Miscellaneous News
- Thread starter bd popeye
- Start date
Simple. High interest, money invested in financial products gets more money. So weaker currencies are naturally buying USD, park somewhere in US financial scams. We are seeing, Yen, yuan, ringgit, all weaker currencies gets weaker. Who would want a japanese yen now.
And naturally these money needs to be liquadated and get return as quickly as possible. As long as US can print money to inifinity backed with guns, expect strong US financial performance, more inflation and add a little prayer that this will continue for another 100 years.
Higher interest rates is bad for middle class and lower. The rich are loving that.
And naturally these money needs to be liquadated and get return as quickly as possible. As long as US can print money to inifinity backed with guns, expect strong US financial performance, more inflation and add a little prayer that this will continue for another 100 years.
Higher interest rates is bad for middle class and lower. The rich are loving that.
Well, it seems to me IRGC will keep doing their own thing regardless of the new president. The biggest variable IMO is Iran's nuclear policy
Bubble moment.
Long story short, US fully relies on the stock market to keep some of their vital social functions. It's their de facto form of welfare. Their stock market is propped up by massive government spending and every well off person's retirement funds.
Americans barely get any official pension at all, but anyone who wants to be even a little well off, needs to park their money in the stock market so that they get a de facto pension later.
So the stock bubble in US is held up with really strong government focus, since the moment it deflates or even worse, pops, you'd make destitute almost all the 40-60 yr olds that make up the experienced workforce and were saving up for retirement.
The ability to pay pensions is one of the core pillars of making a country function.
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
I would very much hold my assessment of this. In addition to the facts already pointed out that many "reformist" leaders actually have no desire to be closer to the West and that this person has a history of anti-US retoric, we should think about Iran's situation.
Iran is a hardline country against the West. It is to the point where is it becoming a middle-eastern North Korea. A reformist who can turn down the temperature without actually giving any (meaningful) concessions to the West is good for Iran and good for China/Russia. Iran can benefit from relaxed trade and international sanctions and an improved economy, which it needs to build its military. China and Russia will find it much easier to trade and deal with Iran if there aren't like 2,000 international sanctions on them with them swearing to blow up the US/Israel every day.
Lastly, even if he naively wanted to improve the relationship with the US, he will find out soon that he cannot do it. America's identity right now is the waning superpower afraid of being taken over by the rising superpower: China. Every aspect of America's policy, both international and domestic, focuses on how to not be taken over by China. Every positive relationship any country can have with the US is predicated on one thing and the one thing of value that they can offer America: to antagonize China. Unless Pez-whatever is stupid enough to become enemies with China and Russia to please the US, which I cannot imagine any Iranian president doing, especially with the relationship between the US and Israel, he will find out that his friendship offer to the US is rejected on the basis that he can offer America nothing if he will not antagonize China.
It's a zero sum game. America and China are enemy nations because they both have an irreconcilable desire to be the unrivaled number 1. No US president will do things that are directly "good" for China, but both Biden and Trump will do things that present surmountable challenges to China while dealing undefended damage to the US and that's what's good for China.
The one guy I really don't want to become the US president is Newsom. That guy's a bit too slick. He can fool people into thinking the temperature's turned down and he can offer a tricky flattering handshake. I can see Europe and undecided countries being drawn to his leadership. More dangerously, from lavishing on the praise of Chinese EVs while sitting in one during his last China visit, he has garnered a significant Chinese fan base as well. I don't want him on the US presidency unless and until he's so old he becomes Biden#2.
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A reformist [only] in the West = a pro Western figure. The definition isn't universal. The Ayatollahs of Iran who took control of the country in 1979 were heavily inspired by a Pakistani reformist, Maududi, who himself was an ardent critic of the West, an anti-imperialist, and his reformation idea consisted of purifying Islamic societies of Western influence and r̶e̶v̶e̶r̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ reforming back to the original Islamic political structure. Viewed with a Western lense, this is the exact opposite of a reformist.
If the word is being translated from Persian (or another language from the Islamic world), the commonly used original word from Arabic is mujadid (reformer) which has a different meaning altogether (i.e. Maududi, above).
