Miscellaneous News
- Thread starter bd popeye
- Start date
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Wall Street happened. CHIPS just added fuel to the fire.
I have long said that Wall Street is pure poison. They don’t create anything and adds zero value. All they specialises in is short term profit maximisation and rent seeking, usually at the expense of the medium to long term health of companies and countries as they suck out as much wealth as possible to generate unsustainable high ‘profits’ for shareholders and themselves.
CHIPS just signalled to Wall Street that they have a blank cheque from the US government to suck as much value out of Intel as possible, since Uncle Sam will step in to recapitalise the losses. Zero accountability and consequences married with infinite greed and incompetence, what else did you expect?
If he is flying it shows that it is safe, despite what common sense might say. Perhaps, modifications/improvements were made in China.
Wall Street has always been poisonous like that. Wealth can only come from improvements in production and infrastructure, "wealth" gained through stock market is all just bubbles living on inertia or the goodwill of suppliers.
Imagine an US that was led since the end of ww2 until today by same principles as China is, I don't think China would have ever managed to surpass it economically. They would have stacked productive ability and by early 2000s, they'd have the 90 second 5G automated car factories, locking down every other country in manufacturing like what China does today.
Yup US could have stayed on top for far longer, they definitely mishandled it and don't deserve to keep being top hegemon
We can see a similar grand historical pattern repeated throughout history across pretty much all hegemons, empires, and societies of a complexity above that of a subsistence hunter/gather tribe. There is a tension between the central ruler, whether that ruler is a king or senate or whatever, and the oligarchs/rich/nobles. Sometimes the oligarchs themselves are part of the ruling body such as in the Roman Republic. The central ruler wants to centralize power in order to more efficiently wield it such as against outside threats or to deal with disasters, and to eliminate potential other threats or centers of power that might result in rebellion. The oligarchs even if they do not necessarily want to rebel, try to get more wealth which in ancient times often meant land. This push-pull dynamic and struggle is played out over generations but what has invariably happened is the oligarchs have gradually eroded the wealth and power of the central government as they get granted concessions, favors, or tax exemptions. The ruler often ends up granting these concessions in order to secure the loyalty of that generation of oligarchs or because these became in some way related to the ruler, such as by marriage or association. However once granted, these privileges are hard to claw back in their entirety, even though individual oligarchs or nobles might have their wealth confiscated in occasional crackdowns. This leads to a gradual hollowing out of the power of the central government as it gets starved of resources and eventually falls to either internal or outside pressures. The oligarchs end up doing this through trying to maximize their individual wealth and power even though it serves none of their interests to see their society fall, as often the result of a new society/dynasty is the confiscation of much of the wealth and breakup of the old existing status quo.
We see this in the cycle of the Imperial Chinese dynasties as often the first stages of the decline and fall of a dynasty would be the erosion of the dynasty's budget and tax base even if the overall economy was doing well. We see this in what happened with the US after about the 1970's but accelerating in the 1980's under Reagan and the increasing financialization of the United States economy, which allows the pooling of wealth into the financial institutions that then engage in regulatory capture which prevents significant reversion to the previous status quo.
Scary thing about Reagan era was that they thought that they were so dominant that it was the end of history when they actually were planting the seeds of destruction. History never ends.
Reagan never invaded any place bigger than Grenada. And he took US troops out of Lebanon.
So while huge amounts of money were spent on the MIC there were no major wars. So no spending of blood and treasure there.
Treasure is spent on the MIC, which via padding of contracts and corruption is wealth flowing to the oligarchs. There is an opportunity cost to this wealth as it could have been spent on other things such as infrastructure, education, healthcare, research, etc...
The hagiography around the US military and MIC makes it now a sacred cow that no politician dares touch in a significant way for fear of being unpatriotic or anti-veteran.
We are at war.
Do curfew & internet shutdown, whatever the fuuk you want
You can't defeat us.
We have got superman
The one man army
Super woman
Super Girls who don't standby when their brothers are being taken away
Super moms, who say "No tension" to their sons being taken by goons.
Moms who say they are proud, their sons/daughters died hero
Teachers, who want to be arrested before their students are taken to jail.
We mourn those braves
Then we respond in kind
If this is what's needed to be
Then it's what is going to be.
We are not alone.
I am many, as We are one.
We will die. And then we will die again.
We will die a thousand times.
Then, we will be reborn to die again,
Until we win.
Next time, any madar-rushers educate you about Generation Z, being useless, drug addict, only do reels & tiktoks,
show them these.
Do curfew & internet shutdown, whatever the fuuk you want
You can't defeat us.
We have got superman
The one man army
Super woman
Super Girls who don't standby when their brothers are being taken away
Super moms, who say "No tension" to their sons being taken by goons.
Moms who say they are proud, their sons/daughters died hero
Teachers, who want to be arrested before their students are taken to jail.
We mourn those braves
Then we respond in kind
If this is what's needed to be
Then it's what is going to be.
We are not alone.
I am many, as We are one.
We will die. And then we will die again.
We will die a thousand times.
Then, we will be reborn to die again,
Until we win.
Next time, any madar-rushers educate you about Generation Z, being useless, drug addict, only do reels & tiktoks,
show them these.
President Xi's office doesn't own a 747. When he needs to travel, he hires a commercial Boeing 747 which is repurposed at short notice. After he arrives back to China, then the presidential fittings are ripped out and the normal seating plan is restored and the plane is given back to Air China for its normal day to day use.