Comments by "John Smith" (@JohnSmith-op7ls) on "Zeihan on Geopolitics" channel.

@comingverysoon The US always had tons of economic leverage over China. It’s why China played nice for 30 years while they built up their military and industry. We have less leverage now, Xi has no problem watching the Chinese economy go back 20 years, he just cares about staying in power.
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@the_village_elder Free markets can’t exist without properly enforced regulations just like free society can’t exist without enforced laws protecting it.
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Chapter 12 of “When Trump does it: Wacism! When Biden does it: No problem here.”
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@dzonikg Cheaper cars, around 4 times the population, Americans clearly spend a lot more. If Chinese spent more, given their cars are much cheaper in most cases, they would have to see sales of like 70-80m a year.
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@Waverlyduli Even wealthy Chinese are notoriously cheap. That’s not rationality, it’s irrationality. They’re also irrationally selective on where they are cheap. They’ll oh eat their way into a few dollars, then waste absurd amounts on luxury items to show off. If you’re worried about starving, you’re not buying new iPhones on high interest, short term personal loans.
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@zantetsu8674 Come to one of the largest Chinese tourist spots in the world where you’ll see thousands of different Chinese people each day and talk to hundreds of people who have to interact with thousands more each week for their work. They’ll all tell you the same and you’ll see the same for yourself. At that scale, anecdotes become quite the data mine.
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@dzcav3 Around 70% of Chinese personal wealth is tied up in failing real estate markets
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@DK-ev9dg Prove it
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@hanfucolorful9656 The high speed rail system in China is a failure. It’s massively in debt, almost none of it is profitable. Lots of expensive stations that were never even used. It’s a joke
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Obama set back and let it happen, the Dems claimed “wacism” when Trump did something about it. Biden did nothing till his term was almost over and even then is barely doing anything. EVs and batteries is such a small part of Chinese imports.
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@the_village_elder Laws exist regarding the sale or transfer of certain technologies to certain countries. Choosing to not bolster a regime which is bent on your destruction and subjugation is just good policy. You can’t have a free market if you’re under the thumb of a socialist dictatorship.
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@Neel71 NAFTA needs to be abolished
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