After the 2008 crash many central banks enacted low and negative interest rates for any financial institution that could borrow directly from the central bank, or indirectly from those favored financial institutions. This cheap money spigot for the wealthy, to the tune of tens of trillions of dollars, never got turned off until this year, when inflation finally crept into the economy.
While the U.S. and all of Europe react in horror to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the first, second, fourth, tenth and twelfth most-populated nations in Asia feel very different. It really doesn't matter whether you agree with these nations or not. The sheer size and proximity of these nations require respect.
The least surprising is China.
We all know how white-collar crime is punished in the United States - it isn't.
At best there is a fine of less than the amount that was originally stolen. Sometimes the CEO loses his job, but not without a golden parachute.
Basically, there are no consequences in corporate America for fraud, corruption, or incompetence.
It's the exact opposite of how capitalism is supposed to function.
For more than a year, China has held SARS-CoV-2 at bay, suffering but a few cases at a time in controllable outbreaks. All of the infections were carried into China from the outside, often by Chinese returning from foreign travel. All visitors arriving in China face two weeks of quarantine — but those rules may have been changing as China's vaccination saturation inched toward the top.
Whenever new infections popped up, or were caught in massive testing sweeps, contract tracers immediately descended on the patient. His path was meticulously retraced using cell-phone location tracking and relevant survellience footage. Face recognition identified everyone the patient encountered or interacted with. In every case, a large sample of mostly strangers were interviewed, tested, and potentially quarantined. The strategy is very aggressive, but it has allowed the rest of China to mingle and socialize and go about their business.
But in Nanjing, the Coronavirus slipped in through an unexpected weakness in their maintenance procedures.
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One year ago, the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent to Republican election campaigns and to AM talk radio stations (Republican-owned media monopolies that use misinformation to torque US election outcomes across the nation) a detailed, 57-page memo authored by a top Republican strategist advising GOP candidates to address the coronavirus crisis by aggressively attacking China.
These talking point memos are sent to member stations of the Republican-owned AM Radio Monopolies on a weekly basis (sometimes daily) to coordinate the lies, prejudice, and propaganda across Red State America. We can see side effects of this propaganda in the thousands of attacks against innocent Asian Americans that took place during 2020 and 2021. Much of this propaganda was embraced by Democratic Party "moderates" and megaphoned by the Democratic Establishment in order to satisfy their Big Donors from the Defense Industry and their intelligence-agency political candidates and media cutouts.
Monday's Open Thread was a reminder the current Chinese Civil War began 95 years ago between the Chinese Nationalist and Chinese Communist Party. There has not been an official end to the conflict.
1927 – Chiang Kai-shek ordered the massacre of Chinese Communists in Shanghai, ending the First United Front.
As a person who sees the struggle with Russia and China as being about the nationalization of resources, which means the sharing of wealth with the workforce, versus ownership of resources by capitalists who oppress, terrorize, or enslave labor, I find the following articles important this week.
and I doubt it can be slowed let alone reversed.
Peace - Public Domain
Capitalism ?
In China there are a lot of problems, but at the moment, the Chinese, the party these days has proven an extraordinary ability to change. I make the joke, in America you can change political parties but you can't change policies. In China you cannot change the party but you can change policies. So in the 65 or 66 years, China has been run by one single party, yet the political changes that have taken place in China this past 66 years have been wider and broader and greater than probably any other major country in modern memory.
So in that time China has ceased to be communist. Is that what you are saying?
China is a market economy, it is not a capitalist country. Here's why. There's no way a group of billionaires could control the politburo as billionaires control American policy making.
So in China you have a vibrant market economy, but capital does not arise above political authority. Capital does not have enshrined rights. In America the interest of capital or capital itself has risen above the American nation. The political authority cannot check the power of capital. That's why America is a capitalist country. But China is not.
h/t lookout
