China and 1928... no not *that* 1928, the other one.

Soo... here's a bit on some....  risk in China's future economics.

Which is a bit familiar...  given an earlier post.

Well... this sounds familiar...

Strategypage talks about a coming pension crisis.

You might wonder why such a topic warrants the attention of a site dedicated to military foreign  policy...

Time is not on China’s side. There are numerous examples of this. One of the more obvious is the shrinking Chinese work force. While overall population increased 7.1 million in 2014 (to 1.37 billion) but the working age population declined 3.7 million (to 915 million). The number of Chinese over 60 increased 10 million to 212 million. All this began in 2014 and will continue for decades. The biggest problem, though, is the growing shortage of workers. As the population ages, all those one child families means there will be more elderly than the economy (and the shrinking workforce) can effectively support. Currently there are 11 working age Chinese for every retiree. By 2050, there will only be two for each retiree. At that point, retirees will comprise 30 percent of the population (versus 13 percent now.) 

Oh.   Well...  ironic that.

Amusement at a communist police state facing a crisis you'd expect in Illinois (Or to be honest the US as a whole.  As a nation the USA is basically a pension system with an army).

But this is a serious case... given things could go squirrely with China.  Especially if you add in their looming gender imbalance.

"Because that's where the money is."

That  was  Willie Sutton's answer to why he robbed banks.

On a related note if the question is: "Why attack schools?"

"Because that's where the children are."

As a bonus it's also an area where, aside from a visiting cop, no one has the tools to fight back, and very few have the inclination.

Edit:  This is horrific and that's the point. And we should morn the dead. The people that do this want the infamy.

And as China has repeatedly shown, even in an attack today,  banning guns won't stop someone from going into a school and causing a couple dozen casualties.  Again "that's where the children are".

Don't expect this to stop the antis.  They think they can make this America's  "Dunblane"

Edit:  This from Glenn Reynolds: "Meanwhile, get ready for cynical attempts to push gun control on the back of a tragedy, again. As William S. Burroughs once said, “After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it.” "

But Freiheit and Robb Allen on GBC have hit on a larger point:

RobbAllen; RTBAV?
Freiheit; refuse to be a victim
RobbAllen; Got it
Freiheit; NRA program, teaches you not to be condition white, lock your shit up, that kind of thing
...
RobbAllen; At this moment, Freiheit has changed my perspective. I don't give a fuck about the calls for gun control. I'm pissed. I want calls to teach kids to NOT LAY DOWN AND DIE

Like how the antis are not just anti-gun.  The problem here is not just the calls for gun control.  Again, China has a major problem of mass-casualty knife rampages in schools.

Added: Bad things will happen, monsters do exist.  And people should be prepared for it.  This is tragic, horrific and frightening, and that's what makes large gatherings of children such a prime target.

As Freiheit says:  "Being armed is only one facet of being safe. It's a prepared response to risk of being attacked. However being aware of your surroundings, physical location security and similar strategies pay off more than being armed."

When you think communism...

Don't you think imperialistic  nationalistic,  hereditary aristocracy?

November 20, 2012: Xi Jinping, the newly selected (by the Communist Party elders) leader of China for the next ten years is different from his predecessors. He is the first of the “heirs” to take power. That’s because he is the 59 year old son of one of the communist originals, a general who fought the Japanese and other Chinese factions to put the communists in power after World War II. Xi Jinping is thus a princeling, a member of the new hereditary aristocracy (children of the original communist leadership) that has replaced the ancient feudal aristocracy that was overthrown a century ago. Democracy was supposed to have replaced the Manchu dynasty, but instead there was decades of civil war followed by communist dictatorship and now a new hereditary, unelected, aristocracy.

Well, you probably should. It's not like China's special here.

Fauxcahontas Barbie: Math is Hard!

Actually, Elizabeth warren thinks math is very easy.

Step 1: US be more like China
Step 2: 1 Trillion more every year in "infrastructure" spending.
Step 3: Profit Err, betterment for the proletariat and the noble servants of the masses.

Yes, once again we have a progressive complaining as to why the US can't be more like China. And that's in an ad designed to make you want to vote for her!

The NY Sun does some deconstruction.

The first problem is mathematical. U.S. gross domestic product is about $15 trillion a year. Increasing infrastructure “investment” to the 9% Chinese level that Ms. Warren cites would mean an additional $1 trillion a year in government spending. That’s an immense spending increase. To put it in context, the entire federal government spent about $3.6 trillion in 2011, on revenues of about $2.3 trillion.

Where would this money come from? Not tax increases, right? Ms. Warren has already reportedly promised nearly a trillion dollar tax increase, spread over ten years, by raising the estate tax, imposing the Buffett Rule, and letting the Bush tax cuts expire for those earning $250,000 a year or more. But that money, she has said, would go toward deficit reduction. If Ms. Warren really wants to spend $1 trillion a year more on infrastructure, she’d need to eliminate all national defense spending ($705 billion) or all Social Security spending ($730 billion) and then find another more than quarter trillion dollars. Or else she’d have to go on the biggest borrowing or taxing binge in American history.

