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I’ve never met Donald Trump nor had any dealings with him, and since I don’t watch television, I’d barely paid attention to his antics until his unexpectedly strong run for the White House began attracting heavy media coverage in 2015.
But some time ago I was privately meeting on other matters with one of Trump’s powerful and influential backers when Trump’s name happened to come up. Since I tend to be forthright and speak candidly about most things, I casually described him as an “ignorant buffoon.” I was hardly surprised that my interlocutor failed to reply to that provocative characterization, but I noticed the slightly embarrassed expression on his face and interpreted his silence as an admission that he quietly shared my own appraisal.
I strongly suspect that the worldwide tariff policies recently declared by Trump will soon cause more and more Americans, including erstwhile Trump supporters, to come to that same distressing conclusion.
Tariff policy is part of economics, and I hardly claim any great personal expertise in that discipline. Indeed, quite the contrary.
Back almost a dozen years ago, before my increasingly controversial writings rendered me far too radioactive for such things, I was invited to participate in a televised NYC debate on the economics of immigration policy, with one of my opponents being the prominent libertarian economist Bryan Caplan of George Mason University. The show was syndicated around the country and simulcast on NPR, and early on I boldly admitted my total ignorance of economics, declaring that not only had I never taken a class in that subject, but I had never even opened the pages of a single economics textbook.
However, I also suggested that much of economics constituted basic common sense and perhaps partly as a consequence of that approach, our side won the debate by the widest margin in the history of that series, with one of the opposing team members even shifting towards our position.
- Open Borders, American Elites, and the Minimum Wage
Ron Unz • The Unz Review • November 11, 2013 • 1,700 Words
Given this history, my negative appraisal of Trump’s new tariff policies should obviously be taken with a large grain of salt but not necessarily completely disregarded.
During his successful 2024 presidential campaign, Trump had often promised to impose heavy tariffs upon those countries that he believed were unfairly benefitting from one-sided trade with America, and reindustrializing our country would be an important element of his plan to “Make America Great Again.” So his personal affinity for tariffs was hardly unexpected.
Indeed, soon after coming into office, he had used what he described as his economic emergency powers to impose heavy new tariffs upon much-demonized China, which was not unexpected. But he also declared that huge tariffs would be imposed upon goods from Canada and Mexico, our closest neighbors and friendly allies. This was a major surprise, not least because during his previous term he had personally negotiated his own USMCA North American free trade agreement with those same two countries.
Now for Trump as our 47th president to denounce and completely repudiate the policies of Trump as our 45th president was at least a little eye-opening.
However, over the next few weeks, his repeated suspensions, reversals, and modifications of these new North American tariffs led to many suspicions that they merely amounted to bluster, being international bargaining ploys aimed at bullying our neighbors and that they would only briefly remain in place. This considerably lessened their perceived impact upon the integrated regional economy that had grown into place since the 1993 enactment of the original NAFTA agreement under President George H.W. Bush.
As a consequence, his announcement last Wednesday of sweeping new tariffs against almost every other country in the world hit like a thunderbolt. On April 2nd, Trump held up his chart showing those new tariff rates, and the figures were so astonishing that many observers probably felt that the plan should better have been issued a day earlier on April Fools’ Day.
For one thing, Trump’s actions were clearly illegal under American law. As many have noted, tariffs are obviously taxes, and according to the American Constitution, all tax bills must originate in the House of Representations and then be passed by both houses of Congress rather than be unilaterally imposed by our executive branch of government.
This has been the system for nearly our entire 250 year national history, including such cases as the notorious Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 and Trump 45’s own USMCA agreement signed in 2018.
But now Trump 47 declared that he would impose these new worldwide tariff rates by unilateral executive order, citing the emergency powers that he possessed under a 1977 law.
However, the “emergency” in question was apparently America’s ongoing deindustrialization of the last ninety-odd years. As prominent international economist Prof. Jeffrey Sachs pointed out, an “emergency” that had been taking place for nearly a full century hardly seemed the sort of “emergency” envisioned under that bill.
Yet that minor legalistic technicality barely scraped the surface of the very bizarre tariff rates that Trump had decided to impose against the 150-odd other countries of the world.
For example, our factually-challenged president declared that his new tariff rates were “retaliatory” and indeed the first column of the chart he displayed showed the foreign tariffs that had allegedly provoked his retaliation, but everyone quickly noticed that these figures were total nonsense. Switzerland hardly imposes a 61% tariff on American goods, nor does Vietnam maintain a 90% tariff rate against our products.
Instead these figures were merely calculated using a formula based upon America’s existing trade deficit in goods, which was something entirely different. So if another country sold us more goods than they themselves bought, that was described as due to a tariff even if no such tariff actually existed. In a perfect example of this absurdity, Trump incorrectly claimed that the penguins of Norfolk Island Heard and McDonald Islands near Antarctica maintained huge barriers against American products, with his counter-vailing tariff of 29% aimed at punishing those water-fowl for their unfair trading practices.
Obviously, Trump’s claims justifying his new tariff rates were totally ridiculous, but they were actually ridiculous in several different ways.
For example, it’s undeniably true that for decades America has run a horrendous and growing global trade deficit with the rest of the world, most recently totaling $1.2 trillion during 2024.
However, suppose that this weren’t the case, and our trade in goods with the rest of the rest of the world were totally in balance, just as Trump wished it to be. Under those circumstances, we would naturally have trade surpluses with some countries and trade deficits with others, with all of the different figures netting out to zero.
But according to Trump’s framework, those countries with which we had a trade surplus would still be hit with a new 10% tariff while those with which we had a deficit would suffer much larger tariffs, and these would then be jacked up if those countries decided to retaliate. So the apparent goal and endpoint of Trump’s policies would be to sharply reduce or even eliminate all our trade with the rest of the world. Thus, Trump was self-sanctioning America much like he had sought to do against Iran, Russia, North Korea, and all the other countries he and previous administrations had regarded with considerable hostility.
Yet oddly enough Trump seemed to believe that cutting off the global trade of countries he didn’t like would severely hurt them, but cutting off our own trade would strengthen our country and benefit the American people.
His declared tariff methodology was even stranger. I noticed that all his international trade statistics focused only on goods while ignoring services.
So if our trade with some particular foreign nation were in perfect balance, with a deficit in goods exactly matched by a surplus in services, Trump would only consider the former not the latter, and impose large tariffs to reduce that problem.
Back in the 1990s, Paleoconservative trailblazer Pat Buchanan had advocated a sweeping set of controversial economic and political policies that greatly outraged our reigning intellectual establishment, with higher tariff rates among them. These positions led the Donald Trump of that era to harshly denounce Buchanan as “a Hitler lover.” But with the sole exception of Buchanan’s sharp criticism of Israel and its powerful American lobby, our mercurial current president seemed to have now fervently adopted nearly all of Buchanan’s ideas, but apparently attempted to implement them with an IQ that seems 30-40 points lower.
I’ve only casually explored Trump’s bizarre tariff proposal and given my self-proclaimed ignorance of economics, perhaps I even misunderstood some of its elements. But according to media reports, his proposal raises average American tariffs on goods more than ten-fold, from around about 2% to 24%. This will surely constitute a gigantic shock to our economic system.
American businesses and the investors who own them seemed to see that shock in very negative terms, with our stock markets suffering their sharpest declines since the unprecedented collapse caused by the Covid epidemic of Trump’s previous term.
I’ve long suspected that our stocks were heavily over-valued, and Trump’s tariff announcement may have finally punctured that huge bubble, perhaps with financial consequences greater than he expected or intended.
For example, I’ve been rather surprised that high-profile tech companies that spent years annually losing billions of dollars have continued to maintain and even grow their market valuations, and perhaps these will now finally come down to earth, even with a gigantic thump. I had also thought that the release of China’s inexpensive and open source DeepSeek AI system would have a greater impact upon the American AI companies burning through so many billions of dollars each year, and maybe that will now happen.
Just a few days before the very sharp drop in American stocks, the Wall Street Journal had run a major article noting that over the last dozen years or so, the outsize returns in our stocks had drawn in unprecedented amounts of foreign investment. This inflow of funds might be reversed if stocks heavily fall, which would obviously magnify that effect.
Perhaps after their extremely sharp drops on Thursday and Friday, American stocks will stabilize themselves this week or even regain some of their lost ground. But perhaps the decline will still continue or accelerate.
The self-proclaimed goal of all of Trump’s wild tariff plans is the reindustrialization of American society, achieved by persuading major corporations to increase their domestic investment and relocate their factories back to our shores. But as numerous critics have pointed out, his policies seem rather unlikely to achieve that result.
Creating a major factory along with its associated sub-contractors and supply-chains is a very lengthy and expensive undertaking, likely to involve years and billions of dollars. So planning such major investment decisions requires a great deal of certainty that the factors responsible for the shift will remain in place for many years to come, thereby justifying such long-term capital expenditures. Uncertainty in the business climate will lead to the postponement of business investments.
Yet uncertainty is surely the watchword of Trump’s mercurial economic policies, with the recent announcements of crippling tariffs against Canada and Mexico having been repeatedly restricted, reversed, or delayed from day to day and week to week. Nobody had expected the sweeping worldwide tariffs announced last week, and given the ongoing collapse in global stock markets, nobody can say whether those tariffs—or even the president who issued them—will still be around in a few months’ time. Only a particularly foolish corporation would initiate long-term investment plans until the situation becomes much more clear.
So although Trump intended to promote a huge wave of new industrial business investment in America, the actual results seem much more likely to be the exact opposite.
Leaving aside my own lack of economic expertise, it’s been noteworthy that virtually every practitioner of the dismal science—-whether left, right, or center—had denounced Trump’s policies as idiotic. This was the position of a moderate, mainstream economist such as Prof. Sachs, but the notorious editorial page of the Wall Street Journal did the same. And the reaction of leftist economists with deep Marxian roots such as Michael Hudson and Richard D. Wolff was just as scathing.
In that lengthy discussion of several days ago, Prof. Hudson argued that political leaders were expected to act in the best interests of their own countries, or at least in the interests of the wealthy corporate elites that owned America, but that Trump’s tariffs would almost certainly have the opposite impact. Meanwhile, Prof. Wolff burnished his leftist credentials by including a few random and totally irrelevant denunciations of “White Supremacy,” but otherwise came to the same mystified conclusions.
Interestingly enough, Prof. Sachs saw a silver lining to Trump’s irrational behavior, suggesting that he might be successfully fostering international cooperation by uniting the entire world against our own country.
For example, China, Japan, and South Korea have often had unfriendly relations with each other, but the bizarre tariffs that Trump had now imposed against all three of those neighbors led them to quickly hold mutual talks aimed at working out a common response to the looming economic challenge. Similarly, all the major European countries may begin to work together, and also mend their frayed relations with China, with India doing the same. Trump has sometimes declared himself a uniter rather than a divider, and he may have now proven that claim on a global level though not exactly in the sense that he personally intended.
The U.S. does still possess the world’s second largest economy after that of China, and also the world’s second largest nuclear arsenal after that of Russia. So we must not take lightly the bizarre trade wars that Trump has now unleashed against the rest of the world, nor his repeated threats of a hot war against Iran and China and the continuation of the Ukrainian proxy war against Russia. These certainly threaten the peace, prosperity, and stability of the global system.
Perhaps Trump and his loyalists will be proven entirely correct, with his new tariff policies wildly successful and all the many economists condemning them left discredited. If so, American industry will once again rise from its ashes and dominate world production much as it had done during the early postwar era. But I very much doubt this.
So instead let us consider the other possibility, that Trump’s proposals will be just as totally disastrous for our country—and to a much lesser extent the rest of the world—as his multitude of current critics allege. What would be a reasonable historical analogy?
I think it is extremely rare that a major country falls into the hands of a leader both so bold and so powerful as to push through such a totally self-destructive economic plan. The best analogy that comes to my mind was the agricultural policy imposed by China’s Chairman Mao during the years 1958-1962, generally known as the Great Leap Forward.
Though estimates vary, a few years ago I read Tombstone, a hefty volume published in 2008 by Yan Jinsheng, a former high-ranking Chinese journalist, and it seemed quite persuasive to me. According to Yan, the official total of merely 18 million deaths reported by China’s own government was a severe underestimate, and the true body-count of excess fatalities from starvation, malnutrition, and illness probably totaled around 35-40 million.
In more recent years, many pro-China activists have denied the reality of that striking event, but the official population pyramid published a couple of decades later by the Chinese Census Bureau certainly shows a massive hole from those years, reflecting the huge rise in infant mortality and drop in fertility rates caused by that gigantic famine:
One reason that the Chinese famine produced by Mao’s wrong-headed policies became so severe was that most of the Great Helmsman’s eager subordinates were unwilling to admit that they weren’t working, and instead falsely reported their hugely inflated successes and concealed their disastrous failures. When China’s defense minister raised concerns about the terrible starvation that he had seen with his own eyes, he was swiftly purged.
All of this seems somewhat similar to what may transpire in the sycophantic Trump Administration and its media echo-chamber.
Obviously, America is hardly balanced on the knife’s-edge of food shortage as was the China of sixty-odd years ago. But the consequences to our economic well-being of Trump’s strange tariff scheme may follow a similar trajectory.
I normally buy my toilet paper in large packages from Costco every several months, and had luckily done so just before the 2020 supply-chain disruptions of the early Covid epidemic removed that necessary product from our market shelves. But a few days ago a headline in my local Palo Alto newspaper mentioned that toilet paper is manufactured from the soft Canadian lumber that we import, and its supply might be severely disrupted by Trump’s heavy new tariffs, so when I visited Costco a couple of days later, I purchased another pack a month or so earlier than I otherwise would have done. The New York Times just ran an article about such possible panic-buying, and although the reporter found no such current indications, I wonder if things might change in the next few weeks.
Five years ago, under Trump 45 our country experienced supply-chain interruptions that no one had ever previously seen, and these might soon recur under Trump 47.
One central policy of Maoist China sharply repudiated over the last half-century had been the preference for “Red versus Expert,” the notion that ideological and personal considerations should outweigh technical expertise in selecting individuals for important administrative positions. Based upon recent events, Trump seems to strongly favor the Maoist line.
For example, at the end of last week he abruptly fired the top general in charge of the NSA, apparently doing so because some notoriously eccentric 31-year-old right-wing activist named Laura Loomer had denounced the officer as “disloyal.” A number of his other senior National Security Council staffers were also removed on similar grounds.
Or take our current Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. An Iraq War veteran and gung-ho FoxNews pundit known for his “tats” and multiple marriages, Hegseth had no experience running a large organization when Trump nominated him to control our $800 billion Pentagon, and had been fired for mismanagement by both of the small non-profits he had led. Moreover, it quickly came out that he was known for his violent drunkenness, and he was plausibly accused of having committed rape during one of those sprees.
Placing a totally unqualified drunken rapist in control of the American military seemed a bridge too far even for party loyalists and it was widely assumed that the nomination would be withdrawn. But Trump stuck to his guns, and agitated Trumpists sufficiently intimidated wavering Republican senators that Hegseth was very narrowly confirmed.
As I discussed in my previous article, the entire month of March was filled with a harsh ideological crackdown upon Columbia, Harvard, and many of America’s other greatest centers of higher education, with these enforcement actions being taken by Linda McMahon, the wrestler-lady, whom Trump had named to run his educational policy.
- The Zionist Destruction of American Higher Education
Ron Unz • The Unz Review • March 31, 2025 • 7,300 Words
Mao’s similar destruction of Chinese higher education took a generation to repair, and I wonder what might happen in our own country.
Just before that, teams of very young Trump supporters organized by Elon Musk’s DOGE project had invaded the premises and computer systems of the huge agencies of our federal government. They promised to purge many tens or even hundreds of thousands of the experienced civil servants whom they despised, much like Mao’s equally youthful Red Guards had done during his Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
This especially got my personal attention when a media expose revealed that one of the most prominent of those zealous Trump Guards had actually drawn his inspiration from my original American Pravda article, which he seemed to almost regard as the Little Red Book of his anti-establishment movement.
- American Pravda: Guilt by Association for Elon Musk’s DOGE
Ron Unz • The Unz Review • February 24, 2025 • 7,200 Words
I was recently interviewed by a right-wing British podcaster named Mark Collett, and although the primary topic of our conversation was the JFK Assassination, other issues did come up.
He suggested that the personnel policies of the Trump Administration reminded him of those followed by the Emperor Caligula, who might be so pleased at the wine-serving abilities of one of his slaves that he would immediately elevate the fellow to running an imperial province or commanding a large army, before growing dissatisfied with him a few days later and ordering his summary execution.
Collett noted that some right-wing Trumpist pundit named Dan Bongino had acquired a wide following on Rumble, and our new president had suddenly elevated him to become the second-ranking figure at the FBI.
Generations of heavy media conditioning have indoctrinated empty-headed Republican boomers into regarding blacks as the god-like exemplars of American society, whose heroic exploits as sportsballers and gangsta rappers represent the twin cultural peaks of Western Civilization. This becomes a problem when the latter are surprised to discover that other countries are much less forgiving of their violent crime and rampant drug-dealing, so during his first term Trump moved heaven-and-earth to free the rapper A$AP Rocky from the Swedish prison-cell he occupied for his violent crimes.
Perhaps something similar helps to explain Trump’s demand that all federal corruption charges be dropped against Mayor Eric Adams of New York City.
A few years ago there was a popular joke going around on Chinese social media in which Chairman Mao came back to life with all sorts of questions about the modern world. Given the current antics of President Donald Trump, I expect it may soon be revived in modified form, incorporating Trump’s sudden decision to isolate the U.S. from the economies of the rest of the world.
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Pat Buchanan on Trump’s Steel and Aluminium Tariffs
Buchanan is probably happy.
Video Link
The Chinese social media should make a joke about this also:
1966年8月8日，中共八届十一中全会通过《关于无产阶级文化大革命的决定》，其中明确提到，要批判资产阶级的反动学术“权威”。文化大革命期间，一大批知识分子遭到批斗和迫害，理工类专家譬如“两弹一星元勋”姚桐斌被毒打致死、“两弹一星元勋”赵九章遭迫害自杀身亡、数学家熊庆来被迫害致死、计算机学家周寿宪遭迫害自杀身亡，文史类专家包括老舍、周作人、傅雷、熊十力、田汉、翦伯赞、吴晗等人被迫害致死。数学家陈景润在遭到迫害期间，被迫整天跪在毛主席像前请罪，脖子上挂了一个大木牌，上书“现行反革命、臭老九———陈景润”。只有钱学森等少部分人因为周恩来于1966年特别列出的《一份名单》而受到保护。文革期间，“知识越多越反动”成为时髦的革命口号。
I support fair trade, not free trade, which is a libertarian nutty concept. Trump is moving to restore American industry, and this is good but it takes years to open a factory and requires some government support. Imposing 10% tariffs starting in let’s say July 1, 2025 makes sense, with a promise more will be considered two years later. But Trump’s sudden shock to the system has caused an unfortunate shock to the system.
What deficit,???
They are buying everything for
free with their printed Note$!
i wholeheartedly support the tariffs, however irrational and however much “damage” they do to the financial sector.
I have no evidence, but I suspect these tariffs are Trump’s primary goal, and he is giving israel/american jews free reign in order to limit their interference with with his trade policy.
The outsourcing of the economy has allowed the richest 10% of Americans to own 88% of the assets, the next 40% own the other 12%, and the bottom half owns no net assets (debts>assets). The aim of tariffs is to halt the massive trade deficits to places like China and break the foreign industrial policies that that have sucked the wealth out of the country and allowed the elite to monopolize what’s left. Anyone who has a better idea please suggest it – the current situation is unsustainable.
The economic historian Alfred Eckes (chairman of the U.S. International Trade Commission, 1981-1990) in his 1995 book Opening America’s Market: U.S. Foreign Trade Policy Since 1776, comprehensively refutes many myths about Smoot–Hawley, that it was an unusual retreat into high-tariff policy, that it alone largely made world commerce crater in the early 1930s, that it either caused or deepened the Great Depression generally. Smoot–Hawley is a misdirection in the Great Depression story.
I’ve reposted the entirety of the chapter on Smoot–Hawley from Alfred Eckes’ 1995 book, here, for easy reference and reading (15,000 words):
“Alfred Eckes on the Smoot–Hawley Tariff of 1930 and its long-lasting civic mythology” (1995; with introductory material by me, published April 5, 2025)
https://hailtoyou.wordpress.com/2025/04/04/alfred-eckes-study-on-the-smoot-hawley-tariff-of-1930-and-its-long-lasting-civic-mythology/
____________
The puzzle of Smoot–Hawley-as-civic-mythology is what’s behind its long-lasting nature, its power, its mystique. On that, I offer some introductory commentary to supplement Eckes’ 1995 study.
The modern-mythological Smoot–Hawley “trope” has been convenient to a long succession of ascendant political forces. That’s the short answer. It starts with the New Deal people. They, naturally, had heavy incentive to demonize Smoot–Hawley as bad-old-days Republican mismanagement and blundering, which, in 1933, was gloriously replaced by rational, sleek, technocratic Democratic Party management. The New Deal Democrats care about people. They are willing to discard stupid ideas and disastrous Republican rule which, either out of callousness or shortsighted stupidity, caused the Great Depression.
New Deal “propaganda” alone, though, would hardly explain Smoot–Hawley mythology surviving in such strong form to the 2020s. The further key seems to be this: the mythology was taken up readily by Cold War foreign-policy-hawk Republicans, and other internationalists, and others, who wanted to keep the U.S. committed to free-trade ideology to serve foreign-policy goals. The tacit grand bargain was, defeat the USSR at the expense of the Middle America if necessary. That is what really gives Smoot–Hawley a firmly lasting place in public consciousness.
What’s strange about the Smoot–Hawley mythology is that few ever bothered to tackle it head on. Alfred Eckes being one of the few.
A few pages from Eckes below:
See full chapter:
https://hailtoyou.wordpress.com/2025/04/04/alfred-eckes-study-on-the-smoot-hawley-tariff-of-1930-and-its-long-lasting-civic-mythology/
Some analysts have read what Trump economic advisors wrote and they come to the conclusion that tariffs are meant as negotiation leverage to get other countries to agree to a new economic deal. I’ve read the same in Germany, that the Americans want to force Germany to trade currently hold debt for long-term debt at very low interest rate
Video Link
1942 Tax Act expired Dec 1980 same year Free to Choose(Friedmans) hit the shelf. Milton was working for the Treasury in 1942 and helped facilitate this policy which imposed a federal tax rate of 90% on $100,000 and above, a bombed out Europe and Asia saw flight of the best and the brightest to the US(combined with the GI bill). Arms production as a function of the private sector may significantly distort any economy. Doge as an acronym, doge as a coin, but doge as the head of the Venetian city state-contact Matt Ehret@ Canadian Patriot, he is the definition of Deep Dive:)
Trump sacrifices himself by any conventional measure. This is great man politics.
And he has a beautiful set of children and grandchildren to look upon as he goes.
If the American people resolve to suffer well, the nation can rise again.
Thanks Ron. I like the funny Trump and Chairman Mao comparison.
Here is an interesting thought tho:
Mao died 50 years ago. The Chinese of today would admit that Mao reign was 70% good, and 30% bad.
It is likely that in 50 years, Americans would consider Trump’s reign 99% bad.
Maybe the better comparison would be with King George III ? Or maybe even Nero?
You’re not empty-headed, Ron. Thanks!
Ron Unz writes:
The case against the unilateral-and-by-fiat Trump tariffs’ legality is stronger than that:
U.S. Constitution (1787), Article 1, Section 8:
The power to levy tariffs (“duties”) is explicitly given to Congress. It need not rely on a possibly-legalistic interpretation of whether a “tariff” is a “tax” or not. That’s why, historically (19th century and early-20th century), the great tariff debates were entirely centered on Congress.
See also an earlier comment by me, on the defacto evolution of tariff-setting powers in the mid-20th century (Starting with “Hoover didn’t raise the tariff in 1930…”):
https://www.unz.com/isteve/open-thread-1-2/#comment-7053371
Well, imposing tariffs is not Mao Zedong level, in any respect, but sometimes one is tempted to think it would take someone almost as radical as a Mao Zedong or Hitler to accomplish any change at all.
Tariffs raise prices, they don’t cut off trade. Goods that have to be bought will still be bought. Businesses in trouble from proof cash flow and locked-in-contracts may need low interest loans. No matter what these people and their backers believe, the intangible “services” of Silicon Valley cannot be a basis for long-term American prosperity. Look at all the workers there, barely able to eke out a living suitable to maintain a family. The Silicon Valley way of doing things, with “venture capitalists” and egomaniacs having their employees work on Christmas, with promises of “options” etc, the psychological manipulation of these white collar workers, and their replacement with Indians, is part of the destruction of America, and it will not sustain America.
No matter what the economists with their antiquated orthodoxies say, the USA can be prosperous with virtual autarky, and of course the tariffs are nothing even remotely approaching that.
It may well be the radical steps will backfire and be drawn down. But incremental steps would be denounced just as harshly, and what would they accomplish? In any event, if the radical steps are withdrawn, the effects will be transient. If they are able to hold up a year or two or result in a much more favorable balance of trade, and the economy adapts, I suspect you’ll see much more investment in American production, and in any event, the revenues obtained will be staggering. Those revenues are going to be needed to allow a more flexible monetary policy.
Non-stop QE results in a flood of American dollars going overseas which leads to the selling off of America’s assets while hitting the public with heavy inflation. We need dollars coming to this country through trade, not through the selling off of real estate!
How much of this tariff policy is driven by Howard Lutnick? How deeply conflicted are Lutnick’s business interests in architecting this policy?
https://x dot com/BillAckman/status/1909069404694065350#m
Some Twitter users have accused Ackman, in turn, of being himself conflicted because he’s long equities – to which Ackman replied that he’s “long America.” Well, I think it’s safe to say that both Lutnick and Ackman are conflicted. The problem, however, is that Lutnick is actually in the administration and seems to wield tremendous influence over policy. Obviously this should never happen.
There’s been a great deal of hullabaloo in the media made about Elon’s conflicts of interest. Trump has stated that Elon has been forthright and never even once asked for favours. It’s also noteworthy that the tremendous (misplaced) scrutiny on Elon’s role has resulted in, if anything, policies which would seem to disfavour Elon – and Elon’s net worth had nosedived since inauguration day.
Has Lutnick’s networth also nosedived? Perhaps there should be some investigation into that.
How deeply conflicted is Lutnick and how could someone who is as deeply conflicted and (by all accounts, with a history of such corruption as he (allegedly) has) be allowed to have the President’s ear – let alone become appointed to such a prominent position in the White House enabling him to, effectively, crash the American stock market (if not, furthermore, risk the entire global economy) for his personal grimy Jew profit?
I recall that when Romney ran for president he was asked how he would resolve his financial conflicts to which he replied that his assets would all be put into a “blind trust.” This was pooh-poohed as an elitist thing to say – who in flyover country has ever heard of a “blind trust”? “How out of touch.” Well, it turns out that that’s a pretty important thing to have in an administration official with any degree of wealth and influence. And it was a very … “gentile-like” thing for Romney to have already arranged for that as the sensible solution to potential conflicts. Are Lutnick’s assets in a blind trust? Or is the global economy being sunk specifically because that requirement was overlooked for the conman Jew?
Lutnick, being the Jewy fast-talking salesman that he is, knows what to say to sell his agenda, of course. To sell, you must first appeal to interest. You should talk about how Bubba lost his job at the GM factory. That’s how you’ll sell it – you’re doing the common man a solid and sticking it to those Wallstreet fat-cats (while, secretly, in your own fat-cat Jew firm, shorting the market, hehe).
Ben Shapiro recently bragged that after listening to Trump’s State of the Union he got into contact with his financial advisor and instructed to move assets out of stocks and into bonds. One wonders: was it really what Trump said in his speech which convinced Shapiro that this would be a good financial move, or was it maybe something that Lutnick – or some Jew near Lutnick – mentioned to Shapiro while he was in D.C. to attend the speech in person, that got him thinking that that’d be a good idea?
This tariff policy risks sinking Trump’s entire presidency as it could easily derail the economy into a recession for which he’ll be blamed. Trump’s administration really should be focused on the more important problems of immigration, demographics, anti-whitism and on ending the endless wars for Israel in the Middle East.
Neverthelesss, some well-intentioned people seem to believe that protectionism was one of Trump’s signature promises on the campaign trail and that sinking the market and risking a recession is a price one ought be willing to pay. It isn’t. And not even if it hurts guys like Ackman would it be a good idea. There are much bigger, higher-priority and more fundamental promises Trump needs to keep like mass deportations and building the wall. When will Trump do that? Presumably never – and esp. never if the administration burns up all its political capital on a misguided tariff policy and plunges the American economy into recession thereby securing a victory for the Democrats in the midterms.
You really can’t have Jews in government. They’re too innately dishonest and corrupt. They’re too conflicted – to both their individual interests and their tribal interests. If Ackman were in the administration he’d be just as problematic – but in the other direction (favoring the equity markets (his own investments) – and, also like Lutnick, derailing foreign policy to serve Israel).
I should note that this corruption operates at a substantially subconscious level in the Jew (as it does in many of us, but particularly in Jews) – of which one oneself is not even aware. The Jew knows his interests – and then he subconsciously constructs the rationalizations for why the thing that is good for his interests is also good for you – why you should buy what he sells.
Jews, being (often) highly charismatic and charming (having evolved this trait from millennia of acting as middlemen and merchants), are able to convince gullible goyim to buy what they’re selling even when it’s not in their interests and the Jew (as with many of the best salesmen) is not even himself aware of of the con he’s pulling or exploitation he’s perpetrating.
Jews have big personalities but small brains (literally – that’s what the research shows). In this respect they are like another scammy conman group – Indians – and this is why they extract so much value from their host societies but add so little back.
More on why Jews can’t be in government or hold any position of power in gentile societies:
https://www.unz.com/isteve/sailer-the-hate-that-dare-not-speak-its-name/#comment-6546130
Think Wall Street has had a good run now it’s time for Main St.
Think reading sheep entrails is as good as any economist
I raised this issue in Jeffrey Sachs’s last discussion thread and got crickets from Trump fans.
Comparisons of Trump to a messianic figure aren’t very exaggerated. Throngs of Americans seem to embrace his diktat as holy writ, the anti-Zionists among them continuing to rationalize Trump’s obsequious fealty to Israel as some protracted maneuver that will eventually leave shittylittlestan deep in the lurch.
The reflexive ‘TDS’ reaction is now passé, however. Trump isn’t going to bring about a revitalized industrial base in America simply by imposing tariffs and waving a ‘free market’ talisman over the huddled masses.
So… Here’s your opportunity, Trump fans. Rather than shoot the messenger — or lock him up, as is the habit of Team Trump — let’s see an actual argument that addresses this point Ron and others have repeatedly made these last few days.
The floor is all yours.
Yeah. Plenty.
1. Stop your Tax On The World aka Petrodollar. Your military enforces this, bombing countries that dare trade oil outside the US dollar. Iraq and Libya are prominent examples.
2. Stop reneging on your international agreements. Your country once had a sovereign pact with the rest of the world called the Bretton Woods System created in 1948, whereby the world agreed to use the US dollar for international trade, on the promise that the value of US Dollar would be convertible to gold. Of course the USA after printing too much USD, broke its promise, and delinked it in 1971….thereby cheating the world. The resulting decline in the USD forced the USA to take further measures such as the creation of the Petrodollar later in the 70s…enforced by your military as described above.
3. Stop preventing or threatening other countries when they want to establish systems to trade with each other outside the USD regime.
4. Dismantle your 800 military bases around the world and return home.
5. Dismantle the National Endowment for Democracy and other instruments used to meddle with other countries, foment coups and rebellions etc.
6. Stop stirring shit around the world, such as in the South China Sea and Taiwan Straits. Let other people settle their own problems. We don’t want a SELF APPOINTED SHERIFF / MESSIAH trying to boss us around.
7. Behave like a normal country, instead of assuming that the USA is God’s Gift to Humankind.
In short, MAGA …. Make America Go Away.
Dan Bongino was an NYPD police officer and then a secret service agent assigned to the Presidential Protection Division under Bush II and Obama. So he does have a law enforcement background. He helped to expose the Trump-Russian collusion hoax, which former FBI director James Comey promoted, even though he knew it was false. Dan Bongino seems like a step up from our prior FBI directors and deputy directors.
Post Civil War policy high tariffs and high immigration. Back to cheap labor and relying on immigrants to create demand is a good idea? Of course 40% of the country was immiserated during those years while the robber barons had it good, much like recent years. Back to the future, eh?
MAGA is about self-loathing. You can not base a sustainable, productive political movement on self-loathing.
Letting Lutnick into the White House may well prove to be the downfall of the Trump Administration (in a similar manner to how Trump’s son-in-law (Kushner) played an instrumental role in the short-comings and ultimate downfall of Trump’s first term.)
You can’t allow Jews into positions of power and influence in gentile societies. They just don’t share their hosts’ interests and it basically always ends poorly. The Jew will lead you down self-destructive paths – and paths that principally serve the Jew.
It doesn’t matter whether the Jew in question is supposedly a “patriotic” “right-wing” Jew or a “left-wing” Jew. It doesn’t matter whether he’s a “communist” Jew or a “capitalist” Jew; a “Zionist” Jew or a “nationalist” Jew; a stock-trading Jew or a bond-trading Jew; a Jew named “Ackman” or a Jew named “Lutnick.” You can’t let Jews into power. Ever.
For an explanation as to why see:
https://www.unz.com/article/what-ails-america-and-how-to-fix-it/#comment-6877674
Are our economic KPIs accurate? Or are we reading maps taken for territories?
Like when someone shows you a graph of the DOW index and says “That’s your economy!”
Perhaps the metrics we use don’t describe our reality accurately and we need better ones; especially to the younger generations who are completely uncoupled from the investment schemes & symbols of the older generation.
The supply chain is rapidly running out of world’s smallest violins…
Mr. Unz’s wisdom is displayed in that he (a) disavows knowledge of economics; and (b) is able to draw in his analysis upon the resources of a wide spectrum of economists whose content he hosts on his website. The former is an example of Socratic wisdom. The latter, a nod to the reality that truth emerges from the dialectical encounter of warring ideas. I am not afraid to admit that I think there is a lot of valuable wisdom in academic Marxism, and in particular, Mr. Hudson’s studies on the causes of the fall of the Roman Empire are very interesting to me.
In my personal opinion, the tariffs fail as classical economic theory. However, as a form of economic warfare, they may make a certain sense. Peter Navarro is one of the chief influences on Trump in the area of tariffs, and he has two books on the subject of China.
Chairman Mao said the overseas military presence of the U.S., our string of now over 800 bases, would be like a noose that would strangle the U.S. I think Trump’s hubris could be a catalyst for the final destruction of the U.S. economy and our decline as a world power. But the massive sovereign debt and wealth inequality that we built up over time is our own doing. The precipitous moral collapse of the U.S. is the outgrowth of our core idea, personal freedom. The excessive financialization of the U.S. economy is in part the cause of our wage imbalances and excessively expensive housing market, and according to classical Marxian thought, also partly the cause of our imperialist excesses.
So, it is convenient to single out Trump, Mao, Hitler, or Gorbachev for the disastrous policies and the destruction of their respective governments; but the fall has been a long time coming. If Trump is destroying the system of global trade and hurting financial assets, he is also punishing wealthy American elites who erected this system at the expense of many ordinary Americans. Those American elites could be the real target of these tariffs. Trump is undermining the financial strength of wealthy Democratic donors.
Instead, the US should cooperate with other countries and enter into joint ventures with them, with safeguards built in so as to maintain our sovereignty. Also, it must retreat from its overabundance of military bases around the world and concentrate on actual defense of the nation rather than adventurism and imperialism. Government capital should be sucked from the MIC and instead invested in infrastructure, education and medical care so that modest wages can support healthy middle class lifestyle in America.
Money must be divorced from politics (the Citizens United disaster) so that the total corruption which currently exists can be ended. A system of bottom-up grooming of government service officials should be instituted, similar to that of China, to educate and vett, through a filtering mechanism, qualified government leaders.
With these basic changes we could then begin to solve the miriad second tier problems that stem from them. The necessary human character and intellect exists here, but it is currently repressed and powerless.
Here’s an interesting report by The Washington Post on the decision-making process about these tariffs.
https://archive.ph/wkSG9
There were a lot of speculations regarding what ultimate goal does Trump pursue with this 4D chess move. It is to lower the interest rates before trillions of government debt have to be refinanced this year? It is to bring manufacturing back to America? Is it a bluff to extort America’s trading partners for concessions? Is it to end the role of the USD as world reserve currency?
Well, apparently, Trump just wanted to impose tariffs because he thinks tariffs are cool, and he happened to like this particular formula that he ended up “personally selecting”. His loyalist advisors were going to support any his decision no matter what.
It’s not even ‘Trust The Plan” anymore, it’s ‘Trust Trump’s Instincts”. Who needs a plan when you have Trump’s instincts? Peak indispensable nation.
Trump is a dealmaker. He simply wants to destabilize the world wide trade system in order to break up to some extent the current trade blocks that are China + US as juniorpartner and EU with Germany in its centre. This will end with a number of countries negociating more favorable terms with US and distancing from China. It might increase the political weight of the USA but its overall economic effects will still be negative.
My strong belief is that Ron Unz never paid attention to Donald Trump because Trump was a sexual predator, a conman, and an egomaniacal, ignorant buffoon. Trump cannot be compared to good and honest men. In terms of the economy, Trump is a deceitful business executive who takes advice from another deceitful business executive, Elon Musk. The Palestinian, Yemeni, and Iranian people view Trump as a war criminal and a bloodthirsty goy acting on behalf of the Satanic Jews.
An interesting point is that in the aftermath of WW2, there was an attempt to rebuild the global trade system on a more rational, intelligent basis, using the opportunity of the tabula rasa wrought by the war to iron out the obvious inequities of what had existed previously.
Prominent amongst the architects of these plans was that great British economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynes proposed that international trade should operate freely but with the proviso of the ‘Bancor’ a system in which trade imbalances are settled at the end of each financial year, thus ensuring that intractable and persistent trade deficits never arise between nations, the rock on which free trade between nations had always foundered on before.
However, the USA, which emerged from WW2 holding all the cards, nixed Keynes’ proposal, no doubt assuming that dollar supremacy and large American trade surpluses and industrial and financial supremacy would exist for all time.
Completely agree with Ron about Richard Wolff’s off topic comments. I like to listen to Michael Hudson, and Richard also does some good thinking. However some of Richard’s old fashioned leftist ideas are illogical and hare brained. Minorities and white people had nothing to do with that discussion and I turned it off in disgust at that point. In my judgement that just ruined its otherwise effectiveness.
I don’t recommend you to refer to Yang Jisheng’s book, after a cursory glance, he seems to be a typical Chinese bullshitter. Even still stigmatizing what happened in 1989.He said it himself: “My main focus now is on reading, thinking and writing about China’s economic and social issues. The purpose of “Sanhu” is to meet the needs of their spiritual life, but also to repay the debt, in exchange for some Money is also a purpose.
The “Review” edition of the Chinese Journal of Social Science has again published Professor Sun Jingxian’s article “How did the rumor of starving to death in China to 30 million people come into being?” . The article pointed out that in the process of spreading the major rumor that “30 million starved to death” during the difficult period of three years in China, Mr. Yang Jisheng’s book “Tombstone” played a great role. This paper verifies and analyzes every important “death toll” in Tombstone, and confirms that most of the key “death toll” data are false.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Jisheng_(journalist)
Moreover, the GLF itself cannot be attributed to mao.Mr deng and others also admit that the entire leadership set unrealistic expectations.
The reasons for the persecution of our defense minister peng de huai （彭德怀）are also quite complex. On the one hand, the Soviet Union wants to use the failure of the GLF to stage a coup against us.
On the other hand, ambitious people such as lin biao（林彪） also want to smear peng and others to rise to power.You can see that Lin Biao became the second defense minister.And he was the main character of CR later.
This is also why peng was persecuted to death in the following CR.
As for the latter CR, the issue is complicated, involving various aspects such as power struggles, and Mao also bears some responsibility, at least for his failure to manage his wife.
In general, mao was responsible for some of the mistakes, but many of the bad decisions were based on historical context.
In the current era, we have all corrected the mistakes of the past.
He was one of several people funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development.
To put it in a bad way, it is good that Yang Jisheng’s works have not been widely disseminated in the mainland, so most Chinese people do not know what this person has done.
Otherwise, most of the Chinese will tear down his ancestral grave and kill his whole family.
扒了他祖坟，杀他全家
Why is Ron privately meeting one of Trump’s “powerful and influential backers”? And why does he assume this backer thinks Trump is an “ignorant buffoon”?
Concerning immigration, Ron long advocated mass immigration to the United States. Once mass immigration gained pace and started to create problems, Ron suddenly switched sides and was against mass immigration and in favor of a minimum wage, which didn’t work either, of course.
Trump now wants to create US manufacturing jobs, and tariffs are one way to support this policy. But Palo Alto millionaire Ron doesn’t like this idea, either.
The term bitch slap comes to mind, looks as if the leadership of the affected countries are expected to rush to the Trumphouse to kiss the emperor’s ring. A warning is implied about other things too like de-Dollarization, behave the way we expect you to behave I would suspect. Maybe the tariffs are meant to be removed when individual countries negotiate a new understanding with Team Trump, a projection of soft power.
Brian Berletic has an interesting livestreamed chat on his New Atlas YT channel:
https://www.youtube.com/live/m0nwmNt-YBw?si=uOIKlQWx5SxQesPO
Trump is forcing this in a particularly dramatic and politically offensive way, but the underlying economic logic is unavoidable. US consumers has to become a smaller share of global consumption, so anyone focusing their investments on serving the US consumer is making a bad bet.
US net trade deficit has to shrink toward zero over time because credit/inflation risk is rising on US debt. Whether this happens via tariffs, or collapse in US consumer purchasing power, or some other mechanism, this has to happen.
The fact is the US cannot actually pay a positive real return on capital on all the money they borrowed. Everyone currently in the USD trading system and not trying to diversify are simply not considering what has to happen in the long run. Companies that do not understand this and keep trying to sell to the US consumer have no future. Things like tariffs, trade barriers, exchange rate movements will keep moving against them.
The solution to US tariffs is just further de-dollarization of global trade.
Smoot Hawley —1920’s was a BIG Party and all was well until the Smoot Hawley and things soon got bad and the Great Gatsby Party was over—suddenly 1930
Is this a coincidence or was there a Black Swan in Gatsby’s Pool just like there might arise another soon-in the DC pond -very soon ?.
Heinrich Pesch, Liberalism, Socialism and Christian Social Order: The Philosophical Roots of Economic Liberalism, quotes Plato:
“Plato complains that the generation which devoted itself to making money ended up looking on helplessly as ‘the younger generation in particular gives in to revelry’, resulting in ‘the decline of all spiritual and moral energy’, when the ‘democratic’ son of the ‘oligarchic’ money making father, who loves personal lack of restraint above all else”:
From E. Michael Jones, Barren Metal: A History of Capitalism as the Conflict between Labor and Usury, https://www.amazon.com/Barren-Metal-History-Capitalism-Conflict/dp/0929891147 , “Pagan Economics”, p. 45.
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Video Link
Video Link
I keep hearing the “It takes years to build a factory” and I get it, I guess. But then I hear someone like the UAW President talk about how existing American automobile manufacturing plants aren’t currently at their manufacturing capacities. In other words, they’ve got the capacity and machinery already in place to expand production. I’m quite sure that if this is true, it’s true in many other industries. So though new factories may indeed take years to build, that hardly should deter us from doing what we can do to increase domestic manufacturing.
It reminds me of the excuse given years ago by Democrats for us not to drill for oil on some untapped land of ours up north. Their excuse was, that though a sound idea, “it’ll take 4 or 5 years for us to actually get any oil out of the ground”. Lo and behold, that 4 year period flew by.
Not a manufacturer, but an example I’d give to question these “it’ll take years to build a factory” estimates, is these massive Amazon fulfillment centers. Chock full of robots and an extremely intricate distribution system, these centers are up and running in about a year.
Plus why does new manufacturing neccesitate ground up, brand new construction? Couldn’t much, if not most of this new production be accomplished, at least initially, by existing factories who like UAW plants, aren’t at production capacity AND retrofitting of existing brick and mortar factories??? Kinda like when we swiftly switched over peacetime manufacturers into weapon factories during WWW2?
