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FriedButter

FriedButter

Colonel
Registered Member
Biscuits said:
Sounds like local officials trying to grift Washington.

Said "5 million $" per person will be used to fund "businesses" and "NGOs" that "help" the black community, that is if such a law ever materialises in the first place.

These beneficiaries can then either just pocket the money wholesale, or offer their services at a discount to the black community, with the federal government footing the full bill, which will be every bit as inflated as possible, so as to fully grift other departments out of millions.

However, this proposal is too simple and too naive. It'll not pass scrutiny. The ones who made it should have dressed it up more, it sounds too much like socialism in its current form.
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You read it wrong. $5 million per black person is 1 of the 100 recommendations that is proposed. The funding business and NGOs is a separate proposal.

Plus the document says $5 million direct payment as a lump sum.

1.1 Provide a one-time, lump sum payment of $5 million to each eligible person.
Rationale: A lump sum payment would compensate the affected population for the decades of harms that they have experienced, and will redress the economic and opportunity losses that Black San Franciscans have endured, collectively, as the result of both intentional decisions and unintended harms perpetuated by City policy.
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There is probably tens of billion in cost for the other 99 recommendations.
 
B

Biscuits

Major
Registered Member
daifo said:
Proton vpn is free but prob leaks to the CIA. But good enough to get around the great fire fence of america.

I think a state actor can track you if you were a prime mark unless you use a mulltiple of vpn from multiple countries.
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MSS, CIA maybe even FSB can just find you if you have a signficant amount of online presence by matching your writing style with databases over nearly all written content on the internet. That way they will be able to guesstimate all the alts that are yours, find some compromised and then also gain password access to all or most of the accounts.

Obviously this would only happen in the case of preventing terrorism, pursuing major white collar criminals and fighting drug kingpins.

Collosal waste of effort for nothing/no arrests if its used to target people jumping national firewalls, given that it is not a criminal offense to do so in either China nor America.
 
B

Biscuits

Major
Registered Member
FriedButter said:
You read it wrong. $5 million per black person is 1 of the 100 recommendations that is proposed. The funding business and NGOs is a separate proposal.

Plus the document says $5 million direct payment as a lump sum.



There is probably tens of billion in cost for the other 99 recommendations.
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Nah I read the whole thing.

The key is precisely in the separate proposals. Such a lump sum payment is without precedent and would not be politically acceptable. So what is the proposals that will be deferred to once the highball meant to start discussion and get populist fervor riled up from the local blacks be?

Proposals are just that, proposals. Like how for the 003 carrier there were proposals to use a steam catapult or use an EM catapult... Africans might be looking forward for the 5 million proposal, doesn't mean they'll get it, not when it's much better for Washington to serve them up the funny NGO proposal!
 
FriedButter

FriedButter

Colonel
Registered Member
Biscuits said:
The key is precisely in the separate proposals. Such a lump sum payment is without precedent and would not be politically acceptable.

Africans might be looking forward for the 5 million proposal, doesn't mean they'll get it, not when it's much better for Washington to serve them up the funny NGO proposal!
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Beside it being politically impossible. It is also financially impossible. Total cost is $250 billion or 20 years of the city budget. If it was expanded nationally then the cost could ballon up to $210 trillion.

I don’t know why they hire people to make unrealistic proposals. Then I suppose it’s more like a carrot and a stick to trick voters instead.
 
manqiangrexue

manqiangrexue

Brigadier
tamsen_ikard said:
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.
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Agree in principle in the sense that China has a lot of potential to unlock, too much to worry about fighting other people unless pushed to do so, but the details in the bold parts I do not agree with.

First of all, it's obvious that China is a leader in most high tech areas; if the opposite were to be true, China and the US would still be on good terms. China is the only nation that can fight successfully against the US in a tech war; maybe Russia can barely survive; no other country could resist being crushed immediately.

America's internal problems are different from China's internal problems and in a bad way for America. China's problem is basically that it has too much potential still left to be unlocked. America's internal problems is that it is divided by rising racial and political hatred. China's problems are akin to a land developer having too much open space he hasn't built on yet, and America's problems are akin to a land developer having to deal with growing stress cracks in the foundations of the buildings he put all his investments in. If asked to choose, I'd love to have China's problems and I wouldn't touch America's.
tamsen_ikard said:
The funny part about "trying to win" and "prevent losing" is that China is not playing that game at all. China is not interested in Winning and losing, they are interested in Development. When you talk about winning or losing, you need to degrade your opponent. That's not China is trying to do at all. China does not consider US as an opponent either. It still looks up to US in a lot areas of technology, lack of corruption in governance, higher education and so on. When China thinks about its place in the world, it sees poverty and weakness and underutilized potential.

