America Builds Aircraft Carriers. China Makes Money.

I hate Fred Reed. I hate China. I hate this article.  Because Fred Reed is correct. China is supposedly going to overtake America as the world’s economic superpower in the not so distant future, they say. I say “supposedly” because when you read this article you just might find yourself wondering, as I did ….. in what way have the Chinese NOT surpassed America??

========================== =

A Dolorous Imbalance

 

First, America increasingly relies on strong-arm tactics instead of competence. For example, in the de facto 5G competition, Washington cannot offer Europe a better product at a better price, so it forbids European countries to buy from China. The US cannot compete with China in manufacturing, so it resorts to a trade war. The US cannot make the crucial EUV lithography equipment to make advanced semiconductors, as neither can China, but it can forbid ASML, the Dutch company, from selling to China. Similarly, the US cannot compete with Russia in the price of natural gas to Europe, so by means of sanctions it seeks to keep Europe from buying from Russia. This is not reassuring.

Second, the Chinese are a commercial people, agile, fast to market, cutthroat, known for this throughout Asia. America is a bureaucratized military empire, torpid by comparison. America has legacy control over a few important technologies, most notably the crucial semiconductor field and the international financial system. Washington is using these to try to cripple China’s advance.

A consequence has been a realization by the Chinese that America is not a competitor but an enemy, and a subsequent explosion of investment and R&D aimed at reducing dependence on American technology. There is the well-known 1.4 trillion-dollar five-year plan to this end. One now encounters a flood of stories about advances in tech “to which China has intellectual-property rights” or similar wording.

They seem deadly serious about this. Given that Biden couldn’t tell a transistor from an ox cart, I wonder whether he realizes that every time the US pushes China to become independent in x, American firms lose the Chinese market for X, and later get to compete with Chinese X in the international market. Anyway, give Trump his due. He lit this fuse.

A few snippets

Prototype of China’s 385 mph maglev train
Prototype of China’s 385 mph maglev train

The above beast, developed entirely in China, is the first to use high-temperature superconducting magnets to keep the train floating just above the rails. HTSC magnets are a Big Deal because they can achieve superconductivity using liquid nitrogen as coolant instead of liquid helium for classic superconductivity, this costing, say the Chinese, a fiftieth of the price of using helium. The use of HTSC is very, very slick. The train will extensively use carbon-fiber materials to keep weight down, suggesting that the Chinese cannot distinguish between a train and an airplane.

Asia Times “China’s Hydrogen Dream is taking Shape in Shandong”

“A detailed pilot plan being worked out to transform Shandong, a regional industrial powerhouse, into a “hydrogen society” holds out much hope of delivering on the green promise.”

The article, hard to summarize in a sentence, is worth reading. As so often, the Chinese do things, try things, while the US talks, riots, imposes sanctions, sucks its thumb, and spends grimly on intercontinental nuclear bombers.

Huawei is Developing Smart Roads Instead of Smart Cars”

“Multiple sensors, cameras, and radars embedded in the road, traffic lights, and street signs help the bus to drive safely, while it in turn transmits information back to this network-“

Quantum Cryptography Network Spans 4,600 Km in China”

Quantum Key Distribution, QKD, allows unhackable communications. China read Ed Snowden’s book on NSA’s snooping, realized it had a problem, and set out to correct it. If this spreads to other countries—see below—much of the world could go black to American intel agencies.

The Chinese may have thought of this.

“…colleagues will further expand the network by working with partners in Austria, Italy, Russia and Canada. The team is also developing low-cost satellites and ground stations for QKD.”

The last sentence is interesting. If China begins selling genuinely secure commo gear abroad, it is going to make a lot of intel agencies very unhappy. Did I mention that the Chinese are a commercial people?

Further:

Chinese scientists achieve quantum information masking, paving way for encrypted communication application.”

My knowledge of this might rise to the level of blank ignorance after a good night’s sleep and three cups of coffee. However, the achievement made the American technical press, and suggests Chinese seriousness about gaining privacy.

The video below shows how China constructs high-speed rail lines as if painting a stripe on a highway. Since they can’t innovate, they have to get by with inventing things.

China to Europe rail freight: “Over 10,000 trains and 927,000 containers were forwarded via the China-EU-China route in 2020, China Railways has announced. The current volume of traffic has grown by 98.3% year-to-year, covering 21 countries and 92 cities in Europe.”

America makes aircraft carriers. China sells stuff.

NikkeiAsia: “What China’s Rapidly Expanding Nuclear Industry Means for the West”

One Chinese reactor in Pakistan just went live, with another expected in a few months. Says Nikkei, “The Karachi reactor is just the latest of these to come onstream, with the World Nuclear Organization listing a dozen different projects at the development or planning stage across a dozen countries from Argentina to Egypt in its recent survey. Many more are under discussion.”

In addition, says Nikkei, China intends to have the whole industry from technology to materials indigenous to China and outside of American sanctions. See above, about driving China to make things.

First China-Built DRAM Chip Reaches Market DRAM, dynamic random-access memory, appears in almost everything electronic and is a juicy market. Chang Xin Memory, which makes it, redesigned it slightly to remove American technology. If Chang Sin can ramp up volume, which has yet to be established, guess what foreign companies won’t sell much of in China any more.

