Guest essay by David Archibald
As we warned back in February, the UN Climate Change Commission is on a path to rule the world and mere facts are not going to get in its way. But there is another party that is running interference on the UN’s plan even while using the UN’s climate scare to get a leg up.
Last November the left-leaning Council on Foreign Relations, founded in 1921, praised China’s complicity in helping President Obama hobble U.S. industry with a U.S.-China climate announcement, thus enabling President Obama to better sell the EPA’s restrictions on carbon dioxide. The US Senate had long been saying that there was no point in the US restricting carbon dioxide emissions while a much larger emitter in the form of China remained unfettered. At the time the Council on Foreign Relations was nonplussed that China wasn’t making a big deal of the US-China climate agreement internally.
It looks like the scales have fallen from their eyes now though with the release of a report entitled Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China. Amongst other things, the report says that:
…intense U.S.-China strategic competition becomes the new normal.
And these statements:
Because the American effort to “integrate” China into the liberal international order has now generated new threats to U.S. primacy in Asia—and could eventually result in a consequential challenge to American power globally—Washington needs a new grand strategy toward China that centers on balancing the rise of Chinese power rather than continuing to assist its ascendancy.
Only a fundamental collapse of the Chinese state would free Washington from the obligation of systematically balancing Beijing, because even the alternative of a modest Chinese stumble would not eliminate the dangers presented to the United States in Asia and beyond.
This statement suggests that there will be no more panda-hugging:
This conception, shared by all Chinese leaders since 1949, reflects a vision of politics that views conflict as intrinsic to the human condition.
This statement reminds us that Steven Mosher wrote a book in 2002 entitled “Hegemon: China’s Plan to Dominate Asia and the World”:
More fundamentally, it requires that others accept this order as legitimate, which the historian Wang Gungwu has described as a “principle of superiority” underwriting Beijing’s “long-hallowed tradition of treating foreign countries as all alike but unequal and inferior to China.
Mr Mosher was well ahead of the pack on that. The Council on Foreign Relations report goes on to suggest some courses of action and in that is aided by its ability to hold two contradictory opinions at the same time, for it says that:
Nothing would better promote the United States’ strategic future and grand strategy toward China than robust economic growth in the United States.
Doesn’t the Council on Foreign Relations realise that President Obama is using the EPA’s carbon dioxide regulations to hobble the U.S. economy? That is why China made some vague promise about carbon dioxide in the year 2030. They were following Napoleon’s dictum of “Never interrupt the enemy when he is making a mistake.” If President Obama needed to co-opt China in the optics of hobbling the economy, China would have been only too happy to help, as they did.
The ability of the United States to cope with the troubles of the world depends upon how much economic freeboard it has. That in turn is to a large extent dependent upon how cheap its energy is. The global warming debate has now become very serious indeed.
A Chinese fort under construction in the Spratley Islands. Flak towers make a comeback after seventy years.
David Archibald, a visiting fellow at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C., is the author of Twilight of Abundance (Regnery, 2014)
Why the fort? Solar powered US bombers can’t deliver much of a payload so I don’t see the need.
🙂
Get those bombers into the jet stream, and then their propellers can become wind-powered generators!
The renewable fuel escort fighters will not make it either when they discover the shorter range and difference in gallons per mile.
Reply 0500
Robert Bewell, sent from my iPhone
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Unfortunately “Never interrupt the enemy when he is making a mistake.” doesn’t apply because he/Obama knows exactly what he’s doing. No mistake here. During his campaigning and explicitly during his acceptance speech on up to today he says wealth redistribution is a priority. Only when Americans understand that wealth redistribution means taking money from the West and giving it to the UN without a way to regain it will they understand what it really means. This isn’t just raising minimum wage or limiting CEO salaries.
It could be argued that a million penniless subsistence farmers are of no value to the USA but a million economically thriving consumers do.
And that their innovations may be of value to the productivity of all mankind.
Just so long as they aren’t so poor that they aren’t even players in the game.
