International Politics, It's Not All About The USA

Can't do a thing about humans hating other humans for ignorant reasons, either, but we seem to still scream about and litigate that every day.

Nobody is saying to start sending over aircraft carriers to the South China Sea but damn, our media is even afraid to just call a spade a spade, gets upset if someone dare call Covid the China or Wuhan Virus, but just seems to not care about what China is doing to these people.

Yeah, there are many countries so financially enamored by China they wouldn't dare condemn them but there are quite a few, like the US/UK/Germany/France/Canada/etc. who have the ability to make an actual impact on China's bank account enough to make some kind of difference. Remember, China's wealth comes mainly from our consumers and if just a few other countries participate in some sanctions, it would hurt China just like it would anyone else. They aren't invincible.

It's not being afraid to call out China, it's being afraid that, by calling out China, their parent companies would lose business.

CNN, who is owned by Time Warner, is owned by AT&T, which supplies phones and phone service in China. Of course, if CNN would ever say anything bad about the Chinese overlords, China would take over all of AT&T's assets and give them the big fat middle finger.

Same thing with ABC/ESPN (Disney owned), NBC (Comcast), CBS (National Amusements, which also owns a lot of Hollywood production agencies), Washington Post (Bezos, who also owns Amazon), etc.

Why do you think entities like the NBA, who is very vocal about so-called "racial and social injustice" is very silent about actual racial and social injustices in China, such as the Muslim concentration camps and Hong Kong? I thought "silence is violence" or whatever the latest excuse to destroy private and public property is for the radical left.

Umm I don't think you know how foreign securities work.

Essentially there is no "pay out" option, they can't show up and demand their principal back. The holder of the foreign bond is entitled to a yearly interest payment from the US Treasury and that's it. Like all foreign debt they could opt to transfer it to another, which is what you think "dump" is. The "other" would then be entitled to the exact same yearly interest payments. The value of the debt doesn't change by buying / selling it, it's value is fixed on the yearly interest payments.

So it tomorrow China decided to sell all it's US foreign treasury bonds for a total of $1 (extremely silly because they get paid around 22 billion USD a year in interest), the only impact that would have is someone just got extremely lucky, and China would no longer receive those interest payments. US foreign debt is handled by the Treasury department as bonds and is usually 2-3% depending on maturity rate.

Also most US debt is handled as public debt from the federal reserve, it's effectively borrowing from ourselves. China attempting to ruin the foreign Treasury bond market by undercutting US Treasury bonds would have no impact on our ability to borrow from ourselves. China can't do ***to the US economy with it's foreign held debt.

The only thing China can do is try to sell the debt at a premium.

Which, of course, is silly, since any smart investor will know the value of US Treasury Bonds, as it is publicly posted each and every month.

Only economic and financial illiterate people will fall for this. You know, the socialists in society.

This, so much *** this.

All that "social construct" "racial inequality" "progressive reform" that the left preaches is all ***. It's about the money, always has been and always will be. The Chinese government has created two very separate "China's" with it's internal domestic policies. The first is the western provinces that foreigners aren't allowed to go to without special permission. Those provinces are dirt poor, we're talking third world country levels of poverty. This place is kept perpetually in this condition, think District 10, 11 and 12 of "Hunger Games". The second China is the eastern provinces, especially along the coastline. These places are where the factories, cities and business's are at. This is where the wealthy life, where the government bureaucrats, social elite and merchant class lives. There is a huge middle-class being created in the eastern cities as a result of the pseudo capitalist reforms China did awhile back.

The eastern factories / business's recruit cheap labor from the impoverished western region. China doesn't allow free movement of it's people, you need special permissions to leave your region. This enabled China to manipulate it's economy such that it always has a pseudo slave caste while simultaneously funneling economic prosperity to it's middle and upper class's.

