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Cpt_Obvious posted:specifically it is an idealist conceit that argument and debate can change people's minds. Lol. If you believe this, why are you posting in D&D?
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Nov 6, 2021 18:22
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Raenir Salazar posted:I feel that its a tad condescending to suggest that people who are indisputably experts in their fields simply didn't under the problem and by extension the problem why people don't agree with socialist solutions to current issues is simply because they don't understand and if you argue with them long enough, explain things patiently enough they will agree with your point of view. If you want to feel feelings about people using facts to examine someone's work that's fine but I think that's more of a cspam thing. This is D&D and if people are presenting evidence you should reply with evidence.
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Nov 6, 2021 18:23
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Silver2195 posted:Lol. I like hearing other people's opinions even if I disagree with them.
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Nov 6, 2021 18:36
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Raenir Salazar posted:I feel that the majority of the global south being colonies whose infrastructure was oriented for extraction, and the decolonization process being drawn out and reluctant at best had way more to do with the economic issues with the global south than the BW framework. The masterminds behind bretton woods correctly recognized that the old colony framework was unsustainable and falling apart. Extracting wealth through pure force is extremely expensive and any slip-ups would lead to a liberation movement that might install an anti-west socialist government. The easier pathway was to grant independence with concessions. They could have independence so long as they played ball with the west. This had the huge advantage of destroying a liberation movement while making the country economically dependent on the west. Win-win. However, installing puppet regimes often leads to instability and slow development making investment risky. Though, its a small price to pay to prevent an anti-west government that makes investment incredibly risky-impossible.
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Nov 6, 2021 19:05
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Raenir Salazar posted:I feel that its a tad condescending to suggest that people who are indisputably experts in their fields simply didn't under the problem and by extension the problem why people don't agree with socialist solutions to current issues is simply because they don't understand and if you argue with them long enough, explain things patiently enough they will agree with your point of view. What are you going on about? Bretton-Woods was an incredible success for the west and capitalist hegemony. They did the right thing for capitalism, which was their intention. They did so expertly. Who is disputing that? They literally created a world order that beat out capitalist's mortal enemy: socialism and the Soviet Union. Like, they were literally creating BrettonWoods to ensure the survival of capitalism. Socialism was THEIR #1 PROBLEM. I'm not sure how could frame it any other way unless you have an extreme case of lib brain.
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Nov 6, 2021 19:17
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Kindest Forums User posted:The masterminds behind bretton woods correctly recognized that the old colony framework was unsustainable and falling apart. Extracting wealth through pure force is extremely expensive and any slip-ups would lead to a liberation movement that might install an anti-west socialist government. The easier pathway was to grant independence with concessions. They could have independence so long as they played ball with the west. This had the huge advantage of destroying a liberation movement while making the country economically dependent on the west. Win-win. However, installing puppet regimes often leads to instability and slow development making investment risky. Though, its a small price to pay to prevent an anti-west government that makes investment incredibly risky-impossible. What you describe is so antithetical to actual reality that I can't even really come up with the words; that's not how that works, that's not how anything works. It's like you heard someone else say this and are just repeating it because it aligns with your pre-existing beliefs but I don't think you can actually describe any of the mechanisms for anything you're describing here. BW and decolonization have nothing to do with each other, you're just describing a conspiracy theory, something formulated in cigar smoke filled backrooms with a map of the world sprawled out menacingly on a fancy table, an imagery that's more at home with anachronistic satire than as a realistic means of contextualizing world events. You're talking about a series of agreements discussed, negotiated and signed by nearly a thousand representatives from dozens of countries with even the Soviets participating. You're speaking gibberish.
