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People With a Plan

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Let’s say Trump is doing de-globalization and anti-free-marketeering incorrectly. But then why didn’t anybody try to do it correctly or in any other way? People who are so convinced that this isn’t the right way, what is their plan? What alternative are they suggesting besides continuing as is, with more “free trade”, more open borders, and more globalization?

De-industrialization and other neoliberal beauties have been ravaging us for over 3 decades. Why has nobody done anything to stop them? All these people who today claim to know exactly how Trump is mishandling his project. Why didn’t they do it right 10, 15, 20, etc years ago? Surely, there’s been enough time.

I’ve noticed this on a very small scale in my own life. Any project I’ve undertaken as an administrator, there was always a crowd of people ready to point out the erroneous way in which I was going about it and give lists of suggestions on how to do it better. They never do anything themselves, though. They know exactly how but somehow always fail to bring this exquisite knowledge of theirs into practice.

29 responses to “People With a Plan”

  1. ed Avatar
    ed

    yeah, something drastic has to change. China is quickly catching up and looking to surpass US in several key areas. Even though Wallstreet was doing great under Biden, Mainstreet definitely wasn’t.

    There is decay in the USA right now. Infrastructure is bad, things are way more expensive than they should be, education is declining, woke ideology is a dead-end, etc. Some drastic change is definitely necessary to stem the decline.

    I’m not sure if Trump’s actions are the right ones, time will tell, but I do appreciate someone trying something really different. It’s also great that we can implement change quickly, unlike the European Union that is incredibly dysfunctional and slow to agree on the color of pens that they will use.

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    1. cliff arroyo Avatar
      cliff arroyo

      “China is quickly catching up and looking to surpass US in several key areas.”

      I’m not so sure about that…

      I agree that change has to be made and China can’t be relied on but for different reasons.

      I’ve lately fallen down the China population rabbit hole and either.. a truly massive psyop is being waged or China has nowhere near the population it claims (educated guestimates range more or less about half that) and its economy is cracking more or less in real time due to stupid decisions made by the communist government (catastrophically stupid decisions by governments are a hallmark of communist governments at all times in all places). And the government probably wants to start a war to distract people from it’s terrible policies and the awful results of same

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      1. mitchellporter Avatar
        mitchellporter

        “I’ve lately fallen down the China population rabbit hole and either.. a truly massive psyop is being waged or China has nowhere near the population it claims”

        I vote for psyop (anti-CCP psyop). But… how broad are your sources? Isn’t this just a few Youtube channels that are always anti-China? There have been tall tales before, about how tens of millions of Chinese secretly died of Covid, or how the Chinese military was just about to overthrow Xi.

        If you want a window on China, I suggest spending some time reading sites from China that are meant to be read by Chinese. Like the Chinese-language pages of People’s Daily or Caixin.com, translated into whatever language is best for you. If you want an even more populist experience, try Zhihu.com, which is a Q&A site where all kinds of Chinese are posting. And maybe try Taipei Times if you want a Taiwanese perspective too.

        It’s not that you should believe everything you read there, but it still might give a more realistic idea of the society.

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        1. cliff arroyo Avatar
          cliff arroyo

          “just a few Youtube channels that are always anti-China?”

          My main source for this particular topic is Lei’s Real Talk, she’s a kind of Chinese kremlinologist, bringing her detailed knowledge as a cultural insider to interpret public media to try to analyze the inner workings of the Chinese government. She’s anti CCP but in no way can be described as anti-China.

          She explains, for example, the significance of a politician making an appearance before two ordinary looking walls or the significance of a picture in which a general has his back to Xi… (while everyone else is straining to turn around in their seat to face him). I hadn’t even known of the Chinese idea/superstition that a person will experience adversity in the year of the Chinese zodiac sign (currently year of the snake – Xi’s sign).

          And if it’s a psyop then it seems to be from the Chinese government. She (and others) point to the vast number of videos from the Chinese internet commenting how empty formerly busy places are now, how many previously active storefronts are closed and how real estate isn’t selling even at half the former price. How few lights are on at night in 30 story skyscrapers etc.

          Again two non-Chinese independent analyses from before the pandemic both came up with figures around 800 million. I think there’s something to it….

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          1. Peter Avatar
            Peter

            Thanks Cliff, I don’t pretend to know the answer but I am interested in the question!

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            1. cliff arroyo Avatar
              cliff arroyo

              “I don’t pretend to know the answer”

              I don’t think anyone knows for sure….

              I do think that the official numbers don’t make sense and the real numbers are far less… the question is how much less…

              Liked by 1 person

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              1. Clarissa Avatar
                Clarissa

                One thing we can know for sure, it’s that whatever numbers a regime like that puts out are a lie. It’s the kind of a regime that always lies, even when there’s no specific purpose.