The Editor should read or at least look over what he’s linking to, Norfolk Island is at 29 degrees south and hence nowhere near Antarctica, it has a human population of some 2100 and no penguins.
The two other islands mentioned, Heard and McDonald, are both close to Antarctica with lots of flightless waterfowl and no people.
Now I will read the rest of the article.
America should have reciprocal tarriffs with other nations, period.
Whatever you charge us, we charge you. That’s pretty much what Trump is trying to do.
Trump has been proven right time and time again. Trust him for about four years on this, and see if he was right in 2028. We will see. Until then, be optimistic and try and help him succeed
Well, Ron, if they consider your essay their Little Red Book, and they start calling you the “father of Trump’s cultural revolution,” I suggest you demand a paternity test.
“Anyone who has a better idea please suggest it – the current situation is unsustainable.”
Well this isn’t exactly a better “idea” but conceptually the thing to do is to adopt/adapt the Japanese concept of “kokutai” — meaning something like “the health or well-being of the nation as a whole.” This for a huge economic entity would mean a wholesale philosophy which embraces integrated economic, monetary, trade, societal, political and foreign policy positions which act as mutual force multipliers.
They would include an immediate, radical and unforgiving end to all immigration, eeverything — tourist visas, student visas, marriage visas (viz Americans who marry foreigners must renounced their American citizenship and residency, and go off to live in their spouse’s native toilet bowl); aggressive deportation of illegals and *also* policies designed to encourage even legals to go the f#ck home (aggressive “new citizen” surtaxes, an imposition of *years* of obligatory national service on legal arrivals, it should be downright punitive to be a “new American”; policies designed to re-attract so-called “good jobs” through a variety of measures, not just tariffs — I understand that is the point behind the tariffs, but tariffs are tricky things and you have to be careful about them because they don’t always work due to retaliation, etc.
On the domestic front we should ruthlessly boot out all foreign students and reserve all STEM grad positions for actual Americans, no immigrants; wage total war on every single diversity, AA and DIE position imaginable; and adopt a realistic human educational policy which recognizes that the majority of negroes are simply incapable of actual advanced education, and so teach them useful useable things on their level; radically re-evaluate all civil rights law to re-establish freedom of association and permanently end the institutional anti-White jihad.
On a conceptual/cultural level, it needs to be firmly and mercilessly re-asserted that this country was conceived by, built by, and intended for white Christian European people (AKA “Americans”) as an extension of the West, and that everyone else here is present merely as an act of charity; and that non-whites and non-Christians owe an actual literal monetary and corvee labor debt of gratitude to “actual” Americans for putting up with their annoying, destructive presence. There should be a kind of jizya payable to “real” Americans — Jews, negroes, Muslims, chongs, pajeets, Latinos should all have to pay special and aggressive taxes and perform literal corvee labor to repair all the damage they’ve done. In short it should be conceptually asserted that America is in fact American, and not a faceless flavorless culturally and racially-anonymous parking lot.
Real policies which ruthlessly assert all this will cause a flood of unwanted foreigners to run the f#ck home at warp speed.
And then I woke up, and my legs were broken and my pillow was gone.
1) Reduce / repeal the regulations holding back industrial growth.
– since the 1970s environmental regulations are in place to outsource industry to Asia
– over-reactions from some real bad policies 100+ years ago
– modern times with social media, digital shaming and effective boycott techniques (see bud light) change this arrangement
2) Break the union strangleholds.
– there are plenty of out of work people who will work for less than union wages
– no reason whatsoever that low-skilled workers paying the mob gives them a monopoly on labor
– modern labor laws and a totally different arrangement of circumstances (industrial barons no longer have monopolies) don’t give companies the reasons to screw over the workers like it’s the 19th century. We’ve moved on.
The rest of these things are logically related to the above:
3) Allow large dinosaur companies such as dodge and gm to die
– release the little furry creature vultures to chew on the bones, that is the technology sitting on shelves (direct injection gasoline anyone? oh yeah we had that on the shelf for years haha)
– allow detroit to rebuild with sensible $20 per hour small-scale cottage manufacturing a la england
– most important part of the boom-bust cycle, is the BUST
4) Destroy the welfare system
– put people to work. especially the poors.
5) Allow low-cost housing by de-regulating construction and property law
– it’s impossible to truly grow or do what you want.
– the shadow of shantytowns looms large but those days are gonzo. Sea-cans provide cheap structure for example.
6) Remove taxes such as income tax, property tax, make these illegal
– only way to truly expand the economy fast
– politicians who say they’re against waste need to put up or shut up – centuries ago government wasn’t involved in every aspect of life. We don’t need tampons in any bathrooms. People should be able to fucking afford tampons.
The major immediate effect of Orange Man´s incoherence will be to make
US borrowing cheaper (maybe that´s the point) and the US slightly less
competitive; no one in his right mind is going to invest in the US nor in any
of the target countries which will put downward pressure on US bond yields
because they have to park their money somewhere;
however it is a gamble and this is the point you get bass ackwards:
It is rubbing the World´s face in the inescapable fact the “reserve currency”
is just not worth the hassle; when the reserve racket goes (as the Orange One
is complaining it is insufficiently appreciated) the fabled US consumer market
(“the biggest in the world”) will no longer be an argument as it will revert
to Zimbabwe levels only bigger (= consume only what you produce, after
(((deductions))) ).
I have no better solution because there is none (short-term);
medium-term it is best for We the Unwashed to let it all burn –
the US is still a continent.
For those who want some exposition on Trump’s tariff plan, I offer this sure to be helpful video:
This article explains why Trump’s tariffs are and will be a failure:
Lots of X commentators have noted that Trump’s tariffs and disregard for the stock market indicate that there has been a return of political power to the poor and middle class. This almost like a revolution.
Trump is not Mao. Mao tore apart a system to rebuild civilization on new metaphysical grounds. Trump is Yeltsin — the frontman of liquidation. Both rose as false prophets of populism, both empowered oligarchs, both left their nations weakened, mocked, and more tightly controlled by the real powers behind the scenes. Trump has done nothing to fight the system or alter its underlying structures. He is the system’s drunk uncle, staggering through the end of empire with a Twitter account and a donor list.
Trump is Yeltsin: Clown-Emperors of Collapsing Empires
Ron Unz wants to tell us Trump is Mao — bold, brave, bombastic Mao. A stretch, Ron. That’s not Trump. You’re giving him too much credit. If anything, Trump is Boris Yeltsin: the drunken dancing clown presiding over the liquidation of a great power. Not the gravedigger of empire — its mortician. Face powdered, tie askew, corpse still twitching.
Both men were installed at inflection points — but not to reverse collapse. They were chosen to manage it. Yeltsin’s mission was to hand Russia’s bones to the West. Trump’s job? Feed the American carcass to Zion. That’s it. The historical symmetry is blinding.
1. Rise on Ruins: Two False Saviors
Yeltsin rose from the rubble of the Soviet collapse. Trump rose from the rubble of America’s neoliberal disaster. Both rode waves of populist rage. “Reform” was the slogan. But the only thing that got reformed was the speed with which wealth flowed upwards — to oligarchs in Moscow, to Zionists on Wall Street.
In both cases, the people were told they were voting for patriots. But they got salesmen — men who sold national sovereignty like used cars. Yeltsin handed over Russia’s industry to a handful of Jewish bankers. Trump handed over Jerusalem. No refunds.
2. The Oligarch’s Best Friend
Yeltsin opened the Russian economy to fire-sale plunder. Khodorkovsky, Berezovsky, Gusinsky — familiar names if you’ve studied Jewish power in the post-Soviet sphere. The Harvard Boys, Soros, Summers — the kosher crew came in and looted the joint. Who do you think was clapping behind the scenes?
Trump, meanwhile, installed Goldman guys, Sheldon’s pets, and Likudniks at every level of government. His “America First” became “Israel First.” He talked the talk of nationalism while walking the walk of neoliberal-Zionist finance. The MAGA hats got made in China. The embassy moved to Jerusalem. The swamp? It metastasized.
3. Death of Democracy: Theatrical Coups and Managed Decline
Remember when Yeltsin shelled his own parliament in 1993? Tanks on the street. Blood in the halls. That was “democracy,” Western-style. He rewrote the constitution, centralized power, and turned Russia into a semi-presidential joke — until Putin walked in and finished the job.
Trump, too, flirted with theatrics. January 6 was not a revolution — it was a reality show. Nobody shelled Congress; instead, they livestreamed it. But the effect was similar: distrust, panic, a tightening of power. And like Yeltsin, Trump left behind a system more fragile than he found it — a regime of managerial geriatrics, media hysteria, and DHS goon squads.
4. Prestige to Parody: From Superpower to Satire
In the ’90s, Russia was a punchline — nukes and soup lines. Yeltsin’s drunken stumbling became an international symbol of humiliation. Meanwhile, America ascended.
Now, the roles have reversed.
Trump turned America into the world’s reality TV show. The dollar’s still king — for now — but the rot is visible. Every institution degraded. Every election a joke. Every foreign policy speech a fundraising op for Tel Aviv. Trump accelerated this process — not out of malice, but out of incompetence and narcissism. Just like Yeltsin.
5. The Real Power Behind the Throne
Yeltsin had Berezovsky. Trump had Kushner. Both men governed through proxies. When their brains weren’t fogged by booze or ego, they still weren’t in charge. The networks — the oligarchic deep state in Russia, the Zionist-financial regime in the US — made the real calls. The “president” was just the face. The hand that signed. The mouth that lied.
And in the end, Yeltsin did what every failed emperor must do: he handed power to a man with real vision (Putin), begged for immunity, and disappeared.
Trump? He handed power to Biden — or rather, to the machine behind Biden — and now he’s back as 47, a boomerang presidency for a boomer nation. But the damage was already done, and his return changes nothing. The real power never left. There will be no American Putin to right the ship, only more theater: a recycled Trump, a glitching Biden, maybe even Kamala, Michelle, or Taylor Swift next in line. The Empire doesn’t reboot — it loops, each season dumber than the last.
On behalf of Too Cool Jule, who couldn’t be bothered to translate:
Sorta like now, when the feefees of Jew-Jews at Harvard “trump”(!) the deaths of 50,000+ Palestinians who…like Spartacus, the Minutemen at Lexington Green, the defenders of the Alamo, and Comanches…dared to oppose their oppressors.
America is toast.
So is Matzonia.
“Never again!” really means that Jews will never again have a state. For all-t00-obvious and blood-soaked reasons.
Leaving aside that you yourself are a bit of a crackpot (HIV and Holocaust denialism and your idiotic pro Islamist and anti Israel stance to take but three examples) and by your own admission quite gullible and ignorant on many matters, still you at least could have researched your subject of choice for an hour before posting your astonishingly ignorant and plain disrespectful views on Trumps persona and actions. Now comparing him to chairman Mao has to be up there among your top ten most moronic and lazy takes to date.
Again, had you researched for at least 30 minutes before sh*tposting, you would have found out that extremely competent economists such as Scott Bessent and Stephen Miran are the architects behind Trumps policies. Now at least watch the above video to have a more balanced view on what Trump is trying to achieve.
Sometimes I shake my head in disbelief after skimming through your screeds. 200 IQ? Taleb and other reasonably smart people who are deeply skeptic of IQ tests have definitely a point. Those misleading IQ test results should be adjusted by a lot of the idiocy that they fail to detect.
Sort of Trump 5D chess? …. nothing changes, political loyalties demand imagined scenarios that hope to rationalise irrational behaviour.
Trade is not a fight, trade is about getting fitter than your opponent so that you can offer more for less. Protecting US manufacturing by excluding cheaper alternatives will just make the country less fit, industry will fall futher behind. The aim should get fit, examples being to get rid of luxury legislation such as health and safety at work …. look at pictures of Manhattan being built and you can see it was not built by the H+S pansies of today. H+S is a luxury that the USA cannot afford, it is part of the fat it needs to work off. There are hundreds of similar self-hindering rules and legislations in the USA, none of which are competitive, all of them are luxuries that make you fat.
That said, the USA is pro-protectionism, the legal system is heavily involved in business, way more than it should be, then you have all the rent seekers living off patents and the like, sitting back contributing nothing because the government is protecting their patent. This is another luxury, you allow people to fleece others for past achievements as if that is beneficial to your country. In China, you invent something, you get to be the first to get it out there, someone copies you and then you have to invent the next thing; there is no sitting back and receiving a check every month for work you did years back. Patents are not good when you want to grow your economy.
Etc etc.
Ron,
The financial markets are no longer run by humans.
I would like to know your thoughts on high frequency trading AI, and its relation to chaos and the media.
Mr. Unz, it may surprise you to know that very well educated and successful people still support the Don. One friend of mine suffered a 7 figure loss on lastThurday/ Friday stock market bungee jump.
Yet, this same fellow still adores the Trumpster and any dissenting opinion or comment results in a torrent of profanity. I find this fascinating.
On a flight back when, I got into a conversation with a TV executive about the sheer stupidity of situation comedies. Well he explained, these are not produced for the intelligent minority but for the ignorant rabble.
So when I wonder how a dunce like Trump got elected I harken back to this conversation.
You are also quite right about economics being simple common sense. Back in the day imported goods attracted “Customs Duties” which every idiot knew was paid by the importer AND passed onto the consumer. Americans, in their endless fiddling with the English language now call these “tariffs” and somehow the gullible public think these are paid by the exporting countries.
This word play is similar to:
-You are not being fired, we are letting you go
-We are not closing the factory we are dehiring
-He is not an idiot he is mentally challenged
-etc
Two good friends of mine have departed the US, headed back to the “Third World” where their money buys a better lifestyle for far less. I suspect many others will follow, unable to cope even on a personal level with the constant upheavals.
The US is done for as far as I am concerned. Even if the Don reverses the tariffs or is himself reversed, US politics is regarded worldwide as neurotic.
As you pointed out, business men, even those billionaire Trump suck ups and especially foreign money men will shrink from investing in the country. The sad part is that the rabble who voted for Maga will be the ones to sprinkle salt on their buyer;s remorse and wash it down with their spit.
Mr. Unz: I have great respect for you, but this article falls far below the mark of your usually-scholarly essays. It appears to have been written with considerable personal animus, as it is liberally salted with name-calling.
I almost begin to suspect that you lost a lot of money during last week’s market crash.
It has one virtue, however, which will please some of your readers: it is short.
Nothing short of unchallenged total American economic hegemony would appease America in line with the demands of Trump’s Jewish overlords to globalize insatiable Jewish greed.
No. Tariffs can be construed as taxes. They are themselves a means of securing the independence of a nation, the sovereignty of a nation.
Let’s reintroduce into the discussion two key concepts our overlords hate and succeeded in eliminating from public discourse. Let’s rehabilitate ‘protectionism’ and ‘isolationism.’
Before we consider Trump’s tariff policy, let’s demand that the chattering class explain to us why we should not protect our people’s jobs, and why we should enmesh ourselves in the affairs of foreign nations.
The chief argument against Trump’s tariffs is that they will cause job loss and massive inflation in the US. That’s obviously true. It’s also true that as we reindustrialize, bit by bit, step by step, more jobs and better paying jobs will counteract those initial losses… and restore our self respect.
Trump should address the nation seriously and in the right venues, explaining the hardship that must be endured for a period.
Few people alive today remember what it was like pre-globalization. I do. Here’s the big difference between now and then: people had less stuff. People didn’t have closets bursting with clothes and shoes. They didn’t have multiple television sets and telephones. They weren’t drowning in a sea of multi-colored plastic junk.
Can the American people be weaned from multi-colored plastic junk? The answer is… NO! This is going to be a bloodbath.
Jack Kerouac’s mother worked in a shoe factory her entire adult life… making shoes! Can you imagine?! Every shoe I owned as a boy and young man was made in the US. Only the wealthy, the Neiman Marcus shoppers, wore Italian shoes.
So what? Jack Kerouac’s mother had a job. She wasn’t on welfare. She had self respect.
My acquaintance Robert is living in his pickup now, with his two dogs. He lost his job due primarily to the influx of Mexican illegals in the city where I live. American cities are filled with Roberts. Our elites despise them. Affluent whites despise them. Affluence turns people into monsters. That’s the horrible, bitter truth.
People must have work. Decent work. Factories provide work not just for ‘peasants,’ as Anglin calls them, but for engineers, designers, IT staff, salesmen, janitors.
Why can’t we have our factories back?
N.B. This comment by Outis (the system does not allow me to publish and asked to identify myself as Anon)
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I learned in time to trust Ron Unz’s analyzes on topics I was not familiar with (WW2, zionism, holocaustism, US post-WW2 intellectual history; RFK &Israel) on account of his high degree of self-consciousness. This material nearly ruins that confidence… Avowed ignorance on the topic is not an excuse for the overall disparagement of Trump, petty jabs and the argument from dubious authority (Hudson? Sachs? I appreciate the first, but I never forget he is a Marxian economist; I appreciate the second, but never forget that he is a self-avowed social-democrat). The premise of the entire shaky discoursive construction is that tariffs are taxes, presumably to establish some rightist-libertarian credentials for the argument. The premise is false. I will copy-paste here the main parts of an obscure X thread I wrote in response to Rand Paul’s identical premise. I invite the interested reader to see more here https://twitter.com/altnimeni/status/1907726079403397608.
[quote begins]
1/ Tarrifs are NOT taxes.
They say death taxes i.e. implacable + sapping the root of productive life.
Tariffs are neither: they rearrange the structure of consumption. There is choice here, not the point of a gun!
2/ ‘Free trade’ was never free.
‘Free trade’ was always managed trade: not the world becomes like USA, US became like 3rd world (destruction of industry & middle class).
Look at the paradoxical effect: Trump threatens tariffs, tariffs are abolished, and the trade gets trully free!
3/ Free internal market is what matters.
If free of regulation&taxes, deep&diversified then a. people are richer, b. consumption choice exists, c. prices go down, d. everybody will want to produce and sell there => abolish IRS, re-privatize & deregulate (kudos @SecScottBessent)
4/ Tariffs cure the state’s obsession with ‘exports’ which:
a. favor economic centralism, b. privileges exporters, c. feed exchange rate manipulations, d. substract consumption from people Ceausescu’s Romania!
Trump tariffs force nations to focus on internal freedom & plenty.
5/ ‘Guilt’ by association. a. @RandPaul repeats the abstract libertarian handbook w/ little reflection (kudos @jeffreyatucker). b. If none of the above convince him, then he should ask himself how he ended up on the same side as RINOs & dems, aka The Socialist-Liberal Uniparty.
You do not make people rich by cheap imports: you just make a world of WalMart floor workers. People get rich by the above, esp. 3/. If 3/ is real, the net effect is deflationary, although particular items might increase in price. I 🤍@RandPaul @RonPaul so I wrote w/ regret.
I am populist libertarian who cannot stand irreflexive dogmatism. There is a lot going between the lines of this tight argument. For those interested in the minutiae of the pitfalls of libertarianism, @jeffreyatucker has a superb material from 2024: https://t.co/exzrdBgHX8
From a-c here https://twitter.com/altnimeni/status/1908446183686889528
and 1-5 here https://twitter.com/altnimeni/status/1907726079403397608
and here https://twitter.com/altnimeni/status/1908495431157621217
=> #tariffsARENOTtaxes #tariffsARENOTinflationary #DeflationISNOTrecession #TariffsAreGood #TrumpIsRight
[quote ends]
Rand Paul’s obstinacy made me interject in a direct reply: “#TariffsARENOTtaxes ! This is a fundamental mistake! See argument thread [link above]. This is grave, as it conflates choice (tariffed goods) w/ coercion (taxes). The logical fallacy is so blatant that I am wondering cui bono?!…”
Rand Paul pretends to be a student of libertarianism, fine. So, in his case, the suspicion was rather justified. Ron Unz does not pretend that. Which makes me wonder about a different thing: how can he totally throw Trump under the bus on some aspect which he admitedly does not understand? I keep a hawkish eye on Trump’s politics and I measure his actions against a populist-libertarian yardstick. I do not like the trampling of free speech in campuses – but from this, to draw a parallel with Mao’s destruction of higher education?! a. To begin with, higher education is way over-rated and to a large extent responsible for the mess the world is in: a little shaking of this particular tree (federal government getting out of funding it) is mostly welcome and long overdue. I am not so enamored with my credentials as to become incapable to recognize this. b. Then, to equate Trump’s _premises_ with Mao’s? C’mon… c. Granted, the angle (freedom of conscience as it pertains to semitism) is indeed dubious but then, so is Trump’s zionism in general, one of the major drawbacks of his administration. We shall see where he ends up with it and I suspect (or rather hope) that it will not be in the place most observers expect him to arrive at.
Same for the argument from the ‘authority’ of the market: which markets? Those addicted for decades to easy money and monetary malversations?! They react as one would expect an addict to react to withdrawal. In the ‘a-c’ Xposts linked above (https://twitter.com/altnimeni/status/1908446183686889528) I have several observations about the market, but that is beyond the purpose of me stopping by and reacting…
I am sorry that I had to be so critical, but I believe the subject warrants it. Thank you for your public service, Mr. Unz.
Outis
this was not a 29 minute read but at least you kept it under 4000 words.
What makes the situation even stupider is that people in the Trump admin had reportedly created targeted tariff plans that might have actually been useful for reshoring certain industries, but Trump threw those plans out and decided to go with this insane “tariff everything and everyone” plan that was seemingly created by a LLM. Several people have shown that Trump’s tariff plan can be recreated fairly accurately by prompting chatGPT with something like “how would I use tariffs to balance America’s trade.” Given how Trump had been completely sold on the coming “AI revolution” and the idea that this magical technology would elevate the USA to new heights, I would not be surprised at all if he had asked someone to create this plan using AI.
Overall, I agree with Unz here, but I think his comparison with Mao is a little unfair. There are superficial similarities, but Unz, as he is wont to do, ignores historical circumstances. What Mao was fighting was real. He made mistakes, but he was living in an unprecedented situation. What Trump is doing is different, because there is nothing remotely unprecedented in the situation the U.S. is living (it’s just capitalism as usual) and, as Unz correctly points out, mere common sense shows what the consequences of his actions will be.
I’m a little surprised that some commenters are actually supporting all these policies. I guess we should ask them what they think of them a year from now.
Also, all these oscillations in policy are perfectly suited for stock-market speculators who might have some, say, extra-sensory prediction capabilities. Just saying.
“Trump’s actions were clearly illegal under American law……. according to the American Constitution,”
What’s your point? So is federal funding of any/all
foreign nations , including Israel, illegal/unconstitutional, as is all federal funding of US universities, the withdrawing of which funds is the hammer Trump is threatening universities with if they don’t cave to his demands vis a vis anti Israel demonstrations and related.
“Regards” onebornfree
Exactly. I think what many people don’t understand is that US is an export of currency. There is a huge demand for US dollars as it is the prevalent currency for international trade (even among third countries themselves, and not only with the US) and reserves. So countries sell their goods and services to the US, which in turn gives them their much needed dollars. The status of the dollar as the main global currency is more important than trade balance or even industrialization for running a global empire, and that is what all presidents before Trump also thought. So even if it has positive effects on domestic industrialization and generating jobs, it will decrease US influence over the world. Which will be a good thing.
a totally self-destructive economic plan. The best analogy that comes to my mind was the agricultural policy imposed by China’s Chairman Mao during the years 1958-1962, generally known as the Great Leap Forward. I read Tombstone, a hefty volume published in 2008 by Yan Jinsheng, a former high-ranking Chinese journalist, and it seemed quite persuasive to me. According to Yan, the official total of merely 18 million deaths.
The ‘millions died’ meme, which Ron associates with all Chinese reforms, is bs. There is not a shred of evidence that anyone starved to death after 1950. The US and UK governments paid an author $2 million to write the nonsensical ‘Mao’s Great Famine’. Even its cover image is fake: it was taken during a real famine 1942.
As to the Great Leap, Despite the US grain embargo and a 3-year El Nino that also devastated Canada’s prairie wheat crop, nobody starved to death during the GLF. Excess deaths among the elderly and infirm, yes, but here are a few highlights from the Great Leap:
1. The Chinese made their first car, first truck, first tractor, first airplane, first gunboat.. during the Great Leap.
2. Research in high grain yields started and produced Yuan Long-Ping’s hybrid rice in 1973, helping to feed 900 million people.
3. The Chinese Academy of Sciences produced the world’s first fully synthesized crystalline bovine insulin.
4. Tung Dizhou cloned two different fishes (a goldfish and a Rhodeus sinensis), 30 years before Dolly the Sheep.
5. 90% of China’s ten biggest irrigation projects were built during the Great Leap, lifttug reservoir capacity from 20 bcm to 350 bcm. Combining the functions of irrigation, flood control and electricity generation, the new projects effectively mitigated the potential damages of floods and droughts that had threatened the livelihood of peasants for thousands of years. Chinese peasants were no longer helpless before the vicissitudes of nature for their grain production.
The reservoirs: Danjiangkou, Miyun, Shisanling, Xiashan, the Xinfengjiang (which still holds ten cubic meters of clean water for each Chinese citizen), Lushui, Xinfengjiang, Songtao, Shengzhong, and Guanyinge Reservoirs, nine were built during the Great Leap Forward.
In other words, China accomplished more in the 34 months of the Great Leap than India in any 34 year period since independence.
“foreign industrial policies that that have sucked the wealth out of the country”
between 1958 and 1987 over 95% or a billion plus Barbie dolls for girls (steve austin dolls for boys) were made in Taiwan.
this was still within the post war afterglow of the american century, before the full force of mont pelerin society’s neoliberalism, before the powell memo and even before nixon’s china gambit.
so what ‘foreign’ policies are you talking about simpleton?
The Chinese can avoid Trump’s tariffs by selling their US destined export products to certain African countries.
Then these African countries can sell these products across the US.
If Trump tries to affect the import of these (now) African exports, he will be designated a RACIST!!!!!
There is a reason powerful interests have worked so hard to destroy Trump’s first term and then keep him out of the White House this time in a variety of ways starting with phony FBI investigations, impeachments, contrived criminal prosecutions and even assassination attempts. I have no idea what is coming next to try and stop him. Whatever he is doing with his economic policies is apparently not good for the globalist elites and plutocrats which means it’s probably good for us.
And maybe the end of the dollar as the reserve currency. Which will result in the end of the American Empire which will bring freedom to the world and to all the countries under U.S. military occupation and de facto bullying (especially 🇯🇵 🇰🇷… et al.).
And we won’t read about constant global instability and regime change and terrorism.
And we won’t have to read about the U.S. military and CIA hostile actions— like guiding ATACMS into Russian territory and almost starting a thermonuclear war.
And we won’t have news stories about soldiers drowning in the American M88 armored vehicle in Lithuanian bogs near the border of Russia’s ally Belarus.
Yeah, the end of the American Empire will make the world a better place.
It has been buried beneath a mountain of lies of commission and commission, but the real evil of Mao is that he treated his people like cattle. “Strength in Numbers” – Mao DEMANDED that everyone have six kids each, and subsidized large families etc. The communists initially did manage to increase food production quite a lot – but it was all eaten up by a massive population explosion. By the time that there was a shortfall in food production, the population was at subsistence and had no slack and hence famine. If the population had not been forced up so quickly, the bad industrial and agricultural policies of Mao would have caused misery but not famine. But we can’t talk about this because the rich want cheap labor and – like Elon Musk – want us to all breed like cattle for their profit.
The post-Mao one-family one-child policy was not very nice, but it did lift a billion people out of subsidence poverty. The idea that market reforms was the whole deal is simply a lie – the idea that China could have gone on doubling it’s population every 20 years or so, over and over, and at the same time increase food production to its current level of about three times subsistence, is rubbish. That would have been physically impossible. But the rich don’t want people in the third world to get ideas, so we can’t talk about this.
Come on, get serious. We have COVID+mRNA, 911, various high profile assassinations and false flags. Anyone who takes these recent Trump actions at face value is being silly. The “behind the scenes”, invisible aspects of these latest machinations are surely as important as the puppet theater in our news feeds. Be a little patient, we may know more in a few months. I don’t know if the Trump policies are good or bad. Some sound very good, others not so much. Perhaps we will find out.
These brief video clips have relevant comments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1tXlpRq-jY
I have a question for you D’Lou, why didn’t Deng surpass Mao already in CCP hagiography?
you can jerk yourself off while hoping the US will just lie down and die but unfortunately for you and yours it’s not.
I thought all the tariff hoo-ha was about Schlumpstein’s plan to get rid of income tax. Since Derp State revenue must come from somewhere, it is being replaced with….. tariffs.
Why do the Fatmerican cannon fodder always wear these silly hats?
You really need to watch your video again after the 21:00 mark when he goes into the conclusion.
Here it is for you in one sentence: Why would any country make an agreement with the USA again when it has shown that it is prepared to tear up that agreement a few years later?
The USA is a serial treaty breaker and It has made itself odious to the world.
I support MAGA …. Make America Go Away.
As Ron Unz knows while GHW Bush and Mexican and Canadian leaders signed the NAFTA agreement in December 1992, it was not “enacted” until 1994 under Clinton. The ratification (also under Clinton) was a close, but bipartisan vote in November 1993. NAFTA haunted the Clintons politically, along with offshoring high-tech industry and good American jobs to China (permanent free trade nation status for China in exchange for political donations: Chinagate). Which helped lift 800 million Chinese out of poverty.
Lincoln was the Tariff President, and if used properly to invest in American manufacturing and jobs, Tariffs were the main federal revenue source and economic engine for most of US history. Of course, corruption in Lincoln’s time was mostly internal; today it is global, and federal investments are political not for productive economy.
A very short primer on Tariffs for Ron Unz (better than most on wikipedia):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tariffs_in_the_United_States
Free Trade Vs. Fair Trade
The regulation of commercial activity across countries is the focus of free trade and fair trade policies, but both address the topic from different perspectives. Free trade focuses on the reduction of barriers and policies that favor certain countries or industries. Fair trade, however, favors the rights of workers, improved working conditions and seeks to eliminate pay discrepancies from country to country.
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/trade-vs-fair-trade-1683.html
Sep 21, 2012 The Myth of the Free Market Cartel | by Murray N. Rothbard
GrossCuckstain is biggest SHC
No, it is not. Not even close.
See the full article for actual tariffs other countries charge the US with plenty of similar examples.
What Trump did has nothing do to with tariffs other countries charge the US.
Anyone else get the feeling that Ron just really hates Trump? I don’t know if it’s full blown TDS, but still…
Tariffs are actually a pretty routine economic tool that all countries use. They can be misused, of course. And if they don’t work as planned, they can be quickly changed. This is very much unlike mass immigration, which is ruinous and revolutionary and almost impossible to change (and which Ron supports, I believe).
A good and accurate comment Micheal.
Jul 9, 2012 Lincoln’s Tariff War by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
You equate US Empire with USA.
Are you able to distinguish between the two?
This is why Americans are suffering. They allow their elites to take their money, and spend it maintaining the empire.
If you don’t recognise this, you will never save yourselves.
I have a close relative who fought alongside Hegseth in Iraq. He is a good man, and a good choice for Secretary of Defense. Elon Musk is wonderful. Tulsi Gabbard has sold out to suck up to Trump. Noel is a dog killer, exposing herself as a sociopath. Rubio is a standard neocon, which is to say evil, funded by Trump’s Adelson. RFK Jr is excellent, except most importantly when it comes to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
So Trump’s cabinet is a mixed bag. The evil belongs to Trump, and yes he is stupid. We knew that when he decided to occupy Syria “because he likes oil”. That isn’t just stupid, it demonstrates a criminal mentality.
Who knows?
Maybe in 500 years you will count the years “ab Trumpe reelecte”? 😋
My beta’s nice and negative so I salute the devastation of our fearless leader. He precipitated a collapse that might otherwise have been frustratingly gradual. Less pesky premium decay, unlimited upside from short positions, fuck yeah! Hookers & blow for everybody!
I like everything he’s done to demolish US capacity, because the US has shed all of its protective capacity. Its remaining capacity is purely repressive and destructive. As you point out, uncertainty of impulsive loony shit gives the disruption extra oomph.
What we in the USA desperately need is what the Soviet Union got: knock it over, rip it apart, wreck its defense industrial base. Then we will have a safer, better world. Thanks to CIA impunity and arbitrary power, we live in a mafia state right now, so we’ve already been through the worst of the Soviet collapse, asset-stripping by CIA agents. Plugged-in CIA asskissers already raked off $27 trillion in the greatest financial crime in history. Then COVID emergency graft dwarfed the pallets of bills shipped to Iraq. It’s diminishing returns from here, like taxing the clubbed baby seals.
You say idiotic like it’s a bad thing! What we’ll cripple or destroy is a failed state, a menace to the world, the CIA impunity regime.
I’ve seen (read/heard) this before – Unz is ignorant of certain events and based upon rumor which is, naturally, put on blast by the leftist media he then makes statements that subject him to charges of being an “ignorant buffoon.” Hegseth DID NOT rape that woman. The charge was so patently a lie that no one who even cursorily looked into it would see it plain-as-day. What happens when someone does these kinds of things (seizes on rumors) simply blasts his credibility generally. More, it reflects a tendency toward hysterical rhetoric. Which is pretty damn near what we got in this podcast.
…proving that Chinese Civilization is not superior to Western Civilization after all.
If you look at individual achievements, the inference that there would be no new China without Mao is valid.
It was mao’s outstanding military command and strategic judgment that kept CPC alive.
You can check out the classic case of four crossings of the Chishui River. It seems that West Point sees it as a classic case in world military history.
I don’t think modern military leaders in 100 years have been able to pull off such a successful strategic operational strategy.
In addition, the early CPC was manipulated by Trotskyists sent by the Soviet Union and was once cornered by the KMT.
It was Mao who seized their power at the Zunyi Conference, thus ensuring that the Jewish Trotskyists could not pollute the CPC’s spiritual program and successfully organized the anti-siege campaign.
His private moral image is beyond reproach, and he is not the murderous Lord of the West.
My uncle, a painter, still has a portrait of mao hanging in front of his house, because he is the symbol of Chinese peasants from oppression by landlords to liberation. Because the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China governments constantly used various ways to oppress the common people, class contradictions actually reached an extremely sharp point, and most of the people at the bottom wanted to kill the middle and upper classes.
This is completely different from the West, where our farmers, if they can’t survive and don’t have many options to emigrate, will take up arms and kill the people who make their lives difficult.
These kinds of massacres are actually very common in history, and if you look at the population loss between our dynasties, with the exception of World War II, the world’s most deadly wars have all taken place here.
Even though he made many mistakes in his later years because of economic development and his wife, he clearly realized his mistakes and handed over power to the right people before he died.
In fact, Zhou Enlai and others had planned to welcome the world market before Nixon’s visit to China, but due to their deaths, the specific plan was eventually implemented by deng.
deng fulfilled his historic mission perfectly as mao’s designated successor.
We admit that some people did make mistakes, but we do not deny that all of them were wrong.
mao’s position is unshakable.
In fact, even victims like liushaoqi’s daughter endorsed CR’s launch in later interviews.
From our current perspective, there are a bunch of intellectuals such as yangjisheng with cerebral palsy who deserve to be killed.Of course, at that time, many people could not tell which one should be killed.
If I were in power, I would have killed yang’s entire family. Such a person took money from the U.S. Agency for International Development and became a traitor. He and his family have no right to live in the world.Not just his whole family, but all his friends, all those who agree with what he says.
We must record his deeds in history and let him be reviled by future generations.
The current CPC seems too tolerant on this point.
LOL. Well, here’s the first paragraph of one of the articles I’d linked:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/24/us/politics/hegseth-payment.html
Hegseth wasn’t all that rich and it seems to me that if someone accuses you of rape and you pay her $50,000 as part of secret legal settlement, the claim isn’t “so patently a lie” as you suggest…
Who knows? Anything is possible.
My descendents might celebrate April 2025 as Liberation of the World Day.
They might have a giant statue of Trump with a gold plaque on the pedestal reading “Saviour of the World. Liberator from the US Empire, the last empire on earth”
WTF are you talking about, retard?
‘Let’?
No one ‘let’ anyone take power. They took it, because they’re more clever and ruthless than whites.
The great big fly in the ointment of Trump’s attempt to re-industrialize the USA is demographic change:
The workforce responsible for the Manhattan Project, The Apollo Program, ‘The Arsenal of Democracy’ etc etc is simply no longer there, not only in the sense that they have aged out and died, but to a massive extent they have been race replaced by the products of the Hart-Celler Act, not to mention a negro population explosion.
The workforce who accomplished the Manhattan Project, built the Pentagon building in a matter of months would be more than up to the challenge of delivering an iPhone to you at equivalent price and quality, make no mistake. But does anyone really, seriously believe that the 50% + non white up and coming generation can do so?, do you really seriously think that a workforce typified by the current denizens of inner city American can accomplish anything serious?
I don’t know why Americans are so obsessed with comparing who is the biggest, or bestest, or mostest beautifullest?
Can’t you guys just let other people be people, without judging them?
If some Jamaican guy runs a sprint and sets a world record, does that diminish you?
If some Indian guy invents a great gadget and becomes really wealthy, does that diminish you?
If the Chinese achieve something they are proud of, does that mean the Western Civlisation is diminished?
Have some self confidence, for goodness sakes.
The Chinese have a funny goof, they hang Mao heads from their rear-view mirrors to protect them from getting in a car wreck. Like miraculous medals. Now we can do that. We should use the pissed-off Trump face, that’s the best one!
Did someone say “buffoon?”
Video Link
Is there any scholarly term to convey one’s view that the Donald is an “ignorant buffoon”, Mr Eustace Tilly?
N.B. This comment by Outis, the platform asks me to post Anon, in spite of the invitation to introduce ‘A Name or SIMPLE Pseudonymic Handle’ [sic!]
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Thanks for these examples and for remaining sympathetic to the human story.
They show the unbelievable degree of dehumanization drawning our world today. This results from a. all-pervasive philosophical materialism (or, should I say, _ideological_ materialism, for there is nothing philosophical about its dogmatic bigotry); b. Keynesian economics and its ‘aggregates’ which considers human beings fungible (contrast with Austrian economics, characterized by methodological individualism and seeing economic action as purposeful); c. two mechanized world wars, probably also enforced by the narrative of the holocaust, with its insistence (false, I hope, from what I learn on this site) on industrial scale, cold calculative murder…
I can still hardly believe that Trump and the people around him (Bessent is fresh in mind from appearences over the weekend) have remained, with all their plentyful lives, so humane and warm hearted. That Vance remained faithful to his own, in spite of success, fortune and education (see a little text I wrote in homage to him in the aftermath of the Munich speech https://anotepad.com/notes/yaikk6jf).
Nobody really wants to buy most shit-quality products of american and to use US dollars. Thats why they have to constantly threaten, blackmail and force to take what they have. Normally nobody would be buying and using anything american.
I’m obviously not a well-versed in Chinese literature, I know a little bit about history, I studied Western biological sciences, and I’m not a CPC.
So generally speaking, the simple solution on my side is to kill the whole family.
Of course, you’re not going to kill the whole family of some rich Jew…
You will watch him become rich through lies and then dominate you.
In our culture, traitors are very serious acts that deserve to be etched into history and despised by all future generations.
We have a word for it 汉奸。
汉奸’s whole family. is worth to be killed.
“4. Dismantle your 800 military bases around the world and return home.”
https://dcdave.heresy.is/2019/02/09/65/
So, Trump’s tariffs are in effect “self-sanctioning” the United States? And Western sanctioning of Russia has improved that economy? So, Trump is crazy like a fox?
I’m only half serious. Russia still trades with China and India, and Russia is a major source of raw materials, so the analogy is not so accurate.
Trump 47 admin has a decidedly Jewish flavor — (as Ron points out) hubris uniting the world against them.
Note the emergence of Jewish commerce secretary Lutnick — he’s replaced Musk as Trump’s shadow. Jewess Laura Loomer getting several NSC leaders fired shows the tail wagging the dog as never before.
The long game is to discredit the Republicans so the Jews can run back to the Left, assuming unchallenged power as demographics increasingly go the way of the Democrats.
The Jews are using Trump to butter up white middle America but that’ll likely end with Trump, assuming the Zionist wet dream in Palestine is close enough to completion.
Does it make you feel better to post this?
I mean, if I were white, it would be utterly dispiriting and humiliating to admit that a tiny group of ‘small-brained’ people, literally less than 2% of the world population, has utterly taken over your society.
And what about all those Nobel laureates? And chess champions? And tech billionaires? Are those the product of ‘small brains’?
Small brains or not, they fucking own you, which is kind of funny.
Maybe having a big brain is overrated.
Thank you for your response.
Would you say that Mao’s legacy was more pure in Chinese Spirit, than Deng?
To clarify: you mentioned that Mao was instrumental staving off the foreign/internationalist elements trying to manipulate the direction of the nascent CCP, thus I assume the Chinese polity values ethnic-ideological purity over plurality or universalism. If this is the case, then I would imagine that while Deng’s “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” policies, while undeniably economically effective for its time, still doesn’t sit well in regard to ‘spiritual’ national Chinese purity, in an ethnic sense.
I guess my question can be abstracted to: In 100 years time, whose portrait/icon will be hanging on the wall of the Chinese painter?
China competes based on price, quality, value, and advanced design. Pat Buchanan covers American and the West’s incompetence and failures with lies and moronic out-of-date Cold War ideological cult trolls.
China wins the global market based on free-market economics, while America and the West steal and rob the global market by bombing and killing on the fabricated WMD allegation as humanitarian aid.
China built global prosperity on a win-win approach and the Five Principles of Peaceful Existence, while the Americans and the West exploited and destroyed the world by applying organized violence on an industrial scale, and spreading hatred by demonizing others with fake news.
First off, congratulations on your debating success, I had no idea. The second and third time you confirmed that you had never cracked an economics text, I started wondering if this might be a nuanced way of saying you feel that science is beneath you. Given where the world stands today, I whole heartedly agree that the science of economics has let all of mankind, well almost all, except for the 1% and the banker class I suppose, down. Thank you also for sharing the perspective of “self-sanctioning”. I have only now recovered from my laughter and certainly hope that Trump’s effort to impose this on Americans is as unsuccessful as it has been on Russians and Iranians. Finally, while I know precious little of what led Mao to do what he did, it would appear that either he or those who followed his reign put China on a very solid footing, positioning it to go from the disaster it was then to the success that it is today. Come to think of it the same may be said of Russia, although the time to recovery has been notably shorter.
Self loathing? I would say the opposite: self worship.
Trump truly believes he is smarter than every other single person on the planet. Look at Ron’s great examples of Trump placing others in prominent, powerful positions based only on their loyalty to him.
It’s the only criteria, other than boilerplate milestones of education and employment that millions have.
It was Deng who transformed China from a country of political mass murder and cleansings, constant famine, ruin and uni-party idiocy into the leading economic power that makes the US contemplating economic suicide and a satellite within its economic sphere. In less than 50 years.
no i’m talking about the US empire. it’s not going anyplace, and there’s not a thing you or i can do about it. as an american i have to accept that, and as a gook or dot head or whatever the fuck you are you should too.
Whites roll over and consistently give enormous social and cultural currency and power to American Sub Saharan blacks – a group largely defined by their impulsivity, criminality, histrionic displays and general dullardness.
In law firms that have enough Associates where they must consider hiring blacks – they tie themselves in knots to avoid firing blacks – even when they make catastrophic mistakes – like not asking for damages in a jury trial (the entire point.)
As Ron pointed out, black brute athletes are now viewed as worthy of being untouchable role models – remarkable or even holy.
No one made Whites do this. It is entirely related to Christianity being created by Jews – they control the Origin Story.
talk about projection! that sounds exactly like all your pro chinkland anti murica posts!
The Cultural Revolution was to overturn the establishment and start afresh. The Americans think the Cultural Revolution is a good thing. They are replicating it on a global scale, they are overturning the established global economic order.
Shouldn’t you make a joke about the Americans copying the Cultural Revolution and they are being led by the nose by Mao? Shouldn’t you list the harms and destruction the Americans are making around the world? Or you are simply a mentally colonized best slave of the Whites?
Since no one can predict the political future, that is a recipe for doing … nothing. You could argue that a slower approach would be better, but History says no.
