The Coming War on China

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Re: The Coming War on China

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Fri May 22, 2020 11:48 pm

Joe Hillshoist » Fri May 22, 2020 9:40 pm wrote:How will China buy American beef if they are at war with you?


I guess we'd have to downscale to locally owned, operated and sold integrated agriculture operations.

That sounds terrible, and leads to way fewer steer/heifer casualties than The End Of Meat does.

Ranchers love their animals, CAFOs do not. Ranchers feed their communities, CAFOs only feed consumers.
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Re: The Coming War on China

Postby SonicG » Sat May 23, 2020 12:11 am

Wombat ~ thanks for all your insights...I do wonder how to factor in Japan and South Korea into the equation, and also Vietnam and the Phils. to some degree, in regards to the South China Sea. Are they going to give up their interests so readily? So. Korea and Japan have their own disputes with each other also, a situation that the Drumpf presidency has done zero to mollify...

China making moves in Hong Kong:
China pulls the trigger, presents controversial new national security law for Hong Kong
The law would allow Beijing to base security agencies in Hong Kong

As promised, China’s rubber-stamp parliament has submitted for “deliberation” a sweeping new national security law for Hong Kong that critics say would be the end of “one country, two systems” and of Hong Kong as we know it.

On the opening day of the annual session of China’s National People’s Congress, Wang Chen, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the NPC, explained the proposed law and why it was necessary, declaring that Hong Kong is facing increased national security risks that threaten national sovereignty and the rule of law while challenging the bottom of line of “one country, two systems.”

The new national security law includes seven articles. The fourth is likely to prove the most controversial, allowing Chinese security organs to set up agencies in Hong Kong in order to “fulfill relevant duties to safeguard national security in accordance with the law.”

The law’s obvious internet is to make it easier for Beijing to respond to political unrest, like the large-scale pro-democracy, anti-government demonstrations that wracked Hong Kong for much of last year, by prohibiting sedition, subversion, and secession along with foreign interference in Hong Kong affairs.

China’s NPC could pass the law by as early as next week. By passing the law in its own rubber-stamp parliament, Beijing will be able to effectively bypass Hong Kong’s own legislature.

China has the power to implement national security law in Hong Kong under the controversial Article 23 of the city’s mini-constitution. The last time it was tried in 2003, large-scale protests caused the effort to be scrapped.

Considering what has happened over the past year, it seems unlikely that will work again. However, activists have already called for mass demonstrations in the city on Friday for the first time since the health regulations following the coronavirus outbreak caused last year’s unrest to fizzle out.

The Hong Kong government, meanwhile, has quickly declared its support for the new national security with the city’s leader Carrie Lam issuing a statement saying that the proposed legislation will have no impact on the rights and liberties of the people of Hong Kong or the city’s judicial independence.
Yuen Chan
@xinwenxiaojie
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"No need to be afraid, the National Security Law protects Hong Kong" - graphic on Xinhua Hong Kong's FB page


http://shanghaiist.com/2020/05/22/china ... hong-kong/
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Re: The Coming War on China

Postby SonicG » Sat May 23, 2020 12:59 am

This sounds like some serious forward thinking:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s arms control negotiator on Thursday said the United States is prepared to spend Russia and China “into oblivion” in order to win a new nuclear arms race.

“The president has made clear that we have a tried and true practice here. We know how to win these races and we know how to spend the adversary into oblivion. If we have to, we will, but we sure would like to avoid it,” Special Presidential Envoy Marshall Billingslea said in an online presentation to a Washington think tank.


Billingslea was just recently appointed:

On May 1, Trump also announced his intent to nominate Billingslea to fill the vacant post of under secretary of state for arms control and international security. Billingslea was an advisor to Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), an ardent opponent of arms control who opposed U.S. ratification of the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention and the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and supported U.S. withdrawal in 2002 from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2020-05 ... trol-envoy
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Re: The Coming War on China

Postby Elvis » Sat May 23, 2020 1:11 am

Wombaticus Rex wrote: their "economic superweapons" and upper hand against the debt-ridden US


Is this about China holding US Treasuries? And could you expand on these subjects.
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Re: The Coming War on China

Postby SonicG » Sat May 23, 2020 2:47 am

Ted Cruz playz tough with Hollywood!

