Miscellaneous News

chgough34 said:

The U.S. healthcare industry is not “fully private” by any stretch of the imagination. Social security is also a pension, not healthcare. It’s simply a pension created in the 1930s under a drastically separate set of actuarial assumptions than exist today and legislation simply hasn’t gotten around to modifying it.

Nah. Healthcare is a drag on gdp to the extent it’s “bloated” since it would represent inefficient allocation of labor and capital resources. If health ar

Wrong. They are some of the slowest depreciating assets. For example, half of US housing stock is over 70 years old, and even after China’s 4+ decades of highly intensive building - it can’t match the U.S. in airplane passengers carried or nuclear energy and the stories of banks with legacy cobol systems is quite common. Technology developments and capital stock improvements, once made, are largely permanent. And the U.S. has both of those in substantial abundance.

For example, the ability of Microsoft to generate billions of dollars from Windows OS sales is directly causal to what Microsoft did in the 1990s with its original C/C++ programs. Similarly, Citibank’s dominant position in international payments is due to in part, legacy cobol systems going way back to the 1960s. Those advantages will endure, regardless of what anyone does policy wise, and provide an enduring competitive advantage to the American economy (not that the U.S. economy lacks competitive strengths across industries).

No. Since there is a substantial amount of capital deepening and technological deepening in the U.S. - it doesn’t implicate “non-depreciation”

The U.S. can do cooperation and conflict at the same time; just like any other state. Cooperation but not at any cost.

Nope. US corporate finance departments and municipal governments are among the best long term planners anywhere, with capital improvement projects that stretch out decades, see for example (

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). They largely have to do so - after all, multiple service provisions such as elementary and secondary education and transportation are guaranteed by state constitutions into perpetuity and thus require long term planning and corporate finance departments that issue bonds with century+ maturities clearly need to match expected future project cash flows with debt obligations (decades into the future).

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The examples you gave precisely proves my point:

- Every nation has a healthcare industry and pension, US is not special for either, US is broke precisely because its unable to afford the little pension it offers at a retirement age of 67

- The fact that US banks still run on Cobol mainframe is why US struggle to adopt mobile payment, the fact that Microsoft is still reliant on Windows was why Microsoft got left behind in mobile, the fact that GM and Ford relies on ICE is why they're unable to switch to electric.

Your using those as examples of wealth is precisely why America is a one off lottery winner who ran out. At its core America does not understand real technological wealth isn't Cobol, or Windows, or ICEs, real wealth are the people who created them and the education system that created the people. America won the lottery when it was able to attract global talent after WW2, but its primitive culture never understood how those came to be, and as such never invested in real human capital that underpined them. Now as talent start to pool in other nations, America invariably find itself unable to keep up any and all technologies, as ASPI's study clearly demonstrates, and fated to spend its last days trying to squeeze a few last drop of usefulness out of ancinent tech like Cobol.

- Lastly to claim US has long term plans for education or infrastructure just shows you're not an American, because no American, from any party, any background, has nor will ever make that statement. America's horrific PISA scores and state of US transport infrastructure are also objective metrics that does not have room for debate.
* And no, spending 10 years to build 1 mile of HSR is not long term planning.

iewgnem said:

The examples you gave precisely proves my point:

- Every nation has a healthcare industry and pension, US is not special for either, US is broke precisely because its unable to afford the little pension it offers at a retirement age of 67

- The fact that US banks still run on Cobol mainframe is why US struggle to adopt mobile payment, the fact that Microsoft is still reliant on Windows was why Microsoft got left behind in mobile, the fact that GM and Ford relies on ICE is why they're unable to switch to electric.

Your using those as examples of wealth is precisely why America is a one off lottery winner who ran out. At its core America does not understand real technological wealth isn't Cobol, or Windows, or ICEs, real wealth are the people who created them and the education system that created the people. America won the lottery when it was able to attract global talent after WW2, but its primitive culture never understood how those came to be, and as such never invested in real human capital that underpined them. Now as talent start to pool in other nations, America invariably find itself unable to keep up any and all technologies, as ASPI's study clearly demonstrates, and fated to spend its last days trying to squeeze a few last drop of usefulness out of ancinent tech like Cobol.