Mr. Unz,
Obviously I love your work, but I feel like you’re allowing yourself to get duped by the MSM, and their fake panic over this tariff issue. Conversely- When I see “every main stream pundit” come out shrieking over this, and decrying it all as utter madness, I am even MORE convinced that Trump is probably in the right.
Too many of our talking head “economists” are just status quo addicted bullshitters! When was the last time a main stream economist suggested anything beyond tinkering in the margins?
Also, it’s worth pointing-out that those same people advocated nearly every single policy that has brought us to where we are now! “Off shoring was great, because we’d all be working in high tech, and those factory jobs are better to be over seas!”, thus “The Rust Belt” and millions working in the service economy, barely able to survive! Never mind buy houses, have children, SAVE MONEY (which has gone the way of the dinosaur).
And what do they have as their reward? Everything is turned into a recurring revenue model, bilking them for every penny, but that’s okay, because between now and the “you’ll own nothing and be happy” phase, they can get a credit account to put their poisonous fast food on!
“TV” that used to be free, is now a bunch of streaming services, each with it’s own nominal monthly charge. You can finance your cell phone, and get locked into a 2 or 3 year cell phone plan, but that’s okay, because it comes with “FREE Netflix” (as part of your $150/mo fee).
Here’s my point- Our supposed “economy” has turned into a giant morass of leeches, ticks, and mosquitoes, for the masses, while Hedge Funds, and other vulture capitalists entities become worth more than 3/4 of the nations on the planet!
So, the “status quo” of the past 50 years is far from sacrosanct! In fact, it’s disgusting in it’s vulgarity. Flat wages for the peons, and more billionaires than we can count, many of whom have never made a single thing as useful as a mouse trap! Nope, they’re just raiding stocks, and getting loans to leverage companies into bankruptcy…. By the way, why do you think there are so many people cheering for the alleged killer of a Health Insurance CEO?
Nope, this country needs an enormous paradigm shift, a generational change, ending globalization (as is already being said) and especially ending our absurd reliance on the entire world for basic consumer goods- like toilet paper, and a thousand other products.
We need to undo 50+ years of offshoring, and the bloated, cheap money fueled “stock market” (that has turned into a gigantic casino of shorts, puts, futures speculation, etc., versus actual stock investing) that came from it, based on fake money capital infusions… I could go on forever.
But the reality is that our current excuse for an economy is a giant sham, and it isn’t working for most working Americans, who WOULD be better with factory jobs, and maybe a pension (remember those? before they were replaced with stock market based 401k’s?) instead of working in fast food, retail, hotels, driving Ubers, and scraping by to survive. It may get rocky for the boomers facing retirement, but there is 2-3 other generations that could benefit, if it works!
Otherwise, our current path spells nothing but more of the same, and that’s killing this country! IMHO. (I’m not an economist either)
I worked in companies, back when we made things, that usually followed a mixed approach, some patents, some trade secrets. There are arguments that it is better to keep what you do a secret and not divulge it, in a patent. Over time, patents became the be-all and end-all.
And in the interim between the economic hit and years-long reindustrialization?
Current problem is there’s too much risk involved in the interim. Reindustrializing is fine if you map it out in incremental stages and provide adequate security for it along the way. All Trump has done is impose tariffs, waved a wand, and incanted ‘abracadabra’, anticipating a deluge of investors will magically fall in line.
That’s not a trustworthy strategy.
This is a negotiating tactic, to bring about the targeted plans you adore. To most, that is obvious.
My nose twitching as ever at the prospect of a respectable quibble even with an Unz article as horrifyingly convincing as this one I have to tell you that Noefolk Island is nowhere near the Antarctic but a small Australian territory inthe balmy sub tropics of 29 degrees south of the equator 1000 miles NE of Sydney. My recollection is that the descendants of Bounty mutineers moved from Pitcairn Island to Norfolk Island at some stage and are stil well presented in the islanders bloodlines.
You just don’t get it, do you?
If some Jamaican guy runs a sprint and sets a world record, it means he stole his sprinting ability from America.
If some Indian guy invents a great gadget and becomes really wealthy, it means he stole his wealth from America.
If the Chinese achieve something they are proud of, if means they stole their achievement from America.
If American companies choose to move their production to China because this would allow them to make 30 extra shekels of profit, it means China stole jobs from America.
If the Chinese export their physical goods to America in exchange for freshly printed dollars, it means China is ripping America off.
If the Chinese buy land in America in exchange for said dollars, it means China is stealing American land.
If the Europeans don’t let America sell its chemically enhanced meat (very beautiful meat, it must be said) and poultry and want to consume their own natural and healthy meat (that is weak and pathetic and sad), it means Europe is ripping America off.
There is no comparing who is the biggest, or bestest, or mostest beautifullest. America is. And if it isn’t then it’s only because other nations stole American bigness, bestestness and beauty.
Luckily, Trump is here to put an end to this rampant theft with a 5D chess plan that cannot be comprehended by mere mortals. We must trust his instincts.
I have to disagree with Mr. Unz on this one…
The USA ran entirely on tariffs until 1913 when the federal reserve system was created and the income tax was enacted.
Keep in mind that the tariffs go directly in to the U S Treasury where they should be used to pay down the debt.
Whether they will be used to pay down the debt or not, it’s up to congress to make sure that happens.
As a former believer in ‘free trade’ – and now a convert to tariff management – I defer to Karl Denninger and Vox Day for their expert analysis – https://crushlimbraw.blogspot.com/search?q=Tariffs&max-results=20&by-date=true&m=1 – a list of headnotes to articles providing extensive analysis by various authors.
In addition, as KD so succinctly proves, tariffs are only a minor part of our current national financial disorder – there’s a much bigger elephant in the room – our Medical Mafia:
Yes-no-maybe……dealing only with tariffs – without addressing Immigration/Repatriations-Real EstateBubble-Medical Mafia-War Games Monopoly-etcetc – will be irrelevant. Trump needs to address DaWholeEnchilada….or go home – game’s over!
Thursday I posted:
Will Trump REALLY DO IT? Fulfill His Promises? Why Do I Ask?
A couple of days before I read Karl Denninger’s “Trump Has Done — And Will Do — It All”
https://crushlimbraw.blogspot.com/2025/04/will-trump-really-do-it-fulfill-his.html?m=0
After I read it all, including the comments…..and was reminded it was April Fools Day! Ouch!
Yet later – “He Wasn’t Kidding” – by KD
But consider what might be in store – when you read KD’s April 1 article, here’s what’s next: Immigration, Medical Mafia, Energy, Housing… just for starters. You really should read it all – WHY?
Consider – in order for MAGA to become REALITY – America and President Trump have to get serious – NOW! There will be no second chance – this is it. It is truly ironic – what Denninger laid out – and he has been doing it for weeks or months now – is what is necessary to restore our country as a whole. Piecemeal is DEAD!
And it all might have come together as an April Fool Joke!
Also – when will we stop panicking like a bunch of mindless ninnies who missed their lunch?
Read – https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/your-discomfort-means-its-working – the fact that DaMSM is screaming means it’s working, duh!
And today, Karl Denninger doubles down on DaNaySayers: So what’s the salient driving difference here?
Health care cost.
Not quality, cost.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=253098
It seems my arrow hit the target.
Mr. Unz, your generally unbiased approach to the issues you take on has been seriously compromised here. You should have taken your own advice and simply not dug yourself into this hole of ignorance. You said that you know nothing about economics and then went on to prove that assertion.
My suspicion is that most of the people having kittens over Trump’s tariffs are as ignorant as you are of economics and, certainly, of international economics. It’s sort of difficult to dive in and write a thorough renunciation of your article, especially since I’m old, retired and don’t really give a damn what you think or write, but I’ll say that there are entire schools of economics that support Trump’s approach. None of the practitioners of those schools are on your rolodex and very few get to write for mainstream publications. I believe that the Austrian School of economics is a good example and you might want to look into their treatment of international trade and the policies most likely to achieve national goals.
China will continue being great.
These vermin are not tolerated:
Is “Chainsaw Al”‘s Legacy a Thing of the Past?
https://hrexecutive.com/is-chainsaw-als-legacy-a-thing-of-the-past/
American finance, executive suites infested.
Culling Wall Street should accompany tariffs.
Tent K Street to get additional pest infestation.
5ds
The EU this weekend offered zero tariffs on industrial goods. Mexico stated it would accept Trump’s tariffs and not engage in a trade war. I do agree with Mr. Unz’s view of market overvaluation, something Warren Buffett has warned about for several years now. The last week has seen some major re-evaluations of stocks. Consider this — when the NYT, WSJ, Michael Hudson, and Richard Wolff all march in the same band, might Trump have done something right? As to viewing Trump as a buffoon, I have come to see him as a super high IQ person, the smartest president in my lifetime, and the funniest, with his adolescent quick wit. I don’t agree with Trump on many issues but I don’t view him as stupid or a buffoon.
The zionist destruction of American/world economy;)
Only partially agree with the arguments.
I agree with you on the following points:
– Trump is not particularly smart
– Trump has no coherent strategy other than “deal making” and bullying
– Uncertainty is bad for the economy
– It’s stupid to go after Canada and Mexico as well
– It’s stupid to impose tariffs on insignificant countries with puny economies
– The underlying calculation is stupid and makes no sense
– DOGE is a hoax
– Trump has a cult-like following
But I don’t agree with you on fundamental points:
– If tariffs are so bad, why did the US government finance itself with tariffs for most of its history (until the 1920s)? There was no income tax until 1913. And the period from 1789 to 1913 was not exactly a period of poverty and despair, quite the opposite.
– You can’t compare Trump to Mao just because they both brought great upheavals. Then George W. Bush 43 also belongs to this category. His Patriot Act, which he signed (thanks to Israel), created an unprecedented surveillance machine that still haunts us today. And don’t even get me started on FDR.
– There is no evidence that the meeting with Laura Loomer led to the NSA chief’s resignation. I think it’s more likely that the administration is having a heated debate about whether to counter Iran with bombs or with diplomacy. And he was probably on the “wrong side”.
It strikes me as self-evidently true that the basis of the USD as the world reserve currency is the ability of foreign governments, businessmen, corporations, pension funds, wealth funds and other institutions to reliably and frictionlessly sell goods into US consumer markets and invest in US capital markets. The openness of the US market and the depth of the liquidity it provides is what gives it that role organically. If the US closes itself off to global trade and increasingly engages in protectionist measures, the premiums and barriers foreign investors have to pay to access the US market will increase and make it a much less attractive market to do business in and invest their wealth. This will lower demand for dollars and dollar-based assets as a strategic reserve.
As a simple small example, Canada has a large financial services industry – pension funds, insurance, banking, etc. and did not suffer any major structural problems with their financial sector in 2008. I could see a lot of financial services for the non-polar countries (Not US, EU, China, or Russia) choosing Canada as their banker and custodian of choice, especially Southeast Asia.
If it’s true, it means he has little to say. If it’s not really accurate, it’s disingenuous, a way to avoid engaging on particulars of the issue and possibly facing embarrassment. He doesn’t need to be “embarrassed” (just like on the VAX!) because he says he suggests he’s relying on “good authority.”
For the rest of your post, I agree, the anti-tariff crowd are “protesting too much” – it seems the other party is furious about the idea of anything to arrest the third-worldization of the USA. The white man must be degraded to the level of the rest of the world for their profit. They are totally committed to that idea and are invested in it to the hilt.
They may well be afraid that the tariffs will work better than expected (for example, they complain about it being a tax! Taxes are for directly targeting the livelihoods and fortune-building potential of white gentiles, nobody else!). If the tariffs do work better than expected, it will be obvious they’ve been tanking the USA to enrich themselves.
Bullshitters are a dime a dozen. Two standouts championed by the West are Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag Archipelago) and Indian writer Salman Rushdie (The Satanic Verses).
Anyway, these writers are no different than the presstitutes at WSJ or Washington Post.
Oh, and it’s also worth noting that just like the last time (over 28K I believe) , Trump can exempt tens of thousands of individual items, materials, goods, products, chemicals, etc. etc., from the National Level Tariffs.
Agreed.
Sir, your first paragraph is something I largely agree with. I think Ron’s profession of Socratic ignorance is what it was for Socrates: (I) in part, an honest and humble profession of ignorance; (II) a form of dissembling, a way of rhetorically level-setting the conversation back to common sense and away from the technical debates of specialists.
The truth is that almost any specialized science is largely common sense, but all of the important and critical information in a science is what is non-intuitve. The ancients tried to practice science with heavier doses of metaphysical speculation than we are currently comfortable with. This worked, insofar as it worked, more in the area of the general principles of science and less, you know, in the area of determining the actual equations of kinematics.
The U.S. has more Nobel Laureates in Economics than any country in the world. Some of the best applied mathematicians in the world are American economists. And I really do think we ought to listen more to these guys, including Stiglitz, Krugman, and others in shaping our public policies. But we need not ALWAYS listen to them.
Because, in truth, I think there are things that our military leaders understand, that our warriors understand, and that Trump himself understands about international trade that the international trade theorists do not understand. Those aspects would be things not encompassed by the rigorous empiricism and mathematical finesse of economic science.
Apr 7, 2025 69% Tariff Cripples China’s Foreign Trade, Companies Close Overnight, Economy Set Back 30 Year By China Observer
A 1980s-born entrepreneur running a kitchenware factory in Zhejiang named Lao Guo, has recently been overwhelmed by the piles of goods stacking up in his warehouse. In a video he posted, Lao Guo expressed his frustration, saying that U.S. tariffs have shattered his dreams as a middle-aged man striving for success. He shared: “So many goods are stuck due to tariff issues, and I don’t know where they will go”.
In the world of legal liabilities, $50,000 is indeed small potatoes, even for an indigent, and it seems like a woman who was “actually raped” (whatever that means according to a civil jury) would demand considerably more.
If you’re a minor celebrity and some woman crawls out of the woodwork to destroy your reputation, what do you do? Fight it out or pay $50,000? It would be ridiculous to take such an accusation at face value. How often do men win when they give a liar a platform to assail their integrity? It’s always a pyrrhic victory, at best.
The way I see it, Hegseth represents the sleaziness and brutal viciousness of the US military, which is bare and unadorned in 2025, whether some whore accused him of “rape” is totally inconsequential and not worth mentioning. Especially in the context of a cabinet appointment, given what we know about how these hearings work whenever a Republican faces any such accusations from anyone.
The problem with the argument of all those who categorically oppose Trump’s tariffs is that the ground state of affairs they offer as comparison doesn’t exist. It is a figment of their limited imagination.
In plain English: Japan imposes hidden tariffs as does Europe. I’m too lazy to summarize, so just read the following:
https://www.belongingjapan.com/how-to-guide/finance/car-tax-in-japan-a-guide-to-common-taxes-in-daily-life/
All the factors used to impose taxes militate against American imports. Our cars are heavier, consume more gas per mile, have larger engine displacements etc.
Netherlands imposes similar standards. In other words,
ALL THESE OTHER NATIONS IMPOSE HIDDEN TARIFFS UPON U.S. GOODS. TRUMP IS JUST MAKING THIS EXPLICIT.
Of course, making explicit what cowards prefer to pretend doesn’t exist threatens them. They—cowardly deniers—resent any brave man whose courage to face facts squarely and deal with those facts shows them, the cowards, to be the cowards they are. Few men can stand to be so exposed. They would prefer to ruin the brave one who did so and in the process, drag down the entire system than admit that they are cowards. And they do so because?….they are cowards.
This is why Courage is the first Virtue. Without Courage a man is an existential non-being. Stop going along with the bleating crowd. Face the facts. It’s a rigged table and the USA is the Sucker.
The answer is more simplistic when you understand the recent history of China. From 1368 to 1644, China was governed by the Ming Dynasty (Chinese Han ethnicity). This period of rule is considered prosperous and great. From 1644 to 1912, China was ruled by the Qing Dynasty (non-Han ethnicity). Under Manchu rule, Han peasants were treated as second class citizens. For example, Han Chinese had to show submission by wearing a queue (hairstyle where front of heads are shaved with the back braided or be executed). Abuse by foreigners only got worse when the British arrived in the 1800’s to loot the Qing Dynasty by waging war (Opium Wars) and selling their Indian Opium to the Chinese public. The French, German, Russian, Americans and Japanese (1st Sino-Japanese War) followed the British on the looting, occupation and destruction of China. By 1912, the Qing Dynasty collapses with the foreign Imperialists still lurking and profiting from their nefarious activities. What follows is regional wars waged by Chinese Warlords vying to fill the power vacuum, a Civil War, another Japanese invasion (2nd Sino-Japanese War), WW2 and the continuation of the Chinese Civil War. After 100+ years of chaos (Chinese call it the 100 years of humiliation), Mao kicks out ALL the foreign Imperialists, wins the Civil War on the mainland and declares the Peoples Republic of China. From 1949 onwards with a destroyed country and zero gold reserves, Mao builds the foundations needed (healthy, educated and fed population, infrastructure, etc..) to make China great again (which is what Deng did with his economic reforms). In other words, without Mao, there is no Sovereign China and no #1 economy in the World by GDP (ppp) since 2016.
Is Bibi the first to kiss the ring of the emperor?
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/bibi-washington-first-foreign-leader-negotiate-removal-trumps-tariffs-person
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dont-be-weak-dont-be-panican-trump-urges-americans-hold-tight-countries-all-over-world
It makes sense for some of the thinking type to obsess with being the best, past, present, and future. Useful as a mean to minimize cognitive dissonance.
Americans, especially its elites, talk about “All men are created equal” day in and day out. How else could such Americans justify 4.3% of human race consuming out of proportion of everything? And, more important, how could they maintain the faith or the obsession that the situation would continue forever?
Two ways to reduce cognitive dissonance:
1. Americans are better.
2. Other people get less because their governments are not Democratic like the US.
False dilemma.
Seems that it’s worked for China.
Your middle paragraph, Sir, is something I cannot make sense of, since I do not see anyone advocating for the degradation of the ‘white man’ in economic terms. Anti white rhetoric was a part of DEI and BLM social engineering platforms, and I do think all of that will come back with a vengeance once Trump/Vance depart. In my opinion, we are going to have a Bolshevism in the US, call it ‘Bolshevism with American characteristics.’ The cultural aspects of the coming Black-Brown Communism will be anti-white. But for now, I think you can leave that out of your analysis.
The system of global trade is premised on the idea of the ‘equilibrium price.’ Our wages have stagnated in real terms for forty years because finance capitalism is ever seeking lower input costs (and labor is approximately 1/3 of total input costs). Global markets imply a leveling of wages and prices.
The balance between capital and labor is hard to find. Neoliberalism has worked out well for capital, and not so well for labor. America is never going to have a highly unionized, high wage economy as Germany once had. I think Trump is hoping to revitalize manufacturing and bring jobs back here. I agree with Ron that to the extent this requires predictable conditions and long term planning for US firms, the tariff strategy may fail to induce changes in firm behavior.
My intuition tells me that if you want a vigorous and productive manufacturing sector like China, one that absorbs a lot of the unemployed and those like myself who have fallen completely out of the Labor force for almost ten years, you have to actually implement the Sino-Marxist model with its ring-fencing of state run enterprises. It makes more sense to me to offer jobs in state run enterprises than simply sending out checks for guaranteed minimum income programs.
The real problem with Trump’s idea is that the wage demanded by the spoiled American worker is always going to be too high, no matter how far the dollar falls. The problem with our economy is not that they are trying to degrade whites, but rather that we are not Chinese.
I expect that we will, eventually, get around to implementing an economic system that mirrors Sino-Marxism. But whereas China has an ethnic monoculture, here in the U.S. the cultural aspects of American collectivism will have strong anti-white and also anti-Christian features. I do not think this will all happen by 2028, but over the next 20-30 years, as the emmiserating aspects of Late Stage Capitalism become undeniable and as the demographics change further, Black-Brown American Bolshevism will be our future. We will look back on Trump II as the moment when the American rule of law and the American system of free global trade were deliberately broken. Both aspects of this will pave the way for this future tyranny, in which anti-colonial (anti-white) rhetoric mixes freely with an American ideal of equality which will suddenly be given strong economic and cultural form.
Leo Strauss once said that to outlaw all discrimination, even private discrimination, would mean the obliteration of the distinction between public and private. This was about six years before the founding of the EEOC. We are headed towards that goal— a totally public, thoroughly profane culture in which no soul can hide.
Today’s news:
NETANYAHU LANDS IN THE UNITED STATES AHEAD OF MEETING WITH TRUMP.
Yesterday’s news:
Netanyahu is in court for corruption tomorrow.
It’s obvious, no?
You’re way wrong about Sozhenitsyn. Read “Two Hundred Years Together”.
As far as Rushdie is concerned, you’re right about “The Satanic Verses” and wrong about “Midnight’s Children”.
Glad to see you’re using the word “presstitutes”. Sir Paul Craig Roberts, KCB would be pleased that his favorite portmanteau word is gaining currency.
As Frank-Walter Steinmeier put it (when he was economics minister)
“the Americans are always free to build better cars” 😋
US cars are more damaging so they pay more for road repairs etc.
inhowfar is that a “trade barrier?” It is European policy to improve mileage
i.e. punish guzzlers (I know that sounds like a human rights violation but you
retain the right to guzzle your own subsidized gas – it´s just that your small penis
makes your cars unsellable elsewhere; you know, other people have to earn dollar
to import the oil – when you aren´t bombing them that is).
The estimates “vary” because they were total fiction. The writer of the American Pravda series should be especially sensitive to propaganda.
Millions of people supposedly starved to death during the Great Leap Forward. Yet China’s death rates actually went down in that period (1958-1962):
This is a serious contradiction. The chart, taken from an article here by Godfree Roberts (link), uses data from the United Nations. I think the United Nations is far more credible than some random journalist.
The propaganda had legs probably because Deng Xiaoping, China’s leader after Mao, cooperated in the lying, since his capitalist reforms were faltering due to high resistance from the people. They remembered the years of starvation before Mao — such as the massive famine in 1946, just three years before Mao founded the PRC — and had no wish to return to those desperate Capitalist years. Deng needed to destroy Mao’s reputation, and his chosen weapon was the Big Lie.
So Deng started faking data left and right. But diligent as he and his minions were, they could not fake everything, as the above chart demonstrates.
Another piece of evidence of Deng’s fakery. From Joseph Ball’s excellent 2006 article (link) :
Deng attempted to make it seem that Mao failed to improve China’s food security, but he failed; he could not fake everything.
I tend to think virtually of of these rape allegations are false. I suppose they only work on a very sheltered segment of the population who have never in fact tried to rape a woman. Without the utilization of a coercive weapon it’s far harder than one would imagine. Trust me. Unless the woman can show serious injury, bruising, etc. you can be almost certain the allegation is false!
Also – huge tariffs are in place now – against the individual consumer.
Has anyone ever tried to buy something on Alibaba – been thrilled about the price – and then checked out to discover the tariffs imposed on the item were thousands of dollars?
Those shop fans that are about 6 feet tall – they are great for my dogs when they are relaxing on the deck but need some breeze. I buy them from the States and they are $1k and up. Alibaba has them for $100 or less. (And is that even possible? The materials alone? You see – its a rigged game).
Once you ship them to the States, you have paid almost $1500 +. in tariffs, taxes and various fake duty stamps just to get them into the country.
Will corporations pass on to consumers the higher prices? Sure. But you don’t have to buy electronics, cars right now. You can shop and eat local until this stabilizes. Petro chemicals cannot be avoided, but were very high under Biden.
It’s the Dave Portnoy’s, the Bill Ackermans, and other High Net Worth People who will take some dings on their stock portfolio.
Content must be generated now to keep all these websites, podcasts, streaming services afloat. The tariffs are being used as that cudgel in this news cycle. It’s not a catastrophe. It could be beneficial.
This is not something to worry about. DEI in medical care, aviation, law and anything that actually matters? Now, that’s something to worry about.
This all Wong
Except there is nothing to even negotiate because Trump’s tariff plan is not calculated from existing tariff rates. The plan was calculated from imports and exports, without regard for tariffs. Countries could completely eliminate all tariffs on American goods, but as long as they continue exporting more to the USA than they import from the USA, Trump’s “reciprocal tariffs” would remain. Trump is saying that countries either need to start buying as much (or more) crap from America as they currently export to America or they need to just stop exporting to America. Since the first is impossible for many countries, their only option to alleviate the tariffs is to stop exporting to the USA. Trump himself is saying that this is the goal, to have a trade surplus with every country in the world. Other countries’ import tariffs are irrelevant to his demands.
People saying it’s a “negotiating tactic” are either Trump ball lickers or people who think that it’s impossible that a man could be this stupid, so he must have some kind of angle.
I believe Gilad Atzmon’s analysis of Jewish history, going back to the Book of Esther in The Wandering Who: A Study of Jewish Identity Politics does the best job of explaining that takeover that you describe. He says that their history is marked by “tribalism, power-seeking, and treachery.” The utter takeover is certainly real enough. See
Video Link
“The Cultural Revolution was to overturn the establishment and start afresh.”
Mao had led China since the 1920s. He knew China’s revolution in and out. He was the expert in managing China’s huge population, communist party, state machine, and of course the military. Problem: The more he knew, the more he knew how China’s revolution could got wrong.
Given China’s poverty at that time, absolutely or relatively speaking, China was still VERY far from its goal. Mao was stuck after China’s break with the ex-USSR, and at the same time heavily sanctioned by an US led sanction. China needed help from the outside. But could not find any help.
Physically, with the US 7th fleet patrolling the Taiwan Strait as well as the SCS and effectively block Chinese naval ships from leaving.
Mao was seeking a breakthrough.
While Nixon was winding down its effort to save the South Vietnam regime, US historian, Barbara Tuchman had a 1972 essay entitled “If Mao Had Come to Washington.”
” …in January 1945, four and a half years before they achieved national power in China, Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai, in an effort to establish a working relationship with the United States, offered to come to Washington to talk in person with President Roosevelt. What became of the offer has been a mystery until, with the declassification of new material, we now know for Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai, in an effort to establish a working relationship with the United States, offered to come to Washington to talk in person with President Roosevelt.”
Unfortunately, “the United States made no response to the overture.”
To cut to the chase, Tuchman’s point was this. If Mao had come to Washington, America would have “a wider option that would not involve us in the fate of a “steadily decaying regime” like South Vietnam and the ROC under the Generalissimo.
For the PRC, if Mao had toured the US, he would not viciously denounce of the United States as the fixed—and doomed—enemy of the Socialist camp. And not isolated itself from the US and its allies.
Of course, Mao and Zhou did not visit the US and China was 在劫难逃。（No Escape)
Mao’s mass line democracy could not work in the absence of advance communication technique.
The manufacturing MAGAs envision is gone. While little trumpette’s clown prince of commerce yesterday said there are millions of Chinese workers screwing together iPhones, in fact these products are made in factories that are completely automated and even in dark factories, dark because they need so few people. But little trumpette ignores that and I can only imagine will have poorly trained American child laborers turning screws on iPhone cases, which of course will make my next iPhone cost over $2500 – and be of much lower quality.
Do you know what it takes to implement manufacturing innovation? I have a few insights based on experience for MAGAs to consider. You might not like them.
1. Highly educated workforce, capable of innovating for performance and efficiency across every stage of product development, from product design to manufacturing engineering to computerized and globally integrated inventory and production to shipping. We don’t have such a workforce across America and only in those manufacturing facilities where the companies themselves have undertaken the burden of designing the required educational curriculums and also paid for them, sometimes with state assistance. THAT IS NOT SCALABLE. See China and Vietnam for scalable workforce education strategies, plans, and solutions. There is good reason why American manufacturers have shipped the bulk of their product engineering to China – it is not low cost, it’s because China has the smartest people.
2. Highly advanced computing and communications infrastructure available everywhere in America. You cannot build a new modern manufacturing complex in a major city where America concentrates its technologies. It is unaffordable. You need consistent 5G, AI, data center capacity and redundancy from sea to shining sea – and beyond. The modern manufacturing plant must talk to every department in the company across every country.
3. Pervasive low-cost energy and a high-quality infrastructure capable of delivering it with minimal downtime while minimizing redundancy costs. Enough said, we are decades from that.
4. Highly efficient and automated integrated transportation, from modern high-speed rail and automated port facilities (assuming little trumpette can find buyers overseas that he hasn’t pissed off for good). Shipping is a cost and you know what we do about costs, right? But it must also compete for cost and efficiency with shipping elsewhere. Since we have no national transportation (or education or industrialization or communications) plan, we won’t be able to build out cost-effective transportation. Again, see China.
5. Finally, and this is important. We need an entirely new economy that rewards capital expenditures on manufacturing and related support instead of on F.I.R.E. and its financialization and rehypothecation of assets for sale overseas. Keep in mind the little trumpette is in REAL ESTATE and his 13 billionaire appointees are largely in FINANCE. None of them speak the right language for building a manufacturing base in America and they all get rich if manufacturing does not compete for their money.
I just want to point out that these are but a few requirements for modern manufacturing. And tariffs provide none of them.
Why would I argue the case for tariffs and Trump to someone who appears (P~.95) prejudiced to not read it with an open mind? What would be the point?
Not that I am pro-tariff; I am anti-anti-.
Don’t most of these other countries have tariffs all over the place?
“everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face”
— Mike Tyson
Noem is obviously from a rural, country background and if killing a unpredictable/violent dog is your sole basis for labeling her a sociopath, I suggest you are not remotely qualified to make *any* determination about her. Bondi appears to be an total airhead or incompetent after her handling of Phase 1 Epstein. I had great expectations for RFK but so far we’ve had little progress in MAHA.
Rubio is possibly a bisexual and has a background of mass gay parties (aka foam parties). I would bet a good investigator or two could find some good threads to pull on this character.
Trump is on his second genocide so he might not be equal to Stalin but he might qualify as a Stalin-lite. He’s obviously mentally unstable and a full on psychopath. He loves attention and he loves color revolutions. This is one bad guy that absolutely has to be judged for his crimes. There’s zero excuse for any other course of action.
Exactly. The kike and his wasp acolyte prints up worthless paper and then says ok I want to buy your productive assets for pennies on the dollar. We want to own everything and everyone. And most people think the nature of these orcs have change from 3000 years ago! Not.
For fair trade, US dollar supremacy must end.
It is not automobiles that break up the highways of America. It is the axle load of semi-trailer trucks. 80,000 lbs puts 34,000 lbs on each of the two sets of trailer axles.
https://highwaydriverleasing.com/2022/05/27/how-to-load-trailers-and-distribute-weight/
Now, as the leading wheel of each pair roll over an expansion joint in concrete they depress the edge of the concrete slab. Immediately upon passing, the edge springs back up and then the next set of wheels clobbers it. This is repeated for the rear axles. This sets up dynamic vibration type conditions which pulverize the concrete adjoining the joints. That’s where the potholes are.
A car, by way of contrast, is so light (3500 lbs is not untypical, so 1750 lbs. per axle) that no such major deflection takes place and no wear occurs. Were it not for semitrailers, our poured concrete highways would last for many decades.
As far as I know, the same rules of physics prevail in Europe as in America. Your citing this man touts both your and his ignorance.
It may be “Europe’s policy to punish guzzlers” and that is their right but that doesn’t change Trump’s basic point. The policy penalizes cars that American automobile manufacturers build and it is intended to do just that. If this were not the case, why would they not be satisfied with just a gasoline tax?
You may call yours a penis but I call mine a schlong. I will gladly submit to a New World Order which pays a man an annual salary in proportion to his endowment.
Interesting picture of Smoot and Hawley in a Masonic thumb on knuckle handshake.
Mr. Unz is correct; he does not understand economics.
Joe so angly and horstile. Joe have dragon breath, velly angly. Joe Wong belly Wong on comment. Aiyeyah , belly angly and berry berry Wong.
I see the tariffs as win-win regardless of the consequences. It’s like the Pesci rule.
“If you win, you win. If you lose, you still win. There’s no way you can lose.”
Even though Trump is a boor and a pimp and goes about his agenda in half-baked manner, there are bigger stakes than stock markets or price of goods. It’s about globalism, and Trump’s disruptive actions may bring about the end of the global system. It doesn’t matter what Trump personally wants. The world is being forced to make hard decisions. Usually, people don’t want to change paradigms or trajectories unless they’re forced to. Consider how it took a series of shocks before China finally realized the Old Way was no longer feasible. China was forced into change.
The globalist system, for all its problems, had been accepted by much of the world, especially following the end of the Cold War when it was deemed that the US was the only superpower, the only judge and enforcer of the world order. Despite all its problems, people around the world got accustomed to it. They accepted US hegemony while, in turn, America accepted the further erosion of its nationalism in favor of hegemonism. The Western elites profited handsomely while the middle class and working class didn’t do so good.
There was the rise of China and India but at the cost of over-dependence on US markets and technological lead. But it was lucrative enough to sufficient number of people, and so the world stuck with the plan.
The first real blow to the system was the sanctions on Russia in 2022, the biggest in history devised to totally destroy the Russian economy. The experts in the West said Russia was doomed, but it turned out Russia was far more resilient. Experts now say the US is doomed but, like Russia, US has all the resources it needs(and nearly three times the population). US could weather this. It will be painful in the short term but could be positive in the long term.
Also, shutting off US markets to the world forces the world to be less dependent on the US, less subordinate to its wishes. Now, some nations may submit to Trump’s agenda and cave to US demands for greater access to US markets, but more nations will seek new ways to sustain their economies, and that’s good for the whole world. It’s all part of the rise of a multi-polar world as opposed to a unipolar one that arose from the end of the Cold War.
This will shake up globalism that’s been dominated by the US, and that will be a good thing. Nothing is more important for the world than being weaned away from over-dependence on the US in many ways, and Trumponomics is having that effect.
Europe has been seriously damaged by its subordination to the US. It’s pathetic that all the European gripes about the US aren’t about greater autonomy and sovereignty for itself but bitching about how the US may no longer play pimp and sugar-daddy for Europe.
All this EU stuff about continuing the war in Ukraine isn’t about Europe standing on its own feet and asserting its own interests but a plea to the US to keep the fight going so that the US-EU alliance can be maintained against Russia as bogeyman of the world.
If Trumponomics works for America, it will be a win for the majority of Americans, esp the middle and working classes.
If Trumponomics damages American power, it will be a win for the world that can finally emerge from the evils of American hegemonism.
It’s win-win. It’s either good for US workers or good for the world, at least in the long run as it adjusts to a new system that isn’t so slavish to the US.
My earlier evaluation of Trump’s acolytes notwithstanding, I am, in fact, willing to hear arguments in support of the tariffs. I’ve been reading quite a few of them in recent days, and I do not conclude they are irrational per se.
But the period between now and aspired economic recalibration will have many people raising the same issue, among whom quite a few skeptics will be added to the electorate prior to the ’26 midterms.
Which is why it behooves Team Trump to present something a bit more substantive than ‘Trust the plan’ or ‘This is gonna hurt awhile.’
Jus’ sayin’.
“For one thing, Trump’s actions were clearly illegal under American law. As many have noted, tariffs are obviously taxes, and according to the American Constitution…”
Precisely. So, what dog hasn’t barked?
Why hasn’t a Ha’wa’i’iáʼn judge placed a four-year preemptive moratorium on our President’s tariffs?
(because these tariffs are really bad news)
Your tendentious hand grenades – viz covid ‘epidemic’ – are vapid and irrelevant as ((Wolffs)) gratuitous feints at muh white supremacy [sic].
This cannot be right because 21% of total American assets are owned by foreigners! Including 40% of stocks and 4% of real estate. But the rest of your post makes sense. It’s what Buffet warned of long ago in his pithy article – the rest of the world will exchange its surplus dollars for American assets until America finds itself stripped bare. If Trump were focused on reindustrialization, he might apply tariffs more focused on particular industries; if it were more about geopolitics he might focus them more on particular countries.
Buffet’s 2003 article:
https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2003/11/10/352872/index.htm
Open borders, feminism (which naturally involves moving away from intact families and value for productive labor) and de-industrialization are not “side-effects” of what has been done over 50+ years. They are the planned outcome.
Any attempt to reverse course, at all, is met with fierce indignation and “panic” from the usual suspects. “It’s a tax” – from the people who see taxation as the path to “equity.”
If the tariffs happened to work, assuming they’re given a real chance (as it is doubtful they will be rigorously followed for all that long), it will be a cause of intense resentment among those who want lower wages and to keep making money through the dismantling and selling off of the USA (more short term rewards since the source of “income” – the US dollar, is seen as a limitless resource).
“Economists” who support the dismantling of the US as it has gone on for decades should be tarred and feathered, and those who deny that the goal has been to harm the European peoples, in particular, the white men, to grind them into poverty and replace their populations, should not have any position or recognition, or any place with any institution.
What positive aspects would they cite? I’ve heard large credit being given to him for brining about political stability, i.e. the termination of the Warlord period and the Civil War. But I think that was just bound to happen on pretty much the same timeline. They dynamics are something like a sports tournament in which factions necessarily get eliminated until one is left standing. Furthermore, he didn’t even leave the winner (the CCP) in a stable equilibrium. China had to wait for Deng to bring about political stability within the winning faction.
By the way, Nero was not too bad. Trump should aspire for true villainous greatness – Caligula, maybe, as Unz mentioned in the article.
A Trump fan, I read your comment in Jeffrey Sachs’s last discussion thread. I did not know what to think about it at first but, ultimately, concluded that you were probably right.
Another example of the collapse in American political decorum, norms, law, etc. Not long ago this was considered a major issue and now nobody bats an eye. Now people casually arrested for penning articles, presidents are not only clearly puppets but also senile, drone assassination ordered by presidents, atrocities previously covered up now broadcast and boasted about on social media, etc.
Tariff formerly US companies: Apple, Microsoft, GM, et al.
Indigenous Chinese companies, maybe not.
CEOs go to Guantanamo.
This might balance greed.
All about greed.
Retribution.
5ds
America’s economic strength of days gone by came largely from its mid- and small-sized business operating on a local level. Sure, it was inefficient and didn’t create many billionaires, but it worked.
Big business coördinating and rationalising its production facilities and supply chains by spreading them to the four corners of the world have only served to impoverish huge numbers of Americans who used to have a good shot at a comfortable life in that older, less-scaled world.
Yes, big biz might be hesitant to invest in the new world delivered by Trump, but people will still have wants and needs, and it may very well be that entrepreneurial Americans will step into the breach to fill those wants and needs.
It’s worth a shot, far better than continuing down the same nation-destroying path the US has been on since WW2.
🕉
There are similarities between Mao and Trump. Both tend to be erratic, narcissistic, imperious, and egotistical.
But the differences are more important.
Mao was a true national leader with real power. Trump, for all his hot air, is in the pocket of the Israel Lobby. And even though Wall Street and the elites seem hostile to his economic policies, they may privately welcome it as an excuse to finally deflate the overblown stock market. Also, replacing the income tax with tariffs means more wealth for the superrich.
A key difference between the Great Leap Forward and Liberation Day(Trump’s tariffs) is there was zero criticism of Mao’s economic plan in China while Trump is getting plenty of flak from across American society. Whereas Mao was like god in China, it’s open season on Trump in most of the media, even Fox News. Also, whereas the Great Leap was entirely a domestic policy, Liberation Day is a foreign policy matter and, as such, its failures will be quickly felt and known all over the world. (In contrast, the world knew nothing of the millions dying in China.)
No one could honestly or critically discuss the GLF even as it was killing millions because everyone feared and revered Mao as a god-emperor. But, the entire world is talking about Liberation Day and Trumpism, and the economic shocks may soon force Trump to pull back or revise his policies.
Also, whereas GLF was based on euphoric fantasy — that agrarian China could catch up to the US in 10 yrs with backyard steel mills and peasants organized into ant-like work teams — , there is a hardnosed realism about Liberation Day. Globalism hollowed out US manufacturing, and the middle classes and working classes remained stagnant or lost jobs. While US jobs were off-shored, masses of foreign workers were brought in to replace US workers, even in white collar jobs. White workers were made to train Hindus slated to take their places for lower wages and benefits.
GLF was supposed to be breeze, agrarian China catching up with UK, USSR, and then the US in a matter of years. It was pathologically optimistic.
In contrast, Trump concedes that Liberation Day will be painful and it will be a rough road ahead. But he feels it’s necessary if American economics are to become more national. Given the political costs of this, there’s even a bit of courage in what Trump is doing, but then he doesn’t have to worry about re-election.
Of course, if Trump were truly independent, he would not only disrupt economic globalism but rein in the US empire abroad. But he’s beholden to the Lobby and about to expand US power in the Middle East in service to Israel. A war with Iran seems on the horizon.
So, Trump is all over the map. Part of him prefers the Buchananite plan of ‘republic, not an empire’, but another part of him serves AIPAC. Granted, the imperial Caesarian side of him takes pleasure in playing world emperor, so it may not only be Zionist pressures. Consider his reckless statements about Panama, Canada, and Greenland(and grabbing all the natural resources of Ukraine and turning Gaza into Trump’s Casino).
If anything has been truly like GLF in the US, it’s been Zionist influence, BLM, and globohomo. Whereas anyone in the media and academia have felt free to dump on Trump, MAGA, GOP, ‘white supremacism’, and etc. even blaming Trump for bogus ‘Russia Collusion’, it’s been taboo in official and respectable circles to honestly discuss Zionist influence, black crime, and homosexual degeneracy.
So, when BLM riots raged across America, it had the full backing of the US establishment, the so-called experts who’ve been lying about race relations forever, placing all blame on ‘white racism’ or ‘systemic racism’ while disregarding and banning all honest discussion of racial differences.
If anything was like the Cultural Revolution in recent yrs, it was the BLM-Antifa protests, and it came from the Expert class of the Establishment.
If anything was like the Mao Cult in recent years, it was the apotheosis of the Holy Homo, also decreed from above by the Expert Establishment class that doesn’t even know what a woman is.
And of course, the endless statements from the experts that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was ‘unprovoked’. In other words, the so-called expert class has totally disgraced and discredited itself, especially with the Covid Crisis that woke many people up. The Covid thing, which Trump didn’t want but was forced to adopt, was like the GLF in that the dissidents were silenced, blacklisted, canceled, and career-destroyed. And it came from the Expert class that, at one time, said the origins of the virus was totally natural and then suppressed the use of Ivermectin and other treatments.
Thus, ‘red over expert’ doesn’t really apply in the US. During the Cultural Revolution, it meant raging mobs of Red Guards attacking the educated as ‘bourgeois’ and ‘capitalist-roaders’. Even doctors were attacked, like in 1:53:00 mark of TO LIVE by Zhang Yimou.
In some ways, what has happened in the US is more tragic because the expert class itself adopted something like ‘blue over truth’, ‘blue’ meaning partisan Democratic talking points. The medical industry of expertise pushed the bogus Covid line, favoring partisan agenda(to hurt Trump) than honest science. The expert class of US officials chimed in that Hunter’s Laptop was a Russian ploy. The media complex suppressed the news. Even alt media followed, leading to Glenn Greenwald to leave The Intercept.
The expert class in sociology has lied about black crime and racial differences. James Watson, a true expert on human genetics, has been purged not by ignorant nabobs but by the expert class.
Expert professors in elite colleges produced the kind of students who physically attacked Charles Murray for his rather milquetoast views on race.
Iraq War was the product of experts in media, intelligence departments, and thinktanks that insisted Saddam had WMD and was working on nuclear bombs.
It was the experts who brought about the dotcom bubble and housing bubble.
Now, two wrongs don’t make a right. Just because the elitists are corrupt and venal doesn’t mean that populists are any better. Given the failure and betrayals of the expert class, we can understand why populists were happy to see Hegseth get the job. They saw him as a soldier’s soldier who understood what battle is really like as he’s been there rather than sitting in fancy offices. But populists are often ignorant, boorish, stupid, and just as corruptible. One thing the likes of Milley and Lloyd Austin have in common with Hegseth is total obeisance to Zion.
So, it seems like we’re caught between the Scylla and Charybdis of corrupted elitism and childish populism.
Excellent article and joke about Mao (the biggest mass murderer of all times) at the end, priceless!.
Now I read that” there are bigger stakes than stock markets or price of goods. It’s about globalism, and Trump’s disruptive actions may bring about the end of the global system.”
I can’t help but notice the naivety of people who still believe that Trump is there to end globalism and fighting globalists.
This is why his first speech was for Davos World Economic Forum, the biggest globalist fest on the planet.
This is also why he serves the interests of the zionist genocidal entity and their billionaire donors, because he wants to end globalism…
This is also why the US has military bases all over the world, because Trump is fighting globalism.