Ted Cruz Introduces Bill To Restrict U.S. Government Help For Studios If They Alter Movies To Gain Entry Into Chinese Market
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said that he is introducing a bill to restrict federal government assistance for studios that alter their movies to get past China’s censors and gain entry into the country’s lucrative market.

The legislation would prohibit the U.S. government from providing technical or other types of support across agencies on movie projects if a studio anticipates a request or get one by the Chinese government to make edits on a movie. Cruz’s legislation is part of a broader series of bills he’s putting forward as he has put a spotlight on Chinese propaganda.

On the floor of the Senate on Thursday, Cruz said that the Chinese government had forced changes to titles like Doctor Strange, Skyfall and the Red Dawn remake, removing references to topics like Tibet, Taiwan and human rights. In Bohemian Rhapsody, he noted, they “edited out references to the fact that Freddie Mercury was gay.”

He noted that in the Top Gun sequel, the Taiwanese and Japanese flags on Maverick’s jacket were removed to “appease the the Chinese Communist Party.” “What message does it send that Maverick, an American icon, is afraid of the Chinese communists? That is ridiculous.” The disappearance of the symbols were noted by social media users when the trailer for the movie was released last year. Tencent Pictures, a subsidiary of the Chinese tech company, is a partner on the movie with Paramount.

Cruz originally announced his legislation last month, but it applied only to support from the Department of Defense.

The Motion Picture Association had no comment.

Studios for years have edited movies to gain entry into international markets, not just China but other countries, and those edits occasionally have created substantial attention. But Cruz has seized on China’s practices and he and other Republicans have also put the spotlight on the country’s response to the coronavirus outbreak.

Cruz called his legislation a “wake up call” to Hollywood. He’s seized on the attention generated by the industry before. In 2018, as he was running for reelection, he joined in protests on the right of the movie First Man, about Neil Armstrong’s landing on the moon, because it didn’t feature him planting the American flag on its surface. He wrote on Twitter that the movie “erases” the flag, although it was visible in one scene.

https://deadline.com/2020/05/ted-cruz-c ... 202941024/
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Re: The Coming War on China

Postby SonicG » Sat May 23, 2020 3:31 am

Indulge with some conspiratorial thoughts...There was definitely something fishing going on between China and Trump since late last year...
First, in June of last year

Trump raised Biden with Xi in June call housed in highly secure server

When President Donald Trump suggested — without prompting — that China should investigate Joe Biden and his son, he thrust another political grudge into what was already the world's most complicated and consequential relationship.

The move startled Chinese officials, who say they have little interest in becoming embroiled in a US political controversy. And it amounted to the latest extraordinary effort by Trump to openly request political assistance from foreign governments.
Thursday's comments weren't the first time Trump has injected Biden into his relationship with China, though he said Thursday he has never pushed Xi to investigate the former vice president. Nor is it the first time he has sought to trade favors with Xi, who this week celebrated the 70th birthday of his communist state with a note of congratulations from Trump.
During a phone call with Xi on June 18, Trump raised Biden's political prospects as well as those of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who by then had started rising in the polls, according to two people familiar with the discussion. In that call, Trump also told Xi he would remain quiet on Hong Kong protests as trade talks progressed.
The White House record of that call was later stored in the highly secured electronic system used to house a now-infamous phone call with Ukraine's President and which helped spark a whistleblower complaint that's led Democrats to open an impeachment inquiry into Trump.
...
Asked earlier this week about Trump's call with Xi, the White House did not deny that he raised Biden.
"World leaders need to be able to speak freely in their conversations with the President--that is a key component to effective diplomacy. And that is why such conversations are kept confidential," said White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham. "We are not going to start discussing the contents of every conversation President Trump has with world leaders, other than to say his conversations are always appropriate."

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/03/poli ... index.html


Trump asks China for dirt on Hunter B. and voila!

Trump adviser says China provided information about Hunter Biden
Michael Pillsbury claims Beijing supplied background on alleged $1.5bn payment
Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington OCTOBER 11 2019

Michael Pillsbury, an informal White House adviser on China, told the Financial Times that he secured information about the business activities of Hunter Biden during a visit to Beijing in the same week Donald Trump urged China to probe the son of Joe Biden.

