Jan van Eck + 7,558 MG April 15, 2020 23 minutes ago, ANGRYLION said: It's well researched but loses credibility towards the end. There is no doubt ...china must pay. This was an industrial accident that has affected the world. China could have stopped it. Could have been transparent. Could have WARNED US. They didnt. And they wont. They must pay ...and pay now. China is not paying, and will not pay, one thin dime to anybody for "damages." Not going to happen. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
UNC12345 + 171 AB April 15, 2020 On 4/14/2020 at 1:52 AM, Douglas Buckland said: Simply because it seems to annoy you and Hotone (is that pronounced hot one or ‘ho’ tony...🤔). You guys don’t seem to mind posting your bullshit, ‘what goes around, comes around’! Perhaps give me some specifics on my bullshit Douglas, or is this just another vague insult, then avoid the things I actually mentioned? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jan van Eck + 7,558 MG April 15, 2020 17 hours ago, Robert Thomas 2 said: I'm just curious as to why the death rate might be so low in china compared to Europe. Other than reporting issues (discussed herein by other posters in some detail) the major reason I would ascribe to the utter incompetence of the bureaucracy in Italy. remember that, to free up bed spaces, the bureaucrats moved the infected but not seriously ill C-19 patients out to nursing homes. that instaly mass-multiplied the number of infected, and the hapless folks int he nursing homes started dying like flies. Then the bureaucrats shut down the schools, but not the workplaces, so predictably the little kids (themselves cesspools of petri-dish infections) were individually shuttled off to the grandparents, another high-risk group, and those elderly were infected, and started dying off like more flies. The total stupidity and banality of Italy's bureaucrats then caused a panorama of mass death. Indeed, it would be hard pressed to figure out a more stupid way to respond to this virus. Never underestimate the power of utterly stupid decisions to really cause havoc. Works each time, every time. 3 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jan van Eck + 7,558 MG April 15, 2020 4 minutes ago, UNC12345 said: Perhaps give me some specifics on my bullshit Douglas, or is this just another vague insult, then avoid the things I actually mentioned? Meanwhile, while you guys are trading jibes, it is snowing outside, here on the fifteenth of April, everything covered in a fresh blanket of pure white snow. OK, it looks pretty, but it sure puts the nail in the idea that "the planet is warming." Who the blazes has a snowstorm in mid-April? Antarctica? 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
UNC12345 + 171 AB April 15, 2020 Well, I think the term "global warming" is now "climate change". And it is causing some strange things. Snow here too. I better be careful on here using terms such as this. A conspiracy theorist will soon jump on here and say it's a liberal, leftist plot to discredit Trump and take over the world. Sorry, should NOT have mentioned that! 5 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jan van Eck + 7,558 MG April 15, 2020 6 minutes ago, UNC12345 said: A conspiracy theorist will soon jump on here and say it's a liberal, leftist plot to discredit Trump and take over the world. Ha, Ha! UNC, you are a funny man! 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Kirkman + 8,860 April 15, 2020 12 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said: Who the blazes has a snowstorm in mid-April? Antarctica? Apparently, you do. Enjoy your Global Warming before it melts. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jan van Eck + 7,558 MG April 15, 2020 1 minute ago, Tom Kirkman said: Apparently, you do. Enjoy your Global Warming before it melts. Ha, Ha! You, too, are a (predictably) funny man! I remain shocked I did not get a Meme! Anyway, time to break out the snowshoes for my morning dog walk. 1 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Kirkman + 8,860 April 15, 2020 4 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said: Ha, Ha! You, too, are a (predictably) funny man! I remain shocked I did not get a Meme! Anyway, time to break out the snowshoes for my morning dog walk. I'm touched by your kind words : ) So much humor on the internet these days that I can't keep up. 9 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jan van Eck + 7,558 MG April 15, 2020 2 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said: I'm touched by your kind words : ) So much humor on the internet these days that I can't keep up. Stand-up comedy! "Biden has touched us all!" Stop, Stop! I just can't stop laughing! Have mercy! 1 4 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Rob Plant + 2,756 RP April 15, 2020 32 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said: Other than reporting issues (discussed herein by other posters in some detail) the major reason I would ascribe to the utter incompetence of the bureaucracy in Italy. remember that, to free up bed spaces, the bureaucrats moved the infected but not seriously ill C-19 patients out to nursing homes. that instaly mass-multiplied the number of infected, and the hapless folks int he nursing homes started dying like flies. Then the bureaucrats shut down the schools, but not the workplaces, so predictably the little kids (themselves cesspools of petri-dish infections) were individually shuttled off to the grandparents, another high-risk group, and those elderly were infected, and started dying off like more flies. The total stupidity and banality of Italy's bureaucrats then caused a