I could go on like this all day long. Trump is a globalist, serves the global ‘elite’, is one of them and is certainly not going to end globalism, on the contrary, he has sold-out to the globalists who bribed him to advance israel’s agenda and he is transforming the US into a totalitarian hellhole.
Yes, his unilateral decision to impose tariffs is illegal and it is surprising no judge has move on that yet.
I thought people would see what is really going on, given some ractions on TUR, I realize there is a lot of ignorance and blind faith as in a cult.
Trump is trying to make himself as some kind of ’emperor’ by annihilating the constitution but unlike Cesar he doesn’t have the military strategic successes or abilities, so the would be ’emperor orange’ is already naked before having been crowned.
Trump rather reminds me of a mix between Stalin and Groucho Marx, without the talent.
So, what would provide the incentive to build new factories in America?, given that America’s very survival depends on it now, and not in some indefinite future. The idea that we don’t have the physical resources and existing intellectual, technological, scientific, and financial capital in abundance is laughable. What we do need is an end to the nonsense of “our democracy” when the term is shorthand among leftists for doing everything in their power to turn America into a third-world shithole punishing the white middle class. Pray the left brings it on—the sooner they can be dealt with and restoration of our economy and society begin.
One has to show a bit of compassion for these deformed creatures.
Their ancestors were slaves chased from Hell to high water.
And still running though no one is chasing except shadows.
5ds
Noem, in her autobiography, tells how she shot her dog because it was “useless’. She is a sociopath, she did not even understand how her cold cruelty would be received by the public, which was overwhelmingly negative.
I don’t care one way or the other if Rubio is a bisexual.
Bondi is intelligent. Someone got to her.
Barr was a liar, a partisan who did everything he could do to harm Trump. Whether you like Trump or not. Barr covered up the Epstein murder. Barr lied when he said investigations into the 2020 election showed no fraud. He had halted the FBI investigations himself. Bondi is better than Barr, vastly better than Merrick Garland.
I agree, Trump is now a war criminal. He lies when questioned about Gaza. He made evil comments about removing people from Gaza. He needs to cut off aid to Israel, he won’t, so he is compromised. I would say Trump staying in Syria for the oil; extorting Ukraine; and blackmailing the world with excessive tariffs – he has the moral logic of a crime boss. He thinks like a Mafia don. What is “normal” to him, is not normal to us.
CEO’s go to Guantanamo? Hanging would be more appropriate, although having them spend the rest of their lives in orange jump suits making license plates isn’t a bad idea.
One appreciates the stylish diæresis!
And by the way, like children, they blame others entirely, starting with the Jews. Which doesn’t mean the Jews have them by the balls.
That’s certainly a popular perception.
Popular perceptions have often been ignored by presidents throughout our nation’s history — occasionally to little effect…
…and occasionally not.
“Patents are not good when you want to grow your economy.”
Maybe what reasonable Actual-Americans want is not merely to “grow [an] economy”; maybe what we want is to live in a sane country, to tailor-fit the economy to accommodate and benefit us and our fellow (actual) American brothers and sisters, not an economy artificially ballooned out on soy and high-fructose carbs just to benefit racist Jews and to poorly/barely clothe a diabetic America-plus-70,000-extra-lbs.-of-unwanted-Third-World-H1B-parasites.
Did you know that if you de-louse your entire wardrobe, it actually loses over 50 lbs. in total weight?
Maybe I made that up, or maybe I didn’t; or maybe you should just try it and see.
Most economists are all right. Collectively, they suffer the same flaw mathematicians do, which is that their prestige depends more on arcane, self-referential, inside-the-profession points of professional style than on the practical correspondence of their work to matters of genuine public concern. Nevertheless, if you have known many actual economists, you’ll agree that they tend to be reasonable, interesting, likable and well-informed on the whole.
I have never met an American economist that supported the dismantling of the U.S. Have you?
There are probably some, somewhere, but I have not met them.
Most American economists have been wrong on the tariff issue, of course. Other than for your suggestion to tar and feather economists, I concur with your remarks.
Milton Friedman also denied that Smoot-Hawley was a factor in the Great Depression.
All that and tariffs too!
Agreed!
Paedophiles. Both of them.
What a weirdo. If you don’t watch television you’re gonna be out of the loop of the culture, and oblivious to the zeitgeist. You really need to go out and get a large screen HDTV system and watch a few hours each day. And maybe some sports on the weekend with a few beers.
Arigato gozaimasu, many astute and excellent points.
RED GUARD TO PROFESSOR: Why doesn’t your class teach Chairman Mao Thought?
PROFESSOR: Because I teach chemistry.
Bet that one ended well.
ESTRAGON: I can’t go on like this.
VLADIMIR: That’s what you think.
I wish you would try engaging with the issues instead of the personality.
A banker acquaintance recommended to me a white paper by Stephen Marin, of Trump’s council of economic advisors, as a key to understanding the policy.
https://www.hudsonbaycapital.com/documents/FG/hudsonbay/research/638199_A_Users_Guide_to_Restructuring_the_Global_Trading_System.pdf
This may be the best post I’ve read here!
One of the best and most accurate comments I have read .
Case in point:
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/07/peter-navarro-says-vietnams-0percent-tariff-offer-is-not-enough-its-the-non-tariff-cheating-that-matters.html
Vietnam tried to “negotiate” by dropping tariffs, and the Trump admin told them to piss off. The Trump admin is literally saying that tariffs don’t matter and that they don’t care if other countries drop tariffs entirely. They care about “non-tariff cheating,” which they define as selling things to the USA. If a country sells things to the USA and does not purchase as much or more American products at the same time, then the Trump admin defines this as “cheating” and “ripping America off.” It’s not some 5D negotiating tactic. Trump and his crew are really just this retarded.
I’m curious how you think your jewish owners that run the west think of, and see you?
Noem had a one-night stand with Rubio after a Republican meeting in Washington. The next morning after the encounter she told him he was useless as she was cleaning her shotgun, he hightailed it out of there faster than greased lightening.
Whether the US of A would still exist is a known unknown. For the short term, Bloomberg’s Mihir Sharma has the following to say on Trump’s legacy:
“Donald Trump has believed, since the 1980s, that the US should retreat behind a Great Wall of tariffs. Market crashes and recession forecasts could still cause him to retreat somewhat; but, at 78 and in his second term as president, he might well stay the course on the policy he has advocated for most of his adult life. If so, his only legacy will be a gray, resentful and defeated nation.”
Some people are so arrogant and have such high opinions of themselves this is the only way they cope. Its so nice these superior, arrogant people “let “ them take power .
not really
foreign trade deficits are turned into acquiring real assets like American real estate
@Ron Unz:
@Fin of a cobra has literary talent.
If looking to expand your stable of writers, there’s your man.
It’s called “industrial policy”, a system of tariffs, arbitrary rules, and industrial subsidies to advantage domestic production and hinder importation of foreign-made or grown goods. Watch and unsimpleton yourself:
it is but the latest in a long string of empires.
Should the US Empire be any different from the British Empire or Spanish or Ottomans?
They all come to an end some time.
And we are in a generation lucky (at least I consider myself so) enough to witness the collapse of the whole rotten thing.
MAGA! Make America Go Away!
The tariffs on Canada and Mexico weren’t necessarily a ‘repudiation of the policies’ embodied in the USMCA agreement — a page on the WH website explains the rationale for the tariffs on Canada and Mexico (also China), as well as the legal basis for their imposition (the IEEPA) — you can read more about the latter here:
Can the President Impose Tariffs without Congressional Approval?
So Trump’s actions were not ‘clearly illegal under American law.’
And no, the ’emergency in question’ was not necessarily the ‘ongoing deindustrialization of the last ninety-odd years’, at least not for the tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China; see the explanation given by the WH — although looking at the toll ‘deindustrialization’ has taken on America and the lives of Americans, using the IEEPA for that reason should be seen as justified by any reasonable person — obviously the damage done by ‘free trade’ did not happen overnite, and it will not be undone overnite, nor in the near future, by these tariffs.
Thank you for displaying brilliantly the very American trait:
America: We are the Exceptional Nation, superior to all else!
America: We are the Indispensible Nation, superior to all else!
America: We are the richest, bestest, most wonderfullest, everybody is inferior to us!
China: We are not inferior, here is the proof.
America: Oh, so you are claiming that you are superior to us? (stomps foot with indignation)
Whole world: speechless (but eyes rolling)
Good article. Some issues …
At one point you refer to
Trump’s associates may be sycophantic but media echo-chamber? Fact is, when it comes to Trump, the mainstream media acts like a pack of howling wolves, and with this tariff business they smell blood – though their new-found love of free-market economics is less than sincere.
Later, in your comparison of Trump and Mao:
The spin or slant in your choice of words is worthy of a writer for CNN: “invaded” and “experienced civil servants whom they despised.” Ghe Musk team ought to get credit for uncovering the most shocking fraud and abuse in American history. The firings were not based on loyalty grounds, as those of Mao’s Red Guards were.
You provide a link to his Wikipedia page, which proves him to be a much more substantial character – if rather creepy looking – than merely a pundit who “had acquired a wide following on Rumble” would suggest.
This comment is focused on criticism but I have to say you are spot on about Trump freeing Rakim Myers, apparently pandering to people who worship blacks no matter what. Trump’s action was disgusting. In the same vein (though admired by a different crowd – the first might not realize they belong in the same category) you could mention Andrew and Tristan Tate. Trump “pushed” (quoting a news account) Romanian authorities to free them. I doubt he knew anything about the case other than that they had been popular Trump supporters. (Even if ultimately they are found innocent, Trump had no reason to think they weren’t being treated fairly.)
” Kinda like when we swiftly switched over peacetime manufacturers into weapon factories during WWW2?”
Back then, the US had many smart men of commerce like Henry Ford, Donald Nelson, Ferdinand Eberstadt, William Knudsen and Henry Stimson who led the push to get the US industries reorganized so that they could go from manufacturing consumer and industrial goods to war related needs.
These people hardly exist today, most captains of commerce today are weirdos like Musk who can’t even see fit to purchase some decent clothes to go to a high level meeting.
The US doesn’t have the human capital at the top that would be able to get things done like they did three generatiions ago.
Mostly agree. Tariffs aren’t necessarily intrinsically bad, but the government has to be extremely careful and incremental with their implementation, and they have to be implemented as part of a comprehensive re-industrialisation plan. What is happening is that Trump has a fever, and the only prescription is more … tariffs. The shock is simply going to kill the patient. We’re going to suffer from more inflation and stock market devaluation. Nothing good will come of this. Trump will be sidelined by congress soon and the Democrats are going to have landslide in the next election. The people who say otherwise cannot give an account of how the new tariff regime by itself will drive the promised re-industrialisation. It’s like that far side sketch where a scientist is explaining something and in one of the panels he said “and then a miracle happens”. There won’t be a miracle.
But he also declared that huge tariffs would be imposed upon goods from Canada and Mexico, our closest neighbors and friendly allies.
*********************************************************************
mexico is NOT our friend. It has flooded us with millions of illegals who each cost us $100,000 every year in welfare and free k-12 and free healthcare. It is the biggest enemy we have.
You are obviously mistaken. The foolish Trotskyists hope to launch a workers’ strike and negotiate with Chiang Kai-shek, the dictator…
It’s the same style of trade union strikes that you in the West are using now.
Our encyclopedia reads: The Trotskyists believe that China should oppose the violent overthrow of Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang regime by means of a legitimate movement centered on the “holding of a national convention.” It insisted on Trotsky’s view that the Chinese revolution was divided into three periods, that the second revolution in China had completely failed, that the bourgeois party had gained political power throughout the country and formed a situation of domestic unity and development, and that China could develop peacefully into capitalism and peacefully into the third revolutionary stage, that is, the proletarian revolution stage. Therefore, the Chinese Trotskyists opposed persisting in the path of armed struggle after the failure of the Great Revolution.
However, Chiang Kai-shek was a dictator, and he did not care whether others wanted to use violence against him or not; he simply wanted to kill all those who opposed him.
So the international element I’m referring to is Trotskyist stupidity.They didn’t even get to the capital investment stage and were thrown out because they were too stupid.
The second problem, of course, is mao.
If you actually evaluate mao’s life, mao has outstanding performance in literature, military, strategy and morality, and is a saint beyond reproach.
Even if he made mistakes in his later years, we can understand that old people do get confused. And, since ancient times, has any saint not made mistakes?
Even deng himself doesn’t hide his admiration for mao.
“We have to continue to adhere to the mao idea. mao’s thought not only led us to victory in the revolution in the past, but should also be a valuable asset of the Chinese Party and country now and in the future. Therefore, we will hang mao’s portrait in front of Tiananmen Square forever as a symbol of our country.” This is August 1980, Deng Xiaoping in an interview with the Italian journalist Faraci said a strong words.
Well, I don’t believe there is a such thing as a perfect man, let alone a perfect leader.
Some leaders are suitable for certain types of situations, and in certain time periods.
Even an exceptionally gifted leader can only lead well during his prime. He sets a direction and the country follows that direction with a certain momentum. But no direction is perfect forever, because environments constantly change. Eventually the course will need to be corrected and this is the task of following leaders.
I purposely add a few pre PRC leaders simply to show that the PRC is simply the latest “dynasty” of a long line of them.
In the broadest terms:
Qin Shihuang’s greatest contribution was the beginning of unification of China, not just politically, but also culturally.
Sun Yat Sen’s greatest contribution was breaking of old mindsets and the overthrow of the decrepit Qing. To do so, he had to break out of the deep Chinese impulse to cling on to the institutions of the past. He allowed China to change from hereditary monarchy to a democratic monarchy….if that makes any sense.
Mao’s great contribution was to regain sovereignty. As a wartime leader. He managed to rally a fractured nation, agrarian, backward, poor and tired. He inspired them to act as one and finally oust the the foreign powers.
Deng’s great contribution was to get the economy going again. To do this, he had to break out of overwhelming ideological dogma.
Xi’s great contribution was to fine tune the economy, weed out corruption and regain confidence and pride to the Chinese psyche.
IMHO the big danger that all Xi’s successors must try to avoid is to allow hubris and arrogance to set in. It was what caused the Qing to allow themselves to stagnate and rot so badly. It is the same root reason why the USA is in the pre-collapse state it is right now.
The saying that “pride goes before a fall” really is meaningful.
That’s true.
Class changes very quickly here.
For example, my family was the imperial family of the Ming Dynasty. Only because it was a branch of the imperial family, it was not slaughtered by the Qing Dynasty.
By the time great-grandfathers and great-great-grandfathers came along, they were slaves and ordinary farmers.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Han people in the south almost spontaneously killed all the Manchu areas in the south.
Even Chiang Kai-shek was at the forefront of the slaughter of the Manchus.
How about if the Americans were Chinese, then they wouldn’t have to fabricate fancy stories to claim credit where credit is not due?
How about the Americans take responsibility for their failure and incompetence, work hard to earn their living, and make America great again instead of living on others like parasites?
It doesn’t matter.
The names I have cited here, yangjisheng, were indeed on the USAID assistance list.
This is an official certification from the United States.
If you find someone whose name appears on one of these lists, try not to read their writings, which are often devoid of facts.
🤣🤣🤣
You´re right of course but trucks are treated as infrastructure and sacred;
while we´re at it that´s one model sector where petty regulations have
already stuck you with inferior and overpriced merch, namely your own.
If you´re so good why do you go full upskirted virgin at the mere mention
of dedollarization? No one needs you, and your death grip on the world is killing you.
The US used to be a bastion of free enterprise and competition and exported it to the rest of the world. American industry once manufactured some of the finest products in the world and the whole world bought them because of their reputation for quality.
Now the US makes very little, and with these tariffs, the US is basically admitting that they can’t compete with the world. Tariffs aren’t going to bring back to life the high human capital who made those excellent products that US manufacturing was known for 50, 60, 70 and 80 years ago.
The US population is simply not as good quality as it was all those years ago. If the US population was as pitiful in 1941 as it is today, Japan would’ve beaten us within two years.
Today, all the US is good at is importing the third world and spouting bluster about how good we are. The gold old days are gone forever and all the tariffs in the world will not return them.
The next stage in US history is civil war and eventual breakup.
Me: Who owns the U.S. government debt?
Chat GTP:
U.S. Investors & Institutions: ~30%
Federal Reserve: ~20%
U.S. Government (itself): ~20%
Foreign Investors: ~30%
————
——–
This plot from 10 years ago is informative.
So the U.S. allegedly half bankrupt because of it’s enormous government debt owes itself 70% of that debt, with only 30% of the sum in foreign hands!?
It’s strange if 20% of this government debt is owed to – the government! – with another 20% owed to the central bank whose profits (if any) go to the U.S. treasury. I would like to have that sort of debt problem, seems easily solvable. This looks like a partly internal gov. accounting problem and mostly domestic one, 70% domestic.
Perhaps, decades into the future I will read the sensational headline in my morning newspaper: The US is bankrupt – they couldn’t pay themselves!
That will be a strange day.
respectfully, thepoint is that nobody ”foreign” did that; imo, We, did that.
For one thing, Trump’s actions were clearly illegal under American law. As many have noted, tariffs are obviously taxes, and according to the American Constitution, all tax bills must originate in the House of Representations and then be passed by both houses of Congress rather than be unilaterally imposed by our executive branch of government.
**********************************************************************************
America routinely ignores its constitution. The 13A bans the military draft but we have had many drafts since the 13A was passed 160 years ago.
1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for
crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the
United States, or any place subject to their
jurisdiction.
2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate
legislation.
One minute into Bob Lighthizer’s talking, he revealed himself as a liar and responsibility denier. All trades are negotiated agreements. Americans do not sign agreements without the aim of taking other sides to the laundries.
People worked hard and saved crumbs from trades with the Americans, but Bob Lighthizer alleged people ripped the Americans off, such a cognitive liar is void of humanity, no wonder the Americans called their genocides against native Americans the Chosen Ones’ right.
How and when did they take it?
It certainly wasn’t force of arms. So, yes, responsible people in positions of power abdicated authority to them.
When England was placed under Interdict and King John agreed to make the Pope the Overlord of England, was it because the Catholic priests were “more clever and ruthless”?
The Jews are clever and ruthless criminals, no doubt about it. But they were 100% allowed to take power by treasonous gentiles.
Just saying….
Bill Clinton was the NAFTA President in 1993.
Ross Perot ran as an independent in 1992 predicting that NAFTA would leave America de-industrialized with “a giant sucking sound “.
George Bush was always seen fly fishing and lost the election in November 1992.
The studies of economics and history work when understood by the person who is diligent in the study of both disciplines.
Just saying…
I did not read the book. I did see her quoted online as saying the dog was untrainable and the dog was threatening. Farmers and ranchers deal with life and death of livestock frequently and the reality of it can offend the sensibilities of urban dwellers.
You may not but many Forever Trumpers will. I will seize on anything that throws a shoe into Trump’s genocidal gearbox.
Maybe. Maybe not. Virtually all of Trump’s first zionist cabinet turned on him (assuming it wasn’t kabuki theater). But note that out of all the fraud and crimes discovered, not a single whale prosecution. Not one.
Agreed. He must be pursued and held to account for his psycho conduct.
This is not a crash. It is a correction. If you look at the S&P over the last 5 years you will immediately recognize that a huge stash of cash has been stuffed into those valuations. The people screaming about the end of the economy are stupid.
Up to now. Past performance is no indication of future performance. We are now back to April 2024.
if you want something to make you drink to excess before bedtime this evening. : )
Apparently the chinks don’t invest in their stock market. I wouldn’t even consider moving my money into the Chinese stock market if I were you. If you put your money into bonds your meagre returns will be more predictable.
Looks like unz is accepting the media line that “trump is starting a trade war.” Fact is we are JOINING a trade war that’s been going on for decades.
Trump blundered when he announced the tariffs on what he called, “Liberation Day.” He should have called it, “America Fights Back Day.”
Great idea, hopefully Ron is reading this!
Building in CA and NY where the people who have the most media space are takes approximately 10X as long as it does in TX by my amateur observation.
That´s exceedingly well put, thanks – so Trump may have a Plan
(I hope he realizes it is a concession of defeat).
That picture of a vengeful Monroe Island ruled by the finance sector and with
delusions of grandeur is hilarious … and vaguely familiar; did Little Britain
go gently into that good night? HELL no.
Interesting times ahead …
– World War? would only hasten things up
– Default? the “constitutional injunction” is a weakly worded clause in the 14th
pertaining to Civil War debt, and the Orange One is sodomizing stronger provisions
daily
– Let the dollar drop 97%? That might actually work but like the former the donors
won´t let him
– Tariffs? it all depends on whether the reserve racket holds; if yes it´s worldwide
depression (Keynes was right), if not (that´s where the smart money is) it´s
hyperinflation – but as long as the reserve racket is active there can be no
fundamental amelioration
You have to give it to Orange Man, at least he is able to think outside the box
(“visionary” would be too big a word).
Ron: Do you seriously expect us to believe that Hegseth needs to rape women? And you cite The New York Times as a reference. And “The Times” cites Fauxcahontas.
Look up the term “lawfare”. It seems to be a thing now with bitches (excuse me: Wymyn) to extort money from men by making sexual accusations. In today’s climate of sexual hysteria, what man in his right mind would risk going before an American jury? Far better to beg, borrow, or steal the $50K in Slutgeld than to roll the dice in this particular rigged casino called “the American justice system” [sic].
I think it’s 90% good.
I find it puzzling that there seems to be a misconception among you Westerners that deng was more important than mao.
It sounds simple to you, warlords fighting… Civil war… War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. In fact, it was over snow-capped mountains, over swamps, eating bark and roots, barely escaping death, and walking 25,000 miles under heavy siege.
You Westerners could never pull off such a feat, and neither could the Soviets.
Moreover, the economic policies of mao were the collective decisions of the whole government, of which deng was a participant, and mistakes made by the whole government cannot be blamed on one person, as deng admitted in later interviews.
Moreover, for the market economy in the period 1970-1990, deng was in fact only a policy enforcer.
Our market economy plan was decided by the entire leadership. As I said before, deng came to power while zhou and mao were alive, so the market economy was not deng’s idea alone.
mao’s decision to cede power to deng shows that he knew he had made a big mistake.
You don’t know the facts at all, I suggest you at least check the lives of deng and mao before you speak…
Alfred Nobel considered economics as voodoo science.
LOL. LOL. LOL. Is Unz so insecure that he has to drag a dead man to compare with Trump today? Not only does Unz know only (at best) half (or more likely a fraction of) the story of Mao plus getting plenty of things wrong, the situation is also totally different. Even with the hindsight of over 70 years, does Unz (or anyone here) really think he can govern China better than Mao did in the 1950’s? LOL.
Most of the white Americans (or more generally, most of the non-Chinese Americans) have so many blind spots and stupid views when they talk about (contemporary or ancient) Chinese issues. For examples, Mearsheimer talks like a kindergartner whenever he wonders into topics related to China. Even the smartest of the smart ones or relatively Chinese-friendly guys like Sachs and Unz appear to be as dumb as a rock on many Chinese issues.
Lately, I am having a hard, but fun time compiling the 10 most ridiculous/ignorant things I read in Unz Review about China over the years. Mr Unz’ comparison of Mao with Trump probably could hit the list too. Other candidates include a white supremacist’s claim that Whites “contributed” all the greatest things in human history, an “economist” who thinks that China is facist/Nazist for “copying” their nationalist economic policy, and a know-nothing guy who proclaims about the backwardness of Chinese language. That is already a funny list.
Ok, I probably should not be too harsh on Unz since this is his site and his article. So, I would stop. But thanks for the humorous distraction in the uncertain time.
And the ‘White High IQ’ wonder hits keep coming
https://fortune.com/2025/04/07/north-korean-it-workers-infiltrating-fortune-500-companies/
Thanks to crackerjack White intellect, North Korean agents now and continue to infest Western IT.
Way to fucking go with the ‘other than Whites, only Asians have the highest IQ’s’ unearned merit bullshit that once again, led White hiring managers to bring in the trojan horse infiltrators, as if pajeet attrition were not bad enough.
Such egotistical lack of critical thinking reminds me of what will happen should aliens come down claiming to want to do White Humans a favor.
Hi littlereddot:
I was pretty disgusted when I heard Lawrence Wong’s speech about the tariffs yesterday. Today I hear this response from 沈逸. What’s your view?
Amen. It’s in M E X I C O. Not just avocados.
Excellent. My education in the greatness of Mao, the greatest figure for some centuries, was Edgar Snow’s ‘Red Star over China’. To see Mao leading such a body of great figures gives you some idea of his stature.
iPhones are produced in China precisely to maintain Apple’s record-high profit margins. It does this via legions of slave workers. It could just as easily have chosen India.
That you think it’s all automated tells me you didn’t study iPhone production challenges in China during Covid and beyond.
Everyone wants to come here, not go to China. Nor India.
To the extent it is unaffordable to build anything in America isn’t the fault of the citizenry.
Nuclear energy is incredibly cheap (cheapest) and by far the safest.
I think that about covers it.
Trump does not understand how to re-industrialize. Even I can do a better job than Trump.
The right thing to do is to arrest financial criminals en masse and reduce wages across the financial sector. To ensure that more people are willing to work in industry.
Strengthen basic education and cultivate general talents to ensure easier career change.
Then mass executions of drug dealers and drug companies.
Otherwise, the United States will never have available skilled workers.
I was there in February 2025 and it was truly a great sight (as a foreign tourist). I was hanging around the square for more than an hour on a blue sky day and saw thousands of Chinese young and old revere Mao’s portrait in front of Tiananmen gate (entrance to Imperial City).
Lots of people even on a weekday. For anyone planning to visit you need to make an appointment using WeChat prior to arriving otherwise the guards won’t let you into Tiananmen Square or the adjacent museums/buildings.
Oh, yeah. Now I remember you. You’re that insane guy (or one of Ron’s AI alter egos) who writes cryptic nonsense.
Ask a real Russian (not duped by Western Liberal Democracy) and they will tell you what they think of Solzhenitsyn…here’s a hint…worse than Yeltsin. Solzhenitsyn himself tried to redeem himself in Mother Russia afterwards.
Anyway, authors are “useful idiots” for Empire; like politicians and celebrities. Some change their tune while others (generally the ones with zero talent) continue to parrot what the Empire wants.
Trump has a deal with a faction of the power structure in this country, set within a broader coalition.
There is no way that Trump does not understand the Israel dynamic.
Here he is vaguely misunderstanding the American value proposition in 1987: “People should make a major contribution for what we’re doing to keep them free”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8wJc7vHcTs&t=532s.
Trump is not a passive agent in these events. He has a longstanding ideological agenda, which he prosecutes by giving people things he cares less about in exchange for things he wants. Understand that he has little capital of his own, very little power–a property of the American system, and all he spends he must first bargain for. Trump is nothing short of extraordinary.
“I did not read the book. I did see her quoted online as saying the dog was untrainable and the dog was threatening. Farmers and ranchers deal with life and death of livestock frequently and the reality of it can offend the sensibilities of urban dwellers.”
See under Shirley Jackson, “The Renegade”. I happen to think it’s funny, strictly because, subject matter aside, Shirley has a brilliant sense of comedic timing. But other people think it’s horrifying.
Or for a different angle see Flannery O’Connor, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”.
Lawrence Wong was addressing Singaporeans, as their Prime Minister. He was warning them of difficult times approaching. He was framing it in a historical context that is mainstream understanding in Singapore.
Lawrence Wong only said the the US was responsible for upsetting the current system. He made no allusion to China either explicitly or implicitly.
沈逸 seems to think that Lawrence Wong was speaking to an audience beyond Singapore. Presumably China. If he is, then he is very wrong.
Singapore does not conduct its foreign policy like the USA, through TV and public interviews. If it has something to say, it would do it through diplomatic channels.
He imagines that Lawrence Wong was advising China to “swallow its anger”. I think that 沈逸 is seeing what is not there.
He asks “On which side is Singapore standing?”…inferring that Singapore has to choose a side. This is precisely the same attitude as the Americans when it wanted Singapore to make China an enemy. Singapore’s answer to the Americans then was “We want to be friends with both sides. Please do not make us choose sides, for you may not like the answer”.
I ask 沈逸 this “are you now acting like an American?”, asking others to take sides?
Further, I ask him, where in Lawrence Wong’s speech did he allegedly speak to China or any other country to ask them to “give way” or “swallow their anger?”. I ask him to refer to a particular time stamp in any video to show where LW says any such thing, either explicitly or implicitly.
At the present time, China’s foreign policy is persuasive to the rest of the world precisely because it does not ask others to choose sides. It is big/magnanimous enough, not to insist that others choose sides.
In contrast the USA shows itself to be small minded and petulant and juvenile by insisting others choose join its schoolyard gang.
I am fully confident that the Chinese government is wise enough to know not to behave like Americans.
It is a good thing that Shen Yi 沈逸 remains an academic and not taking Wang Yi’s place. If so, he will do alot of harm to China’s foreign policy.
The second greatest fear of capitalists is uncertainty, exceeded only by
a dread of economic chaos. Big money avoids risk
and flees to safe havens.
The sudden upset of the financial markets by Trump’s tariffs will
cause the exit of trillions of dollars from the U.S. capital markets to
safer shores, mostly to Asia, with a large portion headed to China.
China has a long term plan for economic growth, and huge currency
reserves to sustain them through the immediate economic shocks
caused by the new tariffs.
Trump has no plan, just an impulse triggered by wild-hair syndrome.
Since China owns massive amounts of U.S. treasuries, they could
dump treasuries on the market and make it hard for the U.S. to sell
new debt at a price other than one bearing an exorbitant interest rate.
Finding yourself in a hole, always dig deeper.
“And no, the ’emergency in question’ was not necessarily the ‘ongoing deindustrialization of the last ninety-odd years’, at least not for the tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China; see the explanation given by the WH — although looking at the toll ‘deindustrialization’ has taken on America and the lives of Americans, using the IEEPA for that reason should be seen as justified by any reasonable person — obviously the damage done by ‘free trade’ did not happen overnite, and it will not be undone overnite, nor in the near future, by these tariffs.”
Regarding various details in his article, I think that Mr Unz has gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick, so to speak.
The US was NOT “de-industrialized” for 90 yrs. Deindustrialization may have had some origins in the late 70’s or early 80’s, but it didn’t begin in earnest until after the passage of NAFTA, in 1993. So by that official reckoning, US de-industrialization has been on going in earnest since the 90’s, or say, a little over 30 yrs.
In his book, The Great Betrayal, Buchanan goes through the basics of US economic trade policy from the nation’s founding in 1789 to the 1990’s. Contrary to myth, free trade did NOT build the US into an economic powerhouse for the vast majority of its history; protectionism did, and protectionism was followed quite consistently as official US economic policy from ca.1789 all the way up until the 1960’s, with the last vestiges of protectionism shattered by the passage of NAFTA, in 1993.
If anything, the US period from 1945 up til around 1973, Union membership for industrialized blue collar workers reached their all time high, and if anything, the US was quite the strong economic powerhouse during that generation, no less in part because due to WW2, the nation was vastly more industrialized when compared to the last 30 yrs. Economic prosperity during this time was no myth; it was a fact. US wages for industrial blue collar jobs paid quite well, so much so that millions of Americans entered the middle class for the first time in their nation’s history and could finally afford to take part in “The American Dream”, where they could afford a house in the suburbs, an automobile, send their kids to college, and all on a single salary (the husband) while the wife stayed home and raised the kids. And…during this period in US history, America was not a full blown free trade nation, but one where jobs for the working classes were protected and labor unions had more direct influence on government economic policy than they would have in later decades.
Globalism and ‘free trade’ were cooked up by US business elites(and historically led by the GOP), so this ‘trade war’ was really one by the upper classes on the middle class and working class.
The rest of the world merely joined in the system imposed by the US.
Real trade war is like sanctioning Iran, North Korea, and Russia.
Stable Genius on trumptards:
“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,”
The problem with Trump is he’s both a nationalist and an imperialist, and mixing those is like oil and water.
For Trump to say ‘America First’ but then deny other countries their right to chart their own destiny is bogus. Besides, Trump’s foreign policy is really Zion First.
If Trump is a true nationalist, he would be for America First but also respect Iran First for Iranians and Venezuela First for Venezuelans. But at the behest of Zion, he interferes in the affairs of those nations.
Trump demands Iran to give up their defenses and just be a bitch to Israel. I guess a bitch is always envious of those who aren’t bitches. Trump, bitch of Zion, can’t stand that Iranians don’t take their marching orders from Israel, like he does.
I’ve read economics textbooks before, and from what I vaguely remember, tariffs are considered as bad as minimum wages. In practice, they’re infinitely worse. I remember one of my college professors saying that economics is about “optimization and equilibrium”. Trump is optimizing for economic disruption, and the equilibrium may be the marginalization of the U.S. by every other country.
About a month before your 2013 debate, Caplan wrote about malemployment, a condition I’ve acquired since graduating from college:
https://www.econlib.org/archives/2013/10/a_primer_on_mal.html
And much more recently, in 2022, The Great Debates podcast hosts, alumni of Harvard University, debated our collective understanding of economics:
https://greatdebates69.podbean.com/e/524-we-pretty-much-understand-economics/
The sanctions imposed on Russia in that same year by Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden might be what prevented Trump from putting tariffs on Russia. He wanted to do the opposite of what his 2020 election opponent did, and avoid trade restrictions with Russia.
Regarding the “AI Revolution”, you need to look into High Frequency Trading (HFT). This HFT is powered by AI, and it makes them money….lots and lots of money. HFT is also being used in the crypto market, where it will make even MORE money.
Old but informative video on HFT:
The commentary says:
They didn’t change the Constitution to do it, though. It was a typical mid-20th-century, defacto ceding of authority to the executive branch. In the tradition of the New Deal and, then, Cold War internationalism.
The test would be, can Congress “veto” the Trump tariffs or not?
I’d (again) to all Alfred Eckes’ history of trade-policy between the 1770s and 1990s:
https://hailtoyou.wordpress.com/2025/04/04/alfred-eckes-study-on-the-smoot-hawley-tariff-of-1930-and-its-long-lasting-civic-mythology/
Unhappily, the world doesn’t need US consumer demand anymore. Let ’em rot, behind their high walls, while the rest of the world happily trades with one another. And wall off the Judenreich, too.
The fiat reserve currency system is a fundamentally extractive system that was imposed by United Kingdom on India back in the 1920s, and the US copied that and tried to apply it to the entire World.
Other countries are “free” to choose to stay in the USD system, but they will find that the conditions of staying will become more and more extractive over time.
A ‘two-minute’ stand, surely.
Actually, Trump isn’t ‘liquidating’ anything, except perhaps the phony stock market ‘wealth’ of the parasiticial elite that callously presided over the decades-long economic devastation wrought by ‘free trade’ — were its costs measured in human misery, as a policy ‘free trade’ would probably be judged to be among the worst in human history.
The productive potential of America’s human capital and natural resources is still there — ultimately, the aim of tariffs is to help turn this productive potential into productive capacity, providing economic opportunity and bettering the lives of millions of ordinary people.
You stupid pretentious ass — you really ought to consider changing your moniker to ‘brains of a gnat.’
They also induce in ‘cheating’ other countries lending money to the US and keeping reserve dollars, see the paper from post #191 or this Twitter thread from its author.
https://twitter.com/SteveMiran/status/1856745675943207362
The logic is: the dollar is overvalued because there is too much demand for it as reserve currency. Overvalued dollar makes American goods less competitive. Therefore, we should devalue the dollar using tariffs and have other countries appreciate the value of their currencies, which is supposed to bring manufacturing back to America.
And what do they want to negotiate?
From the same Twitter thread.
Oy vey! Why must the US suffer so from the the burden (also known as exorbitant privilege) of USD being international reserve currency? You see, trade is deeply unfair to Americans because Americans can buy real goods from other countries in exchange for Monopoly funny money that the US prints.
They want to discourage other countries from holding US treasuries, or at least to have them buy “ultra-long-term” treasuries.
Here’s a good overview of this plan.
https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2025/03/qanon-tariffs/682144/
Pure genius scheme:
Then Trump selected the formula for the tariffs that is theorized to be best suited for decreasing trade balance deficit with each trading partner country separately.
Given Trump’s background and the background of his advisers, it looks like this team of finance guys who don’t know anything about manufacturing is engaged in an exercise “How to bring abstract spherical manufacturing in a vacuum back to the US by manipulating some numbers on a spreadsheet”.
Did tariffs decrease trade deficit during Trump’s first term? No.
Did tariffs devalue the USD during Trump’s first term? No.
Will Trump’s new blanket tariffs and bullying everyone in the world bring manufacturing back by devaluing the dollar while making domestic manufacturing more expensive and less competitive due to tariffs on manufacturing inputs and capital goods and retaliation by other countries succeed? Or will Trump fuck up the economy and make everyone poorer?
This whole thing is ridiculous. First, America demands that other countries use the dollar in international trade (in oil trade, for example), then they complain that the demand for dollar and debt denominated in dollars is too high.
Trump needs to put someone with expertise in manufacturing in charge of his bring-manufacturing-back policy, not these finance fraudsters.
Mr. Unz should keep Russo-Ukrainian war blogger Simplicius within his radar.
In this post in his blog, https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/trumps-liberation-day-another-pr , Mr. Simplicius ponders about the same topic, the sweeping Trumpian tariffs, and makes interesting observations on the topic. Some excerpts:
“It turns out Trump’s entire game plan may have been taken from economic advisor Stephen Miran’s playbook. In November, Miran wrote A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System ( https://www.hudsonbaycapital.com/documents/FG/hudsonbay/research/638199_A_Users_Guide_to_Restructuring_the_Global_Trading_System.pdf ), which according to experts precisely parallels what Trump is now attempting to carry out. One of the core tenets of the document is the deliberate devaluation of the US dollar in order to make US exports favorable again to reignite American manufacturing. The entire issue revolves around the famous Triffin’s dilemma […]
To summarize [the Triffin’s dilemma] [..], a country which holds the world’s reserve currency faces a significant dilemma wherein its national trade policy and monetary policy are effectively at odds against each other. In order to keep its currency as reserve status—and reap all the geopolitical benefits this creates—the country must hamstring its own economic output by running a huge trade deficit, which means the country imports far more than it exports, which hurts—or in the case of the US, kills—domestic manufacturing.
Why must a country run a trade deficit to retain its global reserve currency status? Because when your currency is the global reserve currency, the entire world constantly hungers for it in order to use it in all the various countries’ international trade between each other. The only way to keep those countries constantly supplied with dollars is for Americans to buy tons of foreign imports, which effectively sends dollars to those countries, since these purchases are made with dollars. If the countries instead bought a ton of US exports, they would be paying for those exports with dollars, which means all the dollars would be sent back to the US, and global nations would have a severe lack of US dollars. What would happen then? They would have no choice but to trade with their own currencies, which would mean the collapse of the dollar reserve system.
As seen, the only way to maintain the dollar’s reserve status is to make sure US dollars are constantly flooding the world, which can only be done by running a massive trade deficit where imports of foreign goods (outflow of USD) far outweigh exports of domestic goods (inflow of USD).
This contextualizes the Miran paper’s focus on the ‘overvaluation of the dollar’, particularly from the aspect of national security. Miran rightly notes that US national security is degraded in the current circumstances, by the erosion of manufacturing potential which leaves the US incapable of producing its defense imperatives. Miran’s thesis further provides for the tariffs being a tool not merely as some quick-and-cheap form of ‘revenue’, as some assume, but for the purpose of favorably rebalancing global currency valuations.
[…]
Now the main argument revolves around whether US has a manufacturing backbone to even revive anymore. Many argue that at this point, things are ‘too far gone’—infrastructure has crumbled for too many decades, entire generations have lost the knowledge to build things, and perhaps worst of all, the culture in America has dwindled to become a kind of poisoned well that has disincentivized the newest generation of men from taking the types of jobs that would lead to some imagined manufacturing boom or golden age.
[…]
In many ways, what Trump is attempting to do is strongarm the world into a modern form of imperial neo-feudalism, where vassal states pay handsomely for the privilege of lowering their ‘protection’ racket fees. Some will argue this is an equitable system; in Anglo terms, perhaps. China envisions quite a different global order, without the need for mafia threats and coercion. ”
The above was long and I apologize for that.
In the Unz piece above, it is noted that this very ambitious project of US reindustrialization could be hindered by future uncertainty that once Trump is gone from office, there’s the risk that the next administration would revert to more orthodox trade policies, so why follow the MAGA policy instead of chasing lowest labour costs abroad in the globalised economy.
I don’t know about that.
There is a firm political will from both Israeli lobbies and American elite not tied to finance and globalism – in other words, the military-industrial complex – to reshore industrial capacity and halt the global economy, in order to preserve US prime world power status in the mid and long term future. This is not new and goes beyond mere profit and revenue issues.
Peter Zeihan, who is told to be close to neocons, has been harping about it for a few years now, not completely without any grounding
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNxkpqx1LDw&pp=0gcJCX4JAYcqIYzv
Collett is an interesting figure. He was second to Nick Griffin in the British National Party (BNP) during the Noughties when the party rose to national prominence.
Since then, his output as a streamer on alternative platforms like Odysee https://odysee.com/@MarkCollett:6?view=content has been steady for many years.
He made a parallel between Trump and Nero, not Caligula, in the stream with Ron Unz.
I think this Unz piece might be a clever way for the author to signal distance from the lowbrow crowd and antics surrounding Donald Trump, in order to ingratiating Unz’s elite friends like Jeffrey Sachs. Because it is undeniable that the DOGE raid to Usaid had good reason to be made, if not in such theatrical manner, but something had to be done.
Unz Review yapped for years against anti-White policies and DEI culture, but when action is finally taken, it laments that things should have been done more elegantly? Really? This is the only good thing that can be bagged home, while waiting for the incoming Trump pro-Zionist onslaught.
Also, the Western elites, not just American, are completely rotten, and an authoritarian Maoist-style breakdown on these people, is very much justifiable. These bureaucrats might indeed be very “competent” but in their years serving the Deep State they only accentuated the misery of the common people, and did nothing against the abhorrent practices and woke ideology imposed everywhere. Once they are driven out of power, the question arises of what should be made of them. I think past history is very unambiguous on the matter.
Tariffs inevitably make your new home-grown businesses inefficient compared to the world outside the USA; otherwise you would not need tariffs.
Unless tariffs are maintained forever, your new companies will soon die once the tariffs are lifted.
What happens then? Are you not back to square one? And if your companies cannot compete, how do you balance the current account unless the government subsidises exports, selling at less than cost.
I am still waiting to hear of a logical progression from tariffs that could possibly get the USA to a revitalised economy.
Your fair trade smells like global communism …. superficially it looks nice on the surface, dig deeper and there is a core of shit, hurt and extreme corruption.
You
Few people alive today remember what it was like pre-globalization. I do. Here’s the big difference between now and then: people had less stuff. People didn’t have closets bursting with clothes and shoes. They didn’t have multiple television sets and telephones. They weren’t drowning in a sea of multi-colored plastic junk.
They also had very much less debt, another reason why the present situation is unsustainable. If they couldn’t afford it, they would do without. The percentage of the population that was solvent was very much higher. It was a disciplined and self-disciplined society, unlike today’s.
Bring back manufacturing to America. MAGA!
https://www.tiktok.com/@axiang67/video/7490539237108878634
I can understand the Japanese. Why would they want to buy cars from someone who dropped two nuclear bombs on them? You can retaliate by boycotting Japanese cars.
Although I have also criticized Unz for comparing Trump with Mao, I have to admit his comparison is less absurd than yours. Yeltsin adopted a ‘shock therapy’ which consisted in attempting to insert Russia into the global capitalist economy. He did it badly, and many oligarchs benefitted from his policies. Trump is doing the opposite: he is isolating the U.S.. It’s being done badly also, without criterion or planning, and, unlike Yeltsin, he is harming the people and also the oligarchs, including, to everyone’s astonishment, the very ones who supported him, like Musk.
But it could benefit Brazil, which might interest you.
Trump is doing a pretty fubar job of liquidating the 1st Amendment with over 300 hundred vicious attacks so far. Does that count? He’s also a full co-belligerent with Israel in liquidating the Palestinians. Does that count?
Someone is definitely a pretentious ass but I can’t rightly tell which donkey to pin the tail on.