But can’t this be done by foreign investment and aid where needed, like for building some energy infrastructure. When the Haiti was struck by a quake it was already a broken state and now with broken infrastructure but they used the 20th century model for patching them up with medical assistance and some “aid” projects and they were forgotten about once the mess was cleaned up. It was an opportunity to give them a new economy. I had suggested on a thread somewhere that instead of building stuff in China, build an auto plant or some such in Haiti. Get these people to work and stop killing each other over who gets the “spoils”.
It would be as cheap a labor as in china and it would get them started on their self development. I worked for 50cents an hour when I was a young fellow, nothing wrong with that. I’ve worked in Africa a fair amount and trying to do something good for both parties, it is automatically opposed by NGOs who want to preserve their own lifelong safaris and big paychecks. These countries have natural resources and let’s ‘exploit’ these and get them going. There are already very restrictive laws in Canada concerning mining projects in foreign countries. You have to meet Canadian standards of occupational safety and health and environmental protection. I had to make (against their will) local workers wear safety boots, hard hats and dust masks in a new stone quarry. Even Haiti has mineral resources similar to what is being mined in neighboring Dom. Republic, Cuba, Jamaica, etc.
But heavens, taking wealth from western countries and giving it away doesn’t work. Probably a trillion in aid and other handouts since independence in Africa has been all but squandered to little effect. It doesn’t work in our own countries. Handouts without some form of effort to move these people into productive spheres have also destroyed generations in our own countries. Let’s do business with them.
Gary, It’s a lot more than just the cost of labor. An auto plant is a huge investment. You have to have some confidence that the govt won’t steal that investment out from under them.
Haiti is a broken state from top to bottom.
Handouts without some form of effort to move these people into productive spheres have also destroyed generations in our own countries.
=============
sport on. equalization payments killed Atlantic Canada, by artificially keeping wages high, which forced businesses to close. In the end if people cannot make money (profit) from doing work, the work will move somewhere else.
somewhere along the line academia went off the rails and started preaching that profit was bad. well, look at China versus Cuba. similar forms of government, but in Cuba you are not allowed to start a business and make money. Only the state can own a business. As China used to be.
Now in China you can start a business and make money. The more money you make, the more people you can afford to hire to help you make even more money. And as you make even more, you can hire even more.
Anyone that cannot see why profit = employment and why loss = unemployment has not been paying attention. The US has an employment problem because they have a profit problem. Profit has become a dirty word.
You just read that article and you think that the main problem is the UN rather than China?
Nixon’s visit to China was the greatest blunder in human history. It was the beginning of the end for effective (as opposed to notional) democracy.
A few months ago a friend asked me: “What would Obama have done differently if he was working for the other side?”. I couldn’t come up with an answer.
What China and India are doing? Give the UN and the IPCC a certain hand gesture which is not generally used in polite society?
Yes, it’s come to having to rely on China, India, Russia, to prevent a total destruction of the world’s economic engines. We cowardly use this to say, gee if the big polluters like Asia aren’t going to go along, we won’t until they do instead of having already taken the lead in opposing this. What is preventing the west from defunding all the UN’s “new” initiatives outside of being a meeting place to prevent going to war with each other. We don’t need grouchomarxists to tell us what needs to be done with our own economies.
I think while there are still some chips in front of us, we should be making bilateral economic pacts with similar thinking nations before they have all succumbed. After that you can be held to ransom for holding out joining the club. Look at the UK! They have half a world of English speaking countries that they outfitted with legal, economic and political philosophies that work masterfully. Why in hell do they feel the need to throw in their lot with nations that couldn’t even be taught to understand these things? Of course, I would give Germany and Holland an honorary membership in the English speaking block.
This group would be a grand counterbalance and would lead the world into prosperity, productiveness and freedom. This role was taken on by the US, but they seem tired now and no longer want to do it. They seem to want to follow the British in throwing in their lot in with the same kind. Let the destroyers and opposers run their own show into the ground if they like. Hey, let’s ask India to run the show. I like what they are doing.
obama IS the other side.
