Whenever I see Zerohedge republishing an article by Charles Hugh Smith I typically at least take a look. This past week there were at least two such articles, and one in particular hits on topics that readers regularly bring up: Our Economy And Politics Are Broken
A big part of the problem is the cost-benefit structure of a bureaucracy vs something more feudal
In a feudal system, every new “law” adds a burden on the enforcers. You have relatively few people enforcing compliance, so at each level of the hierarchy they ask “do I care enough about this to put effort into enforcing it?”
But with an administrative state, there comes a tipping point where bureaucrats get rewarded for making new laws. Each new law gets a new department & team to make it happen while the cost of compliance is delegated to the ones complying
Once new laws increase rather than dilute the personal power of the lawmakers, you unsurprisingly get more and more of them
“Don’t take it the wrong way. You guys seem smart, but you keep funding utterly dumb and clownish politicians in your country. What’s up with that? In China, Tom Cotton wouldn’t even be a village chief.”
— President Xi Jinping while meeting with US corporate leaders in Beijing
It’s interesting how progressivism in the Churches mirrors the political decline. Without a unifying cultural ethos disparate self interested groups selfishly steal from the majority.
I don't know how many here might read Emerald Robinson, I do. She's an interesting writer and is a fearless truth teller, IMHO. She is out with a piece today that is very interesting and alarming despite the fact it's 20 years ago, but is likely well understood by many of us today nevertheless it is just another inescapable fact of our current situation and decline.
We are squabbling amongst ourselves, why? There is a clash of not just ideologies, but civilizations right here in River city we call the USA. The comment about our adherence to four year plans.....to get re-elected is spot-on. The open border fiasco that is allowing millions of unvetted people into our country and dispersing them throughout the country is a very dangerous operation on behalf of our criminal leadership. I say criminal because that's what they are, criminally responsible for the breakdown of not just society, but what we once thought of as civilization. And they are plotting more of the same.
In Robinson's blog today she reprinted a speech made by Chi Haotian, a former leader of China’s Minister of Defense given back in the early oughts (CA 2003 or 2005).
Fascinating and depressing. I found the speech a glimpse into the threat of China and of our own leadership. Why we make an enemy of Russia has never made sense to me except for the fact of our Zionist controlled government. Most interesting to me was the long term plan and patience and the deceit employed to rule the world by both the Chinese and the WEF, but not the Russians. The depressing part was the talk of our leaders I will cite below and the willingness of the Chinese to take from their example and apply it to the USA. Did we catch a glimpse of this in the WuHan Flu trial run? Yes, and it's not nuclear war, that leaves no one alive, it's Bioweapons.
To wit: "Comrade He Xin pointed out to the Hong Kong Business News during an interview that: “The U.S. has a shocking conspiracy.” According to what he had in hand, from September 27 to October 1, 1995, the Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev Foundation, funded by the United States, gathered 500 of the world’s most important statesmen, economic leaders and scientists, including George W. Bush (he was not the U.S. president at the time), the Baroness Thatcher, Tony Blair, Zbigniew Brzezinski, as well as George Soros, Bill Gates, futurist John Naisbitt, etc., all of the world’s most popular characters, in the San Francisco Fairmont hotel for a high-level roundtable conference, discussing problems about globalization and how to guide humanity to move forward into the 21st century. According to what He Xin had in hand, the outstanding people of the world in attendance thought that in the 21st century a mere 20 percent of the world’s population will be sufficient to maintain the world’s economy and prosperity, the other 80 percent or 4/5ths of the world’s population will be human garbage unable to produce new values. The people in attendance thought that this excess 80 percent population would be a trash population and “high-tech” means should be used to eliminate them gradually."
This was spoken in 1995.
The crash of our economic system is worrying enough yet we have to worry about what other calamities are in store for us in the near and not so long term, while knowing a clash with China is coming. China was to clean up America, but not for the good of the world, but for a term they chose not to use, lebensraum, for the connotations and images it would conjure up in the minds of Westerners. Oh, those Chinese are clever. Read the whole thing.
The delta betwixt the old USSR and the current US is that the latter is actively trying to reduce its population (fentanyl imports, imported criminality, enforced poverty, the coof vaxx, just for starters) while the Russians were quite aware of their demographic declines. This goes well beyond the banalities of stupidity and points to the evils afoot in the land.
CHS is also spot on about the uselessness of the Dems and Repubs. Biden is in all sorts of trouble with his voters over his pro-Israel stance. That's something that the GOP could take real advantage of with a more nuanced approach. Yet what do they do? Invite Netanyahu the Butcher to speak to Congress.
CHS is mostly correct. And it's not just America. I listened to a radio discussion yesterday about French finances that pretty much echoed this. The French have woken up this week to discover that their national debt has jumped enormously in the last few years. The panel of "experts" in the discussion made no mention of any of the leading causes such as France's insane Covid policies which shut down the economy for two years, its immense expenditure on Ukraine, its bloated civil service (one of the biggest on Earth), its excessive cradle-to-grave welfare state, or its employment destroying labour laws. Instead I heard the usual platitudes about taxing the rich and "excess" profits. In short, here in Europe too we have the same total divorce from reality and a complete lack of critical thinking. This can only end in disaster.
