The CCP's Olympic Backsliding

We Need To Discuss This China Economic News

In the 1980s I read that the USSR's rate of capital investment was growing yearly and way higher than in the USA, and I thought "Uh-oh for us." Then I read that all that capital investment was producing a negative return -- that they weren't just running on a treadmill to get ahead, but running on a treadmill and falling behind -- and I thought "Uh-oh for them." As regards Communist China, have we transitioned from the "Uh-Oh for us" stage and into "Uh-Oh for them?"

The Chinese leadership blamed political reform in the USSR for the collapse of the communist regime and vowed not to make that mistake. This is like blaming the cancer on the desperate remedies used to slow its spread. Now they've tossed that politically convenient "two systems" pledge (allowing limited political and economic freedom) onto the Ashheap of Chinese History. What desperate measures will Xi Jinping use to avoid that same fate?

Zeihanism

The Breakdown of the Republican Coalition (Trump's Fault?) || Peter Zeihan

As an aside, incumbents should declare the current horrendous budget deficit as part of their re-election campaign expenses.

As for Peter's screed, yeah. I don't know. The anti-Trump crowd is looking a little bonkers -- and that includes almost all of DC. The "outsider" candidate usually has an advantage. When Democrat Progressives are out of power they run as visionaries, painting a bright picture of the future -- which is best not examined too closely because everyone has a different vision of the future. For a Republican, it helps to be a governor who will bring common sense to running an out-of-control Washington when run by visionaries who are mucking up the present. No more gas ranges for you!  It's probably worth five points in each case (I should mention I don't know what I'm talking about).

The Donald ran as an outsider who became an insider (standing on the stage with Dr. Fauci was enough). He's since been re-outsided. In fact, the establishment would cast him into eternal perdition if they could (and are still trying). Recently, I joked that Democrats want convicts to vote and Republicans want to elect one President.

The Democrats were also the cool party. It really had nothing to do with their candidates and everything to do with their control of culture. Lately, it seems Nurse Ratchet has taken over their nanny state and Hollywood sermons are falling flat. Could be a long-term problem for them if Conservative anti-woke becomes the next fad. They can say Trump wants to control access to abortion but they want to control everything else -- and is forcing an "abortion choice" really out of the question? (They used to argue abortion saved money on Welfare and cut down on crime and, anyway, 90 percent of humanity is excess baggage on Spaceship Earth and is best disposed of. Don't worry, Gaia will sort them out.) 

I think Peter's confusing Business with Wall Street. Wall Street will support Biden (a trillion dollars buys a lot of love) but small to medium-sized businesses are thrown into chaos by the massive expansion of the regulatory state. Trump will give them the good stuff without a lot of the bad.

The Military and national-security-minded voters have every reason to go with Trump. The Obama faction made a lot of left-leaning appointments (the CIA director voted for a Stalinist as his third-party choice) and leaked their political hackery to progressive journalists (Traitor Trump!).  This coalition could be an inch wide and an Inch deep but quite loud (or, if you prefer, outspoken).

Oh, yeah, and it's the economy.

The Material is there, but is the Heart of Russia Willing?

The Ukraine War & the Battle of Avdiivka || Peter Zeihan

Will Putin ever tire of his War of Attrition?

Time was the Peasants would have four or five kids expecting to lose a few to one or two of the four horsemen.  When you have one son the calculations change.  If they are drawing heavily from the minority populations -- who might not be pleased by that approach -- and run out of convicts, they may find that war of attrition has become a threat to the regime -- though stopping so far short of the mark is not necessarily the better option.

Thanks to Putin, many of the folks who wanted the Soviet Union to stay together now want the Russian Federation to fall apart. If China gets Vladivostok -- which they claim -- then the US should take the Kamchatka Peninsula and the tiny bit of Russia that lies to the north of it and some of those islands to the south (we can make it all a National Park).

China hits Parkinson's Wall

 50% Crash: Shocking Reports on Wages, Land & Debt | Chinese Economy |

Tony, on his China Update YouTube channel, gives quite level-headed assessments of the Chinese economy. So if he headlines "Shocking Reports," then the reports are shocking to, you know, level-headed commentators. Which doesn't include me. For a while I've thought a few "lost decades" (an extended period of slow growth) going forward was the best-case scenario for China.

