Government shutdown due to fake political theater over infinite fake money and the "budget".
Government shutdown due to bird flu pandemic.
LOL seeing MoA quoting that particular Rand paper is just incredibly funny to me that's all.
Just a note. US is ~3% of FDI in China… in good years, FDI is ~4% total investment in China, <2% of GDP for a decade now. (Some of the FDI from HK SAR is also partly from the US, taking a detour to the mainland over HK but still) Im sure China is dismantling one of the pillars of its monetary and economic policy in capital controls in defeat as we speak to get that life saving American FDI. All the signs are there, after all the CPC has announced that "they welcome and urge foreign investment and US cooperation and will try to make the enviroment easier for it" for the 5000th time since reform and opening up
@xiaohongshu@hexbear.net is a lot more partial about the a certain aspect of this but you should be careful that their approach is not the only one that criticizes the current 180 CPC turnaround in 2023/24.
On a rhetorical level the FDI is only a very coincidental part of the narrative. You are correct China is on this course for a long time however it is silly to pretend the conditions of today are the same as even 25 years ago or even when Xi first took power.
By all metrics China should not depend on US external influence, the fact US financial media(and the Fed) got any influence at all is an indictment not an excuse. To recap the FDI is circumstantially important because it perfectly aligns with the financial media attack, if you remember how Yellen and Blinken went to China and everyone started complaining about the insane "overproduction"/"overcapacity" narrative.
Immediately following that the Fed lowered interest rates and China started not only begging for better "investor sentiment" but also they have taken a few notable steps like signaling for more consumption incentives and liberalization of industrial investment(for foreigners).
I say this often it doesn't matter what we observe and think, only how the party is behaving and what they believe and we have more than enough evidence the party cares a lot about the mainstream economic rethoric, they use the same terms and they're starting to use some of the same policies(or at least signaling it).
Ultimately what happened IMO is they gaslit themselves into believing the overproduction narrative by the west. Its obviously nonsense. China shouldn't stimulate "consumption" just because the US doesn't want to import cheap renewables. Worst still is that the diagnosis of this perceived slowdown is entirely withing the neoliberal economic consensus.
If you notice where Chinese FDI drops below the 2020 level at the beginning of this year, it coincides perfectly with both Blinken/Yellen's visits and when the overcapacity narrative gains traction on western media, e.g:
Atlantic Council December 11, 2023 China’s manufacturing overcapacity threatens global green goods trade
FT February 1 2024 China’s overcapacity a challenge that is ‘here to stay’, says US chamber
FT February 4 2024China’s cull of EV overcapacity will bring little relief to Europe
Yellen and Blinken both visited China in April '24.
Likewise MR wrote about this as it happened and he linked this source Part I of Xu Gao: corporate gains fail to boost household income, leading to over-investment & excessive savings in China
On March 13, 2024, the National School of Development (NSD), Peking University, in collaboration with Baidu Economic & Financial News, held the 68th session of the China Economic Observation Report event and launched the 30th-anniversary celebration of the NSD.
Today's The East is Read will feature Xu Gao, the Chief Economist and Assistant President of Bank of China International Co. Ltd., leading the research department and sales and trading department of the company. He is also an adjunct professor of the NSD at Peking University.
Xu argues that the significantly lower consumption-to-GDP ratio in China, compared to the global average, is the fundamental cause of the country's lackluster domestic demand and economic slowdown. He attributes this low consumption level to unusually high savings rates, with both enterprise and household savings rates remaining notably elevated. This is in stark contrast to other economies where the two rates typically exhibit a negative correlation.
That entire article explains what the current mainstream Chinese analysis of the problem was/is and MR's argument in his blog post
Zu explains that “weak domestic demand, compounded by lackluster external demand or export volumes, results in insufficient total demand, thereby stifling economic growth. In that sense, the long-term growth constraints on the Chinese economy lie not in the supply but in demand.” Really? China’s relative growth slowdown in the past decade has been due to slowing expansion of its labour force with economic growth then depending primarily on raising the productivity of labour. And that depends on investment in productivity-boosting technology, not consumption, which is a deduction from resources for investment. Moreover, which countries have achieved faster growth in the last few years: the consumer-led West or low consumption China?
Zu follows up his classic crude Keynesian theory, by saying that “the objective of economic growth is to fulfill the people’s expectation for a better life, which is primarily manifested through their expectation for enhanced consumption—better quality food, clothing, and leisure activities. When a country’s consumption constitutes a small fraction of its GDP, it indicates a misalignment between the aggregate economic growth (as depicted by GDP) and the lived experiences of its people.”
But this is just not true. A low consumption to GDP ratio does not necessarily mean low consumption growth. And China’s consumption growth has been way faster than the consumer-led economies of the West.
