• China preparing to install long-range missiles in South China Sea
  
• China's ASEAN neighbors express increasing anxiety over China's illegal militarization
  

• China-Philippines détente unravels over Scarborough Shoal (19-Feb-2017)
  
  
• Philippines to reject US use of its bases for South China Sea patrols (09-Dec-2016)
  
  
• Philippines leader Rodrigo Duterte in comic dance with China (23-Oct-2016)
  
  
• Philippines humiliates China in harsh Hague Tribunal ruling over South China Sea (13-Jul-2016)
  

• Malaysia continues investigation of Kim Jong-nam's death, despite N. Korea objections
  
• North Korea blames the assassination of Kim Jong-nam on South Korea
  
• Relations between Malaysia and North Korea become vitriolic
  
• BBC reporter Mike Embley is completely full of crap
  

• Assassination of Kim Jong-un's half-brother in Malaysia threatens relations with China and North Korea (19-Feb-2017)
  
  
• Was North Korea's Kim Jong-un's uncle eaten by ravenous dogs? (04-Jan-2014)
  
  
• N. Korea's Kim Jong-un struggles for stability, purging 'factionalist elements' (02-Jan-2014)
  

• Mainstream media frets over Steve Bannon, the Fourth Turning, and Donald Trump (09-Feb-2017)
  
  
• President Trump's inauguration speech links today's America to the 1930s (21-Jan-2017)
  
  
• Stephen K. Bannon is named chairman of Donald Trump's campaign (19-Aug-2016)
  
  
• BBC has big budget cuts after Hutton Report finds that BBC reporters purposely lie (31-Mar-2005)
  

Quote:But would you at least admit that since Andrew died, and others took it over, Breitbart has become a de facto "ministry of propaganda" for the Alt-Right loons?

(02-24-2017, 01:24 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: > But would you at least admit that since Andrew died, and others
> took it over, Breitbart has become a de facto "ministry of
> propaganda" for the Alt-Right loons?

(02-24-2017, 01:36 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: > You DO realize he posts articles to Breitbart, right? Says he
> knows Bannon personally? Why would he do such a thing?

(02-24-2017, 03:57 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: > I realize it. However, he has claimed when I challenged him
> earlier to not be an Alt-Right moonbat. So if he's not an
> Alt-Right moonbat, he should actually care about the fact that
> Breitbart has been ruined by the Alt-Right moonbats.

• Washington tax reform plans may include a 'Border Adjustment Tax'
  
• Historical comparison with the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Bill
  

• Japan's Shinzo Abe blames WW II on the Smoot-Hawley Tariff act (15-Aug-2015)
  
  
• The bubble that broke the world (09-Oct-2007)
  
• Explanation of Price/Earnings ratio and Stock Valuations (28-Aug-2015)
  

(02-24-2017, 10:42 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: *** 25-Feb-17 World View -- Border Adjustment Tax versus the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Law

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Washington tax reform plans may include a 'Border Adjustment Tax'
  
• Historical comparison with the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Bill
  

****
**** Washington tax reform plans may include a 'Border Adjustment Tax'
****


NY Times, May 5, 1930 - over a thousand economists opposed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Bill (History Hub)

News reports indicate that Congressional Republicans, led by House
Speaker Paul Ryan, are considering a "border adjustment tax" as one of
the proposals for the tax reforms plans this year.

The details are vague, but it appears that the proposal is essentially
an indirect tariff, using taxes charged to certain companies to raise
prices of imported products, and tax reductions to other companies to
encourage exports.  It's especially targeted to American companies
that close factories in the U.S. and open factories in Mexico or other
countries, and then import the products manufactured in those
factories back into the United States.

There appear to be two major objectives.  One is to generate revenue
to pay for other parts of the tax reform package.  And the second is
to discourage companies from moving factories and jobs to
other countries.

President Trump has not endorsed the idea, but on Thursday seemed
to favor it:

>        [indent]<QUOTE>"It could lead to a lot more jobs in the United
>        States. ... I certainly support a form of tax on the border.  What
>        is going to happen is companies are going to come back here,
>        they're going to build their factories and they're going to create
>        a lot of jobs and there's no tax."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

VOA and Reuters and CNN

****
**** Historical comparison with the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Bill
****

In 1930, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Bill was passed, increasing import
tariffs on some 900 products.  The 1929 stock market panic, and the
subsequent loss of many families' life savings, was blamed by the
public on American banks and companies, and it was widely believed
that the tariffs would save American jobs.  Except for a few details,
the public mood then is similar to the public mood today.