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Nov 6, 2021 19:18
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Raenir Salazar posted:What you describe is so antithetical to actual reality that I can't even really come up with the words; that's not how that works, that's not how anything works. It's like you heard someone else say this and are just repeating it because it aligns with your pre-existing beliefs but I don't think you can actually describe any of the mechanisms for anything you're describing here. BW and decolonization have nothing to do with each other, you're just describing a conspiracy theory, something formulated in cigar smoke filled backrooms with a map of the world sprawled out menacingly on a fancy table, an imagery that's more at home with anachronistic satire than as a realistic means of contextualizing world events. lmao dude this is embarrassing. Do you think it was just a weird coincidence that every ex-colony (and new neo-colony) under the western sphere of influence happened to become incredibly reliant on the west's financial and economic hegemony? Like, it was just by accident that economic coercion through the IMF and World Bank was just a little unknown bonus? Are you seriously this dense? Do you seriously think that nobody at BW was asking the question "oh jeez, what happens to our relationship with the continent of Africa, Americas, Middle East, Asia)" Unbelievable.
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Nov 6, 2021 19:30
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in the context of China..... is that you can have bizzaro anecdotes like that spying story and immediately attribute the most cynically and outlandish framing towards the Government of China and its people. But when you take a well documented historical moment like Bretton-Woods, and all of its very clear and well documented consequences, you can NOT direct any cynicism towards the creators. They were simply technocrats talking about gold, and currency, and economy, and finance, and building a great world. Any faults to this world-changing event was a little woopsie. Pure ideology. Pure lib brain.
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Nov 6, 2021 19:35
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Just having a laugh thinking about how someone would think that someone creating a world economic order would completely forget about the entire world.
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Nov 6, 2021 19:39
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Kindest Forums User posted:in the context of China..... is that you can have bizzaro anecdotes like that spying story and immediately attribute the most cynically and outlandish framing towards the Government of China and its people. I recently found this book:   I haven't had time to read it yet, but did find this excerpt that piqued my interest in regards to ongoing discussions of whether or not Chinese people can be trusted not to be spies.  The book is heavily sourced from cia, dod, state department, regeanite era "foreign affairs specialists", and the proto neocons
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Nov 6, 2021 19:47
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e: for the love of god please use timg. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Kindest Forums User posted:lmao dude this is embarrassing. Do you think it was just a weird coincidence that every ex-colony (and new neo-colony) under the western sphere of influence happened to become incredibly reliant on the west's financial and economic hegemony? I had alluded to this earlier, but to put it simply when European nations established colonies; the infrastructure that ended up being built, like ports, railways, etc; were all designed with a singular purpose; to move goods from the interior to the coast, or to the closest river in order to be transported to transportation hubs such as ports in order to be shipped back home, to extract the resources of those areas to enrich themselves. To see how this in action here's some images: US Civil War era railways, north vs south.  You can tell at a glance that the North had a far more developed and industrialized economy; its railways served the domestic industries that were growing quickly; while the south was largely oriented towards extracting cotton and exporting it to Europe and to the North. Notably the railnetwork didn't even extend across most of the borders of the south. But you got hop on a train in Maine in the Northeast and with maybe a couple of exchanges ride a train car all the way to St Joseph. Did you think the North are the ones that did this to the South? Of course not, the South did this to themselves; because it was in the economic interests of the ruling class of the South. Here's africa, I'm not sure the date, I think around WW2:  North Africa surprises me as having a fairly well developed railway network; but much of Africa you can see that its long lines to get to the interior; unsurprisingly the next most developed network is South Africa. Ze Germans have THIS kind of railnetwork in 1880:  So when decolonization happened with varying degrees of violence the new governments had a predicament. Their economic foundations existed only to do one thing, and that one thing was the only thing that would bring them capital; and the only people who wanted to buy those resources were the same people who just left. Your economic base is fairly meagre; and unfortunately as is generally the case with extraction economies its very expensive to make investments to build up your economic infrastructure, and so much more profitable just to skim off the top and keep wealth to yourself. CGP Grey has a good video on these incentive systems that contribute to dragging down the economic