Comments by "" (@markpukey8) on "Business Basics" channel.

  1. The situation in Mexico and Central America in the 1980's was NOT similar to the situation in China. There are good reasons why we worked with China at that time. Also, Nixon worked hard to open relations with Communist China specifically to prevent them from forming a union with the USSR. Some "world communism bloc". It was VITAL to keep them separate in the 1970's, during the Vietnam War. All the things we did to stimulate their economy from the early 70's to the late 80's were very real battles in the Cold War. And they worked. And we won. Notice how the USSR is gone and China is barely communist any more? It worked. But it did give China some massive boosts to bring them where they are today. And no one except China is very happy about it. That happens when you're fighting a war.
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  2. Great post. But that shows the difference between "thoughtful governments and economists" and "robber baron capitalists". It's not that these people did not understand what might happen, they honestly and truly DID NOT CARE as long as they made massive profits TODAY. And on the other hand, if the transition away from China does not crash the global economy, they're just going to do the same thing again in new countries. What will benefit the rest of the global economy is that taken separately, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Mexico, etc... none of them are big enough to be the threat China became. We'll have that diversified manufacturing that we've known since the 70's was a better option.
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  3.  @williamgordon2919  I can't say you are wrong, but I do not think such an overwhelming majority of manufacturing will go to India like it did to China. Some will go to Mexico, some to Vietnam, some to India. It won't be "all our eggs in one basket" again. Although, generic pharmaceuticals are BIG in India. They might get a lions share of that industry.
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  4. To be honest, US Manufacturing is growing at the fastest rate we've ever seen. Even after WW II. But it's all so automated that they will never hire 100 workers for a shift, because they only need 3 or 4 to take care of the machines. Good for the US economy, great for the capitalist investors who own the plants, but they'll never be a giant source of jobs for American workers. On the other hand, we currently have the lowest unemployment in US History right now... so clearly there ARE other jobs for people, in other industries.
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  5. Who is Tristan Harris and why should anyone care about their opinion? I'm guessing he's an "internet personality" himself?
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  6. lol, I saw that one too. And to be honest, I thought that this would cover me for my "once a day" for several days since it's a long video.
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  7. That is Xi's worst nightmare. That some almost random nation will decide to block their fuel or raw materials imports. China lacks the ability to go protect their cargoes much more than 1000 miles off their own coast. It won't require a "super modern fleet of warships", a pack of speedboats with shoulder fired tank killers could sink any cargo vessel on the seas. And plenty of pirates and small nations can manage that if they choose to.
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  8. Uh no. Math, History, Current Events and any sort of logical review of data say it's very, very different here. Among other things, US unemployment is at historic lows of 4% or less. Not 20+% and so bad they stop reporting data. US GDP and GDP/Capita are 5x the wealth of the average Chinese. US government is investing TRILLIONS of US$ into infrastructure and green tech jobs. China is pulling back on support for their own internal construction industry. US debt is diverse and sustainable and subsidized by the rest of the world shoving their money into our economy at record rates. China can't attract foreign investment money with hookers and bribes this year.
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  9. Never ever going to happen. I won't even try to debate the pros and cons with you, I'll just point out that you will NEVER convince the US or China or the EU to go along with that. And with close to 70% of global GDP saying "hell no!", it's just not going to happen. Russia can work with India and Pakistan to index their currency to gold if they want. The rest of us are going to ignore them and when they try to trade with us... we're still going to demand they do business in US$ like everyone else.
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  10. Then do some research and find out. From my own research I have to say, this is NOT anti-Chinese propaganda. It accurately points out how China, Xi especially, has put himself into a corner and now China looks weak because they cannot safely back up the boasting they have been doing. It's not good or bad. It's just reality. If someone is fat, saying they look fat is not very nice, but it's not anti- them propaganda either.