“What would Obama have done differently if he was working for the other side?”
===============
He would have learned the art of horse-trading. What separates great Presidents from poor ones. The ability to make a deal so that both sides come out winners.
China doesn’t have to do anything. The $18 Trillon++++++++++ growing and growing is the final nail in the coffin for the USA.Unless Big changes come to the US. The way the Gov does business /Tax/ Federal reserve and……………………..you fill the space……………………………..
On another note in the coming war with China.
The new none nuclear bunker busting bomb will finish the Chinese Flack tower paradise in a Micro second, you won’t even know the atoll was there. Times are going to get very interesting and tough.
.
The GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) “bunker buster” bomb= 30,000-pound (13,608 kg) of fun!
Yes, 15 tons, that’s big – although when you consider one average nuc equates to over 100,000 of these all rolled into one (big one over a million of them), it puts some perspective on things. Yes, interesting times to come.
;
tacnukepoof
China’s leadership is probably less familiar with Napoleon and more with Sun Tzu. From memory, apologies for not recalling verbatim, but Sun Tzu counselled:
If you must go to war in support of an ally, arrive late. Your enemy an your ally will take the bulk of the casualties and will be worn out on the battlefield when you arrive fresh to turn the tide and be hailed as heroes with a minimum of casualties to yourself.
So, they’ve agreed to fight. But they want to arrive to the battle late. Let their “allies” take the damage from being the first ones into the fray. If by 2030 it is evident that there really is a battle to fight, they’ll join in then, but from a position of economic strength.
Spot on! They seem to be skeptical and unconvinced of any runaway greenhouse effect. Hence the “wait and see” attitude.
Kind of like the Americans in WWI and WWII, no?
Or the Soviets jumping in against Japan in August 1945.
The US had no business in WWI.
We also had no dog in WWII until Japan attacked us. Even then it’s unlikely we would have joined the European war had not Germany declared war on us.
A little unfair & unjust, imho. The USA supplied the UK with munitions in both wars. For the US wars a tricky things, certainly as the wounds & sores of a recent Civil War were still festering in many areas & States. Yes they were a little late, but their contribution cannot be frowned upon in any way!
America may have been late for WWI and WWII, but it looks like it will be really early for WWIII
Roy Jones
Sorry. China is already fighting WWIII. The racists in power in Washington, Chicago, New York, and Baltimore have only now figured out that they can get racist votes by pretending the Civil War was not already been won at a cost of 600,000 lives and 40 years of destruction. And many more in Washington actually want China to win this on-going WWIII.
“Science” definitely affected politics in WW2.
Yes, the “science” was used to achieve a political aim. (Preserve freedom?)
The big difference, the huge difference, is that the “science” had to actually produce a result that was reality.
Dropping a bomb that produced a hole in the ground or a bunch of butterflies would not have induced Japan to surrender.
The science and engineering that ended WW2 had to work in real life.
Today’s “Climate Science” (apologies to the honest practitioners out there) doesn’t need to work in real life.
It just has to achieve a political aim which has little or nothing to do with freedom.
Where is the missing sarc tag after ‘left-leaning’ attribute for the CFR? The CFR has been called ‘the heart of the American Establishment’ (Schlesinger) or ‘the Establishment’s unofficial club’ (Halberstam) and when did pro-business ever become ‘left leaning’? I have been under the impression the CFR has been pushing for a world financial structure – but not a government accountable to any voters – for many years. That makes the CFR and the IPCC natural allies.
No sarc tag is appropriate.
The Five Basic Forms of Government Explained:
well put
“That makes the CFR and the IPCC natural allies.”
Indeed; and it is about governance, being the world’s elites. It isn’t a big secret; I think anyone can join, pay dues and get their little publication. Being influential is a little more complicated.
“The left” is about governance. It is T.H. White reminding everyone “Everything not forbidden is compulsory”. Left and right have basically the same goal, a modestly different path to it.