You are reasoning about the U.S. as a Unity. But Capitalism doesn’t work that way. It’s brother against brother. When you say ‘U.S. investors’ it could mean someone born in the U.S., but who cares only about his profits, and wouldn’t think twice before leading the U.S. government — his debtor — to ruin, and then promptly relocating somewhere else.
No. He’s a windbag who, for whatever reason, really really doesn’t like Yeltsin and let us know alllll about it viz an irregardless desultory screed. And UR already has its resident windbag.
Well, I think that the drive to regain soverignty was already being propagandized and organized by the nationalists like Sun Yat Sen and Chiang Kai-shek. Under their leadership China put an end to Manchu rule and begin the effort to oust foreign powers like Japan and Britain.You might say that The Communist party was part of this broader movement but what it really brought to the scene was a competing idea on how to structure the new China. I know this is highly disputed but my understanding is that the Communists mainly bided their time, letting the Kuomintang bear the brunt of the fighting against the Japanese. Once the Japanese threat had largely been dealt with, they finished off the Kuomintang. What is your read on this? No doubt Mao was a brilliant political operative (see how he took over the party) but I don’t see how you can credit him with regaining soverignty unless you are attributing the expulsion of the Japanese to the Communist party.
As for Deng, I think he should be mainly credited not for implementing market reforms but for putting an end to the factional disputes within the CCP and establishing a system, culture which allowed the party to function smoothly for subsequent decades. Of course, his implementation of the market reforms while keeping various vested interests in line was also masterful.
Why not 500% tariffs?
Past a certain point, tariff increases are purely symbolic.
Few product categories could survive 50% tariffs (implemented effectively), so going to 500% would have minimal incremental impact over the 50% baseline.
>They didn’t change the Constitution to do it, though.
Don’t be a prissy ‘muh Constitution’ pedant — another way to look at it: the Constitution (and Congress) helped get us where we are today — or maybe this: in the past, some judges found the ‘right’ of a woman to abort her developing/unborn child in the Constitution — it was there until another group of judges decided it wasn’t.
Sorry, but I cannot take any handwringing concern about the Constitution seriously anymore — I feel the same way about ‘muh democracy’ — good governance is far more important than democracy, just as in this case good trade policy is more important than someone’s idea of strict adherence to the Constitution — are these tariffs good trade policy? — I don’t know, I guess in time we’ll find out.
And have you taken a good look at who’s in Congress these days?
Thanks for the link.
America is, culturally speaking, an adolescent per Clotaire Rapaille, originally a French psychoanalyst. “Cultural Generation Gap” between culturally mature China and culturally immature America is inevitable.
Mearsheimer is a good example. From his realist point of view, he naturally assumes that every strong nation such as China would be hegemonic. What he did not know is that Chinese had been talking about 王道, (the way of an ideal king) versus 霸道 (the way of a hegemon) for more than 2000 years. And China has culturally favored 王道 over 霸道. It does not mean China would not use its power as much as it could all the time. But one should not consider China hegemonic simply because China is strong.
Many of the so called Chinese experts depend on Chinese insiders. As long as such experts get good information from insiders, they know China. Objective reports on what they personally see or here would be fine. But their interpretations are more often than not, Wrong.
Ok, so what contributes to the 90% good? Certainly, Mao was instrumental in winning the civil war. But if the Communist would have lost, would things have been that differnet? China would have been instead united under the Kuomintang. Society would have been somewhat differently organized during the early years due to ideologially different platforms but it would have after a few decades probably taken the same path. A communist victory just retarded develop by a couple decades cause they had to try out some kooky commuunist economic policy before ditching it for practical policy.
As for the war against Japanese domination, that was mostly led by the Kuomintang, as far as I know. But I may be wrong and your view is certainly more in line with official Chinese history.
Also, LOL, which was my impulse on reading that bizarre statement.
248, True, Priss Factor, the policy, if that’s the word, is inconsistent. Incoherent. Impossible to trust or predict. Destructive. Almost as if he’s accelerationist by temperament.
And I agree he’s a creature of the Jew supremacists. But if we were Ugandans groaning under the colonial yoke, we would be pissed off at those damn Acholis pushing us around. Same thing here. The criminal enterprise that colonized us, Langley, put an ethnic minority in charge, to divert resentment from their arbitrary rule.
So to free the Greater Palestine landmass, we have to destroy the institution used by the internal colonizers. That’s the national security state, which is CIA.
The West is a ‘God-fearing’ morally defunct evil ‘Puritan’ caste cult. They have no interest in knowing anybody else. Their whole life is demonizing others and then conducting barbaric crusades on the moral high ground.
When Westerners talk to or about others, they are not conducting dialog, they are conveying demonization propaganda constructed based on their wicked image and manufacturing consent.
2nd largest economy in world ?
USA has a 15% share of global manufacturing.
It’s a small player on the world stage .
“I can understand the Japanese. Why would they want to buy cars from someone who dropped
two nuclear bombsrivers of napalm on them?”Lol fify. “Nukes”, lol
Also, Japs might prefer Jap cars because they are immensely better than Fatmerican trashmobiles. I own two Japmobiles, both run flawlessly, both exceed 300,000 miles on the odom, neither required major repair. Awesome cars.
The Chinese do not produce goods without first receiving orders, because their supply chain is so efficient and agile that they can crank up production nearly in the blink of an eye. That’s why the Americans and other nations moved their manufacturing to China in the first place for flexibility, quick response to the market, saving cost, and increased profits.
You are trolling with an out-of-date manufacturing mindset with out-of-date videos and stitched-up with irrelevant media materials.
Anyhow, tariff shows Americans are greedy and traitorous. Trump is forced to use self-destructing tariffs to make Americans buy made-in-USA in order to revive American manufacturing. American global tariff war will fail and backfire, it will destroy the USA and make it an apartheid nation with the majority living in a third-world living standard.
The same media you find to be wrong on every single American Pravda issue, Mr Unz?
Don’t listen to Trump’s words. It’s all just rhetoric & him staking out a negotiating position. Give it a couple of weeks & then see what’s happening.
A advertisement problem.
Less TV ad and zero internet ad.
Less ads => Less “Nice, let me try/have that too.” => Less buying => Less Stuff.
This is exactly what this video says and explains it simply, and this is not pro free trade. I am helping breakthrough decades of people’s schooling and indoctrination Aspnaz. Be blessed!
There is no doubt that Trump is an ignorant buffoon. He has no in-depth knowledge of anything and that ignorance includes macroeconomics. There is, however, another aspect to Trump and the manner in which the US conducts business with other countries. Apparently, the US has 28,595 sanctions in place on Russia and Trump has recently threatened Putin to increase this number if Putin fails to please him. What sort of conduct is this? Trade between countries and individuals should be based on trust, fairness and honesty. The principle “treat others as you would have others treat you” should apply. Is this the American way, i.e. to hit others with a big stick if they do not accept your terms? This seems to be the case, and in my opinion is untenable. It also means that all US politicians behaving in this manner are on secondment from a lunatic asylum.
Well said. In my view, it was the Communists that finally managed to do it. I don’t think the Nationalists would have done so to the same extent as Chiang was too close to the Americans. It is likely that should he have defeated the Communists he would ended up an American puppet. Sun, was more like an inspirational leader, not so much a war leader. So the critical task of restoring sovereignty fell on the Communists. Thank goodness they managed to. I shudder to think of China being another S Korea, or worse, Japan…. signing the Plaza Accord and committing harakiri on command of the USA.
Yes, I agree. That was the smart thing to do. They were the underdog afterall.
In a way, the situation in China was a microcosm of WW2. WW2 was basically a 3 sided fight being The Western Allies, the Axis, and the Soviets. After their initial defeat in France, the Western Allies basically bided their time, rearmed, supplied weapons and materiel to the USSR in the hope that the Axis and USSR would wear each other out. They would only enter the fight in a big way after the Red Army had already broken the back of the Wehrmacht and was threatening to take all of Europe.
Their plan worked spectacularly. In particular, the USA benefitted the most from its late entry to the war and its geographical isolation. My own hunch is that the USA deliberately entered the war late for this very reason. They had learned their lesson well in WW1 when they discovered that entering the war late had major benefits.
So in WW2 the American plan worked so well, their industries were all intact, whereas the rest of the world was in ruins, that the Americans found themselves in the enviable position of accounting for half the world GDP while only 5% of its population. This was the environment that Americans wax lyrical about…the good ol’ days where America was industrialised and rich.
Of course they ascribe it all to American ingenuity, hard work, capitalism etc etc. No doubt there was an element of truth in this, but the fact that they were the “last man standing” also had a very major contribution to their overwhelming wealth post WW2. Few Americans would care to admit it though.
Well put.
He did not have 100% control had to contend with factions. In a way he had to make compromises to drive the most important thing forward…the economy. I think Putin also had to make similar compromises with the Russian oligarchs when he was first given the difficult task of leading an rotten and corrupted 1990s Russia. Perhaps the next leader after Putin would be able to finally control the corruption like Xi has.
Nationalize the Fed might help.
5ds
Regarding the “AI Revolution”, you need to look into High Frequency Trading (HFT). This HFT is powered by AI, and it makes them money….lots and lots of money. HFT is also being used in the crypto market, where it will make even MORE money.
*******************************************************
HFT could be stopped in its tracks by instituting a tiny tax on each stock trade. Say .1%. Ordinary investors would never even notice it.
i’m sorry about your inferiority complex. do you live in a socialist country? help is available, just ask.
Thanks Ron!
Excellent comparison and an excellent article.
Love the comparison of Trump to Caligula! Interesting the US govt. goes from totally incompetent under Biden to totally weird under Trump, who IMHO is not a politician but an actor (kinda like Caligula was, only totally insane)…and will Trump make his golfball a Senator (as Caligula made his horse Incatatus)? Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah! And, oh, Caligula was assassinated by his own Praetorian Guard…will Trump be done likewise by his own Secret Service (say, of these guys can no longer afford Mexican Tequilla or Canadian Fireball? Double Bwahahahahahahahahahah!)?
It’s just public statements, Congressional testimony, and police reports. If you Google it, you could probably find a dozen different media sources for the same information. That’s why several Republican senators declared that they would vote against Hegseth until a huge wave of fanatic Trumpists intimidated them into changing their positions.
LOL. Not when he’s sober. But his friends and relatives reported that he was drunk all the time, and often pretty violent when he was drunk. That’s one of the reasons he kept on getting fired from his jobs.
The rape victim filed a police report and Hegseth paid her $50,000 if she agreed not to press charges. There were eyewitnesses about Hegseth’s extremely drunken and aggressive public behavior just before that. Everything sounds pretty solid to me.
My website seems to attract lots of low-IQ Trumpists whose only source of information seems to be FoxNews.
LOL. Just take a look at the population pyramid chart I included, based upon the official Census figures of the Chinese government.
I’d say it’s the most obvious and unmistakable evidence of a gigantic famine for any major country in the last 100 years.
And unless capital is allocated away from these totally unfit, formerly ‘safe’ instruments–these border arbitrage, easy money zombies–what inherent value there is can not get financed. It would be mechanically impossible with ‘risk’ & ‘credit’ ratings what they are.
We are undergoing price discovery through geopolitical depressurization. Brace yourselves, resolve yourselves, determine yourselves.
Thanks. That’s what I get for quickly glancing at an article without reading it carefully enough, and several other people also pointed out my mistake about the names of the uninhabited islands whose penguins refuse to buy American products. I’ve now corrected it in the text.
> But if the Communist would have lost, would things have been that differnet?
Yes, a lot of important developments in Taiwan after 1949 were brought about by the success of the revolution on the mainland.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2459184
—–
Between 1949 and 1953 Taiwan enacted a series of land reforms that had enormously
beneficial results over the subsequent decades. We can learn several important lessons from the
success of these reforms, however many of the reforms were only possible because of very
unique domestic and international political circumstances of the time. This study outlines the
history of the Taiwanese land reforms, contextualizes these reforms within the larger framework
of land reform theory and methodologies, analyzes the effects of the reforms, and extrapolates
lessons from the reforms for similar future efforts.
—–
Before Mao’s victory, John Service had recommended to Chiang that land reforms of such type should be enacted.
—–
The reform of tenancy conditions was also among the recommendations made by the joint China-United States Agricultural Mission for improving China’s agriculture. But despite some prodding by the Americans, the Government did not push the implementation of tenancy reforms beyond the experimental stage until it was too late — after the retreat to Taiwan.
—–
— Suzanne Pepper, Civil War in China, 2nd edition, p. 231.
The things which Chiang was recommended to do by John Service, as a way of taking support away from Mao, he refused to do because it antagonized the landed aristocracy. Once the revolution had won on the mainland, there was no longer any argument about doing such in little Taiwan. As a result, Taiwan began to develop in ways which would not have occurred on mainland China without the revolution.
What it primarily shows is a drop in birth rates. It’s been noted already that Ukraine in 1933, despite having a significantly death rate than China in 1960 (about 70/k vs. 44.8/k) has a less blunt edge to it. The drop in birth rates was initially the result of administrative policies enforced before anyone ever claimed that a famine had started. Even Jasper Becker is forced to acknowledge this.
—–
For a few months in 1958, commune leaders actually separated men and women into different living quarters. (Indeed Mao even wondered whether it would suffice for men and women to meet twice a month for the purposes of procreation.) …
The Communist Party’s explicit aim was to destroy the family as an institution:
“The framework of the individual family, which has existed for thousands of years, has been shattered for all time. . . We must regard the People’s Commune as our family and not pay too much attention to the formation of a separate family of our own. For years motherly love has been glorified. . .but it is wrong to degrade a person from a social to a biological creature. . . the dearest people in the world are our parents, yet they cannot be compared with Chairman Mao and the Communist Party. . . for it is not the family which has given us everything but the Communist Party and the great revolution. . . Personal love is not so important: therefore women should not claim too much of their husbands’ energy.”
—–
— Jasper Becker, Hungry Ghosts, pp. 105-6.
These forms of social mobilization would have cut the birth rate down swiftly long before mortality reached around 44.6/k in 1960.
By the way, you should at least review what your own sources say. According to Yang Jisheng:
—–
By this method, I calculated unnatural deaths as … 16.198 million.
—–
— Tombstone, p. 409.
You have now replaced this with an alleged 18 million. That’s, at best, sloppy citation on your part.
Free trade is a misnomer, all “free trades” are negotiated tariff-laced trade agreements. Free trade like a lot of other terms and concepts distorted, misused, exaggerated, and abused by the Americans due to their redneck root.
For example, the Americans use hate instead of dislike, misusing “billion”, and abusing democracy, freedom, and human rights to cover their barbaric imperial colonialism conquest and wars, …
The behavior of the redneck JD Vance shows how illiterate and uneducated the Americans are.
The loss of market share and jobs began long before NAFTA, which accelerated it — e.g. Japanese cars and consumer electronics in the 70s — I was alive back then, I witnessed it — the 1973 oil embargo caused many Americans to buy smaller, more fuel efficient Japanese cars (which were obviously available at affordable prices), and within a few years you saw Japanese cars everywhere, especially in California, and the Toyota Corolla became the biggest selling car in the US — same with the other big Japanese carmakers like Nissan and Honda — you also saw more and more Japanese consumer electronics, cameras, even foreign made household applicances — eventually the consumer electronics industry in the US, as well as household applicance manufacturing, were more or less wiped out.
Working class Whites had jobs making car parts, appliances, etc, but those plants closed and were later demolished — at every construction site you saw almost all working class white guys, now practically all you see are mestizos, especially at sites where single family homes are being constructed.
Thanks for the Buchanan book reference.
everyone bashing the trump crew on here: what is the US supposed to do about persistent trade deficits? just keep going along buying products from foreign countries WE CAN NO LONGER AFFORD until we go bankrupt and foreigners buy up the whole country with the money we gave them? anyone with common sense knows the price of the imports must rise until the buyers stop buying and either go without or make it themselves. that would happen naturally (for instance) with chink goods but the gov’t there pegs their currency to the dollar.
i am no economist and only have the vaguest knowledge of it, but like i read here from a guy whose opinion i value, it’s mostly just plain common sense. you can’t spend more than you take in, not forever anyways.
btw, fuck the chinks. they’re active in my state buying property and setting up illegal weed grows. they’ve also been arrested and charged with human trafficking and prostitution. they bribe politicians. they’re setting up factories in mexico to take advantage of nafta. does anyone here have anything to say about the fentanyl scourge in the US? the chink leaders have no compunction whatsoever engaging in subversive activity in the US. that fuckstick biden and his crew were letting them in by the millions. americans shitting on trump should consider that.
>redneck JD Vance
Well then it’s good that we have smart gooks like you to straighten out our thinking.
A few things though: can you explain why in a typical year, there are more than a quarter million Chinese students studying at American universities? — why Chinese
womenbirth tourists come to the US toward the end of their pregnancies so their kids will have US citizenship? — or even use an American citizen as a surrogate for the same purpose? — and why so many Chinese nationals try to cross the border illegally to get into America?Majority of Left-of-Center Americans Now Justify a Trump Assassination: Good then these low-life scumbags are fair game. They want to engage in the men hunt crap then they are going to be hunted down… Remember my fellow compatriots leftists are a vile sordid, rabid, hating kind. If these little children don’t get their way then they want to destroy anyone and everything which will mean their destruction and that includes the scum who are pulling the strings. And we know who they are.
Not to be too picky, but the use of “great” requires parameters and qualifications.
Four men were significant or important political leaders in the 20th Century.
Lenin, Stalin, Hitler and Mao shaped the course of events.
Three were communists, and Hitler was a fervent anti- communist, but all served
ideologies which resulted in the death of perhaps 100 million people. History will
judge them as both heroes and villains, but it is too early to know the verdicts.
Ron, Hanania is taking lab leak shots at you. You could tell him that Dani Anderson’s cell phone vacated Wuhan BSL4 at the same time the DoD personnel got sick. The Military Games were just a few miles away.
https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/1909634775499124748
https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/biden-administration-concealed-congressionally-mandated-report-on-earliest-suspected-american-covid-cases/
The only people who did not lose money in the last week were Donald the Fat and his 5000 closest friends who had a heads up.
Well and there are all those billions of people who were all flat broke to start with. They didn’t lose either. Yet.
China’s “official” census was largely under Deng’s control — and revision. I have already cited at least two pieces of evidence (link) for why Deng could not be trusted. Hard as they tried, Deng and his minions could not fake everything.
You’ve been brainwashed. Mao was in charge when China’s life expectancy grew from less than forty to nearly seventy, and the population doubled. Gough Whitlam, our ONLY great Prime Minister, asked Zhou En-lai what was his opinion of the consequences of the French Revolution. ‘Too early to tell’, replied Zhou.
Every country has some idiots, crooks, shonks and parasites, and they naturally see the USA as their psychological homeland. And only the lesser students go to the USA anymore.
I don’t think you know anything whatsoever about George III.
As far as Trump is concerned, it’s a little soon to jump to conclusions, don’t you think? Please read Paul Craig Roberts’ newest article explaining tariff policy from the point of view of Classical Economics.
Western Sinophobia is pure race hatred and rage at China’s rise. Add to that their pig ignorance concerning China, its history and psychology, and inexplicable arrogance (worsened by Jewintern rule) that the White West is ‘superior’ to the ‘teeming Asiatic masses’, and you have a sure and certain recipe for disaster.
Have a balanced budget by cutting spending and taxing the rich more. Stop destroying and destabilizing other countries, so that there’s fewer reasons for foreigners to flee to ‘safe haven’ USD, decreasing demand for it and lowering its value, making imports more expensive and exports more competitive. Deport unproductive foreigners who are a net drain on the economy and who create demand for imported goods because they can’t afford more expensive domestically-made goods. Stop giving money to Israel because the US has trade deficit with Israel. The Jews keep importing something from there.
Some studies show that tariffs don’t decrease trade deficits.
These days, most mainland Chinese students in American universities are there because they could not make it into Chinese universities. Two decades or so ago, the US universities were actually better, but not any more.
A few decades ago perhaps, but not so much now.
See above.
Smells like propaganda. Have you any credible evidence for how many people from mainland China are attempting to enter the US illegally? I can easily believe that some desperately poor people in Capitalist Taiwan might think the US is a haven.
Mostly valuable advice, and mostly well said.
However, it is the PRC which is “stirring shit” in the Taiwan Stait and the South China Sea:
1. Mainland China is to Taiwan as England is to Ireland or Germany is to Austria. That they look the same and speak the same language proves nothing. The Chairman Mao Flag has never flown over Taiwan. That’s more than I can say for either Ireland or Austria.
2. The occupation of the South China Sea islands has never been accepted under International Law. Vietnam and the Philippines certainly dispute China’s claim. That ridiculous propaganda “map” encircling the islands is an attempt at a fait accompli.
I find the attempt to make the comparison interesting, but dubious. Pres Trump cannot compare in ruthlessness, intelligence or strategic thinking Of Cgairman Mao or Pres Putin, who came through the ranks of very perilous societies. And that goes tripple for Chairman Mao.
We in the west, especially in the US don’t have a clue who these men are and on the score of the US citizenship training one for public service, Pres Trump is perhaps more spoiled than most. None of the people in this admin have been prepared to deal with the powers of China or Russia on their playing field.
Again the Vietnam generation, hate to keep barking up that tree are simply not in the same league. And it absolutely foolish to try. Pres Trump spends time with construction workers, because he knows ad perhaps even desires to ave tha level of groundedness — of real life experience grappling with the nuts and bolts of life. I am not even sure Pres Trump has ever even ventured a camping trip woth tent pegs and pr lugged a pack loaded with camping gear trekking through any of the nations forest trails. The man you ae atempting to compare — life and death struggle, hunger, betrayal the likes of which every friend could be foe to one’s end.
Mao operated in an economic model so vastly different from our own as to be on another planet. When Mao set about overhauling his country’s econmy and sent millions out into the labour fields, millions still belived and worsjopped him. Fox News couldn’t last a day. And the typical voter hasn’t the stomach to last two days. They are whin about regretting their vote, ooohhh I didn’t know . . .
Over valued, probably does not describe how much money is being churnd out on nonexostent products. Wall Street that goated about what it do next to theUS economy is having conniptin fits — suddenly the top ten percent are speaking for the mom and pops on the street. The same people they crushed with hedge buys and trades not on products but whether said company would neet its earnings even if said earnings are a profit. I suspect that the physicists in securities trading ae going to ruin the nickel the same way they ruined the penny.
Mao sent people out to die for the cause, Fox News can’t even stomach missing a snack.
There’s just no comparison here. It appears the the term “snowflake” has found a new nesting place.
Those soldiers were driving that armored personnel carrier while intoxicated. I would not describe it as “selfless sacrifice by our brave men and women.” That official statement is absurd.
what a half assed non sequitur reply to a valid question. try harder.
Do go on.
Certainly, Mao achieved his goals, but the frenzied bloodbath of the Cultural Revolution
is impossible to justify and cannot be excused as essential to the success of the Revolution.
Murder and starvation of helpless civilians in China or Gaza are not defensible.
Mainland China has a claim on Taiwan because Taiwan’s own Constitution says the island is a part of China.
Of course, Taiwan’s elites dream of ruling all of the Middle Kingdom once more; that is why their constitution continues to say that Taiwan is a part of China. The mainland doesn’t care why Taiwan’s constitution says that; the important point is that the constitution says it.
I provided a link to a DHS report about tens of thousands of Chinese nationals illegally crossing the border during 2024, so many that by March 2024 ‘encounters of Chinese nationals surpassed all of fiscal year 2023 at the southwest border’ — they give 24,376 as the total number of encounters up to that date in 2024 — why not follow the links before asking questions?
Per this report, overstayers from China account for another 10k+ Chinese nationals who illegally remain in the US annually.
Chinese women also go to Saipan (Mariana Islands) to give birth:
December 19, 2024 — Republicans Raise Alarm About Chinese ‘birth tourism’ Industry
Again the answer is simple. The Oligarchy promotes Deng Xiaoping over Mao because his economic reforms can NEVER remove the Oligarchy which controls a country’s money creation. Think of it as the Oligarchy pointing prisoners away from the door exiting Plato’s Cave.
The only threat to these “private” parasites is if they are purged and a country’s “money creation” is Nationalized (meaning to serve the majority). ALL the “so called” evils of humanity did this; Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Castro, Gadaffi, Kim Il Sung etc…
Before coming to a Taiwan understanding you will have to wait until China is
“stirring shit” in the Gulf of America.
Zhou was referring to the wave of protests in 1968 when said that.
The Soviet Union also thought Chiang had “puppet potential”. This is why the Soviets funded the Whampoa military academy in 1924 to provide military training to Chiang Kai Shek and the Republican China Army. PRC’s first premier, Zhou En Lai was there at the same time. This academy provided troops to both sides (PRC and ROC) during the Civil War.
Near the end of the Civil War, it was Chiang’s reliance on America and his unreliability in military matters which made the Soviets chose Mao. It’s evident the Soviets chose the winning side.
Unfortunately, Donald Trump’s new tariffs are illegal, and will soon be found to be so by the courts. The statute on which the president relies grants the president no authority to collect duties on imports.
It is the lying West which claims the Cultural Revolution was muder and starvation. But this is not the point. In China the CR happened within the country to it’s own people….there was NO foreign occupation. In Gaza, there is an occupying force called Israeli’s (Zionists) committing genocide. China and Gaza have no logical connection.
It would be more correct to say “Murdering and starvation of helpless civilians in Ireland, Gaza or the United States are not defensible”.
Irish in Ireland were murdered by the occupying British and Native Indians were murdered by the occupying Americans (former British settlers).
How would this help?
Perhaps so.
But one with a higher per capita GDP than the USA.
What would you estimate Donald Trump’s IQ is?
Errr, try living within your means?
800 military bases around the world is expensive. You spend on your military more than the next 10 countries combined. That includes Russia and China. 8 of the other countries are your allies anyway.
The average American uses twice the energy of the average European, and thrice of the average Chinese.
Americans make up 5% of the world’s population, but use up 25% of the world’s resources.
Please enlighten me.
You talk as if Trump is new to this.
I remind you that this is his second term.
You guys are betting on a horse is already known to be erratic at best, a scam artist at worst. Incompetent and buffoon fit somewhere in between.
Is the Wall built yet? Did Mexico pay for it?
Have you won the trade war with China that Trump started 7 or so years ago? Wasn’t it supposed to be easy to win?
Is the Swamp drained yet? Or is it worse now? 13 of his new cabinet are billionaires.
And yet you guys just keep your blinkers on, vainly hoping that he will be your messiah.
There is no messiah but yourself. And it starts with seeing clearly and honestly.
If you knew what Chiang Kai-shek did, you wouldn’t think so.
Your assumption is untenable from the very beginning, and Chiang Kai-shek will be defeated.
We do admit that the KMT contributed a lot to the war of Resistance against Japan.
Yet… He was able to blow up the Yellow River levee in Huayuankou and drown 800,000 people. Do you think the Chinese people will accept that these people continue to misbehave?
I didn’t even talk about their rampant corruption. He and the group of four families can enjoy all the luxuries, but let the children of the poor work hard for him.
I can say that at that time, basically every educated Chinese was obliged to kill the Chiang Kai-shek clique.
Without CPC there will be NPC, BPC, HPC.
The fact that Chiang Kai-shek was surrounded by CPC agents is a good illustration of this… No one wants to work for this dictator.
His Ministry of Defense was a CPC undercover, his secretary was an undercover, his general was an undercover, and he was literally surrounded by undercover.
You can’t daydream on the assumption that it’s impossible.
KMT is bound to lose.
Ron’s Western bias against China is too wild, his Western/USSR lens view of China makes his understanding of China totally out of wack.
China’s 人民公社和公私合营 was an administrative system, it did not uproot people and move them into new communes like the USSR or like the propaganda fabricated by the West. People still lived in their old houses as before.
Before 人民公社(1958) farmers owned their land redistributed to them with confiscated lands from landlords. Landlords and land-owned farmers became farmers like everybody else.
China ran a nationwide ration system to fairly distribute daily necessities from 1955 (GLF was 1958-1962). Hence people got food and daily necessities even in famine. Perhaps starving kids to save themselves was a Western/USSR tradition, but it is alien to Chinese values. A severe famine would affect across the board if not the elderly perished first in China.
40 million deaths would be 10% of China’s population at that time, and corpses would be all over the place, but I have never seen evidence of such a scene in China. It seems Ron let his subconscious racial bias override his logic and critical thinking.
here’s an example for you:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/feds-raid-l-maternity-hotel-birth-tourists-n315996
the chinese are like locusts on our land. kick them the fuck out, most are spies. the shit they get away with the in the US would get any foreigner executed in chinkland. fuck em.
Portraying others according to your image?
hey chindian: i don’t give a flying fuck about any of that. sure america needs to go on a diet. right after we clean out all the chink spies, drug dealers, money launderers, birth tourists, etc etc ect. if china wants to sell their shitty stuff in the US then they need to tow the line, otherwise fuck off. you’ll get a severe tariff on your goods and your sales will decrease. the US can hold it’s breath a lot longer than chinkland can.
Overall, you should not take yangjisheng’s word for it, surely the death toll during the three-year natural disaster could not have been as high as 30-40 million.
yangjisheng is an author supported by the United States Agency for International Development.
We should really kill him.
His data is outrageous and does not fit the observation. And in times of famine, women tend not to have children, so you can’t simply calculate population loss in terms of normal population growth.
The actual abnormal population loss is estimated to be around 10 million to 20 million in academic circles, and there are also estimates that 2.5 million people starved to death.
But a million deaths is a statistic, 10 million deaths is still a statistic.
Given the size of the population, it doesn’t make much sense for you to obsess over numbers.CPC did make mistakes, but I don’t think they can be blamed given their good intentions, just bad execution, and then counter super natural disaster and Soviet withdrawal of aid.
What is the nature of GLF-induced famine?
Overdevelopment of industry, not emphasis on agricultural production, food is too dependent on Soviet crop economic aid.
When the Soviet Union broke off relations with us because of ideological disputes, when outside food aid was cut off because of the American blockade, the fragile food system collapsed when disaster struck.
The problem is accountability, and the accountability is whole-of-government.
Deng Xiaoping made two important speeches in the early days of reform and opening up.
邓小平在十一届五中全会第三次全体会议上讲话时说：“不要造成一个印象，好像别人都完全正确，唯独一个人不正确。这个话我有资格讲，因为我就犯过错误。一九五七年反右派，我们是积极分子，反右派扩大化我就有责任，我是总书记呀。一九五八年大跃进，我们头脑也热，在座的老同志恐怕头脑热的也不少。这些问题不是一个人的问题。我们应该承认，不犯错误的人是没有的。”[《邓小平文选》第2卷，人民出版社1994年版，第277页。]
On February 29, 1980, Deng Xiaoping said in a speech at the third Plenary session of the Fifth Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee: “Do not create an impression that everyone else is completely correct and only one person is incorrect.” I am qualified to say this, because I have made mistakes. In 1957, we were anti-rightists, and I was responsible for the expansion of anti-rightists. I was the general Secretary. These problems are not one person’s problem. We should admit that there is no one who does not make mistakes.” Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, vol. 2, People’s Publishing House 1994, p. 277.
邓小平在同中央负责同志谈话时又说：“‘大跃进’，毛泽东同志头脑发热，我们不发热？刘少奇同志、周恩来同志和我都没有反对，陈云同志没有说话。在这些问题上要公正，不要造成一种印象，别的人都正确，只有一个人犯错误。这不符合事实。中央犯错误，不是一个人负责，是集体负责。”[《邓小平文选》第2卷，第296页。]
When talking to the comrades in charge of the Central Committee, Deng Xiaoping said again:about GLF，mao is in a hurry to get things done,And we are the same.liu shaoqi,zhuenlai and i didn’t oppose that,chen yun didn’t say anything.
Be fair in these matters, and do not create the impression that everyone else is right and only one person is wrong. This is not true. When the central government makes mistakes, it is not a single person who is responsible, but a collective one.
There is too much to follow, you can check the CPC’s history directly…
Our translator can’t translate because there are too many sensitive words.
http://dangshi.people.com.cn/n/2014/0504/c384616-24971710.html
Tron Elon vs Grump Trump. Now, this is fun to watch, LOL.
I think you make very good points about economists. What I would suggest — what is buried or implicit in this debate— is that economic science is not philosophy; it is not “knowledge of the whole.” At least, I would say that to the extent that “economic science” is “Anglo-American economic science” or “Western/Occidental economic science,” it is not philosophy. It does not have the scope of Marxist or Sino-Marxist economic science, which by its very nature defers to Hegelian or Marxist ideas of the common good. In John Pilger’s excellent film “The Coming War on China,” entrepreneur Eric Li says (@58:00 or so), that in America, you can change parties, but you cannot change policies; but in China, you cannot change parties, but you can change policy. He also says that in China, the economic sphere is not allowed to dominate the political sphere. The flexible and adaptive public policy apparatus of the Chinese government is due to the philosophically rich and deep system of Sino-Marxism, which is rooted in Hegelian dialectical thought.
What we see in Trump’s trade policy is the very beginning of the policy flexibility, of the intelligence, that the Chinese demonstrate. Unfortunately, I am pessimistic that this will work its way up to a full-fledged political philosophy, but it is not impossible. The Anglo-American tradition is not without resources, but those resources have been diminished over time. Spengler said some time ago that democracy is the form of government preferred by finance capitalism. He thought that around the year 2000, a “Caesarism” would emerge in which the truly creative potential of politics would break the dictatorship of finance-capital. I am open to whatever Trump is able to do, but I think that the Caesarism that Spengler wrote about has already emerged— in the East; in Russia, China, and Iran, for example. Money and power is flowing to the East because there the true potential for human flourishing in the next few hundred years lies, not here in the West.
An interesting take on tariffs by lawyer Robert Barnes (Hint he thinks it’s legal):
Don’t understand your question…elaborate or context?
One thing I do suggest to you is that you’re basically Chinese criminals coming here, and if you see someone growing marijuana, kill him if you can.
As for the tariff policy, I also recommend that Trump continue to implement it… You’re doing great. Don’t feel bad about what other people say.
I’ll always be looking forward to your clown show.
One year posting on TUR and you don’t get it. China only exports roughly 14% of it’s TOTAL exports in one year to the USA. That 14% includes American Corporations manufacturing in China (i.e. Apple) exporting back to the USA.
Consider this. China receives US dollars from America for it’s exports. What the hell is China going to buy with it’s US dollars? China wants to buy Chips and America says NO. China already buys it’s “essential imports” from it’s BRICS partners using it’s own currency (i.e. oil, gas, agriculture etc..).
Trump is doing China a BIG BIG favor by imposing Tariffs. China is essentially de-dollarizing without breaking any WTO rules. Over the last few years China has reduced it’s US dollar holdings from 1.4 Trillion to under 780 Billion. Can you see the trend? China doesn’t want anymore US dollars. China doesn’t want to use US dollars to buy US Treasuries. Basically, China doesn’t want to trade “finished goods” with the USA for US dollars created out of thin air because it’s essentially toilet paper that buys nothing useful.
Trump is making China Great Again!!!
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff did not precipitate the Great Depression.
The Collapse of Creditanstalt Bank in Vienna from May 7th 1931 did.
https://www.finaeon.com/the-collapse-of-the-creditanstalt-bank/
Although few people realize it, the Great Depression hit Europe when the Creditanstalt bank of Vienna collapsed in May 1931 and began a domino effect that spread to the rest of Europe. The collapse of the Creditanstalt is seen as the trigger to the great deflationary spiral in Europe between 1931 and 1933. The reason for the impact of the Creditanstalt on Germany and the rest of Europe was that it not only was the largest bank in Austria, but it was larger than all the rest of the banks in Austria put together. The bank had ties to the rest of Europe and the collapse of the Creditanstalt led to a Europe-wide crisis.
Scores of banks closed thereafter and industrial production in France dropped by 28% and in Germany by a staggering 40% in the year after May 7th 1931.
The crisis proceeded to Great Britain which went off the Gold Standard on September 21, 1931 after its gold reserves shrank from £200 million to £5 million. Twenty-five countries soon followed in Britain’s footsteps, depreciating their currency against the U.S. Dollar or leaving the gold standard. By the end of 1931, the Depression was global. The United States stayed on the Gold Standard until April 1933 when President Roosevelt took the United States off the Gold Standard. By 1933, the globalized financial system that had prevailed until 1914 was broken and national economies existed almost independently of each other.
It wasn’t so much that the collapse of the Creditanstalt caused the collapse of the global financial economy, but it set in motion a chain of events that revealed the poor condition of European economies and the fragility of the financial system which quickly fell apart and led to the beginning of the Global Depression of 1931-1933.
Of course, very few people know about the Collapse of Creditanstalt and its pivotal role in precipitating the Great Depression. It has been airbrushed out of History. Only one book deals with the matter in English, and there are precious few in German as well. Rather amusingly, the Austrian School economists don’t want you to know either. They continue to blame the Great Depression on Mr Smoot and Mr Hawley.
Needless to say, Creditanstalt was a Rothschild Bank.
Yes, thank you for that.
I kept my comment bare bones in order not to distract from the core point.
But you are entirely right. The fact that Mao distanced China from the Soviets helped he sovereignty of China quite a bit.
The folks conflating China with USSR because “they are all dirty Commies” don’t realise that Mao regarded the USSR as Socialist Imperialists.
My this sounds like it comes straight out of a Hollywood Western where a Red Injun is complaining about White Face stealing all his land.
Westerns are sure entertaining. Yeeha !!!!
duh
You guys are like a morbidly obese diabetic with a gangrenous foot, who blames the “bad bad germs” for the state of his foot.
Those who are slightly more thoughtful would blame the “bad bad sugar” for the state of his foot: “The sugar feeds the bad bad germs, right?”.
Far too few are willing to admit that it was his over eating that is responsible for his woes. The over eating causes the high sugar levels (amongst others), which in turn feeds the germs, which cause the gangrene.
How will you truly solve your problems when you cannot differentiate symptoms with root causes?
Most living people might express a wish be murdered or starved by their own compatriots,
rather than by strangers.
But, no one represented the views of the victims until you
took up their cause.
100%
This is really the only fully sensible comment here
Crush left wing faggotry with all our might. Be the AMERICA all the commie scum thinks we are (but are not)
Trump has totally distracted from the DOGE effort that was a step on that path with these insanely stupid tariffs.
I know you’re pretending to be a Chinese-activist, but it’s pretty obvious that you’re just an American teenager having fun on the Internet.
China’s population around 1960 was something like 660 million not 400 million.
If you were actually Chinese, you’d probably know the population of your own country.
Or are you like that “Vidi” fellow, claiming that all the official PRC population statistics are fraudulent?
LOL. So you’re claiming that all of the official population statistics provided by the PRC’s Census Bureau for the last forty-odd years have been fraudulent? Well, I suppose that’s possible…
But economic statistics are obviously much easier to fake than population statistics. So maybe all the anti-China activists have been correct all along, and all of China’s GDP figures are totally fake. Maybe China’s PPP GDP is only $10 trillion rather than over $30 trillion.
We disagree as usual. Singapore should take side (at least implicitly or quietly) to defend the (free-trade) system that benefits her. Otherwise, it is like Denmark saying they didn’t want to take side between British and Hitler. Restraint is cowardice in the face of thuggish American behaviors and bully tactics of Trump.
Thanks for the response.
Mr. Ron, are you barking up the wrong tree? You thought I was a young American, but I’m not. There are many memes in my speech that only mainland Chinese people know, which is a good proof.
For example, I recommended the TV series Ming Dynasty 1566 last time. Basically no Taiwanese will watch this drama, and even if there are, few people can understand it.
The show has a 9.8 rating here, higher than Prime Minister and Minister, and clearly higher than House of Cards.
https://movie.douban.com/subject/2210001/
Now you think Joe wong is an American, but I think he does speak as a Chinese American or someone from other countries. The spelling of the name wong does not conform to mainland norms.
Anyway, the truth is that my parents knew that there was a terrible famine around the 1960s, when people had to eat bark to survive.
But the real death toll is probably a quarter or half of what you’ve read. The general academic community puts the number at 10 million to 20 million.
And the CPC government was not entirely to blame for this, as it had to do with the US food blockade and the severing of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.
See my last post for details, I said very specific and detailed.
You can easily check this out by visiting our party history website.
So your use of mao versus Trump was totally inappropriate, and I think you need to apologize for that.
If you compare Chiang Kai-shek with Trump, I think it’s appropriate.
After all, he came up with a pointless strategy to defend himself against the Japanese by blowing up the dam and instead drowning 800,000 Chinese, an action that did not hinder the Japanese army
It’s NOT your land!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lVDvxFreC0g
Boy do you get it wrong …
all these imports are essentially tributes, paid for with monopoly money;
your fabled “living standard” since 1945 is a chimera, based on a racket.
You have grown fat and uncompetitive on the World´s blood, and now you
start bitching?!
Say hello to Little Britain 😁
No;
your problems are caused by the reserve dollar not by the interest on your profligacy.
No, my claim is that the population statistics (and much else related to Mao) were faked during Deng’s time as China’s paramount leader; I’ve said nothing about the statistics in the decades since. As one piece of evidence that Deng should not be trusted, I cited the extremely serious contradiction noted by Godfree Roberts; for your convenience, here’s his chart again:
Looking at the chart, my cursory eyeball estimate is that China’s mortality rate was about 19 per 100,000 people during the Great Leap Forward (1958-62), or 0.019%. But Western (and Dengist) propaganda keeps dunning into my ears that Mao killed 15 million! 30 million! 60 million! 100 million Chinese! China’s population at the time was about 400 million, so even we take the lowest, least sensational “estimate” of 15 million deaths and spread that over the four years of the GLF, China’s mortality rate in that period should have been at least 0.9375%.
Don’t you think a jump of 49-fold would have been noticeable in the United Nations’ mortality chart?
As I said, this is an extremely serious contradiction; I must thank Godfree Roberts for noticing it. That was one statistic that Deng didn’t fake. Perhaps it was beyond his reach, in the United Nations. Or perhaps he didn’t think to fake it. Whatever the reason, it proves that the Western and Dengist propaganda of the GLF’s enormous mortality is a total lie. Perhaps you should start writing a new series called Deng Xiaoping’s Pravda.
(I cited more evidence against Deng’s trustworthiness in a previous comment (link or perhaps another link if this thread’s comments are moved to another page as usual). But the chart above should be sufficient to destroy the GLF propaganda.)
Deng Xiaoping did not attempt to fake everything. Your previous writings suggest that you aren’t truly skeptical about China’s vast economic growth. But for those who think that China’s economic rise is totally fake, allow me to present two completely independent lines of evidence,
The first line of evidence. China’s auto market is twice the size of the US’s: in 2024, 31 million autos were sold in China (link) versus 16 million in the US (link). In fact, China is Volkswagen’s largest market by far (link). Can this be true of a poor country?
Second. About 170 million Chinese went abroad as tourists in 2019, and 228 million of them are expeced to do so in 2030 (link).
Both sets of numbers can be measured by people outside China and are therefore far beyond China’s ability to fake. China’s huge growth is real.
hey idiot. chinkland doesn’t want any more dollars? great! go china!
Go Fuck Yourselves! you get that right?
here’s some of your locusts ms. whatabout:
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2020-07-17/unprecedented-crowds-are-harvesting-sea-creatures-from-san-pedros-famous-tide-pools
all the bs coming from you and the rest of the chink shills on here is pretty amusing i’ll give you that. what won’t be funny is when chinkland spoils for a fight, gets their way, and millions of chinks starve. it’s what happens every time there’s war there. china can’t properly feed itself when the going gets tough.
You
In John Pilger’s excellent film “The Coming War on China,” entrepreneur Eric Li says (@58:00 or so), that in America, you can change parties, but you cannot change policies; but in China, you cannot change parties, but you can change policy.
In 1945, the United States abandoned Protectionism and embraced a policy of Free Trade, which, with the advent of the WTO, altered slightly and became Globalism. Now, in 2025, America is dumping Globalism and reinstating Protectionism. So the first part of Li’s statement is demonstrably untrue.
Like Mr Unz himself, RonUnzFan, you seem to be profoundly ignorant of Economics and Economic History.
–
I’ve never taken Pilger seriously. Like Chomsky, he is very much promoted/controlled opposition. On this I certainly agree with Kevin Barrett.