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  11. It's unusually clueless for this channel to talk about US and western investment in Africa as something that's new, in response to China's BRI program. We've invested TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS into Africa over the past 60 or 70 years! The latest round may well be in response to some of China's moves... but it's unfair to pretend the west has not been TRYING to help African nations get their acts together for decades already! And another thought - They frame this as the West versus China, competing in Africa. What exactly do they see as the prize here? Seriously, African nations' challenges and issues ARE NOT NEW! We didn't just say "Gosh, I guess we should try to get some of those tasty minerals now! Let's make some deals!", we've been working towards these goals for a very long time. And right now, Africa has a ton of possible future customers... who cannot afford a stick of gum at US prices! There really isn't a "prize" in any normal sense here.
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  12. Something to consider... As a measure of "economic toughness" it's interesting to see what happens when a nation screws up. The US dumped well over a trillion dollars into Afghanistan. More like TWO trillion into the whole flawed "war on terror". We spent all that money, got some interesting alliances out of it... and both the Taliban and global terrorism have not been changed at all. It was an almost complete waste of money. And it has not hurt the US economy ONE TINY BIT! We are so stable that even a screw up that large isn't enough to rock our boat into dangerous territory. China has screwed up with BRI. They've put about a trillion US$ into it, and it's falling apart. No one knows how it will look in another 5 years or so, but it will be interesting to see if the Chinese system is able to withstand the fallout from this flawed plan. My own opinion is that it won't The CCP won't be remotely the same after they "fix Xi's mistakes" and pay off the debts they cannot walk away from. Even if they call themselves the CCP, it won't be the same.
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  13. We'll get him in line, right behind Putin.
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  14. You are simply wrong about the education and technical capabilities of Mexicans. There is plenty of information available on this, some of it was even in the video you supposedly just watched. The safely issue is a real one, but it's not as severe as you might think. Just ask any Chinese person tossed in jail for demanding their bank stop taking their money for an apartment that never got built (this is a real thing that happened hundreds of times this year). Just because the CCP is the major "gang" causing the violence in China, and it's mostly directed at their own citizens... that's not the same as saying there isn't massive violence in China.
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  15. While I think the US should be doing more to woo, seduce, and be friends to all the Central and Southern American nations, if we don't, it can hardly hurt us. The brutal truth is that China cannot do more than the outreach you wrote about without US permission. It's not nice, but there is no way China can build a military base, station troops, or do anything the US might consider a real threat without the US blocking it. We have the political and financial power, and if needed, we can literally station an aircraft carrier battle group off their coast and tell China they are not welcome. China has zero long range power projection ability to resist that naked force if we have to go there.
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  16. One idea is for the CCP to ban the 996 approach to work. Force employers to deny overtime to workers. They can ONLY work 40hours/week. Suddenly they're going to need almost 2x the number of workers. They are still pretending to be Communists, so force full employment by making workers go home so other people can work. There should be ways to arrange it so the best workers get opportunities the slackers don't, while still getting close to full employment. Never going to happen, but it would probably help.
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  17. Then you're not looking hard enough. First both sides were talking. Then one side STARTED INVADING AND KILLING THE OTHER SIDE. With no warning, no declaration of war and in fact spent MONTHS lying to say they had no intention of invading, oh no, those troops were just a training exercise! If you can't see the difference there, you're just not trying very hard. One side, the Russian side, is very very bad. They are evil.
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  18. Um, cause that never happened? The video also left out the aliens and lizard people secretly controlling both sides.
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  19. That's an interesting point. I have not seen it elsewhere, but it makes sense. And I agree, as long as China does not care if they destroy Hong Kong in the process (and I think they don't), they can slowly grind HK down for at least a year or two before the game runs out.