Governance in some degree is necessary for any society; the differences then become how much governance, over what aspects of your life, and the consequences of transgression.
The CFR believes in global warming, carbon taxes and the whole disaster. Is there a left wing organisation that does not believe in global warming? Not a one. Are there any right wing organisations that believe in global warming? Only the loonies.
David Archibald
You assert
Well, that makes the majority of right wing organisations in the world – including the newly elected UK Tory government – “loonies”. I agree with your assertion.
Richard
Mosher got something right?
I believe it is a different Mosher. I saw this one on TV a few years back and asked our Mosher if it was him — it wasn’t.
Steven Mosher is the director of the Population Research Institute. I’ve seen him on EWTN (he’s Catholic). I received a mailing from PRI just yesterday. Trust me, he would not get along with people like Ehrlich and Holdren.
China is just a blip on the radar. Their ageing population will cause an economic implosion very soon – in the same way its happening in Japan. The real future belongs to Africa. That is where the population growth is taking place while population is declining in the rest of the world.
“The real future belongs to Africa. That is where the population growth is taking place”
Curious that you make no mention of economic future in Africa. Or is this just a logical fallacy of the “Real Future” (being whatever you define it at the moment). Future “happens”; nobody owns it.
The future of Africa includes economic and political progress. Economic growth can only be supported by population growth. China’s population is going to decline by 25% according to long term U.N. projections while Africa will have 40% to 60% of the world’s children. The GDP of several African states have been growing rapidly. A nation with a declining population cannot have a growing economy, much less make war.
The Chinese are coming in hot and heavy with a boulder chip on their shoulders. They aren’t going to take any prisoners. They aren’t interested in a friendly relationship. We have to wake up.
If a growing population was all that was necessary for a booming economy, then Africa should already be an economic powerhouse.
You need a lot of other things, starting with a govt that isn’t corrupt or socialist.
A growing population isn’t all that is necessary but it is one element that is necessary.
So why are they all leaving the joint? 40,000 in the last month alone.
Having lived and traveled extensively in many parts of Africa. Africa as a whole is and will continue to be a basket case whose population and basket will get larger and its financial future will get smaller.
Aid money from the west goes into the banks of the dictators, ruling elite and tribal leaders. who are mostly educated in the west, there is no such thing as the trickle down effect.
Graft and corruption govern every aspect of life and then the inevitable faction wars.
The future most likely belongs to the people who control the best robots. In 1945 the world realised that control of natural resources was no longer the key to power. (Apart from the US obsession over oil, which is all just a gigantic blunder in any case, and has harmed rather than enhanced US power). Sometime soon it is going to dawn on everyone that non-elite people aren’t needed either, and a low birth rate is a strength rather than a weakness.
Inherent in all these predictions for the future of China and its predicted impact on World affairs is the wide spread, rarely challenged underlying belief that global circumstances at every level will continue on the same identical path they now appear to be following. and will continue to do so for many, many more decades into the future
So lets look at some of the neighbours as taken from Wiki’s land border article. Land borders which in the Chinese neighbour’s case aren’t all that enamoured with the idea of a aggressive Chinese Overlord next door.
The USA has two border countries, Canada a trusted and compatible absolutely non threatening friendly neighbor with 8893 kms of border
And then Mexico with 3141 kms of border.
Those 3000 kms of border with a relatively friendly Mexico seem to cause all sorts of grief to the Americans.
China in turn has 22,147 kms of external land borders shared amongst 16 countries, none of which are all that enamoured of the chinese aggressiveness and two of which, India and Vietnam, China has gone to war with in the last half a century.
China has a ongoing rebellions in it’s far western islamic ethnic Uighur provinces and in Tibet which it forcibly invaded in the late 1950’s.
On it’s western regions it faces an militant Islamic expansionist religion of the perhaps half a billion population Central Asian Islamic countries.
To it’s south it faces a non hostile for the moment, rapidly industrialising and developing, democratically governed and chaotic India with a population that is almost identical in numbers to China.
