Miscellaneous News

Witchhunter12 said:

Its true the solution is technically that simple, but as always its way easier said than done. If people weren't willing to buy this bank's assets when it was on the verge of going under, what makes one think they'll buy it now? And how much will they buy it for? Even if a purchase is succesful, it'll only at most reimburse some of the lost funds. But many startups are inevitably going to go under anyways. And it remains to be seen if this'll spread to other banks involved in the tech industry.

But of course, we won't know for sure until the market opens on Monday.

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Glad that all these points are raised.

The straightforward reply, would be history is our guide.

What happened in 2008, the entire system shut down. No one would lend money, and without money, it shuts down. Therefore, the Fed came to the recuse, along with Pelosi, et al.

This time, it is only one bank.

The Fed can give emergency funds and then the bank may have to find a buyer. So if they were able to save the system in 2008, it's only a bank this time.

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What happened last time in 2008, Henry Paulson had to decide which investment banks he would allow to fail, IIRC. He let Lehman Bros. fail (because in his Wall Street career he worked at a rival firm), then when all heck broke loose, the system seized up, and Paulson had to broker a deal that saved everyone else when the system collapsed.

What seems like what is going on this time, is more containable, and solvable, relatively quickly.

What is the interesting question is what will the Fed do about interest rates? Keep pushing it up, maybe more banks will feel it? Rates were at zero, then jacked up because of that, cough cough, special military operations. Business, like banks, are like people, and we all have to adapt to radical changes to our environment. Some cope better than others. This rich people's bank, too soft, went under, lol.

emblem21 said:

Unfortunately for the USA to do as well as possible, the USA firmly intends to cripple its opposition by any means possible

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Contrary to moral reasoning that's normal when you are on a life and death battle. There is no fair or unfair in a death battle. After all there is no honour on being thrown as a dead body into the grave!

The US is correctly trying to cripple, stall its competitor. The problem though is that it should combine that with self-acceleration measures which it doesn't. From US' perspective, its national interests are best served with SMART crippling of its opponent while at the same time boosting its internal (not the US alone, I mean the entire American Empire) development.

However in reality, all of its moves are stupid and idiotic. When they try to cripple China, they make such a big mess that China benefits from it lol. Then when they try to step up internal development, they create a big mess again. They are really hopeless

A picture of Hank Paulson, back in a more simplier and happier time.

It is the guy on the right who is Paulson. Not sure who the guy on the left is. Probably a body double like Zenlensky has.

horse said:

Therefore, the Fed came to the recuse, along with Pelosi, et al.

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Feeling nostalgic tonight, after mentioning all these old names, started to look at old photos.

Brings back memories.

FairAndUnbiased said:

its either 20% interest rates and people living in their cars, or people carting wheelbarrows of USD to buy a single slice of bread.

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Probably first scenario Americans care about face a lot

9dashline said:

Now is the time for Xi to make announcement to the world, retroactive sanctions against America for crimes against humanity and for all the onslaught of sanctions US placed on China since 2018.. tit for tac..

For starters, rare earth ban, nationalize Apple and Tesla factories in China... no more shipment of Walmart goods or Amazon stuffs...hard trade decouple, those useless dollars will never be paid back anyway, time for China to cut its loses... besides China export to US only accounts for 3% of GDP, but if shelves on Walmart go empty for 3 weeks thats gonna make Ferguson roits look like a peace rally...

At the end of the day the only laws are the laws of physics itself, all is fair in love and war and why should China abide by Guardrails of rules when the reigning hegemony had been doing a nonfiction version of Jack London's parallel invasion on China *cough cough* followes up by the recent kinetic explosion of Nordstream pipelines, in both instances using reverse false flag to blame /frame the victim itself... To mention nothing of making a mockery of the Shanghai communique, willlfully sending armed forces onto Chinese soil whilsts crying hysteria about an errand weather balloon. At some point enough is enough, and I surmise China has already crossed that Rubicon

If US wants to go to hot kinetic war, then China will let the enemy bring the fight to its shores...

Its do or die, even Steve Bannon figured out at the end of the day only one system will be left standing, and as Xi recently said China must have the courage to fight the good fight. All humanity and life on earth depends on what China does next now... its gonna be the end of Karl Rove's little rant

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Your views remind us why CCP is so successful. Its because they are dispassionate, pragmatic, long term thinking and extremely intelligent set of people who have risen through the ranks competing against millions. And because CCP has those qualities, it will never do foolish actions like these.