Now it could be interesting to compare President Trump to President Javier Milei of Argentina. https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/latin-america/poverty-falls-significantly-in-argentina/
And while we’re at it, we could also compare Milei to chairman Mao.
You may be right, but it is rather anomalous that a high-IQ fellow such as yourself, whose current hobby seems to be digging into the false “well-established accepted facts” on so many historical issues, that have been “proved” by many “sources”, is so willing to arrive at firm conclusions with regard to 👉 current 👈 events. Your excellent “American Pravda” series shows that “you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time”. You can’t fool Ron Unz all of the time. Just some of the time.
Exempli gratia: High school student Ron Unz simply accepted what the vast majority of teachers and literati told their students and readers about William Shakespeare. So did I. Only much later died he see that there was far more to the case than he had ever imagined. Far more.
So with the “Popish Plot” (maybe your newly-kindled interest in Elizabethan and Jacobean Studies could inspire you to do an American Pravda expose of that “Guy Fawkes” black flag op), the true causes of WW II, the JFK assassination, 9/11, the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, etc.
The Hunter Biden laptop story first broke in the low-IQ “New York Daily News”, a tabloid read by low-IQ persons such as I. It was denied by fifty-one (51!) high-IQ “Heads of US Intelligence Agencies” ( I admit that I had no idea there were that many). 👉 Fifty-one persons engaged in a conspiracy to lie to the American public. 👈 In the Warren Commission Report, a high-IQ Chief Justice of the United States and his high-IQ fellow commissioners also conspired, I am led to believe, to mislead the public.
Within the context of all the foregoing, it is not necessarily foolish to question your easy assent to the Hegseth story. I am not saying I am convinced of Hegseth’s innocence. I am agnostic thereon. I could be mistaken; I simply remain to be convinced. It seems to me that you, contrary to your usual stance of cool skepticism in public affairs, are a True Believer for the prosecution. I had thought that a high-IQ fellow such as yourself would have cultivated a habitual attitude of cool detachment by now. (I don’t think you also believed he has a swastika tattoo on his torso, as some of your allies charged.)
As a side issue, Hegseth’s affection for Demon Rum, even if true, doesn’t necessarily disqualify him from his position. U.S. Grant was well known for his drinking. When some “good people” told Lincoln, he famously said, “Find out what brand he drinks so that I can send a case to the other generals”.
Lincoln was a high-IQ guy: your kind of guy.
I was right! You don’t know anything about George III.
As far as His Exalted Potency Donald John Trump is concerned, his first term should not even be taken into account when measuring his achievements. He spent almost his entire first term as Captain Lemuel Gulliver, tethered to the ground by the hundred strings of a hundred Lilliputians.
㊗️ } my little red dot of rebuttal
Can you please kindly provide a source for this information?
I, also have qualms with whatever the West claims are alleged famine and genocide in countries the West does not like. For instance, Cuba is definitely an extremely poor country (thanks to US sanctions), but the fact that male life expectancy is higher in Cuba than it is in the US should put Western judgmental arrogance under some perspective.
Well the way we see it, we are in favour of continuing the present of the trade system more or less. Tho we acknowledge there is room for improvement. So the US’s unilateral actions is very disruptive.
As can be seen from Lawrence Wong’s statements, he squarely puts the blame on the USA.
LW has not asked China to “cool it”, neither has he criticised China’s actions.
All he did was to warn Singaporeans that the environment we have gotten used to in the past decades has now been changed by the USA, and so Singaporeansioll have to ready for turmoil in the near future.
Shen Yi’s accusations against LW is a head scratcher. Frankly I don’t know how he managed to interpret LW’s statements as criticism of China.
Well, I consider disagreement a healthy thing.
As long was folks can respect each other and keep the discussion civil, then we all benefit from seeing a different point of view.
Thank you for showing me a viewpoint from China.
From where I am standing, Chinkland ain’t the one going around starting wars all over the place.
You Yanks have no idea how reviled you are around the earth.
Here’s a map of the world according to who every country thinks is most dangerous
Chinese life expectancy was 50 years during that time. The yearly natural deceased number of 660 million Chinese was 13.2 million. The Great Leap Forward(GLF) took place between 1958 and 1962, with approximately 52.8 million natural deaths during that period.
40 million deaths caused by the GLF the West claimed was just part of the natural death process, and it had nothing to do with the GLF. But the West twisted the facts, not only creating fake news to demonize and hurt the innocent people in need of help, they also used it to justify their blockade of help sending to China on the moral high ground. Ron, do you ever ask what kind of people the Westerners are who have committed such wicked crimes against humanity?
Addenda & Corrigenda:
Addendum:
I am a “fan” of yours in that I actually “believe” in the First Amendment and view you as a courageous champion of it. I am by no means a “fan” of Hegseth’s. I just like everyone to receive due process of law.
Corrigendum:
The “Hunter Biden laptop story” first broke in the low-IQ “New York Post”, not the “New York Daily News”. My bad.
Of course I do.
But since you claim to know more than me, I gave you a chance to enlighten me with your stunning insight. …. choke choke.
LOL. That makes him even stupider right?
A man who makes big claims ought to know the opposition that he would run into once he gets into office.
The fact that he did not anticipate how difficult it would be makes him stupid.
Whats more interesting is the folks who voted for him twice. They are downright morons.
What is that saying again?
Fool me once, shame on thee (Trump)
Fool me twice, shame on me (Eustace Tulley (not))
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fool_me_once,_shame_on_you;_fool_me_twice,_shame_on_me
another non sequitur argument from a chink shill. how does what you said refute my post you’re replying to??? cheap chinese goods being sold in the US have an unfair advantage over US producers. anyone with half a brain knows they need to have a tariff imposed to fix that problem. if it raises prices for americans, so be it. yes there’ll be bankruptcies. i’m sitting here with no debt and all cash just like warren buffett is, watching the show. bring it on! in the meantime stfu already with the logical fallicies.
You are portraying others according to your own image.
You make a good point about the first half of Mr. Li’s statement. But it was largely true until the last few months. Mr. Trump’s card is something new at the poker table. I do not consider my myself completely ignorant of economics or economic history, but I am no expert on economic science. In truth, I doubt whether economics is yet a science— rather, a grabbag of correlations and internally inconsistent lore that fails to make accurate predictions of the future, which is the gold standard of any science.
Go back and research Engels’ predictions of the First World War, and encounter there the foundations of social science. Not a complete social science, but more sure beginning than what we have in the West.
I am not here to boost Sino-Marxism and put down Anglo-American economism, empiricism, et cetera. But like Mr. Unz, I believe in respecting foreign cultures, ideologies, and regimes. I think the Chinese deserve a lot of credit for their creative policies. In my 46 odd years, they have lifted billions out of poverty, while our neo liberal elites have done the opposite. May God bless China, Russia, Iran, et alia, and may God also bless Donald Trump and America!!!
you don’t like it? then do something about it. good luck.
> 40 million deaths would be 10% of China’s population at that time
The basis for that false number has been identified before. It derives from cross-matching different models in a selective way in order to reach a doctored conclusion. The first primary source used for this is official demography, which can be found in Statistical Yearbook of China 1986, pp. 71-2:
Year_____Population in thousands_____Death rate per thousand
1949_____541,670_____20.00
1950_____551,960_____18.00
1951_____563,000_____17.80
1952_____574,820_____17.00
1953_____587,960_____14.00
1954_____602,660_____13.18
1955_____614,650_____12.28
1956_____628,280_____11.40
1957_____646,530_____10.80
1958_____659,940_____11.98
1059_____672,070_____14.59
1960_____662,070_____25.43
1961_____658,590_____14.24
1962_____672,950_____10.02
The pattern here is that we have a sharp steady drop in mortality until 1957, after which there are incremental increases in 1958-9, and then mortality for 1960 actually surpasses that in 1949, to then drop back down into the trend which had been ongoing until 1957. This pattern is generally accepted by all demographers, but the above numbers are surely too low from the start. No one seriously believes that mortality in China in 1949 was as low as 20 per thousand (20/k). The official Chinese statistics simply suffer from bad accounting systems which existed until 1949.
For comparison, one might look at the mortality data for the portions of Czarist Russia which were part of the Soviet Union in 1939, as given by Frank Lorimer, The Population of the Soviet Union, p. 34:
Year____Deaths/k
1899____33.4
1900____32.3
1901____33.6
1902____33.1
1903____31.1
1904____31.1
1905____33.2
1906____31.6
1907____30.2
1908____30.2
1909____31.6
1910____33.3
1911____29.2
1912____28.7
1913____30.9
You can see that all of these figures are markedly higher than anything which appears in the official Chinese statistics. Yet China in the 1920s was described by observers as the land of famine.
“It is a shocking fact that with all of the labor expended and virtues practiced, nearly a fourth of the people of the globe live in a land of famine — not of general famine at any one time nor of continuous famine in any one place, but of famine in one or another province or locality all the time.”
— John H. Finley, Introduction to Walter Mallory, China: Land of Famine, p. xiii, 1926 edition.
Since the real mortality in China must have been higher than the official statistics imply, demographers such as Judith Banister have constructed an alternate model which is more realistic, as shown in Banister, China’s Changing Population, p. 352:
Year_____Population/k_____Deaths/k
1949_____559,545_____38
1950_____563,253_____35
1951_____567,659_____32
1952_____574,991_____29
1953_____584,191_____25.77
1954_____594,725_____24.20
1955_____606,730_____22.33
1956_____619,136_____20.11
1957_____633,215_____18.12
1958_____646,703_____20.65
1959_____654,349_____22.06
1960_____650,661_____44.60
1961_____644,670_____23.01
1962_____653,302_____14.02
The 40 million hoax is arrived at by authors such Yang Jisheng, Jung Chang and others by taking the 10.8 number which is given as a death rate for 1957 in the official statistics but then jumping over across to some alternate (such as Banister) which gives much higher mortality rate for every single year. If you were to consistently use a source such as Banister, then the 1957-8 rise in mortality would be 20.65 – 18.12 = 2.53. But if you allow yourself to cross over from one table to another, you can derive 20.65 -10.80 = 9.85. Or if you use the official statistics consistently you will get 11.98 – 10.80 = 1.18 as the 1957-8 increase.
What all of these data-tables show is that only the year 1960 would have been classified as a national famine in traditional terms. Banister’s choice of 44.6/k as the death rate for 1960 is no different from what one would expect in 1936 when a famine occurred that is usually assigned 5 million victims (Jay Robert Nash, Darkest Hours, p. 734). That 5 million would have to be placed atop a normal mortality rate which would have been higher than any of the death rates given for Czarist Russia by Lorimer. This would easily put us next to Banister’s estimate of 44.6/k for 1960. What shows in 1957-9 is not really a national famine, but rather a regression from the improved mortality which had occurred in 1949-57. But it’s a regression back to the early 1950s. with the national mortality rate still better than anything which had ever occurred in either in Czarist Russia or Kuomintang China.
Trump’s clownish behavior and decisions are in part a product of NY-NJ real estate and political culture, which he has been a part of since his youth. We just have to admit that Trump is comfortable working with people connected to that environment, i.e. NYC Metro Jews, other mafia-type personalities and sycophantic yes-men. Ex: The Kushners, Howard Lutnick, Steve Witkoff; Michael Cohen, Rudy Guliani, Chris Christie, Dan Bongino, etc. Transported to national politics, this culture creates a dangerous echo chamber. Ryan Dawson’s documentary helps explain how this culture ties him down, and how he is easily co-opted towards Zionist interests:
Video Link
Correction to my previous post. This is the documentary link:
https://www.ancreport.com/trumps-zionist-ball-and-chain/
> As for the war against Japanese domination, that was mostly led by the Kuomintang, as far as I know.
Since the CCP did not have a professional army, they worked better by guerilla warfare.
—–
During the war, both the Nationalist government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) adopted guerilla tactics. The Kuomintang (KMT) began to do so in 1938; yet within two or three years its efforts failed. KMT forces behind enemy lines either surrendered to the Japanese, were eliminated by the CCP, or were forced to withdraw. By the end of the war, the KMT had no effective military capacity behind Japanese lines. In marked contrast, by 1945, the CCP’s forces had grown from 20,000 to 30,000 men to nearly 1 million. The territory they occupied grew from a small piece of northern Shaanxi to encompass parts of eight other provinces. This enormous expansion made the CCP into a major military and political force, while in 1937 it had to accept junior status in a United Front with the KMT. The contrast between the success of the CCP’s guerilla warfare and the failure of the KMT’s is obvious.
—–
— Mark Peattie, Eduard Drea, Hans van de Ven, (eds.), The Battle for China, p. 308.
The KMT forces were more functional as a traditional army which fights on battlefronts, rather than as a guerilla force. It’s true that for several decades after 1949, the CCP deprecated entirely the role of the KMT in the war with Japan, but you seem to be making an overcorrection. The KMT did play a role in the Japanese conflict, but so did the CCP.
What the Trump administration has overlooked is the sheer scale of strategic preparation China has undertaken over the past decade to insulate itself from precisely this kind of economic confrontation. China has been systematically strengthening its internal market, investing in domestic consumption, and advancing technological independence across all critical sectors.
It has also forged deep and diversified trade relationships, particularly across Africa, South America, and Eurasia, through long-term infrastructure, energy, and resource agreements, many of which are part of its Belt and Road Initiative. These efforts have created a buffer that significantly reduces its reliance on U.S. markets, making it far less susceptible to American pressure than it was eight years ago.
Conversely, the United States remains deeply reliant on Chinese manufacturing and supply chains, from electronics to pharmaceuticals. Attempting to economically “break” China without equivalent domestic capability or alternative global partners only exposes America’s own economic vulnerabilities.
The reality is that the U.S. cannot easily decouple from China without causing substantial disruption to its own economy. While political posturing from the Trump administration suggests otherwise, the long-term strategic calculus favors China’s resilience. If this trade war escalates further, it is the U.S., not China, that faces the more profound structural risks.
Don’t need to. USA is already busy destroying itself.
The only thing I need to do is get some popcorn and find a comfortable couch to watch it happen.
Your last sentence is an upside for Trump’s plan. Invest in Brazil? Really?
The reality is there is almost nowhere else to go but America. I know a few people who have left. They put up a good face but at the core it was a desperate thing to do. Go ahead. Make a list. Where are you going to go?
Up to 2022 the fellow I know who had made the best of it went to Ukraine. He is still there but has totally changed his tune to “it isn’t that bad!” Donald the Fat is a jackass but he does have the stronger position of any current and likely player. He just fired Elon Musk.
So ax.
Much fired.
Very f^@# yourself in the face.
The thumb rule is to leave the PEOPLE to judge their leaders,
not foreigners nor adversaries
Since these bodies always have bitterness, prejudice and misinformation, quite often deliberate fabrications, their opinions should not be counted as accurate nor essential
Hitler gained majority vote to became the chancellor, the approval rate was 80~90%
Mao gained majority support to win against japs, American puppet Chiang Kai-Shi, the approval rate was 80~90%
As for why Germans could not publicly praised Hitler, the answer is obvious, the same oppressor is working hard to ensure Mao is demonised in same fashion, ‘Mao’s reign led to millions of death’,
let’s not talk lengthy facts about int. jewry’s retaliation embargo against Mao’s China, actually resulted many death (Since Mao deceitfully received int. jewry funding but turned down Kissinger’s suggestion to share the reign of China half/half with Chiang, in order to create a North vs South project of fragmented states across Asia just like korea)
I’d leave Chinese to give Mao a final judge, dealing with ordinary Chinese everyday, poor or rich, most of them shown their respect towards him, even those ones born after his death
Dunno.
Must be some difference when the US Treasury
creates money vs private banks intent on profit.
I will need to call the Bank of North Dakota for ideas.
A return to USPS banking would also be worth trying.
5ds
Barnes and Freiheit didn’t shed tears and lies for israel?
Amazing!
5ds
“But the West twisted the facts, not only creating fake news to demonize …”
The biggest blind spot is this: Most in the West don’t understand Chinese civilization. China has a long and relatively successful history for ONE single reason. Chinese civilization is a democratic civilization. More democratic than other short lived and less successful history.
Confucianism at Confucius time was the teaching of a small group of people comprised of Confucius and his disciples. But Confucianism after the Han dynasty was an amalgam of various schools of thoughts. At its simplest, civilization is nothing but how people do various things to carry on their lives. People of various thoughts and various ethnic background could only live together peacefully because the China’s big tent civilization is democratic by nature and allow people to do things differently.
However, West is tightly linked to ritualistic voting. But democracy is after all, people rule, not people vote. Democracy is always a matter of degree. Not “Yes, democratic” or “No, not democratic.” Ritualistic voting is neither necessary nor sufficient condition for democratic government. Linkage between voting and government is faith based, not reality based.
Blind to Chinese democracy, Westerners have to label China as non-democratic for not having ritualistic voting. And see it as some kind of enemy and its leader as some kind of demon. Hence twisted facts and fake news to demonize.
You
I think the Chinese deserve a lot of credit for their creative policies. In my 46 odd years, they have lifted billions out of poverty, while our neo liberal elites have done the opposite.
Firstly, there are only 1.4 billion Chinese, so billions have not been lifted out of poverty. Several hundred millions certainly.
Secondly, these hundreds of millions of Chinese have been lifted out of poverty very largely because of the actions of “our neo liberal elites” in offshoring manufacturing to China and permitting one-sided “free trade”. This has enabled these “hostile elites” to manufacture at 3rd World wages and sell in America and elsewhere at 1st World prices, pocketing the difference. The result has seriously depressed working and middle-class incomes in America and elsewhere.
Since 2000, the accumulated American trade deficit is nearly $15 trillion ( over $20 trillion at 2025 prices ), a large part of which has ended in China. Obviously, this is unsustainable as it will inevitably result in the financial collapse of America. So Mr Trump’s return to Protectionism is not only overdue, but very sensible. So God bless Mr Trump, too.
Even 20 years ago, I think Mr Trump’s policies would have been successful. My only worry is that it is now too late and America is too far gone. Time will tell
Google search and you can find graphs of China’s average life expectancy and population growth. For example:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041350/life-expectancy-china-all-time/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1304081/china-population-development-historical/
Summaries provided by Godfree Roberts are accurate enough and debunk Western propaganda:
https://www.unz.com/author/godfree-roberts/?_ga=2.165089014.810828078.1744224856-1504669580.1744224856
As with most things….nothing beats seeing with your own eyes. A visit to China will debunk ALL the Western propaganda. You will realize how much Western media distorts reality which will give you the mental tool kit to figure out the mis/dis-information on China (past and present).
Believe it or not, you are not on everyone’s “must read” list. I have not seen your alleged link.
Anyhow, I asked for credible evidence for the number of mainland Chinese who attempt to enter the US illegally. Your citation of Homeland Security completely fails the credibility test, as this is the agency that has been accused of lying to Congress (link) :
Splendid and as always impactful not only for its ideas but also for its verve and arresting images.
Small quibble: “Trump? He handed power to Biden — or rather, to the machine behind Biden.”
Trump did not “hand power” to Biden. It was not his to pass on.
He was shoved aside as unreliable not because of his acts (always loyal to his masters) but because he tends to get drunk on his self adoration, gets carried away in his soliloquis, and talks out of school.
It was hoped that his four years on the bench and his repeated whippings would correct the personality defects a frequent hasbara vendor here was lamenting recently. It appears that the Jews belief in nurture over nature was proven wrong.
Yes, good comparison to they dynamic in WW2 in Europe. Get your 2 rivals to weaken each other is an ancient strategy of course. Kuomintang supported by America, Communists supported by America. ‘Warlords’ (as if they were different from the K C) not supported by outside powers – maybe that is why they were called ‘warlords’ and why they got knocked out earlier. I’d add that perhaps cause America was fighting Japan in the Pacific they pushed Chiang Kai-Shek to engage the Japanese. On the other side, the USSR did not push Mao quite so hard. That may have contributed.
I tend to think that if the Kuomintang had consolidated control over China, it would have eventually expelled American influence as the Communists did to the USSR. But who knows? You’re make a good point that Japan and S. Korea never did. Though of course we could point to large differences – Japan under occupation, S. Korea a client state afraid of N. Korea.
In the end, suppose you’re right. Regardless of what may have happened, Mao was the leader of the Communist part who did in fact bring about political unity and finally expel all foreign influences.
Thank you.
So according to Statista, which is a Germany-based data company, life expectancy of the Chinese people under the rule of Mao Zedong raised from 40.08 years in 1950 to 61.68 in 1975. Almost 22 years increase over the span of 25 years, in absence of any significant singular cause such as the end of a war. This seems a prodigious progress.
Whereas in this medical article published on a US governmental website, the abstract start as follows:
So it appears that even the US medical community does not challenge this remarkable increase in Chinese life expectancy, but only researches what were the drivers behind it.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4331212/
I rest my case about Cold War mentality.
Links are in blue, how could you miss them? — the link was in my comment which you replied to, so presumably you read the comment.
The data stems from the time Biden was president.
CBS News, February 4, 2024 — Chinese migrants are the fastest growing group crossing from Mexico into U.S. at southern border — ‘… This man, a college graduate, told us he hoped to find work in Los angeles. He said his trip from China took 40 days … We also met a banker and small business owners …’
Since the number of migrants was ‘unprecedented’, the previous year CBP ‘recorded two-and-a-half million instances of detaining or turning away people attempting to cross’, and Chinese nationals were seen to be the ‘fastest growing group’, it’s not difficult to believe a few tens of thousands of Chinese were encountered.
Dishonest little shits (like you) always quibble rather than admit something they don’t want to admit.
Adopting a belligerent and confrontational policy toward your creditors
has rarely been successful on an international scale, but maybe Trump
can pull it off, as he did with his business debts in the 1990’s.
At the very least, he has enriched some options traders and wiped out
a few, but bluffing Xi Jinping won’t be easy. China is sitting pretty
behind a mountain of chips, rare earth and oil from Russia and Iran.
As you suggest, China has set a worst case defensive strategy.
There is a line between audacious and reckless, but will Trump
notice before crossing it?
You did not identify the link as being the one I missed. As I said, not everyone has you on their “must read” list.
This absolutely reeks of propaganda. For one thing, the alarmingly “unprecedented” number of illegal Chinese immigrants turns out to be supposedly 600 over 4 days, or only 50,000 a year. That is nothing.
Second. If the number of supposed immigrants from China grew from zero to one, the growth rate would be infinity. They would be indeed be the “fastest growing” group, even if their actual numbers were tiny.
Third. The man the reporter interviewed supposedly went from China to “Thailand, Morocco, Ecuador … Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica …Nicaragua”. That is a long, difficult, and probably expensive route. Applying for a green card and then flying to the US would probably have been cheaper. This is a rather wealthy man, not a desperate immigrant. Either the man was lying, or the reporter was.
So you call me dishonest for contradicting you on the credibility of Homeland Security, which has been accused of lying to Congress (a very serious offense). Your trust in a dishonest DHS, and your meltdown after being contradicted, reveals much about your character, not mine.
I live in one of the countries that is being hit hard with tariffs and other punishments, so I see Trump in a very specific context. The idea I got from media is that our government is being targeted for reasons that have little to do with trade, tariffs are just another convenient stick to be used to apply pressure on the ANC to conform to US geopolitical demands and expectations. We are being told to get in line, like many other countries.
The carrot is that tariffs seem to have been suspended for 90 days now, though some remain in our case. We seem to have been given opportunity to negotiate. Col Wyatt is useful for me to get a feel for what MAGA is up to in relation to our situation. I’m not sure whether I got the phrase kiss the ring from his commentary:
When Wong cited WW2, and used that to warn of the similarity to the present situation, he is obviously referring to the potential danger of WW3 started by China-America war. Who else could start WW3 with America in the current context? India, Japan or Vietnam? Further, when he justifies restraint as the “superior” way to cool things down, that is moral-kidnapping, in my opinion, vaguely (intended or not) targeting China (because everyone knows China will retaliate STRONGLY). So, Shen Yi has a point.
I did watch a surprisingly brief clip in which Lee Hsien Loong (or a look alike) made a very brief statement suggesting or wishing China does not retaliate.
I did find it odd that he chose to involve himself into the Sino-US conflict. But on the other hand, Singaporean leaders have to speak up for Singapore, voluntarily or not.
Taking that into account if Lee was real, Shen Yi 沈逸’ comment made a lot of more sense.
The state is not a moral being, nor is a head of state acting in that role.
Each policy will benefit some citizens while possibly harming others,
perhaps even executing or exiling them for the “greater good.”
The ethical standards for individual behavior do not apply to heads
of state, who may decide that the end does justify the means
when the end is existential for the nation.
At the same time, a ruler should be as compassionate as possible
in situations where the security of the state is not at issue.
My understanding is that the violence during the Cultural Revolution
went wildly out of control in parts of China, and was more like mob
rule than government action. But, of course, only the Chinese can
determine what occurred and interpret the significance.
All the theories were wrong. It was simply an insider trading scam. Trump topped his crypto swindle.
Thanks for that. I had never considered that angle.
Anyways I am glad that period is over. I consider us to be lucky we are living in a time that we can witness China rising up from the ashes again.
I also suspect that in 20 years time, we will be glad that it was Trump who was leading the charge against China, and not someone more competent.
You seem to have alot of faith in your info sources.
Do they tell you the truth about the economy?
Do they tell you the truth about race relations?
Do they tell you the truth about US politics?
Why then do you believe them when they tell you about things Chinese?
And to punish and pressure South Africa for having taken the moral lead against the genocide in Gaza, and raised a case agaisnt Israel at the ICJ.
The Israel courtesan doesn’t miss the slightest occasion to publicly demonstrate his subjugation to its pimps.
沈毅Shen’s major is actually cyber security, which is relatively less powerful for strategic interpretation of the international situation.
He is an Internet famous professor, and his views basically represent the plain view of the Chinese people.
Strategists are more diverse in their approach.
You can see they’ve already provided the policy to start the big smuggling era.
The future will be an era of large numbers of Americans traveling to China to buy goods.
Besides, if we do start WWIII, who can stop it?
Nobody.
Our current industrial capacity is not focused on the military industry.
Whether WWIII is launched or not depends only on our will.
Thank you for explaining where Shen Yi objects to LW’s statement.
Frankly I don’t see it. I think Shen Yi is interpreting too far.
LW is referring to worldwide political instability caused by a breakdown of a previously used trade system. Such instability may increase the risk of wars between any number of states, not just between China and USA.
For example:
Right now India is happy because it sees itself rising, Indian people becoming CEOs in USA etc. Supposing a trade war becomes really bad and India’s economy goes into nosedive. People are angry and riots erupt. In order to distract his people, Modi (or someone worse) accuses Bangladesh of mistreating its Hindus and invades to “rescue” a couple of Hindu villages. Now Pakistan jumps in to rescue its Muslim brother and seizes the opportunity to invade Indian controlled Kashmir. Israel tries to aid India by sending missiles which India uses to flatten Islamabad. Turkey gets really mad and join forces with Iran to mount a “peace mission to Gaza”. The NATO says no, and sends its fleet to stop it, an accident happens and a Turkish cargo ship is sunk by a US warship. Malaysia and Indonesia become irate and blocks the Malacca Strait to all Western shipping.
You see, none of this involved China. Yet it would affect Singaporeans greatly.
I have told Americans many times that “not everything revolves around the USA”.
I would also tell Shen Yi the same, that “not everything revolves around China”.
It doesn’t matter.
It does not matter whether you think that our policies have led to people going into exile, whether you think that the number is very high or very small. I can tell you who these illegals are.
Most are criminals and psychopaths.
They fled to the United States to avoid criminal charges. After all, it’s easier to get the death penalty for drug possession here…
With 1.76 ounces of heroin, you’ll be executed.
They will grow marijuana and sell drugs in the United States.
And you’re going to enjoy their crimes. I highly recommend you as a vigilante to take them out, after all, we don’t want these criminals.
You should thank me for telling you so much.
谢谢你
Do you mean this one?
Finally I can’t believe it took China this long to realize why produce for free. Give the product to your people or dump it into the ocean. Its the exact same as selling it to us for an IOU that will never be payed.
Exactly. I think it’s a good thought experiment since so much of Trump’s rhetoric is ‘us’ against ‘them’. Now he is fighting back against the bad foreigners who have been taking gullible U.S. leaders for a ride in the past decades. With poor U.S. now being a victim of cheap goods from overseas. In this picture everything about the Dollar being the world reserve currency, that has enabled the U.S. to import much more than it exports and spend enormous sums of money on military adventures and everything else – is forgotten. Also forgotten is that it was the U.S. that dominated the global political and financial landscape in the past decades. A bit strange victim hood if you ask me.
His tariff policies are meant to end this ‘unfair’ system and therefore to improve the U.S. financial situation by letting other nations pay. I think it’s helpful here to notice who owns the U.S. government debt. It turns out when you run the numbers – only a third of U.S. gov debt is in the hands of the bad foreigners who were taking advantage of poor U.S. The rest is domestic so to speak. Perhaps indicating where good portion of the profits of the past decades went. It seems big bad China only holds about 3% of U.S. debt in it’s currency reserves.
MAGA Maoism: Trumpism as a Third World Movement
The MAGA movement has very little in common with modern Western civilisation
Drew Pavlou
Apr 08, 2025
https://drewpavlou.substack.com/p/maga-maoism-trumpism-as-a-third-world
What Tramp is doing is a smoke-screen for the attack on China. The West, deriving from Judaism, regards itself as the supreme manifestation of humanity, forever. The rise of yellow untermenschen to a position of accomplishment already beyond that of the Western ubermenschen is an OUTRAGE that will NEVER be tolerated.
Hence the frantic aggression, the tsunami of hatred, lies and agit-prop, designed to send Western populaces into a war frenzy. Lately, the propaganda is simply deranged. One scrawny Falun Gong compradore declares that there are only three hundred million Chinese, several assert that China is mired in poverty and all the bright, shiny, cities are just Potemkin villages to fool gullible, and probably traitorous, Westerners, China is ‘collapsing’ over and over, for twenty-five years now, etc. One recalls the filthy compradore Liu Xaobo, still happily dead, who declared that China required Western control to civilise, and that the Chinese would never be ‘fully human’ until they Westernised, etc, etc, etc.
And the Jewintern leads the way. After hundreds of years of effort, they finally control the West fully, and hence, they suppose, the world, yet here is a culture that does NOT worship them as ‘Gods Upon the Earth’, and merely treats them as fellow humans, the WORST form of ‘antisemitism’.
China MUST dump its Treasuries because, sure as Hell, one day they will be stolen by the USA. This whole farrago is simply a smoke-screen for the attack on China. Next will come punishment for other States that trade with China. Just as Obummer’s TPP was intended to isolate China, so too is all US regime policy, and increasingly frantic with it.
China is governed by brilliant people, the USA by Jewintern controlled psychopaths. That may have some bearing on the eventual outcome.
It’s a Casino for the “Elite”. Matchfixing in the “financial” sector.
I bet the “Elite” had inside info to short-sell on the bogus that’s called “Tariffs”.
I’ve seen lot of people make that call, I don’t think that is likely because Trump made so much money recently, and doing anything so openly illegal seems out of character for him. The reason the Dems couldn’t stop him and had to resort to fake charges is because Trump has never felt the need to do anything illegal to make money.
“Not everything revolves around China,” but as of today American trade policy
is all about China since Trump has given every other country a pass. So, China
was really the only target from the start, with the others tossed in the mix as
decoys.
China is the most competent trade rival, but it has another characteristic that
troubles Trump and the Jewish cartel. Zion has no influence on, or in China.
Except for the Islamic countries and Russia, the Jews have some influence
in almost every other nation.
To date, all of Trump’s major policy moves have favored Jewish interests. He is
sliding away from settling the Ukraine War because Israel wants to keep Russia
bogged down there to diminish its capability to support Iran.
Miriam Adelson was the largest donor to the Trump campaign, and since her
most profitable casino is in Macao, she might tell her stooge, Donnie, to lighten
up on the China bashing.
The insiders on the Street do have some advantages over us hicks in the
redneck hinterland, but anyone that didn’t see this coming was
totally tuned- out and being held incommunicado.
Thanks. I agree mostly with what your views. But on one thing I beg to differ.
If we had a clear thinking individual such as Putin acting as POTUS, this might have been the case. Putin would have zeroed on the most critical task at hand and laser focused his government on it.
But when we consider Trump, we have to use his past actions to assess his present ones. He has a shown a chronic tendency to underestimate the task at hand. See how he loudly boasted in his first term that he would “Drain the Swamp”, or “He would build the wall and Mexico would pay for it”, or “Trade wars are easy to win”.
None of these panned out. All point to the fact that he talks big without understanding the size of the task at hand.
It is my view that in this 2nd term, Trump in a similar fashion thought that he would “Kill a bunch of birds with one stone”. He thought that he would achieve it like King of the Jungle, and with one roar, all the other animals would tremble and bend the knee.
As someone who comes from a micro-state, I am acutely aware of how small states must navigate large ones and avoid getting trampled by the giants.
The problem with large states or super powers, is that they find it difficult to conceive that there are other points of view, apart from the major players. Their attention is focused on the power play between the big boys. So whatever the small guys do is interpreted as actions for or against the big boys.
They forget that in the neighbourhood playground, the 5 year old boy is not really concerned about being bullied by the feuding 18 year olds who don’t even notice his presence. He is worried about being bullied by the 9 year old.
This is the position of Singapore vis a vis China and USA.
Treating Jews as “fellow humans” is maybe a little too compassionate
while they are on a murder rampage in Palestine. Their application
to rejoin humanity is on hold and will be
forwarded to Hell for processing.
Israel and Iran are part of it. Also, some of the steps taken were already being initiated under Biden:
Your harsh appraisal of the U.S. debt situation is most unwelcome. Iceland will be
annexed by the Faroe Islands as a refueling station and restocked with Haitian
connoisseurs de chatte and El Salvadorian tattoo artists.
Without any complaints, we defended you against predatory invasions from Iraq,
Afghanistan, Russia and Gaza, and now you’re whining about a tiny tariff on
your cod liver oil exports.
>policies
I didn’t say anything about ‘policies’, or generally the motivations of Chinese trying to enter illegally — I don’t know enough about China or internal policy in China.
With a country as big as China (1.4+b people), you will find those who are dissatisfied with their lives to a degree that they feel desperate enough to take such a step, each for his/her own reasons — actually, in one sense, I acknowledge their courage, since it takes guts to do that.
Perhaps more to the point: they chose to come to the United States, rather than e.g. Singapore.
I just responded, in a like manner, to one individual who per his moniker is Chinese, using an ethnic insult for Vance, and criticizing the US and Americans (he meant Whites of course) — so I used an ethnic slur against him, and gave evidence that a significant number of Chinese don’t think the US is such a bad place.
That’s it.
I have nothing against China or the Chinese — I admire how the Chinese have developed their country, and think the hostility shown to China by American political elites is idiotic.
The Chinese claim Shanghai has a lower per capita GDP than Mississippi. If they can lie so blatantly, on something that doesn’t pass the eye test, imagine what China’s real economic size is.
I think in time the doubters will understand just how outlandish China’s economic figures are.
Just because Taiwan’s Constitution says that Taiwan is a part of China does not logically entail that the 🥢Republic of China🥢 is a part of the 🥢 People’s Republic of China🥢.
I don’t know what the Constitution of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea says (or even if it has one), but it I assume it claims to be in Korea.
I don’t know what the Constitution of the Republic of Korea says, but it I assume that it claims to be in Korea.
The Republic of Vietnam never claimed to be part of any nation other than Vietnam. It did not claim to be part of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
The Republic of Ireland (Eire) claims to represent Ireland. Northern Ireland claims to represent Northern Ireland. Both claim to be part of Ireland. Both are right.
You need to clarify, for your own sake, the difference between “nation” and a “state”. They are not the same.
The sky is blue. Water is wet. The Republic of China is in China.
A few points for consideration…
1) Lobbyists provide the “juice” that keeps the political class in the USA following the lead of its masters…much like reins on a horse or jackass.
2) Whatever the decisions made in DC regarding taxes, wars, spending, etc., be assured that the masters who these lobbyists report to are engaged in micro management of the government.
3) The goyim vote for another carni barker every 4 years, and once in a while they get what they voted for, as Mencken said, “good and hard”.
If you like it “good and hard”, you’re gonna love it from here on out.
Why are you proud of having second rate students and anchor baby criminal trashes? Personally, I think the entire world should thank all of you for voluntarily being the world’s toilet. All our conmen and poor people are being off-loaded onto you! Thank you White Brothers!
Shanghai is one of China’s wealthiest cities, and I’m very skeptical of that claim, at least if you’re referring to real PPP per capita income rather than nominal dollars. What’s your source for that?
That’s funny.
It turns out that a country with statistics on a group of 300-year-old people is mocking other people’s data for not being true.
Your clown act really opened my eyes.
As a Shanghai native, I can say that Shanghai is the best city on our planet.You trash don’t deserve to be compared to us.
侬则港币样子，切侬妈吕蛋黄
China’s national accounting methodology isn’t the same as used by most Western countries. It produces far lower GDP/PPP numbers than actual consumption stats suggest.
I believe this is done intentionally.
The World Bank has a program called International Comparison Program (ICP) where they try to compensate for difference in purchasing power in each country to derive PPP GDP/capita.
ICP is really bad. I looked at their Asia subset, lots of nonsensical data in there. China’s PPP adjusted food consumption per capita is lower than Pakistan and India according to their dataset. PRC household consumption is slightly higher than Philippines and Indonesia according to ICP. Food consumption in PHI is 2x that of PRC according to ICP.
Poland’s per capita food consumption is almost 3x that of China in PPP terms according to ICP. If you look at actual consumption stats across meat, fruits, vegetables it’s obvious that these monetary metrics are completely off compared to physical consumption stats.
You can find actual per capita consumption of meat, vegetables, fruits for each country online. They directly contradict ICP stats.
A major issue with PPP comparisons is that the price indices contain a lot of imputed components and are not based on actual surveys conducted on a yearly basis. World Bank’s ICP data is still based on 2017 prices. Inflation differentials since then have been significant.
The current most up to date ICP PPP data is based on 2017 reference prices.
Here is a highlighted ICP 2017 table for APAC countries to provide an easy reference in case anyone wants a quick drill down on why China’s PPP GDP/capita is abnormally low relative to its observable material standard of living.
International Comparison Program. It’s where the PPP data comes from. Their data for China is terrible and this is a well known issue.
Why is it in China’s interest to do this, go along with these obviously fake stats?
I believe China’s NBS, contrary to popular opinion, has been lowballing GDP for decades and the World Bank has to work within the confines of the NBS’s reported data.
Thanks ever so much for the video, basically a Jew taunting and threatening South Africa.
The interviewee confirms what one intuitively understands. He says that he counted the lines of the anti-South Africa bill currently discussed by US Congress, and that the “great majority” were dedicated to the issue of Israel/Iran/Hamas. He then goes on with bluntly stating his conclusion: SA should stop and decease from its ACJ case against Israel.
As for Genocide Joe, of course, there is one thing that, as sure as days follows night, never changes, it is the abject subjugation of all American politicians to Israel. Israel is all over this Bill against South Africa.
Overall, the insanely-arrogant position of the interviewee and the USA itself is beyond laughable. If the ACJ genocide case against Israel was so weak, they would not fight so hard to have it dismissed.
Other news from Africa:
Israel’s ambassador is ejected from an African Union event
https://www.africanews.com/2025/04/10/israels-ambassador-is-ejected-from-an-african-union-event/
Funnily enough, this makes people around the world admire them even more. So intelligent, so humble. Let the kikes and their slaves choke on their pride, while we all cash out. You can all be “huwhite” together in your trailer parks alongside your white brothers from North Africa, and the jews, who are also huhwhite.
The author is right about how dumb this is….and makes the perfect analogy to the Sparrowkiller but.
Who uses toilet paper instead of a bidet/japanese-style wet toilet?
It is an odd statement. Please tell something about your “eye test.”
Shanghai is province class city with a population of 24.8 million.
If it were a state in the US, it would rank 13th among all US states, Shanghai GDP in US dollar is comparable to Virgina. About 4.8 times the GDP of the State of Mississippi.
You should refrain from exposing CIA or NED’s handy work of their smear campaign against China. You might be visited by some masked muscular strangers in the middle of the night and handcuffed you away for national security investigation like Tufts graduate Rumeysa Ozturk.
Are you saying that anyone is not lying, cheating and stealing like the Americans is a crime?
Nice to know that Latin lives on too.
Actually, it does. Since October 25, 1971, the United Nations has exclusively recognized the People’s Republic of China as the one and only China. The PRC sits as a permanent member of the Security Council, not the ROC. Therefore, since Taiwan is a part of China, Taiwan is a part of the People’s Republic of China.
They are trying to fly under the radar of international criminal gangs who show up everywhere right after success. Do you know a rich guy who drives a 15 year old honda?
Similar principle at work.
This is more of a confirmation that GDP is a worthless measurement, not a confirmation that China is lying.
Pilger was one of the greatest TRUE journalists of the 20th century. ‘Controlled’ by whom? Christ, I hate know-nothing, know-it-all, nobodies.
The Judeonazis already hated South Africa because apartheid South Africa was the Judenreich’s closest ally and friend in making nukes and working on ‘genetically specific’ bio-weapons, research that I am certain that the Zionazis continued, and continue to today. When the ‘non-Whites’ were freed, there went Israel’s Doppelganger.
I still don’t think that it’s Trump making any decisions whatsoever, but rather his team of Likud Israeli-Americans. During the first “Trump” Presidency, a major Democrat media put out a symbolic picture of Trump with his pants down sitting on the toilet with a smartphone in his hand, posting messages on Twitter. I speculate that this is his current position as well. The White House, I believe, is run just like his company – an Israeli-American media source mentioned that Trump’s company executive team exclusively consists of Israeli-Americans, and the reason for this was because Trump was using the high intelligence of Israelis to make him money, while Trump simply kept the profits and presumably generously compensating the Israeli executives.
I speculate that tariffs are all the Likuds idea in the hope that it could raise tax revenue to carry out a series of new wars for Israel, while requiring Europe to themselves pay to continue the war against Russia. The Likuds I presume are also seeing tariffs as a way to attempt to harm China. Thus, tariffs could possibly just be a miscalculation of the Likuds with nothing to do with Trump. This is the hypothesis that I am currently sticking with.
As a final point, regarding the claim here of Trump having an IQ some 35 points lower than Buchanan, is it just me who sees Trump’s skull size as looking just average? Buchanan, Unz, Richard Lynn, Jared Taylor, Richard Feynman, Erwin Schrödinger, etc. all have relatively large skull sizes. I noticed Trump’s relatively small skull size during his first Presidency when every time he did something dishonest or illogical, all his supporters claimed that he was using his unparalleled high intelligence to play multi-dimensional chess far beyond the comprehension of all his voters. At first, I tried to stay “open-minded” about the claim, but as I kept looking at his quite small skull size and hearing him publicly talk, I quickly decided that he was just a successful sociopath with and IQ perhaps no higher than 115 – still above average though.
Fellow human beings, many of whom are behaving as wickedly as is possible to imagine. But mere human beings after all is said and done. Their psychopathic group and individual egomania hates that fact.
Mr. Unz,
The population pyramid chart helpfully included in your article would perhaps be clearer with a caption indicating the base year – presumably about 1978.
Thank you.
Vietnam exports a pair of Nike shoes for $35, adding $35 to its GDP. The same pair of shoes is sold in a store in America for $150, adding 150-35=$115 to America’s GDP. Moving a pair of shoes from a port to a shoe store is almost 4 times as ‘productive’/’valuable’ as creating the shoes.
Then there are the so-called imputations. Pure bullshittery.
https://www.bea.gov/help/faq/488
That’s around $4 trillion.
Gotta accept it
“The Chinese of today would admit that Mao’s reign was 70% good, and 30% bad.”
The Chinese people didn’t admit Mao was 70% good and 30% bad. The CCP said Mao was 70% good and 30% bad. The Chinese people do not equal the CCP.
Why did the CCP say Mao was 70% good and 30% bad? Even though Mao was not the founder of the CCP, he was certainly the most influential figure of the CCP and basically the figurehead of the CCP. To say Mao was 0% good and 100% bad is to delegitimize the CCP itself, and no political party would do that. This is the only reason the CCP says Mao was 70% good and 30% bad.
In truth, Mao was 0% good and 100% bad.
“There is not a shred of evidence that anyone starved to death after 1950.”
You are a fucking piece of shit.