Fortunately one of the world’s most rugged terrains separates the major population centres of China and India thus reducing the chances of an inadvertent clash that could lead to a serious armed conflict.
Nevertheless India also is rapidly arming itself in part due to the threat of an aggressive China to it’s north.
Demographically the full effects of China’s one child policy will kick in by about 2020 when it is predicted that China will begin to run short of young factory fodder for it’s future and further industrialisation.
By then considerable numbers of China’s citizens will be reaching an age where with some wealth to their names they are beginning to look towards a pleasant end to their life times and war and conflict with the neighbours will no longer be so attractive particularly if they are the ones called on to fight those wars as there will no longer be the numbers of young men and women to draw on to fight the wars which old men everywhere whose own lives are not on the line, like to begin.
Then there is the completely unpredictable and unknown but possible and maybe probable climate kicker.
IF and its a big IF the predicted decline in solar activity continues and the possible / potential reduction in global temperatures actually comes about with another LIA kicking in globally, the current large northern latitude food and grain growing areas are likely to be constricted and perhaps eliminated from major food / grain production by the shortening seasons and colder temperatures.
China is extremely vulnerable with it’s population size, it’s relatively small food production areas of 122 million hectares or 13 % of it’s land area all of which is already under intense levels of food production versus the USA’s 370 million hectares [ 912 million acres ] used for food production including live stock farming.
China is extremely vulnerable to any potential global food shortfalls, even temporary and short term ones which will severely crimp China’s ability to exert power and influence on other global nations. China in fact could be held hostage by surplus to their own requirements food producing nations unless China is prepared to initiate what would almost invariably become a full scale global conflict in an attempt to forcibly take control of food surplus producing areas.
And it would be doing so in the face of other nations also potentially facing food shortages for their own populations.
There are quite a lot of limits on China and it’s current expansionist policies, most of them being quite inimical of China’s long term interests if it continues to follow it’s recent aggressive expansionist policies.
And climate change but not in the direction of the current global warming alarmists beliefs and ideology could well be the Black Swan event that brings China once again to it’s knees as it’s food production fails to keep up with it’s population’s demands and global food production fails to keep up with global demands as the global climate descends into a new Little Ice Age.
“Making predictions is difficult. especially about the future”
Neils Bohr, Danish physicist and Nobel Prize winner.
I would add the lack of a navy to that ROM, one 26 year old refurbished ex Ukrainian aircraft carrier and a naval air force that is minimal to say the least.
They have lots more in the pipeline.
Parents with only one son. Two sets of grandparents with only one grandson between them.
None of these are going to be exactly eager for that one child to be sent off to war.
China would risk a popular uprising if they started a war that did not have the full throated support of the population.
MarkW commented:
“Parents with only one son. Two sets of grandparents with only one grandson between them.
None of these are going to be exactly eager for that one child to be sent off to war.”
What makes you think this would be of concern to the leaders? Do the math, they still have more sons than us. It could also help solve several other population related problems. How many died during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution?
Sorry to get all pedantic, but I thought that your first “it’s” was a typo. Then I noticed several others. “It’s” means “it is”. The possessive of “it” is “its”. Would you write “hi’s” ? I don’t think so.
That’s just the beginning of it. Please see:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/05/12/the-intersection-of-climate-and-geopolitics/#comment-1933298
“will no longer be the numbers of young men and women to draw on to fight the wars”
Even with the one-child policy (now being abandoned) each class of conscript young males in China numbers about eight millions. Lack of military manpower is unlikely to be a big problem. Incidentally the birth-rate in China is 12 per thousand, compared to 13 per thousand in the US.
Friend of mine who have been travelling extensively in China in the last month have been posting numerous photos of the extraordinary levels of pollution in all parts of the country they have visited (save the Great Wall). The trip from Beijing to see the Emperor’s pottery army took six hours, and from the photos (which also showed numerous unoccupied high-rise townships crumbling into dust) the entire route was cloaked in a thick smog. They have had to wear masks for a lot of the trip.