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  20. US debt is not $13T, it is $31T, far, far more than you said! And over 75% of it is T-Bills sold to various American interests. Mostly the Social Security fund. We borrow money from ourselves. The other 25% is mostly other nations purchasing T-Bills because they are, and I am not making this up, "the most risk free investment on the planet". US T-Bills are considered zero risk places to put your money and gain a tiny bit of interest. Even foreign nations that hate us buy T-Bills. NOTE - these are not loans or a mortgage. They are bonds. There is NO WAY to demand early payment. You get paid when we told you we would pay you. Not a day sooner. They are risk free for US also! How it came about is very simple. Our Congress in made up of idiots who refuse to do math. The specifics are too depressing and too stupid to go into here. Our Congress is made up of idiots... or did I say that already? You did not ask, but I will offer - this is hard for the US, but it is not a crisis. Our economy is strong enough to sustain this for decades to come. But it's still stupid. Debt to GDP ratios of 50% to 75% are actually healthy for a growing economy. But only idiots like the US Congress think 150% is OK and pass budgets to make it worse.
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  21. I'll be honest. I hate China. I think the CCP is evil to its own people and hateful and greedy and evil to every other nation on Earth. They are BAD PEOPLE! But with that said, the last thing China wants is a military empire. The Roman Empire spent roughly 40% of it's revenue on the Legions and the things required to operate a global empire. Victorian England spent over 10% of it's GDP on the Navy and things needed to oppress and rule their empire. The USA has gone in for soft power since 1945 and we've maintained a global hegemony (not exactly an empire... but close) for barely 4% of GDP. We have global power, for pennies. China doesn't even spend that much on their military. I don't see them spending 10x as much to conquer and then rule a global empire. The truth is, if they let the US do all the hard parts, they can sit back and complain like spoiled bitches while they use their money for unwise loans like the BRI program. China doesn't WANT to be king. They want to have economic dominance and the want the US to continue to pay for all the peacekeeping stuff!
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  22. Golly, it's almost like the IMF and World Bank have been telling borrowing nations FOR TEN YEARS that these BRI deals were not as sweet at they looked. It's like NONE OF THIS SHOULD BE A SURPRISE TO ANYONE! To be fair, China's loans aren't even unreasonable in light of the risk for the loans. Any normal bank would be asking the same kind of rates. But in the world of "nations" borrowing money, the IMF and World Bank are not "banks" in any normal sense. They don't exist to make a profit, they exist to help nations develop and grow, but in ways the funders of the IMF and WB prefer. Their "profit" is seeing another nation become a successful, globalized member of the international community. In the long term, their funders all make a lot more money by dealing fairly with these nations than by trying exploit a loan. If you are a good leader for your nation, IMF and WB is the way to go. But if you want opportunities for kickbacks and corrupt ways to siphon money into your own pocket... China is your boy. THEY DON'T CARE if you do that!
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  23. You might be right. But I think "China" is more than just the CCP. And it's the CCP and Winnie the Pooh who are on the brink of destroying their time in charge. I don't know what comes next, but there's nothing sacred about the CCP. Remember, they only came into existence by destroying the last regime ruling China less than 100 years ago. If they stop delivering good results to the billion plus Chinese who are still rural, agrarian and barely modernized... there's nothing stopping them from rising up and kicking the CCP out.
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  24. THAT is the question that keeps Xi awake at night! As long as he keeps them content, he can be Emperor for the rest of his life. But if they come to believe they can do better without him... well Mao only took power 75 years ago. There are still people alive who remember kicking out the last failed leader! They can do it again.
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  25. Um, if you don't pay back your loan... that is bad for China. If you cannot maintain the project China built, that's bad for you AND your ability to pay back the loan. If you want some before and after data, how about you tell me which projects BRI has completed? It's a short list, but once you provide that I'll be happy to reply with some details on how well those are being run and how well China is making out on the loan repayments. You can also give me a list of all the BRI projects that ARE NOT BEING COMPLETED... because those kinda speak for themselves, am I right?
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  26. Weird. You would think that if China DID have that... they would have done something with it. Or maybe you're just an idiot. Remember that "Q" is not the only letter in the alphabet and go get yourself educated.
