[Truth To Power]

The truth has been slipping out of China, it ain't pretty.

The fact that Chinese geoism has raised more people out of poverty in 40 years than capitalism ever did, despite not being democratic and being burdened with both its legacy of socialism and some of the worst features of finance capitalism, is not disputable.

Anyway, better is better. If you come up with something better still, the world awaits.

Geooism is better, as history has proved and I have been explaining.

[ckaihatsu]

Tired of your BS, seriously.

You wouldn't have gone there, after the Taliban took over. Neither did anyone else. They have no idea about how you run a country.

You missed the big problem, the Taliban has missed it's window of opportunity. Between Covid and the chaos Putin has caused, most of the 3rd world is going to be up sh*t creek without a paddle.

We aren't going to be able to help all the people that need it desperately. People that want to shoot us while we feed them will wind up at the back of the line.

You have what it takes to have a real discussion, but ya gotta lose that chip on your shoulder.

Chip on 'my' shoulder -- ?

Hang-on / buckle-up....

Humanitarian crisis

Following the Taliban takeover, western nations suspended humanitarian aid and the World Bank and International Monetary Fund also halted payments to Afghanistan.[612][613] The Biden administration froze about $9 billion in assets belonging to the Afghan central banks, blocking the Taliban from accessing billions of dollars held in US bank accounts.[614] In October 2021, the UN stated that more than half of Afghanistan's 39 million people faced an acute food shortage.[615] On 11 November 2021, the Human Rights Watch reported that Afghanistan is facing widespread famine due to collapsed economy and broken banking system.[613] World leaders pledged $1.2 billion in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan.[614] On 22 December 2021, The United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a US-proposed resolution to help humanitarian aid reach desperate Afghans, while seeking to keep funds out of Taliban hands.”[616]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Af ... %80%932021)#Formation_of_the_Taliban_government_and_international_recognition

[late]

Geooism is better, as history has proved and I have been explaining.

You are really not going to like what's coming.

[Truth To Power]

You are really not going to like what's coming.

China has unfortunately been deceived into adopting the debt money system of finance capitalism, and has also enabled the private holders of land leases to pocket far too much publicly created land rent, in blatant contradiction of its nominal public ownership of land. This is a deadly combination that reliably produces real estate bubbles and then severe economic crashes. It remains to be seen if the CCP has the intelligence to unwind China's real estate bubble without a debt default crisis and deflationary crash, but I am not optimistic: they are socialists, Marxists, and therefore do not understand why their system has been so successful or why it is now teetering on a precipice.

[Rancid]

WHen is the rug pull happening?

[ckaihatsu]

The shit has *annihilated* the fan....


China pushes ahead with credit rating reform to unleash bond market potential

https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202208/ ... 71e3f.html

With credit ratings playing a key role in China's bond market, the country has rolled out a raft of measures to fine-tune its credit rating model after a series of defaults from highly rated enterprises last year.

Under the previous rating model where bond issuers pay for the rating services, issuers often interfere with credit rating decisions and tempt rating agencies to give them high ratings since they have common interests.

The proportion of AAA ratings in China's bond market, which represents the highest investment grade, reached 20 percent, higher than that of developed bond markets, which is less than 5 percent.

Data showed that in 2020, issuers with high ratings accounted for 82 percent of bond defaults in the country's bond market.

Blamed for inflated credit ratings, the domestic rating sector failed to reflect the real credit status of firms and had poor early warning capabilities ahead of default, which rocked investor confidence and damaged the credibility of China's rating businesses.

Last August, China's bond regulator flagged the risk of inflated credit ratings as well as other shortcomings in the rating industry and issued a circular to tighten scrutiny over the sector.

[Puffer Fish]

(Basically raised / higher interest rates means rewarding *pre-existing* (rentier) capital, which is *non-productive* of commodities -- which is an *expense*, along with all other kinds of government spending. It's 'neo-feudalism', because it's certainly not *capitalism*, or new-commodity-producing equity-values at that point.)

The issue many people seem not to realise is that the Central Bank (or "Fed") is not actually "increasing" rates. Rather they are just ceasing to continue artificially reducing them.
That is a big key difference there. The wealthy aren't getting "subsidies" from the government. Rather it is people who are borrowing money who no longer get subsidies.