In my 2003 book, "Generational Dynamics - Forecasting America's
Destiny," which is available as a free PDF from my download page,
http://generationaldynamics.com/download, I wrote
the following about the Smoot-Hawley bill:

>        [indent]<QUOTE>"Perfectly reasonable acts by one country can be
>        interpreted as hostile acts by another country.  Guns and bombs
>        are not needed to create an impression of war.
>    
>        And if one country's innocent act is a shock to another country
>        and is viewed as hostile by that country, and if the people of
>        that country are in a mood for retribution rather than compromise,
>        than they may well look for a way to retaliate.
>    
>        In that sense, the enactment of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in
>        June 1930, can be viewed as the first of the shocking, provocative
>        acts that led to World War II.
>    
>        The Act was opposed by an enormous number of economists as being
>        harmful to everyone, but it was very popular with the public,
>        because of the perception that it would save American jobs. ...
>    
>        Interestingly, the Smoot-Hawley Act is still debated by
>        politicians today, with regard to whether it caused or aggravated
>        the Great Depression or had no effect. ...
>    
>        Those discussions are entirely America-centric because, for the
>        purposes of this book, it makes no difference whatsoever whether
>        or not the Act aggravated the American depression.  We're
>        interested in the effect it had on foreign nations.
>    
>        And the effects were enormous. The bill erected large trade
>        barriers for numerous products, with the intention of saving
>        American jobs.  How many American jobs it saved, if any, is
>        unknown, but it virtually shut down product exports to the United
>        States.  Both Germany and Japan were going through the same
>        financial crisis America was going through, and they were furious
>        that America as a market was closed to them.
>    
>        Japan was the hardest hit. The Great Depression was hurting Japan
>        just as much as it was hurting America but, in addition, Japan's
>        exports of its biggest cash crop, silk, to America were almost
>        completely cut off by the Smoot-Hawley Act. Furthermore, Japan
>        would have been going through a generational change: The country
>        had undergone a historic revolution some 70+ years earlier,
>        culminating in a major change of government (the Meiji
>        Restoration) in 1868, and the people who had lived through that
>        revolution would be dead or retiring by the early 1930s.
>    
>        So one thing led to another, and in September 1931, almost exactly
>        a year after Smoot-Hawley, Japan invaded Manchuria and later
>        northern China. Britain and American strongly protested this
>        aggression, and Roosevelt finally responded with an oil embargo
>        against Japan.
>    
>        This is the usual pattern of provocative acts on both sides.
>        America saw Smoot-Hawley as its own business, but to Japan it was
>        a hostile shock.  Japan saw the Manchuria invasion as "Asian
>        business," while Britain and America saw it as attacking their own
>        Asian interests.  Roosevelt saw an oil embargo as a measured
>        response of containment, while energy-dependent Japan saw it
>        almost as an act of war, eventually triggering Japan's attack on
>        Pearl Harbor in 1941.
>    
>        Japan wasn't the only country affected, of course. England,
>        Germany, Italy, and many other countries were hit hard by the
>        sudden trade barriers with America.  Just like in Japan,
>        nationalistic and militaristic feelings were aroused in many
>        countries.
>    
>        Germany was especially frustrated. The map of Central Europe had
>        been redrawn some 70 years earlier during a series of wars in the
>        1860s, culminating in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, and the
>        unification of Germany in 1871. The Great War (WW I) had been a
>        mid-cycle war for Germany, and had been a humiliating defeat,
>        especially because the American and British led Allies had imposed
>        harsh conditions -- the loss of some German-speaking territories,
>        and the payment of reparations.  The loss of territories was
>        especially provocative, since it partially reversed the German
>        unification of 1871.
>    
>        Germany was reaching the point where it was going to explode
>        anyway, when the Smoot-Hawley Act was passed.  On top of the
>        reparations, the Act was seen as enormously hostile by the
>        Germans.  As in Japan, it gave rise to militaristic nationalism in
>        the form of the rise of the Nazis.  Germany remilitarized its
>        border with France in 1936, and then annexed German-speaking parts
>        of Eastern Europe in 1938.
>    
>        So when did World War II start?  It depends on what the word
>        "start" means, but an argument can be made that America had
>        started the war, and that the first act of war was the
>        Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

I wrote the above in 2003, so it should not surprise anyone that today
I consider the proposed "border adjustment tax" to be a very dangerous
idea.

A recent blog post by economists at the New York Fed will have
little effect on either imports or exports, which means little
effect on revenue or jobs.  But whether or not that's true is
irrelevant to this discussion.