Back in 1964, my ninth-grade glee club ushered at a lecture by C. Northcote Parkinson, a humorist, satirist, and inventor (discoverer?) of Parkinson's law. Here it is, as far as I can remember:

1. Bureaucracies expand, regardless of the amount of work.
2. Officials seek to multiply subordinates and neutralize rivals while creating work for each other.
3. Work expands to fill the time available.

Well before Hong Kong returned to China I gave it 20 years (out of the agreed-upon 50) as an international financial center. The CCP wouldn't immediately kill the golden goose because, after the first Cultural Revolution, it needed the eggs. Over time, the "private economy goose" would grow into a rival to the CCP's official economy, where inefficiency is in the self-interest of those in charge. Add in the shake-up and uncertainty at the top of the CCP -- the start of a second Cultural Revolution? -- and stemming the flight of international capital is not a high priority (if it's a priority at all). This is not a peaceful period of "Work Expands" but an ongoing  CCP purge and "Survival Demands."

Economists can propose but Parkinson's law will dispose.

America, After Argentina

Argentina, After America || Peter Zeihan

Peter provides the conventional thinking of the deep-state with a leavening of common sense. His attitude toward Trump reflects this. His comparison of Trump and Peron is off the mark only because it misses the point.  The Obama/Clinton deep-staters tried to frame Trump as a Russian spy. I was never a Trump fan -- I thought him a bloviating braggart (or, more politely, one accomplished in the art of bragging). But a spy? Com'on. Plus, the accusations came from hacks who are highly paid professional liars. It didn't bother me during the campaign. After all, they were trying to keep hold of the many trillions of dollars that flow through DC every year and, as importantly, exercise the power to regulate everything. That kind of power is well worth the lies (apparently, we are still supposed to believe them). If Hillary could have pulled off an Evita, she'd have done so with song and dance.

What did the Donald want to do as the Prez?

1.  Cut illegal immigration and increase legal immigration.
2.  Put tariffs on China.
3. Rebuild our Military. 
4. Pass the Republican tax plan. 
5. Cut some of the more ridiculous regulations.

Sorry, that is not a Peronist program -- in fact, it was a rather moderate return to the political norm after a left-wing administration. The tariffs on China are still in place, and the military still has its budget. What's the Obama-Biden "not at all Peronist" program? They have deliberately re-havoced the southern border for their own political purposes while wildly growing government spending. They have ballooned the national debt and are obsessively regulating everything.

Meanwhile, the Clinton-Obama Democrats use the government to go after the political opposition -- but it ain't Peronist when they do it. Yeah. Sorry. Peron is the "new normal" in DC and it's not Trump's doing.

I Improve "Rebel Moon -- Part One"

I watched Rebel Moon on Netflix. I kept my expectations quite low and the show met them.

I thought the girl working the fields under the pinkish light reflecting off the huge planet was both cool and, at the same time, kinda hot. Then I wondered if her moon was tidally locked to that huge planet like our moon is to Earth and if that huge planet blocked the sun for half of the moon's orbit. Then I stopped thinking, which helped.

The girl lives with a bunch of Viking farmers who are pining for the fjords. She is with them but not of them. A Nazi guy shows up in a big, planet-killing ship and gives the Vikings what for. It seems the Vikings have turned Amish and stubbornly refuse to buy mechanical harvesters that will ruin their close-to-god lifestyle but produce more food for their conquerors.

I'm confused about the Nazis because the soldiers left behind are Australian. One of them says, "Throw another steak on the barbie, mate, while I rape the kind-hearted hot blondie carrying the water bucket." I think the blond girl they try to rape is that same special, life-affirming princess so often discussed. I say this because the female fieldhand-ninja that came to her rescue was the bodyguard of the Princess before that terrible thing that happened...happened. So wouldn't they both crash in that same spaceship? Oh, right, apparently there was a crashed spaceship. Questions remain: Was Anthony Hopkins voicing the pacifist robot who's in deep-like with the blond girl? Was that child-stealing spider-lady actually a misunderstood person or an understood giant spider?

One thing I like about this universe is that the neighboring planets are so close you can walk between them. OK, they do find a charming smuggler with a spaceship to eliminate some of the hiking. The plot is "The Magnificent Seven Space Samurai" meet "The Empire as it Strikes Back." The guy playing the gruff "Charles Bronson" part is a griffin whisperer, so he has a bit of the suave Robert Redford in him.