                Liked by 2 people

          2. mitchellporter Avatar
            mitchellporter

            I have seen the channel a few times, but not for a while. But I have just looked at the transcript for “The Vanishing Billion”. The official Chinese population in this decade is around 1.4 billion. She claims it was 800 million before the pandemic, and that 400-500 million died during the pandemic. Sorry, but the latter claim is particularly insane, it is about as plausible as saying that half of America died in the pandemic. China is an information society, full of Internet and smart phones just like the West. Do you really think that 1 in 2 people could die, and it would remain a secret? They can’t even keep reeducation camps for the Uighurs a secret. This is a “psyop” guaranteed, the only question is who is behind it and who is the intended audience.

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            1. cliff arroyo Avatar
              cliff arroyo

              “She claims it was 800 million before the pandemic”

              Not her claim, she cites independent studies made before the pandemic made by people that have an idea about how to measure such things. I would believe them over the CCP any day of the week. I don’t think Chinese people believer the 1.4 figure either. A couple of years ago I had a group of Chinese students and they laughed when I said I’d read that population was yet to peak… they all insisted it peaked before the pandemic. I didn’t get into numbers with them.

              And the 400 million is basically from AI.

              I don’t think it’s 400 but I really doubt if it’s much above 800 and I do think a lot more people died in China than anyone realizes and real numbers would stun the world when/if they ever come to light. Remember, China is run by the same organization that engineered the worst famine in human history (perfect institutional continuity) so ordinary people dying doesn’t bother them.

              Another video mentions an explosion (so to speak) in cremation centers and suggests (along with some other sources) that the increase in deaths is in fact ongoing.

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              1. Clarissa Avatar
                Clarissa

                I would also be fascinated to hear how many illegals we have living in the country. For 30 years, the number stood at 11 million. Then, Biden brought 10 million in, and the total moved to 12 million. What is the actual number and how come it’s always the same?

                Liked by 1 person

              2. methylethyl Avatar
                methylethyl

                It’s like trying to track the number of jobs created/lost using the BLS stats 😉

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              3. Clarissa Avatar
                Clarissa

                One of the things we are not allowed to know.

                It’s the same as how we are unable to find out what our actual budget numbers are at my university. Every time we ask, we are told that we are racists and how dare we. We thought that if only the very black colleagues ask the question, we’d avoid the accusation but no, it didn’t help.

                Liked by 1 person

              4. methylethyl Avatar
                methylethyl

                Asking about obvious embezzlement is always racist.

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              5. v07 Avatar
                v07

                Just out of curiosity, how does one reconcile the a) covid was not such a big deal and the West overreacted with its lockdowns, the number of dead was exaggerated by counting those who died of other causes while also having covid, etc, with b) the Chinese died in huge numbers and it was under-reported?

                Do Chinese have significantly different genetics, covid resistence wise? This can be cross-checked by analyzing the percentages of people of Chinese origin dying of covid outside of China, relative to local populations. I recognize the argument about Chinese medical system being crap, or them not caring about deaths, but it being crap or somebody not caring about deaths would not matter if covid was not a big deal…

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              6. methylethyl Avatar
                methylethyl

                The key claim here is that real numbers were way below official numbers *before* the pandemic.

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      2. methylethyl Avatar
        methylethyl

        There does seem to be kind of a math problem with the one-child policy, the preponderance of boys, and the reported current population numbers.

        At least one of these things seems likely to be wrong. Which one is most likely?

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        1. mitchellporter Avatar
          mitchellporter

          Can you state quantitatively what the problem is?

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          1. methylethyl Avatar
            methylethyl

            Nope.

            It’s a pattern-finding things. Something doesn’t fit. Can’t put a finger exactly on it. It might come into focus eventually, but right now I don’t know enough. Missing information.

            It’s like the business down the road from our church: that place bothers the heck out of me. There is something deeply wrong about the patterns of cars parked out front, the times of day it seems to operate, the total lack of signage and the haphazard window treatments. I don’t know anything about it. There’s something illegal going on there. I’m waiting to hear that it was busted prostitution, because that would make total sense of the traffic patterns.

            But I don’t actually know anything.

            China: the things we’ve been told are all true about China don’t add up in a way that makes intuitive sense. Something’s missing. One thing that would make sense of it is… their reported population is bigger than their actual population.

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            1. Clarissa Avatar
              Clarissa

              Back in CT I lived in front of a store that was exactly like that. Everything about it was off. I never saw anything remotely illegal but the people who went in – always young Middle Eastern men, always emerging with no purchases, going in several times a day – were off. The hours were off, everything.