Pingtang Bridge, recently opened. Well over a thousand feet high

Pingtang Bridge, recently opened. Well over a thousand feet high

Even in my short two weeks recently in China, I saw that the Chinese do not believe in vertical motion. An American, encountering a mountain, would, sensibly enough, go up and over. This is not the Chinese way. They go through. Similarly, on finding a valley, they do not go down and up. They go across. There may be some genetic abnormality behind this, or maybe interbreeding with space aliens. But it results in hellacious bridges.

Is China Emerging as the World Leader in AI?”

“Summary. China is quickly closing the once formidable lead the U.S. maintained on AI research. Chinese researchers now publish more papers on AI and secure more patents than U.S. researchers do. The country seems poised to become a leader in AI-empowered…”

Some argue that Chinese patents are of low quality. Maybe so. But don’t bet the college funds.

China begins construction of world’s longest superconducting cable project”

“China’s first 35 kV high-temperature superconducting cable demonstration project has started construction by State Grid in Shanghai and it is expected to be completed by the end of the year. This is the world’s largest transmission capacity, the longest distance, 2000A current the highest commercial 35 kV superconducting cable project.”

Regarding the 5G War Trump could have bought 5G from Huawei, gotten a sweetheart deal, great prices, factories in America, and so on. Instead he banned Huawei from the US and then twisted arms of the vassal states of Europe. Thus neither America or Europe has the service, but China is rolling it out fast. Brilliant, Don. This gives China a running start on smart factories, smart cities, autonomous vehicles, and the like.

“An almost entirely automated port in China, during unload of a container ship. “
“An almost entirely automated port in China, during unload of a container ship. “

 

America talks about 5G, China uses it.

NikkeiAsia: “The port is an example of how operator China Merchants Group has been working to automate and mechanize more operations using ultrafast fifth-generation wireless technology. By developing innovative ways to run the port as efficiently as possible, the company aims to accelerate overseas expansion.”

Aviation Week “Face It: The J-20 is a Fifth Generation Fighter”

Says AvWeek: “Clearly, Chengdu’s engineers understand the foundation of fifth-generation design: the ability to attain situational awareness through advanced fused sensors while denying situational awareness to the adversary through stealth and electronic warfare. The J-20 features an ambitious integrated avionics suite consisting of multispectral sensors that provide 360-deg. coverage. This includes a large active, electronically scanned array radar designed by the 14th Research Institute, electro-optical distributed aperture system, electro-optical targeting system, electronic support measures system and possibly side-array radars.

“In a 2017 CNTV interview, J-20 pilot Zhang Hao said: “Thanks to the multiple sensors onboard the aircraft and the very advanced data fusion, the level of automation of J-20 is very high. . . . The battlefield has become more and more transparent for us.”

Most of the story is visible only if you have a subscription to AvWeek.

Asia Times: Tesla loses lead to local upstart in China’s EV market .

The headline is kidding. The car that is outselling Tesla is a $4,200 el cheapo for short-haul shopping and picking up the kids in the city.

Sexy as a truss ad, but…useful. I’m telling you, put the college funds in this company, not truss ads. Made by an SAIC-GM partnership, majority owned by China, where it was designed and made. Will be sold internationally.

“Unlike Tesla, which requires purpose-built charging stations, the Mini can be plugged into a home power system to charge, which takes about nine hours. It has a range of about 120 kilometers and a top speed of 100 kilometers per hour, according to the carmaker’s promotional materials.” Designed and put into production in one year. (Did I mention that the Chinese are a commercial people?)

China’s Y-20 strategic transport aircraft gets key indigenous engine: reports Chinese design. How close it is to being ready for prime time is not clear, but it is flying. An inability to make high-end engines has been a problem for China.

The WS’20 is a high-bypass turbofan of Chinese design.

Finally, Global Times”, Beijing’s news site: “China’s trade volume increases 37% y-o-y in April, marking 11 consecutive months of positive growth”

Nuff said.

.

SOURCE: Fred Reed on Unz Review

THE END

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Author: Stucky

I'm right, you're wrong. Deal with it.

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bigfoot
bigfoot

Yeah, but that big dam could collapse and there goes Wuhan and Shanghai! And 500,000 citizens. That’d put a damper on things, whereas all we got to worry about are demented presidents and Progressives. And the ice age that is coming.

Anonymous
Anonymous

The loss of 10 million citizens would be nothing to a population over a billion.

falconflight
falconflight

An extra seat on the bus.

Llpoh
Llpoh

One fewer riding on the roof more likely.

lamont cranston
lamont cranston

500K? Multiply by 10, minimum. Plus the deaths from no Reddy Kilowatt down the road.

Auntie Kriest
Auntie Kriest

Yeah, yeah, sure, sure; how does their, Red China’s, Drag Queen Story Time compare to the USSA? No comparison.

No question ‘Murikyn social justice/ LBGTQPIBN warrior indoctrination beats turning out 100,000 engineers a year any day.

Besides, the U.S. Army and Culinary Institute of America commercials for recruits puts the PLA to shame.

Nya nya nya nya nya….

i forget
i forget

1st…america decreasingly pulls off competent strongarm tactics – but that bitch was always in heatwar mode. Don’t need a Rhett(orical Smedley) Butler’s gives no damns to see that. Conquistador to conquistyerass g’bye is the cycle: for awhile you’re the bully, but soon or late somebody beats your ass.

