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johnycomelately's avatar

“Manufacturing ecosystems don't work that way.”

Brilliant comment.

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Mark Wauck's avatar

Actually, Witkoff's latest idea was to take the Palestinians to Indonesia--while Gaza is being rebuilt.

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Cosmo T Kat's avatar

Who would rebuild it and with whose money? Once rebuilt who would occupy the land? It's difficult to get a true reckoning of aid to Palestine and Gaza as most reports are oriented around aid of recent years even so the money spent goes through the UN and it pales in comparison to the aid and subsidies we have given Israel over the years. Reports i have read suggest aid to Israel has reached $360B which is more than most other countries combined. Aid to help Palestine is always a result of aid for reconstruction of what Israel has destroyed or humanitarian aid as a result of Israel's aggression. does this align with your view?

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Jeff Cook-Coyle's avatar

I thought you wwould talk about how Trump may prefer the multi-polar world to the EU and Anglo-Zionist one. I think he is supporting the move.

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Cosmo T Kat's avatar

Hi Jeff, I do like your optimism. It also helps with Mark providing essentially a two sides of the Trump story. His rhetoric seems to contradict some of his actions. It's early and the best we can do is hope for the best and he gets us out of the entanglements that do little for the American people but certainly aids the Anglo-Zionist agenda and provides pathways for corruption..

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Shy Boy's avatar

Deep dive into the DeepSeek tech from a business-strategy standpoint. Don't forget, the chip ban that enabled this burst of Chinese innovation was a Zhou policy. Clear parallels to the Russia sanctions, asset confiscation, and SWIFT block. Self-owns all round!

https://stratechery.com/2025/deepseek-faq/

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Dao Gen's avatar

Biden and Trump are both trying to order the tide not to rise when it comes to China. Good luck with that. But even many so-called intelligent western commentators also refuse to study up about China. Re the picture of the Chinese(?) girl, if western commentators studied about the Chinese language for ten minutes, they would discover that it is the Japanese language that doesn't distinguish between English "l" and "r," not Mandarin (or even Koreaon, for that matter). Why do many "enlightened" people who write about China in the MSM and social media feel they don't need to study about China -- or about Russia -- with the same degree of self-discipline they feel when they write about western Europe?

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Tamsin's avatar

PP quotes, "If DeepSeek does indeed crash the entire American AI industry — and possibly even the stock market — it will be because bureaucrats in DC tried to control the technology sector in ill-advised ways."

There was no way for the US to offshore all other manufacturing, to de-industrialize in favor of financializing the economy, these past thirty years while holding some high-value manufacturing harmless and in-house.

Manufacturing ecosystems don't work that way; to manufacture big widgets you need many small widgets to hand at the right price and volume and quality.

I think a few too many people, including PP, want to blame our current troubles on recent US export controls, rather than on thirty years of de-industrialization and financialization in all Western economies. And it was bought into by all right-thinking people in white-collar jobs in those economies enjoying a high standard of living while arguing about green energy and gay rights. Supranational moneymen call the shots, and they were satisfied with China becoming the workshop to the world. We all enjoyed it while it lasted. America did not "do this" to Europeans unilaterally just now.

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Jeff Martineau's avatar

Gladden is correct: “But [US/West] policymaking has to occur at a more strategic level.”

The obvious problem is that the US\West stopped doing real “assessments” in the last decades. Everything occurred in business and politics under larger fantasy notions of the West and everyone else simply following. The last generation that did assessments has been dead for decades. Imagine bringing into a room 100 people and tacking a scenario from all these possibilities and turning over all the results to others to make a decision. We don’t do that. No one in the West, and probably East, does this anymore. The ends are set in place beforehand.

Assessment comes before thinking strategically. We don’t even have people trained in doing this. ONA, under the ONI, with Andrew Marshall running it, and designed to counter the CIA, was an attempt in the early ‘70s to do this. Andrew had had experience in the early days of RAND.

So we created Exogenous, Inc.

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Ray-SoCa's avatar

With the current President of Taiwan this won’t happen: “ Ask yourself, if you were Taiwan would you ship all your chip factories to the US or … do a deal with China?”

China is offering huge salaries to recruit Taiwan Engineers and Scientists.

The growth of Taiwan foundries issue to US laws and regulations that incentivize outsourcing. Outsourcing capital costs increases the return on capital for U.S. public companies, giving a higher stock price.

We will see what Trump does to rebuild us industry. Intel has done a great job using dei to commit suicide, reminds me of Boeing.

Trump is taking control of federal spending, mind blowing “White House Orders Pause of Federal Financial-Assistance Programs.”