              Liked by 1 person

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              1. methylethyl Avatar
                methylethyl

                It’s totally a whorehouse.

                But, yeah. I don’t know that and there’s no proof. But what the heck else could it be? Underground Pokemon gambling?

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              2. cliff arroyo Avatar
                cliff arroyo

                “were off. The hours were off, everything”

                My first guess would be drug distribution point (where sellers get their supply).

                But I really don’t know anything about how drugs are distributed so that’s a wild guess.

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              3. methylethyl Avatar
                methylethyl

                “My first guess would be drug distribution point (where sellers get their supply).”

                Anything’s possible I guess? But if that were the case I’d expect to see fewer women (in the evenings the people socializing on the doorsteps are generally plump black ladies), and skinnier.

                We had drug dealers in our old neighborhood and that operation was much more… circumspect. The sole woman involved looked like a scarecrow and had that weird could-be-any-age-between-25-and-55 (but probably under 30) look. They were end-of-chain distributors, but still… I can’t see a depot ever being that *crowded* on a regular basis.

                The old place was another case of just… deeply weird but not directly incriminating bits and bobs piling up until the only reasonable answer was drugs: people walking down our (rural, dirt) road all the time, carrying either a large purse (where are you going with that, when the nearest gas station is 7 miles away??) or a Paw Patrol kid-size backpack; cars randomly parked on the long, empty stretch of road that was the only way in or out of our neighborhood (they weren’t enjoying the scenery, and there’s no way that many were having car trouble!), with the drivers inside; drones casing the neighborhood; weirdly frequent trailer fires.

                Anyway, we got confirmation on that one, finally: shortly before we moved, we had a police helicopter circling our house (and all the neighbors’) low and loud with a deputy hanging out the door. The following morning, one of the walkers trudged by with an uncharacteristic black trashbag over his shoulder instead of the usual Spiderman backpack, and he was conducting a loud and incoherent argument with himself. Twitching a bit. Day after, two mugshots, including his, in the news announcing the big bust. Cops had raided their shed in the woods, confiscated some unholy quantity of fentanyl, coke, meth, and weed. We and the neighbors lamented that there were at least five of them, and only two had been arrested, but they scooped up one or two more in the following weeks, including the woman.

                Any of them could have looked inconspicuous if they’d kitted up with a fanny pack and water bottle instead of those ridiculous bags, and had a dog to walk.

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    2. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Trump is at least trying. He at least started a conversation that happens outside of the neoliberal framework. This in itself is a very big deal.

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      1. Avatar
        Anonymous

        Trump is merely saying enough things vaguely related to the problems of deindustrialization to get desperate people who think they can go back in time to vote for him.

        How do you think American factories have changed since 1989? How much do you think is accomplished by automation?

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          He manages to do it because everybody else is pretending that neoliberalism is great and shouldn’t be criticized.

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  2. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    “if that were the case I’d expect to see fewer women”

    I was referring to the place Clarissa mentioned… that also might be a money laundering place where people do hang out some times (the UK is apparently full of vape shops and “Turkish” barbershops that are pretty clearly fronts).

    At your place definitely seems more like prostitution or multi-purpose up-to-no-good place.

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    1. methylethyl Avatar
      methylethyl

      Ah! Apologies for losing the thread.

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  3. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    “how does one reconcile”

    As methyl said, the main issue is that population was probably vastly overstated before the pandemic. Estimates I’ve seen range from 700-900 million so I kind of settle for 800 as a likely figure.

    As for covid… it’s very hard to say as the outside world doesn’t know really what happened when and where…

    I remember for a while at the beginning thinking there seemed to be at least two separate viruses (one a lot worse than the other) but I could never pinpoint anything and smarter people than I with the right education couldn’t/didn’t either.

    I dont’ believe the apocalyptic scenarios (hundreds of millions of deaths) but I am open to the idea that tens of millions died, some from the disease some from government measures (including those that led to malnutrition/starvation) The only thing that would surprise me now would be credible evidence that the death toll was very low and the official population figures are accurate… that would really be a shocker.

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    1. methylethyl Avatar
      methylethyl

      Throw in little reports like organ harvesting facilities, Uyghur ethnic cleansing, forced abortions, COVID used as cover to round up large numbers of dissidents (population reduction), plus that thing where they have people out setting up completely fake crops (literally gluing acres of white rocks to rebar stems to fake a cotton crop, that sort of thing) in the fields, for the benefit of satellite photos, brand-new crumbling empty highrise apartment buildings in nearly-empty towns (i.e. fake economic activity)… this stuff doesn’t add up to a booming economy with vast numbers of young workers. It’s saying something else.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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