Butt…in geopolitics, as in less nonlocal politics (is the continuation of war by other means, however sliced…) losers & winners is largely – absent occasional wildcards & black swans – designated.

Geopoltroons have been perfecting “products & services” for worldwide libido dominandi rollout/rollup for quite some time…& a lot of that prototyping has been polishing in black site china.

The whole “countries” thing is a screen that bombards eyeballs with blue light blinds. Amnietnam did it to Fred’s eyeballs 50+ years ago. He was blind, but then he could see some more than he saw before. But those sights might have frozen solid whilst windage & elevation never stop moving.

Llpoh
Llpoh

I have warned about China on TBP for many years. Mostly I have been told I am full of shit. I was told they have a poor education system. I was told that they are not creative. I was told that they can only copy, not create. I was told to go fuck myself, I do not know what I am talking about.

I warned this day was coming, and coming fast. I told people that China puts out more engineers EACH year than the US has in total. I told them that China would indeed steal every single idea they could lay their hands on, and that they would benefit from the thefts. I told people that China would select and educate and promote their best and brightest and as a result would rapidly catch up and overtake the US with respect to top talent. I said they would send these students all over the world to get the best education. I said that the US’s system of teaching to the lowest common denominator was a mistake.

I said that the Chinese would outwork their counterparts. That young Chinese would work harder and longer for less, and that entitled Americans wanted to work less and less for more and more.

I said Americans would support the rise of China by buying Chinese made goods in preference to American goods. I was told it was too late, that I was full of shit, and so I posted links to sites where anything you wanted could be found American made. I have posted those sites many times.

This was always coming, and you haven’t seen anything yet. The Chinese are smarter, are more hard working, are ruthless, value education, do not protect business intellectual property of its competitors, take the long view, and put their resources into their top talent, not their least talented (unlike the US – is it smart that the most heavily funded schools are where the kids have average IQs of 85? Is it smart to cancel programs that identify and then promote the development of high achieving kids? Is it smart to say that math is racist? To stop grading for grammar? To raise SAT scores when the performance of the test takers drop, so as to keep up the appearance that standards have not declined? Even asking these questions would get a teacher cancelled.)

Fred was incorrect in some of the things he said, especially re things he says that the US cannot do, but his general point is correct so I will not quibble.

Sloth, buying on credit, poor educational system, poor work ethic, large welfare system, preferencing price to quality, etc. have consequences. Well, we are seeing the consequences.

And they will ramp more up more and more rapidly.

Leah
Leah

If people would have listened to you, you may have been wrong, but they didn’t, and here we are.

Llpoh
Llpoh

Leah – no way I could have reached enough people to have made a real difference. People do not want to listen. Read through the comments – people are still saying they cannot buy US made, etc. And of course there is no changing the stupidity of those who were and are elected, whose actions exacerbated the mess.

People are addicted to narrative. They convince themselves, and as Stuck says often, there is no changing their minds with facts.

Leah
Leah

I did read. Someone downvoted my comment. Whotf cares. It’s true. My ex bought the cheapest sht and was frustrated because it broke every year or so. And he had to buy the same sht over. Rinse and repeat.

We have a business in my neck of the woods who doesn’t carry a “cheaply” priced product and gets crap about it. Business response is aok, come see me when you’re tired of the cheap POS product breaking and you’re ready to buy something of quality.

i forget
i forget

Especially greased narrative. One of today’s quotes:

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. ~ Upton Sinclair

Expand “salary,” tho. There’s all kinds of paychecks people take in trade for themselves.

fujigm
fujigm

Had to happen sometime …

TN Patriot
TN Patriot

15 years ago a friend who traveled to China extensively told me the China could conceive, design and build an airport before we could complete the environmental impact study for building one. That one statement said a lot about the bureaucratic red tape we face everyday compared to the Git R Done attitude of their dictatorship.

Llpoh
Llpoh

TN – that is correct. And they are able to bring massive engineering talent to bear on such problems, and they do not give a fuck about the spotted tree owl other than how it would taste with a bit of soy sauce.

Llpoh
Llpoh

A little story: a new company started up in China. It hired 4,000 engineers in a week.

In the US it may well have taken years to hire 4,000 engineers. As I said, China graduates more engineers each year than the US has in total. I started talking about this more than 10 years ago. China probably has 20 times as many engineers now than does the US. Ain’t that special. They began to beat the world with volume. Now they are crushing the world with volume and quality.

That they have an average IQ of 105 means that they will find literally millions more very high IQ people than the US. But hey, the US gets millions of wetbacks each year, so there is that.

BL
BL

Llpoh- The Chinese have managed to buy 50% of the US food production, so IMO that makes them smarter than we who will one day see our food shipped to the Chinks while we struggle. We handed our manufacturing to the Chinese long ago, it’s a little late to cry in our Ovaltine.

Llpoh
Llpoh

BL – we did not hand our manufacturing to the Chinese. I have explained that to you guys many many times. The US portion of GDP attributable to manufacturing has remained relatively unchanged. What the US did was vastly increase consumption via the use of debt. A lot of the increased consumption was buying Chinese goods.

The narrative you promote is wrong. And it is a narrative. You can look up the stats yourself, as I am tired of trying to educate you guys on this. The US remains a mighty manufacturer of goods – it is still a giant in the field. It is just that China is more giant. And the US helped that happen by buying their goods and by educating their people and by not protecting intellectual property rights and by not getting world-wide enforcement of workplace laws, etc.

falconflight
falconflight

Thank you for the reminder. What about food production? Chickens shipped to China for processing, then reshipped to the US for the ‘consumer.’

