- Honky Mao
- Dec 26, 2012
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Anyone see shen yun 2024 yet? My God was it stunning as always. I go to maybe two different dozen shows a year and this is always the highlight. Nothing gets the tears flowing like shen yun has in recent years
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Mar 20, 2024 12:51
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- Adbot
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ADBOT LOVES YOU
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May 12, 2024 18:07
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- fits my needs
- Jan 1, 2011
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Grimey Drawer
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https://x.com/Reuters/status/1770432729424765015?s=20
quote:Unidentified gunmen open fire at Pakistan's Gwadar port, two attackers killed
Reuters
March 20, 20245:21 AM PDT Updated 30 min ago
QUETTA, Pakistan, March 20 (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen opened fire at Pakistan's Gwadar port authority complex in its restive Balochistan province, Geo News reported on Wednesday.
Two attackers were killed in retaliatory firing by security personnel, the TV channel said, adding that a blast preceded the firing.
Gwadar’s deputy commissioner and police did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Gwadar is located near the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial oil shipping route in the Arabian Sea.
The deep-water port is key to the multi-billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that also encompasses roads and energy projects and is part of Chinese President Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative.
China has invested heavily under its Belt and Road Initiative in mineral-rich Balochistan, including developing Gwadar, despite a decades-long separatist insurgency in the area.
Chinese targets have previously come under attack by several militant groups in Pakistan. In August, gunmen attacked a convoy of Chinese workers in Gwadar with the separatist Balochistan Liberation Army claiming responsibility for the attack.
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Mar 20, 2024 13:53
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- Punkin Spunkin
- Jan 1, 2010
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Gonna have to send in Wolf Warrior
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Mar 20, 2024 14:07
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- stephenthinkpad
- Jan 2, 2020
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financial capitalism is the dominant form of capitalism in neoliberalism. The rate of profit and return of investment from finance takes flight from industrial profit - following capital's logic, banks and investment conglomerates start sequestering more and more value from its economy by extracting greater rents and interest, making productive investment correspondingly less profitable.
it's what has been happening in the west since Reagan and Thatcher.
I don't know if financial capitalism is an official name or what, but I have been calling it "quarterly profit capitalism" for a while. You see companies like Boeing, has already achieved relevant market monopoly and reached the game ending victory of permanent rent seeking, they would be running like a well oiled machine under the industrial system. Yet they can not help but gently caress themselves up because the CEO need to squeeze more profit and more "cost saving" from their own employees. Got to get the profit boost before his own retirement. This poo poo is epic fail.
You can even see this from Chinese companies that do things differently when they run on the quarterly profit model (Lenovo) versus the ones that don't (Huawei, not public traded).
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Mar 20, 2024 14:38
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- Orange Devil
- Oct 1, 2010
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Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!
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Anyone see shen yun 2024 yet? My God was it stunning as always. I go to maybe two different dozen shows a year and this is always the highlight. Nothing gets the tears flowing like shen yun has in recent years
This is violence
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Mar 20, 2024 14:38
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- In Training
- Jun 28, 2008
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I don't know if financial capitalism is an official name or what, but I have been calling it "quarterly profit capitalism" for a while. You see companies like Boeing, has already achieved relevant market monopoly and reached the game ending victory of permanent rent seeking, they would be running like a well oiled machine under the industrial system. Yet they can not help but gently caress themselves up because the CEO need to squeeze more profit and more "cost saving" from their own employees. Got to get the profit boost before his own retirement. This poo poo is epic fail.
You can even see this from Chinese companies that do things differently when they run on the quarterly profit model (Lenovo) versus the ones that don't (Huawei, not public traded).
Financial capital is as official as any I guess. From Marx it's when the rate of profit from industrial production sinks below the rate of profit you can attain from moving around fictitious capital. Banks in all stages of developed capitalism dictate the mode of production through their monopoly on investment, but when they can make more money just speculating, rent seeking or squeezing loans than they can casting the capital into the industrial system, they will naturally do that and there's a whole host of negative social impacts. It's pretty revealing reading vol.3 of capital and seeing how relevant it is to the neoliberal period.