The Western definition probably stems from the Protestant Reformation in which a group split from the existing Catholics to form a new sect based on invention of new ideas (as opposed to reverting to older ideas). In general, afaik the way the word is used in the West is simply anybody who has bowed to the West, i.e. when country X brings the economy inline with Western interests then they are reforming the economy.
I don't know how it's used in China.
They've found a way to increase digital value through financial instruments in the virtual world of computers without doing fuckall in the real world.
Why doesn't China trade with Iran despite the sanctions, just as it does with Russia who is also heavily sanctioned now?
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
China isn't a hardline country; we are very diplomatic. We are also the only country that is on course to become more powerful than the US unless something drastic changes. That means China has the most to lose from rocking the boat and extremism, or as we Chinese like to say, "to tear up faces." We are rivals with uneasy relationships with the West, but we are not hardline enemies, not even with the US, despite the irreconcilable differences. We maintain working relationships with them. This is because while there is much struggle from them to change it and from us to maintain it, we still benefit more from the relationship than they do. So to tear up everyone's faces and burn those bridges serves us no good. It's also why we don't just declare to the West that Russia is our ally and we will provide them with everything we see fit with no limits so they should quit their fantasies and incessant nagging. As long as they're so exhausted and desperate that they can still be fooled into continuing their relationship with us under the false hope that we are indeed neutral, we will allow them to continue making that mistake, for our benefit. No need to slap them awake with fierce enmity... not yet.
There are currently no sanctions on Iran and the annual trade volume is 38 billion $, putting them ahead of most middle eastern countries, slightly behind Turkey and far behind Saudi (107 billion)
Iran is not a very complex economy that can buy China's most high end products in sustainable numbers. Its industries are also not advanced enough to provide meaningful goods back to the Chinese market.
To increase trade, Iran must improve it's civilian economy, which I think several low hanging fruit can be solved by reforming religious laws. It will be interesting to see what the new president in Iran has planned.
Tourism is also something Iran has marketed very poorly, and is actually a viable sector for them to compete over Chinese market. Even a (compared to Iran) very advanced economy like South Korea cannot overcome and break into Chinese market in advanced industrial products, so rather than that, Iran should focus on product niches and tourism unique to Iran.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Just because Americans love war doesn’t necessarily make them the best at fighting wars. Not against peers and near-peers who can actually fight back. They are a predatory empire that derived its power and wealth from pillaging and slavery and they never really evolved past that level, which is why they are addicted to war. But only against hopelessly outmatch victims who cannot fight back and hurt them. As soon as they encounter real resistance they cut and run because Americans are actually not that good at fighting real wars. Their only real experience fighting a near peer real war was way back in WWII, when they jumped in late on the winning side. They are for sure no pushover, but other than their industrial production capabilities, there wasn’t really anything all that outstanding about their actual war fighting performance in WWII.
The Chinese don’t like wars, because throughout history they have fought a lot of total wars against some of the most infamous warrior cultures in human history that lives for war, and knows the true costs of such wars. So much so that when they are forced to fight wars, they don’t fuck around and generally end civilisations that love wars so much to stop having to keep fighting wars against them. In that sense, the Chinese are a lot more like the ancient Romans that the Americans loves to ape, far more so than the Americans themselves.
China’s non-intervention policy is rooted in deep pragmatism. China doesn’t want to be forced to prop up horrid dictators and hopeless idiots against their own peoples.
If you are at risk of being overthrown by your own people, the amount of resources China, or indeed any foreign power, would need to invest to prop you up is going to be unsustainable in the medium term even. Just look at America’s long and growing list of such failed misadventures for examples.
China’s investments are with the people of a country, not a particular leader. Take your Pakistan example, ordinary Pakistanis, irrespective of their political preferences and beliefs, are almost universally passionately friendly towards China. That is how you secure long term sustainable friendly relations with a whole nation and people rather than short term deals with a problematic individual who’s own choices and behaviour makes them an enemy of their own people and thus destined to fall eventually.
This policy is also a test of nations and peoples to see which are worthy of Chinese investment. If a whole people are delusional beyond redemption, it’s better to leave such idiots in the opposing camp where they will be more useful to China, like the Italians were to Nazi Germany.