Generational Dynamics World View News

[John]

** 05-Aug-2019 Taiwan

> Is Taiwan worth a nuclear war?

> Is this what is coming?

If China launches a war to invade Taiwan and annex it to
China, then America will defend Taiwan, which will lead
to a nuclear World War III.

[John]

** 05-Aug-2019 World View: Race war: America vs Hong Kong

There is absolutely no sign of a new American civil war. I realize
that I might as well be talking to a brick wall, since there are
people around who are emotionally committed to playing the game "Let's
you and him fight" (LYAHF) with races, but no matter how much you wish
for it, it's not going to happen.

*** Eric Berne -- Games People Play -- Let's You and Him Fight (LYAHF)
http://www.ericberne.com/games-people-p ... him-fight/

There has never been a racial or ethnic civil war in this country.
The American civil war was fought between two armies -- the southern
army and the northern army. Nobody is raising a second army today.
The American Civil War was not a racial war, since there was no
southern black uprising, but instead most southern blacks supported
the southern army.

I've studied and written about many ethnic and racial civil wars in
many countries, and they always occur according to a certain pattern
that it not occurring in America today.

The main sign of an approaching ethnic or racial civil war is a series
of small clashes, getting larger and more violent each time, separated
by "peace agreements" that don't last. There's nothing even remotely
like that happening in America today.

If there were going to be a racial civil war, then we would have seen
a violent clash in Baltimore -- the blacks in Baltimore would have
marched to the White House and threatened to burn it down. Instead,
some blacks support President Trump and some oppose President Trump,
but no one in Baltimore, to my knowledge, is threatening a race war.

If there were going to be a racial civil war, then the El Paso
shooting would have split the country on racial lines, with
whites and Latinos threatening each other. Nothing like that is
happening. Instead, both whites and Latinos are uniting. The
only splits are between Republicans and Democrats, and those
are political splits, not racial splits.

Contrast that situation with what's happening in Hong Kong, where the
possibility of civil war is real. There are two ethnic groups, which
I'll refer to a little imprecisely as the Hong Kongers vs the
mainlanders. There have been a growing series of clashes between the
two groups, and all signs indicate that the clashes will continue to
grow into a full-scale war. There is no sense of uniting to prevent
further violence. Instead, each side seems to be calling for more
violence against the other side.

If you contrast America today vs Hong Kong today, then you can see
that Hong Kong is headed for an ethnic war, while America shows no
signs of doing so.

OK, for those of you who are delusional, I realize that you're
going to continue playing "Let's You and Him Fight (LYAHF)," but
you're the only ones who are playing.

[John]

** 05-Aug-2019 World View: News summary

Things are supposed to slow down in August, but there's a lot going
on.

*** Hong Kong

Protesters are using new "flash protest" techniques. Instead of
holding a protest in one place, where they can be driven away by the
police, they block one intersection or train station, and then move on
to the next one when the police come.

This has been going on for nine weeks. The CCP is not going to
tolerate this much longer.

I saw the city governor Carrie Lam give a press conference, almost in
tears, saying "this is very dangerous for Hong Kong, the city we love,
the city we built."

*** Kashmir, India

India send tens of thousands of troops into the Indian-controlled
portion of Kashmir last week, for no apparent reason.

Now we know the reason. They're revoking Article 370 of the
constitution, which gives autonomy to the mostly Muslim population of
Kashmir. Article 370 was at the heart about why Kashmir joined India
in 1947, so revoking it is a very big deal. The Muslims in Kashmir
are furious, and the government of Pakistan is also furious.

It strikes me how similar this situation is to Hong Kong. Kashmir and
Hong Kong are semi-autonomous regions of India and China,
respectively, and the central governments are trying to limit that
autonomy.


*** Ebola, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

Ebola is spreading through Goma, the DR Congo city of over two million
people on the border with Uganda. Officials are becoming increasingly
pessimistic that the outbreak can be contained any time soon. They're
talking about 2-3 years.

It's interesting -- the 2014 outbreak caused international panic.
This outbreak is barely being covered outside of the region. This
outbreak may turn out to be even more dangerous to the world than the
2014 outbreak.

*** Idlib, Syria

Russia has always used a UN Security Council veto to prevent a UN
investigation of human rights and war crime violations by Russia and
Syria in Syria's Idlib province.

Westerners have used a trick to get around the Russian veto.

The UN had supplied the coordinates of hospitals and schools in Idlib
to Russia with the understanding that the Syrians and Russians would
not bomb the buildings at those coordinates. Not surprisingly, the
sleazebags in Damascus and Moscow used that list in order to target
hospitals and schools purposely.

So this is considered such an egregious crime against the UN, that the
UN will do an investigation of that issue -- and at the same time will
undoubtedly reach broader conclusions about war crimes. The Russian
sleazebags are furious.

*** US-China trade talks

The latest round of US-China trade negotiations have collapsed
completely. The Chinese refused to commit to anything, and are now
demanding that they won't even negotiate any more unless we first
remove all the sanctions, allow Huawei free entry into the US, and
release the Huawei CEO being held in Canada.

Trump announced a new set of sanctions to be implemented on September
1.

*** Sharp selloff in stocks, fall in bond yields

The collapse of the US-China trade talks and Trump's announcement of
new sanctions have led to a sharp selloff on Monday on Wall Street.
At the same time, yields (interest rates) on Treasury bonds have been
falling sharply, which means that investors are selling stocks and
buying bonds.

[SubtoDT]

Just as Chinese goods are getting around tariffs by goods-laundering via 3rd party nations, they are getting our ag-goods via proxy. You can change the market numbers all you want, but a billion people still have to eat.