panorama of mass death. Indeed, it would be hard pressed to figure out a more stupid way to respond to this virus. Never underestimate the power of utterly stupid decisions to really cause havoc. Works each time, every time. Jan the UK can easily rival Italy in the stupid stakes. Our death rate is exactly the same as Italy's and we aren't even counting the elderly who are dying in the care homes!!! That's probably another 50% at least on top of our figures. When you start off with a policy of herd immunity and then change your minds after a week or so then yep that will surely rival Italy's policies of dealing with C-19 3 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jan van Eck + 7,558 MG April 15, 2020 (edited) 45 minutes ago, Rob Plant said: When you start off with a policy of herd immunity and then change your minds after a week or so then yep that will surely rival Italy's policies of dealing with C-19 Ugh. That is seriously bad news. I would have expected better from the Brits. This is no time for "muddling through." Edited April 15, 2020 by Jan van Eck typing error 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Douglas Buckland + 6,308 April 15, 2020 1 hour ago, Marcin2 said: So the essense of this strategy rests on 5 billion people becoming hateful towards China and thus no longer buying their cheap, competitive necessities and thus significantly decreasing Chinese export prospects. A few points: - The strategy seems a little bit passive for me, basing the future of your country on a specific, future behaviour of people from third party states, - I do not understand why people should be hateful towards China for force majoure, out of their control. BUT since I have small children I am familiar with this line of deduction. Recently my youngest stumped on Lego brick ( she refused to clean her room after playing). It was all my fault cause I bought the toy in the first place. After a while she understood lack of logic of her line of thinking. If only Trump could... - But major the weakness is that Chinese R&D will go at full speed no matter if they would have ANY exports or not, it is for self sufficiency, national security reasons. - And last but not least, I do not know how I would need to hate China to get rid of using cheap Chinese necessities. While brushing my teeth I do not think that I am backing CCP, there are just no other choices but Chinese stuff. And this is where I would expect US tangible, constructive actions in matching Chinese self sufficiency. It is not a strategy per say, it is retribution for needlessly killing their mothers, fathers, sister, brothers, grandparents, etc... China is responsible, and for every action there will be a reaction. You need to get it through your thick skull that China, by their response, or lack thereof, is responsible for the deaths of tens, or perhaps hundreds of thousands of innocent people outside of China. There are no ‘cheap Chinese necessities’ when you are paying in human lives. The economic and political response will not be ‘logical’, it will be based on vengeance. The storm is coming. 2 2 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Rob Plant + 2,756 RP April 15, 2020 Just now, Douglas Buckland said: It is not a strategy per say, it is retribution for needlessly killing their mothers, fathers, sister, brothers, grandparents, etc... China is responsible, and for every action there will be a reaction. You need to get it through your thick skull that China, by their response, or lack thereof, is responsible for the deaths of tens, or perhaps hundreds of thousands of innocent people outside of China. There are no ‘cheap Chinese necessities’ when you are paying in human lives. The economic and political response will not be ‘logical’, it will be based on vengeance. The storm is coming. I actually didn't think this was possible before C-19 as I always believed that consumerism and simple economics would always win out. However the general feeling of a backlash with all things China in the UK is astonishing at present.If that lasts (and that's a big if) you might just be right Douglas. There are hundreds of thousands of families that are already directly affected by C-19 in the UK and none of them would buy anything Chinese out of choice. I do however believe that most of S.E.Asia will not stop buying Chinese products due to the political influence China has over the region. 2 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Rob Plant + 2,756 RP April 15, 2020 10 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said: I would have expected bette3r from the Brits. Nope! The numbers don't lie! Admittedly we are a hugely overcrowded island which makes it extremely difficult to control, but a flip flop strategy is no strategy at all. 2 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Rob Plant + 2,756 RP April 15, 2020 (edited) China must take some responsibility for coronavirus, former MI6 head says https://apple.news/AQrRP13q3SOSBEnEClhd9uA Edited April 15, 2020 by Rob Plant Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Douglas Buckland + 6,308 April 15, 2020 10 minutes ago, Rob Plant said: I actually didn't think this was possible before C-19 as I always believed that consumerism and simple economics would always win out. However the general feeling of a backlash with all things China in the UK is astonishing at present.If that lasts (and that's a big if) you might just be right Douglas. There are hundreds of thousands of families that are already directly affected by C-19 in the UK and none of them would buy anything Chinese out of choice. I do however believe that most of S.E.Asia will not stop buying Chinese products due to the political influence China has over the region. You may be right, but I think that you will find many supply chains/companies moving out of China, to other Asian countries, so many of these products will no longer be made in China. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