"Increasing rates" really means not continuing to keep them down anymore. The Fed doesn't have to do anything to increase the rates from what they are. They just have to stop lending out cheap money, and then the rates will increase on their own.

[ckaihatsu]

The issue many people seem not to realise is that the Central Bank (or "Fed") is not actually "increasing" rates. Rather they are just ceasing to continue artificially reducing them.
That is a big key difference there. The wealthy aren't getting "subsidies" from the government. Rather it is people who are borrowing money who no longer get subsidies.

"Increasing rates" really means not continuing to keep them down anymore. The Fed doesn't have to do anything to increase the rates from what they are. They just have to stop lending out cheap money, and then the rates will increase on their own.

It's the Fed's *balance sheet*:





If the economy is stalled-out, it makes sense for the Fed to add additional liquidity, as it's been doing, and as the economy requires, due to the inherent capitalist emergent Ponzi-scheme dynamic of increasing financialization, of whatever enterprise, like housing construction.

Note the *bullshit* from the article I posted, about China's economic composition:

Data showed that in 2020, issuers with high ratings accounted for 82 percent of bond defaults in the country's bond market.

So this means that China's own debt is near junk-bond status. That's only relevant to *international* finance, and China can certainly do okay for itself *internally*, but it's now more entangled in capitalist financial instruments than it probably *wants* to be at this point.


Nonsense! China's Economy Will NOT Collapse

[Puffer Fish]

If the economy is stalled-out, it makes sense for the Fed to add additional liquidity, as it's been doing, and as the economy requires, due to the inherent capitalist emergent Ponzi-scheme dynamic of increasing financialization, of whatever enterprise, like housing construction.

That's another misconception many people have.

There is the danger of creating (or further contributing to) an economic bubble if the Fed continues to add "stimulus" and "liquidity", if the economy cannot sustain that growth.
An analogy can be made to a person who is so exhausted they are about to pass out unconscious, and then they think they can solve the problem by continuing to take more caffeine. Stimulus is not a long-term solution to economic problems.
Another analogy could be someone who is in deep debt and they think the solution is to borrow more money on a credit card.

It can only sometimes help in the short term.

If a Ponzi scheme is about to come crashing down, the only long-term sustainable solution is to let that Ponzi scheme come crashing down. You can try to let it deflate more slowly, to try to minimize the damage, but it does have to deflate - and will eventually deflate - no matter what. Trying to keep it going along is just going to result in more damage and be dysfunctional to the economy.
It only takes a little bit of logic to see this.

[ckaihatsu]

That's another misconception many people have.

There is the danger of creating (or further contributing to) an economic bubble if the Fed continues to add "stimulus" and "liquidity", if the economy cannot sustain that growth.
An analogy can be made to a person who is so exhausted they are about to pass out unconscious, and then they think they can solve the problem by continuing to take more caffeine. Stimulus is not a long-term solution to economic problems.
Another analogy could be someone who is in deep debt and they think the solution is to borrow more money on a credit card.

It can only sometimes help in the short term.

If a Ponzi scheme is about to come crashing down, the only long-term sustainable solution is to let that Ponzi scheme come crashing down. You can try to let it deflate more slowly, to try to minimize the damage, but it does have to deflate - and will eventually deflate - no matter what. Trying to keep it going along is just going to result in more damage and be dysfunctional to the economy.
It only takes a little bit of logic to see this.

Here, let me put it *this* way, PF -- current technologies are *mad* productive, and the machinery spins forth *gargantuan* amounts of products (and services) that people access and own, or *would like to* access or own.

But -- there's an inevitably-prevailing lack of *face values* to *correspond-to* all of the *product*-values that have been produced -- in this way, over time, without intervention, *deflation* prevails because there's a surfeit of stuff (Marx's 'overproduction'), and relatively lagging economic demand in relation to that 'overhang' of production.

So, the Fed intervenes, and 'prints money' / takes on more debt, and that helps with liquidity (as previously covered), and hopefully with employment and business and the economy as a whole.

