Generational Dynamics World View

[pbrower2a]

Sorry John X -- it is support for President Trump that is delusional these days. Trump is the apotheosis of Tea Party politics taken to its logical consequence in the Presidency -- if given the opportunity. The opportunity arose as a freakish opening, and that opening may slam shut in November.

If America could survive the violent criminality of the outlaws such as Bonnie and Clyde, Dillinger, and Murder Incorporated it was because law enforcement was developing the techniques for squashing them. It is telling that American prosecutors used the techniques that worked against American gangsters such as the Italian and Jewish mafias against other sets of gangsters after WWII: the horrible people who ruled Germany and Japan during the war. Be glad that your father was not in Greece under Nazi occupation!

I would like to see tribal thinking vanish from American politics. Know well that the electoral support comes most critically from white folks in the Mountain and Deep South -- parts of America often nastier in economic reality than in places in which historically-disadvantaged minorities predominate. In such places, educational standards are abysmal. Note well that our President has expressed his 'love' for low-information voters. To be sure, educated people can be corrupt, selfish, and angry, too... but I have rarely seen good results from being ill-informed in any way. (Worst is being slightly knowledgeable and pretending to know more than the experts).

It is the Tea Party in the Mountain and Deep South that carries the legacy of the agrarian racists of the "Kukluxistan".

What could be more tribal than this?



No, Obama was not much of a liar as President; he seems to have more reliably put America's diplomatic and defense interests above any prospect of personal gain or political advantage. Even current detractors of our 44th President recognize him as almost freakishly clean of corruption. You are free to believe that he is awful -- just as Alec Baldwin and I are able to see Donald Trump. At this point I would be willing to bet ouzo to the best beer that I have ever had that Trump loses in November or is impeached  and removed before then -- except that I don't gamble. The bet would be off, of course, if the Grim Reaper were to take away you-know-whom.

OK, so President Trump claims that any country under the rule of a black person is a $#!+hole. So Trump delivered America from being a $#!+hole? The logic is good, but as computer people said when computers were new -- garbage in, garbage out. A flawed premise with solid logic simply achieves more  impressive foolishness. 

...on this date in 1929 was born Martin Luther King, Jr., who made America come to account with the consequences of systemic racism. If you want to blame the nastiness of the South on the presence of so many African-Americans, then ask yourself what institutions blacks dominated in the early 1960's... their churches.

So tell me what was the $#!+hole -- the Eighth Street Baptist Church of Birmingham, Alabama -- or the Klavern in which fascist pigs plotted bombings? Fascists similar in hatred to those who ravaged Greece during WWII. Like the Nazis, the Klan hated blacks and Jews alike.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 16-Jan-2020 World View: Trump's tweets

As usual, you're focusing on Trump's tweets and speeches rather than
actions, and evading the issue of years of institutional loathing and
hatred of Tea Partiers. You single out one bigoted Tea Partier and
think that allows you to marginalize all 63 million Trump Supporters.
That's what the Chinese are doing when they say that a few Uighur
"terrorists" justify their extermination and ethnic cleansing of all
Uighurs. That's what the Burmese are doing when they say that a few
Rohingya "terrorists" justify their ethnic cleansing of all Rohingyas.
That what Hitler did when he used a terrorist act of one Jew to
justify the Holocaust. You say that the Holocaust was evil, but you
people (a purposely chosen phrase, to include people like you and Alec
Baldwin) turned into the modern day personification of exactly the
same evil, and you've become even more dangerous because you people
have found a way to use Trump's tweets to justify your evil, and say
that your evil is a GOOD evil.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 16-Jan-2020 World View: Financial speed bumps

Higgenbotham Wrote:> Say, like Trump, you've been in the real estate business, and you
> recognize it's a bubble and has been for along time. It's logical
> to say, well, it's been a bubble for a long time and the way to
> address it has been to buy the dip and then wait for some
> excesses, trim holdings, wait for the next dip, etc. The practical
> way to be successful in navigating the bubble has been to take on
> debt and assume the general trajectory is onward and upward to
> bigger and bigger bubbles with speed bumps along the road. People
> who have the constitution to operate in that manner are the only
> ones who have amassed fortunes since the 1987 crash (Hendricks
> Holdings, for example) and among that class of people a certain
> groupthink has developed and a level of genius is inappropriately
> attributed to that kind of thinking (another more widely known
> example, the cult of Warren Buffet which would never have existed
> absent the bubble environment since 1987).

I left the false panic of 1987 out of my summary in my last message.