China's biggest challenge is not the US, but its own internal problems. Only very few Chinese have university level education, still 500 million people live in villages, huge percentage of people still live in poverty. Even with all this problems they have to import billions in raw materials. They are technologically backward in high tech fields.

US can throw its weight around because it has zero internal problems compared to the level of problems China has. China has to stay humble and focus on development because thats the most efficient way for them to gain rejuvenation.

US and the west provide a huge market for Chinese products which China will never give up on its own. If US keeps sanctioning China to oblivion, China will still continue to buy US high tech products to enhance its own economy and sell US its own products. China will give up its dignity in order to develop.

Time for China to take revenge will come someday for sure. But not until it is as rich as Europe and Japan. So it needs to go from 12K GDP per capita to 45K GDP per capita. By the time it gets there, it will also solve its other problems like education, infrastructure, urbanization, tech level and so on.

If it can squeeze even an ounce of US money and tech while doing it, it will take it. Its a bonus. China will not sanction US.

Patchwork_Chimera said:

I can't say I concur with the rest of your post, but I do agree that - if we continue treading this path - it will have to get much worse before it gets better. Whether or not it's "too late" by then isn't something I concern myself with, since I don't see any other options to be honest. If we can't survive China's emergence as a peer competitor after 3 decades of absolute, uncontested unipolarity - we will simply have reaped what we've sown.


I wouldn't be quite so pessimistic. Nations are surprisingly durable, so even if things do get fairly ugly, I would be extremely surprised if it ended with anything more than manageable civil disobedience (rioting, looting, sporadic attacks on gov stuff, etc.) and an economic downturn. Bad, yes, but not so bad that I'll be going anywhere lol; and even that scenario is still fairly unlikely.


I dig the jingoism thing, but this wouldn't do China any good either. You work in IT, so I'm sure you know how intertwined US and CN can be. For every ADP direct deposit you may not receive as a result, there will be jobs lost and economic activity reduced on the CN side of the equation. For every Kroger shelf you find empty, the CN producers lose that income. When your bluetooth headphones break and you can't find any new ones in stock, a manufacturer in CN will have lost a customer. When your Predator 3500 or Honda 2000i need repairs/replacement, but you can't find any because of CN goods/materials in the supply chain... well, you get the idea.

Frankly, I would welcome some degree of sanctions, even if just to get us off our own ass regarding our industrial base; but it does neither of us any good to suicide bomb the other's economy in an emotional fit of resentment. Doing so would be to make the exact same short-sighted mistakes that we have been making - ones which I've been a vocal opponent of, even at work.

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With much of the USA slowly but surely descending into poverty on a vast scale and the supply chains being altered as we speak, things don’t look like as though it will improve in the near future.


Most nations durability lies in its ability to conduct maintenance in key areas to maintain its day to day function along with ensure a health supply of energy to keep things going (which starting to signs of duress due to Biden continuing his usage of the strategic oil research to keep inflation down).


As shown in the Ohio disaster and the processes to amend the situation along with the ongoing disaster that is California, there is a serious deficiency that the USA government refuses to take seriously nor address properly given the governments general hyper focus on Ukraine and soon to be conflict with China. I wouldnt under estimate Bidens ability to fu@k things up because quite frankly, fu@k ups like this, isn’t remotely normal nor acceptable in a normal country and even in a super power like the USA, multiple screw ups can cause irreversible damage if it is aloud the pile up, which unfortunately, Biden is allowing with no one in the Democrat Party or even the republic party being capable of shining the light of reason on his head, especially with Blinken and Nuland directing him towards Ukraine at the expense of all else.

Chinas main task is to continue its own self improvement and its own modernization while making sure any issues with the USA is dealt with in a mature and dignified fashion that only China can manage. All internal issues will eventually be dealt with in time given Xi’s strong leadership that will only improve with time and with continued improvements to the CCP. It’s not Chinas job to help the USA when they are in crisis (given the USAs completely lack of honesty and accountability) and should the financial system in USA go completely out of control, then China has to be prepared (and I am sure they are) to cut their loses and decouple in a fashion that presents as little risk to China as possible.

horse said:

No.

That is the short answer. We might see a big rally in stocks Monday morning.

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The long story is rather convoluted. Summarize some basic points, very generally since I am not an expert.