Quite so.
Here in Southeast Asia, the USA is the first destination of choice of fugitives.
All they have to do go to the US government, claim that they are being politically persecuted, that they want to live in the “land of the free”, they “hunger for liberty” etc . The US agents lap it all up, gives them a good feeling about themselves, and voila!!! Asylum granted.
Then those who are smarter, go onto US talkshows or set up Youtube channels criticizing and demonising their lands of origin, and the audience loves it. Best of all are those from countries deemed “adversaries of the USA”…now these guys get to make a pretty penny from the venom they spew.
Meanwhile Americans swallowing such info get stupider and stupider about the rest of the world.
An exceptionally intelligent man who revels in his ignorance and egomania would usually be ignominiously dismissed as a nondescript fool, but when this man reaches the
pinnacle of power, we are gobsmacked and helpless.
Americans are tolerant and sometimes oblivious to the harm we cause abroad, but our
threshold of tolerance for poverty is set very low. Trump will find out how quickly
unemployed men can become a lynch mob. Murder, mayhem, starvation and genocide
overseas hardly raise an eyebrow around here, but don’t mess with prosperity
on the Sheeny Hill.
The problem is that
Only criminals think America is a place to commit crimes…
Those Chinese who must come across the border to the United States do so not because they do not have the money to pay for a plane ticket to another country, but because if they go to another country, it will be against their crime.
America is a good place for crime.
In fact, if you look at our laws, maybe 30% of Americans are on death row for drug possession… After all, drugs have been legalized in many states.
So their perseverance, their faith, is to escape the punishment of death.
As for JDVance, to be honest, he and Trump’s team are pretty much the same as clowns, and we really don’t care what he is.
People really don’t fight with wild dogs on the side of the road.
This is a fair and intelligent question.
There was this episode on a Youtube channel called Manifold discussing this. The host was discussing with a guest who was a investment banker or something.
1. What was explained was the origin came from the WTO negotiations. In order to get the most beneficial starting position when they signed onto the WTO, China insisted on certain conservative metrics for their calculations. This had the effect of giving China lower looking GDP numbers from the outset, and which they have kept to since.
It is my own view that several other factors played into the continuation of the way they calculate their GDP numbers in the years following WTO accession:
2. The national strategy enunciated by Deng Xiaoping of “laying low, and not attracting attention”. My hunch is that he knew that a rising China would raise alarm in the USA and would not be to their advantage.
3. The Chinese own national/cultural psyche that leans towards conservatism in money matters. You can see this in the way Chinese people save a large chunk of their income. Or even buy a car with saved up wads of cash.
4. The Chinese sense of practicality. The Chinese are extremely practical. To them, reality is firmly rooted in what can be done in the real world. You can see this in the way Chinese don’t like to talk endlessly about what they are going to do in future. Rather they just quietly do it. When it finally materialises, the world is shocked. This Chinese trait contrasts with the Indians, who on the other end of the specturum, love airy fair talk.
All these points combine to form the way the Chinese calculate their GDP….and their firm refusal to use imputations (as you have mentioned) in order to fluff up their GDP numbers.
You probably know the infamous examples of countries using imputations like:
A. UK calculates presumed cost of drugs and prostitution as part of the GDP calculations
B. USA uses presumed rents (even though the property was owner-occupied and not rented out) as part of GDP.
———————-
In conclusion
IMHO, why you see the glaring problems with GDP calculations between China and USA…is rather than the Chinese lying about their GDP numbers, the situation is more like the contrast between:
The Chinese being conservative about their calculation methods
Contrasting with
The USA being “creative” to fluff up their GDP calculations.
I was wrong to think you were accusing us of deliberately inflating the numbers.
Now you say that we are suppressing the data, which shows that you seem to speak for our country’s data, and I appreciate that and apologize for my earlier accusations against you.
But I don’t really remember anyone from Shanghai saying Mississippi has a higher GDP than our city.
This is certainly true. It is not a 100% reflection.
How about 90% ?
Look at this long term survey done by your own Harvard University.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/long-term-survey-reveals-chinese-government-satisfaction/
Gimme a shred.
I’ll PayPal $10 to you for one shred.
Indeed.
If you will allow me to pick your brains, what do you think is the more likely outcome of an uprising against Trump:
1. Removal of Trump, and the system that enabled Trump to rise to power is left intact
or
2. Removal of Trump, realisation that the system is broken, and it is reformed, or even trashed and a new constitution written?
The Chinese people are not equal to the CCP, but the American people are equal to the US government because the people elect the US government. The US government has been bombing and killing on the fabricated WMD allegations as humanitarian aid, committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against peace around the world non-stop, in fact, it is the Americans who are committing those hideous crimes under the banner of the US government.
Jews are born human and many remain human, but only if they can resist the forces of
group identity, and that requires incredible strength of character, introspection and
intelligence. This explains why Jews who have left the Tribe are frequently among the
finest people you will encounter.
Americans “elect” their National Government officials only in a ceremonial sense.
For any position higher than our local school boards, the media and the oligarchs
jointly select the candidates and determine the electoral results.
Most Americans still stubbornly cling to the fantasy that someone, somewhere might
give a shit about their opinions, and it would be cruel to shatter their delusions.
If the economy collapses Trump is toast, but the system that spawned him will remain.
Wow, that was easy!
But, unless we are able to separate politics from money the same corrupt system will
reassert its mastery of the American Government, with multiple repetitions of insane
wars abroad, domestic turmoil, intolerable poverty and obscene wealth.
Not only money, but all wealthy people must be totally and irrevocably barred from
politics and holding public office. Lord Acton was right, but only half-right when he
theorized about the corruption of power but omitted mention of the corruption of
wealth. Political leaders must not have wealth and the wealthy must never be leaders.
George Washington was probably the richest man in the American Colonies and he
was not corrupted by his wealth, but he was an exceptional man in many ways, and
rules cannot be based on exceptions. Donald Trump is not only rich but immoral,
greedy and more typical of his ilk, but lacking the skill to conceal a crass nature.
The U.S. certainly has a high crime rate, particularly in comparison to China, Russia, Japan and Europe, but our crime is confined to certain areas and most Americans are insulated from violent crime.
Your claim that “30% of Americans are on death row for drug possession” is simply nonsense. Name one case. There are many people on death row who committed murder and were also involved with illegal drugs, but execution for possession has not occurred in recent memory.
I wholeheartedly agree with @eah about the absurdity of American hostility toward China. China’s only “crimes” are their spectacular economic success and their refusal to be intimidated by the Imperial Hegemon and its Anglo-Am-Zionist, financial overlords.
There’s a lot to speculate about and Zionism plays a part, but Trump’s tariff argument also holds water. SA was getting a lot of sweetheart trade deals from the US like AGOA, and did not reciprocate, so you could say that we were taking advantage of charity to some degree.
There’s an argument to be made that Trump is a buffoon, but the SA government and specifically the ANC is not exactly known for competence or sophistication. They are providing the Trumphouse with all the means to punish them on a silver platter. We are taking heat from other authorities besides the US about corruption, mismanagement, racial laws, etc. too.
The American identity is also a function of the US government, since they have nothing unifying them aside from government force. Chinese identity is not dependent upon the state. If the Chinese state disappeared tomorrow, the people would still be Chinese. If the American state disappeared tomorrow, then the “American people” would disappear along with it, and in their place would be Mexicans, blacks, Somalians, Jews, Puerto Ricans, melungeons, rootless cosmopolitans, etc.
Constitutions are worthless. They’re meaningless words on paper. If the existing American Constitution was anything more, much of politics since possibly Thomas Jefferson’s presidency – if that long – would never have been possible. A federal military, the War of Northern Oppression (AKA the Civil War), the trail of tears, income tax, the NFA, stick your favorite American crime here. None of it would have been possible if those words were more than words.
It’s only when citizens are willing to die in defense of what the words on the paper say that they mean anything.
Yelen and cronies crying outloud Chinese EV’s ‘over-capacity’ is again, their forked tongue trying to domesticate normies,
imaging BYD or Huawei opening direct store to reach American buyers, Yelen and co. got absolutely nothing in return, this is all the tariff ideas coming up.
They admit a sound defeat in quality and efficiency, what their LAST strong hold is the strangle around American White’s neck, or iron fist if you like to call it,
That is their ONLY bargain chip against China, imagine America is a true to its words ‘Free, open market’ American could enjoy the benefit of Chinese phone’s clean bootup and lesser data mining by fedbots directly. Anti-China bot would argue Chinese firms date mining, yeah what’d Xi actually do to any Whites, mentally, physically, financially? Nothing.
Let’s switch the side, we know it’s a career suicide and social barrage coming right from top.
I can’t wait to see American Whites to use their so-called ‘intellects’ and ‘smartness’ to out smart jewry, although I don’t see that coming any soon, but let’s start from buying a sim-free Chinese phone, burn your own version of ROM, Boom no need to thank me,
anyone who serious about his safety, money (if you got side hassles you know what that means, bills and invoicing all to Chinese mailbox), home and children need to think and act SMART,
Too early to sigh in a defeatist fashion, use that intelligence to start sth,
Intelligence without activation is just plain cowardness
In slightly more actual reality the Orange One is holding only one card –
monopoly money; everybody is forced to earn dollar -> imports; the more you
stress them (tariffs) the more you lose the ability to export because no one in his
right mind will waste the monopoly money he just earned with his blood on grossly
overpriced trinkets; without undue oversimplification the US is treating the
World like Little Britain treated India 100 years ago – I think we know how that
played out.
– The truth is the US has been in default since 1971 (some would argue since 1945)
and is running out of fingers to put in the dyke; with trade as with immigration,
no one ever won a death match with the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
– Kepler´s theorems replaced the epicycle theory not because they were more
accurate – they weren´t – but because they were so much less hassle; the
moment the monopoly dollar is kicked out from under the episcaffolding
(which the tariffs cannot but hasten) the fabled US consumer market will
go full Zimbabwe.
One gets the impression the farmers voted for Trump because they are looking
forward to you having to trade in your virginal daughter 😁
(Of course this means the next world war is inevitable – but I wouldn´t put too much
hope in that either)
It is funny to see “communists” defending free trade.
As a Marxist-Leninist, to hell with that, I support Trump’s tariff from Vietnam. To hell with the free trade system, it brings hegemonism and parasitism!
North Korea’s Jucheism where nation maintain independence and self-sufficient should be ideal.
Ah，sorry, I’m talking nonsense.
I am not expressing this sentence very accurately.
I mean, if Americans apply our laws, you might end up with the conclusion that 30 percent of Americans should be executed.
But I obviously didn’t know about drug use in the United States, and I had only heard a few memes, such as a American professor telling our students abroad that under Chinese law, anyone in the class who takes addictive drugs here could be sentenced to death.I think the 30% number might not seem too scary.
You can judge how many Americans are likely to be sentenced to death under this model of sentencing based on who you actually know.
In other words, I want to ask you what percent of the people around you think have more than 50 grams of heroin.
Finally, I have always been surprised by the way addiction drugs are referred to in Europe and the United States.
We call addictive drugs poisons （毒品）, but you call them drugs（也可以翻译为药物） .
The only REAL democracy was between the general, called STRATEGO and the soldiers in some ancient Greek city-states. The general was elected once every year in Athens at about 500 B.C. Basically, one spear one vote. Rich people could not vote because they were not trusted, poor people could not vote if they could not afford to properly equip and train themselves. Neither did slaves.
The democracy REAL in the sense that the voters did not only do the voting. They did the fighting. Elected leaders were involved in the fighting themselves. Their fate was inevitably linked to the fates of the soldiers.
I agree. The world should divide into two blocs now.
Vietnam can join the Americans if they wish. The Philippines too.
The other 8 ASEAN states will join China.
The only bloc I trust is the Eastern bloc.
Vietnam should try its best to build nukes and maintain its relationship with Russia.
ASEAN is nice, but nothing replaces nuclear sovereignty, like North Korea.
The recently released update (2025) from 2021 survey.
Do these numbers look plausible to anyone?
China GDP is severely understated, one day people are going to see past the smoke and mirrors.
Balanced trade exchange rates are likely around￥1.5-2.0=$1 at this point given the massive inflation differentials over the past 5 years. This puts China’s real PPP GDP at $65-87T vs $30T for US, even if this is an over estimate you get the jist.
If you look across metrics like electricity consumption, housing area, intercity trips, Poland is significantly lower than China but their PPP GDP/capita is almost 2x.
While I reckon their toughness on physical, chemical drugs,
Chinese government are NOT paying enough attentions to mental drugs such as
LGBT mind virus, Racing-mix with niqqers, Worshippering niqqer ball chaser and ‘ra*pers’, delusional gender ‘transformation’ illness, that worthless YTber ‘Ishowspeed’ niqqer was touring in Chinese cities, WTF granted him visa anyway?
👆mix-raced Gu AiLing showing intimacy with niqqers in a, well, Tiffany ad
I’ve noticed younger Chinese women closely follow the trends of what is ‘trendy’ in America/Europe instead of their own roots,
Mao opened a ‘Pandora’s box’ by calling the ‘liberation of women’, in a famine-plagued China recovering and rebuilding from the ashes of jap invasion & bloody civil wars, Well,
maybe dire time needs dire solution, but not anymore,
The current landside declining birth rate largely fall to the trickery of woke ideo. and ‘Women Stronk’ mentality inherited from Mao’s ideas that ‘Women should work like men and step outside family’.
I was sickened by seeing a ‘trans/homo/queer-esque’ personality called JinXin 金星, showing up in EVERY major Chinese tv station years back, in ancient Qin or Han dynasty guided by Fajia (Legalism) , this freak would hung at the tallest bell tower and let children see the vultures do their job.
Hard drugs are much easier to trace but only actually effected a dozens few,
while mind drugs are much harder to fend off but once let in leads to degeneracy.
This is a very provocative piece from Ron. (I say “provocative” positively. All of Ron’s works possess intellectual heft, even when I disagree with them.)
I am personally ambivalent on Trump’s tariff package. I think this could be a case where he’s applying them too haphazardly.
I must take umbrage with Ron, however, in describing Mexic0 & Canada as “friendly allies.” Nothing could be further from the truth.
The fact of the matter is both of these countries allowed themselves to be a springboard to dump millions of third country illegals into the U.S., in conjunction with the Soros-funded “caravans.” Hardly a “good neighbor” policy.
No one really knows the exact #’s. I have seen estimates of a range of 8.5 million all the way up to 25 million. I always stick with the 8.5 figure personally lest I be accused of hyperbole. This would obviously be 8.5 million too many.
If I were Trump, AFTER sealing the southern border AIRTIGHT, I would give both these countries an ultimatum:
Either you take them all back immediately, EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM, or we will slap a 400% TARIFF against you. This might be our only option.
Several rogue district court judges, as well as our compromised garbage Supreme Court, have issued some pretty outlandish rulings the past few weeks:
The Supreme’s have said that Trump can deport the gang bangers, but only after they have been given a “hearing.” They also ruled that Trump must somehow return the MS-13 member who was deported & who is now in El Salvador. I guess that their intent is to inform President Bukele that he is now under their jurisdiction. Good luck on that one.
And just now, some O’Bamer appointed dot District Court Judge has ruled that we cannot deport all of those that the Genocide Joe regime illegally & unconstitutionally flew directly in here from shitholes such as Haiti & Venezuela. Someone should tell this retarded bitch that immigration law originates with the Congress, NOT the Executive.
All of this is a recipe for disaster. This means that Trump will only be able to deport a very small # of the turd worlders, & that his presidency will thus be seen as a failure. The demonrats will then take back the House in 2026 & the Presidency in 2028.
The country will then implode & break apart into “red” & “blue” sections. This will result in much upheavel, dislocation & hardship. It will be interesting to know who the Supreme’s & the rest of the federal judiciary believe will then pay their funky asses their salaries.
I don’t know if the 2nd part of that is correct. Military spending is about 900Bof 6.5T of fed govt expenditures. US runs a deficit of about 1/4th to run its programs.
If we assume that all of deficit spending was made possible by the dollar’s status as reserve currency, and that if dollar were no longer the reserve currency, the govt would have to reduce spending by that much, we proportionally reduce military spending to 675B or so. Still 3x greater than China’s and far greater than any other country’s. I don’t think that if the dollar lost its status as the reserve currency, military expenditure would be significantly impacted. Anyway, it’s dumb because plenty of other countries run comparable deficits and have comparably large debts without having the reserve currency.
Let’s try to quantify the reserve currency advantage:
1. Dollars held outside America which do not earn an interest which compensates owner for devaluation. We exclude dollars within America cause that’s just American govt robbing the private citizens. So that is foreign owned M1. Total M1 is about 18T and foreign owned share is maybe 4T. The devaluation is about 4% per year, so 160 billion USD.
2. Lower interest rate on debt. Investors buy US bonds at a lower rate than they would other currencies. I don’t even know if this is true or not. Let’s say that’s 1.5%. On 35T, that is 525B.
So by having the reserve currency the US gets a subsidy of 785B per year which is about 2.6% of its GDP. A boost but not huge.
Then there is the political advantage of having the reserve currency.
Tombstone, a hefty volume published in 2008 by Yan Jinsheng, a former high-ranking Chinese journalist, and it seemed quite persuasive to me. According to Yan, the official total of merely 18 million deaths reported by China’s own government was a severe underestimate, and the true body-count of excess fatalities from starvation, malnutrition, and illness probably totaled around 35-40 million.
The book Tombstone is essentially a fabrication.
It is essentially a smear campaign against the previous regime after China took the capitalist road.
The data sources listed in the book are basically fabricated.
The so-called “birth population gap” is also fabricated.
To take the simplest example, the number of people born in 1960 announced by the National Bureau of Statistics of China is even 900,000 less than the number of people born in 1960 who were still alive and living in China in 2000.
In the past 40 years, the number of Chinese who moved abroad and died is obviously not small. At least more than 200,000.
If you can find the official data released by China for 1984, you will easily find that the data for 1960 is fabricated because it is self-contradictory.
A true ‘shit-hole’ is anywhere that racist swine like you inhabit.
China had its “never again” calamity with opium use in the 19th century, so it is not
surprising that they have draconian policies regarding psychotropic or addictive
substances. If Trump had a modicum of knowledge about Chinese history he would
understand their refusal to be humiliated by American tariffs and b.s. threats
We can’t omit alcohol since it is the most widely used and destructive compound
in human history, a fact recently confirmed by studies implicating alcohol as a
carcinogen. The dark humor among my Native American relatives is that those who
drink will not not live long enough to get cancer, but a few months ago I met a very
young Native woman who was waiting for an MRI to provide her surgeons with
more refined views of her stomach cancer.
Legal and illegal drug use in the U.S. are driven by a financial motive. Can anyone
explain the difference between a street gang which sells drugs and a pharmaceutical
company. You’re right. One has a license and more Representatives in Congress
The difference is that the Chinese do not object if a State has friendly relations with them AND the West, whereas the West STILL DEMANDS total subservience and antagonism towards China, Russia and Iran etc.
Ah, actually the biggest issue on our side is women’s rights.
LGBTQ is something that we are told not to promote in our culture.
For example, one of my colleagues is gay, but we generally avoid talking about it.
Basically, cultures like homosexuality and transsexuals are considered perverted.
As for jinxing, she was previously banned by local officials for deliberately waving a rainbow flag during a song and dance troupe performance.
Later, she tried to expose the personal information of the officials who handled the incident on the Internet, saying that she did not intentionally wave the rainbow flag… But of course there was a video. She obviously did it on purpose. And so, of course, she was banned from the country.
My assessment is, she deserved it.
CCP did acknowledge Nationalist troop’s work and sacrifice in the war against the Japs. but they prosecuted those KMT who committed war crimes during the struggle between KMT and CCP.
Why are you, the Americans, hopping mad when the Chinese are doing something you asked for it? If you can’t take the heat get out of the kitchen and go home, uneducated redneck.
Don’t underestimate Mississippi. They export a lot of rap music.
The homosexual “problem” will never understood or remedied until we understand how
sexual identity is formed, likely at a very young age by family dynamics, but possibly as
a result of genetics or a biological or en utero influence. As a social worker, I had contact
with a number of adolescents with sexual identity confusion, complicated by being in
families that were dysfunctional in every conceivable way.
It seems unfair to punish people because of their sexual identity and and practices even
if the majority is repulsed by such behavior, but there is a natural prohibition against
all adult sexual contact with minors. The Western nations may have gone too far in
extending legal privileges to gays and lesbians, but each country must decide for itself.
The militant, rainbow flag waving folks are, as you suggest, begging for trouble.
In fact, if you look at the problem of drug addiction in the United States, it is tied to the history of drug promotion.
When Purdue found there was money to be made, Teva, Johnson & Johnson and a host of other companies got involved.
And when those patients go to purgatory because of drugs like OxyContin, they use that as an excuse to try more illicit drugs.
It’s the same with marijuana. When addicts try marijuana initially, they use it as a stepping stone to try more addictive drugs.
It used to be military spending was roughly equivalent to the deficit;
the system has been described as “Military Keynesianism” but has a distinct
flavor of its own; so we´re talking a little over $1.5T (nukes, veterans and
black ops are not accounted for under the Pentagon). It is also the 1:1 driver
of GDP since 1810 (!).
An economy is not some Fischer Technik kit, there are interdependencies.
The permanent wars keep profit rates up*, unemployment low (and the
undesirables overseas), the dollar up, borrowing costs low (dollar assets are a bit
less likely to be bombed … until recently) and “deals” favorable;
the leverage is enormous, so losing the reserve currency (currently a de facto
3% excise tax on every transaction denominated in $$$, as well as spying on everybody
and his mama) will result in cascading failure.
*Adolf Kozlik (Der Vergeudungskapitalismus, 1962) from an orthodox
Marxist POV argued that the burning-off of excess capital was the main function,
that “spacetrottery” could do that but would not long be justifiable to the black
undertow while war always goes.
So the US suck up tributes via the reserve currency and burn off the excess formed
capital via wars so it doesn´t clog up the system – it´s a feedback loop (and a Ponzi).
As a result the American worker finds himself reduced to a pet the finance lords
keep for their amusement, as his product can never be profitable.
«But according to Trump’s framework, those countries with which we had a trade surplus would still be hit with a new 10% tariff while those with which we had a deficit would suffer much larger tariffs, and these would then be jacked up if those countries decided to retaliate. So the apparent goal and endpoint of Trump’s policies would be to sharply reduce or even eliminate all our trade with the rest of the world. Thus, Trump was self-sanctioning America»
Like many Trump acts that makes a lot of sense even if presented very coarsely: the Perot/Buchanan/Trump side has a very reasonable aim to *consolidate* the USA empire which they think has become overstretched. That is what “America First” means: consolidate an empire that has become too decentralized and expensive thus more vulnerable economically/.
«cutting off the global trade of countries he didn’t like would severely hurt them, but cutting off our own trade would strengthen our country and benefit the American people»
That would indeed work because the USA is very different from most other countries: being self-sufficient in cereals and fuels, and in most minerals, it needs to trade a lot less, and if the goal is to consolidate the USA empire then shortening logistics chains and bringing back to the center of the empire many industries makes that center stronger. Very few geographical areas are so self-sufficient that they do not *need* to trade notably Russia, Brazil, South Africa and to some extent China-mainland (plus some quite small or backwards)..
There is an enormous difference between *having* to trade to import essentials like cereals, fuels, minerals because a country does not have them (for example UK, Japan), and trading to import labor-intensive goods and services simply because foreign wages are a lot lower.
«persuading major corporations to increase their domestic investment and relocate their factories back to our shores. But as numerous critics have pointed out, his policies seem rather unlikely to achieve that result. Creating a major factory along with its associated sub-contractors and supply-chains is a very lengthy and expensive undertaking»
This claim is a common bit of ridiculous propaganda: apparently bringing entire factories and whole industries and building from scratch the whole infrastructure around them in former swamps in China-mainland, China-Taiwan, Vietnam etc. over the past 20 years has been very easy, but bringing them back to the USA where there is already a lot of infrastructure is going to be a lot harder. Just have a look at old photos and maps of Shenzhen, for example:
That this claim is ridiculous and made in bad faith by those critics is rather easy to prove: many USA businesses (and some chinese ones) with chinese factories have *already* planned to move many of them several thousand kms away from China-mainland, to Vietnam, India, etc.; just not to the USA, simply because absent tariffs those countries have even cheaper wages than China-mainland, never mind the USA. Nobody has argued that such plans “seem rather unlikely to achieve that result”.
From a human point of view, I really don’t like rap. When I hear this kind of stuff, I feel like my brain and my ears are insulted.
Our disdain for rap led to the emergence of a term called “nigger chanting.”
In fact, when I was a teenager, I almost went astray because I looked like a woman, had pure white skin, and had a sweet voice.
I’m glad Japanese adult movies put me in my right frame of mind.
Your moniker should be changed to “mulga nobrain.” Most of your comments are semi-literate at best. I sure hope you’re not physically in my country, consuming our resources. Go to hell you lowlife 70 IQ non-White piece of flotsam!!!
Ah, yes, the dreadful and terrible roar of white supremacy! Who will not fear? Followed by the sore but deliciously mournful tears of the same; but who shall console them? Why is it that instead of tears, it is the sound of singing and laughter that’s heard?
Alas, the big bad “white” American bully sits alone on his playground. He has no friends. They’ve surrounded him. They all cry out for his life!
America found his father’s flask of ‘Devils Springs’ and gluttonous as he is, he drank it all by himself, bright and early in the morning before school. Then he went to school, pissed and sharted himself and ended up in pool of his own vomit.
They’re coming to get you America you bad boy! They’re coming to get you American you bully!
They’re whispering and conspiring against you; it seems a tyrant’s reign always ends in treason!
They’re gathering their weapons together: fire sticks and fire stones; innumerable blows shall fall equal to the reasons.
Sure, the USA is largely self-sufficient in food and energy. But not at all self-sufficient in consumer goods. And don’t forget that it was the lack of the latter that was the fatal weakness of the old USSR.
If you believe that the USA can create a Shenzhen, you’re simply delusional.
Agreed with Chinese’s mentality of ‘appear to be weak to gain strength and time’
While Jewmurica’s source and outcome in productivity look shady,
e.g.
large sector of speculations in finance and ‘services’ (jewggle, netflix, msoft, jewracle, am-zion),
lazy and incompetent workers at EVERY level across the categories, woketards, leftover leftie rosies, affirmative act. niqqers, beaners, lowest hanging fruits from around the world claiming ‘being prosecuted for muh-po-leech-tickal reasons,,
There you go, bet it’s a typo : D
I glanced at your website:
“YHWH OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS is a tax-exempt organized movement founded on September 28, 1986, by YHWH OF HOSTS, to magnify His Holy Name, to make YHWHrusalem a praise in the earth, and to prepare the way before Him. YHWH, for the sake of His Holy Name, has established YHWH OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS also to gather the preserved of Yisrael and to be a light unto the Gentiles that His salvation can go to the ends of the earth.’
Another noxious parasitic NGO spouting Jewish should supremacism and universal hate that shouod be banned.
To be honest I find new gen. Chinese women slip slopped to Western woke-tier retardness,
Most of the 25~30 range women I worked with, talked with and ‘interacted’ are incredibly entitled, sleazy and self delusional, if not matching those ones across the ocean
They believe they are strong and independent yet always looking for A MALE to leech on or scapegoat, their lack of self awareness made themselves naive & vulnerable, and they thought whoring and bitching around is a way to punish men, or showing strength
On contrast Chinese men at this age group are fairly easy going, knowing the boundaries and willingly to co-op, understood mutual benefit is the key not zero-sum.
No wonder marriage for Chinese youth is banging against the wall, receiving/giving ends are not bi-communicational and Chinese men could LITERALLY swap them with Viet. Laos. JP KOR women, their children would still raise as Chinese.
If you got deep pocket sounds your family does, why not go for Russian women? Less headache and much better cost performance, ALL the way round (I had one polish gf)
Another soul rescued and kept straight by porn!
My features were far too coarse to have ever been
mistaken for a woman, but my salvation was
to grow a beard as soon as I could.
The individual differences in drug reactions and addiction
are simply amazing. I was given oxycontin once after
surgery, and have always refused to take it since.
That damned drug was so constipating…
well, you can imagine the rest,
as the days went by.
Yes, but chanting can be soothing, like when the monks do it. In terms of annoyance, I place rap between a woman’s nagging and a small dog yapping. But I’m in general very sensitive to noise.
That all sounds good to me.
Perhaps the chanting we are describing is more like Buddhist chanting.
Buddhist chanting is not as smooth as Christian chanting. For example, here is a Buddhist passage: na mo, he le da na, duo la ye ye
A lot of rap stars we have here, you end up finding out he’s a criminal.Having sex with young fans, advocating drug use, etc.
Worthy of being banned from the entertainment industry.
I wonder why the painkillers are necessary. It seems that Western therapies are happy to give you painkillers that look free or cheap.
However, we don’t usually use painkillers here unless a person is suffering at the level of cancer. The doctor’s attitude toward pain is often “unless the pain is unbearable to the point of shock, try not to use painkillers to prevent the error of diagnosis or condition changes by disguising signs.”
Chinese doctors who prescribe painkillers face intense scrutiny and multiple levels of supervision, and can face criminal charges that carry the maximum death penalty if they knowingly steal the drugs to sell.
For us, the pain, with patience, is over.
The gay community has been sabotaged, fatally, just as they reached social acceptance, by the ‘trans-gender’ insanity, a movement deeply homophobic and misogynistic and riddled with paedophiles. Sane gays has rejected the lunacy, but the MSM, which loves all sorts of socially divisive shite, ignores them.
Get with the program. A meme permeating the Sinophobia industrial complex has China’s REAL population at only three hundred million, making the ‘Carmnist’ murder toll, ONE BILLION!! I kid you not.
Actually, it does not. The key phrase is “logically entail”.
That the United Nations has “exclusively recognized the People’s Republic of China as the one and only China” goes to show (not for the first time in human history) that “might makes right”.
Napoleon snatched the crown from the Pope’s hands and crowned himself Emperor of the French. So far as I know, no one in France objected.
India invaded and seized Goa, which it had no right to under International Law, and still holds it. Is the Parliament of Chihuahuas called the “U.N.” going to tell India to let go of it?
So, Vidi: Since secession is considered unconstitutional, is Hawaii an eternally inseparable part of the United States of “America”? McKinley’s gunboats said so. Xi’s PLA will probably say that Taiwan Province is an inseparable part of the PRC.
Louis XIV had this motto embossed on his cannons: ULTIMA RATIO REGIUM : “The final argument of kings”.
Yes, thanks. I didn’t notice that.
Not a single thing you said refutes the fact that Taiwan is part of China.
Both China and Taiwan consider Taiwan part of China.
No notable country on Earth considers Taiwan independent.
No major corporation considers Taiwan independent.
No major international organization considers Taiwan independent.
If Taiwan attempted to become independent, China would prevent them from doing so, something they have stated repeatedly.
The fact America might want Taiwan to be independent does not change reality.
“Gay community” has always been like that.
The bigger problem is that we don’t know how to fall in love.
Honestly, I don’t know how to be in a relationship.
We have been taught that puppy love is harmful to learning.
I may have loved a person in elementary school, and at that time I thought I would only love her in my life.
This feeling of love is very deep, but by the middle school period, the teacher’s education is basically to prohibit puppy love.
After that, I encouraged myself to study hard by exterminating my feelings.
More than 20 years later, I can still remember what she looked like, and I can’t forget her, but I just can’t have the love for anyone else.
We have this saying, the more you abandon love, the stronger you will become.
If you read our xiuxian（修仙） novels, you will come to a similar conclusion.People have seven feelings and six desires but those who practice this exercise will eventually break off the seven feelings and six desires and become immortals without feelings.
I actually don’t feel love at all, even though I do get sexual pleasure from watching adult movies.
But I think I have a separate view of sex and love.
In addition, I prefer to watch animations and galgames, and I think women in animations（galgame） can bring me a better relationship experience.
I actually think it’s pretty common.This may be the result of the traditional concept of Chinese people.If I become a parent, then I will ask my children to destroy their feelings, concentrate on learning.My father and mother were the same.
The CPC seems to have recently tried to reverse this, but I think with little success.
In this kind of mentality, even if my parents arranged a marriage for me, I would not like to.
As for women in other countries, there is a language barrier which makes communication more difficult.
«Sure, the USA is largely self-sufficient in food and energy. But not at all self-sufficient in consumer goods.»
That is very naive: once you have food and energy making consumer goods is easy. So many people seem to have forgotten that not so long ago the USA was a big exporter of consumer goods.
« And don’t forget that it was the lack of the latter that was the fatal weakness of the old USSR.»
According to neoliberal Gaidar it was the lack of cereals: soviet agriculture was dysfunctional and once the USSR depended on oil exports to pay for grain imports from the USA and vassals it was easy to destroy. The lack of consumer goods was just a consequence of devoting a large percent of the state budget to weapons as the USSR was surrounded (guns instead of butter). Putin remembers that well and has written more than once that the policy now is butter and guns, and that is why the SMO is a small operation instead of a war. the USA have had a “butter and guns” policy since Vietnam and that is why the Fed balance sheet and private debt have been ballooning (even if after Clinton military expenses were cut significantly).
«If you believe that the USA can create a Shenzhen, you’re simply delusional.»
But the USA (and the EU) *did create* Shenzhen and many other “clusters” in China and elsewhere, from scratch, in a fairly short time. And until not so many years ago the USA had itself *many* “Shenzhens”, of which the car cluster in Detroit was just one. There were USA “Shenzhens” even for shoe manufacturing, for furniture, for rubber, etc. when USA workers were cheap and non-unionized and the USA government turned a blind eye to massacres of strikers or the disappearance of worker leaders (“concrete shoes” style).
Not only that but many USA corporations have been leaving China because wages there have become too high (they have been growing at 7-10% compound for 20 years) and are creating entirely new “Shenzhens” in other countries lower wage countries. Even chinese corporations are doing that (for example shoe manufacturing in Ethiopia).
What most people here and elsewhere seem to forget is that from the point of view of corporate headquarters whether the factories are in Cleveland, Wushan, Manila, Warsaw, Bangalore, Tijuana, does not matter as long as the local government enforces the control of corporate HQ.
For USA corporate HQ moving Shenzhen-sized clusters of industry from country A and B is just business-as-usual, and country B could be Ohio or Indonesia, it does not matter to the outcome.
I can predict that some will say “but the USA no longer has the expertise to build these things” and that is what green cards have always been for (and not just for Von Braun). The USA (or the UK etc.) do not need to spend their own taxpayers money to educate the mass of their citizens as there is a colossal global oversupply or well educated and desperate workers.
As a further specific example many USA tech corporates want to build many datacentres in the USA itself and the reason is transparent: most of their techie workforce is no longer in the USA so if they strike and want to “Occupy Data Centres” they cannot. The strikers could be “Locked Out” simply by disabling their accounts.
NB: most people even in the USA do not get how obsessed USA corporate executive are with preventing labor unions and that many corporates ask of every project proposal to have a section on how to prevent unionization in that project, and have dedicate teams of anti-unionization experts and consultants.
I am answering to both you and Patrick McNally.
The best way to deduce how much each side contribute to the war against the Japs is to look at the action from the Japs itself.
1) Chongqing, the headquarters of the KMT during those times, was aerial bombed by the Japs over 200 times in a period of six years. Over 20 of those were assassination attempts on Chiang himself. Yanan, the stronghold of the CCP, was aerial bombed one time in the early phase of the war, and that is about it. This clearly shows that Japan saw the KMT as its enemy and not the CCP.
2) Japanese archives record that the number of Japanese soldiers killed on the Chinese battlefield during World War II was about 2.5 million, of which only 851 died at the hands of the Communist army. At the Yasukuni Shrine in Japan, a plaque records the name, place of origin, date of birth, and death of every Japanese soldier who died in the war. The plaque records in detail the Japanese soldiers who died in battles with various countries. Among them, a total of 851 Japanese soldiers died in battles with the Chinese Communist Force.
Divide 851 by 2,500000, and the CCP’s war effort is 0.03404 percent, and the KMT’s war effort is 99.96596 percent.
China has improved a lot in the post-Mao years. That a majority of Chinese are satisfied with the government today doesn’t mean that the conclusion that Mao was 100% bad and 0% good is incorrect. There is no contradiction. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Let me repeat, to say Mao was 0% good and 100% bad is to delegitimize the CCP itself, and no political party would do that. This is the only reason the CCP says Mao was 70% good and 30% bad.
In truth, Mao was 0% good and 100% bad.
LOL, not if the cost of living for your workforce is so high that you can’t pay them a liveable wage and be competitive on the global market at the same time.
«“once you have food and energy making consumer goods is easy.”
LOL, not if the cost of living for your workforce is so high that you can’t pay them a liveable wage and be competitive on the global market at the same time.»
That is the point of tariffs: to make in the country using them foreign labor appear as expensive as local labor, so there is no need for the local workers to be “competitive on the global market”.
Of course people whose main income does not come from work reject that, they want to buy consumer goods made by the cheapest workers in the world without any tariffs.
There are three main options for USA workers:
#1 Reduce their their costs of living and their wages to the same level as abroad.
#2 Impose tariffs that make wages abroad appear as high as locally.
#3 Get lost!
The USA and UK governments have chosen #3 since Reagan and Thatcher but slowly and somewhat less slowly since the 1991 and 2001.
Ironically if not bizarrely, Generalissimo Chiang thought the Communists were more of a threat than the Japanese. He is reported to have said, “The Japanese are a disease of the skin, the Communists are a disease of the heart.”
Chiang’s official policy during the Japanese invasions of Manchuria in 1931 and in Rehe in 1933 was that of non-resistance. The Tanggu Truce of May 31, 1933, which he authorized, gave the Japs control of Manchuria and a free hand to do as they bloody well pleased.
How fake and controlled was the Chinese Civil War and Chinese War of Resistance against Japan?
Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) spent six years in Japan, served in the Imperial Japanese Army from 1909 to 1911 and spoke the language. Well aware that Japanese military know-how was a cut above what the KMT officer class had to offer, he was keen to make use of skilled Japanese officers like Yasuji Okamura.
Yasuji Okamura (岡村 寧次) was a general of the Imperial Japanese Army, commander-in-chief of the China Expeditionary Army from November 1944 to the end of World War II. Okamura entered the 16th class of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1899 and graduated in 1904. In 1907, he was promoted to lieutenant and was assigned to the Army Academy to assist with the training of cadets from China, according to Wikipedia.
Chiang was a notorious Jap-lover, but his love was one-sided and unrequited. His policy of non resistance to the Japanese invasion of China only makes sense if he was a double agent or controlled opposition. I am unable to ascertain what rank Chiang obtained in the Imperial Japanese Army or if he ever got an army pension–Jewish controlled MSM is silent on this. In any event, it would be a small pension and in the Japanese Yen currency, of course. Would Chiang turn down his Jap army pension on principle and loyalty to China?
His nickname, by the way, was “Cash My Cheque”. So my guess is NO.
> Japanese archives record that the number of Japanese soldiers killed on the Chinese battlefield during World War II was about 2.5 million
There you seem to be adding your own interpretations to something a bit different. According to Robert Goralski, World War II Almanac: 1931-1945, p. 427, the total Japanese troops killed in action in all theaters during 1937-45 was 1,140,429, with 485,717 of these deaths occurring in action against US forces, 208,026 against British and Dutch forces, and 202,958 happening in China.
How do you know? Apart from the time travel, that is.
So you envision a world where the United States will be doing no importing/exporting?
The current government in China openly recognized the fact that the nationalist government of China carried the main burden in the war against the Japs aggression. Only the Americans and their lackeys are rewriting history with fake narratives for other nations to create hate and insert wedges for their no-good imperialist purpose of divide and rule.
The Chinese nationalist government carried out their resistance against the barbaric invasion Japs using an ineffective Western war style. In contrast, the CCP used guerrilla warfare to fight against the barbaric invasion Japs according to the resources it had.
CCP controlled 90% of the area under the Jap’s “occupation”. CPP forces were dispersed, and the Jap’s war machines like bombers, warships, or mechanized units were useless against CCP forces. So the Japs took out of their frustration by using those criminal war machines to murder hapless Chinese civilians controlled by the Chinese nationalist government.
Mind you, Americans were the main pusher of the Japs barbaric invasion of China. Before the Pearl Habour incident, America was the Jap’s major war materials and technology supplier, meanwhile, the Americans and other Westerners blockaded war materials to reach the Chinese.
If someone is making a highly specialized competitive product, that is one thing. And we should welcome the competition. That is the case with foreign automobiles.
However, that is where the analogy ends. What is happening now is, our own automobiles are being made in foreign nations and then re-imported back to us.
Are you portraying Western politicians under the Jewish puppet master’s control playbook model to Chiang with a lot of conjectures? BTW, Donald Trump is not only called Mr. “You’re fired”, but he also said “Cash My Cheque” while wielding the global tariff war blackmail like a Mafia.
The Americans and their lackeys are greedy, barbaric, and ‘God-fearing’ morally defunct evil ‘Puritan’ cult.
«there is no need for the local workers to be “competitive on the global market”»
«envision a world where the United States will be doing no importing/exporting?»
In theory (with some limitations e.g. no bananas for example) that would be possible, as the USA are self-sufficient in fuel and cereals and obviously in labor, and also in capital. A continental power in a mostly temperate band of latitudes is a nice situation.
But very limited foreign trade would be nothing new: for many decades the USA had a very limited percent (2-3%) of foreign imports especially compared to trading countries like the UK, Germany, Japan.
The increase in imports in the 1970s was due to the quadrupling of the price of oil, and the huge surge after 2001 was due to the entry of China in the WTO and the smaller rise after 2020 I guess was due to the extremely loose credit policy of the Fed. Note also that up to the 1970s USA had a goods trade surplus and the deficit started to be serious only thanks to Reagan in the 1980s when the Rust Belt was created. The imports (and exports) fall after 2010 shows that the 2009 recession never ended.
Note: while Ron Unz is clearly smart and knowledgeable he has admitted not having been interested in history for many years and I guess that he is still catching up with economic history; while many usians do not even care about *any* type of history often because of choice but also because of the pressure of more urgent things like surviving with 2-3 low paid insecure jobs.
Here’s another “conjecture”–I call it connecting the Kosher dots–that might be of interest to you and other China commentators:
Okay, Ed Lakewood is just an anonymous guy on the Internet, but accusations of rampant corruption were made against Chiang and the KMT by none other than US General Joseph Warren “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell (19 March 1883 – 12 October 1946) who served in the China Burma India Theater during World War II. General Stilwell was named Chief of Staff and advisor to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, the commander of Nationalist Chinese forces, in February 1942.
Have I said anything good or bad about the US? I don’t know why you always bring up the US when I am talking about Mao. What I think about the US, whether it is good or bad, or even whether I have an opinion, is irrelevant to what I am talking about, which is Mao. The reason I keep talking about Mao is that I’ve noticed a lot of bonehead Mao worshippers.