So what to do? “Of course, SOEs in China are technically owned by the people, yet their equity is predominantly held by the state. Consequently, the dividends from SOEs primarily flow to the state rather than the households; the profits retained post-dividend distribution from SOEs are not directly connected to the balance sheet of households, making it difficult to contribute to household wealth. So says Xu, “we need to distribute all SOE stocks to citizens” ie privatise the state-owned companies.
"A Chinese academic working in the financial sector spewing neoliberal economic shit? No way!" Yes its obviously not news, but the point is he repeats mainstream nonsense about efficient markets and copying western narratives.
The real worry here is if the CPC follows these advices and realy believes investment in production and technology are no longer necessary or consumption incentives should become the priority.
China would lose one of their main advantage against the west and current signs is they actualy do believe some of it.
They've arrived at the logical conclusion, we can do whatever we want because only China matters, so if the economy is slowing just boost consumption. This is the most mainstream of the mainstream western modern economic theory. Everyone ignores the state of the global economy, the EU crash, the global south debt crisis etc. For both western media and mainstream econ, if China is not meeting growth expectations, its their fault for not being liberal enough. Do you realize how dangerous this path is?
Of course everyone can be wrong and this time next year China is celebrating, FDI is up, Xi is smiling next to Trump etc. Nobody is predicting China will crash in 30 days(probably not even 30 months) because of a few charts and random theories, but alas who is expecting communism "soon" when the party is seemingly embracing mainstream neoliberalism at the first sign of trouble?
For me that is the compelling takeaway. More Dengism with some neolib shit along the way no matter how dangerous it is while paying no attention to the climate abyss right ahead or the global south collectively getting murdered or worse.
Why was this removed? If you're going to do that clean the entire chain. Nonsense moderation policy, the top comment is explicitly about user activity, maybe there are reasons why some regulars stopped posting? That is not fucking drama.
Funny thing is this mod behavior is exactly why this site is going downhill.
I'm sure you've seen the current CN state media pushing out the more consumption stimulus for 2025 narrative.
If there is an argument to be made they doesn't even understand why Dengism worked so well we may start to make that argument soon lol.
It will be both weird and funny to watch China continue growing more than 2x the US while the western financial media tells the CPC China is crashing while at the same time the CPC completely agrees with it and starts repeating much of the same rethoric as the worst western neoliberal mainstream economists but still not managing to actualy crash.
Anyway I'm nobody ever said "in times of trouble just boost consumption! Wow nobody tried that before, surely its a sign it works so well!"
Yeah this is one of the points I make about why that Saudi Arabia-Chinese bonds shit was pure copium, with the narrative that oh China may use these bonds to somehow funnel dollars to BRI countries so that they may use that to pay their debts and its like pls common on the global south is going through a massive debt crisis for years, its literaly getting worse right now and copium grand conspiracy 4d chess about what China may do that may help this some indeterminate time in the future if they even choose to do this whole bonds shit... oh my god that was maddening.
They should have years ago but they wont. In the end even in the worst case and these terrorists do make it to China they'll treat it as their own internal affair, do whatever needs to be done and then have Xi meet with whatever dipshit is replacing Blinken and Yellen every few months.
China has been consistent. The best description I've seen is BRICS is not anti-west but rather non-west. They want to claim independence from western(US) influence and intervention yet they want to be treated as equals and be friendly. Sadly this naive idea is exactly what dominates right now and it is bound to fail no matter what.
Very deep questions need to be asked but they wont. China will do everything to keep the economic miracle going while crying US bad and doing nothing about it. Taiwan is a dead end issue given China's own technological development.
To be clear I don't disagree, leftist support is indeed often just vides. But some people are definitely taking this chance to put their fangs out and show us how much more rhetorically virtuous they are for using the correct "term" on the "correct people".
The previous commenter is literaly trying to police the entire socialist base here (and presumably elsewhere if it were up to their standards) worldwide on how we should use "critical support" which I think is quite a lot more serious, you're trying to defend them, but your comment is quite outside of their actual goal here.
Yes we're materially disconnected I agree 100%, yet it doesn't seem to have any bearing on this for either side, I mean if they too acknowledge this why the panic over moral fake vibe support him? Either critical support matters at all in which case lets try to police it or it doesn't and who cares.
The longer the U.S. is doubting the effects of hardened metal darts hitting at MACH 10 and the Oreshnik missile's availability the greater the need for Russia to hit a real U.S. target.
Is this supposed to be a joke? Its hilariously funny for the majority American user base here to say this shit with a straight face. I guess you can say whatever nonsense when you think you got the mod team on your side lol.
You're assuming too much? What people are defending is critical support, ultimately it just means admitting yes he did a cool good and necessary thing and no we don't particularly care about him as an idol or figure.