1. Capitalism is and always has been an unstable system, subject to booms and busts, along with financial panics, and debt crisis. However, capitalism always manages to come back. The only real stable economic system is central planning, where it starts off okay, then goes straight to life support, until they finally pull the plug. That is why the Chinese Communist Party, has repeatedly said that they want the market to decide the allocation of inputs.

2. What happened in 2008 with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, was due to "systemic risk." That was how the New York financial industry, banks, investment banks, and insurance company, ran their industry, playing with derivatives. Okay, I don't think I want to explain this part anymore. This already looking like a real long ass post, heh.

3. What happened was credit dried up. Since the bank had to pay some other bank, due to derivative losses, they had to sell assets like stocks to pay. But the market was falling so they kept on selling. It got to a point where those financiers realized that something was wrong, and they decided not to lend money to each other. The defaults caused by the Lehman Brothers collapse, caused a credit crunch, which produced the Great Recession of 2008.

4. What is happening today this time to that Silicone Valley bank, appears to be entirely different. Remember, capitalism was always unstable, with panics and bank runs back in the previous century. The Federal Reserve Bank was created to maintain stability in the system. This crisis at that regional bank, seems tailor made for the role of the Fed. What we have here apparently is a classical bank run from antiquity. Bank need to hold reserves, or assets, to buttress their loans. If everyone withdraws their money all at once, the back has no assets, therefore, it is insolvent.

5. The simple solution is for someone bigger to buy this bank, and recapitalize it, and that problem is solved.

There is more to it, but this is already a long ass post. LOL.

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If capitalism system always come back then it will never collapse. Yet there are example where it does. Some boom and bust are healthy but not extreme ones. In some ways American economy is like a planned economy. It has been delaying the bust for too long and now bigger bust is coming to make up for the delay.

9dashline said:

Now is the time for Xi to make announcement to the world, retroactive sanctions against America for crimes against humanity and for all the onslaught of sanctions US placed on China since 2018.. tit for tac..

For starters, rare earth ban, nationalize Apple and Tesla factories in China... no more shipment of Walmart goods or Amazon stuffs...hard trade decouple, those useless dollars will never be paid back anyway, time for China to cut its loses... besides China export to US only accounts for 3% of GDP, but if shelves on Walmart go empty for 3 weeks thats gonna make Ferguson roits look like a peace rally...

At the end of the day the only laws are the laws of physics itself, all is fair in love and war and why should China abide by Guardrails of rules when the reigning hegemony had been doing a nonfiction version of Jack London's parallel invasion on China *cough cough* followes up by the recent kinetic explosion of Nordstream pipelines, in both instances using reverse false flag to blame /frame the victim itself... To mention nothing of making a mockery of the Shanghai communique, willlfully sending armed forces onto Chinese soil whilsts crying hysteria about an errand weather balloon. At some point enough is enough, and I surmise China has already crossed that Rubicon

If US wants to go to hot kinetic war, then China will let the enemy bring the fight to its shores...

Its do or die, even Steve Bannon figured out at the end of the day only one system will be left standing, and as Xi recently said China must have the courage to fight the good fight. All humanity and life on earth depends on what China does next now... its gonna be the end of Karl Rove's little rant

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Xi's team is too smart to do this. At some point, it seemed to me inevitable that China must split open the peace dividend from ww2, take with it all the like minded, seize and end all American activity it can find, and then establish a new alliance for the total rejection of US global expansionism.

However, 1 move in Ukraine can be chalked up to coincidence and Putin's initative, but moves in Iran and Saudi while south America is being approached cannot be ignored as mere coincidences.

It is said to be impossible to have your cake and eat it too, yet in fact, this conventional logic defying power is precisely what the Beijing government achieves. It was said to be impossible to contain covid or make covid endemic without large losses in any large country. And even among the most optimistic of spectators, it was never deemed remotely possible to resolve the Iran-Saudi conflict. Yet these things still happened.

So when China says they will put down the American threat without resorting to "cold war bloc politics", this sounds impossible for even the most optimistic, but looking at the trend of achieving the impossible, the truth is hiding in plain sight. And the truth is, far more often than not, the impossible was always achieved as long as the people put their efforts into it, and were coordinated by the responsible leadership of the party.

I've since come to realize that China will not use its status as the largest market or as the biggest industrial power as a crutch or blunt force instrument. They'll avert an US invasion using geopolitical means, because they're that confident that they're heads and shoulders above in that game.