To use your phrase, there have been three "speed bumps" since 1929:

• The false panic of 1987 = 1929+58. This is related to the
  58-Year Hypothesis in generational theory, which says that 58 years
  after a massive public catastrophe, the last cohort of people with
  personal memory of the catastrophe retires, resulting in a (false)
  panic.
  
  
• The Nasdaq crash of 2000, the last year of Clinton administration.
  This was the collapse of the "tech bubble" brought about by the
  Silents/Boomers who saw that the 1987 panic really wasn't so bad after
  all. In the 1980s, companies like Lotus, Ashton-Tate, IBM, Compaq and
  Microsoft made a lot of money, and the Silents/Boomers wanted to do
  the same with their own companies and made reckless investments. By
  the way, the 1990s bubble was not "caused" by the internet. It was
  "caused" by the false panic of 1987 combined with the PC explosion of
  the 1980s, combined with the retirement of the last people with
  remaining memory of the Great Depression. This is actually another
  illustration of the 58-Year Hypothesis.
  
  
• The subprime crash of 2008, and the collapse of the real estate
  bubble. The "cause" of the real estate bubble was the rise of
  Generation-X, who were furious that they were personally swindled by
  the Silents/Boomers in the Nasdaq crash. This tied into their fury at
  their fathers over the high divorce rate. They decided to get revenge
  by creating tens of trillions of dollars in fraudulent subprime
  mortgage backed synthetic securities, and then selling then to their
  fathers' generation to screw them and swindle them. Unfortunately,
  they created millions of bankrupt and homeless families in all
  generations.

Each of those three "speed bumps" was worse than the previous one, but
still not severe enough to require fundamental changes -- in
particular, reduction in public debt, with government debt alone now
well above $20 trillion.

It's been a very, very long time since the last "speed bump," and
investors are assuming that speed bump #4 won't be as bad as #3
because new laws have been passed, and because the Fed has become so
much more clever. It's a major delusional fantasy, We still don't
know when speed bump #4 will occur, but we can be absolutely certain
that it will be much worse than #3.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 16-Jan-2020 World View: More on speed bumps

Something interesting occurred to me after posting my previous message
on speed bumps. If you look at the four speed bumps:

• #1 occurred at the end of the Reagan administration.
  
• #2 occurred at the end of the Clinton administration.
  
• #3 occurred at the end of the Bush administration.
  
• #4 may occur at the end of the (first term of the)
  Trump administration.

I've always assumed that there was no political connection at all to
the timing of these speed bumps, but maybe there is.

[Tim Randal Walker]

Michio Kaku (who is a physicist) noticed a fairly regular pattern regarding bubbles. Times prone to bubbles are spaced apart by periods like John Xenakis mentioned. This fits with the disappearance from public life of those who remember the previous follies. Society is now under the influence of people who either have no adult memories of the previous follies, or no memory at all.

Of course, this pattern, like the modern saeculum, is tied to the human lifespan. So the two are now correlated.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 17-Jan-20 World View -- US and China sign Phase I of the US-China trade deal

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• US and China sign Phase I of the US-China trade deal
  
• Peter Navarro: China's seven deadly sins
  
• Cracking down on Amazon, Walmart, Alibaba and Shopify
  
• China shifts to regional trade
  

****
**** US and China sign Phase I of the US-China trade deal
****


Chinese Vice-Premier Liu and Donald Trump shake hands after signing the agreement (SCMP)

There are two ways to look at the US-China Phase I trade deal that was
signed in Washington on Wednesday.

One way is that is that it accomplished so little that it's nothing
more than a temporary ceasefire in the US-China trade war.

The other way is that it was a good first step and accomplished some
things in forcing China to open up its markets, but that there's a
long way to go in Phase II.

Let's start with the basics: As I've said many times in the past,
North Korea will not give up its nuclear weapons and missiles, no
matter what Trump does, and China will not give up stealing
intellectual property and trade secrets, no matter what Trump does.
Trump knows that too. China's criminal activities are deeply embedded
in China's culture, which considers Americans to be barbarians, and
they could never be resolved without a war. All that Donald Trump can
do in negotiations is to postpone the worst effects of these Chinese
and North Korean policies, and do everything possible to protect the
United States and the West from the inevitable World War III that
China and North Korea are preparing against Japan, Taiwan and the
United States.

Donald Trump said that he is not removing any of the existing tariffs
or sanctions on China at this time, because he needs them in place "as
cards" to negotiate with in Phase II, but they will all be removed at
the successful completion of Phase II. Negotiations for Phase II will
not begin until after the November elections.