Now about that economic prosperity, those guys have a ton of new money acquired from western consumers. Western companies are salivating at the opportunities to market to those new money and the Chinese government knows it. They use access to this market as a club to keep western nations in line and doing what the Chinese government wants them to do. President Trump can't arrest the executives at CNN and have it's assets transferred to Fox Corporation, Xi Jinping can and will do those things in China. Anyone doing something he doesn't like is at risk of having all market access and assets in China stripped and given to their competitors.

While, at the same time, have all of the technology used to create those businesses in China stolen by the Chinese state and given to the state-run businesses to compete against those who are actively investing in China.

Which is why you have tech companies starting to lose ground against the Chinese government and having to play by their rules (aka Google) because, that is now literally the only way they can have any further business in China. China has already stolen all of Google's intellectual assets and converted them into "the state" but, since they didn't develop or reverse engineer it, they cannot maintain, so they still allow Google and other tech companies to maintain business in China, never mind that Google, by staying in China, will continue to lose more and more each passing day.

There is a literal technological bubble in place in China. The tech companies are too stupid and greedy to know or willing to pull out to pop that bubble. Move out of China, and their economy crashes harder than Biden's race relations after he gets what he wants.

I meant, afraid to call the virus the China or Wuhan virus as in, afraid of being "culturally racist" in their verbiage. They tippy-toe around words in an effort to be woke and we have celebrities and sports figures defending China if anyone says these things, but Holocaust-like activities? Meh. China gonna be China!

It's funny, some of you seem to have a basic grasp of the problems but you're still cheerleaders for capitalism.

Pretty clear basing absolutely everything you do in life around how will this affect me financially is pretty *** up.

Again, they are defending China because China holds their paychecks.

I question if you even know what the problem is, since you are obviously blaming Capitalism for it.

The problem is the only thing that matters, the only thing that motivates anyone, the only reason to do anything (good or bad) is money.

Don't like someone? Get them fired. Get their sponsorship cancelled. Why are there sponsors in the first place. Why is literally everything monetized.

Every thing you see, every building you pass, every sign, every bag every bottle. Someone paid someone else to figure out how to sell it to you more effectively.

Not true. If money is the only thing that motivates anyone, why is there charity? Why is there art? Why is there literature?

Only somebody who has zero notion of true wealth would say that.

Also, only sad people who have no concepts of the world or the people living in it feel that way. Only people who view others as tools, not as human lives, would talk like that.

Yes, that is how Capitalism works. Efficiency is key. It's better to live efficiently than to be wasteful, you know.

So, you basically dumbed down the arguments between Capitalism and Socialism into 6 words: Capitalism is Efficiency, Socialism is Waste. Good for you, you are learning!

Because the people need money. To make money. To make money.

The entire premise of capitalism IS that people are tools. YOU are not "an essential worker" it's "essential" that someone runs my cash register, it doesn't matter which one of you do it.


That's not efficiency, it's brainwashing. Work your whole life to buy ***you don't need and die at your desk. So that someone can make money off of you.

There is no large-scale economic system that hasn't used people as "tools". Running a cash register won't get you into the upper echelons of society in any of them. The rich get richer and the powerful become more powerful regardless of the system, so long as they know how to work it. People just like to pick on capitalism because it's obvious what it is, as opposed to other economic models that pretend to be what they're not.

As soon as you give all your money away to the poor and live in the woods, Robin Hood, then you can call out others for caring about their finances. I try to find common ground with you guys but I'm really getting tired of the morale rhetoric from the political side that favors mother's convenience over the life of innocent babies.

No, no, and no. There are a lot of people who give money to charities that help social services, stuff that not even the federal government can do efficiently. Such as cancer research, child hospitals, animal shelters, and feeding the poor.

Also, I have yet to meet an artist or author who created a masterpiece hoping that it would sell millions. There are a lot of art and books out there that hardly sells, but they still do it anyway.


Way to prove my point, btw. If anyone here is a tool, it's you for spouting socialism without putting one thought into what you are saying. You are a useful idiot, which is exactly what they want. Good job!