“I got quite a bit of background on Hunter Biden from the Chinese,” Mr Pillsbury told the FT in an email exchange on Wednesday that he later denied had occurred.

Mr Trump came under heavy criticism last week after he stood outside the White House and urged China to investigate the Bidens — a move that mirrored his request to Ukraine’s president in a July phone call that has sparked an impeachment inquiry.

Mr Pillsbury had previously revealed on Fox Business television channel that he had raised the issue of the Bidens during a visit to China a week ago.

“I tried to bring up the topic in Beijing,” Mr Pillsbury told the channel. “I’ve never seen them get so secretive in my entire life. They would discuss ICBM warheads sooner than talk about what Hunter Biden was doing in China with [former] vice-president Biden.”
https://www.ft.com/content/d4b9b0a8-eb1 ... 065ef5fc55


And then in November, the US receives intelligence on CV.
Intelligence report warned of coronavirus crisis as early as November: Sources
"Analysts concluded it could be a cataclysmic event," a source said.

As far back as late November, U.S. intelligence officials were warning that a contagion was sweeping through China’s Wuhan region, changing the patterns of life and business and posing a threat to the population, according to four sources briefed on the secret reporting.

Concerns about what is now known to be the novel coronavirus pandemic were detailed in a November intelligence report by the military's National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), according to two officials familiar with the document’s contents.

The report was the result of analysis of wire and computer intercepts, coupled with satellite images. It raised alarms because an out-of-control disease would pose a serious threat to U.S. forces in Asia -- forces that depend on the NCMI’s work. And it paints a picture of an American government that could have ramped up mitigation and containment efforts far earlier to prepare for a crisis poised to come home.

"Analysts concluded it could be a cataclysmic event," one of the sources said of the NCMI’s report. "It was then briefed multiple times to" the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff and the White House. Wednesday night, the Pentagon issued a statement denying the "product/assessment" existed.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/intelli ... d=70031273


And then in December, as US-China trade talks finalized a framework:
China Demand For ‘Other Unforeseeable Event’ Out In Trade Deal Was Possible Red Flag
“Force majeure” language is common in contracts, but rare in trade agreements, and was possibly another missed sign of the coronavirus outbreak in China last year.

As negotiators wrapped up the framework of President Donald Trump’s vaunted trade deal in December, China may have provided a missed clue about the coronavirus outbreak already unfolding there: insistence on a provision allowing for an out in case of “a natural disaster or other unforeseeable event.”

Such “force majeure” language, while common in commercial contracts, is rare in trade agreements, particularly between two countries with economies so large that they are essentially immune to localized floods and droughts.

No such provision existed in the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiated under former President Barack Obama, nor in the United States-South Korea agreement modified under Trump. A limited provision was included in the revised North American Free Trade Agreement under Trump in the food export section for the purpose of ensuring “food security.”

But the language insisted upon by China in December, according to an informal adviser close to the White House who spoke on condition of anonymity, creates an exit path for the entire agreement, and should have been seen as another warning sign about the coronavirus outbreak.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-ch ... ae709e736a


Israel, huh? Where the Chinese ambassador just died of a sudden heart attack in the middle of the night...
US alerted Israel, NATO to disease outbreak in China in November — TV report
White House was reportedly not interested in the intel, but it was passed onto NATO, IDF; when it reached Israel’s Health Ministry, ‘nothing was done’

US intelligence agencies alerted Israel to the coronavirus outbreak in China already in November, Israeli television reported Thursday.

According to Channel 12 news, the US intelligence community became aware of the emerging disease in Wuhan in the second week of that month and drew up a classified document.
Information on the disease outbreak was not in the public domain at that stage — and was known only apparently to the Chinese government.

US intelligence informed the Trump administration, “which did not deem it of interest,” but the report said the Americans also decided to update two allies with the classified document: NATO and Israel, specifically the IDF.

The network said Israeli military officials later in November discussed the possibility of the spread of the virus to the region and how it would affect Israel and neighboring countries.

The intelligence also reached Israel’s decision makers and the Health Ministry, where “nothing was done,” according to the report.