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  27. Not only does the CCP just not care how badly things are built, because they require you to use Chinese labor, the locals never learn HOW to maintain the projects! So they are likely to fall into poor condition faster than you might suspect. Unless of course, they hire MORE CHINESE LABOR to come in and do the maintenance! BRI was a scam from Day One.
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  28. I'm not sure you'll get #1, but India sure has a lot going for it. Every nation (including India) has problems, but India has a lot of people, many well educated people, a culture that LIKES being smart, hard working and successful and is generally well liked around the world. It also already has a well developed IT and pharma industry as well as being self sufficient in food (which really is a VERY BIG DEAL! Ask China....) If India continues to choose to NOT be part of the various Western power blocs, that will slow them down, but they still have everything necessary to be a real world power.
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  29. Yeah, that POPULAR VOTE is tricky stuff. I know it can be hard to understand from Russia, where Putin wins with 90+% of the vote, but in HONEST elections, like when Zelensky won, all you need is 50%+1 to have a majority. Never forget, here in the West we have newspapers and online resources that we can look at. Zelensky beat a PRO-WEST leader of Ukraine because the people wanted faster integration with Europe! It wasn't a context between "Pro Moscow" and Pro EU" candidates. There WAS NO PRO MOSCOW CANDIDATE in the election Zelensky won! Ukraine had decided Russia sucks years before that!
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  30. And if you were Tucker Carlson, you would take time to give them a healthy tan before you smacked them.
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  31. I don't actually disagree with you. Most of America's wars have been for someone to get rich. But this video is about what happens if they invade us. That would be the exception to the rule. And yeah, I get the irony. Patriots protecting America from invaders... are still protecting some rich douchebags money at the same time.
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  32. You may not know this... but we maintain our nuclear stockpile. It is literally the FIRST responsibility of the US Dept of Energy. Our nuke program is alive and well, and well funded to make sure they are ready to go boom if needed.
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  33. Europe, just the NATO members in Europe have over 500,000,000 citizens. They have a combined GDP of over $25 Trillion a year. They have massive stockpiles of weapons because NATO required them. Even if they were slacking their NATO duties as much as they could get away with (and they were!) they are still far and away the 2nd strongest military force on the planet. Who exactly do you imagine is going to challenge them?
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  34. I believe those are the Swedish military. Maybe the Belgians.
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  35. Uh huh. Because the military gear is not 'hardened" against this. Nope, we've never even HEARD about EMP before! And I don't know if you know this... but EMP is effective against OPERATING electronics. If your car is turned off when it goes boom... you can start your car and drive away 30 seconds later. Did I mention that EMP weakens as a function of the inverse square law? You need a HUGE burst to do any damage, and within just a few miles it's not harmful. So if you want to do systemic damage to the US, you will need tens of thousands of these going off at the same time. It would be very damaging to infrastructure, but it's not going to stop us from "thanking" the attacker by destroying them. Then rebuilding our nation from the ground up.
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  36. Who is "they"?
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  37.  @jimardizoni3453 Oh. Then your post is wrong.
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  38. Well, at least you have a new argument. It's nuts... but it's new.
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  39. What happened when we left Afghanistan is the responsibility of THE AFGHANS! If some dude beats his wife every night, and you take her away to a safe place and she goes back to the abuser later... it's not your fault. It's messed up... but it's not YOUR FAULT. Same idea here. You are right that much of the good we accomplished was ruined right after we left. But whether we stayed for 2 years 20 years or 200, unless the Afghans were ready to keep the Taliban out... it was always going to end this way. And remember, the Afghan President was on a plane out of the country BEFORE the last US troops left! That's how little commitment he had to their success! And Afghan Security Forces turned over the keys to the Armories to the Taliban without a fight! In fact, there was not ONE SINGLE ORGANIZED group that resisted the Taliban when we left. So yeah, it sucks. But don't you dare blame America. Blame the Afghans since they did not care enough to even TRY to keep what we hoped we left for them. Last note - what kind of person blames Biden for what happened over TWENTY STRAIGHT YEARS? How can you possibly blame his administration for failures that took 20 yeas to build? Was he supposed to move to Afghanistan in 2003 and stay there until the withdrawal? Do you imagine Trump or ANY OTHER US leader would have seen a different response when we left? Don't make me laugh. No matter who we elected, the Taliban and Afghans were going to be the same.