growth of numerous countries in the global south. You keep bringing up events that didn't happen, especially considering the way the US was largely scowling at Europe's colonial empires as being destabilizing and a source of global tension, they certainly weren't interested in deliberately conspiring to keep the global south in some kind of nefarious economic relationship. Because they didn't need to; no one anywhere had to lift a finger for the global south to continue to be dependent on their existing economic contacts; on the contrary it was very much in the interest of the people negotiating BW, like Keynes and the US in general to want to see some sort of framework exist to provide economic and development aid to those nations to make them more attractive for business investment; and by your argument less amendable to later cold war Soviet and Chinese influence when the USSR and the PRC began to get into the game to offer credits, aid, and of course weapons. e again, forgot to add: For comparison purposes, here's Japan who are quite noteworthy in their economic development being radically different from the mold.  You can see that the Japanese build railways and road networks in Korea while being somewhat export oriented are also to support an actually decent industrial base that developed in their Korean and later Manchurian possessions; especially during WW2 as they moved industries there to be out of reach of Allied bombing; contributing to the post-War economic growth of both Korea's and the PRC when they retook what was left in Manchuria after the Soviets left with whatever that wasn't bolted down. e3: Look at Taiwan! Also no surprise given that South Korea, Taiwan and Japan received decent amounts of development aid post war and thanks to their pre-existing industries serving as a foundation, all had significant industrial and development growth spurts. Raenir Salazar fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Nov 6, 2021 |
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Nov 6, 2021 20:06
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Kindest Forums User posted:What are you going on about? Bretton-Woods was an incredible success for the west and capitalist hegemony. They did the right thing for capitalism, which was their intention. They did so expertly. Who is disputing that? They literally created a world order that beat out capitalist's mortal enemy: socialism and the Soviet Union. I think you're historically wrong. The Soviets were involved in the development of the Bretton Woods treaty, and made contributions with the expectation of joining all the way up to the final ratification, at which point they backed out. The primary concern was stabilising Europe, to which FDR's economic team tacked doomed riders about the primacy of the dollar - which was what made the Soviets decline to ratify at the last possible moment, since they correctly saw that a helpful and necessary project was being married to a US power play. Implemented as Keynes planned it, without America throwing its economic weight around to remove the element of flexible surplus recycling, Bretton Woods would have been entirely compatible with Soviet policy, and indeed was designed with the USSR's broad consent. There were anti-socialist rumblings, but the Cold War hadn't started yet, and co-operation with the USSR was seen as eminently possible. Soviet negotiators made amendments to the treaty which were retained in the final document, even though they ultimately declined to join the cartel. Framing the project as a capitalist effort to crush socialism (from union-boosting Roosevelt in the middle of the New Deal) doesn't chime with the historical facts - and given Bretton Woods fell apart in 1969, devastating the economies of America's European allies, implying it was a crucial part of Cold War efforts to economically isolate the Soviet Union is also ahistorical. Was colonialism still ongoing? Yes, absolutely. Was it a crucial part of a cartel-based currency exchange designed to provide economic stimulus to European nations via the Federal Reserve? Only in that economies which take income from colonialism diffuse exploitation into upstream efforts - in other words, a lot of the Fed's money certainly was dirty, but using the dollar to equalise the spending power of the franc was not part of some grand proto-Cold War project.
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Nov 6, 2021 20:20
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This is prefect. The exact same playbook as vs the soviets. Thanks for sharing.
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Nov 6, 2021 20:57
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I'm sure the Soviets would have been happy with Keynes approach of equal exchange but that never became BW. Harry white ultimately won and imposed a completely different vision than Keynes. Maybe y'all should get your facts straight first, not me.
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Nov 6, 2021 21:44
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Kindest Forums User posted:I'm sure the Soviets would have been happy with Keynes approach of equal exchange but that never became BW. Harry white ultimately won and imposed a completely different vision than Keynes. BW was signed in 1944, decolonization only started in the 1950's and only was in earnest between the 1960's and 1970's; your claims are factually impossible.
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Nov 6, 2021 22:21
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Raenir Salazar posted:BW was signed in 1944, decolonization only started in the 1950's and only was in earnest between the 1960's and 1970's; your claims are factually impossible. India and China's decolonization efforts began earlier than that.