****
**** Peter Navarro: China's seven deadly sins
****

Peter Navarro is President Trump's Director of Trade and Manufacturing
Policy. He's considered to be a "hardliner" on the China
negotiations. He appeared on television in August, and recited a list
of seven structural issues in China's economy that have to be resolved
by trade negotiations:

• Cyber intrusion into business networks
  
• Forced technology transfers in exchange for market access
  
• Intellectual property theft
• Dumping into our markets
  
• State owned enterprises which are heavily subsidized
  
• Currency manipulation
  
• Killing Americans with fentanyl.

In a television interview on Wednesday, Navarro reviewed the US-China
agreement, in view of the above list of China's "seven deadly sins."
According to Navarro, America got the following in the agreement:

• Strong protections for intellection property, worth $300-500
  billion per year.
  
• A start on ending forced technology transfer.
  
• A strong currency manipulation provision.
  
• Full ownership of a business in China by an American company
  permitted.
  
• Access by American financial firms -- banks, credit cards,
  insurance companies -- to the Chinese marketplace, which has previously
  been completely closed off.
  
• $200 billion of additional purchases over the 2017 benchmark,
  spread over two years, spread over four sectors -- agriculture,
  energy, financial services, manufacturing.

These are all nice promises, but China has always made nice promises,
and then simply ignored them the day after they were made. Navarro
claims that this time it's different, because there's an enforcement
mechanism:

<QUOTE>"The judge, jury and executioner is on our side of the
fence. This is not WTO (World Trade Organization) rules where you
take three years and get nowhere. This deal calls for a 90 day
clock, controlled by [U.S. Trade Representative Robert]
Lighthizer. If there's an issue, it comes to him, and he
negotiates with this counterpart in China. If we don't get
satisfaction, we unilaterally have the authority to take
proportionate measures."<END QUOTE>

Whether you believe that this enforcement mechanism will make a
difference is up to you.

According to Navarro, that was a "solid Phase I," and some things have
been left for Phase II:

• Unfair subsidies of state-owned enterprises.
  
• Cyber intrusions. "Uniformed members of China's military sit in
  Shanghai and hack into computers in the US. They'll sit there for a
  year and steal information. They promised in 2015 to stop doing it,
  but they haven't."
  
• China is continuing to kill Americans with fentanyl.

****
**** Cracking down on Amazon, Walmart, Alibaba and Shopify
****

Navarro said that the US will crack down on companies like Amazon,
Walmart, Alibaba and Shopify who have served as "facilitators" for the
import of contraband goods from China.

Navarro said that a million packages come into New York's Kennedy
airport every day. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
agency ran a project called Operation Megaflex, which sampled
thousands of these packages coming in from China, and found that 15% of
them contained contraband. Half of them are counterfeits, and the
other half are controlled substances, like fentynol, and also gun
parts, and fake drivers licenses.

Navarro expects China to police these operations, but on the American
side, distribution companies that make a great deal of money by
importing and selling this contraband will also have to police them,
or will face civil fines or penalties or loss of import licenses.

****
**** China shifts to regional trade
****

According to analysts, the Chinese are breathing a sigh of relief
because, even though the existing tariffs will not be lifted, this
agreement means that any new tariffs will be postponed. And since
Phase II negotiations won't even begin until after the November
election, the new tariffs will be postponed indefinitely.

As I've described in the past, Trump administration has placed
additional restrictions on Huawei to slow down the company's rapid
takeover of portions of the internet. Huawei is heavily subsidized by
China's government to undersell foreign competitors with routers and
other networking equipment that many people (including me) believe
contain "backdoors" allowing China's military to control those devices
at any time. In fact, in 2017, China passed a National Intelligence
Law that compels every Chinese company to take exactly those kinds of
steps. Trump's tariffs have affected not only Huawei, but also the
supply chains of many military-related firms in China. Obviously,
these steps can slow down China's military, but not stop it.

Trump's restrictions on trade with America has been a benefit to
China's neighbors, with whom Chinese firms are actively seeking to
trade. This has resulted unexpectedly in quick agreement on a free
trade agreement for Asian nations, the Regional Comprehensive Economic
Partnership (RCEP).

The participants in RCEP are the ten members of the the Association of
Southeast Nations (ASEAN) -- Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos,
Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam --
plus five additional nations -- Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand
and South Korea, with India eventually deciding not to participate.

The RCEP trade agreements will fill any holes left by the US-China
trade tariffs. China's military will be slowed down by the tariffs,
but will not be stopped.