I cannot believe that the long term health effects on the population (esp the children with their undeveloped lungs) of this chronic chemical pollution, can be anything other than catastrophic.
And add these two:
http://www.gulf-times.com/NewsImages//2015/5/11/d2c3d4c1-aff6-447d-bf43-32acd9840fca.jpg
http://www.energytrendsinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Coal-Consumption.png
“As we warned back in February, the UN Climate Change Commission is on a path to rule the world and mere facts are not going to get in its way.”
Good one. And while you worry about the facts, at least you don’t need to watch out for the zombies. They are only after brains.
I can assure you, you have nothing to worry about when it comes to zombies.
Made me smile… thanks! Curios though, is that because skeptics know Zombies don’t exist or is it because
Zombies aren’t attracted to Progressives because, well….. you know?
You are obviously unaware of the attempts to get an independent income stream made by the, unelected UN.
There is the one we talk of often here being a carbon tax.
There is the one put forward by Gordon Brown at Copenhagen in 2009, the universal financial transaction tax.
There is the current attempt to get a biomedical/pharmaceutical tax to putatively fund research and development of new antibiotics.
All of them run into billions of dollars and all bypass sovereign governments in the countries where they are raised. They are intended to fund the UN system outside of the existing levy mechanism which is overseen and managed by the member states.
Money is what is needed to increase the reach and clout of the UN and it would seem that it is intent on finding that cash.
Boy oh boy, does China have some scores to settle. And rightly so.
Anyone who has even a cursory understanding of the Opium Wars waged against China knows how abominably the Chinese were treated.
So hobbled was China by the deliberate Opium Attacks that is it any wonder why it fell to communism?
One can only wonder what China would be like today if it had not been ganged up on just for producing goods that everyone wanted. (Germany suffered for similar reasons.)
Beware the sleeping dragon. For when she awakes the Earth will shake.
Thank God the Chinese have a vestige of inward, xenophobia, hate-outsiders, leave-me-alone-ness. They are getting rambunctious lately. Nicaraguan canal no less. What is THAT for?
Paul Westhaver
So their ships (and only their ships!) can get through to their intended markets from their ports with their exported goods from their factories employing their laborers (er, slaves) when Cape Horn is blocked by Antarctic sea ice in 8 years …
The Opium Wars had been over for 90 years by the time China was conquered in 1949 by the Communist PLA under Mao Zedong.
The Nationalists, or KMT, under Chiang Kai-shek were getting very bad press in the US for corruption, for failing to fight the Japanese during WWII, and for having Gen. Stilwell recalled.
At some point, US aid to the Nationalists was terminated (despite the undying efforts of the so-called China Lobby), the PLA was able to recover large Japanese arms caches after the war, and events transpired so that the million-man PLA was able to rout Chiang’s much larger KMT force of 3 million men.
The Economist
The man who lost China
http://www.economist.com/node/13606318
Steve P
So quoting the Economist (a liberal-socialist-biased magazine) who are quoting the Communists in Roosevelt’s and Truman’s State Department who were fighting Mao’s wars for him in Washington. And who thus “lost” China’s millions to the Communists. As intended.
By the way, It was at Tehran in November 1943, that Stalin committed the Soviet Union to attack Japan once Germany was defeated. At Yalta in February 1945, Stalin set the timetable for the attack on Japan to commence three months after Germany surrendered. The Red Army’s attack on Manchuria began on August 8, 1945, exactly three months after Germany surrendered on May 8.
In my comment, above, Steve P May 12, 2015 at 8:38 pm, I gave the standard version of why China “fell” to the Communists. Whether or not this version is entirely factual is another matter.
While Stalin did commit to attack and fight Japan, the American’s/Allies saw that as a “problem”. The west, in particular, the American’s saw Russia attacking Japan as too much of a risk of her taking over a large segments of Asia. Eastern Europe was more than enough of a sacrifice. Just before, literally days, two bombs were dropped. One on Hiroshima, the other on Nagasaki. The Japanses surrendered to the American’s/Allies because they wanted their “Empire” to remain and not be consumed by Russian communists. And that suited the American’s/Allies too.