在中国物理学界，饶毓泰与叶企孙被并称为“双雄”或“双子星座”，是这一学科的奠基人、学术权威。他于1922年获普林斯顿大学博士学位。归国后，饶毓泰应南开大学校长张伯苓聘请，担任南开大学教授，创立物理系并兼系主任。
1933年，饶毓泰受北大校长蒋梦麟之聘，出任物理系主任。一时间，北大理学院人杰云集，声光顿起，其风头力压群雄，教学已接近了国际水平。
1937年抗战爆发后，饶毓泰出任西南联大物理系主任。
1949年以后，饶毓泰继续担任北大校务委员会委员兼理学院院长、物理系主任。此时饶氏雄心勃勃，准备大干一番事业，并有“急起直追，赶上世界学术水平”的讲话。想不到1952年年初，“三反运动”开始，饶毓泰即成为箭靶，他最得意的一个学生在大会上指责其所谓“赶上世界学术水平”，是自私自利的思想在作怪。饶闻听大怒，表示不能接受这一指责，但随之而来的是北大副校长汤用彤站出来，以同样的观点批评饶的思想有问题，饶如同当头挨了一记闷棍，顿感天旋地转，不知如何是好。随着运动不断深入，饶毓泰在北大的本兼各职全被抹掉。饶氏悲愤交加，旧病复发，晕倒于家中，随后又一度精神失常，不辨牛马。当他的好友、中国科学院副院长竺可桢去看望他时，只见饶眼睛直视无睹，不能认人！
文革开始后，已是75岁高龄的饶毓泰仍然未被放过，作为“反动学术权威”被揪上“斗鬼台”，遭到凌辱与迫害，其被迫弯腰屈膝之状，令见者不忍目睹。
1968年10月14日，已重病在身的饶毓泰被迫向“革命的当权派”做口头交代：“学习了一些马列原着和毛主席着作，思想上受到很大教育，特别是毛主席关于‘全心全意为人民服务’的思想，对自己的教育最深刻。”最后，饶以哀惋的语调说道：“我们这样的人已经老了，没有用了。今后建设国家的担子落在你们年轻人身上。”
两天后的16日，北大传出了饶毓泰在校内燕南园41号家中死亡的消息。到底因何死亡，在当时及以后相当长一段时间里，北大当权者讳莫如深，直到80年代初才渐被外界所知。远在大洋彼岸、一直关注着饶氏命运的吴大猷于《怀念饶毓泰师》中做了一点披露：“1968年大陆‘文革’之乱，有如蝗虫，即一生严正从无政治活动如饶氏者，亦横遭侮辱，于10月16日自缢于北大教授住宅。”
在中国物理学界，饶毓泰与叶企孙被并称为“双雄”或“双子星座”，是这一学科的奠基人、学术权威。他于1922年获普林斯顿大学博士学位。归国后，饶毓泰应南开大学校长张伯苓聘请，担任南开大学教授，创立物理系并兼系主任。
1933年，饶毓泰受北大校长蒋梦麟之聘，出任物理系主任。一时间，北大理学院人杰云集，声光顿起，其风头力压群雄，教学已接近了国际水平。
1937年抗战爆发后，饶毓泰出任西南联大物理系主任。
1949年以后，饶毓泰继续担任北大校务委员会委员兼理学院院长、物理系主任。此时饶氏雄心勃勃，准备大干一番事业，并有“急起直追，赶上世界学术水平”的讲话。想不到1952年年初，“三反运动”开始，饶毓泰即成为箭靶，他最得意的一个学生在大会上指责其所谓“赶上世界学术水平”，是自私自利的思想在作怪。饶闻听大怒，表示不能接受这一指责，但随之而来的是北大副校长汤用彤站出来，以同样的观点批评饶的思想有问题，饶如同当头挨了一记闷棍，顿感天旋地转，不知如何是好。随着运动不断深入，饶毓泰在北大的本兼各职全被抹掉。饶氏悲愤交加，旧病复发，晕倒于家中，随后又一度精神失常，不辨牛马。当他的好友、中国科学院副院长竺可桢去看望他时，只见饶眼睛直视无睹，不能认人！
文革开始后，已是75岁高龄的饶毓泰仍然未被放过，作为“反动学术权威”被揪上“斗鬼台”，遭到凌辱与迫害，其被迫弯腰屈膝之状，令见者不忍目睹。
1968年10月14日，已重病在身的饶毓泰被迫向“革命的当权派”做口头交代：“学习了一些马列原着和毛主席着作，思想上受到很大教育，特别是毛主席关于‘全心全意为人民服务’的思想，对自己的教育最深刻。”最后，饶以哀惋的语调说道：“我们这样的人已经老了，没有用了。今后建设国家的担子落在你们年轻人身上。”
两天后的16日，北大传出了饶毓泰在校内燕南园41号家中死亡的消息。到底因何死亡，在当时及以后相当长一段时间里，北大当权者讳莫如深，直到80年代初才渐被外界所知。远在大洋彼岸、一直关注着饶氏命运的吴大猷于《怀念饶毓泰师》中做了一点披露：“1968年大陆‘文革’之乱，有如蝗虫，即一生严正从无政治活动如饶氏者，亦横遭侮辱，于10月16日自缢于北大教授住宅。”
The choice of extreme pain or the risk of addiction is always difficult
because we cannot know in advance who is likely to become addicted.
When people are in their last days they should not suffer needlessly.
Jackie Robinson broke the baseball color barrier 78 years ago today in New York City when Trump was a baby there.
Thank you bring the video out.
That is the one.
An unsolicited opinion. And he was not saying anything the Chinese people, especially the elites, do not already know. Unfortunately he is not just an average Singaporean.
Where’s the “huge surge” after 2001? It’s clearly the same trend that started in 1991.
Look at the current account balance 1991-2000.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BN.CAB.XOKA.CD?locations=US
Do you see the effects of China entering WTO in 2001 anywhere on that chart? I don’t.
For future China trips, I’d suggest get Alipay and link it to your CC or deposit account,
Alipay is a gateway that could get you tons of deals than standalone,
e.g. On Alipay’s front page there is a Flying Piggy icon, that’s FeiZhu app, book a tour ticket to ForbidenCity Museum there, you would get a 20% off promo.
As a foreigner without a Chinese mobile number, Alipay is your only choice but you will need data access. Alipay was my primary App; everything is in English with a very handy Chinese to English translator. Image translater very usefull for menu’s. Anyway, you are correct, the main page has links to promotions etc…wonderful App.
Well, in that video he was speaking to Singaporeans at an event in Singapore.
He was asked to explain to his audience what to expect of the tariff war.
His answer was basically:
A. As an economist, the best is not to retaliate.
B. But as a politician, one has to take in other considerations, so they may be forced to retaliate.
I don’t perceive him as trying to tell anyone in the PRC anything. It would be delusional for tiny Singapore to think that gigantic China would listen to them.
I further doubt that he meant anything besides explaining the challenging times to Singaporeans because Singapore knows better than to operate its diplomacy from a public podium like the Americans. That is not the way they do things. One can easily see this in ASEAN matters, where all consultations are private. It is only when international agreements are finalised, are they announced to the public.
Singapore does not function like USA. If LHL had anything to say to the PRC, he would have done it in private diplomatic channels. And as Senior Minister, he has no real power, it is basically a retirement office, mostly ceremonial. Any communications would have to be done through the Prime Minister Wong, or Foreign Minister.
Anyways Singaporean leaders are known to explain things to their people in critical times. Here is the new PM explaining things to Singaporeans in a little more detail. I hope people in China don’t think that Wong was speaking to them, because he was only speaking to Singaporeans.
Here he answers questions Parliament during one of their sessions
A person with a narcissistic personality disorder needs to be the center
of attention at all times. Trump is traumatized when he is ignored, and
policy issues are always secondary to putting on a show. Who would
have guessed the Great Satan would be a clown.
LOL
But seriously though…and please forgive me for sounding unfeeling. But no matter how bad he is now, it will be well for Americans in the long run.
Different folks will have different preferences. Some folks prefer to rip the band aid off slowly, but having Trump is like ripping the band aid off quickly.
It is useless to cling on to the present system. It is rotten beyond repair.
After a difficult 20 or 30 years, America will surely rebound. It is filled with educated, intelligent people. The land is bountiful, the climate great. I think the important thing for Americans to do now is to dream what their future world would look like, and work towards it.
Trump depends on the forbearance of others, including his opponents,
in order to accomplish anything. Depending on the wisdom and
restraint of others is a risky way of governing.
“SM Lee Hsien Loong | 24 March 2025
Transcript of Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s fireside chat at the opening of Singapore Maritime Week on 24 March 2025.
…
Moderator: Yes, I think it will be rocky, as you say, and maybe at times worse than rocky. I would like to come now to what we read in the newspapers every morning, the tariff war and the retaliatory tariffs. It is not good for anyone, and there are no winners. How do you see this process or trajectory playing out?
SM Lee: Well, if you are an economist, you would advise China — your opponent is doing these things, imposing tariffs. He may think that it costs China, but actually it is also costing his own economy. Just stay calm and carry on, do not do anything. Because if you do something, you will
also hurt yourself. But politically, that is not possible. …”
https://www.pmo.gov.sg/Newsroom/SM-Lee-Hsien-Loong-Fireside-Chat-at-Singapore-Maritime-Week-2025
Please note that the question was: “How do you see this process or trajectory playing out?”
Alright, it is a “IF” answer. Nevertheless,
1. Which economist, besides Trump’s YES men, had really advised any country to “stay calm and carry on, do not do anything?” In reality, prominent economists had blame Trump for America and the world’s darker economic future.
2. And China would not be hurt if it does not do anything?
3. IF one is indeed looking for best for all, why not Trump walking back the tariff threat?
Lee’s indirect advice certainly would color the interpretation of Wong’s presentation, for some people.
It was not indirect advice. He was simply framing it as a difference between what an economist would advise, versus what a political leader would advise.
China is run by political leaders, not economists.
As can be seen if you look at the full context of what he said (bolded emphasis mine)
Well, if you are an economist, you would advise China — your opponent is doing these things, imposing tariffs. He may think that it costs China, but actually it is also costing his own economy. Just stay calm and carry on, do not do anything. Because if you do something, you will also hurt yourself. But politically, that is not possible. When somebody does this to you, politically, even if he is your best friend, you have to do something to show that you have taken note that he has done this to you, and you have to respond.
If one forces a reading of “advice given by LHL to China”, which I disagree with…..and you read the full text, can one not also interpret it as LHL advising China’s political advisors to retaliate? Since LHL himself is a political leader, and China’s leaders are also political leaders?
But I feel that forcing a “political advice” reading to it would be a mistake.
We are not talking about Who is Good and Who is Bad here.
It is clear to all that it is the USA that is the malevolent party, as is said clearly by LHL and Lawrence Wong.
LHL is NOT asking China to refrain from retaliating, neither is he saying that China should hold back for “the good of the world”.
All he is explaining TO SINGAPOREANS is the way world events are evolving so that they can be prepared for what is to come.
Not everything revolves around China. Singapore far more concerned about what is going on in our immediate neighbours of Malaysia and Indonesia than the other states in Asean. Singapore is far more concerned about what is going on in ASEAN than in China. China comes in 3rd or 4th in our priorities.
If Indonesia invades Singapore, or Malaysia cuts off our water supply, is China going to save us?
I believe that China’s leaders are wise and open minded enough understand this, and that is why they have not officially rebutted LHL or LW. If they are using small minded, prickly people like Shen Yi to do their unofficial criticism, it is certainly possible. But I will seriously doubt it until I see it on avenues such as Global Times or similar sub-official avenues. Of course with avenues like these, you would be in better touch than I.
The great famine and the death numbers during 1958-1961 is a very controversial topic in China. Much of the information in *Tombstone* has been debunked, making it an unreliable source.
I recall that in some of your previous writings, you argued that China historically fell into the Malthusian trap, and I agree with that assessment. If this argument holds true, shouldn’t the rapid population growth of 20-30% between 1949 and 1958 be considered the primary cause of the subsequent famine? Given that China was under a U.S.-led Western embargo and had not yet benefited from the Green Revolution, doesn’t such a dramatic population increase in such a short time actually reflect the success of Mao and the Communist Party’s policies?
I’m not suggesting that Mao and the Chinese Communists made no mistakes during the Great Leap Forward and the ensuing famine. They were not gods — all governments make errors. After nine years of significant achievements, Mao grew overconfident and lost his earlier caution.
Most countries, for most of history, exist in a stable state where they can withstand disturbances-whether government mistakes or natural disasters. However, a country trapped in the Malthusian equilibrium is inherently unstable; even minor disruptions can trigger famine and mass casualties, and this happened throughout Chinese history. A sudden population surge under such conditions represents a major shock. I doubt any government in the world could have prevented famine at that time without foreign aid or breakthroughs in agricultural technology.
Based on what I’ve heard from my parents and relatives about their experiences during that time, I believe that without the Communist Party’s efforts, the famine would have caused far more deaths. Has any country in history ever made its top 5% elites endure famine alongside the rest of the population? Many of my relatives voluntarily reduced their own salaries to help others.
My mother was in college then, and she—along with many other female students—gave part of their food rations to male classmates. As a result, most of the women in her class stopped menstruating due to malnutrition. Edema was also widespread, even affecting my father, despite being in what was likely the top 1% of earners at the time after took a voluntary pay cut of over 20%,
In his book, Yang claimed that the famine caused over 30 million “excess deaths” beyond normal mortality rates. Given that 30 million represented roughly 5% of China’s population at the time—on top of the baseline annual death rate of about 1%—this would imply that nearly every adult in China would have personally known (or heard of) relatives, close friends, neighbors or their relatives who died during that period.
Yet, in online debates among Chinese netizens, very few people actually report such firsthand accounts. The sheer scale of the claimed death toll contradicts the lived experiences of most citizens. To reconcile this discrepancy, proponents of the 30-million figure argue that the deaths were heavily concentrated in certain provinces or counties—even suggesting entire villages were wiped out—though they provide little hard evidence.
If such extreme localized devastation did occur, wouldn’t the responsibility lie primarily with local officials and villagers, rather than Mao himself?
Several years ago, I conducted an informal survey in my college WeChat group, which included over 130 classmates from across China. I asked: *Did anyone lose family members during the famine years? Only two responded with affirmative answers.
One classmate shared that his grandmother had passed away in her sixties in rural Sichuan – a province often cited for high famine mortality. The other recounted losing an infant sister and both grandparents in an Anhui village, another high-toll area.
Should these deaths be attributed to the famine? In a strict sense, yes—they were undoubtedly premature. However, historical context provides crucial perspective:
-The grandparents were in their sixties, already surpassing traditional Chinese life expectancy (as encapsulated in the ancient saying: “To live to seventy has always been rare” 人活七十古来稀). For comparison, three of my own grandparents and one step-grandmother died in their 40s and 50s before the Communist Party came to power. They all lived in cities and economically well off.
– The infant sister’s tragic death reflects the harsh realities of rural life in traditional China, where female children were often the first to be sacrificed during times of scarcity.
The Anhui classmate explained their village’s famine stemmed from the “big pot”*(大锅饭) system in 1958, where communal dining led to unplanned overconsumption. The practice was abandoned within a year, ending the local crisis.
Was it fundamentally wrong to allow hardworking farmers to eat their fill? Given China’s historical circumstances, such policy dilemmas were unavoidable. Consider these facts:
– For centuries, in China rarely had consistent access to sufficient food.
– When I learned from NPR that enslaved Black Americans 100 years ago received fish or meat in their daily rations, I was stunned—my family of six, among China’s top 5% in the 1970s, ate just about 20 oz of meat total per day.
These examples illustrate the profound poverty that characterized China’s starting point. Against this backdrop, the achievements of the Mao era become even more remarkable. Despite severe resource limitations and a Western economic embargo:
– The population grew from 500 million to 800 million in 30 years.
– Life expectancy surged from 35 to 68—near Western European levels.
Mao was China’s messiah. He saved the sinking ship of old China, rebuilt it, and set it sailing again. Deng merely corrected the ship’s course. Their contributions are incomparable. All the foundations for China’s economic takeoff over the past 40 years were laid during Mao’s era. Deng’s reforms were simply the latest necessary condition.
Compare China to countries like India. India had a similar starting point when it gained independence in 1947. It even had advantages: more arable land, better infrastructure left by the British, no war devastation, an open-door policy throughout, no Western embargo, and substantial foreign aid from both Western nations and the USSR. Yet its economy never took off. By the time of Mao’s death, China had surpassed India in nearly every social development metric—except per capita income.
>Don’t be a prissy ‘muh Constitution’ pedant
link — Conservatives need to come to terms with a simple fact: While the constitution is still a fundamentally sound document, it was written for an entirely different country than the one we have today. It was made for a high-trust, unified nation and people. Not competing tribes.
Don’t you notice that the question is “How do you see this process or trajectory playing out?”
Question about the future really does not have REAL answer. But it could reflect one’s preference.
LHL could give a simple answer without the “…if you are an economist, you would advise China. … Just stay calm and carry on, do not do anything. Because if you do something, you will also hurt yourself. ”
It is a What IF with threat.
My frame of thinking: If LHL is stupid, he might say something meaningless like a person drawing a snake with extraneous legs. If he is NOT stupid, then he mentioned China and “if you do something” for a purpose. BTW, the moderator is not a journalist, she is a Singaporean officials. She is Ambassador Chan Heng Chee. LHL did have time to prepare for the question?
I don’t think LHL is stupid. This will be my last post on this issue.
He mentioned China because it is clear to everyone in the world, all 7 billion of us, that the real struggle is between the USA and China.
The tariff war is ultimately about China, that is why he mentioned China.
Just for the sake of argument, let us just assume that i was wrong, and that he did intend to advise China.
Why should we read it as “China should not retaliate”?
When in in full text, it can also be read as “China should retaliate”? Since he specifically said …”you have to do something to show that you have taken note that he has done this to you, and you have to respond.“
But those of us who know LHL well, know that he would never throw petrol on a raging fire. He would not suggest such a thing to the leaders of China. This is why I do not believe he intended any “advice to China”. He was simply explaining the situation to his audience.
Of course he did.
She is not the ambassador to China. She is Ambassador-At-Large, ie. no fixed appointment.
The interview was at the Singapore Maritime Week, and event focused on international shipping trade. Such an event is important to us because it contributes a large chunk to Singapore’s economy.
Singapore’s economy traditionally always depended on its Southeast Asian hinterland.
In the same way that Hongkong’s economy depended on its China hinterland.
In the same way that Dubai’s economy depended on its Middle Eastern hinterland.
BRAVO!!!!!! Ten out of ten.
Totally agree. China industrialization began in the 1950’s, not 1980’s like what many ignorant commenters like to believe. Chinese exports soared after diplomatic relationship with the west improved under Deng, so many assume Mao’s economic policies was “disastrous.”
In fact, Deng had OVER “corrected the ship’s course” by abandoning many independently developed state-of-the-art projects that started under Mao, e.g. lithorgraphic machine, semiconductor, jet engine, commercial airplane, medical equipment etc, in favor of easy and profitable light industries. See for example:
Ref:
China was once the world leader in the lithorgraphic machine in the 1960’s, more advanced than Soviet, Europe, Korea and Japan of the time.
光刻机大败局（一）：比氢弹还难造？历史上的中国光刻机走在国际前沿，如今没落了？
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV19V411E7Ew/?spm_id_from=333.337.search-card.all.click
I was not planning to dwell further into this topic. But since you brought up a few more points, allow me to add this final comment:
As prominent leaders of a country, they [Lee or Wong] can not assume their speeches are private. It would be like Trump justifies his “kissing my ass” insult by saying his statement is meant for Americans only. Indeed, I truly believe Trump really intended to address only his supporters, but as a public figure, that is not possible.
In fact, I have heard Wong’s speech being referenced, quoted and re-quoted by more than 5 sources in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China in just the last week. That is called public.
This is a meaningless question. China and Singapore are not alliance and there is no treaty for any of this. Equally, the same question can be asked the other way: if China is at war with US or Japan, is Singapore going to help China? In fact, I could even imagine that Singapore assist US in a conflict in e.g. South China Sea or Malacca Strait, by providing logistic support to US, Australia or other western powers.
But if you are talking about ethnic affinity, I believe China will help the Chinese in Malaysia, Indonesia if racial persecution occurred like in the past.
Well, I certainly wouldn’t dispute your personal experiences or conversations, but here are a few points to consider:
(1) The Chinese population pyramid from a couple of decades later seems to be the strongest evidence of a gigantic famine I’ve ever seen in any such data. Can you find any other population pyramid that shows such a huge “hole” in the births and infants who would have been the most likely to die in such a famine? I don’t think that that birth control or abortion were widely available in rural China of that era, so the absence of surviving children from those years seems pretty indicative.
(2) The PRC government itself later claimed that 18 million Chinese died in the famine. So unless the PRC was lying, the personal recollections of your friends may be less than totally reliable. Perhaps you and your friends mostly came from urban families, which certainly experienced hunger and deprivation, but not the outright starvation allegedly found in large portions of the rural countryside.
(3) As far as I know, the Yang book seemed very carefully put together and hasn’t been debunked. Do you have an English version of that debunking? I’m also curious whether you and your friends have actually read the Yang book or at least that key chapter, or are merely relying upon hostile comments from critics.
Of course that is true. But those who are listening have a responsibility to put it in context, and not assume that it was addressed to them. An eavesdropping person should realise that he is eavesdropping, and not over-react.
Your and Itlee’s complaint was that Singapore attempted to “advise China”. I have said that it was not. That is why i said that it was a Singapore leader talking to Singaporeans. Listen to the first 3 words of LW’s speech. It was “my fellow Singaporeans”.
Now you are saying that it is not private. That is not what I am saying at all. It was said at a public event, of course it was public. But it was NOT addressed to China.
Supposing I am in China and I watch on TV a Chinese leader saying that Singapore has lost its way. It has become too “banana”, and China should not be like this.
Shall I assume that the Chinese is advising Singapore not be be “banana”? That would just be silly right? That is a conversation that Chinese leaders are having with Chinese people. It is none of my business.
Now even if the Chinese leader says “I advise Singapore to be less banana”. Shall I be oversensitive and get upset? Of course not, I will just laugh it off, and say that “what Singapore does is the business of Singaporeans only”.
I am not sure about HK or China, but I have been going to TW more than the other two.
Now this part is curiosity of mine. I have noticed that Taiwanese take a great interest in what Singapore does, and what its leaders say. I have not idea why. The same is not true in the opposite direction. Singaporeans assume that what Taiwanese do is their business alone. It is certainly none of our business.
You misunderstand the purpose of the question.
I said that Singapore has different priorities than China. China’s main threat is the USA.
Due to its small size, Singapore has many more potential threats including Malaysia and Indonesia, which are giants compared to us.
For China to assume Singapore’s priorities are the same as China’s would be an error.
Yet it did not.
Singapore was born out of racial riots that many Chinese died. China did not intervene.
When Indonesia massacred its Chinese, China did not intervene.
When Indonesia oppressed its Chinese and banned their public use of Chinese language and festivals, China did not intervene.
When Indonesia tried to swallow up Malaysia and Singapore in the 60s, China did not intervene.
Malaysia continues to discriminate against its Chinese today in terms of economic policies, government jobs, university education etc etc. China does not intervene.
From the above historical precedence, we know that if Singapore comes into conflict with Malaysia or Indonesia, China will not intervene.
Therefore it should be expected that Singapore has a different set of priorities from China?
> I don’t think that that birth control or abortion were widely available in rural China of that era,
The relevant form of birth control was separation of males and females as a form of social mobilization.
—–
For a few months in 1958, commune leaders actually separated men and women into different living quarters. (Indeed, Mao even wondered whether it would suffice for men and women to meet twice a month for the purposes of procreation.) This separation first took place at the Xushui commune in Hebei but was later extended to many parts of the country, including Henan, Hunan and Anhui, as well as to battalions dispatched to work on dams and other construction projects. In one commune in Anhui province, men and women lived in dormitories at opposite ends of the village. The commune leaders believed that this separation was good for production and stressed that men and women, including married couples, could ‘collectively’ attend meetings and work in the fields.
—–
— Jasper Becker, Hungry Ghosts, p. 105.
This type of enforced birth control was in place before any new kind of food shortages had hit anywhere. It was part of the very basis for the Great Leap Forward that people were to be forced for a few years to concentrate everything on a massive increase of production and that normal sexual activities could be forcibly disrupted by the government. Not a very realistic plan, but it did make for rather effective birth control. When actual food shortages occurred, this also obviously disrupted the menstruation cycles of many women and damaged fertility.
> The PRC government itself later claimed that 18 million Chinese died in the famine.
This is your own lie which you can’t even blame on Yang Jisheng. His words:
—–
By this method, I calculated unnatural deaths as … 16.198 million.
—–
— Tombstone, p. 409.
He reaches that 16 million (not 18 million) by treating the official statistic which claims a death rate of 10.8 per thousand in 1957 as a benchmark and then counting deaths which the official statistics claim for 1958-61 which go beyond 10.8/k as excess deaths. However, the official statistics assert a death rate in 1949 of 20 per thousand. It’s therefore very misleading to use the official 10.8/k as a benchmark, since everyone agrees that Chinese deaths rates in the years 1958, 1959 and 1961 were far below which had ever occurred under Chiang Kai-shek. Only 1960 would have been recognized as a famine year by the standards which prevailed before the revolution and its mortality would have been fully in line with many previous famines in China. If one used the official Chinese statistics one would deduce that a famine in 1960 caused about 3.6 million deaths that would have been excess over a non-famine year in prerevolutionary China.
In reality, all of these official numbers are underestimates. Judith Banister’s model would imply 4.5 million deaths occurring in 1960 which are over the prerevolutionary standard, while if one insists on using the lowered mortality rate of 1957 (which Banister places as 18.12, rather than 10.8) then you come out about 22 million deaths in 1958-61 which are above the death rate of 1957. Again, however, 1960 is the only year which would be counted as a famine in prerevolutionary times. Even with Banister’s higher mortality rates versus the official statistics, the mortality rates of 1958, 1959 and 1961 are all markedly lower than anything that was ever attained in Czarist Russia up to 1913.
It didn’t take long for the joke to be updated. Mostly AI generated spoofs for a younger and visually-oriented demographic; the most recent one is called “The Song of MAGA”. For those who don’t use Chinese media apps, here’s short clip on YouTube:
In China, it is verboten to speak badly of Mao, which makes this parody all the more bold to compare Trump’s ill-conceived attempt to bring back manufacturing to America with Mao’s attempt to kick-start manufacturing in China in 1958, which resulted in the disastrous Great Leap Forward and Great Chinese Famine. But as with Trump, it may have been nothing more than another case of Jews deliberately giving Mao very stupid and bad advice.
The following links lead to articles by mathematics professor Sun Jinxian, which systematically debunk the claims made in Yang’s book. I find them highly credible. To my knowledge, no one—including Yang himself—has successfully refuted them.
– [Kunlunce Article (2019)](https://www.kunlunce.com/klzt/fanduilishixuwuzhuyi/2019-10-08/137168.html)
– [Kunlunce Article (2018)](https://www.kunlunce.com/klzt/fanduilishixuwuzhuyi/2018-02-07/122903.html)
– [Kunlunce Article (2016)](https://www.kunlunce.com/jczc/fl111111111111/2016-05-23/99637.html)
I haven’t read Yang’s entire book, but l’ve skimmed portions of it. As someone who studied mathematics at one of China’s top universities and later statistics in the U.S., I have a good understanding of the Chinese government’s data limitations during that era. Simply glancing at the data presented in Yang’s book makes it clear the work is fundamentally flawed-riddled with fabrications.
During that era, literacy rates in rural areas were very low – likely below 10% at even basic elementary levels. China lacked the knowledge, institutional capacity, and resources – as well as the practical necessity – to collect famine mortality data, particularly in rural areas where most deaths occurred. Reliable data collection requires funding, technological infrastructure, and trained personnel-none of which were available at the time. Even official statistics from China’s Census Bureau from that period cannot be considered trustworthy. Anyone who claims to possess actual death data—whether at the county, provincial, or even village level—without providing verifiable evidence is lying.
I have followed this debate since the late 1990s when the thirty million deaths claims first became a hot topic in overseas Chinese forums. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, the discussion was primarily among Chinese students in the West, where internet forums allowed for open and rigorous debate.
The following links are writings by Fang Zhouzi—now a well-known Chinese internet intellectual—summarizing the debate from 20 years ago:
– [Fang Zhouzi’s Analysis (Part 1)](https://www.yhcw.net/famine/BBS/fang01.html)
– [Fang Zhouzi’s Analysis (Part 2)](https://www.yhcw.net/famine/BBS/fang02.html)
Fang is renowned for his fact-based writing and rigorous logic. He holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Michigan State University and is recognized as a popular science writer in China. A long-time critic of academic fraud, pseudoscience, and misinformation, he co-founded *Xinyusi* magazine and its affiliated website. His work focuses on exposing academic corruption, debunking pseudoscientific claims, and challenging traditional Chinese medicine, among other topics.
(Source: [Fang Zhouzi’s Wikipedia Page](https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%96%B9%E8%88%9F%E5%AD%90), translated via Safari.)
I’ll write more later to answer your other questions.
This is Professor Sun Jingxian’s article analyzing data from China’s Census Bureau that refutes the high mortality figures reported for those three years. Modern machine translation tools (like Safari’s translation feature) now provide excellent results, making these Chinese-language sources fully accessible to English readers.
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/qzjITja646TcDY49MnyX1Q
Ohh, Mom-you’re a pearler!
If there were no massive famine, why the fuck did Peng Dehuai wrote a ten thousand words letter to Mao privately and Mao made the letter known to the public in the Lushan Conference? Peng was severely persecuted and tortured, and died a horrible death because he dared to speak up. What happened to Peng is well documented. Is Peng making things up?
The article is a must read. An excerpt:
Example: Suppose that a factory in a certain city in our country was closed at the end of 1960, and its 10,000 employees from rural areas were forced to return to the countryside. They all went through the procedures for the transfer of urban hukou in late December of that year, and they all returned to their places of origin in early January 1961, and went through the procedures for the transfer of hukou in their rural places of origin.
Obviously, these 10,000 people did not have household registration at the end of 1960 (24:00 on December 31), so they will not be included in the total household registration population of our country at the end of 1960. In this way, the total registered population of my country at the end of 1960 will be reduced by 10,000 people, resulting in an abnormal decrease in my country’s population by 10,000 people this year!
In this example, the birth and death of any actual population are not involved at all, but the registered population has decreased by 10,000 people.
From this example we can know a very important fact：
The population decrease shown in the population data of the National Bureau of Statistics refers to the decrease in the “household registration population”. It is a decrease in statistical data. As shown in Example 1, this decrease may only be a ”literal“ decrease in ”numbers”, which does not mean that there must be a real decrease in the actual population.. And this is a major blind spot that people generally have when studying this issue.
In order for everyone to better understand this, let’s look at the following facts. In 2010, half a century after 1960, another similar thing happened. According to the 2009 National Economic annual report, the total population of our country between the ages of 0 and 14 is 246 million. However, in the data of the sixth national census in 2010, the total population of our country between the ages of 0 and 14 has become 221 million. In other words, the total population of my country between the ages of 0 and 14 in 2010 was 25 million less than in 2009!
The author of this article was very emotional when he saw the news. Fortunately, this happened in 2010. If this happened in 1960, then these 25 million people would definitely be included in the number of “abnormal deaths” by some people.
In 1960, our country’s household registration population decreased by 10 million, which triggered rumors of “starving to death” by tens of millions; so according to the logic of these people, in 2010, our country’s population between the ages of 0 and 14 decreased by 25 million, wouldn’t it cause even bigger rumors?
No one would think that the population of 0-14 years old in 2010 was 25 million lower than in 2009, which was caused by the abnormal deaths of tens of millions of people. Then why does anyone have to reduce the registered population in 1960 by 10 million compared to 1959, and it must be determined that it was caused by the “abnormal deaths” of tens of millions of people?
From this, it can be seen how absurd it is to simply identify the decrease in demographic statistics as the real decrease in population.
Thank you for the reference to Peng Dehuai’s letter.
Is this the correct one below? I have trouble finding references to starvation or famine. References to food did not mention large scale scarcity.
Perhaps I have missed it as my eyes are not what they used to be. Please can you highlight there references to starvation or famine that I may have missed?
Of course the letter is translated to English. If you have a better source in the original Chinese, we could examine that too.
Thanks for your excellent comment.
And fortunate for Xi JP that it did not happen in 2019/2020. Then he would have been accused of mass murdering Chinese with infected bats.
Thanks. Translation systems have greatly improved, so I’ll take a look at Sun’s material when I have a chance and try to get back to you. Unfortunately, I’m currently tied up on some other things, so it may be a couple of days or so.
But I just can’t see how anything he says can refute the empirical evidence of the later Chinese population pyramid. Basically, something like 60-70% of all the newborns and infants during a couple of years “disappeared” along with very sharp reductions in the number of surviving toddlers and young children. This sort of “disappearance” is exactly what happens during a gigantic famine since deaths by starvation are always concentrated in the youngest age-cohorts.
As far as I know the impoverished Chinese rural countryside didn’t have widespread access to abortion or birth-control back then, so where did all the babies and infants of those years go?
Obviously, some of that was due to decreased fertility due to the starvation experienced by the women of child-bearing age. But I’m very skeptical that accounted for more than a portion of it.
Frankly, I’ve never seen a population pyramid that so unmistakably demonstrated the existence of a gigantic famine. For example, everyone agrees that many, many millions starved to death during the Soviet famine of the early/mid 1930s, but their later population pyramid isn’t remotely as extreme as the one from China.
Why don’t you hunt around and see if you can find any population pyramid from anywhere in the world more indicative of a gigantic famine than China’s.
That’s why some of the “famine deniers” on this thread have foolishly been claiming that all of China’s official population statistics published in the last 40-odd years are fraudulent.
> the impoverished Chinese rural countryside didn’t have widespread access to abortion or birth-control
Nothing of the sort is necessary when a government has the authority to enforce lengthy separations of male and female laborers, as the record shows that it did. The most generous interpretation of this kind of comment is that it shows a very First World perspective. No one thinks that a US politician could simply get people to cut their birth rates by demanding that they throw themselves into a radical economic reconstruction, at least not yet. Maybe will someday claim that about Trump. But the Third World of 65+ years ago was a different animal.
> everyone agrees that many, many millions starved to death during the Soviet famine of the early/mid 1930s, but their later population pyramid isn’t remotely as extreme as the one from China.
Everyone agrees that mortality rates in Soviet Ukraine in 1933 were much higher than those of China in 1960. That comparison only highlights the fact that the issue of a drop in recorded births is distinct from, though influenced by, death rates. Ukrainian parents and older siblings would have tried to sacrifice in order to save the youngest offspring, thereby distributing the losses a bit more smoothly. A simple drop in births, occurring at a time when the Chinese government openly avowed economic plans which were meant to keep the sexes separate and focused on intense labor, will create the sharper gap between recorded births in consecutive years.
> claiming that all of China’s official population statistics published in the last 40-odd years are fraudulent.
Can you actually name anyone who has claimed something this stupid? What all demographers have had to accept since at least the 1980s is that all of the official Chinese mortality statistics published during the first 15 years of the revolution were severe underestimates. From the mid-1960s onward, professional demographers are more willing to agree with most official data. The underestimates which stamp the first 15 years of the revolution are not considered to be part of any official cover-up, but simply the result of a lack of effective recording procedures.
In particular, every demographic study has had to accept that the official mortality rates that are given for the immediate years after the overthrow of Chiang Kai-shek are about 50% short. That obviously is not an official cover-up to benefit the CCP. Politically, it would make more sense to publish the higher mortality rates for the early post-KMT years and then publish underestimates for the post-1957 years. That was not done, so the underestimates are not politically motivated.
But without acknowledging that underestimates exist in the official data, it would be impossible to arrive at the sort of 40 million lunacy which is routinely promoted. To arrive at such figures, one must first accept something the death rate of 10.8 per thousand which official statistics gave for 1957; treat this as if it were somehow a usual death rate for Kuomintang China (which is absurd), then hope over to some more realistic estimates of death rates for the years 1958-61 (such as Judith Banister’s reconstructions) and use this to count everything above 10.8 as an excess death. The standard claims therefore depend entirely upon recognizing that official statistics were faulty. It’s just that Right-wing ideologues do not make such adjustments consistently.
It’s a very long letter, but it doesn’t really tell us anything, which I find is a peculiar trait of the Chinese Communists: hour-long or longer word salad speeches on government policies that are as exciting to listen to as watching paint dry on a wall.
In paragraph 3 of Peng Dehuai’s (彭德怀) letter, he writes:
If what he says is true, why does he write this nonsensical statement later on to start paragraph 13?:
Unfortunately, Peng Dehuai’s letter to Mao is inconclusive and does not even give us a rough estimation of how many people starved to death during the disastrous Great Leap Forward Years.
But why blame Mao if it wasn’t his idea? Where did Mao even get the notion and slogan in the first place?
I note that the main idea and thrust of the Great Leap Forward was for China to surpass England in industrial output, including steel production, within 15 years.
How utterly bizarre? Why England and not America?
England was a spent force after WWII and meat was not derationed until, curiously, July 4, 1954. Wrap that around your head for a moment. America became the world’s industrial power after WWII and never subjected its citizens to any meat rations after November 1945. America, not England, should have been the logical country to model and match.
And why 15 years? Where did this number come from? This number seems very arbitrary if not very Jewy to me.
Call me an antisemite if you like, but my Jewdar always flashes red lights whenever I see numbers attached to big news events like 9/11 and nonsensical government edicts like the COVID-19 lock downs.
It is widely known for people in the know that something was horribly wrong with the Great Leap Forward, and Peng was the only one who wrote a private letter to Mao about the problem. Mao made the letter public and used it to attack Peng. That the letter didn’t contain explicit references to starvation or famine is understandable given that by that time everybody knew Mao’s extreme pettiness and was unable to accept fault of any.
There is a vast number of anecdotes about those years. Here are a few:
A guide to eating tree bark
Best jobs during famine
At that time, foods were rationed, and you needed a food coupon to purchase staple foods. Here is an article about food coupons.
Food coupon
I do not believe the government ever made such a claim, nor did it systematically collect data on famine-related deaths. The only official data available are those published in the China Statistical Yearbook by the National Bureau of Statistics (China’s Census Bureau) in the early 1980s, which provide the basis for estimating approximately 14 million excess deaths during the 1959-1961 period. Professor Sun Jingxian’s article, which I shared earlier, provides a well-reasoned analysis of this data—demonstrating why 14 million estimates of excess deaths may not reflect reality.
No one denies that a severe famine occurred, that many people died as a result, or that the government made mistakes during that period. The controversy lies in the causes of the famine and the claim of 30 million or more deaths—a figure that lacks solid evidence and contradicts the lived experiences of most people at the time.
The gap in the population pyramid does not solely suggest elevated infant mortality but is more likely attributable to a sharp decline in birth rates. As I mentioned in my earlier post, my mother and most of her female classmates—who were among the best-nourished demographics at the time—experienced amenorrhea (cessation of menstrual periods). We can only imagine how widespread this condition was among women in rural areas. Additionally, when people are starving, how much energy or inclination do they have for sexual activity? Fewer marriages during the famine would have further contributed to the drop in births.
If we examine U.S. birth data during economic recessions – particularly the significant decline in birth rates during the Great Depression – the noticeable gap in China’s population pyramid becomes entirely understandable. This historical parallel suggests that demographic anomalies may often reflect decreased fertility during periods of hardship rather than solely indicating elevated mortality.
https://demographia.com/db-uspop1900.htm
https://www.prb.org/resources/the-u-s-recession-and-the-birth-rate/
http://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2010/04/06/us-birth-rate-decline-linked-to-recession/
This 1961 CIA report provides valuable insights, confirming several key factors: China’s agricultural production could not keep pace with its rapid population growth, unfavorable weather conditions did occur (as the Chinese government had asserted), and the Great Leap Forward’s mismanagement exacerbated these challenges.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0001098172.pdf
The interplay of these factors made large-scale famine inevitable in a nation caught in a Malthusian trap. In my view, unsustainable population growth constituted the root cause, while most of the government’s mistakes during the Great Leap Forward were simply consequences of the desperate struggle to achieve food security.
But yet it identified other problems such as the production of steel, and the overconsumption of food through the communal kitchens, etc.
Why did he identify all these other problems but leave out the most pressing issue?
Surely food scarcity is the most pressing of problems? A starved-to-death person can neither make steel, nor cook in the communal kitchens.
Given what we know happened during those times, it’s hard to believe the policies wouldn’t lead to a massive famine.
Here’s a simple explanation of how the famine occurred. In addition to misguided policies, each village and province was required to pledge a certain amount of crop output. Based on these pledges, a fixed percentage was submitted to the central government. The problem was that the revolutionary fervor created a competitive environment in which villages and provinces tried to outbid one another with increasingly unrealistic pledges.
The central government, in turn, expected to receive the full pledged amount. When actual production fell far short, local officials—driven by a desire to impress the central government and avoid appearing as failures—still sent the pledged amount, even when it meant stripping their own regions of food. This left little or nothing for the local population and became a major cause of the famine.
Please read this anecdote about how to eat tree bark:
樹皮吃法指南
Really? How desperate were they, or rather how stupid were they to export grain to the USSR when the Chinese were starving to death? Grain exports to the USSR actually peaked during 1959 and 1960.
The above quotation is from AI which sometimes is very revealing if you know how to “read between the lines,” as they say. I call it “connecting the Kosher dots.” I emphasized “foreign currency” in bold and in kosher brackets for your attention.
As a student of their gematria, the give away clue for me was the Four (4) Pests Campaign (除四害) that targeted rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows for eradication. Let’ leave out the numerology for now, I will talk more about it if asked. But how insane was it to include sparrows on the death list?
How could Mao who grew up on a farm as a peasant and in a country with almost 5 thousand years of agricultural history not know that sparrows eat the bugs that eat the crops?
The insanity of trying to kill all the sparrows (zero Sparrow policy) was surpassed only by the insanity of the “zero COVID-19” policy in 2020 promoted by Kissinger protegee Victor Gao, who today seems to be promoting a hot war with America.
Nothing about The Great Leap Forward makes any sense unless you understand that is was the beta test for the Cultural Revolution–which is the more obvious and classic CIA color revolution with the “Red Guards”.
Ultimately, “number two capitalist roader” Deng Xiaopeng won the Cultural Revolution and integrated China into the Bretton Woods system (i.e. global trade with the US dollar as the trading and reserve currency). Chiang’s KMT (ROC) was included in 1945, but Mao’s CCP (PRC) did not officially join until 1980 with Deng as the Paramount Leader.
That the Great Leap Forward failed to do it in 1958 and possibly as many as 50 million “useless eaters” died of starvation, well, that was just a minor set back and no great loss to the (((White))) Supremacists. If anything it was a bonus for them, as it was a big black stain on Mao that they could point at to demonize him and by extension the Chinese.
I’m surprised they don’t tell us 9 Chinese starved to death every 11 minutes and 6 million died in the first 19 months, with the total number being 666 million deaths. But I guess that would be too obvious even to the numerically retarded goyim.
Sorry, but I don’t believe or trust you, not when you cite CIA sources to back up your Malthusian “unsustainable population growth” argument.
Thomas Malthus was a racist. Along with the rest of the British Aristocracy (Oligarchy), his kind promoted eugenics, transhumanism and liberalism to enforce Western Imperialism. Western over-population theories are a fraud and any “Limits to Growth” (Malthus) do not consider human ingenuity, which can overcome the “supposed limits”:
What you are saying is that Communism provides the necessary foundation for Capitalism; Marx stated the reverse. In a Marxist interpretation, Communism did not provide the foundation for anything. It just flopped disastrously because the Revolution itself lacked a previous foundation of a developed capitalist infrastructure. Same thing for Russia.
America, on the other hand, has a developed capitalist system. According to a Marxian view, the present crisis is just the prelude of a Communist revolution.
«Where’s the “huge surge” after 2001? It’s clearly the same trend that started in 1991.»
From 2000 to 2010 the percent of goods imports in the USA GDP went from 10% to 15% that is 50% more in 10 year while the increase from 6.5% to 10% took 1975 to 1995 that is 50% in 20 years, a much slower rate of increase of 2.2% compound instead of 4.1% compound.
Even more interesting since these are growth rate *on top* of GDP growth that 4.1% compound rate between 2000 and 2010 implies a rate of *absolute* growth of 6.5% compound for 10 years which is huge.
There an even bigger surge from 2.5% to 5% from 1963 to 1973 and probably that was the effect of the Vietnam war, but I am not sure.
«Look at the current account balance 1991-2000.»
I think that is misleading to look at the overall current account balance for understanding the effect of offshoring to China and it is much better to look just at *goods* trade and separately for imports and exports as in the graph I gave.
Well, here is monthly Trade Balance: Goods, Balance of Payments Basis from 1992.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOPGTB
No change in the overall trend after 2001.
What is this arbitrary period from 1975 to 1995? Capital controls were abolished in the 1970s. NAFTA came into effect from 1994, financial liberalization in the US has been happening also in the 1990s. It’s not that if manufacturing didn’t move to China specifically it would’ve stayed in the US. No, it would’ve moved to some other country anyway, as it had been for decades. Car manufacturing “moved” to Japan long before 2001, for example. That is to say, other competitors in manufacturing naturally arise throughout the world.
This is how big money can be made in the US.
This is not because China was admitted to WTO. It’s not because Nike moved its manufacturing to Vietnam. This is because capital in the US is allowed to do whatever it wants, so capital is invested in what is most profitable, not what is most beneficial for the country or the working class. The Invisible Hand of the free market economy drives it to do it.