Robert Redford played the horse whisperer in The Horse Whisperer. He helped a lame Scarlett Johansen's horse. Scarlett's character really was lame -- though not a lesbian, near as I could tell. The horse wasn't doing too good, either. Scarlett and her horse got hit by a truck. I was dragged off to see this movie and I thought it was "The Hoarse Whisperer," which made sense because if you are hoarse, you are going to whisper. So at the beginning, I'd ask, "Who's hoarse?" And she'd say, "It's the girl's horse." And I'd say, "Sure, but who's hoarse!" and she'd say, "Stop it!"

Where was I? Right. I thought the griffin should have flown upside down to ditch the whisperer, done in slo-mo, of course. The movie needs mo' slo-mo. And mo'cowbell in the musical score.

I did enjoy the climactic but ridiculous fight scene on the "floating drydock" above the clouds. The female fieldhand-ninja gets to meet, and temporarily defeat, her Nazi Nemesis -- who must have tucked and rolled after that long, hard fall.

I got a bit of a quibble. Earlier in the show, when she was at the campfire with the Viking Amish Farmer fella, she could explain that she was graciously adopted by a powerful evil commander after he made her an orphan. He did painful experiments on her. You always hurt the one you love was his favorite saying. She could tell the Amish Viking, "Small as I seem, I'm not just much stronger and meaner than you -- I weigh a lot more."

Then he looks at her quizzically and she explains, "I'm dense. I'm 87.6 percent Unobtainium, which is why I'm so light on my feet and yet rugged. Try to break my arm. Oh, go ahead, try to break it. You can't. Even my wounds heal quickly on account of all those tiny blood-bots that repair everything. Sometimes those blood-bots take over and make me do terrible things -- but not so much lately!"

Then she'd stare off into the distance and we'd cut to the flashback, "We found the Unobtainium on a lovely, lush planet where we met these beautiful and charming blue people and killed them. My evil stepdad established mines there which operate in harsh conditions but do provide employment for millions of slaves. My stepdad says it's the last job they'll ever need. He's funny, sometimes, and loves animals and prepubescent boys. I have enough highly refined Unobtainium in me to power the entire imperial fleet for five years -- that's why I'm a much sought-after commodity. Melt me -- which won't be easy cause I don't want to be melted -- and I'm high-grade fuel. Yeah, I'm denser than normal but also a wonderful dancer. Wanna dance? No? I'm good on the farm, too. I don't need no thick-headed stallion to pull that plow. I'll do it myself."  

In this way, she could explain her immense Physical Prowess, and how she keeps beating up all those guys.

There is a rumored Part Two. Am I right about that Extra-Special Life-affirming Princess being the water-carrying farm girl? Are the Amish Viking Villagers actually the Seven Dwarves? Stay-tunned.

Who puts the Con in Fusion Confusion?

US nuclear-fusion game-changing achievement

In high school, I got excited about these laser-ignition experiments at the US government labs. That was in 1967 and I looked forward to a future of energy abundance and flying cars. Meanwhile, two generations of researchers have earned a nice retirement -- and I ain't got no flying car. I wish the third generation well.

For over half a century they've focused multiple lasers on tiny magic-mixture pellets in microsecond bursts. For one brief shining moment, they produce the center of the sun-like conditions that compress two hydrogen atoms together to make one helium, releasing a burst of energy in the process. How many seconds of power per decade does it all add up to? Less than a minute? Of course, they were actually modeling more effective H-bombs, so maybe we got our money's worth (we won't know until the world is utterly destroyed in a nuclear holocaust).

The current irritating and irradiating "fission" Nuclear Power Industry came to us courtesy of these same government labs, as well as the entire political establishment (you see, nukes are not just H-bombs and huge, mutant, lizard-monster things!). Of course, the electric utilities got the blame for the industry's real and Hollywood-conjured shortcomings, though at the time those executives knew nothing about nuclear energy and needed a kick in the butt to adopt it. They were happy burning coal to make the electric energy we demand, so blame them for that.

During the promotional period, we were told that nuclear energy would be so abundant that it would not be metered and the downsides weren't mentioned. I was in middle school and looked forward to a future of abundant energy and flying cars. Of course, the researchers were looking for grants -- mo' money -- so a positive slant is to be expected, back then and right now.

Still, I'm all for fusion energy. It's how we'll power our new robot girlfriends. "Honey, grab me a beer."/"Of course, darling, shall I massage your feet as well?"

Women can have robot girlfriends, too. They can complain about not having boyfriends.