Double the amount the US is in the hole every year? Sounds about right!

China is able to spend so much on infrastructure because it’s an un-free country. It lacks the rule of law that lets American community groups wage legal and political battles against big government projects. Ms. Warren may protest that when she’s talking about “infrastructure” she mainly means maintaining existing roads and bridges, not building brand new projects that flatten urban neighborhoods or destroy scenic rivers. But that’s not what’s happening in China.

Remember that. In their own words, the Progressives wish the US were more totalitarian, they wish the State had even more power and less accountability. They see themselves as, at best, wise rules over a slack-jawed populace in need of constant control and uniform messaging, lest their baser urges get the better of them.

Change!

From Strategypage:

February 18, 2011: Corruption and viral marketing has provided the Chinese government with a powerful tool for controlling public opinion. It all began when Chinese companies realized that they could hurt competitors by planting damaging rumors on the Internet. This, even in China, is illegal. But the corruption in China being what it is, there was little risk of getting the police to hunt down and punish the perpetrators. This was partly because the marketing firms, hired by companies to burnish their image, or defame competitors, was careful to have other small outfits get on the Internet to actually do the work, and be careful to not be traceable.

....

Chinese Internet users know this sort of thing goes on, and have adjusted their use of Internet communications accordingly. It’s become more important to actually know many of the people you communicate with on the Internet. In response, the marketing companies have adapted. The opinion manipulation is now more subtle, and it has become a form of advertising. But for the government, it's a another tool to keep an increasingly irate population under control.

And now... this:

The US government is offering private intelligence companies contracts to create software to manage "fake people" on social media sites and create the illusion of consensus on controversial issues.

The contract calls for the development of "Persona Management Software" which would help the user create and manage a variety of distinct fake profiles online.

Do I even need to comment on this?

Meanwhile the White House is trying other Orwellian tactics.

Well, it's not like they've got more important things happening in the world.

And I'll end with something actually funny.

“Listen, Abraham Lincoln helped to build the interstate… intercontinental railroad in the middle of the Civil War”.

Oh wait... no, the President thinking Abraham Lincoln helped build an intercontinental railroad is just... sad (is 10 seconds of wiki research too much for these clowns? or how about knowing what intercontinental means)

Remember, these folks think they can run your life better than you. And they'll use your money to try to convince you it.

Uh oh

Richard Fernandez examines the wikileaks thing and comes to some disturbing conclusions.

If President Obama has shown himself to be disappointing, Hillary has not exactly covered herself in glory. But it is the contrast between their previous bluster and the present result which is so ludicrous. Here was the team that was going to restore America’s standing among allies; going to ‘end things where they began in Afghanistan’; begin a new era of engagement in the Middle East; prosecute terrorists in court to show moral superiority; create “a world without nuclear weapons”, dismantle “unproven missile defenses”; make the oceans fall; bring prosperity to America and solve health care. And to do this they had the smartest woman in the world at State; huge majorities in the Senate and House.

And all they have to show for it are a few ripped up tickets, some smudged receipts and a few giveaways from a box of crackerjacks. That and pie in their face.

Now the Republic’s enemies must be asking themselves: where is the bottom to these people’s incompetence? Can they do anything at all? How safe is it to rush ahead? Why don’t we try?

Remember, Obama's bulster on all his domestic solutions? Any bets that those plans will be anymore competent? Interesting times.

Via Rand

Every Three Seconds

Imagine if you will a person being killed every three seconds.

Count that off 1.. 2... 3... Gone.
And repeat, every three seconds again and again and again for four years. That comes to about 45 million people.

Mao's Great Leap Forward killed 45 million people in four years.

In other words:
11,250,000 per year
30,800.82 per day
1,283.37 per hour
21.39 per minute

And yet for many Communism is quirky and lovable and just needs to be done "right".


How is it that Fascism is forever (and rightfully so tainted) but Communism gets off?

This is only the "Great Leap Forward". There was also the Hundred Flowers Campaign (where "healthy criticism" was quickly deemed "harmful and uncontrollable"), the Cultural Revolution (*only* 1.5 million), and the aptly named Anti-Rightist Movement ("re-education through labour" and "in some cases death").

And that's just China. What about Russia, Cambodia, Cuba? The Holodomor in the Ukraine. North Korea?

Back to Andrew Stuttaford:

That helps put all the posters of Chairman Mao that decorated Western campuses back in the 1960s into some sort of context. Sadly, the attitudes that made such posters so popular are still with us today.

That would be like having a Hitler poster on your dorm wall just after VE day.

Well, maybe atrocities and murders don't count when it's Chinese that die. Lord knows Japanese WW2 war crimes don't get the same play as German or even US ones.

Weaponized Democracy

In China there's a General that is speaking of the need for democratic reforms, and he's being published and giving talks and is not being censured or imprisoned. Which means that there is some level of official approval.

But why is General Liu pushing for reforms?

Liu's backing of democracy is purely practical, and really has
nothing to do with political beliefs. He describes American democracy
as a system designed by a genius for effective use by stupid people.
As Liu puts it, ''a bad system makes a good person behave badly while
a good system makes a bad person behave well. Democracy is the most
important reform for China, for without it there can be no sustainable
growth.''