You're pointing to the built-in hazards of bubble-building, but I'll argue (and so will SA) that the messy bubble is *preferable* to the opposite, which is the default *deflation*, or grinding-to-a-halt-and-drying-up.

Sure, *politically*, I'd like to be that *accelerationist*, and say 'Let it all burn' so we can get things underway more quickly, but *economically* the short-term time-frame calls for short-term dealings with the *real economy*, as from the Fed, to avoid human *catastrophes*.

[late]

Nonsense! China's Economy Will NOT Collapse

The video you linked is good. Did you watch the end?

The guy expects stagnation. I find that optimistic, manufacturing is leaving China. The lockdowns are hurting production, and that is going to exacerbate the trend of countries moving manufacturing elsewhere (but mostly home).

He picked up on the demographic nightmare, and that brings me to my point.

Ignoring Youtube fabulists, Chinese growth is over, and decline has started. The argument is over the shape of the curve of that decline. The ability they have to paper over their mistakes with dollars is limited. Granted, they have a lot of money, but since this is a new era, the persistence of decline means they are going to hit a wall, and hard, at some point in the future.

[ckaihatsu]

The video you linked is good. Did you watch the end?

The guy expects stagnation. I find that optimistic, manufacturing is leaving China. The lockdowns are hurting production, and that is going to exacerbate the trend of countries moving manufacturing elsewhere (but mostly home).

He picked up on the demographic nightmare, and that brings me to my point.

Ignoring Youtube fabulists, Chinese growth is over, and decline has started. The argument is over the shape of the curve of that decline. The ability they have to paper over their mistakes with dollars is limited. Granted, they have a lot of money, but since this is a new era, the persistence of decline means they are going to hit a wall, and hard, at some point in the future.

Yeah, it's *fascinating* -- everything's so built-up at this point that the only thing left is *resource extraction*, and even *that's* having to give-way to eco-green concerns and more-'automatic' harvesting of (renewable) energy sources.

Soon we're going to have to get government stipends in return for *clicking* for it.

[ckaihatsu]

China's and India's financiers have been leaning into their *suppliers* / the petty-bourgeoisie, as I understand it.

[Steve_American]

IMHO, the members at the Fed are either lackeys of the rich fascists like the surviving Koch brother who want the fascists who are Repuds to win this year's elections by tanking the economy before the election, or they are fools blinded by their econ. theories, who can't see the desperate need to put the recession off until after the election. It isn't as if it would make that much difference economically.

If the people who want to save democracy lose this election it will be mostly the Feds fault. Mostly, there, means the biggest most important reason.
.

[ckaihatsu]

win this year's elections by tanking the economy before the election,

---

While Nixon kept quiet in public about Vietnam, he was secretly using back channels to sabotage the peace process. Through a well-placed representative, Nixon told South Vietnamese allies that if they held out for peace until after the election he would give them a better deal than Lyndon Johnson.

It may have been a dirty ploy to win the election, but Nixon believed it was fair play. Rick Perlstein says Nixon saw Johnson's bombing halt as an attempt to steal the election for Hubert Humphrey. "Nixon always thought he was playing defense," Perlstein says.

https://features.apmreports.org/arw/campaign68/b3.html

[Steve_American]

Steve_American wrote:

win this year's elections by tanking the economy before the election,

---

While Nixon kept quiet in public about Vietnam, he was secretly using back channels to sabotage the peace process. Through a well-placed representative, Nixon told South Vietnamese allies that if they held out for peace until after the election he would give them a better deal than Lyndon Johnson.

It may have been a dirty ploy to win the election, but Nixon believed it was fair play. Rick Perlstein says Nixon saw Johnson's bombing halt as an attempt to steal the election for Hubert Humphrey. "Nixon always thought he was playing defense," Perlstein says.


https://features.apmreports.org/arw/campaign68/b3.html

Are you equating the "independent" Fed to Pres. Nixon.

I hope not.

I hope the Fed is not so political that it would want to end democracy in America.

.

[ckaihatsu]

Are you equating the "independent" Fed to Pres. Nixon.

I hope not.

I hope the Fed is not so political that it would want to end democracy in America.