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Mar 20, 2024 15:17
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- Fat-Lip-Sum-41.mp3
- Nov 15, 2003
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it was, but not as the dominant paradigm; apologies if I wasn't clear
according to arrighi it has happened cyclically over four successive global capitalist powers: the italians, the dutch, great britain, and the united states. all started with commodity production and shifted to lending when the return on interest exceeded the return on production, and ironically it is that investment that seeds the next global capitalist power.
when arrighi was writing in the 90s he was looking to asia as the next global center, perhaps japan, but now it clear that, if his theory is right, it is undoubtedly china.
Fat-Lip-Sum-41.mp3 has issued a correction as of 16:09 on Mar 20, 2024
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Mar 20, 2024 16:03
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- mila kunis
- Jun 10, 2011
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Adrian Zenz still winning the hearts of the brightest minds.
China is absolutely an ethnostate and is committing a genocide against the Uighurs (the UK parliament for example made such a declaration asserting this, and US Secretary State Anthony Blinken also made this assertion, the article goes over some of the reports and evidence) and Tibetans
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Mar 20, 2024 21:44
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- Honky Mao
- Dec 26, 2012
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China is absolutely an ethnostate and is committing a genocide against the Uighurs (the UK parliament for example made such a declaration asserting this, and US Secretary State Anthony Blinken also made this assertion, the article goes over some of the reports and evidence) and Tibetans
this is Falun Gong erasure
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Mar 20, 2024 22:01
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- stephenthinkpad
- Jan 2, 2020
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Didn't the British genocide plenty of people? What was the last ethnic group they murder?
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Mar 20, 2024 22:21
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- Ghost Leviathan
- Mar 2, 2017
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Exploration is ill-advised.
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Didn't the British genocide plenty of people? What was the last ethnic group they murder?
Currently they're working on the British.
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Mar 20, 2024 22:27
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- Eminent DNS
- May 28, 2007
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China is absolutely an ethnostate and is committing a genocide against the Uighurs (the UK parliament for example made such a declaration asserting this, and US Secretary State Anthony Blinken also made this assertion, the article goes over some of the reports and evidence) and Tibetans
Free Stringent
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Mar 20, 2024 22:30
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- 386-SX 25Mhz VGA
- Jan 14, 2003
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(C) American Megatrends Inc.,
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the US and UK state apparatus, famously credible genocide identifiers
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Mar 20, 2024 22:37
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- yellowcar
- Feb 14, 2010
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the UK and US are genocide experts (perpetuating them)
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Mar 20, 2024 22:42
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- mila kunis
- Jun 10, 2011
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the US and UK state apparatus, famously credible genocide identifiers
Set a thief to catch a thief
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Mar 20, 2024 23:02
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- stephenthinkpad
- Jan 2, 2020
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It depends on where you work. Not the capitol hill I hope.
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Mar 20, 2024 23:56
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- Bald Stalin
- Jul 11, 2004
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Our posts
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That thread is the epitome of Scratch a Liberal
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Mar 21, 2024 02:00
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- Danann
- Aug 4, 2013
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https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2024/02/can-electric-cars-power-chinas-growth/
quote:
libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org
Can Electric Cars Power China's Growth? - Liberty Street Economics
Thomas Klitgaard
8–11 minutes
China’s aggressive policies to develop its battery-powered electric vehicle (BEV) industry have been successful in making the country the dominant producer of these vehicles worldwide. Going forward, BEVs will likely claim a growing share of global motor vehicle sales, helped along by subsides and mandates implemented in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. Nevertheless, China’s success in selling BEVs may not contribute much to its GDP growth, owing both to the maturity of its motor vehicle sector and the strong tendency for countries to protect this high-profile industry.
China’s BEV Industry
The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) EV Outlook documents the policies that fostered China’s BEV industry. It notes that the government introduced incentives to purchase BEVs (subsidies to consumers, tax exemptions), implemented industrial policies (mandates to produce new energy vehicles, subsidies to producers), and undertook infrastructure investments in public charging stations. Justifications for this expensive push include advancing the country’s design and manufacturing skills, cutting oil imports, reducing urban air pollution, and addressing climate change.
Domestic production responded. Output of BEVs increased from around 1 million vehicles in 2020 to just over 6 million in 2023, with domestic BEV sales accounting for 23 percent of the passenger car market last year.
