Comments by "HomerOJSimpson" (@Homer-OJ-Simpson) on "PolyMatter" channel.

  1. 9:52 Deng Xioaping is a good example of how general Secretary isn’t necessarily the power. Another example was Putin 2009-2012 when he had to step down due to term limits and put a puppet in charge while Putin was *Prime Minister (corrected). In weak democracies or non democracies, the leader position isn’t always the most powerful.
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  2. Sanctions work more to deter OTHERS from doing the same. The country being sanctioned likely won’t change much since they already started down this path but those sanctions help deter others from starting down the same path.
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  3. That’s how cheap labor works — it’s cheap to one party but high paying (relative to options) for the other party.
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  4. Probably the two biggest factors is Japan is less corrupt than China (and most others) and China built a lot of HSR that didn’t make sense but because it was a matter of National pride and to demonstrate to the world they are king of HSR.
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  5. And China has the CCP that closed down the country for 3 years. Mexicos problems is less cartels and more incompetent policies but yet they are seeing a huge growth in manufacturing. They are next door to US (biggest market in the world) and have free trade within North America. They are in great position to take many of those jobs from China and already are doing so. In fact, many Chinese firms are opening up shop in Mexico joining American, Japanese and Korean companies that seem to dominate many parts of Mexico.
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  6. What does gdp per capita have to do with efficiency?
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  7.  @Fishmans  HSR is not a morneypit but it also doesn’t mean it can’t become one. China is heavily in debt (nearly $1 trillion) on HSR because they kept building HSR on routes that didn’t make economic sense because those routes didn’t have enough demand for HSR. If they weren’t trying too hard to build HSR to show off to the world, they could have built regular train lines and not gone hundreds of Billions in debt.
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  8. You really can’t mount an invasion from those tiny islands. They would be sitting ducks for drones
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  9.  @Fishmans  oh, your post is so horrible because you give the only option as “HSR or car”. Have you heard of regular rail?!? It would be cheaper so that more people can use it and it also functions as freight rail. It’s discussed at 12:40
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  10.  @d9zirable  but the best segues into an ad are those in the middle or at the start. Messing with the conclusion like this just seems off. Adam Rogussa and internet etiquette have great ads in the middle.
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  11. Correct. Foreign aid helps but at the lower end — reducing deaths or just helping the individuals a little bit. They need proper government and proper education. Hard for proper education when they are dying because they don’t have mosquito nets. Or dying because they don’t have the medicine they need. Aid works to some extend and this video is clickbait. Aid needs to be a combo of basic necessities such as clean water access, mosquito nets, and medicine but also education. I don’t know what they can do about the proper government though.
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  12.  @LancesArmorStriking  2011? Lol, repeating Russian talking points. Libya no fly zone was UN approved. The Security Council voted in favor of it. And who has veto power to have stopped it? RU and they didn't stop it. Before 2011, He invaded Georgia in 2008 and that was the end of any possibility of being folded into the western system. But it was already problematic before that! The brutal methods used Chechnya by Putin in 1999 already demonstrated Putin’s values are different. Let’s also not forget Alexander Litvinenko poisoned in 2006 in the UK by Russians. So how is Moscow today?
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  13. China has an enormous population of students but only a relative few number of very quality universities. They are basically forced to leave China for good higher education. And they are having to pay a lot overseas. This is a major issue of Chinas higher education system.
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  14. It’s loosely mentioned after 9 min mark. However, the problems still exist. Their gdp growth is shrinking and they are getting hit with a demographic crisis and housing crisis. Housing construction was the biggest sector for economic growth and now that’s falling. The supply chains available in China are the only reasons China isn’t at 0-2% gdp growth. But they are now projected to be around 4% annual growth for the next 5 or so years and declining after that.
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  15. The rankings are flawed but it’s still better than not using the ranking. There is a lot measured in the rankings that do matter a lot — the problem is since the formula is made public, they can gain the system
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  16. Yeah, it’s common technique to use both or at least use Celsius. I’m American and didn’t notice that but including Celsius is a must
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  17. The labor cost mentioned at the beginning for China is a little misleading. It appears to be taking labor rate for the whole country, but most manufacturing is in the cheaper labor parts of China. As someone who has worked recently with a company that has an operation in China and Mexico I can say they are roughly the same and labor costs for us. The video describes Chinas labor costs as four times more than Mexico.
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  18.  @ulrichleukam1068  or maybe the guy who made himself a dictator, eliminated opposition with poison or prison, invaded Georgia in 2008 to effectively keep part of Georgia under Russian control, and who bans protests against him is a person who cares most about the power and fortune he’s accumulate? Nah, let’s stick to the Rus talking points!