John Xenakis is author of: "World View: War Between China and Japan:
Why America Must Be Prepared" (Generational Theory Book Series, Book
2), June 2019, Paperback: 331 pages, with over 200 source references,
$13.99 https://www.amazon.com/World-View-Betwee...732738637/

Sources:

• US business leaders don't see the 'phase one' China trade deal as a huge breakthrough (CNBC, 16-Jan-2020)
  
• Farmers could be biggest beneficiaries in new U.S.-China trade deal (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 16-Jan-2020)
  
• Rep. Jodey Arrington: Trump's Phase One China trade deal result of negotiator-in-chief's courage (Fox Business, 16-Jan-2020)
  
• Doubts Remain Over U.S.-China Phase One Trade Agreement (AgWeb, 16-Jan-2020)
  
• Asean, RCEP trade partners unlikely beneficiaries from US-China trade war, Deloitte economist says (South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, 16-Jan-2020)
  
• US-China trade deal: Five things that aren't in it (BBC, 16-Jan-2020)
  
• US-China trade deal: Winners and losers (BBC, 15-Jan-2020)
  
• Trump signs partial economic deal with China, calls trade pact a ‘momentous step’ (Washington Post, 16-Jan-2020)
  
• Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro lists what the US wants from China in 'phase two' trade deal (CNBC, 16-Jan-2020)
  
• Peter Navarro puts Amazon and eBay on notice: The China trade deal cracks down on counterfeits (CNBC, 16-Jan-2020)

Related Articles:

• US-China trade war seriously disrupts world trade (16-Aug-2019)
  
  
• Vietnam to gain from collapse of US-China trade talks (03-Jul-2019)
  
  
• Donald Trump and Xi Jinping agree to a 90 day moratorium in trade war (02-Dec-2018)
  
  
• Discontent with China's president Xi Jinping continues during 'trade war' (10-Aug-2018)
  
  
• Trump administration signals that trade war with China will escalate sharply (19-Jul-2018)
  
  
• China's economy destabilizes as Huawei introduces cheap smartphone (12-Jan-2019)
  
  
• China on path to repeat Japan's experience after Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 (05-Apr-2018)
  
  
• Japan's Shinzo Abe blames WW II on the Smoot-Hawley Tariff act (15-Aug-2015)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, Peter Liu,
Peter Navarro, Robert Lighthizer,
Amazon, Walmart, Alibaba, Shopify,
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, CBP, Operation Megaflex,
Huawei, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, RCEP

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[Marypoza]

(01-16-2020, 10:11 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 16-Jan-2020 World View: More on speed bumps

Something interesting occurred to me after posting my previous message
on speed bumps.  If you look at the four speed bumps:

• #1 occurred at the end of the Reagan administration.
  
• #2 occurred at the end of the Clinton administration.
  
• #3 occurred at the end of the Bush administration.
  
• #4 may occur at the end of the (first term of the)
  Trump administration.
  

I've always assumed that there was no political connection at all to
the timing of these speed bumps, but maybe there is.

-- that's this year

[John J. Xenakis]

** 17-Jan-2020 World View: Financial crisis this year?

(01-17-2020, 04:01 PM)Marypoza Wrote: > -- that's this year

Yes, it certainly is.

There are actually a lot of people today who are pretty certain that a
financial crisis is coming soon. You don't hear much about it because
it's one of those forbidden subjects, like the coming war with China.
In addition, most economists are idiots and don't have the vaguest
clue what's going on, which can be determined by looking at their
records. Currently, an economist will predict economic growth or
recession according to the following deeply algorithmic economic
formula: If you're a nevertrumper, predict recession, but if you
support Trump, predict growth.

Higgenbotham in the Financial Topics topic of the Generational
Dynamics forum analyzes the likelihood of an imminent stock market
crash on a regular basis. He's the most accurate person around
because he puts his money where his mouth is -- he's constantly making
short investments, because he wants to be a big winner when the market
crashes. However, he's had his ups and downs doing this because, as
he very well knows from frequently quoting John Maynard Keynes as
saying, "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay
solvent."

At any rate, the market has recently, once again, gone parabolic, which
is what happens prior to a crash.

(01-17-2020, 04:01 PM)Marypoza Wrote: > Bernie/Tulsi 2020

So did you enjoy watching that little spat this week between Bernie
Sanders and Pocahontas as much as I did?

CNN wanted to make sure that everyone saw it and enjoyed it. It
appears that CNN hates Sanders almost as much as they hate Trump, if
that's possible.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 17-Jan-2020 World View: Iran shooting down passenger plane

gfmucci1 Wrote:> Re: The Media - The response of the media to the Soleimani thing
> was for the purpose of selling ads. Fear mongering via "imminent
> war" increases reader/viewership which increases ad revenue. I
> doubt that they can't do percentages. Their greed overshadowed
> their honesty.

Given the high ratings of Fox News vs CNN and MS-NBC, I doubt that analysis
is true. The reporters at CNN and MS-NBC (with CNN much worse than
MS-NBC) are like rabid dogs who attack raw meat irrespective of ad
revenue.

