Miscellaneous News

henrik

Captain
Registered Member
It is getting the boot for sure with US also banning tiktok, preventing Chinese phones from launching in the US and most likely Chinese cars too. But China will do it slowly, making sure milk every drop of money it can get out of Apple before they kick it out.

The US is now saying apple is a monopoly in an anti-trust case. Very soon they will introduce Huawei smartphones in the US to give the US consumers more choices.
 

pmc

Colonel
Registered Member
That said, India is not to be underestimated, because it does have a major advantage over China - demographics. While it is not likely that Indian demographics will translate to much of a productivity advantage, it *is* rather helpful in increasing India's global power, since India is great at exporting its population and gaining influence via its diaspora. Just think about all the Indian CEOs, politicians, etc. in the West. No, they're never going to "take over" Western society; but they could become a significant lobbying group, which could become a serious diplomatic problem for China.
why use word never when they are one generation away from having significant influence. Indian population are not protesting like those in Ireland. India major advantage is its integration into Gulf Arabs economic system and its balancing role. Just take a look at Arabian business real estate. Germany with all that Global South and Turkish decent population has such low birth rate. i am sure this country is of interest.

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The
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in Germany has fallen in the past two years. This is the result of a current study. The Federal Institute for Population Research said it fell from 1.57 children per woman in 2021 to around 1.36 in autumn 2023. This means that the so-called fertility level is lower than it has been since 2009. The scientists see a connection between the rate and the various global crises.
 

Bellum_Romanum

Brigadier
Registered Member
It doesn’t really matter where the French troops go, what matters is how they go there.

If the French sneak in, the Russians will probably not make a huge deal of it and just bomb them extra hard.

If the French go in officially and declare exactly where they are going, then it’s game on. The Russians would be forced to either call Macron’s bluff and bomb the French openly and knowingly and risk triggering Article 5, or not bomb them and allow the French to set an unacceptable precedent where NATO troops can go into Ukraine and create safe zones where the Russians fear to bomb, never mind tread.

I think this latter is a red line for Russia, because as soon as that happens, NATO troops will pop up all over Ukraine and basically freeze the conflict and set the new boarders. Just as it looks like Ukrainian resistance is finally crumbling and the Russians are about to make significant gains.

I don’t think Russia is in any mood for half measures or a compromised victory after all the blood and treasure it has already spent to get this far in Ukraine. China will also be just fine with Russia continuing to focus western attention in Europe and bleeding NATO of arms and money. This is why I think China will support Russia in targeting French troops if they go into Ukraine in whatever guise or capacity. Especially if the Russians learnt their lesson and consulted with China first before making a big move.

Also, it’s worth nothing that it’s not just Russia and America that have big elections this year. If Russia can show the Americans up as unreliable security guarantors, it may sway the election in a renegade province that is central to China’s interests.

If Russia has China’s support, it has to be stupid to not bomb the living daylights out of the French as soon as they can after they entry Ukraine.
Well, LEO TOLSTOY'S descendant does not seem to mind based on this interview from one of France's media.

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pmc

Colonel
Registered Member
2024 World Happiness report
Look at who is at #31 on the list
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i wont put too much stock on this data. They put Kuwait higher than UAE and Saudi. it can be Kuwait are not much educated so less expectations but there certain things like most powerful passport. This only happen when there is active engagement of society to build relations with outside world not just 80 years old king distributing social support.
Even this Finland is suspect. if Finland are so happiest according to this ranking for so many years than why there PISA score has declined or birth rate collapse. both can be attributed to families no longer caring.

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Sardaukar20

Major
Registered Member
Wealth gap in India is the highest it has ever been in decades.
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India’s richest 1% of the population earned 22% of the country’s income and held 40% of its wealth during the last financial year, a new
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published this week has suggested. These levels are “historically high” for India and even above those of developed economies such as the US, the paper notes.
If you can beat the legendary wealth gap in the US, then the wealth concentration in your country is truly epic.

The research paper, co-authored by economists Kumar Bharti, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, and Anmol Somanchi, claims that wealth in India, the fastest-growing large economy globally, is largely concentrated among the richest 1% of the population, whom they refer to as India’s modern bourgeoisie. They claim that the wealth distribution in the country is now more unequal than during British colonial rule.
So the white colonial masters had given Indians better wealth distribution than the rich Indians of today? Wow that is so sick.

In 2023, a report on poverty by the government advisory body NITI Aayog said the country had
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out of poverty in the previous five years
. According to a UNDP report published last year, multidimensional poverty fell from 25 to 15% between 2015-16 and 2019-21.
Lies. I wonder how NITI Aayog defines "poverty" in its report. The ground realities just don't add up. Poverty is everywhere. The slums are still there. People in the cities are returning to the farmlands to survive.

So India desires to accelerate it's economic growth at all costs to enrich its rich even more. Even resorting to cooking the numbers, and underreporting inconvenient truths. It's a grotesquely top-heavy economy by design. All for the top 1%, and screw the rest. It's so bad, that it makes the colonial era looked better by comparison.

China deliberately slowed it's economic growth to rebalance it's economy. It tries hard to rebalance wealth distribution across the population. Even when it hurts some of China's economic numbers. When China says it's lifting people out of poverty, it is doing it for real.

That is why when India calls itself the "voice of the Global South", it only received applause from the Western nations. When China shares the success story of its poverty alleviation program, countries from the Global South are lining up to learn how to do it.
 
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