Miscellaneous News

[AssassinsMace]

If the West seizes Chinese assets or reneges paying what is owed like what Trump said the US should do, that's an act of war if it were the other way around. I know the US would bomb other countries if they did that to the US. The question is would China? The West speculates using them as threats. China doesn't do that and the West is too short-sighted that they don't see the consequences. That's why they dare to make these threats because they don't see the costs. That's why the West is a big lie to believe they hold dear the rule of law. The West is at a point where they don't understand the meaning of their own words. They're like Pavlov's dogs. Ring a bell and the dogs come running because they just associate the sound of the bell ringing with food that is ready for them to eat. They hold out the rule of law not because they know what it means but because they know it makes them look good. Look at Republicans who hide behind human rights when they want to violate people's human rights. They hide behind it all because they know it makes them look good to do so not because they believe everyone has rights. People like that, the consequences have to spelled out to them. Do bad things and bad things will happen back at you. That's the level of thinking you're dealing with. I've been saying this for a long time in this forum which is the most effective means of communication with people is to speak in their own language.

The dumb are running the US now. They got rid of anyone of intelligence. The wheels are wobbling on the US right now and there's no smart people left in place to know how to fix it so it's only a matter of time before the wheels run off their axles and anyone who attaches themselves to the US... they're going to crash along with them. And that's including China if there are people who still think Western acceptance is important to have.

 

[Overbom]

Some 5D moves happening here. I remember someone here that floated the possibility that the leak was made by the conservatives to force the justices to vote for overturning the abortion right

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Totenberg said on ABC’s “This Week” that the prevailing theory is that a conservative clerk released the decision in an attempt to lock in the five justices who voted to support overturning Roe as Chief Justice John Roberts reportedly attempts to pull his colleagues toward a more moderate position.

 

[AndrewS]

Venezuela wasn't built in a day. these sanctions were meant to cause significant medium and long-term pain, and they're doing that.

The US could afford to cut off Venezuela.
That does not apply to Europe buying Russian oil and gas.

And we'll see the Russian economy adapt in the medium and long-term.
Part of that will be domestic factories and part will come from increased imports from China, India, etc

 

[Abominable]

If the West seizes Chinese assets or reneges paying what is owed like what Trump said the US should do, that's an act of war if it were the other way around. I know the US would bomb other countries if they did that to the US. The question is would China? The West speculates using them as threats. China doesn't do that and the West is too short-sighted that they don't see the consequences. That's why they dare to make these threats because they don't see the costs. That's why the West is a big lie to believe they hold dear the rule of law. The West is at a point where they don't understand the meaning of their own words. They're like Pavlov's dogs. Ring a bell and the dogs come running because they just associate the sound of the bell ringing with food that is ready for them to eat. They hold out the rule of law not because they know what it means but because they know it makes them look good. Look at Republicans who hide behind human rights when they want to violate people's human rights. They hide behind it all because they know it makes them look good to do so not because they believe everyone has rights. People like that, the consequences have to spelled out to them. Do bad things and bad things will happen back at you. That's the level of thinking you're dealing with. I've been saying this for a long time in this forum which is the most effective means of communication with people is to speak in their own language.

The dumb are running the US now. They got rid of anyone of intelligence. The wheels are wobbling on the US right now and there's no smart people left in place to know how to fix it so it's only a matter of time before the wheels run off their axles and anyone who attaches themselves to the US... they're going to crash along with them. And that's including China if there are people who still think Western acceptance is important to have.

I think this is one thing people in the west are overlooking. If we go back in history, seizing of a state's assets usually lead to a declaration of war. Countries like Cuba, Afghanistan can't fight back, but China and Russia can. I think once the Ukraine war is over the seized Russian assets will be handed back.

It's not easy to move trillions of dollars worth of holdings from America. There aren't many places on earth where you can own that level of assets. The EU isn't an answer either for obvious reasons. Unless America discovers something of very high value that it can export to China, it's going to continue getting bigger. What needs to happen is the trade deficit needs to be reduced, preferably with the gradual introduction of export tariffs to the west. Otherwise China will be forced to continue investing in hostile states.

 

[Overbom]

May 15 is the day to watch

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1523593031051464704

 

[AndrewS]

I think this is one thing people in the west are overlooking. If we go back in history, seizing of a state's assets usually lead to a declaration of war. Countries like Cuba, Afghanistan can't fight back, but China and Russia can. I think once the Ukraine war is over the seized Russian assets will be handed back.

It's not easy to move trillions of dollars worth of holdings from America. There aren't many places on earth where you can own that level of assets. The EU isn't an answer either for obvious reasons. Unless America discovers something of very high value that it can export to China, it's going to continue getting bigger. What needs to happen is the trade deficit needs to be reduced, preferably with the gradual introduction of export tariffs to the west. Otherwise China will be forced to continue investing in hostile states.

I don't see the trade deficit reducing.

China is moving up the value chain and becoming even more competitive on exports.
And production in Europe will be constrained in the coming years.

Chinese exports to Europe and the USA breed a dependency, which increases the costs of them imposing sanctions on China.
At the same time, China would have additional jobs it wouldn't have otherwise. But it does mean those jobs will be lost if sanctions are imposed, along with the accumulated foreign currency reserves.

The only solution I see is to continue diversifying the foreign currency assets held by the Chinese government or pre-paying eg.

a) buying a 10% stake in Saudi Aramco ($200 Billion)
b) prepaying Saudi/Iran/Angola/etc for future oil deliveries (my guesstimate is roughly $200 Billion for a year of normal oil imports)

But even then, I don't see enough foreign assets available to successfully diversify.

 

[KYli]

MSM really doesn't like Marcos JR winning the Philippine election.

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[gelgoog]

Venezuela wasn't built in a day. these sanctions were meant to cause significant medium and long-term pain, and they're doing that.

The West is backpedalling and trying to lower expectations after they failed to crash the Russian financial system. And yes, the sanctions will cause the Russian economy tremendous damage, but Russia is not Venezuela. In two years the Russian economy will transition to Far Eastern suppliers. And the EU will lose one of its largest markets, one of the few car markets outside China which was actually growing, and one of the largest aviation markets. Russia in one decade will become one of its largest competitors in aviation. The EU will see the cost of all its industrial inputs as well as energy grow and will lose its remaining competitiveness.

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

Venezuela wasn't built in a day. these sanctions were meant to cause significant medium and long-term pain, and they're doing that.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1522751751681904640

Cope.

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

So, China needs to offload these dollars asap. However this also that it has to remove dollar as the reserve currency and it needs to develop its internal market/consumption so that it can generate an even stronger economic gravity pull towards China and the RMB. All these require hard hitting economic reforms, which I am not seeing at the moment. It will take decades for this to happen

Offload them to whom and in exchange for what?

The West has a lot of capital invested in China that would be seized in the event of theft on the scale of what happened with Russia. Furthermore, the West simply cannot function without imports from China - it's not shoes and toys, it's critical inputs to and irreplaceable components of high technology items. The West launched an economic war on Russia and shot itself in the foot, doing the same with China means shooting themselves in the head.

It's not that they're not stupid enough to do it, it's that China can do nothing to prevent or deter such stupidity and suicidal recklessness. The only thing it can do is be ready to impose its punishments when the lunatic finally snaps.