0R0 + 6,251 April 15, 2020 (edited) On 4/15/2020 at 8:48 AM, Marcin2 said: China is not going to develop anything. Wow, so you added a few more points to Douglas briliant strategy, to MAKE IT BULLETPROOF. It rests future of your country on additionally ALL Chinese becoming instantly DUMB and suddenly not fit for any creative activities. They will also go into Middle income trap (a lot of their country is already high-tech, high income but when they would become instantly DUMB this will just cease to exist). The US will reindustrialize and duplicate supply chains outside of China. Good point, the problem is with WILL little detail. I am asking about IS. China has no problem living off its current advanced economy population to perdition. Its problem is elevating the migrant labor and getting people out of the middle income trap. If you are not familiar with the term, it is a developing economics term for countries that had industrialized but not managed to continue raising incomes and the advancing a greater portion of the population up the economic ladder. It is the outcome of the vast majority of cases of successful development. They get stuck. Lots and lots of ink spilled on analyzing why this happened rather than have development continue to Japanese levels. China did do spectacularly well with their first wave of advancement and climbing up the level of business and work. The second phase of deepening this success into broader society seems to have them stuck there. One explanation is that the society develops a structural impediment so that people outside the leading economic grouping stop gaining opportunities due to resource hoarding at the top. Another issue that comes up is the timing of the deepening stage relative to demographic structure, i.e. how many fewer children. With the inverted demographic pyramid you get a drop in the rate of economic expansion in the second generation since urbanization as the balance of demand to production falls- thus producing a lower income, less commercial investment (in production vs. real estate), more marginal employment rather than career advancement. Both of these have occurred in China. In large part due to the CCP structure in society in the first case, and the one child policy in the second. So that is likely going to be stuck and stay so unless CCP members forgo the benefits of party membership for their children in order to share them with all others. Very unlikely now. It was rather idiotic to separate the explanation from the headline. Perhaps you need things encapsulated in large marker ink in bold block letters like Trump. Your expectation of this ability to self improve is without context, it is missing in the analysis. The people in the middle trap are not managing to finance their children's educational advancement. They are no longer rising above their parent's achievement levels. They can't afford the extra cram courses and private English lessons, they rely ever more on purchasing housing in well heeled areas where state schools for the CCP membership and the wealthy are located. Back a decade ago I thought that educational technology would allow a cheaper avenue to this. But it has failed to do so... Therefore, they are stuck in educational achievement. The third issue, again related to the middle income trap, is the "little princeling" phenomenon where Children are overly indulged by 4 grandparents and 2 parents and lack ambition and drive. While you can use external forces to the family to keep children involved, these are well paid professionals and they don't come cheap. In most cases, the grandparents prefer to put the money into an extra apartment that will be available when the child is near college age or be heavily indebted due to buying it earlier in the child's life, rather than help prepare the child for success in school. That largely due to the past success of real estate speculation. As to the particulars of China replacing the high tech supply chain. 1. It is a terribly difficult to access. They can't steal and bribe their way into this the way they had before, the people involved have been poaching off each other for decades and are rather well fortified now, unlike what the Chinese had managed to steal before. 2. It is very fast moving and most of the people involved are are burned out within a decade from grad school. Those who copy from them will find the copies obsolete the day the chip plant produces a first chip. Possibly be 2-3 generations behind. Those burn outs are generally the guys that become available for Chinese industrial espionage. 3. The actual leading edge in technology - 1 2 generations and sometimes 3 generations ahead of commercial technology, is built within US defense labs and they are already under constant watch against Chinese agents. 