And no, that's not a personal attack. The term "useful idiot" has it's own connotations, and it doesn't just apply to you.

I'm afraid to ask, but, do you have any other source of income (aka another job) besides the one you tell people on this forum about but for some reason don't want me to mention it? If you do, how high up are you on the ladder? And, if you are so low as I assume you are, what is keeping you from climbing up? Could it be your attitude?

Yes, I can see what brainwashing is, you exhibit it so readily and openly. I feel sorry for you though, going through life like that.

BTW: Just so you don't get your panties in a bundle, absolutely nothing in this post is a personal attack. I'm pointing out your flaws in your argument, but I can already forsee your next post. I really wish you and I can have an honest conversation, but it depends on you, I guess. I really don't like having to converse with you with kiddy gloves on, since you seem to offend so easily.

There is a reason why Vic and I get so well outside of P&R, and honestly, here too. We attack each others ideas, not each other in a personal sense, because we both know that this is just an argument, nothing more.

But, for some reason, you think that I'm trying to kill you, based by your posts. I want to have a conversation with you, otherwise I would just block you and be done with it. Please don't make me have to block you, I am open to other people's viewpoints and the block feature is, in my opinion, the antithesis of my wish. Which is why I don't block people, even the most offensive of them all here.

I didn't advocate anything at all. Only that our "version" of capitalism is dogshit.

You're just adding words that don't exist.

Never mind that, in the eyes of anti-capitalists, that Capitalism has the unintended benefit of creating a better society than any other social economic system has ever in the history of man.

But, by all means, if somebody can make a social economic system that is better than Capitalism, I'm all for it. Socialism is not it though, it has 1 good idea and 10 million bad ones.

Please, continue spouting the virtues of a system that requires pitting those near (or in) poverty against each other for garbage wages to maintain itself.

Are you talking to Eiryl or me?

That should be pretty obvious.

I don't know, people like to equate Capitalism like that, but in practice, socialism does the job much more efficiently than Capitalism does.

Want proof? Go look at Venezuela. Or China, if you dare. Those are two perfect examples of systems that requires, and I quote, "pitting those near (or in) poverty against each other for garbage wages to maintain itself."

Capitalism, by virtue, and by practice, do not. Otherwise, minimum wage earners in America wouldn't have better lifestyles than the bottom 95% of Europe. That's correct, the "impoverished" in America have better lifestyles than the 95% in Europe. Also, the "impoverished" are considered the "evil 1%", as coined by anti-capitalists, in the global society.

So, you can't condemn me without condemning yourself.

You don't actually think that's accurate do you?

You think minimum wage workers here have it better than anyone (95%) in europe.

Name a system that doesn't.

KN... If you want to make things in China there are a few state requirements. One is technology transfer. They don't steal that stuff, the multinational corporations GIVE IT TO THEM.

This is not to say that they don't steal technology, they most certainly do. But forced technology transfers is not stealing. Its the entry fee to get into a market with two billion consumers.

People really don't understand what capitalism is?

Here's a hint, Marx had absolutely no *** clue what capitalism was.

Now quick class for those who won't read it anyway.

First divorce the notion of *money* and *capitalism*, they have absolutely nothing to do with each other. We had capitalism long before we have the notion of currency. To be short, capitalism is the voluntary free exchange of goods between two entities. The voluntary and free parts are really important and the reason Socialism fails.

To elaborate I'll give a very simple example that can be magnified to any scale.

One man is good at fishing, in two hours he can catch 10 fish while the average person can only catch two. Another man is good at making clothing, he can make a full set of clothing in two hours while the average is an entire day. The first man needs a set of clothing, the second man needs to eat and thus they both agree to freely exchange their goods with each other. The first man gets a set of clothing, the second man gets to feed his family. Now the first man only had to exchange five fish or 1 hour worth of his work to get a set of clothing that would of taken him all day (12 hours) to make. The second man only had to exchange one set of clothing, or two hours of his work to get five fish which would of take him five hours to catch.

