Funny Stuff Thread.... to loosen your day

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ZeEa5KPul

ZeEa5KPul

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I was going through some archived posts at armscontrolwonk.com when I came across this whopper:
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LMAO at that jackass Jeffrey Lewis. Here are some choice quotes:
There is so much wrong with this estimate, I don’t know where to start.
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The only thing wrong with it was that it was an underestimate.
The economic growth estimate
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assumes a more than $ 7 trillion Chinese economy
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That was completely wrong. The actual size of the Chinese economy in 2020 was more than double that.
Using Dr. Cooper’s estimate of the Chinese economy in 2020, China would be lucky to reach
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of a $4 trillion economy.
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If it's "lucky" to reach $4 trillion, what do you call exceeding $14 trillion?
 
FairAndUnbiased

FairAndUnbiased

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ZeEa5KPul said:
I was going through some archived posts at armscontrolwonk.com when I came across this whopper:
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
LMAO at that jackass Jeffrey Lewis. Here are some choice quotes:

The only thing wrong with it was that it was an underestimate.

That was completely wrong. The actual size of the Chinese economy in 2020 was more than double that.

If it's "lucky" to reach $4 trillion, what do you call exceeding $14 trillion?
Click to expand...
this should put literally every single one of his estimates on China in severe doubt. Yet they're never held accountable. That's the real sickness - lack of accountability. I'm of course talking about the Ottomans and Qing. Bad, bad Turks and Manchus.
 
56860

56860

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ZeEa5KPul said:
I was going through some archived posts at armscontrolwonk.com when I came across this whopper:
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
LMAO at that jackass Jeffrey Lewis. Here are some choice quotes:

The only thing wrong with it was that it was an underestimate.

That was completely wrong. The actual size of the Chinese economy in 2020 was more than double that.

If it's "lucky" to reach $4 trillion, what do you call exceeding $14 trillion?
Click to expand...
Reminds me of
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2002 publication

Some gems:
Rising China? No. Why?
For China to evolve into a superpower it would need to become a First World economy, which would requires liberal institutions.
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tl;dr "China must be colonized by the west for 300 years if it is to successfully industrialize"
China is not a western society. This may sound like cultural imperialism, but the fact is that liberalism is a western invention. It can function effectively in Asia, which is why Japan and Singapore are wealthier than many western nations, but history shows that Asian states that successfully adopted a liberal system did so as a result of prolonged western influence. Japan was forced by the unequal treaties under Meiji to adopt western legal codes and was for seven years under American rule following the Pacific War. Singapore and Hong Kong are creations of British colonialism. Korea and Taiwan spent decades under Japanese rule, which imposed on them western legal and bureaucratic norms, and after 1945 fell under considerable American influence. China, however, would have to achieve a liberal transformation without such prolonged western (or Japanese) influence.
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They are saying the same things today as they were 20 years ago.
Therefore, China is most unlikely to develop into Asia’s new superpower or to threaten the US-based international order. Moreover, to the extent that China has gotten stronger in the past twenty five years, it has done so as a result of trade, investment, and educational ties with Japan, Taiwan, the US, the EU and other liberal democracies. Were it to engage in an aggressive stance against the liberal democratic order, these links would collapse, causing the Chinese economy to go into a tailspin.
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And this pigskin's predictions on Japan are somehow even more hilarious:

There are many reasons to be pessimistic about Japan. Nevertheless, and this may surprise you, it is easier to be optimistic about Japan than about China. Why? Japan, unlike China, has functioning liberal institutions. Japanese enjoy the rule of law, the bureaucracy is effective, the state apparatus has the capacity to enforce the law, and there is a general agreement on the constitutional order (proposed amendments to the constitution do not put into question its basic framework). Corruption surely exists – as it does in America and Europe – but it is not endemic to the bureaucratic system itself. Therefore, though Japan needs major reforms, the country does not require, as China does, an entirely new political and economic order.
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All in all a thoroughly enjoyable read, 11/10 spit out my morning coffee
 
FairAndUnbiased

FairAndUnbiased

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56860 said:
Reminds me of
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2002 publication

Some gems:


tl;dr "China must be colonized by the west for 300 years if it is to successfully industrialize"


They are saying the same things today as they were 20 years ago.


And this pigskin's predictions on Japan are somehow even more hilarious:



All in all a thoroughly enjoyable read, 11/10 spit out my morning coffee
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just to let you know how the rot goes all the way to the top, 3 things I noticed:

1. He's using an @AOL email instead of an institutional email. That fact alone says more than anything written in the paper.
2. He's director of the Center for Contemporary Asian studies at Temple University.
3. He deleted this paper from his extensive list of talks and publications going back to 1995 on his Temple University webpage.
 
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