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/baptism-of-fire-tuesday-january-28?

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ML's avatar

“Chaos. Confusion. Epoch-making. What Trump has done was, until yesterday, unimaginable. When the Wall Street Journal called “the memo” “unexpected,” it was a masterpiece of understatement, kind of like describing the Hindenberg as an unscheduled travel delay.” Read on!

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dissonant1's avatar

Thanks so much for the link! Whenever I encounter things that raise great emotions within me this tends to translate in my mind into lines from appropriate songs. Is that weird? The first song I thought of was a very long ago line from "Itchykoo Park," by Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane, and the Small Faces: "It's all too beautiful... It's all too beautiful." And then when reading about the duplicitous solicitors of the DOJ (a new reality TV series perhaps?): "It's Time to Say Sayonara."

How great a strategy this is: 1) Eliminates unnecessary and/or pernicious and/or corrupt programs; 2) Introduces long overdue oversight and transparency to govt funding, including of NGOs and foreign governments; 3) Saves money and increases efficiency according to the DOGE goals; 4) Eliminates those averse to Constitutional principles and what is best for the nation as quickly as possible (in many cases by them resigning. It is genius. I am so gratified to actually see this happening! Thank you PDJT!

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Cosmo T Kat's avatar

NGO's and the burgeoning, and dishonest, non-profit sector are the bane of our society. So many young graduates gush with excitement that they are going to work for a non-profit. These are the lame brained fully indoctrinated in college that they are working for the greater good of society not realizing they are likely working for a psychopathic zealot who is hiding his money from the tax man while polishing his halo. How in the world can George Soros carry the mantle of philanthropic humanitarian?.

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ML's avatar

Ha! What a great oldie to remember!! It is “beautiful” to imagine Samantha Powers’ auburn locks on fire! As Childers puts it, “USAID is the deep state’s ATM!”

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Mark Wauck's avatar

The fact that the cutoff of USAID is framed by critics as a national security issue that "emboldens enemies" tends to give the lie to the official narrative of what USAID is actually about. The outcry tends to confirm that it actually is a CIA front.

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Cosmo T Kat's avatar

Oh, Mark you so often get right to the nub of things. Spot on!

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ML's avatar

Yes indeed.

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Jan 29
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AmericanCardigan's avatar

Put her on Immigration enforcement.

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Mark Wauck's avatar

LOL!

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ML's avatar

I hear there’s a dream job at Columbia!

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Marie's avatar

Yes to Intel and how about Boeing, too, sinking. So many companies are failing, isn't there any common sense out there anymore?

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Cosmo T Kat's avatar

LoL on the Intel comment. so sad. great comment!

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ML's avatar

Tx for link. Childers is a bit lengthy, but never fails to get to the essential point, and often with humour! And with coffee he’s even better!

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Mark Wauck's avatar

I've been writing and having lunch and now have to run, but my wife was telling me about this story.

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Mark Wauck's avatar

Re the Childers article, it's a must read and ... highly amusing in places for those who have ever worked in the Belly of the Beast. I especially enjoyed the parts about lawyers who had abused the system finding themselves under investigation and shifted to highly undesirable positions for their careers.

However, one caution. Childers presents this order as a wrecking ball aimed at the total bureaucracy. That's not exactly true. The targets are programs that are affected by the substantive EOs that preceded this one. Services and programs that affect normal people--not DEI fanatics and not regime change artists of the CIA/State--won't be affected.

I suspect that, in major part, this order is targeted at the Deep State as much as it is at spending more generally. It continues the clawback targeting of DEI, where I believe much of the money was directed during Zhou's final months.

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ML's avatar

And apparently Kash is charged with sifting through the remains of the J6 Committee…Targeted and well justified.

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Jan 29
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Mark Wauck's avatar

Why surprised? A liberal turncoat joining a literally Hitlerite regime to free children from the pseudo-medical imperatives of the nanny state? Of course the opposition is intense.

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Cosmo T Kat's avatar

It's so obvious, isn't it?

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BRK7_2's avatar

Calling California bureaucracy incompetent is missing the elephant in the room: the intentional destruction of US socio-economy using calculated internal maneuvering. Incompetence vs Intent spells a vast difference that cannot be rectified by mere finger slaps and painting the walls.

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Jeff Martineau's avatar

Think of what China is doing as “Opening II.” Recall the 80s when Opening I happened. China is opening its door, less because they care about US and other companies as such doing business there, but because they recognize that Digital/AI/Robots are the thing going forward and it’s going to change the entire world, and the West and East need to figure it out before it happens. Think of the beginnings of a synergy, NOT harmony.

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