The result of this is that the first man "created" 11 hours of time by trading his specialization for another mans specialization. The second man "created" three hours of time by doing the same. Both of these individuals "profited" in the exchange by creating time. This entire exchange happened without a single unit of "money" existing because time is the universal currency for us all.

Capitalism in this way seeks to maximize the universal amount of time created, otherwise known as efficiency. The more efficient a system is, the more universal time is created.

Now for "money" and what it really is. Those guys participating in capitalism have the problem of needing to only exchange in whole units and needing to exchange with someone who needs precisely what they have to exchange. When we use some intermediary currency we can now exchange in partial units and between anyone, the man exchanges his fish for "money", then exchanges some "money" for a pair of clothes. This makes for vastly more efficient exchanges. "Money" is just a numerical representation of "time, the exact value fluctuates with what a person must "exchange" to get that money.


Add now to put this into modern perspective. Take a cell phone we all now have, how much is that phone in currency, maybe $500 USD? How long would it take a person to exchange their time for that $500 USD after expenses? Well depends on their job, what they are "exchanging" for that currency. So lets just say one month (four work weeks) worth of saving up or 160 hours. How long would it take someone to "build" a cell phone, even if they had the necessary tools (but not knowledge)? One year, five years? There are 52 work weeks in a year, at forty hours we week that's 2080 hours per year. At five years that's 10,400 work hours, and that's dedicated time. If they also have to feed themselves then that could easily double it if not triple it (the 160 was based on money after feeding themselves).

So 160 hours vs 20,800 hours.

That is what capitalism does and why it's lead the greatest amount of prosperity in human history. That's not a joke, by all objective measurements today humans are living the highest standard of living we have ever experienced. As technology advances our time exchange rates will get even greater and thus creating even more profit for human society.

Now what about "wealth distribution", which is just a *** way of saying how much people's time is worth. Each person, individually, has a different exchange rate on time based on how much time a person can generate for society. Not all people have equal skill in this regard. Those who master the ability to generate time for themselves and others will always be able to generate more then other people. Those people do well in a pure capitalist system. Socialist systems just reward a different skill set then capitalist ones.

Here's everything saeval forgot.

Exploitation. Mr. Fisherman and Mr. Clothmaker would hire mexicans to do both chores and pay them in fish heads and scraps of cloth.

Capitalism isn't directly equal to money. It IS directly equal to gain of money, emphasizing "at any cost".

A) Europe isn't socialist. Even countries like Sweden who pro-socialists use as examples of socialism working aren't socialist.

B) China was pretty poor, even with their 2 billion consumers, until they adopted at least a business system that is basically capitalism.

C) The only reason to defend China's recent (and not so recent) actions against people or animals is if you have a vested monetary interest in China, or you simply see it as a way to deflect back to, "Orange Man Bad."

Just like after 9/11, our country was the most politically, culturally and socially united we had been in decades. Many decades, actually. We all had a common enemy. Then, the media and Democrats started seeing how this was benefiting *gasp* the legacy of a Republican president. Then come the Muslim sympathizers. "But, it's our fault! We support Israel and they steal their land!" (As if winning land in a war in which you were actually the one being attacked is stealing, but I digress).

All the sudden, THE LEFT, which on the average vocally is pretty anti-religion, in general, starts defending Islam. Literally the least democratic, least liberal religion on the planet. Just to try and crush the bond American's had found during a Republican presidency. Then, that divide just carried on through Obama and now into Trump, the latter two being masters of the divide.


So again, come up with something actually proven to be better than capitalism in a country preferably larger than Pennsylvania and we can all debate that.

Labour party continue to implode as the far left go into full meltdown. Grime "artist" wylie under investigation by the police for essentially saying Jewish people should should be shot and comparing them to the KKK.

Isn't it glorious watching the virtue signal crowd tear each other apart.