There's another reason: They're unable to do percentages.

gfmucci1 Wrote:> Re: Iran's apparent shootdown admission -In the most recent 24
> hours Iran has again changed course by blaming the US for the
> shootdown (the US hacked something) and by arresting the damned
> SOB who dared to take incriminating photos of the missiles hitting
> the plane. Iran is so imbued in the culture of fantasy, deception
> and lying promulgated by Islam that they don't even realize or
> care that they sound like raving lunatics. I don't doubt that
> their culture of inbreeding contributes to these psychoses.

Yes, apparently Iran shot down the passenger plane because the
Americans hacked Iran's radar.

Just like when Russia shot down a passenger plane with a Buk missile,
then said that the US shot it down to embarrass Russia.

gfmucci1 Wrote:> Re: Iran's retribution - I further have no doubt that Iran is not
> finished with their retribution. They will continue with attacks
> on US interests, either directly or through proxies, that are just
> below their perceived threshold that would trigger a massive US
> response. This will continue until the time they believe they can
> effectively use proxies to deliver EMPs to the US homeland or when
> they can wear down the US will to engage, a la your tet offensive
> example..

> The other scenario is they err in their attacks, push too many of
> our buttons, and we bomb their infrastructure and nuke sites
> setting them back a decade or so.

Today's Friday prayers and "Death to America" chants led by
Khamenei for the first time in 8 years shows how desperate the
hardline geezers are.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 17-Jan-2020 World View: The seventh deadly sin

John Wrote:> 17-Jan-20 World View -- US and China sign Phase I of the US-China trade deal
>
> ** 17-Jan-20 World View -- US and China sign Phase I of the US-China trade deal
> ** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e200117

Burner Prime Wrote:> I wonder if the the last "deadly sin" Fentanyl is China attempting
> revenge for the Opium Wars that humiliated them so long
> ago.

That's absolutely correct.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 17-Jan-2020 World View: Gen-Xers and the financial crisis

Tom Mazanec Wrote:> I don’t think Xers thought “I’ll screw the Old Man.” I think Xers
> thought “I’ll make as much money as I can anyway I can.”

Guest Wrote:> This. Plus it was Boomers in charge of the companies selling these
> products. X-ers wouldn't have been higher than middle
> management. Contrary to John, I don't buy the argument that that
> executives didn't understand that the derivatives they were
> selling were effectively worthless. These are/were very smart guys
> with decades in the financial field. There wouldn't have been
> snowed by some 35-year-old dude.

It was the Gen-Xers who got masters degrees in "Financial Engineering"
in the 1990s who purposely created tens of trillions of dollars of
fraudulent subprime mortgage backed synthetic securities, and sold
them in order to swindle the Boomers in their fathers' generation.

The Boomer managers were not directly responsible for creating the
fraudulent securities because they had absolutely no clue what the
"Financial Engineers" were doing.

However, the Boomer managers are still criminally liable, because the
result of the fraud was obvious: The Gen-Xers would take a million
dollars of B-rated securities, use financial engineering to slice and
dice them, and end up with a million dollars of AAA-rated securities.
The Boomer managers had no clue how the slicing and dicing worked, but
the magic alchemy of change B ratings to AAA ratings was perfectly
obvious to them, and so they're equally criminally culpable. I would
have been perfectly happy and delighted to see BOTH the Gen-X crooks
and the Boomer crooks go to jail. I still think they should all go to
jail. Unfortunately, Obama decided to take a fraction of their
illegal gains rather than prosecuting them.

I wrote about all this in 2010:

** Financial Crisis Inquiry hearings provide 'smoking gun' evidence of widespread criminal fraud
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/w...100414.htm


If you're interested in how the financial engineering worked, I described
it in 2008:

** A primer on financial engineering and structured finance
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/w...080123.htm


As for motives, it's well-known that Gen-Xers hate the Boomers, their
parents' generation. Just ask a Boomer.

Also, check out my articles on the movie "The Big Short":

** 26-Dec-15 World View -- 'The Big Short' - an infuriating movie about the financial crisis
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e151226


** 27-Dec-15 World View -- Reader comments on 'The Big Short' and the financial crisis
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e151227


The first of these two articles explains in detail how the Gen-Xers
were guilty of purposely committing massive criminal fraud in order
to screw their divorced fathers, and how the Boomer managers knew
what was going on and joined willingly in the massive criminal fraud.