A big part of the problem is the cost-benefit structure of a bureaucracy vs something more feudal
In a feudal system, every new “law” adds a burden on the enforcers. You have relatively few people enforcing compliance, so at each level of the hierarchy they ask “do I care enough about this to put effort into enforcing it?”
But with an administrative state, there comes a tipping point where bureaucrats get rewarded for making new laws. Each new law gets a new department & team to make it happen while the cost of compliance is delegated to the ones complying
Once new laws increase rather than dilute the personal power of the lawmakers, you unsurprisingly get more and more of them
Xi gets it:
S.L. Kanthan @Kanthan2030
“Don’t take it the wrong way. You guys seem smart, but you keep funding utterly dumb and clownish politicians in your country. What’s up with that? In China, Tom Cotton wouldn’t even be a village chief.”
— President Xi Jinping while meeting with US corporate leaders in Beijing
It’s interesting how progressivism in the Churches mirrors the political decline. Without a unifying cultural ethos disparate self interested groups selfishly steal from the majority.
I don't know how many here might read Emerald Robinson, I do. She's an interesting writer and is a fearless truth teller, IMHO. She is out with a piece today that is very interesting and alarming despite the fact it's 20 years ago, but is likely well understood by many of us today nevertheless it is just another inescapable fact of our current situation and decline.
We are squabbling amongst ourselves, why? There is a clash of not just ideologies, but civilizations right here in River city we call the USA. The comment about our adherence to four year plans.....to get re-elected is spot-on. The open border fiasco that is allowing millions of unvetted people into our country and dispersing them throughout the country is a very dangerous operation on behalf of our criminal leadership. I say criminal because that's what they are, criminally responsible for the breakdown of not just society, but what we once thought of as civilization. And they are plotting more of the same.
In Robinson's blog today she reprinted a speech made by Chi Haotian, a former leader of China’s Minister of Defense given back in the early oughts (CA 2003 or 2005).
https://www.emerald.tv/p/the-secret-speech-of-chinas-general?publication_id=263063&post_id=142982190&isFreemail=false&r=8t0x5&triedRedirect=true
Fascinating and depressing. I found the speech a glimpse into the threat of China and of our own leadership. Why we make an enemy of Russia has never made sense to me except for the fact of our Zionist controlled government. Most interesting to me was the long term plan and patience and the deceit employed to rule the world by both the Chinese and the WEF, but not the Russians. The depressing part was the talk of our leaders I will cite below and the willingness of the Chinese to take from their example and apply it to the USA. Did we catch a glimpse of this in the WuHan Flu trial run? Yes, and it's not nuclear war, that leaves no one alive, it's Bioweapons.
To wit: "Comrade He Xin pointed out to the Hong Kong Business News during an interview that: “The U.S. has a shocking conspiracy.” According to what he had in hand, from September 27 to October 1, 1995, the Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev Foundation, funded by the United States, gathered 500 of the world’s most important statesmen, economic leaders and scientists, including George W. Bush (he was not the U.S. president at the time), the Baroness Thatcher, Tony Blair, Zbigniew Brzezinski, as well as George Soros, Bill Gates, futurist John Naisbitt, etc., all of the world’s most popular characters, in the San Francisco Fairmont hotel for a high-level roundtable conference, discussing problems about globalization and how to guide humanity to move forward into the 21st century. According to what He Xin had in hand, the outstanding people of the world in attendance thought that in the 21st century a mere 20 percent of the world’s population will be sufficient to maintain the world’s economy and prosperity, the other 80 percent or 4/5ths of the world’s population will be human garbage unable to produce new values. The people in attendance thought that this excess 80 percent population would be a trash population and “high-tech” means should be used to eliminate them gradually."
This was spoken in 1995.
The crash of our economic system is worrying enough yet we have to worry about what other calamities are in store for us in the near and not so long term, while knowing a clash with China is coming. China was to clean up America, but not for the good of the world, but for a term they chose not to use, lebensraum, for the connotations and images it would conjure up in the minds of Westerners. Oh, those Chinese are clever. Read the whole thing.
The delta betwixt the old USSR and the current US is that the latter is actively trying to reduce its population (fentanyl imports, imported criminality, enforced poverty, the coof vaxx, just for starters) while the Russians were quite aware of their demographic declines. This goes well beyond the banalities of stupidity and points to the evils afoot in the land.
The Baidan Regime wants you dead.
CHS is also spot on about the uselessness of the Dems and Repubs. Biden is in all sorts of trouble with his voters over his pro-Israel stance. That's something that the GOP could take real advantage of with a more nuanced approach. Yet what do they do? Invite Netanyahu the Butcher to speak to Congress.
CHS is mostly correct. And it's not just America. I listened to a radio discussion yesterday about French finances that pretty much echoed this. The French have woken up this week to discover that their national debt has jumped enormously in the last few years. The panel of "experts" in the discussion made no mention of any of the leading causes such as France's insane Covid policies which shut down the economy for two years, its immense expenditure on Ukraine, its bloated civil service (one of the biggest on Earth), its excessive cradle-to-grave welfare state, or its employment destroying labour laws. Instead I heard the usual platitudes about taxing the rich and "excess" profits. In short, here in Europe too we have the same total divorce from reality and a complete lack of critical thinking. This can only end in disaster.