Llpoh
Llpoh

Falcon – I think that may be a narrative and may be entirely false, butI am not 100% sure. The following link says it is false, and Tyson chicken says it is false:

China/Imports: Is my chicken coming from China, or other countries?

The article says 99% of all chicken consumed is raised and processed in the US. The other 1% is from Canada and Chile.

The amount of narrative on this subject is absurd. China has much to answer for, but I have explained the facts of it. The fact is, the US has increased consumption via debt. China is providing the excess consumption goods.

Everyone should stop buying shit from China. And especially food. That stuff is poison.

BL
BL

Llpoh- Prior to COVID/2020 we had 12.8 million US workers employed in manufacturing which is a measly 8.5% of all US workers. I will agree with you that we are leading producers of pharmaceuticals and chemical products. Prior to COVID, small business made up the vast majority of the manufacturing jobs, now ….not so much.

If we are such huge producers of manufactured goods, why do we have such enormous trade deficits? Please to explain why we iz not in high cotton Llpoh?

Anonymous
Anonymous

Feds count McDonalds workers putting hamburgers together as manufacturing. The fraud of government reporting. Just about every manufacturing plant that existed in this region in 1970 is gone.

Llpoh
Llpoh

I already explained it. The US lives above its means and buys shit on credit. The Chinese are happy to provide all the extra shit.

I do not know exactly what impact has occurred in the last 12 months. But the US makes far more stuff than you mention.

As to your numbers and percentages – what is your point? Those numbers are meaningless without context. Manufacturing is becoming ever more automated. We make more with less every year. We now make with 12.8 million people what would have taken, literally, no joke, 75 million people in 1960. That is how vastly more efficient manufacturing has become.

And it is why American manufacturing jobs are not coming back. The current 12.8 million jobs will continue to shrink at a few hundred thousand a year, every year, given the same level of production. Jobs will continue to be automated out of existence.

That does not mean that we should not buy American made. Buying Chinese shit helps the Chinese. They are the fucking competition. Everyone should buy American made.

But the US people want cheap, and they want to live beyond their means. And China is willing to supply the goods.

falconflight
falconflight

thx

BL
BL

Tyson chicken is a separate company from Tyson Foods. Tyson Chicken is owned by Pilgrims Pride Corp. and that is owned by JBS SA in South America. JBS SA is a holding company and I can guess who is in the woodpile.

The point is not that we are getting chicken shipped from China, the point is that China has made no bones about the fact that they will one day ship the chicken from here to feed their population and we can all fuk off.

Llpoh
Llpoh

Gee, now you are going full retard. Never go full retard.

With a single stroke of a pen that can be stopped. And would be.

You then claim China own the chicken. You have provided zero evidence of that. Zero. Then you guess that China is going to take all the chicken and send it overseas. That is boneheaded stupid. Really. That is universal stupid.

If China wants chicken, there are millions of ways to get it cheaper than by buying a US brand at huge cost so as to get chicken.

Then you say that China has said they will take the chicken, even though there is zero evidence that they even own the chicken.

Seriously, do you even think about some of the dumb shit you post?

And here is a little tidbit that you clearly do not understand – Tyson does not own any fucking farms. Zero. None. Nada.

Damn, BL, I thought you had abandoned being stupid on this stuff.

Anonymous
Anonymous

BL – I am calling bullshit on the “Chinese have managed to buy 50% of US food production”. That is absurd, and simply cannot be true.

Llpoh

BL
BL

Look it up Loopy, and they own 26 million acres of American farmland. They own most of our household name brands in the meat business. Half of the cod/fish business.

And it is not just food, they are rapidly buying up our hotel chains, General Electric appliance division, movie theater chains and entertainment companies. Basically they have bought as investment a shit ton of American real estate , commercial and residential. Welcome to Chinkmerica!!

PS- For the bonus…. Oz is on the chopping block too.

Llpoh
Llpoh

I did look it up. And it was bullshit. Given there are almost a billion acres of farmland, your 26 million total is around 3%.

You saying shit does not make it true. And you are killing your argument with the few facts that you post. You do not post sources.

The Chinese own around $150 billion is US companies. That is a piss in the ocean.

Quit while you are ahead. You are spouting shit that is clearly wrong, and are doubling down on stupid.

And I am calling bullshit on the fish part of your comment, too. No articles anywh3r3 I can find backing that up.

Where do you get your info? Stupid R Us seems most likely.

BL
BL

My bad Llpoh, I was wrong. The number of acres owned by the Chinese has gone up to 30 million from 26 million. Do we wait til it’s 100 million out of 900 million before we raise an eyebrow?

Llpoh
Llpoh

When they start hauling those acres to China I will be more concerned.

But I would not let foreign corps buy US farmland or companies, China will not allow it. For good reasons.

BL
BL

Llpoh- You and I are both in agreement on that. OTOH, China has a huge shortage of arable land and will be unable to meet the needs of their population in the not too distant future. Still, they don’t need to have ownership of our food production and farmland. Not all farmland within the 915 million acres are arable, so we do need to raise the alarm.

Llpoh
Llpoh

BL – of course we are on the same page about most things. Just not the same paragraph. Fuck the Chinese. Don’t give them an inch. Sell everything to them then immediately nationalise it and take it all back would be my plan if I were king.