They were all a bunch of frigging crooks, along with Obama, and not a
single damn one of them has gone to jail -- or even gone to trial.
It's sickening and disgusting. But what do I know? I'm just a
Boomer.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 18-Jan-2020 World View: China's military and Huawei

Web Site Reader Wrote:> In China, everybody I met, including university professors who
> taught how to research and engineer missiles components, down to
> the students on the campuses, all knew that Huawei was a company
> run by the PLA. I find Huawei's comments about separation
> comical. Huawei is playing on how separate Boeing is from the
> Pentagon in American thinking. What is worse, Americans and
> Europeans are buying it. Fools!

I've been writing about undetectable backdoors in Huawei's routers
since 2012. These backdoors give China's military remote access to
and control of the routers, which means that China's military can
control large parts of the internet in many countries, at a time of
their choosing.

** 14-Oct-12 World View -- Huawei scandal exposes potential 'Cyberwar Pearl Harbor' from China
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e121014


** 30-Jun-19 World View -- MIT criticizes 'toxic atmosphere' targeting Chinese students
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e190630


** 27-Jan-19 World View -- George Soros speech at Davos marks significant global shift against China
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e190127


It's so easy technically to install these backdoors, that it's
depressing how easily the Chinese have been getting away with it. And
if there was ever any real doubt, there was no possible doubt left
after China blantantly passed its National Intelligence Law in 2017,
which essentially required Huawei to install these backdoors. Even
so, in online comments and in the Generational Dynamics forum I've
gotten all kinds of flak from people telling me that the whole idea is
fantastical. It's amazing how much the Chinese get away with. In
this case, China's military subsidizes the Huawei devices, so that
they're far cheaper than devices manufactured in America or elsewhere.

I remember in 2012, the president of Huawei America said that he's
been assured by top management that there were no backdoors in Huawei
products. That's really laughable. Even if he's telling the truth,
how would he even do.

And the most laughable thing was last year sending out Huawei founder
and CEO Ren Zhengfei on a worldwide press tour to assure everyone that
there that there were no backdoors, and that he wouldn't ever allow
backdoors to be installed, and he would personally go to jail, rather
than allow China's military to install backdoors. Are you kidding me?
This was a former PLA commander. And, once again, if China's military
had infiltrated Huawei and was requiring some development group to
install backdoors, how would Ren Zhengfei even know?

This last example shows particularly how contemptuous the Chinese are
of Americans to think we would believe these idiotic claims by Ren
Zhengfei, and also shows how stupid Westerners are for proving that
the Chinese are right.

Web Site Reader Wrote:> Second, every credit card in China, including what few Visa and
> MasterCards that exist, all have a six-digit pin that must be used
> for *every *transaction. My wife can use her Chinese MasterCard
> in the States, but nobody from America can use American credit
> cards in China.

> I tried to get my Visa cards and MasterCards attached with a PIN
> here in America. The American companies will only give you a
> four-number PIN for cash withdrawals; they will never put
> six-digit pins on American cards. Foolish, I think. I'd rather
> have the security and confidence of using a PIN on every
> transaction than to have to pay a minimum 16% interest rate on
> card debt (which I have none). American companies would rather
> stick those who pay their debt with higher fees rather than
> inconvenience them with greater security.

> In other words, American companies will still have to change their
> ways to enter the Chinese market.

Interesting comparison about the PINs.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 19-Jan-20 World View -- Violence surges in street protests in Lebanon as economy collapses

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Violence surges in street protests in Lebanon as economy collapses
  
• Multi-sectarian rioters protest 'confessional' government
  
• Rioters protest Iran's influence
  

****
**** Violence surges in street protests in Lebanon as economy collapses
****


Anti-government protesters in Beirut, Lebanon, stand atop a road sign and flash the victory sign along a main highway that has been blocked by hundreds of protesters, on Friday. (AP)

After months of generally peaceful protests that began on October 17
when the government announced tax increases, on Saturday protesters
began throwing rocks, molotov coctails, fireworks and large plant pots
at police blocking the road to the parliament building in Lebanon's
capital city Beirut. Other protesters blocked roads and crippled the
city.

The Internal Security Forces tweeted: "A direct and violent
confrontation is taking place with anti-riot police at one of the
entrances to parliament. We ask peaceful protesters to keep away from
the site of the rioting for their safety."

By the end of the day, the Red Cross reported 80 wounded were taken to
the hospital, while 140 were treated on site.

Lebanon's banking system is near collapse as the country runs out of
dollars, and Lebanon's pound currency has lost 60% of its value.
Banks are setting a withdrawal limit of around $200 per month, and
people are unable to pay their bills. There are fears that the
economy will collapse completely.

****
**** Multi-sectarian rioters protest 'confessional' government
****

There have been street protests in Lebanon in the past, but they've
always been highly sectarian protests by people in just one religious
bloc -- Sunnis, Shias or Christians.

