Archive for 2024
January 10, 2024
XI’S GOTTA HAVE IT: Xi’s solution for China’s economy risks triggering new trade war.
As China’s property sector declines, President Xi Jinping needs to reshape the nation’s economic model to drive growth over the next decade. His government’s solution risks igniting a new wave of trade tensions across the globe.
China’s leaders are pouring money into manufacturing as property-related activity, which once spurred about a fifth of the economy’s expansion, turned into a drag on growth in 2022. Part of that focus is what they call the “new three” growth drivers of electric vehicles (EVs), batteries and renewable energy, aiding the world’s decarbonisation push and fuelling demand for commodities such as copper and lithium.
So far, the strategy is helping China avoid the recessions that hit Japan in the 1990s and the United States in 2008 when their housing markets melted down. The world’s second-biggest economy is now growing at about 5 per cent a year. Yet it is also fuelling imbalances that are setting the stage for renewed global trade tensions between China and the developed world, as well as emerging economies that are pushing to reach the lower rungs of the industrialisation ladder.
Seems like a great reason to stop mandating and subsidizing electric vehicles.
MARTINEZ, NOT GIULIANI: The Dangerous Pro-Palestine Protests Have a Common Thread … His Name Is Rudy.
WHO IS IN CHARGE AT THE WHITE HOUSE? Biden in dark over defense chief’s cancer for month.
President Joe Biden was kept in the dark over his defense secretary’s cancer diagnosis and subsequent hospitalizations for about a month, the White House admitted Tuesday, as details of Lloyd Austin’s deeply unusual disappearance raised questions about leadership of the world’s top military.
The 70-year-old’s failure to disclose his hospitalization has prompted an extraordinary row in Washington and could be embarrassing for Biden, who faces multiple foreign crises in his reelection campaign year, including in Israel and Ukraine.
As Matthew Continetti of the Washington Free Beacon asked in 2022: Who’s In Charge?
Every time I speak to a conservative audience, I am asked who is really in charge in the White House. My answer has been that the president is in command. After all, institutions take on the character of their leaders. If all the White House has to offer is excuses, if decisions are made either slowly or randomly, if the communications team and the president and vice president seem to live on different planets, if incompetence and mismanagement appear throughout the government, it is because the chief executive allows it. No conspiracy is required to explain the ineptitude. This is Joe Biden we are talking about.
Lately, though, I have been having second thoughts. Not that Barack Obama or Ron Klain or Dr. Jill are running the show in secret. What I have been wondering, instead, is whether anyone is leading the government at all. There is no power, either overt or covert, in or behind the throne. The throne is empty.
Think of the economy, the border, and Ukraine. From time to time, Biden addresses these issues. He may even answer questions about them. The White House sends out press releases describing its latest initiatives. Vice President Harris or the second gentleman pops up somewhere to talk about all the good she and he are doing.
Yet each of these elements—the president, his staff, his spokesperson, his vice president, his policy—comes across as disconnected, discombobulated, as if each inhabits a separate sphere of activity. Whether because of Biden’s age, or his weekend trips to Delaware, or years of remote work, or lower-level staff turnover, or a painstakingly slow decision-making process, or ideological stubbornness, or a lack of a strategic plan, this administration drifts from crisis to crisis, and from one bad headline to the next. And nothing improves.
Ultimately though, we sorta-kinda know who is in charge: Obama’s Coming Fourth Term.
NBC TRIES A HIT PIECE ON PRAGERU, but the Prager folks brought their own camera.
Hey, good idea.
January 9, 2024
MORE, PLEASE: Woke activists are finally experiencing much needed accountability due to the action of outside forces.
Related: A new alliance?
Thank you Elon for your support. https://t.co/YPf8Fy9k9x
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) January 9, 2024
HOPE THEY’RE TREATED BETTER THAN THE CANADIAN TRUCKERS:
🇩🇪 German farmer @AnthonyLeeLsvD tells me about the farmers’ uprising:
“We’re sick of the lies. We’ve been here for generations, we work 24/7, we’re the people who put food on your plates!
We are all united in getting rid of the politicians who are trying to get rid of us!” 🔥 pic.twitter.com/Z69cjvSmYF
— Eva Vlaardingerbroek (@EvaVlaar) January 8, 2024
Though the truckers basically won in the end.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY:
Right now Ecuador is experiencing an all-out cartel takeover. They’re executing hostages, taking over prisons, and stormed a news station on live TV.
I used to live in Ecuador. My dad took an oil job there for a year and half while I was in middle school. Nothing like this was… https://t.co/uNqnbZ5an1
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) January 9, 2024
OPEN THREAD: Because I love you and want you to be happy.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: The advent of astropolitical alliances. “As the world grows increasingly multipolar, beset by geopolitical tensions and a resurgence of great power rivalry, the dynamics that have historically defined terrestrial politics are being projected into the final frontier, outer space. Recent developments in Asia illustrate this trend. Notably, Pakistan joined China’s International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) in October 2023, months after India signed the Artemis Accords with the United States in June. These declarations are not just diplomatic platitudes to indicate bilateral space cooperation between these states; they herald the dawn of astropolitical alliances that will have far-reaching ramifications for the bifurcation of the framework of global space governance.”
EVERY INSTITUTION HAS BEEN CORRUPTED: Woof – a Year Probation and They’re Still Saying Ray Epps Wasn’t a Fed? “His sentence will also include a $500 restitution payment, and 100 hours of community service. Epps’ sentence seems to be comparatively light in relation to those received by other January 6 defendants, who have on average received several years in prison as punishment.” Ya think?
WHAT DOES BANGLADESH SAY ABOUT OURS? US says Bangladesh elections were not free and fair.
I dunno about Bangladesh, but there’s this:
Think what you want about former President Trump and the reasons he’s being indicted.
But just imagine if this happened in any other country, where a government arrested the main opposition candidate.
The United States ability to use “democracy” as foreign policy is gone. https://t.co/svdFxtaf4q
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) April 4, 2023
I do think our credibility is shot here. Maybe the people running things don’t mind.
UPDATE:
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 9, 2024
SCIENCE MARCHES ON: The Yellow Puzzle Solved: Enzyme Responsible for Urine Color Discovered.
BIDEN CAUGHT PLAGIARIZING AGAIN:
https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1744814909639032858
To answer the question posed above, Michelle Malkin from 2007, for the win:
CONTROL SURFACES? WE DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ CONTROL SURFACES: DARPA okays construction of X-65 plane with air jet flight controls.
EV PROGRESS: Tesla Quietly Cuts Range Estimates for Some Models.
WHAT WILL THEY THINK OF NEXT? ‘Plant-Based Peanut Butter’ Is a Thing People Buy, and I Can’t Stop Laughing.
READER FAVORITE: ComfiLife Gel Enhanced Seat Cushion for Desk Chair. #CommissionEarned