Liu has also been active in anti-corruption efforts, and points out
that democracies tend to have far less corruption than
non-democracies. This gets the attention of Communist Party officials,
who have long believed that the Russians made a mistake by enacting
economic reforms as well as political ones. Liu points out that the
Russians had no choice, as the communists in Russia were completely
discredited, and the economic reforms followed the political collapse.

Liu points out that communists can compete in a democratic
environment, especially since Chinese communists have abandoned the
most destructive aspects of traditional communist doctrine (state
control of the economy).

Consider that. A general is considering democracy (or at least representational government as a method to achieve military results via healthier business growth, cleaner government, and more technological advancement.


Isn't it interesting? A Chi-Comm sees the US's military and economic strength as a side effect of being a representative republic. He infers that the electoral process is a feedback system that can remove government officials that are... problematic.

Of course the US system only works when the populace response to provocations and "throws the bums out" when required.

Feedback Controls.

Strategypage on trouble brewing in China. In short corruption breeds unrest, unrest breeds revolution.


Here's what happens when there's endemic corruption and a total lack of trust.

The corruption is everywhere. University degrees, and other education credentials, for example, cannot be taken at face value. There's simply too much cheating. So employers have to carefully examine job candidates. This often includes administering lots of tests, and making sure there is no cheating, or that the test monitors are not bribed. In effect, the most honest aspect of the country is business. You can't run any kind of profitable company without a fair degree of
honesty and dependability. There is cheating going on (like the contaminated baby formula that actually killed a few babies), but that sort of thing puts you out of business (and got some of the baby food executives executed). Thus market pressures keep a lot of Chinese honest, but not so government officials.

Emphasis added.

Funny that. The only way you can ensure quality is by giving the "consumers" a method of choosing to forgo paying for the service. If the provider's funds are cut off then they cannot continue.

This is what is so troubling about government bailouts of banks, automakers, and newspapers. It makes them immune to customer power, and beholden to governmental power. The feedback system of quality being ensured by customer buy-out fails, and is replaced by a feedback system of pleasing governmental paymasters. This way they'll get money from the the public (via taxes), no mater what they produce.

"Whoever pays the piper chooses the tune." When you bailout a company, they stop selling products and airtime, and start selling governmental-approval. They make money by towing Policy, whether by donating to the "right" causes or producing the "right" products.

Profits be damned, because they're not making their money by moving product, they're making their money by ensuring the tap from Uncle Sugar doesn't run dry.

Another example of how the feedback system is subverted.

With military equipment, lax standards are an even greater problem. That's because military equipment doesn't really get put to the test unless there's a war, and China has not been at war since 1979 (where outnumbered, but experienced, Vietnamese troops beat the crap out of
the Chinese invaders). So second rate military equipment is all the rage. Manufacturers make more money, a lot of which is used to bribe purchasing officers to buy the flawed gear. The Chinese leadership, or most of them, are aware of this, and this leads them to make military
threats, with the realization that actual military action could be disastrous for China. The best stuff is often exported, because foreign users are less likely to tolerate shoddy standards, and will not order more stuff.

Emphasis added.

Here's a prime example of what happens when the government becomes your customer. This is especially acute on military procurement, as the product can only be purchased by government. Hence bloated programs, schedule slip, and feature creep. As we've seen the only way out is if the Defense Contractor can sell to a different nation-state, one that can choose where they buy their weapons. This requires the approval of the host nation, but one can see how consumer choice is what ensures quality.

The ability of a customer to take their money elsewhere is what forces a company to fight for that money. Take that away, and they've got no reason to maintain quality or service, because they'll get your money anyway.

But don't worry, making healthcare a government procurement program will be different. They'll get it right this time.

Gun Control. Never enough. Not even in China.

That's Mitch Moxley's view on Chinese Gun Control. He seriously thinks that a communist regime isn't strict enough.

[T]he gun control laws later implemented by Mao and the Communist Party [are] some of the most severe firearms laws in the world. China has imposed a blanket ban on gun ownership, including replicas. Since 1966, the government has prohibited the private manufacture, sale, transport, possession and import or export of bullets and guns.

Possessing a single gun can yield a three-year prison sentence, while perpetrators of gun crimes are often executed.

Moxley then goes on to list criminal activities and try to link them with "gun culture". Then we get this gem of an end.

China introduced gun control in 1966, after children armed with rifles shot out a window at the Great Hall of the People at the Tiananmen Square in Beijing while trying to hit a sparrow, according to official MPS history. The government cracked down harder on gun ownership after the 1989 pro- democracy demonstrations.

It needs to crack down even harder on today's rising gun crime.

Emphasis added.

There you go, in his own words Moxley shows that gun control is done expresssly to facilitate govermental control, and he wants more. Repression in response to protest is good in this man's view.


Gun grabbers are on the side of the totalitarians, and there is no ammount of private firearms use that they condone.

Even China doesn't go far enough.

Via Uncle.