But these new protests are cutting across all sectarian blocs. The
massive protests began after the new taxes were announced on October
17, and by October 29 the entire government collapsed, leaving the
country to be run by a caretaker government since then.

Lebanon (like Iraq) has been governed by a "confessional system of
government," where power is divided based on sectarian affiliation or
confession. The confessional form of government has worked fairly
well in both Iraq and Lebanon, because it's prevented the kind of
massive violence that's been occurring in Iran and Syria.

However, the confessional form of government has failed in a diffeent
way. Lebanon's constitution requires that the three main offices be
occupied by specific sectarian groups:

• The prime minister, must be a Sunni Muslim. Saad al-Hariri
  was the prime minister until he resigned on October 29.
  
  
• The president, currently Michel Aoun, must be a Syriac Maronite
  Catholic.
  
  
• And the speaker of parliament, currently held by Nabhi Berri, must
  be a Shia Muslim. The Shia Muslim sect in Lebanon is controlled by
  the terrorist militia Hezbollah, which is led by Sayyed Hasan
  Nasrallah.

Because each sect has complete control of one portion of the
government, there are no checks and balances and corruption is
rampant, with the leaders of each sect able to steal as much money as
they like from their own part of the government. Since the government
collapsed on October 29, the three sects have been fighting among
themselves and have been unable to form a new government.

So the protesters have been getting increasingly furious. The economy
gets worse every day, and the people see the sectarian government
leaders as massively corrupt because each one refuses to give up any
power to the others, and so the country is at a stalemate.

The World Bank has warned that the poverty rate in Lebanon could rise
from a third to a half of the population if the political crisis is
not remedied fast.

****
**** Rioters protest Iran's influence
****

Rioters have also been protesting the influence of Iran. The most
powerful sect has been the Shia Muslim sect, led by Iran's puppet
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah.

As long as Iran was paying Hezbollah enough money, there was little
complaint in Lebanon. But thanks to Iran's own economic crisis,
caused in part by US sanctions, Iran has less money to pay to
Hezbollah. Hezbollah for five years has also yielded to Iran's
demands to send troops to fight alongside Bashar al-Assad's failing
army in Syria, and indeed Syria's army would have collapsed years ago
except for support from Russia and Hezbollah. But all that has taken
an enormous economic toll on Lebanon.

So rioters in Lebanon are demanding an end to Iran's influence,
and that would mean a big reduction in Hezbollah's influence.

Lebanon, Iraq and Iran are all in a generational Awakening era, like
America and Europe in the 1960s-70s. Iraq's government and Lebanon's
government are both in collapse, and Iran's government is dealing with
its own massive anti-government protests.

Violence has been growing in all three countries, and beatings and
violence by police is growing. There's no resolution in sight in any
of these three countries. With all three governments in turmoil, the
chaos is not going to end any time soon, and the street violence is
liable to get worse, as it did in America and Europe in the 1960s-70s.

Sources:

• Hundreds wounded as Lebanese protesters clash with security forces (France24, 18-Jan-2020)
  
• Dozens wounded as Lebanon's anti-gov't protests turn violent (Al-Jazeera, 18-Jan-2020)
  
• Lebanon police fire tear gas at protesters in violent 'week of rage' (CNN, 18-Jan-2020)
  
• Lebanon Protests Explained - Mass demonstrations (Amnesty Internatonal, 17-Jan-2020)
  
• Lebanon / Dozens injured as anti-bank protests rock Beirut for second night (Middle East Eye, 16-Jan-2020)
  
• Lebanon protesters clash with police, leaving more than 220 people injured (Middle East Eye, 18-Jan-2020)
  
• Hong Kong / The year in protests: From Chile to Lebanon, what happened next? (BBC, 22-Dec-2019)
  
• Lebanese demonstrators block roads as protests enter fourth month (AFP, 18-Jan-2020)

Related articles:

• Massive anti-government street protests paralyze Lebanon (21-Oct-2019)
  
  
• Anti-Iran, anti-government protests spread across Iraq (03-Nov-2019)
  
  
• Riots in Iraq's Basra evoke fault lines of 1980s Iran-Iraq war (09-Sep-2018)
  
  
• Saad Hariri shocks Lebanon by resigning as PM while in Saudi Arabia (05-Nov-2017)
  
  
• Arab League brands Lebanon's Hezbollah a terrorist organization (12-Mar-2016)
  
  
• Paralyzed Lebanon decides to export its garbage to Europe (24-Dec-2015)
  
  
• Iraqi Sunnis are turning against al-Qaeda in Iraq (01-Apr-2007)
  
• Massive Beirut explosion killing Rafiq Hariri puts Lebanon into state of shock (16-Feb-2005)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Lebanon, confessional government system,
Iraq, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah,
Saad al-Hariri, Nabhi Berri, Michel Aoun, Russia

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John J. Xenakis
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[Warren Dew]

(01-18-2020, 11:42 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: The confessional form of government has worked fairly
well in both Iraq and Lebanon, because it's prevented the kind of
massive violence that's been occurring in Iran and Syria.