Last week, ABC News reported that US intelligence officials were warning about the coronavirus in a report prepared in November by the American military’s National Center for Medical Intelligence.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-alerte ... er-report/


Lots of fishiness here, and I am cognizant of these being mainstream sources...additionally, I think the Democrats were just as happy to appease the Chinese and were also not critical of China in the early stages, nor did they forcefully speak up about more thorough measures early on...Add in whatever debts and favors (Ivanka's magical patents!) the Drumpfs owe China, it will be interesting to see how far Pres. Cheetoh takes the China-blaming, but I don't think that trad. anti-chicom faction Wombat indicated will give up the nice red meat that they are being tossed and will try to doggedly pursue the "Punish China" course...
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Re: The Coming War on China

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Sat May 23, 2020 5:58 am

Wombaticus Rex » 23 May 2020 13:48 wrote:
Joe Hillshoist » Fri May 22, 2020 9:40 pm wrote:How will China buy American beef if they are at war with you?


I guess we'd have to downscale to locally owned, operated and sold integrated agriculture operations.

That sounds terrible, and leads to way fewer steer/heifer casualties than The End Of Meat does.

Ranchers love their animals, CAFOs do not. Ranchers feed their communities, CAFOs only feed consumers.


CAFOs are a blight on humanity.

China just banned beef imports from four (maybe more) Australian abbatoirs after our government called for an international inquiry into the origins of SARS 2. China was furious. Their ambassador went ballistic. At least in diplomatic terms. Our gov probably did it to suck up to the US cos that is the sort of wankers they are. China plans on replacing our beef with inferior product :tongout from the US and Russia.

Good timing by our government and if nothing else proves your current admin still knows how to screw people out of deals. Apparently we're approaching India to see if they want to take up the slack.
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Re: The Coming War on China

Postby 8bitagent » Sat May 23, 2020 6:51 am

Interesting food for thought. I've endlessly typed of what I feel is the horror show of aspects of the CCP, but I felt this was interesting regarding the (hopefully not more than) cold war with China.



In 2006 I remember on youtube randomly finding Ickes long radio thing a week after 9/11 was a trip, as he was going on and on about the end game being a war with China. Around 2005 CNN did a video package called "China the new world order". Just interesting the switch. From Clinton Asian market flops in the late 90s to legit #2 power.
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Re: The Coming War on China

Postby SonicG » Sun May 24, 2020 12:00 pm

Joe Hillshoist » Sat May 23, 2020 9:40 am wrote:How will China buy American beef if they are at war with you?


I was surprised at how much US beef is sold to China, and it seems comparable to Australia. Most high-end beef here in Vietnam is ozzie although there is some US beef around. Maybe a lot goes to all the US fast food chains in China(?) Pet food might be a growing market in China also. Here, I see made in Thailand using ozzie beef a lot it seems. Here are some recent articles on US and Aus beef trade with China...very complex, and then throw in growth hormones and barley...

https://www.afr.com/companies/agricultu ... 521-p54v1g
https://www.agri-pulse.com/articles/133 ... t-to-china

Speaking of fast food chains in China!
Popeyes opens first China outlet in Shanghai
https://thetop10news.com/2020/05/15/pop ... -shanghai/
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Re: The Coming War on China

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Tue May 26, 2020 3:02 pm

Elvis » Sat May 23, 2020 12:11 am wrote:
Wombaticus Rex wrote: their "economic superweapons" and upper hand against the debt-ridden US


Is this about China holding US Treasuries? And could you expand on these subjects.


Treasury notes are a safe haven asset and demand for them will only increase during the oncoming global recession. They are backed up by the empire that built the modern world. If China wants to "dump" those assets, they will get bought. It may cause temporary fluctuations in the spot price but that's about it.

This is non-hypothetical; China dumped almost $200 billion five years back, if you recall, and that's exactly what happened.

Now it's still worth asking: what if they dropped $2 trillion instead? Well, unless they work out a plan to swap them in exchange for barrels of oil or some other commodity, they're going to be selling them for dollars. They are dollar denominated assets. This would have a big effect on the global economy because it would likely reduce available liquidity in the "eurodollar" pool, which would absolutely fuck "emerging markets," the artists formerly known as "the third world." This would complicate life for their OBOR allies far more than it would affect the United States.

