I have to say that the past week or so has had news of little or no interest to me, and even less worth commenting on.
Yeah, Trump has finally got Iran to sign a “deal” which will do something or other, but I suspect that those assholes have no intention of following any of its terms — at least, those terms which would prevent it from continuing their jihad against Israel and the West — so I suspect that at some point we’ll have to go back and do it all over again.
And the Brits are totally fucked under Labour — we all knew that anyway — but I see little light at the end of that particular tunnel until a proper alternative can be found for the Socialists. Don’t hold yer breath. If we think that repatriating the millions of illegal aliens Over Here is difficult, it will be exponentially more difficult Over There with the millions of “refugees” they’ve welcomed in and allowed to infest their once-proud society.
I don’t care about Europe as a whole, anyway, so whatever happens to them will happen — they brought it all on themselves anyway — and yeah, whatever.
Everyone keeps saying that China’s economy is going to collapse soon, but I think that’s bullshit. As the man said: there’s a lot of ruin in a nation, and anyone thinking there’ll be some sudden cataclysmic collapse is deluding themselves. (They said that about the Soviet Union too, and it did collapse; but I see no evidence of a Chinese Gorbachev to start the ball rolling.)
As for our economy… don’t ask. At some point we too are going to be well and truly fucked, thanks to our feckless government spending levels, but if there’s a lot of ruin in China, there’s a hell of a lot more ruin in the U.S. If we can somehow solve the issue without wholesale executions (quit that cheering), it will be a win.
The only bit of cheering news I see is that the stupid and self-destructive Green movement is starting to see the air escaping out of their little balloon, and not a moment too soon, says I. As Insty says, faster please.
I think I’ll go to the range and shot off a whole bunch of .22 because why not?
China will be screwed because their government debt bomb is several times larger than ours and they have a smaller economy with a rapidly aging population. Also, unlike us, they have a private debt bomb of bad loans their banks are carrying.
They are keeping it afloat with positive cash flow from subsidized exports, but that is impoverishing their own people. Sure, it can go on a long time, but it will not end well.
Isn’t the US debt about $40T and China is about $20T (public government, not accounting for the private government debt component)?
And China has what we don’t anymore: a production economy. And their purchasing power parity exceeds even the US economy. Now, I don’t mean to suggest that production and PPP will save them, but it makes autarky a hell of a lot easier if/when the world economy soils itself.
I have to wonder if social unrest might enter into China’s future, as the one child policy of the 1980’s has created about 30 million males with no woman to marry, and a falling birth rate, with an aging population. Their economy is such that both parents need to work to pay bills and the government wants them to work in order to fill out the workforce shortage, and at the same time, these parents are looking for government subsidy of childcare costs, adding to government expenditure and debt.
Regarding the deal with Iran:
We are going to release $25 billion in funds we seized from them. We’re going to pay $300 billion in reparations to them to rebuild what we destroyed. And Iran is going to open the Strait (which was open before) and agree to discuss, but not give up, enriched uranium.
That’s a surrender. And it turns my stomach. We started a war, spent billions, lost American lives, and for what? To go back to where we were beforehand, except for the fact that Israel is now in Lebanon.
That’s Iran’s version; not according to VP Vance, the US lead negotiator. I don’t believe anything the Iran assholes tell me; even with the US statements, I want to see the details. And so far the text of the agreement is not available.
Lets see the text, and then we’ll know. Until then, we’re just guessing.