The Chinese are working hard to take over Africa. That is where their sights are truly set in my opinion. Africa is big and has quite a bit of water. Don’t know exactly what they are going to do with the Africans, but I am sure they have a plan.

But I am with you 100% – screw the Chinese. Don’t help them in any way. Don’t buy from them, and don’t sell them resources of any kind.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Don’t know exactly what they are going to do with the Africans

I’m somewhat familiar with the Chinese view of Africans.

If the Chinese aren’t planning to genocide all of them, I’d be amazed.

very old white guy
very old white guy

When 5 million Chinese troops occupy that land…….

morongobill
morongobill

And Bill Gates owns the rest…..just kidding.

Anonymous
Anonymous

America the land of talking heads nothing more!

Auntie Kriest
Auntie Kriest

Fake tits too? ‘Muryka loves them fake titties, yes?

Anonymous
Anonymous

I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m pretty fucking sick of paying American prices for fourth-rate Chinese shit that doesn’t last a tenth as long (or work properly to begin with) as the American-made stuff it replaced.

Llpoh
Llpoh

Then don’t do it. There are American made alternatives to just about anything Chinese made. That you have bought Chinese goods simply means you are part of the problem. Why did you do such a stupid thing? I mean, just how stupid can you be, and you are a whiny butt to boot: “Waah! I keep buying cheap Chinese shit and it breaks! I am so sick of being an idiot! Waah!”

Fucking hell, grow the fuck up.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Try to find a toaster made in America

Llpoh
Llpoh

Ok you morons, this took me all of 15 seconds. Here are fivemade in the US:

https://homedesignx.com/toaster-made-in-the-usa-review/

You fucks are dumber than rocks.

falconflight
falconflight

Assembled in the US. Not made ;0

Llpoh
Llpoh

I cannot verify. You have a source for that?

falconflight
falconflight

How Dare You! ;0

Llpoh
Llpoh

Falcon – assembly happens. It is hard to spot. But still would rather buy assembled in the US than made in Chinkville.

Llpoh
Llpoh

Here is another list of six toasters US made.

Top 6 Best Toasters Made In USA of 2021

Anonymous
Anonymous

Or a grinder, a drill, or a sawz-all.

Llpoh
Llpoh

DeWalt does them all. Gee, that was hard. Are you retarded?

Anonymous
Anonymous

No, you are because every piece of dewalt in every store in this city is made overseas.

Llpoh
Llpoh

Well, you are indeed retarded. Who gives a crap about your city? Go only, find the DeWalt tools you want from the US, order the damn things, and they will be sent to you.

Retards everywhere these days. Most seem to post under “anonymous”.

John Doe
John Doe

I drove 40 miles 1 way to buy an American made wheelbarrow last weekend. Some people would be confused by this act of trying to support american jobs as best I can. The Chinese want to conquer the world. They are ruthless, highly intelligent and want to keep using this multi billion dollar, multi decade trade imbalance against us. Stop supporting the people that want to conquer you.

falconflight
falconflight

And people that want to destroy you such as Amazon, ATT, Disney (anything Hollywood), Sports, Inc., etc.

Llpoh
Llpoh

Yes.

lamont cranston
lamont cranston

Love Fred but he’s cut back his writing, I think. Used to be on Lew Rockwell weekly. And where the Hell is Joe Bob Briggs these days???

fujigm
fujigm

Been reading Fred for years, way back when he had his own site (Fred on Everything). But he’s getting on in the years (75-ish), and he’s taken a few years off the end of his life (like a lot of us). Hopefully, he’s spending more of his time sipping good tequila and smoking cigars down in Jalisco. I’ll tip one for him.

lamont cranston
lamont cranston

Here’s a true story that my company handled. In October 2019 received a call from a Fortune 100 hardware company. They had multiple containers of hammers that smelled like sh*t when opened. Actually, mold. Shipped from Shanghai. That’s the place where Bullwinkle sent his shirts to Edd Foo Young’s Laundry. No joke.

Over a 2+ month period, we cleaned and sorted over 200K pieces that had to be graded for rust, mold, rust & mold, none of the above, cleaning the mold only for possible discounted sale at the like of Harbor Freight.

I can only think that this is commonplace. Yet, it’s still a better bottom line for the people we cleaned up that mess.

Llpoh
Llpoh

Lamont – The answer to any question re hammers is Estwing. Buy one once, keep the other fucks from stealing it, and use it for an entire lifetime. I prefer the look of the leather handle.

Anonymous
Anonymous

” I hate Fred Reed. I hate China. I hate this article. Because Fred Reed is right.” Once again Stucky surprises me. All this time I thought he was just a dumb-ar##! I also hate Fred Reed, a drunken, race-mixing boomer, who only thinks his writing is funny. This doesn’t mean he’s wrong. Just because Charles Manson was crazy doesn’t mean he didn’t have anything to say. I don’t necessarily hate China, they’re just…China. They do what China does. That is, they take care of China and the Han people. Funny how a real nation prospers when it does that and falls apart when it consumes itself with critical race theory, inclusiveness and showing how wonderfully holy they all are, as is happening in the non-country of the United States. Perhaps the people who firebombed the best people in Europe and nuked the best people in Asia and of late carpet-bombed Christians in Eastern Europe at the behest of their whore-master of a president, should ask themselves some questions. “Is it possible we were wrong all these years? Is it possible that we are reaping the rewards of the failed “American experiment?”

i forget
i forget

Well…it was, will always be, a process. Longer than the longest game, since games end, but gaming doesn’t. It – the externals (which are projections of the internals) – goes back, all the way back, but start with after ww2, up to the ‘70’s, then after. That’s enough of a slice to see the whole pie (bye-bye), because Mr. Gaming the Green Genes is fractal, & that double helix is, too largely, one long intertwined snake, eating itself.