As in the case of the Smoot-Hawley bill, the main issue is not the
effect on the US, but the effect on other nations.  Any such border
tax would quickly raise nationalist feelings in other nations.  There
would be retaliatory tariffs enacted in other countries.  Some
countries might be severely damaged economically, and even if they're
not, they would blame any economic problems they have on the American
tariffs, and might look for even more far-reaching forms of
retaliation.

Some people might argue that the proposed "border adjustment tax" is
so small and so limited that it couldn't possibly have such a negative
effect.  Once again we can look to history to see whether that's true.
According to an article in the June 21, 1930, issue of The Economist:

>        [indent]<QUOTE>"The signature by President Hoover of the Hawley-Smoot
>        Tariff Bill at Washington is the tragi-comic finale to one of the
>        most amazing chapters in world tariff history, and it is one that
>        protectionist enthusiasts the world over would do well to
>        study. The reason for tariff revision was a desire to restore a
>        balance of protection which had been tilted to the disadvantage of
>        the agriculturalist. But so soon as ever the tariff schedules were
>        cast into the melting-pot of revision, log-rollers and politicians
>        set to work stirring with all their might, and a measure which
>        started with the single object of giving satisfaction to the
>        farmer emerges as a full-fledged high tariff act in which nearly
>        900 duties have been raised, some extravagantly. Such is the
>        inevitable result of vested interests working through political
>        influence, ending in signature by a president, antagonistic to the
>        bill, under compulsion of political necessities."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

So the original Smoot-Hawley bill was to be very small, just providing
a little protection to farmers, but once the door was opened, the bill
exploded.

The same thing would happen today.  Congress would be inundated with
high-paid lobbyists from all sorts of industries demanding that their
products be "protected" by the border adjustment tax.  History tells
us that that the final bill would be a hodge-podge of special
interests and industries, with few winners but lots of losers, and a
great deal of nationalistic fury in many other countries.

The proposal for even a "small" border adjustment tax starts us down a
path that can lead to the same kind of disaster that the 1930
Smoot-Hawley Act caused.  New York Fed Blog and Economist (18-Dec-2008) and
Economist (21-Jun-1930) and History Hub and Generational Dynamics - Forecasting America's Destiny (PDF)

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KEYS: Generational Dynamics, border adjustment tax, Paul Ryan,
Smoot-Hawley Tariff Bill, Herbert Hoover, Germany, Japan

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(02-07-2017, 08:12 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:

(02-05-2017, 09:24 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: >   I don't know what your definition of "planning war" is; that's why
>   I'm asking for a clarification. You say that the only use for
>   China having "thousands of missiles targeting the US and Russia"
>   is that they're "planning war"; by that logic, it seems to me that
>   the US and Russia are also "planning war", since we both have
>   thousands of missiles targeting each other and China as well.

>   I feel reasonably confident that I understand what the US is
>   planning. We have contingency plans for all sorts of scenarios in
>   which war could occur; in that sense we are "planning war".  We
>   may well be planning conventional strikes in Syrian territory, and
>   keeping our nukes in reserve as a deterrent against unwanted
>   escalation; in that sense also we may be "planning war", or at
>   least we did in Iraq and Afghanistan.  On the other hand, we
>   aren't likely to attack China or Russia in an unprovoked war of
>   aggression; in that sense, we are not "planning war".

>   I'm trying to get a feel for which of these senses you are using
>   when you say China is "planning war". If it's in the contingency
>   plan sense, I'd agree; I think all nations with significant
>   military power "plan war" in that sense.  If you're talking about
>   use as a deterrent against escalation while they wage a limited
>   conventional war, I'd be interested in what limited conventional
>   war you think is planned.  If you think they are planning an
>   unprovoked war of aggression against the US in the sense that we
>   are not planning an unprovoked war of aggression against China,
>   I'd want to know why you think the situation is not symmetric. And
>   if you think the US is planning an unprovoked war of aggression
>   against China, I'd be interested in that too.

>   So, can you clarify in which of those senses you are using
>   "planning war", and in particular, do you see the US and Russia
>   fitting that sense as well?

Well, you're right, I suppose every country is always "planning
war" in the sense of preparing to defend itself in case of war.

In the case of China, it's a lot more than just building one weapons
system after another whose only purpose is to destroy American cities,
military bases, and aircraft carriers.  It's the series of aggressive
actions that China is taking on all its borders, similar to Hitler's
actions in the late 1930s.  I think that with some thought, one could
distinguish between defensively or offensively "planning for war."