- Lastly to claim US has long term plans for education or infrastructure just shows you're not an American, because no American, from any party, any background, has nor will ever make that statement. America's horrific PISA scores and state of US transport infrastructure are also objective metrics that does not have room for debate.

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good observation.

it is often 3rd world losers from bootlicker countries who blow the US to the moon and talk about how perfect it is, not actual American nationalists.

Actual white American nationalists are far more worried about being colonized by woke SJWs and globalists, seeing the downfall of Main Street USA, etc.

iewgnem said:

The examples you gave precisely proves my point:

- Every nation has a healthcare industry and pension, US is not special for either, US is broke precisely because its unable to afford the little pension it offers at a retirement age of 67

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Social Security is one of the largest public old age pensions in the world and hence, why it’s simply poorly designed for actuarial realities in 2024.

iewgnem said:

- The fact that US banks still run on Cobol mainframe is why US struggle to adopt mobile payment, the fact that Microsoft is still reliant on Windows was why Microsoft got left behind in mobile, the fact that GM and Ford relies on ICE is why they're unable to switch to electric.

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No: my point was that capital and technology don’t depreciate quickly: Citibank, Microsoft, GM, and Ford are clearing tens of billions of dollars on new revenue. Good thing about the U.S. as well is that the environment is highly conducive to firm entry and thus even on things like mobile, the old Wintel alliance gave way to Qualcomm and Apple and the rest.

iewgnem said:

real wealth are the people who created them and the education system that created the people. America won the lottery when it was able to attract global talent after WW2, but its primitive culture never understood how those came to be, and as such never invested in real human capital that underpined them

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lol no. The U.S. understood this from the beginning, hence the establishment of elementary/secondary education as a fundamental right in all 50 state constitutions, the Morrill Act creating land grant universities, the 1965 Higher Education Act, among others. The U.S. has since 1965, always had a dual track of immigration & education for human capital development and it shows - the US has one of the highest tertiary degree attainment rates in the world. And what’s more - look at mincer equations, human capital requires education and experience, and the deep experience of US workers will simply not be replicated for decades by anyone simply because no one else has been able to cut their teeth on US firm problems.

iewgnem said:

. Now as talent start to pool in other nations, America invariably find itself unable to keep up any and all technologies, as ASPI's study clearly demonstrates, and fated to spend its last days trying to squeeze a few last drop of usefulness out of ancinent tech like Cobol.

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Highly conditional on if China is able to commercialize those technologies and even then, that would be quite a long wait on China’s side even assuming no other additional innovation on the side of US firms.

iewgnem said:

Lastly to claim US has long term plans for education or infrastructure just shows you're not an American,

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No: when state DOTs have plans going into the 2050s, that’s “long term plans”. When corporate finance departments have capital improvement plans going into the 2070s, that’s “long term plans”. It is simply that the long term planning is bureaucratized to random state and federal executive agencies.

The article:

I remember back in the 90s, how the anglos made a big deal how the Qing looked down on them and that the plucky Brits showed them what for!! I wonder if the anglos have the capability of self reflection and analysing their own Qing style predicament.

Petrolicious88 said:

Were there anything else in Afghanistan worth holding.

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Sure was - what the cope brigade at Pentagon called the mountains, where Taliban was "hiding" - the mountains which happen to be 90% of the country. +75% of the population was rural, completely out of your control. National borders were also worth holding (which you could not). If you held them, you wouldn't be blaming the neighbors for freedom fighters moving back n forth.

You really wanted that Uzbek/Turkmen oil & gas, but a dead Enron in 2001 foiled the purpose of your invasion. Forget Enron, you couldn't even secure anything valuable in the country to build the line on; puppet government was as incompetent as NATO invaders. Chinese involvement in Gwadar put to rest any little hope you had remaining. Dead on arrival is the appropriate term for your little Afghan misadventure.

Now you can cope a little harder with Afghans unable to get education on trannies and which gender washroom to use.

chgough34 said:

lol no. The U.S. understood this from the beginning, hence the establishment of elementary/secondary education as a fundamental right in all 50 state constitutions, the Morrill Act creating land grant universities, the 1965 Higher Education Act, among others. The U.S. has since 1965, always had a dual track of immigration & education for human capital development and it shows - the US has one of the highest tertiary degree attainment rates in the world. And what’s more - look at mincer equations, human capital requires education and experience, and the deep experience of US workers will simply not be replicated for decades by anyone simply because no one else has been able to cut their teeth on US firm problems.