RACookPE1978 May 12, 2015 at 8:56 pm
Yes. Intrigue in China and the Pacific during the war is more inscrutable than its European/Atlantic counterpart, but as you say, the US establishment before, during, and after the war was riddled with Reds, so events in China must be seen in that light.
War and conflict are profitable to well-placed individuals who can antagonize and eventually polarize nations by stirring up trouble in the media, sell arms to both sides while the tension builds, and then clean up in the aftermath of the inevitable war, no matter which side wins.
Nice work, if you can make it.
They were so messed up, that it took 100 years for them to fall.
Ok..Hmmm Opium won’t work a second time…..Let me see….what can we bait our trap with? I can’t think of a thing they don’t already have except open space and individualism and I don’t wanna give any of that away.
We’re screwed.
We tried to bait our trap by exporting new, improved opium — irredeemable currency. But this time the pusher has become the addict.
I have heard claims that China bought the most African Slaves during slave trade times? I wonder?
I think that the “good old USA” has to get back to individual capitalism – that’s what essentially China is doing…
+1
What’s the world coming to when we can’t even trust the commies to be commies?
(Actually, at this point, China’s ‘communism’ might simply be a ruse.)
Attributed to “Deng Xiaoping” who served as the de facto leader of the People’s Republic of China from 1978 to the early 1990s.
“It doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice”.
This phrase in Chinese is more accurately translated as “wealth is glorious,” where wealth can have a very general meaning, including knowledge, personal relationships, family: anything of value. Understood this way, the quote is not as directly controversial as a ideological/political statement, and so it is not hard to believe that he really did say this.
ROM May 12, 2015 at 11:01 pm
“This phrase in Chinese is more accurately translated as “wealth is glorious,”
Nonsense! Even as an executive summary, that is completely off the mark.
I don’t read much Chinese, but I can recognize some of the ideograms, including those for black 黑 and white 白, which are also used in Japanese kanji.
Here I quote from An Encyclopedia of Translation, Chinese-English, English-Chinese (Chan & Pollard):
Unfortunately, I can’t cut ‘n’ paste the Chinese characters in the above.
Another source gives them as:
黑猫白猫 (能)捉到老鼠就是好猫
http://www.quora.com/What-are-some-great-Deng-Xiaoping-quotes
Which Google Translate renders as:
Black or white (can) catch mice is a good cat.
Bottom line executive summary:
Under Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese Communist tiger began to change its stripes.
There is also this from Wikiquote:
(my edits)
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping
The real future world war will be financial with computerized attacks.
What is interesting is that the US debt is like a snake swallowing its own tail. Like the symbols from the stars in another thread.
China, Japan and Britain are the largest holders of foreign debt. But, like a Ponzi scheme, US government agencies, using income tax dollars from the public, are the largest holders of US treasury bonds. So the US government continually sells its own treasury bonds to itself. Should one of the three governments holding a lot of the Treasury bonds decide to go to “war”, it will affect everyone and the “snake” will swallow itself.
No need for nuclear weapons.
http://useconomy.about.com/od/monetarypolicy/f/Who-Owns-US-National-Debt.htm
You are getting at the heart of the check-kiting scheme that is the USDollar.
Before, the USDollar was something of positive value — a specific weight and fineness of a monetary metal.
Now, Federal Reserve Notes (FRN’s) are collateralized by US Treasury Bonds, which are in turn redeemable in FRNs (which are redeemable in nothing).
This exhausts the definition of check-kiting.
I got gold bullion. Copious amounts. But I still worry becuz I can’t eat gold.
“…becuz I can’t eat gold”
Probably casts a fine bullet for a black powder rifle.
Would that matter in any way at all if the money was being spent on the material well being of America? In other words if it was going into infrastructure rather than running costs surely it is as real as any wealth.