Full frontal destructive attack will not come, no matter how long we wait for it, because that is not the way Maoists have ever preferred to fight. American global rule ambitions will not die with the loud crash of a massive offensive, but by silent surrender once they're surrounded from the countryside.

Patchwork_Chimera said:

I can't say I concur with the rest of your post, but I do agree that - if we continue treading this path - it will have to get much worse before it gets better. Whether or not it's "too late" by then isn't something I concern myself with, since I don't see any other options to be honest. If we can't survive China's emergence as a peer competitor after 3 decades of absolute, uncontested unipolarity - we will simply have reaped what we've sown.


I wouldn't be quite so pessimistic. Nations are surprisingly durable, so even if things do get fairly ugly, I would be extremely surprised if it ended with anything more than manageable civil disobedience (rioting, looting, sporadic attacks on gov stuff, etc.) and an economic downturn. Bad, yes, but not so bad that I'll be going anywhere lol; and even that scenario is still fairly unlikely.


I dig the jingoism thing, but this wouldn't do China any good either. You work in IT, so I'm sure you know how intertwined US and CN can be. For every ADP direct deposit you may not receive as a result, there will be jobs lost and economic activity reduced on the CN side of the equation. For every Kroger shelf you find empty, the CN producers lose that income. When your bluetooth headphones break and you can't find any new ones in stock, a manufacturer in CN will have lost a customer. When your Predator 3500 or Honda 2000i need repairs/replacement, but you can't find any because of CN goods/materials in the supply chain... well, you get the idea.

Frankly, I would welcome some degree of sanctions, even if just to get us off our own ass regarding our industrial base; but it does neither of us any good to suicide bomb the other's economy in an emotional fit of resentment. Doing so would be to make the exact same short-sighted mistakes that we have been making - ones which I've been a vocal opponent of, even at work.

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China really only needed the US in beginning stages to bootstrap its industry and tech ascension... but now that China is 90% of the way there and the other remainder 10% is actively being blockaded by the US (such as EUV etc) then America no longer serves the utility it once did for China... My view is that China knew all along US was never going to pay back its debts and it was okay with that arrangement of trade as long as it was still a net benefit for China (climbing the ladder etc) but now that China has already climbed almost to the top, and its engagement with the US is obviously won't allow it to climb any higher, then it serves no purpose to continue trading with the USA.

In point of fact by continuing to prop up the US (America getting free goods from China in exchange for paper IOUs has helped it keep inflation down the past three decades) while the US has turned aggressively hostile towards China (to put it mildly) simply no longer makes sense at all...

Dual circulation is really a shift towards Inner/self circulation... After WWII the US was the world's largest trading partner by far, in 2023 China is already the largest trading partner with 80% to 90% of the nations of the world, not to mention its the largest importer of oil and we all know OPEC will soon be exporting to China while accepting digital e-Yuan... It only makes sense that the world's largest economy and largest trading partner should use its own currency rather than that of its hostile enemies whom have proven time and again to weaponize it against China as part of a strategy of Chinese containment...

Thus, it goes without saying that sooner rather than later China must "cut out the useless middle man" both in terms of his currency and trade with him (or rather, giving him stuff for free etc) and instead of profiting off the margins of that unequal arrangement (for every $1000 iphone made in China, less than $8 goes to China as net profit and Apple banks the rest) China would just produce goods for its own domestic population and trade with the rest of its land neighbors via BRI/OBOR and SCS rather than propping up the "useless eater" (your elites terminology) when it no longer has to, when it no longer benefits China to do so... when China can make everything itself (including master EUV and beyond etc) then it only needs to trade with nations that has actual raw resources that it needs... no need to trade with USA at all..

In fact the world (outside of the 5EYES and vassals) may one day realize with China as its alternative option, with China offering a better arrangement, that they collectively in fact no longer need the USA and it will be America that gets isolated and contained...

So now, this is really a race of both sides trying different strategies to see who first can pull the rug out from underneath the other guy's feet first...

The reality is geopolitically its not only zero sum, its negative sum, everyone's pie is getting smaller... In the post-peak energy world of global diminishing EROEI, the world needs to buy time and I think Deagel 2025 is where they vote the US out... with America gone, the demand destruction created might reverse peak oil for a decade and give China enough time to figure out and scale up fusion and other renewable tech so that humanity and mankind has a chance to survive the Great Filter and towards Type I