China’s BEV Production Has Increased Dramatically
The IEA’s 2023 report recounted how hundreds of Chinese firms entered the field when the subsidies and incentives were implemented, but that most went bankrupt, leaving some dozen firms to produce BEVs in a broad price range. They describe a market with some vehicles sold at very low prices, with the average price of the smallest BEVs in China at around $10,000 in 2022, compared to $35,000 in Europe and the United States, albeit with a substantially shorter battery range. The price differential is also evident in the SUV segment, with the average price in China at $35,000, much lower than the $65,000 average in the other two markets even though the average ranges are similar across the three regions.
Recipe for Growth?
While technologically advanced, the extent that BEVs can contribute to GDP growth is limited by the maturity of the motor vehicle industry, with passenger car sales having peaked in 2017. This is a restraining factor as BEVs do not represent an innovation that creates new demand, like the introduction of personal computers or cell phones. Instead, they’re a new version of a familiar product whose sales may not grow much beyond current levels.
BEVs might still increase the industry’s contribution to GDP growth if customers switched away from imports to domestically produced vehicles. The potential gains, though, are likely to be small, as China used very high tariffs to force foreign firms to open local plants, with the requirement that they have a domestic partner. The arrangement means that foreign firms keep a share of the profits from their Chinese operations while the value-add embedded in domestic motor vehicle sales is almost entirely created in China.
Not having a meaningful number of imports implies that any switch away from passenger cars running on internal combustion engines (ICE) to BEVs will have winners and losers inside China, reminiscent of a zero-sum game, but will not do much to lift GDP. If anything, technological improvements in batteries that lower the average price of motor vehicles, while a benefit to consumers, will shrink the output of the motor vehicle sector unless matched by a corresponding increase in unit sales.
One bright development for China’s economy has been an increase in BEV exports. Foreign sales of these vehicles have risen from around 250,000 units in 2020 to 500,000 units in 2021, 1.0 million units in 2022, and 1.5 million units in 2023, according to data from China’s General Administration of Customs. Unfortunately, the UN Comtrade database, with its breakdown of exports by country (the HS code for BEVs is 870380) available through 2022, seen in the chart below, shows the need to adjust these numbers. It is apparent that the category includes both BEVs and cheap electric carts, with the value of vehicles shipped to Bangladesh, India, the Philippines, and Thailand averaging just $2,500 in 2022—compared to $30,000 for vehicles going to Europe. It makes sense, then, to subtract out sales to these four countries to get a better measure of BEV exports and, indeed, the average value without these four is close to Europe’s average value. Such an adjustment raises the 2022 growth rate for BEV exports (122 percent versus 90 percent) but lowers the volume of exports to around 700,000 units. The 2023 breakdown is not available, but the adjusted total will likely be over 1 million units.
Protectionism
The extent of export gains for China depends on both the share of BEVs purchased abroad and China’s share of these BEV sales. Consider Europe, which received over half of China’s BEV exports in 2022, 436,000 units. (Note that exports to the United States were trivial due to very high U.S. tariffs.) The European Automobile Manufacturers Association estimates that BEV sales in Europe equaled 1.2 million in 2021 and 1.6 million in 2022, with total sales of motor vehicles dipping from 11.8 million to 11.3 million. Given the rising popularity of BEVs (increasing from 10 percent to 14 percent of the market) and China’s higher share of that region’s BEV sales (17 percent to 28 percent), a quick calculation shows that China’s BEV share of total vehicle sales doubled from 2 percent to 4 percent in one year. Assuming that China’s exports to Europe grew at the same rate as its total BEV exports, then Chinese vehicles made up 35 percent of Europe’s higher BEV sales in 2023, accounting for 5.5 percent of total motor vehicle sales in the region.
Such gains may soon flatten out, both from greater competition as European plants work to catch up and from political pressure to put a cap on China’s exports. China itself is a case study of a government protecting a favored domestic industry, with the U.S.-Japan Voluntary Export Restraint (VER) program in the early 1980s being another. The oil shocks of 1973 and 1979 created a competitive advantage for Japanese firms that had specialized in fuel-efficient vehicles. The VER program was designed to protect a highly visible U.S. manufacturing industry under an agreement that Japanese firms would have to open plants in the United States in order to sell more to the U.S. market. These experiences suggest that Chinese firms, whether producers of BEVs or the batteries they run on, will face implicit and explicit pressure to build facilities in foreign markets if they want to grow their sales.