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Why are you putting basic shit like that up as if it was some stroke of genius? You're like, "And the highly competent and intelligent US government had the incredible foresight to make it legal for all US citizens to eat food and drink water in 1823 Food and Water Act, which was passed with an unparalleled effciency of 83 votes for and only 17 votes against, leading to unrival prosperity within the nation." LOL What country doesn't give basic rights to education? I know they exist but you'd be comparing to bottom-of-the-barrel totally irrelevant impoverished nations. In China, all education is free or highly affordable to even the poorest salary earners, and given to their kids free anyway. All. No elite universities charging almost the average national household income for just one kid, not even our best. That's like MIT and CalTech having a normal full tuition of $6K or something. Even with this, we Chinese take it for granted and not as something to prove how smart our politicians are.

chgough34 said:

Highly conditional on if China is able to commercialize those technologies and even then, that would be quite a long wait on China’s side even assuming no other additional innovation on the side of US firms.

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China's got more patents, industrial patents and high tech exports than the US as it is. It is because the US sees hopelessness in keeping up with Chinese technologies and their commericialization that they desperately started the doomed trande and tech wars. "No additional innovation" is nary a requirement; even a new flavor of ice cream is innovation. China simply has to keep innovating faster than the US.

chgough34 said:

Social Security is one of the largest public old age pensions in the world and hence, why it’s simply poorly designed for actuarial realities in 2024.

No: my point was that capital and technology don’t depreciate quickly: Citibank, Microsoft, GM, and Ford are clearing tens of billions of dollars on new revenue. Good thing about the U.S. as well is that the environment is highly conducive to firm entry and thus even on things like mobile, the old Wintel alliance gave way to Qualcomm and Apple and the rest.

lol no. The U.S. understood this from the beginning, hence the establishment of elementary/secondary education as a fundamental right in all 50 state constitutions, the Morrill Act creating land grant universities, the 1965 Higher Education Act, among others. The U.S. has since 1965, always had a dual track of immigration & education for human capital development and it shows - the US has one of the highest tertiary degree attainment rates in the world. And what’s more - look at mincer equations, human capital requires education and experience, and the deep experience of US workers will simply not be replicated for decades by anyone simply because no one else has been able to cut their teeth on US firm problems.

Highly conditional on if China is able to commercialize those technologies and even then, that would be quite a long wait on China’s side even assuming no other additional innovation on the side of US firms.

No: when state DOTs have plans going into the 2050s, that’s “long term plans”. When corporate finance departments have capital improvement plans going into the 2070s, that’s “long term plans”. It is simply that the long term planning is bureaucratized to random state and federal executive agencies.

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- Technologies depreciate when new ones are created, the monopoly and vassal control over Japan and Europe that America enjoyed after WW2, and before China came along is exactly the lottery winning that it ran out of with China. America, like all lottery winners, lacks the fundmenetal ability to actually create wealth, and the moment they lose ability to violently halt innovation elsewhere, and the do try very hard even to this day, they return to its natural form as a large Argentina.

- The use of fax machines does not show fax technology is enduring, it only shows the society that uses it is stagnant. You can artificially extend the life of companies that build fax machines by supressing development and use of newer technologies, but it does not change the fact that fax technology has entirely depreciated. In this case the revenue that fax companies make isn't generated by fax machines itself, it's generated by those who forces users to use it.

- Apple and Qualcomm are also great examples of stagnant companies that lacks innovation and relies entirely on enforcing external varaibles to exist, and American inability to supress Huawei is just another demonstration that its lottery winning has run out. This will become extremely apparent should China blocade Taiwan, cuts US off from TSMC and US military find itself unable to regain access.

- US primiary and secondary education are objectively abismal in all international metrics, and its teritary education is entirely reliant on, once again, external variables in both imported talent and international revenue to maintain, variables that has run out with Chinese universities now dominating Nature Index, among others. Again this is just another demonstration that America is a one off lottery winner who don't even realize the importance of creating human capital.

- Long term fantasy and long term planning are fundementally different things and you seem unable to tell the difference. Plans are fundementally realizable, with actionable goals at every stage and results that can be evaluated, while fantasies require only a statement. Yours and America's inability to differentiate fantasies that policians make before elections and actual planning that requires both investment and sacrafice, is precisely why America has yet to evolve past simple tribal society.