Our US President Obozo is so out of his league on anything science or technical. Obama is an illiterate as far as technology goes. Obozo could not run a lemonade stand, so the Russians and the Chinese eat his lunch and kick sand in his face.
“Obama is an illiterate as far as technology goes…”
I dunno Joel. Could be that he’s a Grade A moron missing some Emperor clothing, or he’s brilliant and we haven’t figured out “the plan” yet. Both kinda worry me.
Given the long and corrupt history of the Chicago Democrats, Americans would have to be somewhat insane to elect a Chicago Democrat to the nation’s highest office.
They did it TWICE!
They would have to have been somewhat insane to elect Mitt Romney too, and that is the nub of the problem. When only unfit people rise to the top, the problem is the system, not the people it raises up.
Correct, Philip A. When it takes billions to elect a President, there is a very strong probability that only the corrupt will rise to the top, or someone prepared to use the corrupt (who will then exact their price).
It’s impossible to rise through the Chicago Dem machine while keeping your hands clean. And let’s not forget where carbon credits began: with the Chicago Carbon Exchange – “follow the money”. Gore, Strong – and Obama:
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/printgroupProfile.asp?grpid=7526
Correction to my post – it is /was of course, the Chicago Climate Exchange
Can you provide proof that the “UN Climate Change Commission” exists? Where is its headquarters? What is its charter?
let’s hope China doesn’t develop a secret weapon
History may be speeding up:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-gambit-risks-sucking-it-into-conflict-with-china-1431505129
From current levels, China India and the rest of the world is going to increase CO2 through 2030 by 14,000 ‘000,000 tonnes of CO2, while the US and Europe reduces by 2,000 ‘000 ‘000,000 tonnes.
Somehow having a hard time figuring out how a 14,000 ‘000,000 tonne increase is dramatically better than 16,000 ‘000,000 tonne increase. We have passed 400ppm and the increased tonnes will put us up to 450ppm which is the declared tipping point of no return. So according to warmist’s own arguments, this agreement is like putting out an apartment fire with a water pistol and spit.
Lets face it, we are are doomed even with this CO2 agreement so why squabble for economic superiority when we could just get all the countries together for a big end of the world party. It’s really not fair that only CO2 alarmists are able to get together for big international parties.
At this stage of construction it is hard to distinguish a “fort” from a “high-security prison”. The difference will be only in which way the guns get pointed.
wait a minute…how many of those guys in the CFR are also HUGE proponents of the UN model? Doesn’t look so much like a policy difference as trolling to neutralize any significant opposition to the overall program.
Compare and Contrast “The Precautionary Principle” with “Do No Harm”.
1. Why does medicine place “Do No Harm”.ahead of “The Precautionary Principle”?
2. Doesn’t “Do No Harm” already take “The Precautionary Principle” into account?
3. Where are the safeguards in “The Precautionary Principle” that it will in fact “Do No Harm”?
4. What would happen in medicine if we were to replace “Do No Harm” with “The Precautionary Principle”?
5. What should be our first priority in government? Take Precaution or Do no Harm?
6. Is it acceptable to “Take Precaution” at the expense of “Doing Harm”? Isn’t that simply “The End Justifies the Means”?
Yes, Do No Harm should be the 1st Commandment. It is already a guiding light for persons of good will everywhere.
Fugitive tag disease.
Yes, Do No Harm should be the 1st Commandment. It is already a guiding light for persons of good will everywhere.
ferdberple said:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/05/12/the-intersection-of-climate-and-geopolitics/#comment-1933338
That was a really good comment, Mr. berple.
The founders of the US did the best they could to prevent the government from doing harm. Now all our federal, state, and local governments want to “do sumpthin” about every last little thing whereas our founders saw government as the means of last resort. I think the founders knew it was all downhill from the moment the Constitution was ratified, but they also knew they gave it their best shot.
The Economist is pro-capitalist, anti-socialist, socially liberal, and has liibertarian tendencies.
It is very hard to discuss the world as it is when people reduce everything to left vs. right and liberal vs. conservative and imagine that the two are essentially the same.