4, This is not Nokia and Erikson where Chinese companies open an office across the street and recruit the top talent within a few years, but rather they open an office in the office park, find themselves and their domestic hires investigated, then are escorted to the airport to leave back home the next day. In Germany, they are already meeting "the hand" when they tried it recently in trying to obtain robotics designs.. Some Japanese leaders in robotics don't sell current generation products to China at all and do not allow Chinese commercial shoppers to even see the new tech. Not even let them see last years' expired products. But the main reasons I pointed out already. .Their finances are unstable and getting worse. Their demographics are inverted and leading them to shrinking margins and a lack of demand for productive capital, Finally, reparations for CV19 will wipe their external balance sheet and exorcising China from the supply chains will cause a steady erosion of export orders and thus incomes and induce huge levels of excess capacity. Much of it will have to be abandoned and employees find themselves unemployed. Which ultimately means a cap on capacity to buy oil. Edited April 19, 2020 by 0R0 2 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Robert Thomas 2 + 10 April 15, 2020 5 hours ago, 0R0 said: Shame on you. Apologies for being rude Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Marcin2 + 725 MK April 15, 2020 3 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said: It is not a strategy per say, it is retribution for needlessly killing their mothers, fathers, sister, brothers, grandparents, etc... China is responsible, and for every action there will be a reaction. You need to get it through your thick skull that China, by their response, or lack thereof, is responsible for the deaths of tens, or perhaps hundreds of thousands of innocent people outside of China. There are no ‘cheap Chinese necessities’ when you are paying in human lives. The economic and political response will not be ‘logical’, it will be based on vengeance. The storm is coming. I understand that this is an opportunity, but this is only accidental one, because of current disease. Good strategy of containment of a very dangerous rival should not be reliant on such unlikely event but bulletproof. What if people after the first phase of grief and anti-Chinese sentiment will return to buying their cheap stuff. So it is probable that in 30 years we will live in some kind of global gulag cause anti-Chinese virus sentiment gamble didn't pay off ? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dan Warnick + 6,100 April 15, 2020 3 hours ago, Rob Plant said: I do however believe that most of S.E.Asia will not stop buying Chinese products due to the political influence China has over the region. Unfortunately for China, Rob, SE Asia accounts for a lot less exports from China. They have made their money from the West. A little thought of issue is how much is imported into China from SE Asia. Those economies hurt every time China reduces the order books. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Eyes Wide Open + 3,554 April 15, 2020 (edited) 4 hours ago, UNC12345 said: Well, I think the term "global warming" is now "climate change". And it is causing some strange things. Snow here too. I better be careful on here using terms such as this. A conspiracy theorist will soon jump on here and say it's a liberal, leftist plot to discredit Trump and take over the world. Sorry, should NOT have mentioned that! Your thinking global warming actually spinning a yarn of yesterdays news. You may wish to update now is not the time for gloating..Swift and decisive actions will soon be undertaken...liberal world socialism will have a in depth hard look taken at . Not a good place to be right now. Edited April 15, 2020 by Eyes Wide Open Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Marcin2 + 725 MK April 15, 2020 https://babylonbee.com/news/medical-experts-confirm-democrats-have-developed-herd-immunity-to-sexual-assault-allegations Medical Experts Confirm Democrats Have Developed Herd Immunity To Sexual Assault Allegations April 13th, 2020 U.S.—Medical experts were excited to announce today that Democrats have achieved herd immunity against sexual assault allegations. After getting accused of sexual assault thousands and thousands of times for so many years, the Democrats developed some kind of antibodies against the allegations. Researchers are taking blood samples to isolate the antibodies to see if a vaccine can be developed for other groups. "It's amazing -- the entire Democrat demographic is entirely immune," said one researcher as he took blood samples from Joe Biden. "After conspiring with the media to squash any accusations that pop up, it seems, over time, Democrats have been able to develop a kind of herd immunity to any allegations." Biden has been an important case study for medical experts' work, as he can publicly sniff people's hair and inappropriately touch many people on camera and still be entirely protected from any accusation whatsoever. His DNA is being studied for a possible breakthrough for other politicians. With time, other political parties may be able to use the vaccine, but for now, it seems only Democrats are immune. Other political parties and at-risk conservatives are being advised to quarantine so as to avoid any allegations until a vaccine is discovered. 2 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
surrept33 + 609 st April 15, 2020 If there is blowback from coronavirus, it seems probable that it would be hard to significantly reduce exposure to China for most countries, especially when there is also a protectionist wave going on elsewhere like in the United States. Keep in mind that China also imports vast quantities of natural resources and other intermediate economic goods from elsewhere. It's become the #1 trading partner for most of the world. This isn't going to change overnight. Largest trading partners per country US vs China: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/china-u-s-worlds-trading-partner/ 2000, in the eve of China joining the WTO: 2018: Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites