231–240 of 560 posts
Western world central banks tend to pressure prices down during economic shocks by withholding liquidity. This puts private markets in a gridlock and causes untold amount of damage to people's careers.
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This is the first comment I've made on this forum about China, so whoever you're speaking to is clearly not me but a collective "you" instead. Responding as myself, I simply added balance to the comment above me. Many people are making the exact same argument the person I responded to is making, and while that argument isn't false, it's clearly misleading. China does get credit for responding to the situation as they…
How would the situation have played out in the west? The symptoms are flu-like. Would the situation have been contained on the theory that people will self-diagnose after watching the evening news or hearing about it over Facebook? Also, if any situation explodes, would the west be as capable in quarantining a huge urban population or building a quick hospital? Would emergency aid be tossed around like a political ga…
Gorbachev used to say that Chernobyl was where the USSR really started to crumble. The disaster made clear how morally bankrupt and technically incompetent the system really was, wiping out any remaining goodwill or trust. Similarly, Katrina was where the semi-fascist US consensus under GW Bush went to pieces. I suspect China will experience a similar moment at some point. This might well be it.
This might be similar, but I see zero chance of Xi's power taking a hit. For as long as party's institutes are intact, he will be there. Some people began to speculate that Xi wasn't seen for the last 3 days, and sudden activity of "party elders," but I bet this is just an enormous amounts of wishful thinking showing up. Xi's "system" has an expiration date attached, but it's not tomorrow. Following on that Gorbachev…
I've also wondered how receptive the Chinese people would be to a series of documentaries or dramas that point out the inequality and unfairness in their system. A film that highlights how the government treats humans and families as cattle during national emergencies and disasters. Even the great firewall can't keep that out.
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My understanding was the US was not doing this to the extent China was. There construction projects to build ghost cities.
As a Californian, I would love if we were mismanaged in a way that produced excess housing!
The Chinese government's response to this situation (after some initial dithering) has been to move swiftly with big moves. I suspect that the force that overcame the initial delays in local response were powerful central government actors who could some in and simply shut cities and entire areas down and not fool around. There appears to be at least one emergency prefab hospital with about 1600 beds under constructi…
This kind of analysis I'm seeing everywhere is so misguided. The reason the local government didn't report on the situation accurately and even punished some journalists for speaking about it is a flaw of how their country is run and how their command structure incentives are poorly set up. This isn't a new problem and it's why we have converged to a different system in most of the West. The government coming in late…
Which is not to say that it's not a bad thing, just that it's not in any way unique to China, or even to non-democracies.
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If this thing was killing half of the infected persons there would already be much more deaths than there is now. Unless most the infections occurred very recently which is pretty unlikely. I think my 98% is probably a bit too optimistic, but your 53% is way beyond pessimistic.
If you look at the case study of the first patient in the US from New England Journal of Medicine the patient didn’t get to a poor condition until day 11 of the illness https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001191 at which point they tried an experimental antiviral and he recovered. 11 days ago, there were 527 cases. Patient in study didn’t come in until 2 days after having the sickness so if you look at -9 da…
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> Similarly, Katrina was where the semi-fascist US consensus under GW Bush went to pieces. Leaving aside the offensive comparison of the US to the USSR, you overlook that after GWB, we doubled down on the “US consensus” by electing Barack “drone strike” Obama. (I think Obama was a great President, but he was also very little different than George Bush except in his oration.)
>I think Obama was a great President, but he was also very little different than George Bush except in his oration Talk about revisionist history, my goodness.
The two had different rhetoric on guns, religion, and abortion, but very carefully preserved the detante on these social issues by not proposing any significant legislation affecting them. On energy policy, both supported fracking and coal. (Obama had some last minute 2015 environmental regulations, which were quickly rolled back by Trump, but they clearly aren’t a priority seeing as how he waited until the last year of his presidency to act.) On healthcare, both had significant measures to expand coverage. (Bush’s Medicare Part D was a $50 billion/year program, while ACA was estimated to be $95 billion/year.)
I wish western world central banks were as competent. In a situation of sudden supply constraints, prices are supposed to adjust up. This is basic supply and demand. Western world central banks tend to pressure prices down during economic shocks by withholding liquidity. This puts private markets in a gridlock and causes untold amount of damage to people's careers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Similarly, Katrina was where the semi-fascist US consensus under GW Bush went to pieces. Leaving aside the offensive comparison of the US to the USSR, you overlook that after GWB, we doubled down on the “US consensus” by electing Barack “drone strike” Obama. (I think Obama was a great President, but he was also very little different than George Bush except in his oration.)
>I think Obama was a great President, but he was also very little different than George Bush except in his oration Talk about revisionist history, my goodness.
The underlying issue is that Obama was beholden to the exact same corporate influences as Bush. You don't rise through Chicago politics that fast without some deals in place. This isn't a condemnation of Obama, by the way, but recognition of the system's vulnerability.