Europe’s bombed to shit. Japan’s nuked. American gi’s came home, made lots of babies, & American contractors pockets were stuffed servicing domestic demand that had been pent up by the war, procreate•xploded after the war, & rebuilding all the stuff that had been destroyed “over there” “by the war.” High thread count cotton standards of living ensued. “The first one’s ‘free’, kid.”

(another of today’s quotes: Anything free costs twice as much in the long run or turns out worthless. ~ Robert A. Heinlein)

That “interwar” boom period was an inflection, a bit of punctuated equilibrium, that had sooo much slosh that it splashed all over even normal, typical, average people, many of whom, as usual, confused the bounty with brains, exceptionalism, Camelot & other righteous cities on hills. But fundamental attribution error isn’t the point. People were hooked, is the point (even if inebriation, intoxication, is the reason for, or has much to do with, the attribution error symptoms & its ego overcoat with the stylin’ sewn in shoulder pads).

But slosh slip slides away. Always. Not due to disembodied Newtonian physics so much as due to gaming – which subverts, postpones, Newtonian physics (competition), & begets dynasties, empires, etc, all those fake concentrations, that take longer, sometimes a lot longer, to crumble from TBTF & return to baseline dust. (I remember a paperback Alistair MacLean thriller, “The Way to Dusty Death.*” Drugs, I think. Just so. Endogenous drugs beget gaming to – gamers hope – beget exogenous drugs & so to complete the ouroboros feedback entropy. Death Wish, in all its prequels & sequels. That big snake’s gotta eat…itself. That it mistakes self for other – mere cannibalism – well, drugs do fook a body up.)

So “Johnson” (it’s never just one doofus, & doubly never is it the figurehead served up for rube consumption doofus) does away with the gold reserve ratio requirements in ’68. “Nixon” busts the golden Bastiat window “permanently” in ‘71. And the let it all hang out all hell breaking loose decade of the 70’s escaped Pandora’s Box. Cue the rant from Network…incl the shite advice to stick your head out the window & holler…updated nowadays to type it out into darpanet.

But the addicts were in pocket, deep in pocket, by then. Standards of living had become a Jones monkey on back that had to be kept up with. Dollar purchasing power evaporation was countered with humidifiers like mom joining dad in the workforce (to most often gin up the fiat to offset the taxes on dad’s checks (but feminist equality reframed that, framed it good & tight)…&/or maybe the new childcare expenses to cover for mom’s absence…oh, & just coincidentally along came a spider called Roe v Wade in ’73), & going into debt – just like big uncle sammy, who’s shite was what was now sloshing downhill. Too, standards of living had become “rights,” – even to be subsidized back after the thief in the night state weilders stole it all – just like food stamps & all the rest…because not feeding that Jones monkey was an intolerable withdrawl pain & sickness…got to stay intoxicated. And, the pushers were planful in giving themselves some pushback insurance, too — nobody made the mistake a 2nd time of saying “let ‘em eat cake” (even if that was never said the first time), no, this time it was “let us lend**** you cake.”

But another interesting thing is paedomorphosis. I came across the term in a book about domestication. And realized just a little more deeply that pelt farming is what “civilization” is all about. Grow the fook up sounds good but is just as actionable as is getting back to Kansas by heel-clicking 3x in cadence to magic words:

“Timing Is Everything?”

We still need to account for the fact that tameness resulted in all these correlated changes. In what way are tameness & floppy ears connected? To say simply “pleiotropy” is not a sufficient explanation; this particular form of pleiotropy must itself be explained. To better understand this connection, we need to examine how tameness & floppy ears are developmentally linked.

It is noteworthy that many of these alterations, such as floppy ears & curled tails, are typical traits of fox pups — & wolf pups as well. The same could be said of many of the behavioral alterations. Wild fox pups are more likely to seek human company than are wild fox adults, & not solely for lack of conditioning or learning. Some of the difference between infant & adult foxes can be traced to the physiological maturation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which underlies the stress response. Once the stress response is developed, foxes react to humans — & other foxes – with more fear & aggression. The development of the fear response in particular marks the closure of the socialization window. This is true of other canines as well.

Several hormones are involved in the stress response; the levels of many of these hormones were altered by selection for tameness in ways that suggest a general dampening of the stress response in domesticated foxes relative to farm foxes. Stress hormones of one type, the glucocorticoids – a family of hormones that includes cortisol – were especially altered by selection for tameness. Tame foxes had substantially lower cortisol levels than did the farm foxes.

So, many of the adult traits of domestic foxes & dogs may result in changes of the timing of certain key developmental events – a phenomenon known as heterochrony (hetero = “different”; chrony, as in “chronological” = “time”). There are two basic forms of heterochrony; the form observed in the farm fox experiment – which results in retention into adulthood of traits characteristic of earlier developmental stages – is called “paedomorphosis” (“infant form”).