The context here is entirely on social interactions between ourselves and likely libs and others, if someone IRL asks you about this guy, the issue is entirely on how you handle this answer. Are you willing to call yourself a communist and say yes you like what he did to your friend or someone politicaly engaged etc?
Of course we're not his legal team, we're not even a movement or org, that seems like a strawman.
Also the other user's argument is basically "this is a bad look" which is hilariously out of touch anyway.
Yeah that is fair, I guess my own optimism that as things get worse it will be harder and harder for liberals to try and push the normal common sense civility narrative and that seems to be their weakest point even though yes it is definitely dangerous.
I could say the exact same about your comment lmao. You just used my comment to soapbox about why you think modern China sucks. If you don't like China, it's very obvious that both Russia and Iran are also timid because of nukes.
Russia and China, you literaly ignored the point of my comment. BOTH OF THEM SANCTIONED DPRK AFTER THEIR NUCLEAR TEST.
Chinese nuclear fearmongering is a shitty argument, "I'm scared of US nukes" and then deny others the right to use these weapons to fight the US, its shitty common sense status quo. Why should they deny others this right? Let the DPRK communists get nuked if it means the US also gets it its at least a win win. Yes Russia and China were hypocritical. Nuclear non-proliferation only benefits the west majority nuclear powers.
IMO Russia's adhesion to this western consensus was the only way for them to remain relevant.
Also don't pretend you don't know the Ukraine situation since 2014. They literaly ignored it because their shitty oligarchs were busy making money in the west. Russia couldn't fight earlier because of NATO nukes? Nonsense he went after Crimea after all. If that is one reason, its like the 5th or 10th reason not the first.
Iran got their own contradiction to worry about, they set their red lines, talk about great retribution and then fall short. They talk about how they'll bring great destruction to Israel and then pretend their weapons actualy can't do anything? If the idea was intimidation they failed on that strategy. Pressing both buttons now is just sad.
Iran and Ansarallah both don't have nukes, but it's very clear one of them is a lot braver than the another. Ansarallah is already going after US aircraft carriers while Iran has not done so despite being more than technologically capable.
Yeah I agree with this? Indeed I mentioned, how is China's nuclear fear relevant when they told the Houthis to chill out?
Removed by mod
lol I wonder if you ask them if the IDF is real then and what are they doing, dropping thousands of bombs on random empty tents and cardboard targets in the desert just for money?
However, are people willing to spend the next 25+ years with the knowledge that there's a 30% chance the US will just begin a nuclear exchange and end humanity? If not, then they better be emotionally prepared for more disappointments and missed opportunities from Russia, China, and Iran being too passive.
I am more than happy to once again make the argument. Socialists should not give Chinese nuclear fearmongering.
Why? Because nuclear fear mongering is as you say a mere hypothetical. The giant elephant in the room is climate change. If we don't fight now, we may as well not bother. The future is 100% certain. Billions will migrate and die, mass economic collapse and large uninhabitable regions.
Yes it turns out that 30 years timeframe is the only time frame we got left. Its over otherwise. CPC coping that they'll just communism their way out of this into the future is like billionaires and their New Zealand bunkers quite honestly.
Regardless, even if climate change is dismissed I believe it is the highest form of hypocrisy for Chinese interests to fearmonger about US nukes while they simultaneously were willing to work against the DPRK's nuclear program.
Once again Chinese state media gives you the most straight foward position of the party without fail. DPRK bad, DPRK against Chinese nuclear non-proliferation!
We had Chinese "experts" explaining to us how Kim’s nuke stand threatens Northeast Asia
"Kim's remarks showed that recent sanctions have been effective, but Pyongyang will not give up its nuclear capabilities completely due to the sanctions. But we should persuade the North to go back to the negotiating table, but not press too hard with military force,"Lü said.
BTW absolutely funny literaly just this dual purpose ban/"excuse" against the US not even 12 months later but to protect Chinese national interests! China was pathetic here they can and will protect their interests, a Israel sanction/trade embargo was possible even if symbolic.
We don't need to give China the benefit of doubt anymore, they meet with US officials and shake hands, they literally already made deals in Saudi Arabia. They literaly told the Houthis to "think of the world trade consequences please!".
IMO socialists should absolutely not tolerate Chinese fearmongering about nukes given their absolute lack of desire to fight the US through any other means. Their absolute lack of solidarity for Palestine(beyond optics and "diplomacy") and most importantly their very own hypocritical stance towards the DPRK nuclear program.
I'm not sure what the point of your comment since you praise DPRK's courgage but also repeat Chinese nuclear fear mongering so please excuse me for that. Either way IMO as I said socialists need to move away completely from Chinese excuses.