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Nov 6, 2021 22:28
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Raenir Salazar posted:BW was signed in 1944, decolonization only started in the 1950's and only was in earnest between the 1960's and 1970's; your claims are factually impossible. Which is it then? Are these people experts Or dumb as hell because they couldn't conceptualize decolonization in 1944. In the China thread of all places.... lmao. Christ man.
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Nov 7, 2021 01:08
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Kindest Forums User posted:Which is it then? Are these people experts Or dumb as hell because they couldn't conceptualize decolonization in 1944. In the China thread of all places.... lmao. Christ man. Well firstly decolonization as it happened and the general idea of decolonization as it would have been imagined in 1944 are two entirely different beasts. The British in particularly really tried hard to make the Commonwealth work and it wasn't obvious to anyone no less everyone in 1944 that India would break off as it did. Churchill was adamant that the Atlantic Charter didn't apply to British possessions, the Indian Independence Act of 1947 after all made them initially Dominions like Canada which were subsequently repealed in 1956. France dug its fingers in to its overseas possessions for dear life; the remaining major colonial powers the Dutch and Portugal; Indonesia declared independence basically immediately and win their struggle after a nearly 5 year conflict. So I don't really understand your contention, there's literally no mechanism by which Bretton-Woods was designed to be destructive to the global south, and no evidence that there would have been any intent in 1944 for that to eventually be the case. I provided to you an alternative explanation rooted in more obvious and concrete socio-economic factors; so the hundreds of people including the Soviets could have both a concept in mind that eventually the many overseas European possessions might gain increased autonomy and independence and not have any nefarious or deliberate intentions to craft the BW agreements (all public) to benefit the West at their expense. It seems odd to me to craft a system and to plan for eventualities possibly decades ahead of time, that seems unrealistic and implausible and a bit contradictory when the actions of the Great Powers indicated otherwise; real life isn't Leleuch plotting Xanatos gambits.
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Nov 7, 2021 01:42
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Kindest Forums User posted:Bretton Woods was an immensely stabilizing framework for the western world, but (intentionally) devastating to the global south. The purpose of Bretton Woods, its institutions, and its successors was to extract wealth from the global south into the imperial core. The west never cared about healthy development of foreign relationships, and would often purposely destabilize state's to ensure this power dyanmic was maintained. The way you write about Bretton-Woods makes it sound like its consequences were far more deliberate and conspiratorial than they were. The purpose was not to extract wealth from the global south, even if it resulted in that happening or if it were obvious (at the time or in hindsight) that it would be a result. The purpose was to reestablish a global monetary system in the postwar period that would prevent it from being a repeat of the interwar period. Now yes, that meant reestablishing systems that were extractive, detrimental, capitalistic, etc. But framing it like some Masters of Atlantis convening diminishes the very real and very important fact that people operate within systems without being fully aware of them. This is a far more powerful idea within critiques of capitalism and far more effective at winning people over than are claims that border on vast global conspiracy theories. I also don't think Belt and Road Initiative is a great comparison to Bretton Woods, unless there are monetary and multilateral aspects of One Belt One Road that I'm unaware of. AIIB and the Silk Road Fund are just development banks that invest in infrastructure projects. They're more comparable to the World Bank, IFC, ADB, etc. Yes, World Bank came out of Bretton Woods, but its significance has been pretty small compared to the monetary order and IMF. None of these development banks are going to reshape the world order. I'm also not sure how anything you describe about One Belt One Road differs from the other development banks. Don't get me wrong. I don't think they're a bad thing. But I just find it a stretch to think that some brand new development banks with largely the same models (and less resources) are going to succeed beyond our wildest dreams where others have failed to impress for decades. I'm also curious to hear which failed World Bank investments resulted in military action or coups. Maybe I'm missing something, but it's a little hard to believe that a failed dam project would lead to that sort of action instead of just writing off the loss.