Significant Gains Elsewhere
While BEVs may have limited potential to increase the motor vehicle sector’s contribution to Chinese GDP, that does not diminish the other significant gains from the policies that fostered the industry, such as the profits to be made from any new foreign operations, the technological and manufacturing spillovers to the rest of the economy, and the replacement of imported petroleum products with domestic renewable energy. Indeed, the EIA’s 2023 EV report forecasts that China’s adoption of electric vehicles will lower its crude oil consumption in 2030 by 2 million barrels per day, which is equal to 12 percent of the country’s current liquid fuel consumption.
Photo: portrait of Thomas Klitgaard
Thomas Klitgaard is an economic research advisor in International Studies in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Research and Statistics Group.
How to cite this post:
Thomas Klitgaard, “Can Electric Cars Power China’s Growth?,” Federal Reserve Bank of New York Liberty Street Economics, February 28, 2024, https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2024/02/can-electric-cars-power-chinas-growth/.
Disclaimer
The views expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System. Any errors or omissions are the responsibility of the author(s).
Official FED stance: chinese electric vehicles are a nothingburger
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Mar 21, 2024 03:33
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- Gildiss
- Aug 24, 2010
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Grimey Drawer
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And he has now returned to Korea amid rare bipartisan calls for tougher investigation lol
Besieged ambassador returns amid pressure for probe
quote:
Lee Jong-sup, the Korean ambassador to Australia, returned home, Thursday, only 11 days after he flew to assume his new role, and urged the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) to question him over allegations of using his status to influence an investigation into the death of a Marine.
His earlier-than-expected return has mainly to do with the CIO's unpreparedness in fully investigating the besieged former defense minister, as evidenced by the fact that other key suspects involved in the case have yet to face inquiries.
Lee's appointment has drawn a fierce backlash, with President Yoon Suk Yeol being criticized for “evacuating a criminal suspect.” According to the foreign ministry, Lee's official trip to Korea is to attend a meeting of diplomatic mission chiefs related to defense industry cooperation.
After the foreign ministry announced Lee's arrival schedule, the CIO said in a statement to reporters, “We have no comment on the timing of the ambassador’s subpoena,” and added, “The schedule will be fixed depending on the progress of the investigation.”
The CIO’s stance is in line with its sluggish progress in the investigation.
The main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) filed complaints with the CIO over the Marine’s death in September last year. But the CIO began on-site investigations only in January by searching the offices of related ranking military officials, such as Marine Corps Commander Kim Gye-hwan.
On March 7, just three days before Lee flew to Australia, he voluntarily appeared at the CIO and underwent four hours of questioning and the investigative authority said at the time that an “additional subpoena is necessary.”
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While the CIO remains underprepared, the ruling People Power Party (PPP) stressed Lee’s remarks that he seeks an opportunity to appear for questioning and denounced the DPK, claiming that the main opposition “is using Lee’s case to win votes.”
“This is a matter that can be resolved through legal procedures, but the DPK is branding the ambassador as a subject of political instigation and strife,” the PPP said in a statement. “The DPK has been calling for Lee’s return. Now it is time to watch how their election strategy changes.”
In response, the DPK shifted its focus from Lee’s return to Yoon’s dismissal of the ambassador.
DPK leaders staged a protest against Lee at the airport starting at 5 a.m. Wednesday, with its floor leader Rep. Hong Ihk-pyo and Rep. Park Ju-min holding banners urging Yoon’s dismissal of “criminal suspect Lee Jong-sup” during the protest. Regarding Lee’s comments seeking an investigation, DPK spokesperson Kang Sun-woo said “is this something a suspect in his right mind under investigation can say?”
The floor leader said in a party meeting at the National Assembly that “the point of this case is whether the president exerted his influence on the case through the key man, Lee Jong-sup,” and “suspect Lee’s appointment itself is a wrong decision.”
Upon his arrival, Lee told reporters that he had already said several times that suspicions surrounding him were not true and dismissed questions on his intention to resign.