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  19.  @baronvonslambert  wow, never knew that! Thank you so much. From now on If I have a link to post, I’ll try posting it twice one with and one without to see if others can see. YT these days automatically rexmoves comments for the slightest of things. I even spelled that word wrong on purpose as well as cènxsored because writing about it often leads to it now showing up.
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  20. This video seems a bit too much like defending Haiti and blaming everyone else. Haitis own rulers have done some horrible things. They even attacked the Dominican Republic. Had some horrible oppressive governments that even committed ethnic cleansing. Etc. Maybe the video should have had 5-7 minutes more going over some of those Internal conflicts as well. The video is accurate in what decided to cover but misleading by ignoring other important parts of Haiti history. Dominican Republic and a few other countries in the region also faced a similar history but they’ve progressed while Haiti hasn’t. Dominican Republic is actually one of the highest gdp per capita in Latin America
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  21. This is very much the problem China faces but even much worse. Russia has known this problem and some have speculated that is the reason Putin invaded Ukraine when it did. Putin knows their will be major issues with the economies and the satisfaction from older Russians that rely on the pension thus invading Ukraine in what was thought to be a short week long campaign would boost his support longer.
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  22. A big issue for China is that those countries that escaped the middle income trap hit their demographic crisis when they reached upper income. China hit theirs well before they can get there and thus it’s very likely they would not reach the upper income group. With the demographic crisis, and a housing market that is potentially going to crash, but certainly will no longer be housing market that drives the economy, China does have a lot of problems going forward.
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  23.  @kicapanmanis1060  if it refuses to the cover stories that make Qatar look bad, then it isn’t a great source for news. Unfortunately on Middle East affairs, there aren’t many good options so AJ will have to do.
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  24. @agapp11able “willing to operate them at a loss”. Yeah, $1 trillion and growing. Over doing HSR was to show off to the world. It wasn’t needed — they would have been better off with traditional rail which is more affordable and can be used for freight as well.
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  25. Hard to teach them to fish when they are dying because they don’t have mosquito nets. Or dying because they don’t have the medicine they need. Aid works to some extend and this video is clickbait. Aid needs to be a combo of basic necessities such as clean water access, mosquito nets, and medicine but also education.
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  26. Japan & South Korea are already working on mending their complicated relationship. They have a history that is problematic but they need each other and they really have a lot in common if they can move on from the past. They are also both very concerned with two major aggressive countries in the region, North Korea & China. Vietnam is officially neutral but they are also working with the US to some capacity because they will want US help if part of China's aggression is towards Vietnam. And it's already well documented that Philippines is working with the US and expanded US troop and base presence in the country.
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  27.  @KevinJohnson-cv2no  democracies have more set power in positions. Non democracies or weak democracies, the positions means less and sometimes mean nothing.
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  28.  @danielcaldwell1110  "we'd immediately drop Capitalism for Socialism" is that why all the socialist economies failed and went to capitalism? Except North Korea...but they did fail just refuse to make the shift.
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  29. Jones Act is protectionism first and foremost and like lots of laws, especially those that protect certain industries, they are difficult to undo because of political ramifications.
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  30.  @serebii666  "Why lie about basic things that can be easily Googled? " Because @lagrangeWEI doesn't use google. When he gets on VPN it's for youtube, not google. Or they are paid to state fake info.
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  31. Are you seriously arguing that the lower cost to build HSR in China isn’t much to do with the super cheap labor there? Also, Australia is such a sparsely populated country spread out that HSR only makes sense in one tiny part—Melbourne to Sydney with a stop in Canberra. And that’s a maybe. Those two big cities are very far away (850km) while HSR works best when you have many cities that closer..
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  32. @agapp11able I see your a wumao. Saying Japan doesn’t plan like your glorious CCP and then defending China going $1 trillion in debt on HSR when 1/3 of those routes would be much better serviced with traditional rail that would move far more people and would be used for freight — which would be far more beneficial to inland cities that rely on manufacturing jobs.
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  33. “Sponsored by The Cheese Factory”. All jokes aside, I actually did learn a lot. I thought it was just a more expensive Olive Garden / Chili’s / AppleBees fusion restaurant. Didn’t realize how serious they are about making fresh food. No wonder it’s so popular. I live in a major city and we tend to have negative views on chains of restaurants I mentioned because we have better options throughout the city. Other than downtown tourist areas, you won’t most of those restaurants inside the city.
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  34. You didn’t even watch it
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  35.  @DeviousDumplin  interesting how sometime I Post a link and it doesn’t show up but your comment with a link works. Does YT make an exception to Wikipedia?
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  36. It makes sense too. In the US, there are two major problems that cause that -- it's difficult to get regulations passed and it's difficult to undo pass legislation. So there will be under regulated in lots of places but in other places where a some regulations were indeed passed but later deemed to be a mistake, it's difficult to remove that regulation.