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Nov 7, 2021 04:40
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https://www.reuters.com/business/some-evergrande-units-offshore-bondholders-have-not-got-interest-due-nov-6-say-2021-11-08/quote:HONG KONG/SHANGHAI, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Some holders of offshore bonds issued by a unit of developer China Evergrande Group (3333.HK) had not received interest payments due on Nov. 6 by Monday evening in Asia, two people familiar with the matter said. Can someone with a background in finance explain in detail what happens when these things go into default? Ex. If this subsidiary fails to pay by the 30 day period, how exactly does this affect Evergrande or is it a case where the subsidiary just gets shut down or what happens?
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Nov 8, 2021 23:52
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So I am totally new to this topic and I'm totally burned out following us politics and pandemic poo poo, would anyone be able to recommend some decent documentaries that would give me a crash course in where we are today and a little bit of history as to how we got here? I apologize if that is super vague, I'm not really sure where to start.
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Nov 9, 2021 01:05
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cr0y posted:So I am totally new to this topic and I'm totally burned out following us politics and pandemic poo poo, would anyone be able to recommend some decent documentaries that would give me a crash course in where we are today and a little bit of history as to how we got here? I apologize if that is super vague, I'm not really sure where to start. About China or current events in general? I feel this is the wrong thread to ask this if the latter.
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Nov 9, 2021 01:12
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MikeC posted:https://www.reuters.com/business/some-evergrande-units-offshore-bondholders-have-not-got-interest-due-nov-6-say-2021-11-08/ I'll assume the question is less about the simpler scenario of what happens when a bond defaults and more about what happens to the parent company of a subsidiary that defaults. Or even more specifically how it might play out with Evergrande . First, if the subsidiary declares bankruptcy, it's like any other company going bankrupt and by no means ends in it being shut down. If the sub goes bankrupt, it would hit Evergrande's balance sheet, which consolidates all subsidiary financials. However, the parent's liability is limited. Creditors of the sub cannot go after the parent. So in a worst case scenario where the subsidiary is completely shut down, Evergrande completely loses that asset and its associated liabilities and equity on their balance sheet. It's harder to predict what happens at a more specific level without access to accurate financials. I took a quick glance but couldn't find anything much about this subsidiary. Maybe it's a bloated mass of debt and getting rid of it would be good for Evergrande's balance sheet. Or maybe its equity value was overstated and losing it makes Evergrande look even more levered. Maybe income from this subsidiary was important for covering costs at the group level, and so you'll see death spiral effects. It certainly doesn't send a good signal about the parent, though, and in this case may bring the other subs further into doubt, as their performance is probably closely correlated.
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Nov 9, 2021 02:02
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on where Chinese capitalism is today and how it got there, the CSIS recently published this report: https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinese-state-capitalism no novel insights, but generically interesting/useful as an succinct intro (collection of essays, not all in agreement, but I think fairly presents the range of common views)
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Nov 10, 2021 04:24
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Even as tensions ratchet up in many other arenas, this is cause for hope and I'm glad to see it. China and the US announce plan to work together on cutting emissions In a surprise press conference, the two superpowers promised to cooperate more and hoped for the success of Cop https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/10/china-and-the-us-announce-plan-to-work-together-on-cutting-emissions quote:China and the US announced a surprise plan to work together on cutting greenhouse gas emissions in the crucial next decade, in a strong boost to the Cop26 summit, as negotiators wrangled over a draft outcome.
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Nov 10, 2021 20:23
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How are u posted:Even as tensions ratchet up in many other arenas, this is cause for hope and I'm glad to see it. This is great to hear. China already has an incredibly advanced mass transport system and they recently announced plans to build 150 new nuclear plant.
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Nov 11, 2021 00:21
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Eh, while it's good news it's also a reminder that behind all of the show of these global multinational events, the real decisions about whether stuff happens or not is made on a bilateral basis and that's not really what you want if you think we need a global systemic response to climate change.