There are three distinct avenues to paedomorphosis: 1. Postdisplacement: delaying the onset of the trait’s development; 2. Neotenty: slowing the rate of the trait’s development; 3. Progenesis: speeding up sexual maturation relative to the trait’s development.

At least two may have occurred in the farm fox experiment.

The tame foxes reached sexual maturity about a month before the farm-reared foxes did (progenesis). At the same time, the development of the HPA axis was retarded or decelerated in tame foxes relative to farm foxes (neoteny &/or postdisplacement). A similar retardation occurred in ear, tail, & skeletal development. Even the seemingly uncanny ability to read human intentions may simply manifest another retained juvenile trait: the close attention fox pups pay to their mother’s behavior.

It seems, then, that general physical & psychological development of silver foxes was significantly slowed, & reproductive development accelerated, by selection for tameness. As a result, the adult tame foxes came to resemble the early developmental stage of their untamed ancestors. The genetic changes may have involved just a few genes, regulating a few key hormones that affect developmental rate.

The search for candidate genes commenced only recently. Of particular interest will be genes & nongenic DNA sequences that influence the regulation of stress-related hormones. Glucocorticoids, for example, influence every physiological system in the body, from blood to bones. The pituitary precursor peptide for corticotrophin, which regulates the release of cortisol from the adrenal glands, also affects many types of cells during development, including melanocytes, which are responsible for dark pigmentation. Here then is a possible link between tameness & hair color. Lyudmila Trut, who took over supervision of the fox project after Belyaev died, proposed that glucocorticoid levels influence the development of many other traits as well, through their coordinating effects on the timing of multiple developmental processes.

Belyaev had the foresight to create a complementary line of foxes in which he selected for an intolerance of human proximity, the opposite of tameness. Over the years, these foxes became increasingly hostile to humans, growling, snarling, & lunging when humans approached. In essence, they became wilder than wild foxes. But the wilder-than-wild foxes showed none of the correlated changes in behavior, physiology, & anatomy associated with the selection for tameness.

It is worth emphasizing that all this evolutionary change probably occurred in the absence of new mutations. Rather, successful selection for tameness was achieved solely with what evolutionists call standing genetic variation – that is, the genetic variation already existing in the population of foxes at the outset. But prior to selection, much of this genetic variation was cryptic, invisible to natural selection. In Belyaev’s view, this cryptic genetic variation, which accumulated because of previous stabilizing natural selection, was subsequently exposed by destabilizing artificial selection. This newly exposed genetic variation is why selection for tameness was successful absent any mutations.” ~~ Domesticated – Evolution In A Man-Made World, Richard Francis

Not excuses for the kiddies & the abusive fathermotherfigurefookers, just facts. If the pelt foxes have any chance of growing up, they have to escape the ranch first. Even then, the disadvantages conferred & instilled & propagated & metastasized by domesticated civilization – the thus closed, too late, you lose developmental window – will make the odds of surviving the transition to free adults somewhere between slim & none. IOW, once you’ve been groomed to be food, one way or the other, in most cases, predator’s gonna eat you.

For a plot driven fictional easy read/entertainment, shout out again for Crichton’s Next. (They’ll – the axis o’ evil – be coming for your HPA axis, ya’ll. In fact, they’ve already long since started: testo beatin’ retreat from the estro hordes. The Hot Gates never did, nor will, cool down. Fookin’ Persians. Fookin’ Spartans, too.) Yesterday I saw Clapton’s regret over submitting to two gmo’ifying jabs. He mentioned Van Morrison, Where Have All the Rebels Gone? I’m telling you where they went. They went thataway…Into the Myst/a/ic. But let Van sing, or mumble, it (so read along lyrics):

Where Have All The Rebels Gone?
Where have all the rebels gone?
Hiding behind computer screens
Where’s the spirit, where’s the soul?
Where have all the rebels gone?

Why don’t they come out of the woodwork now?
One for the money, two for the show
It’s not very rock and roll
Where have all the rebels gone?

Where have all the rebels gone?
Waiting for someone else to make a move
Why are they sitting on the fence?
Well, it’s some kind of pretence
They’re not saying much at all
Where have all the rebels gone?

Where they really all that tough?
Or was it just a PR stunt?
One for the money, two for the show
Where have all the rebels gone?

Where have all the rebels gone?
One for the money, two for the show
It’s not very rock and roll
Where have all the rebels gone?

Where they really all that tough?
Or was it just a PR stunt?
They’re not saying very much, are they?
Where have all the rebels gone?

Where have all the rebels gone?
Hiding behind computer screens
Where’s the spirit, where’s the soul?
Where have all the rebels gone?

Need a real live audience to perform
Where have all the rebels gone?
Where have all the rebels gone?
Where have all the rebels gone?
Where have all the rebels gone?
Where have all the rebels gone?

I can’t find anyone
Where have all the rebels gone?
I can’t find, no not one

*And Shakespeare:

She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
— To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,**
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
Out, out, brief candle!
Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.
— Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17–28)

**And Margaret Mitchell:

I can’t think about that right now. If I do, I’ll go crazy. I’ll think about that tomorrow….I’ll think of it all tomorrow, at Tara. I can stand it then. I’ll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day. Scarlett O’Hara ~ Gone With the Wind,*** indeed.