The reality is that for all the thinkpiece fearmongering, the US has far more leverage over China than they have ever mustered over the US, which is why their espionage, sabotage and compromise missions are so necessary. This is the entire point of Unrestricted Warfare.
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Re: The Coming War on China

Postby SonicG » Fri May 29, 2020 7:07 am

Yeah, Dylan Ratigan explained the problem of overcoming the Dollar hegemony - 85% of the world's assets are in USD on Jimmy Dore's show the other day. And about the percentage of TNs helds by China. I totally agree that it would screw the AFKA The Third World !
Here is the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdeRF5KiUm0
Here the Umair Haque article that Dore wanted to discuss before Ratigan goes off on a tangent, started by him claiming not to be as pessimistic as Haque...
https://eand.co/im-not-that-i-m-negativ ... b47653e4ed
It’s Not that I’m Negative, America Really is Screwed
Why Economics Says America’s Collapse is Probably Irreversible Now
.......

What it means to be a poor society, which is what America’s become, is also the experience of life in it by now: political chaos, economic ruin, emotional paralysis, cultural degeneration. Europe and Canada, again, have been investing in life for decades, while America’s been ignoring it. The result is that they are ahead now — and America probably can’t ever catch up. America let itself become a poor society, and this — the chaos and dislocation of now — is what it means to be one.
I know this is grim reading. It’s terrible and horrific. Is it “negative,” though? Well, I know that it comes across that way. I want to do a job that the typical pundit won’t, though, which is try to tell you simple truths. The one that economics tells me is this. It’s too late for America to recover. It left it too long. It was arrogant and conceited, paying for things it didn’t need, like wars and mega-mansions, but not those it did. So it didn’t invest when it should have, but now the bill is due, but nobody can pay it. What do you call a society like that? Bankrupt. Just like most Americans are, only they don’t know it. What do you call a whole society of people, after all, who die in debt?America’s broke, my friends. And when you’re broke, what do you have left to invest in yourself?
There’s one way out, by the way, if you’ve followed me closely. Give people money. No strings attached, no questions asked, now, on a large-scale, more or less permanently, forget how much needs to be borrowed to make it happen. So people can fund a working society again. Or else. That’s the big question for America. The rest is noise. Until something along those lines begins to take shape — my answer is simple: Americans made themselves too poor to now afford to have the luxury of a functioning, civilized, modern society. Or is all that a necessity?


The level of the US economic depression is certainly still hard to call, but I do think Haque makes great sense in pointing out the inability to immediately drum up the resources needed to repair the effed US infrastructure (and the work would require years), and probably much less funds for a UBI for at least a few months...
Once people get the idea of rioting and looting in their minds...give it a few more months, and we might start to see food riots...
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Holy Shit

Postby JackRiddler » Tue Jun 16, 2020 3:28 pm

Jeff Wells wrote:An Indo-China War with a Korean War on the side would be so 2020.


Have they all lost their minds?


www.ndtv.com
20 Indian Soldiers Killed; 43 Chinese Casualties: ANI
Vishnu Som

20 Indian soldiers were killed in a "violent face-off" with Chinese troops in Ladakh, sources say

Reported by Vishnu Som, Edited by Deepshikha Ghosh
Updated: June 16, 2020 11:28 pm IST
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/20-sold ... es-2247351

New Delhi: Twenty Indian soldiers were killed in a "violent face-off" with Chinese troops at Galwan Valley in Ladakh, the army said today, in the most serious escalation between the two countries along the border in five decades. News agency ANI claimed that sources had confirmed 43 Chinese soldiers have been killed or seriously injured because of intercepts, though the army's statement did not refer to this. A statement in the morning that confirmed the death of a Colonel and two jawans spoke of "casualties on both sides". India blamed the clashes on "an attempt by the Chinese side to unilaterally change the status quo there", rebutting China's claims that Indian soldiers crossed the border.

Here are the top developments in this big story:

Colonel B Santosh Babu of the Bihar regiment, Havildar Palani and Sepoy Ojha laid down their lives for India, the army confirmed earlier today. "17 Indian troops who were critically injured in the line of duty at the stand-off location and exposed to sub-zero temperatures in the high altitude terrain have succumbed to their injuries. Indian Army is firmly committed to protect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the nation," the army's fresh statement said tonight.