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Nov 11, 2021 00:32
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cr0y posted:So I am totally new to this topic and I'm totally burned out following us politics and pandemic poo poo, would anyone be able to recommend some decent documentaries that would give me a crash course in where we are today and a little bit of history as to how we got here? I apologize if that is super vague, I'm not really sure where to start. The was a really good once that recently deleted his account because he got death threats for saying nice things about china. So good data is hard to find. Is there anything specific? I would imagine your best value for time is watching some vibes. I like barret channel. An old british guy and his son doing vlogs about life in china with the occasional light political thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfY02CbAdx8
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Nov 11, 2021 09:05
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More on "so what do Chinese establishment intelligentsia (or at least one of its influential leaders) mean by the words 'common prosperity' 共同富裕 anyway": https://www.readingthechinadream.com/yao-yang-on-common-prosperity.html (pay special attention to the fact that his five-point suggestions list for the 'secondary distribution' (what the West would call 'predistribution') is stuff the developed world generally takes for granted and indeed is oft associated with center-right politics, e.g., aggressively means-testing higher education tuition in the name of expanding access overall) ronya fucked around with this message at 09:30 on Nov 11, 2021 |
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Nov 11, 2021 09:28
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Evergrande went through with its official For Realsies default today. Will be intrigued to see what shocks it incurred and what methods are used to contain them.
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Nov 11, 2021 10:16
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Kavros posted:Evergrande went through with its official For Realsies default today. Will be intrigued to see what shocks it incurred and what methods are used to contain them. I'm seeing reports of the opposite, saying that of 13 hours ago they pulled another "paid exactly one business day after the deadline" move again ... someone out there must be making a lot of inside money flipping options on Evergrande debt (the most likely explanation seems to be that it's a move to prevent bondholders from officially recognizing default so that they can continue to hope to be paid on t+1; presumably those that do recognize a default won't be paid) ronya fucked around with this message at 10:21 on Nov 11, 2021 |
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Nov 11, 2021 10:19
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ronya posted:I'm seeing reports of the opposite, saying that of 13 hours ago they pulled another "paid exactly one business day after the deadline" move again Could it be they are seeing exactly how much they are short by at the close of business that day and then SOMEONE (I've heard stories that the chinese government is making the CEO pony up his own money) is putting in the rest to make the payment?
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Nov 11, 2021 15:51
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China elevates Xi over tradition that would require him to step down The move is expected to give Xi status beside the ruling Communist Party's most important figures. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/11/chinese-leaders-history-xi-520793 quote:BEIJING — Leaders of China's ruling Communist Party on Thursday set the stage for President Xi Jinping to extend his rule next year, praising his role in the country's rise as an economic and strategic power and approving a political history that gives him status alongside the most important party figures.
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Nov 11, 2021 20:12
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What's the word on the Shuai Peng situation? I take it it's not getting talked about at all in Chinese press? Is searching for broad terms like "tennis" still blocked on Weibo as of right now?
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Nov 12, 2021 20:10
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Well this is interesting https://twitter.com/henrysgao/status/1459187274491445249
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Nov 12, 2021 21:20
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Cultural crackdowns are not the hallmark of a strong, robust, and confident regime (or man).
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Nov 12, 2021 21:25
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I’m guessing murder mystery games are pretty big in China?
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Nov 12, 2021 21:26
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How are u posted:Cultural crackdowns are not the hallmark of a strong, robust, and confident regime (or man). The United States launched numerous cultural crackdowns throughout the height of it's power, especially McCarthyism targeting the film industry. It's not a very good metric for stability. Edit: or strength. Cpt_Obvious fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Nov 12, 2021 |
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Nov 12, 2021 22:27
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KazigluBey posted:What's the word on the Shuai Peng situation? I take it it's not getting talked about at all in Chinese press? Is searching for broad terms like "tennis" still blocked on Weibo as of right now? It’s pretty much gone from the discussion after it’s meteoric arrival. Hard to tell how much of that is due to censorship versus natural news cycle. Before the details came out, a lot of the interest driving it was the mystery element, which was unintentionally created by censors.
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Nov 13, 2021 01:57
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Cpt_Obvious posted:The United States launched numerous cultural crackdowns throughout the height of it's power, especially McCarthyism targeting the film industry. It's not a very good metric for stability. And McCarthyism ended up falling apart after being called out for the sham that it was.
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Nov 13, 2021 02:02
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