***And Jim Croce:

****at the Jean Valjean rate of interest:

Here’s one of Bonner’s straighter’n’narrower explications:

What You NEED to Know about the Wealth Inequality Debate
4/30/14
by Bill Bonner, Chairman, Bonner & Partners

Wednesday, 30 April 2014

Dow up another 86 points. Can anything stop it?

Yes. We’re just waiting to find out what.

We began this series with a question: Isn’t it possible the same savants who now presume to address the problem of wealth inequality were those most responsible for causing it?

The question arose as we discussed a publishing sensation: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century. As you will recall, the book – all 700 pages – was recently number one on the Amazon.com bestseller list.

Whoever heard of an economics tome that sold so well? The reason, we suspect, is that the book tells us something that a lot of people were waiting to hear.

Criminals, Chiselers and Con Artists

Piketty’s gripe, as near as we can determine, is that the rich get richer – especially when economic growth rates are low. And that capitalism can lead to extreme wealth inequality.

Economic growth rates have been trending downwards for the last 40 years or so. And the average annual wage, adjusted for inflation, has stagnated. But Piketty claims the average annual rate of return on capital (from profits, rents, dividends, interest, royalties, etc.) has remained robust. As a result, private capital has grown as a percentage of national income. And, the rich have gotten richer. Of course, there are many reasons for this – some innocent, others corrupt.

We will not bother with the innocent ones. Criminals, chiselers and con artists are more revealing and entertaining. And just to make it more interesting, we will name names. In the 1970s – after President Nixon moved the world onto a purely fiat-based money system – the US economy was kissed by the magic of easy credit.

Poof!

It was transformed from a handsome prince… into a toad. It used to be an economy where people earned money by making things for people who could afford to buy them. It became an economy of people who lent money to people so they could buy things they didn’t need with money they didn’t have.

Piketty thinks he is criticizing capitalism. But after the 1970s, real capital played a smaller and smaller role. It was replaced by credit and its sinister twin: debt.

The r in Piketty’s now famous annotation r > g (where r stands for the average annual rate of return on capital and g stands for the rate of economic growth) is supposed to represent the return on capital investment.

But where did the wad come from?

Savings rates went down. Real earnings went down. Growth rates went down. So how could there be more capital available and how could it produce higher rates of return (compared to economic growth)?

Distortions and Delusions

The whole thing is a headache for a thoughtful man. Capital investments with no real capital behind them. Profits that outstrip the economic growth from which they must come.

What to make of it?

We don’t dispute the basic fact: that the rich are getting richer. And that they are doing so by getting their hands on capital (something we believe is a damn good idea, especially for anyone hoping to build serious wealth).

For years, we’ve been complaining about the distortions caused by central banks. Rewarding the asset-owning classes (the rich) is just one of them. You could add: creating market bubbles, depressing middle-class incomes, increasing debt levels, misallocating resources to worthless, wealth-destroying activities, allowing government to avoid serious budget control, financing monster houses coast to coast… and our own personal favorite – putting dorky economists in positions of immense power and status.

And now we even have dorky economists with No. 1 bestselling books. What next?

Revolution! At least, that is what you might think if you listen to Piketty. He thinks r will continue to outpace g. And the natives will get restless.

The “market economy, if left to itself, contains powerful forces of convergence in the distribution of wealth,” he explains. But “it also contains powerful forces of divergence, which are potentially threatening to democratic societies and to the values of social justice on which they are based.”

A State Based on Fraud

Once again, Piketty misunderstands the modern, democratic state. It is not based on real social justice. It is based on fraud.

The masses are told they control the government. And although the masses busy themselves with reading the newspapers, arguing about Obamacare and voting, the elites profit from bailouts, zero-interest-rate policies, subsidies, tariffs, sweetheart loans – you name it.

That is how the rich really got so rich… with the eager connivance of the authorities.

And now Piketty concludes that the forces of “divergence” (of wealth) are likely to be much more powerful in the 21st century and that someone needs to do something about it.

Who? The same authorities who distracted the public while the elites picked their pockets!

Until 1968, the Fed was required to maintain 25 cents worth of gold for every dollar in circulation. Then in 1968, under President Johnson, that requirement was scrapped. Thenceforth, there was no limit to the amount of cash and credit in the system.

In 1971, under President Nixon, the US reneged on its commitment to pay off foreign-held debt in gold. Now, there was no limit to the amount of debt Americans could run up abroad. Instead of paying their bills in gold, they could just pay in dollars, which are essentially more debt instruments (although with zero maturity).

In 1987… and again in 2000… Alan Greenspan showed that the Fed would not permit a serious correction. When a credit contraction threatened, the Fed came up with more credit on easier terms.

By 2007, under the leadership of Ben Bernanke, the Fed was fully committed to credit expansion forever. Milton Friedman had convinced Bernanke that the Great Depression was caused by a shrinking supply of money and credit. Bernanke saluted Friedman with: “We won’t do it again.” Thanks to these numbskulls – and many others – real capital disappeared from the capitalist system. It was replaced by what Sisson called “a fictitious money” causing a “monstrous aberration.”

That is what we live with today. It was caused by the feds. They will continue making it worse… until the whole dreadful system blows up.

Anonymous
Anonymous

I see you forgot to take your meds again.

i forget
i forget

I may have “forgotten” more about meds that you ever knew about meds. That, plus what I remember, well, it’s more than enough.

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