Viewing profile — westiseast

Having meaning, yes. Meaningful WORK? Not necessarily.

Any insight into why the lockdown hasn’t worked? By all accounts lockdowns have worked in other places (obviously with lots of other measures taken at the same time).

Late to the party but... I think another way of saying it is, any views coming from a country that doesn’t allow even a modicum of free speech should be discounted. I think there’s…

I think that’s the point - simply asking people to fly less and drive less and eat les meat will never ever ever work. We need big carrots and big sticks in order to achieve things…

The central government almost certainly ‘profited’ (ie. benefited) from this whole situation. 1) Strategically, it cornered the market and has been able to use that dominance to gr…

Perhaps it’s churlish to mention, but... China was happy to ignore environmental standards in order to corner the market in rare earth minerals. American miners couldn’t compete be…

I think because it’s pretty cheap (free) to make inspiring speeches to privileged American students about an esoteric ‘right to be human’. Meanwhile Apple effectively withholds tax…

I think if you look at media and propaganda within China, my original point is true - America (and often Europe) is presented as an enemy, an example of the failure of democracy, a…

Personally I think it’s not a ‘sudden’ paranoia, it’s an overdue one. China has made it abundantly clear for a long time that it considers the US to be an ideological enemy, a mili…

Personally, it’s a great example of amazing sales and how to build a brand. There’s no reason why brands today couldn’t learn from Nike’s sales/branding story without having to emu…

Sports is probably very specific. Amateurs will mostly buy what professionals recommend, or what their coach wears. These days you see sports stars and brands through social media …

I did wonder, what other brands existed at the time? I have no idea. Was coming to a track meet with branded, fashionable shoes in 1964 the equivalent of turning up in 1998 with an…

Yes, there’s a lot of people who know nothing of Tiananmen at all, but often those that do would characterize it as a riot by agitators who forced the governments hand.

They don't share pandas at all - the pandas are 'rented out' to zoos around the world and subject to intense negotiation and strict contracts. Any baby pandas born on foreign soil …

I for one feel like there’s actually limited play in this - America already is and has been the boogeyman for years. Whipping up nationalistic sentiment and expecting consumers to …

That’s a disingenuous argument. eg. in 2019, nobody is ‘forced’ to give their data to Google/Apple/Facebook, but actually avoiding those companies entirely is extremely difficult/n…

This sprang to mind: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15396956 Letwin had a habit of reading correspondence whilst in a public park in the mornings and then dumping it in pub…

Maybe - the neoliberal dogma of the last 40 years has been that you can’t have economic prosperity without democratic reform and liberal politics. China has shown categorically tha…

Not to belittle your experience, but one of the key issues in an authoritarian state is that nobody is held to account. So, if you’re a politician or a big businessman, you can say…

I disagree with why Western commentators struggle to accept China’s ‘success’ - it’s not sour grapes or jealousy as you suggest. China is breaking all of the established rules that…

I guess I’m saying, marketers aren’t persuading me I need a car. I made a fairly practical choice that I needed a car (maybe I’m not typical?). But perhaps instead of buying the ch…

I think thats a bad cliche. If I break down my spending, most goes on food (I have no rent/mortgage), the next biggest item are essentials like utilities/council tax/bills, then ca…

I think the hacking and being cut out of domestic markets is fairly closely linked. If you’ve already stolen the IP, you don’t need to let the foreign business in to provide that s…

I suspect the amount is a mix of things: * Investment in IP that then gets stolen. * Loss of potential earnings as American companies are locked out of Chinese markets * Loss of ac…

It’s nice for two reasons: * I get an independent confirmation that money has actually left my account (eg we’ve all shopped on websites when the payment pages crash and you don’t …