Quote:

(02-05-2017, 09:24 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: >   Except in the deterministic sense that what happened is obviously
>   what happened, yes, I think there are scenarios where the US could
>   have sided with Nazi Germany in WWII. If the Great Depression had
>   hit France harder, causing the centrist French government to be
>   replaced by a militant Communist government strongly allied with
>   the Soviet Union, for example, I can see Churchill and the US
>   intervening to help Nazi Germany survive to prevent Communist
>   hegemony over the continent.  I can think of other scenarios too,
>   up until 1938 or 1939.  I'm not sure what relevance that has,
>   though.

That's an interesting answer, not one that I was expecting.  You're
saying that if a communist Hitler had risen in France who was
worse than Germany's Hitler, then we would have sided with France.

Quote:The reason that I asked the question was to show that the choice
of sides in a generational crisis war is pretty much
predetermined.  If we assume that there was no such French
communist Hitler, then I would say that the choice of France
our ally was predetermined.

But if you're going to make that kind of assumption, then you
could also have assumed that America's leader could have become
another Hitler, and sided with the Nazis.

So I would say two things.  I think that if you look back in history
and analyze the 100 years war, the 30 years war, the war of the
Spanish succession, the French Revolution, the American Civil war, WW
I -- then Hitler could not have arisen in America, Britain or France,
and only Germany has the history and geography that would have
permitted the rise of Hitler.  And second, under those circumstances,
we could never have sided with the Nazis.

So maybe I asked the question the wrong way.  I should have asked: Is
there any scenario where we would have sided with Britain's enemy,
whether Germany or France, assuming that Britain maintained it's
historic government (and that there was no British Hitler).  I would
argue that we would have chosen whatever side Britain was on, and that
there were no circumstances where we would be joining some other
country in bombing London.

The same kind of reasoning could be used today.  Could we side with
China and Pakistan against India?  I don't believe so.  Could Russia
join China and Pakistan in war against India and Iran?  Once again, I
don't see any reasonable scenario where that's possible.  I believe
that the alignments that I've been describing for ten years -- the US,
India, Russia and Iran versus China, Pakistan and the Sunni Muslim
countries -- are pre-determined and will not change.

(02-24-2017, 10:42 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: I wrote the above in 2003, so it should not surprise anyone that today
I consider the proposed "border adjustment tax" to be a very dangerous
idea.

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(02-25-2017, 11:14 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: It may at some point occur to Russia's president Vladimir Putin
that if he wants the war in Syria to end, then he has to stop
supporting Bashar al-Assad, and allow someone else to replace him.
There's no sign of anything like that yet, especially because
Iran is bitterly opposed to allowing al-Assad to step down,
but Putin at some point may realize that it's the best choice
for Russia.

(02-25-2017, 07:16 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: > So we're agreed that the systems "whose only purpose is to destroy
> American cities" are irrelevant here, cognate only to American
> systems "whose only purpose is to destroy Chinese and Russian
> cities"?

(02-25-2017, 07:16 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: > What I'm saying is that a weak communist government could have
> come to power in France, which would then have acted as a Soviet
> puppet.

(02-26-2017, 09:00 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: > So if Russia abandons Iran for cooperation with Turkey and other
> Sunni states, what does that do to your alignment theory?

Quote:Today, China is developing multiple weapons systems whose only
purpose is to attack American cities, military bases and aircraft
carriers.  This is not because China fears a preemptive attack
by the US.  It's because China is planning a preemptive attack
on the US.

Quote:Furthermore, China is not building artificial islands and military
bases in the South China Sea because China fears a preemptive
attack by Vietnam and the Philippines.  It's because China is
planning a preemptive attack on Vietnam and the Philippines --
as well as Japan, Taiwan and India.  These attacks would all take
place at the time and place of China's choosing.

Quote:Amusingly, the thing that's really screwing up China's plans is
ballistic missiles development by the North Koreans.  First, a random
attack by NK could screw up China's timetable.  Second, and more
important, NK's actions are giving the US an excuse to implement
missile defense systems, which China hates.  A THAAD system in South
Korea would not be able to defend against ICBMs from China targeting
the US, but THAAD's sophisticated radar systems would give the US
early warning to defend against them.  China really hates that.

Quote:

(02-25-2017, 07:16 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: >   What I'm saying is that a weak communist government could have
>   come to power in France, which would then have acted as a Soviet
>   puppet.

That view is contradicted by the page linked above.  Churchill's view
was that historically, in the case of a European war, Britain always
aligned itself with the second-strongest power.  So Britain could have
aligned itself with Germany only if Germany were weaker than France.

The scenario where Russia and France align themselves with the
intention of invading Germany strikes me as very far-fetched.  I'm not
saying it's impossible, but I don't see how Russia would align itself
with a weak France.  I don't believe Russia would have aligned itself
with France unless France were strong -- stronger than Germany.