BTW, now might be a good time to start retiring some of that debt - at the new lower price. Thanks, China

Yes, the food supply globally is not looking good.

From the Daily Telegraph( I have a paid subscription):

“The worry is that a break beyond 7 could send the Chinese currency into a vicious circle in which selling leads to more selling,” said Ke Baili from Caixin.

Kyle Bass, a long-time China bear at Hayman Capital, said a “mass exodus” of capital is already underway as political protest in Hong Kong reaches crisis point and China’s debt-driven growth model reaches the limits. “The collapse has just begun,” he tweeted.

Most analysts say the move by the PBOC is a deliberate choice, but that is hardly more reassuring for investors. It means that the Chinese Communist Party is willing to risk a full-blown conflict with Washington on every economic front. Beijing has reportedly ordered state bodies to halt purchases of farm products from the US at the same time.

China needs huge amounts of food, and with half their pigs dead from disease this summer, they need to get protein from somewhere. Also, food prices are soaring higher due to shortages and plunging currency f/x. It's as if China wants their citizens to riot.

I can't believe how quickly things have escalated between the US and the UK and South Korea and Japan in the last two weeks. All we need now is for the North Koreans to do something stupid.

[SubtoDT]

I can't believe how quickly things have escalated between the US and the UK and China and South Korea and Japan in the last two weeks. All we need now is for the North Koreans to do something stupid.

[Peter E]

A new Chinese naval base in Cambodia has also crossed a red line in the Asia Pacific region. US medium range missiles will be going into South-east Asia and maybe Australia.

The obvious targets (to begin with) are Hong Kong and Taiwan. It will be easy for the PLA to send in the tanks into Causeway, Central and Kowloon but will spell the end of HK as the gateway for western capital into China.

Taiwan will be a trickier proposition but the PLA's strategy is plain to see - block off the South China Sea completely to everyone else and block off entry points to the northern Pacific. The pieces in the picture are falling into place. The South China Sea is populated with and ringed by opposing naval and missile bases and leading to an inevitable confrontation. The question is not if but when.

The only way to stop Chinese militarisation and aggression is for the US and the West and their allies to cease doing any business, trade, investment etc with fascist China. Today, Uighur concentration camps and territorial invasions in Asia - tomorrow, in the rest of the world. Boycott 'Made In China'. Stop appeasing fascist China.

[Guest]

Talking to a good friend in Asia a few hours ago, he told me he has just cancelled all clothing orders in China and diverted them to Sri Lanka. 90% of his products are made in Asia for the US markets.

He told me the Chinese manufacturers are going crazy and tens of thousands will be layed off within the next few weeks. Riding the Chinese wave for the last twenty years, many Chinese are mortgaged to the hilt as they have bought property for pension purposes.

China has huge debt payments due in USD so that spells trouble. They must reckon that the one party state is better insulated from an angry populace whereas they see Trump as more exposed and up for re-election. It's a mistake in judgement that will backfire.

[Guest]

I'm glad America is finally challenging China. Best to get on with it while America is still relatively strong.

[Tom Mazanec]

The Burning Platform on The Fourth Turning (Part two):
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2019 ... -part-two/

[John]

** 06-Aug-2019 The Fourth Turning Crisis Crisis

> The Burning Platform on The Fourth Turning (Part two):
> https://www.theburningplatform.com/2019 ... -part-two/

This article is based on the 1990s fourth turning theory (TFT theory),
which Neil Howe and David Kaiser have abandoned. Starting in the Bush
administration, Howe had to change the 1990s theory so that there
wouldn't have to be a war in the Fourth Turning, since predicting a
war would support the neo-cons in the Bush administration, and Howe
and Kaiser are left-wing Democrats.

Then during the Obama administration, Kaiser developed a weird,
complex theory that Obama would bring about social changes that would
cause a spiritual reawakening, and bring about "the death of the old
political, economic and social order." So political activist Kaiser
was hoping that Obama's social changes would bring about the Fourth
Turning crisis without a war. That prediction, of course, was a
complete failure.

So now, in the Trump administration, the TFT acolytes are in a state
of crisis (you might call it the "Fourth Turning Crisis Crisis"),
because even they can see that the Fourth Turning crisis will be a
world war, and Trump may be the one who leads the US through that
crisis, which would elevate Trump to the list of America's Greatest
Leaders, including Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. The TFT
acolytes can't stand that possibility, since they really hate Trump,
so they've gone into a state of total delusion, along with everyone
else on the left.

So the article that you reference is a good article, and is entirely
reasonable in GD theory, but ironically, the article is a reversion to
the old, now rejected TFT theory. It's a shame that Howe had to
abandon his own theory, since ideology is more important.

The article is very vague about what might happen. It's like a
weather forecaster predicting rain next month, with no more details.
Generational Dynamics has provided a great deal of detail about how
the Fourth Turning will begin, and how it will turn out, something the
TFT theory is completely clueless about, since it has nothing to say
about China, Japan or the Mideast, or any country other than England
and America.

Howe and Kaiser are also boxed in in another way. TFT theory applies
only to England and America. They would like to apply 1990s TFT
theory to other countries, but they can't do that because that would
require adopting the Principle of Localization that I developed in
Generational Dynamics. Kaiser has adopted the Principle of Location
in some of his writings, but of course he simply plagiarizes the
concept from me without giving me credit. Howe and Kaiser really
despise me because of the success of GD theory and the failure of TFT
theory, so now they and the TFT acolytes have to bend themselves into
pretzels to avoid writing anything that appears to support Trump or
that appears to agree with Generational Dynamics. Must be tough.