new block would represent farmers and rural people in general.

Just like the BoerBurgers...

I would surmise that anti-environmentalist is also probably an accurate label for these parties.

Also, I wasn't aware Politico had so much on Europe.

 

[Virtual ghost]

 

[Virtual ghost]

Just like the BoerBurgers...

I would surmise that anti-environmentalist is also probably an accurate label for these parties.

Also, I wasn't aware Politico had so much on Europe.

Questionable, since this isn't US. What in Europe is the problem is the tempo of desired change and not the fundamental idea that environment has to be protected. What I find kinda legit since no one was doing anything for decades for the most part. While now you have to restructure you entire farm in a blink. Plus no one asks if you can pay all of that, or if you can compete with free trade and people who work for 1$ a day overseas. Therefore In Europe this whole debate looks fairly differently than in US. In my local case hunters are also the people that feed wild animals to some degree and they are removing invasive species. Or sick animals before the disease spreads. In Europe hunting isn't about shooting at everything that moves.


Well, at this point there is "Politico EU" and it has plenty of subsections. So there is plenty of data about Europe in general there. That is kinda how I started to read them.

 

[Virtual ghost]