Quote:

(02-26-2017, 09:00 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: >   So if Russia abandons Iran for cooperation with Turkey and other
>   Sunni states, what does that do to your alignment theory?

Currently, Russia is supposedly allied with Syria, Turkey, Iran,
Israel, Egypt, and others to a greater or lesser extent.  These
political alignments can change on a day to day basis, and have
little influence on the decisions to be made when Russia
is "forced to choose" sides when faced with an existential crisis
in the form of a generational crisis war that threatens the
country and its way of life.

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(02-26-2017, 03:03 PM)Cynic Hero 86 Wrote: > Also Just to post here since you mentioned it before: Hitler
> wanted war with RUSSIA/USSR during the lead up to WW2, The Nazis
> actually did not want the western war, their entire movement was
> based on the goal of destroying "Jewish-Bolshevism" which
> eventually resulted in Barbarossa and the Holocaust. The war with
> Britain and France was actually considered by the Nazi Leaders to
> be a distraction from the planned "real war" that was to be fought
> against the USSR and which Hitler undertook beginning in June
> 1941.

(02-26-2017, 04:30 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: > China is playing catch up to the American and Russian weapon
> systems whose only purpose is to attack Chinese cities, military
> bases, and installations. It's only paranoia that could lead one
> believe that has to be preparation for a preemptive attack. Far
> more likely is that they want parity with the US - and with Russia
> - in order to establish an approximately equal balance of power
> between the three.

(02-27-2017, 03:12 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:

(02-26-2017, 03:03 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote: >   Also Just to post here since you mentioned it before: Hitler
>   wanted war with RUSSIA/USSR during the lead up to WW2, The Nazis
>   actually did not want the western war, their entire movement was
>   based on the goal of destroying "Jewish-Bolshevism" which
>   eventually resulted in Barbarossa and the Holocaust. The war with
>   Britain and France was actually considered by the Nazi Leaders to
>   be a distraction from the planned "real war" that was to be fought
>   against the USSR and which Hitler undertook beginning in June
>   1941.

Sooooo, the Nazis had no intention of invading Britain, even though
Hitler met with Mussolini in 1938 to plan the invasion.

(02-26-2017, 04:30 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: >   China is playing catch up to the American and Russian weapon
>   systems whose only purpose is to attack Chinese cities, military
>   bases, and installations.  It's only paranoia that could lead one
>   believe that has to be preparation for a preemptive attack.  Far
>   more likely is that they want parity with the US - and with Russia
>   - in order to establish an approximately equal balance of power
>   between the three.

Paranoia, huh?  If missiles were the only thing, that might be
believable.  But China is preparing for war on multiple fronts, and is
illegally building artificial islands and military bases in the South
China Sea, and is now installing launchers for long-range missiles.
China is also preparing for war with India in several places along
their common border.

You two guys make my head spin.  It's obvious that you can think up a
benign excuse for even the most aggressively militaristic actions.

When I was growing up in the 1950s, I heard the same narrative from my
parents and from my teachers: It was amazing and incomprehensible that
so many people were fooled by Hitler, when it was so obvious in
retrospect.  The British were duped by Hitler.  Neville Chamberlain
was villified as the biggest dupe of all.  Churchill saw it coming,
but was mocked and ridiculed at the time.  Later, Churchill saved
Britain from the Nazis.

People my age have been puzzled our whole lives how it was possible
for so many people to be so completely fooled by Hitler, when it was
so obvious in retrospect that the signs were there all the time.
Listening to people like the two of you, these days I completely
understand what happened in the late 1930s, and why so many people
were fooled.

People like me fit a historical template.  The mythical Cassandra was
ridiculed when she predicted the fall of Troy, and then was assaulted
and raped when her predictions came true.  The Biblical Jeremiah was
thrown into a pit for predicting the fall of Jerusalem.  Winston
Churchill was mocked and ridiculed, and then was thrown out of
office as soon as he won the war.

I've already gone through this process in another way.  Ten years ago
it was perfectly obvious that there as a real estate bubble.  I wrote
about it frequently.  I owned a condo and sold it at the height of the
bubble.  I told my friends not to buy real estate, but I was
ridiculed, and many of them did anyway, and lost a great deal of
money.  One of them blamed me for losing his money, as if it were my
fault.

I have a record now of getting everything right for over ten years.
So what I'm saying is that China is preparing for preemptive war, and
that it's 100% certain.  You two Nevilles are invited to believe
anything you want.