The statement opened by saying Indian and Chinese troops "have disengaged" at the Galwan area where they earlier clashed on the night of June 15/16, indicating that they do not expect any fresh violence in the area.

India said the clash arose from "an attempt by the Chinese side to unilaterally change the status quo" on the border. "India is very clear that all its activities are always within the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control. We expect the same of the Chinese side," said foreign ministry spokesperson Anurag Shrivastava.

The clash took place just as Chinese troops were getting ready to move away from a location per an agreement that was part of recent talks between the two sides to defuse tension. The Colonel was reportedly assaulted with stones and Indian soldiers retaliated, which led to close unarmed combat for several hours. The soldiers disengaged after midnight.

Beijing, in an aggressive statement, accused India of crossing the border, "attacking Chinese personnel". China's Foreign Ministry was quoted by Reuters as saying India should not take unilateral actions or stir up trouble.

The only admission of casualties on the Chinese side came from the editor of their government mouthpiece Global Times. "Based on what I know, Chinese side also suffered casualties in the Galwan Valley physical clash. I want to tell the Indian side, don't be arrogant and misread China's restraint as being weak. China doesn't want to have a clash with India, but we don't fear it," tweeted Hu Xijin, Editor-in-Chief of Global Times.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi held meetings with Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh met with military chiefs twice as India discussed a response to the escalation.

For more than six weeks, soldiers from both sides have been engaged in a stand-off on at least two locations along the Line of Actual Control -- the 3,488 km de-facto boundary between India and China, and rushed additional troops to the border. They have been facing each other at the Galwan River, which was one of the early triggers of the 1962 India-China war, and at the Pangong Tso -- a glacial lake at 14,000 feet in the Tibetan plateau.

As part of the talks to defuse tension, the Chinese Army pulled back its troops from the Galwan valley, PP-15 and Hot Springs. The Indian side also brought back some of its troops and vehicles from these areas.

AFP quoted Indian sources and news reports as suggesting that Chinese troops remained in parts of the Galwan Valley and of the northern shore of the Pangong Tso lake, which caused the clash. China has been upset about the Indian construction of roads and air strips in the area, say diplomats. The government has pushed for improving connectivity and by 2022, 66 key roads along the Chinese border will have been built. One of these roads is near the Galwan valley that connects to Daulat Beg Oldi air base, which was inaugurated last October.

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Re: The Coming War on China

Postby Elvis » Tue Jun 16, 2020 7:57 pm

SonicG wrote:Here the Umair Haque article that Dore wanted to discuss before Ratigan goes off on a tangent, started by him claiming not to be as pessimistic as Haque...
https://eand.co/im-not-that-i-m-negativ ... b47653e4ed

It’s Not that I’m Negative, America Really is Screwed
Why Economics Says America’s Collapse is Probably Irreversible Now
.......

What it means to be a poor society, which is what America’s become, is also the experience of life in it by now: political chaos, economic ruin, emotional paralysis, cultural degeneration. Europe and Canada, again, have been investing in life for decades, while America’s been ignoring it. The result is that they are ahead now — and America probably can’t ever catch up. America let itself become a poor society, and this — the chaos and dislocation of now — is what it means to be one.
I know this is grim reading. It’s terrible and horrific. Is it “negative,” though? Well, I know that it comes across that way. I want to do a job that the typical pundit won’t, though, which is try to tell you simple truths. The one that economics tells me is this. It’s too late for America to recover. It left it too long. It was arrogant and conceited, paying for things it didn’t need, like wars and mega-mansions, but not those it did. So it didn’t invest when it should have, but now the bill is due, but nobody can pay it. What do you call a society like that? Bankrupt. Just like most Americans are, only they don’t know it. What do you call a whole society of people, after all, who die in debt? America’s broke, my friends. And when you’re broke, what do you have left to invest in yourself?
There’s one way out, by the way, if you’ve followed me closely. Give people money. No strings attached, no questions asked, now, on a large-scale, more or less permanently, forget how much needs to be borrowed to make it happen. So people can fund a working society again. Or else. That’s the big question for America. The rest is noise. Until something along those lines begins to take shape — my answer is simple: Americans made themselves too poor to now afford to have the luxury of a functioning, civilized, modern society. Or is all that a necessity?