China believes there should be universities in China that are the best in the world where everyone wants to study. China wants its movies to be as popular globally as hollywood. It wants language and culture to be popular similar to western languages.

For China, gaining influence in countries in terms of diplomacy or regime change is just not important. To be rejuvinated means your country is wealthy enough that your citizens don't need a visa to travel, your language is spoken by a lot of people when you do travel abroad and you can watch your own country's movies when you turn on the tv which is also chinese branded. That's real power and progress.

Military power, diplomacy these are secondary compared to comprehensive national power.

If China was serious about Military power for example, it will achieve fits like it did with its Expressway network. It went from 0 to 160K KM in 15 years. Its high speed rail went from 0 to 45 thousand KM in 10 years. That's what being serious looks like.

China is not interested in developing its military power yet. Yes, its improving, but at a bare minimum compared to the rest of the country. You don't spend 1.5% of GDP in military if you are serious about it. You spend 5% or 10%.

China believes Military power will come to it naturally, if it improves those aspects of economic, education and tech growth.

As for US, China wants to become as wealthy as US or Japan or Europe. And when it achieves that, it will automatically gain power and influence. It will not have "win" or make US "lose".
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Once again, yes to the concept that China is more focused on developing itself so it doesn't need any external distractions like the US does to stop its people from getting angry. But regarding the bold parts...

China's declining worship of the US and growing self confidence was always a trend but it was greatly accelerated by COVID and seeing America's devastating failure followed by its pathetically botched political efforts to convince the people that it had handled it extremely well. Corruption in the US is literally legal; what other countries call bribing the US calls lobbying. WTF is that? LOL COVID followed by the War in the Ukraine has really increased China's self-confidence and decreased worship in the floundering West.

China's military funding is 1. non-transparent despite the published numbers, 2. dependent and held back by rapid advances which discourage large scale construction (ordering 1,000 A variant makes sense if B variant is 15 years away, not so much if it is 3 years away) and 3. already supporting the largest military build-up in the world despite taking a modest chunk of the GDP. The US spends 4% on its military and that is considered very serious and a big strain on other efforts like infrastructure and education; 5% is incredibly aggressive and 10% doesn't make sense.
 
baykalov

baykalov

Senior Member
Registered Member
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Two Russian Su-27 aircraft conducted an unsafe and unprofessional intercept with a U.S. Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance unmanned MQ-9 aircraft that was operating within international airspace over the Black Sea today.

At approximately 7:03 AM (CET), one of the Russian Su-27 aircraft struck the propeller of the MQ-9, causing U.S. forces to have to bring the MQ-9 down in international waters. Several times before the collision, the Su-27s dumped fuel on and flew in front of the MQ-9 in a reckless, environmentally unsound and unprofessional manner. This incident demonstrates a lack of competence in addition to being unsafe and unprofessional.

“Our MQ-9 aircraft was conducting routine operations in international airspace when it was intercepted and hit by a Russian aircraft, resulting in a crash and complete loss of the MQ-9,” said U.S. Air Force Gen. James B. Hecker, commander, U.S. Air Forces Europe and Air Forces Africa. “In fact, this unsafe and unprofessional act by the Russians nearly caused both aircraft to crash.”

“U.S. and Allied aircraft will continue to operate in international airspace and we call on the Russians to conduct themselves professionally and safely,” Hecker added.

This incident follows a pattern of dangerous actions by Russian pilots while interacting with U.S. and Allied aircraft over international airspace, including over the Black Sea. These aggressive actions by Russian aircrew are dangerous and could lead to miscalculation and unintended escalation.

U.S. Air Forces in Europe – Air Forces Africa routinely fly aircraft throughout Europe over sovereign territory and throughout international airspace in coordination with applicable host nation and international laws. In order to bolster collective European defense and security, these missions support Allied, partner, and U.S. national objectives.
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Russian MoD statement regarding the US Reaper Drone:

On the morning of March 14 over the waters of the Black Sea in the area of the Crimean peninsula, the airspace control of the Russian Aerospace Forces recorded the flight of an American MQ-9 unmanned aerial vehicle in the direction of the state border of the Russian Federation.

The flight of the unmanned aerial vehicle was carried out with transponders turned off in violation of the boundaries of the area of the temporary regime for the use of airspace, established for the purpose of conducting a special military operation, brought to all users of international airspace and published in accordance with international standards.

In order to identify the intruder, fighters from the air defense forces on duty were raised into the air. As a result of sharp maneuvering around 9.30 (Moscow time), the MQ-9 unmanned aerial vehicle went into uncontrolled flight with a loss of altitude and collided with the water surface. Russian fighters did not use airborne weapons, did not come into contact with an unmanned aerial vehicle and returned safely to their base airfield.
 
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