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  40. And a thumbs up for beer in particular.
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  41. The specific clip of tanks rolling down the street was used 2 weeks ago in their earlier video about the bank runs on China. It was NOT filmed two days ago.
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  42. That's not how economics works.
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  43. I Ear you there buddy.
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  44. While Taiwan does import a lot from China, I don't believe there is a single thing they cannot get from other sources within a few days or weeks. It's not like China can starve them out.
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  45. I'm all in favor of making more stuff here in America and reducing the trade deficit. But you're out of your mind to blame 3 Democrat Presidents as though Nixon didn't make the deals to bring China into the western economy. And Reagan, Bush, Shrub and Trump didn't slavishly cater to Chinese interests. And much, much more important - AMERICAN BUSINESSES DON'T NEED THE PRESIDENT'S PERMISSION TO OPEN A FACTORY IN CHINA! It was GE and Ford and Chevrolet and Apple and every other individual American CEO who decided to save a few bucks and fire their US workers so they could build a Chinese factory that actually did this! I really doubt a single rich guy ever said "I'm a Democrat/Republican so I have to open a factory in China". They all said "I can buy a new yacht if I fire those union deadbeats!" instead. And every time any politician tried to limit trade with China, it was a REPUBLICAN blocking the bills and calling for more "free trade". You can look this stuff up, it's not exactly hidden or hard to prove! All those votes are in the Congressional Record, it's public and free to search in. Feel free to vote for the politics of your choice, but don't be a tool or a fool. Once you decide what is in YOUR best interest... take a look and see which side of our politics actually DOES things that give you want you want, as opposed to just bleating about it and never passing any actual laws to help.
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  46. And still... Xi's planes and ships are staying away from Taiwan. It's almost like they totally don't want to take the chance.
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  47. All good points. But this is still a catastrophe in the making for China. Among other little details, the US $700B TARP program was A LOAN. It was all paid back, with interest, over the next couple of years. The US taxpayer made a profit off of it. The CCP is never going to get back the money lost to fraud, corruption and outright criminal theft. It will be flushed down the toilet of "social stability". And the minute anyone brings in "state owned" or state backed funds for anything in China, what they are saying is China will print money and give it away, never expecting to be paid back. It's more social stability games. This may be appropriate, and it is certainly "the CCP system" for decades, but from modern economic theory it's very risky in the long term. Eventually they'll try to use 'state funds' for international trade, and if no one wants to buy their bonds or accept their fiat money... no more international trade. This may not be a death spiral for China, but it's 100% bad for their economy no matter how you slice it.
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  48. Thank you for this excellent explanation. I knew that China's banking was taking a hit, with protests in the streets, but your video spelled out an awful lot of the context very clearly. Thanks.
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  49. I think that's pretty close to where Xi and the CCP are on this issue. I'm not sure they'll manage to sell it to the Chinese citizens, but hey (!) if it fails, there are always tanks to drive over and crush protesters....
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  50. One of the many ironies here. China began a massive investment in high-speed rail as a jobs program. Putting people to work so as to keep the money circulating in their economy. And it worked. But it would have worked exactly as well if these folks had built mostly "normal" railways. Railways that could slowly move freight and people as a lower cost/ton/mile. The benefit to China would be far higher over the long term. But they would not have gained the same prestige as having "the worlds largest network of high speed rail". Arrogance will be their downfall.
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