.

No, I meant to show how *immensely* elections are fetishized, and the extent to which candidates (like Nixon) will go -- prolonging the war in Vietnam -- for the sake of winning the election.

[Steve_American]

No, I meant to show how *immensely* elections are fetishized, and the extent to which candidates (like Nixon) will go -- prolonging the war in Vietnam -- for the sake of winning the election.

However, the members of the Fed are NOT politicians.
So, I think your point is not germain.

.

[ckaihatsu]

No, I meant to show how *immensely* elections are fetishized, and the extent to which candidates (like Nixon) will go -- prolonging the war in Vietnam -- for the sake of winning the election.

However, the members of the Fed are NOT politicians.
So, I think your point is not germain.

.

According to *you*, they may as *well* be politicians:

IMHO, the members at the Fed are either lackeys of the rich fascists

viewtopic.php?p=15246172#p15246172

[MadMonk]

Eurozone interest rates must continue to rise, says European Central Bank

Decision about how to fight inflation follows increase by unprecedented 0.75 percentage points

Interest rates across the eurozone must continue to ratchet upwards to tackle rapidly rising inflation, European Central Bank policymakers said.

The ECB’s call to prioritise the fight against inflation with further increases in the cost of borrowing came after it raised rates by an unprecedented 0.75 percentage points on Thursday to 1.25%.

It warned that eurozone inflation was at its highest rate in almost half a century in July, at 9.1%, up from 8.9% in July, and at risk of becoming entrenched.

“Inflation remains unacceptably high,” said Peter Kažimír, Slovakia’s central bank chief, who sits on the ECB’s governing body. “The priority now is to continue vigorously the normalisation of monetary policy.”

Kažimír’s remarks were widely interpreted as a call for further significant increases in borrowing costs despite the likelihood it will significantly slow the 19-member currency bloc’s economic recovery.

Echoing his words, the Dutch central bank president, Klaas Knot, said slowing growth was a necessary side-effect of the fight against inflation. “We expect inflation to keep rising in the coming months, so that means we only have one problem on our plate: inflation,” Knot said, adding: “That will mean we will have to slow economic growth at least a bit to reduce inflation.”

Bank of England officials are expected to repeat August’s 0.5 percentage point rise when they next meet, taking the bank’s base rate to 2.25%. They had been due to meet on 15 September but as a mark of respect after the death of the Queen, the meeting has been postponed for a week, so will take place on 22 September.

Sanjay Raja, a senior economist at Deutsche Bank Research, said the monetary policy committee’s nine members were likely to adopt a middle course after a three-way split, with two members backing a weaker 0.25 percentage point increase and two supporting a more aggressive 0.75 percentage point rise.

Raja said the government’s pledge to inject £150bn into the economy to bring down household and business energy bills would be considered inflationary by the Bank, leading to further increases in rates next year to a peak of 4%.

Speaking in parliament earlier this week, the Bank’s chief economist, Huw Pill, said: “In response to the question, will fiscal policies generate inflation – we are here to ensure that they don’t generate inflation  …  Our remit is to get inflation back to target … We do have work to do.”

Next week there will be a flurry of UK economic data, including GDP growth figures for July, which is expected to bounce back modestly after a fall in June, although it remains on a downward track towards a long recession next year.

James Knightley, the chief international economist at ING, said the energy price guarantee was “a double-edged sword for the Bank” that reduced the peak in headline inflation from about 16% in January to about 11% in October, but came too late for City traders to adjust their expectations of a minimum 0.5 percentage point rise.

“As we saw with the ECB on Thursday, the decision to go with a 0.75 percentage point hike saw markets price that as the default move at the next meeting,” he said.

While the ECB projected stagnating growth over the winter months, the central bank’s president, Christine Lagarde, said the current outlook showed the eurozone would avoid a recession, although she acknowledged the loss of access to Russian gas meant a contraction was still possible.

The French central bank governor, François Villeroy de Galhau, appeared to play down the likelihood of further large rate increases, saying: “We have our hands completely free. Nobody should speculate that this will be the magnitude of the next step.

“We did not create a new jumbo habit.”