(Getting slightly off-topic for this thread) I find Umair Haque a little confusing; he says the US is "broke" and nobody has money to pay for stuff, then he says just "give people money." With that last advice, he seems to acknowledge that the government can issue money at will, but he still wraps it in terms of taxes and borrowing. I'm not sure that he fully understands that money comes from the government, not from taxpayers or bondholders.

Morally bankrupt? Sure. Financially bankrupt? Never. Elsewhere in the piece he gets to a crux of the issue:

To achieve European or Canadian living standards, how much would America have to invest now? Think of it: gleaming hospitals for everyone, thriving public squares, expansive childcare, good retirement, jobs that pay the bills, oversight of it all. It would take trillions. Probably dozens of trillions. Much, much more than average Americans all put together can afford to spend now.


He's right: there are not enough dollars in existence to pay for what needs to be done. I highly recommend this short book, hot off the presses in March:

PAYING OURSELVES TO SAVE THE PLANET: A Layman's Explanation of Modern Money Theory by J.D. Alt

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B085RVQ545

Once it's agreed that unprecedented dollar outlays are the only solution, Americans are going to pay themselves to fix shit.

That's the idea, anyway.

paying ourselves 1.jpg


paying ourselves 2.jpg


As always I suggest the MMT thread: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=41320
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Re: The Coming War on China

Postby Elvis » Tue Jun 16, 2020 8:05 pm

Thanks, sounds about right to me, though I need more study in the 'liquidity in the "eurodollar" pool' aspect.

Wombaticus Rex wrote:
Elvis » Sat May 23, 2020 12:11 am wrote:
Wombaticus Rex wrote: their "economic superweapons" and upper hand against the debt-ridden US


Is this about China holding US Treasuries? And could you expand on these subjects.


Treasury notes are a safe haven asset and demand for them will only increase during the oncoming global recession. They are backed up by the empire that built the modern world. If China wants to "dump" those assets, they will get bought. It may cause temporary fluctuations in the spot price but that's about it.

This is non-hypothetical; China dumped almost $200 billion five years back, if you recall, and that's exactly what happened.

Now it's still worth asking: what if they dropped $2 trillion instead? Well, unless they work out a plan to swap them in exchange for barrels of oil or some other commodity, they're going to be selling them for dollars. They are dollar denominated assets. This would have a big effect on the global economy because it would likely reduce available liquidity in the "eurodollar" pool, which would absolutely fuck "emerging markets," the artists formerly known as "the third world." This would complicate life for their OBOR allies far more than it would affect the United States.

The reality is that for all the thinkpiece fearmongering, the US has far more leverage over China than they have ever mustered over the US, which is why their espionage, sabotage and compromise missions are so necessary. This is the entire point of Unrestricted Warfare.
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Re: The Coming War on China

Postby SonicG » Tue Jun 23, 2020 10:23 pm

There is no doubt China is trying to "consolidate power" recently in the face of a weak US president who really doesn't understand or give a shit about the various relationships and interests in the region, so let's just throw a bunch of military posturing at China and see how it goes. Especially since the trade wars were a total flop and Drumpf basically kept mum on CV-19 (which I think he knew all about in Nov. and was only interested in completing the Phase 1 deal):

China warns risk of naval conflict with U.S.

U.S. deployment of 3,75,000 soldiers, 60% of warships in Indo-Pacific region a cause of worry: report
The U.S. military is deploying “unprecedented” numbers to the Asia-Pacific region, raising the risk of an incident with China’s Navy, a senior Chinese official said on Tuesday.

:snippity:
During former President Barack Obama’s eight years in office, the U.S. Navy conducted four freedom of navigation operations while there have been 22 of them under President Trump, Mr. Wu said.

The two militaries “Should step up communication” in order “to prevent strategic misunderstanding and miscalculation”, according to the report.

High-level military meetings should resume, a direct phone line should be opened and joint naval manoeuvres should be done, it says.

The report says China does not regard the United States are a potential rival or “envisage a new cold or hot war with the U.S.”

The document warns that “deteriorating military relations would substantially increase the possibility of a dangerous incident, a conflict or even a crisis.”

https://www.thehindu.com/news/internati ... 901512.ece
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