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  37.  @Antares000  "And yet what I said still holds. " No, you said western news agencies don't cover it. BBC, NPR, PBS, Germany's DW, and one from France all cover what you said they don't cover --- "humanitarian crisis and conflicts that happens in countries 1st world citizens wouldn't pay attention to"
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  38. How did HSR boos the economy inland?! Traditional rail would allow more people to use rail AND it would function as freight rail which would help inland much more. See 12:40. Lol, all I see is so many comments trying to defend China. China built excessive HSR because they want to show off to the world. HSR cannot be used for freight. Nice lie though.
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  39.  @saumyacow4435  where do you even get “tens of millions of trips?” Brisbane to Geelong is same distance Beijing to Hong Kong but with a population 1/2 of Beijing. Seriously, are you a troll?
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  40.  @Antares000  " Al Jazeera reports a lot on humanitarian crisis and conflicts that happens in countries that your typical 1st world citizen wouldn't even pay attention nor care about" Actually they are covered by BBC, NPR, and other similar non-profit news agencies. Considering you started with "typical western arrogance", I don't believe you are aware of western News agencies like BBC, NPR, PBS, DW, etc.
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  41. @agapp11able omg, the CCP shill / Wumao is here. Still defending China over its concentration camps of Muslims in Xinjiang? To answer your question of “deter who”, well that would be anyone else other than North Korea. Countries / governments tend to act on what is in their best interests and a more prosperous economy is better for the leader. I’ll use your china as an example — why hasn’t china just invaded and taken over Taiwan? China now has the 2nd or 3rd strongest military in the world. The reason they don’t is because even if they successfully take Taiwan, their would be huge economic action against China that Chinas economy would suffer. It’s the potential of those economic sanctions why China is deterred from invading Taiwan.
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  42.  @thomasemond2173  "Immigrants in canada are not improving the economy or living standards." EVERY single reseach study shows they are. The problem is xenophobia..from you.
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  43.  @saumyacow4435  and to show you’re ignorance, you’re calling Australia a well populated country for HSR? Australian has 25 million total in the country which is less than single metro population of many Chinese cities, Tokyo and other metros. Brisbane to Geelong is 1,800km and a Total population of around 15 million in that trip. That’s about the same distance as New York City to Miami but with a population smaller than just New York City alone and you think that would be a great investment for HSR? It’s same distance as Barcelona to Berlin. Toronto to Winnipeg.
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  44. China had a much bigger piece of land in what is now eastern Russia — but they focused on invading Taiwan and not eastern Russia because it’s manufactured for nationalism support. Also, China had Mongolia but they aren’t threatening to invade Mongolia.
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  45. @agapp11able ghost cities isn’t entirely a myth. There are plenty of large building complexes (a new city or a large area in outer part of city with dozens and dozens of high rise) that are still very under populated. I walked around one that appeared to be some 40 high rises (30-40 stories) and at night only 10% of the lights were on. These were 6 yr old buildings. 1 billion would mean 30% fewer people than today which would mean fewer people to use HSR. 1 billion is the high number — newer estimates have it around 750 million, almost half the population of today.
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  46.  @danielanderson6933  even in your scenario the rankings still matter— but you also need to apply “what type of program do I want”? The rankings often include rankings for specific degrees or areas of study. I think those are the most relevant than the general overall score. For example, if I want to be an engineer, Harvard might be top in the world in general but Stanford would be ranked better and would a better choice than Harvard.
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  47.  @danwelterweight4137  By the 1970's, The UK had eased up heavily on Hong Kong and HK started seeing lots of rights. By the 1980's HK was living mostly like Puerto Rico. But it's 2023 and the CCP took HK back several decades and more limitation of rights are expected. But hey, it's cool that the CCP went backwards 50 years, right? And we have to compare British Rule pre 1970 to CCP rule in 2023 to make CCP look good, right?
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  48.  @YandereEnthusiast  yes, India is perfectly normal for Muslims. Except the riots against them. And the camps full of them in the northeast because they are being evicted from their country. Totally normal and reasonable to ask millions and millions of poor people in India to show documents proving their citizenship and if they can’t, they will be kicked out of the country — unless they are Hindus or Christian. Other than China, who is treating Muslims worse than India right now?
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  49.  @saumyacow4435  are you a CCP shill? Labor in China is about 1/10 that of rich countries and you’re saying labor isn’t a major factor factor in the cost difference between China and rich countries in high speed rail?
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  50.  @saumyacow4435  Brisbane to Geelong is 1800km and would be usd$35 billion cost if using Chinas cost per km or usd$60 billion if using the more likely europe costs per km. $35-$60 billion to service 15 million people over 1850km. Why would someone spend upwards of usd$200 to use HSR between Brisbane and Sydney taking 7-10 hours when flying is under $100 and under 2hours? You really do seem like a troll…
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