Lee’s return came after not only the opposition parties but also the PPP also criticized Yoon’s decision to appoint Lee as the ambassador. PPP interim leader Han Dong-hoon urged Lee to return and face questioning, while other big name candidates of the ruling bloc echoed that the appointment "did not meet the public's expectations."
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Against this backdrop, the six ambassadors’ meeting is seen as an outcome of Yoon’s decision, because it was created for the first time and is to take place just a month before all heads of Korea's overseas diplomatic missions gather in Korea for their annual meeting. Considering that recalling Lee back home merely 11 days into his tenure could be interpreted as a diplomatic discourtesy to Australia, it is also assumed that it was a decision made at the highest level.
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Mar 21, 2024 11:00
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- Gildiss
- Aug 24, 2010
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Grimey Drawer
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And a flicker of self awareness.
[New Neighbors] Is S. Korea a racist country?
quote:
The general perception among Koreans is that Korea is not a racist country, as incidences of physical violence toward foreigners are relatively rare. However, the aforementioned incidents suggest that racial discrimination persists in parts of Korean society.
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Racial discrimination in Korea occurs depending on whether the foreign national's country of origin is a developed country, according to the National Human Rights Commission of Korea. In other words, discrimination occurs depending on the economic status of the country of origin. For example, Koreans are more likely to discriminate against Black people from developing countries than Black people from the US, an official from the NHRCK noted.
A 2019 report by the NHRCK showed that 56.8 percent of the 310 immigrant respondents answered that Koreans discriminate based on “country of origin.” Also, 36.9 percent said Koreans discriminate based on their “economic level.”
“The way Koreans treat foreigners varies dramatically depending on whether they come from a developed country or not. Koreans tend to perceive foreigners first by their skin color, and then by their country of origin,” an official from the NHRCK explained.
Another NHRCK report showed that immigrants and foreigners feel discrimination even from public institutions.
In the same 2019 survey by the NHRCK, foreign nationals pointed to immigration offices and courts as locations where they experienced the highest levels of discriminatory treatment. Out of those surveyed, 41 percent reported encountering discrimination in courts, while 35.2 percent experienced similar treatment at immigration offices.
Some Koreans recognize this discrimination against immigrants as a problem, too. According to the NHRCK's 2022 Human Rights Awareness Survey of 16,148 Koreans, only 41 percent of Koreans said that the human rights of immigrants living in Korea are guaranteed equally to those of Koreans.
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Mar 21, 2024 11:15
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- Son of Thunderbeast
- Sep 21, 2002
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Seems about right from my experience
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Mar 21, 2024 15:00
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- Halser
- Aug 24, 2016
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The general perception among Koreans is that Korea is not a racist country
Maybe I just got "lucky", but the one Korean I met in real life lamented the racism(among other conservative rot) in their country.
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Mar 21, 2024 18:40
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- Jel Shaker
- Apr 19, 2003
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insane china link to the current british royal family nonsense courtesy of my fave celeb news letter popbitch
quote:
>> Storage wars <<
China v The Cholmondeleys
For reasons that Messrs Harbottle & Lewis would rather we didn't explain, a number of internet users have recently been scouring through old pictures of David Cholmondeley and his wife Lady Sarah Rose. Specifically a couple of 'At Home With The Cholmondeleys'-style photoshoots that show the Marquess and Marchioness draped across some rather gorgeous antique Chinese furniture they have installed in their country pile, Houghton Hall.
The pieces have now caught the eye of Chinese TikTokkers who were curious as to their provenance. It didn't take much sleuthing to discover that David's grandmother was Sybil Cholmondeley – née Sassoon. Of the same Sassoons who did such a roaring trade in opium in China in the 19th century. And also had a decent sideline in pillaging goods as the Qing dynasty collapsed.
So it seems fairly clear which side China is going to take in the rural rivalry.
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Mar 21, 2024 23:24
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- Tankbuster
- Oct 1, 2021
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explain this corncob.
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Mar 22, 2024 00:29
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- Danann
- Aug 4, 2013
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https://twitter.com/CNguyenEc/status/1770403999839142285
gorbachev (derogatory)
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Mar 22, 2024 01:52
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- Adbot
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ADBOT LOVES YOU
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May 12, 2024 18:07
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Mar 20, 2024 12:51