UHC's profits were 17B in 2021 and 21B in 2022. Brian Thompson was getting a salary of only 10M per year from 2021-24. This seems like a pretty low profit:CEO wage ratio, but more analysis is necessary
I wont bother checking right now but you can look at his SEC fillings for what he was doing with his shares if anything. Executives are mostly paid in shares and bonuses not just a salary. In fact this is exactly the point why sometimes social and economic inequality measurements can skew towards liberal apologia since salary very obviously doesn't equal wealth so capitalist societies can have lower wage inequality but higher wealth inequality where most of the money is made through financial instruments not wages.
As long as Brazil remains the biggest player willing to throw its weight around like with Venezuela? Possibly. Brazil doesn't care about Peru/Ecuador/Chile. Only Mercosur countries, and Venezuela, possibly Bolivia are relevant.
I know I'm repeating it but the Venezuela-BRICS-Brazil issue is not over imo. It will re-appear if Lula decides to try to "man up" as a nationalist again.
For Brazil-Venezuela though I think nothing fundamentaly changed in recent years and Brazil is still very much influenced by US interests, specialy through the financial markets which in turn is the characteristic Brazilian "advantage" given it is among the world's highest interest rates. Brazil is a rentier capitalist economy.
BRICS can't change this because China themselves benefit from these agricultural imports/industrial exports duality. Of course BRI is the biggest driver for China to grow their influence too, Chinese capital needs other destinations besides the US, this is all the BRI is for, altruistic reasons or not, China got a lot of money and they can't keep just buying US bonds and stuff(this was long discussed before)
I think China could and should pressure for Venezuela's sake. But at the same time Brazil is an important partner and alternative so its tough to see either China/Russia making a favor for Venezuela.
How much you put into this source is up to you, imo its pretty accurate in this quote The Great Balancing Act: Lula in China and the Future of U.S.-Brazil Relations
On the other hand, Brazil uses China’s champion of the Global South narrative to seek a more active position in shaping global governance in an emerging multipolar world. However, there is a fine line between using the relationship with China to counter historical diplomatic and economic dependency on the United States, and outright bandwagoning on Beijing’s vision for a new international order. There is also concern growing among some Brazilian foreign policy analysts and officials that, if left unchecked, the growing relationship with China might lead not to strategic autonomy, but dependency. The unbalanced nature of bilateral trade raises important questions in this sense. Points of Tension
Despite the developing relationship, there are important bilateral points of tension. Brazil’s main grievance is the unbalanced nature of bilateral trade. Brazil’s exports to China are concentrated in mineral and agricultural commodities, mainly soybean and iron ore. Meanwhile, Brazil imports mainly high value-added manufactured goods from China.
In a broader sense, Brazil sees its relationship with China to increase desperately needed investment in the country’s economy and place it on a sustainable economic footing—investments of a kind that the United States has not been able to furnish. Lula’s other mission in this visit was to increase productive Chinese investment and innovation in Brazil, too. While China has increased its level of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Brazil, the United States is still the top provider, investing almost $200 billion in 2022—four times as much as China. And unlike trade with China, 55 percent of Brazilian exports to the United States in 2022 were high value-added manufactured goods, which add more jobs to the economy and contribute to stable revenue streams.
Yes that is from 2023 and yes Lula talked with Xi recently and signed more deals, how relevant is this given the current neoliberal attack succesfuly destroying Lula's government? You tell me.
Again the reason these sources are valid is they're not just reporting on what leftists think, but what Brazilian capitalists think and they have an influence on FP. If Brazilian capitalists are worried Lula is too pro China then he may well continue to balance this act.
Americans were taking USD loans in Japan and then buying Brazilian assets and bonds.
Graph 3 shows how the differential between the nominal interest rates of Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and Japan grew from 2021 onwards. The differential grew first for Brazil, then Mexico, and finally Colombia, which showed its attractiveness to international investors. The spread has allowed yields of up to 10.25% in Brazil, 10.50% in Mexico and 11.50% in Colombia through "Carry Trade".
On the balance between attracting US investment(dollars) while necessitating an open relationship with China for agricultural exports is a real undeniable issue.
So how what is the path forward? I can't say anything other than the strength to resist Trump's desire to fuck with Venezuela is tough to imagine given Lula got his own an election to worry about.
I would not look at India so superficialy like that. The US is at very least looking at that as a favor that they will call back on later. The US doesn't have much to care about what other countries do unless it is relevant to agenda.
This is the sort of rethoric around the Khashoggi murder. They did that, they shocked the world, they got all the liberal media and even the NGO clown shit circle to turn their head away in disgust and then what exactly materially changed about KSA and USA relations? 5 years later KSA is as big a vassal as ever.
For India as a country I think rather this double faced BRICS and US relations will bring them absolutely nowhere but the bottom pit of the global south material conditions. Climate change, Bangladesh. These are some of the keywords that matter for 10-20 years from now.