Since you're not American I won't dunk on Americans for the last one, since ALL Americans knows their education system is abysmal and statements of their politicians are fantasies. This one is entirely on you.

_killuminati_ said:

Sure was - what the cope brigade at Pentagon called the mountains, where Taliban was "hiding" - the mountains which happen to be 90% of the country. +75% of the population was rural, completely out of your control. National borders were also worth holding (which you could not). If you held them, you wouldn't be blaming the neighbors for freedom fighters moving back n forth.

You really wanted that Turkmen oil & gas, but a dead Enron in 2001 foiled the purpose of your invasion. Forget Enron, you couldn't even secure anything valuable in the country to build the line on; puppet government was as incompetent as NATO invaders. Chinese involvement in Gwadar put to rest any little hope you had remaining. Dead on arrival is the appropriate term for your little Afghan misadventure.

Now you can cope a little harder with Afghans unable to get education on trannies and which gender washroom to use.

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The most bizarre thing about Afghanistan pre taliban liberation of 2021 was just how in the pocket it was, of US military industry. For instance, afghans could only access the internet from Facebook, like they had to use the browser within facebooks ecosystem.
And of course the role of Afghanistan as a vehicle to wash US taxpayer monies with opium as Assange pointed out.

I am bemused that the ethnic Greeks in Anatolia cosplaying as Tujue, have found it within them to express disgust against genocidal Anglo Zionists and their footmen.

gelgoog said:

The US could not hold Afghanistan even dragging NATO along with it, and with the full blown support of Russia, Tajikistan, etc. Plus tacit acceptance of their presence there by China, Iran, and Pakistan. The Taliban were basically surrounded on all sides by countries with governments which did not support them. What support they did have was informal and provided by non-state actors.

The US used to joke about the Soviets losing in Afghanistan, but at least the Soviets managed to pull off an organized withdrawal, which is more than the US could do. The US withdrawal was a total debacle comparable with the collapse of Saigon in the Vietnam War.

Ukraine had hundreds of tanks, hundreds of billions of material support delivered to them. The Taliban had no such thing.

Wait until the bill for replacing that military equipment sent to Ukraine comes. And then you will cry. Those hundreds of billions sent to Ukraine will require a cool trillion to replace. They started with small arms costing several thousand, then million, then it was ten million dollar tanks, and now it is hundred million dollar jets.

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Hundreds of billions is really the low estimate. Those are direct aids. There are hidden costs like clandestine personnel transfer, mobilizing existing assets at high tempo to provide target data. It would likely be over a trillion in cost, with no meaningful return.

Chevalier said:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1830816585789100368

The article:

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I remember back in the 90s, how the anglos made a big deal how the Qing looked down on them and that the plucky Brits showed them what for!! I wonder if the anglos have the capability of self reflection and analysing their own Qing style predicament.

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Of course not. With all of its inherited advantages and wealth, the US should, and would not be in remotely as bad a position as it is in today if it’s leadership cast had any semblance of self awareness and foresight left.

China is caught in two minds I believe, one the on hand, it chafes at how the US still clings to its past glories and delusions of grandeur and does not recognise just how fundamentally the power balance is stacked against them today; but on the other, it is wary of the typically violent, unhinged and probably genocidal Anglo instinctive reaction to being threatened by a ‘lesser coloured race’, even if the threat is purely imaginary on their part and due to merely your existence and prosperity, which you could do nothing about to alleviate their paranoia.

As such, China does not want to pop America’s delusional bubble until it has the hard power to not only defend against its almost inevitable attack, but also be able to defeat it once and for all instead of achieving only a partial victory just to set up a bigger follow-up war later like a re-run of WWI and WWII.

China is basically on track to achieve overwhelming conventional victory if the war starts today by switching to war economy and basically obliterate America’s legacy war machine with an astronomical number of next gen assets. So the biggest headache now is how to counter America’s nuclear arsenal, as you can bet your life on them resorting to nuclear blackmail or even nuclear war to avoid loosing a conventional war in Asia, never mind a total defeat scenario of the Chinese flag being raised over the White House.

This is why I think China’s timeline for a confrontation is probably past 2030. The question of our time is whether America will seek to pre-empt it before then while the power balance isn’t yet hopeless for them.