I wouldn't say this:  sectarian issues were responsible for the rise of the Islamic State, which was nothing if not violent.  Iraq just happened to be able to con the US into taking care of that issue for them.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 20-Jan-2020 World View: Confessional government

(01-18-2020, 11:42 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: > The confessional form of government has worked fairly well in both
> Iraq and Lebanon, because it's prevented the kind of massive
> violence that's been occurring in Iran and Syria.

(01-19-2020, 07:11 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: > I wouldn't say this: sectarian issues were responsible for the
> rise of the Islamic State, which was nothing if not violent. Iraq
> just happened to be able to con the US into taking care of that
> issue for them.

It would be hard to justify blaming the rise of ISIS in Iraq on the
confessional form of government, since ISIS rose first in Syria which
is non-confessional.

This has nothing to do with ISIS. The violence I was talking about is
what you saw under Saddam in Iraq, and today in Iran, Syria, Egypt --
and, in fact, in any country where there is a generational crisis
ethnic or racial or religious civil war, and one side wins and takes
control of the government, and then uses violence and democide to
control the losing ethnic, racial or religious group.

That's what Lebanon wanted to avoid, and what Iraq wanted to avoid
after Saddam. The confessional form of government has accomplished
what was intended, in that there's no ethnic group running the
government and using violence and democide to control the other group,
but it's led to its own unique set of problems, particularly
corruption on a massive scale, since there are no checks and balances.

Ironically, the violence and democide in Iraq today does not come from
Saddam or from any Sunni or Shia Iraqi leader. It comes from Iran,
which is trying to control or even annex Iraq. Iran would like to
form a new Persian empire by annexing or controlling Yemen, Iraq,
Syria and Lebanon -- the Shia Crescent -- but is facing numerous
problems in each country, especially with growing riots in Iraq and
Lebanon.

---- Related:

** 3-Nov-19 World View -- Confessional governments in Lebanon and Iraq
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e191103

[Warren Dew]

(01-20-2020, 08:09 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 20-Jan-2020 World View: Confessional government

(01-18-2020, 11:42 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: >   The confessional form of government has worked fairly well in both
>   Iraq and Lebanon, because it's prevented the kind of massive
>   violence that's been occurring in Iran and Syria.  

(01-19-2020, 07:11 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: >   I wouldn't say this: sectarian issues were responsible for the
>   rise of the Islamic State, which was nothing if not violent.  Iraq
>   just happened to be able to con the US into taking care of that
>   issue for them.  

It would be hard to justify blaming the rise of ISIS in Iraq on the
confessional form of government, since ISIS rose first in Syria which
is non-confessional.

Not correct.  The Islamic State started as the Islamic State in Iraq in 2006, and both Abu Omar Al Baghdadi, its first leader, and Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, its late leader, were Iraqis.  When the Syrian civil war resulted in large numbers of Sunni militias being formed, the Islamic State absorbed some of them, but that was recruitment, not the foundation of the state.

That said, I don't think Iraq actually has a confessional form of government; its democratic government doesn't guarantee any power for the Sunnis.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 20-Jan-2020 World View: Iraq's Muhasasa System - Confessional form of government

(01-20-2020, 09:42 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: > Not correct. The Islamic State started as the Islamic State in
> Iraq in 2006, and both Abu Omar Al Baghdadi, its first leader, and
> Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, its late leader, were Iraqis. When the
> Syrian civil war resulted in large numbers of Sunni militias being
> formed, the Islamic State absorbed some of them, but that was
> recruitment, not the foundation of the state.

> That said, I don't think Iraq actually has a confessional form of
> government; its democratic government doesn't guarantee any power
> for the Sunnis.

Well, ok, in 2006 it was called al-Qaeda in Iraq, though al-Baghdadi
began putting out press releases calling it various flavors of Islamic
State in Iraq / Iraq and Syria / Sham / the Levant or whatever, or
Daesh in Arabic. I think of ISIS as beginning in 2013-14, when
al-Baghdadi broke from al-Qaeda and formed a caliphate in Raqqa,
Syria. But I wasn't seeking to get into that kind of history. I was
trying to make the simple point that the rise of ISIS was not caused
by Iraq's confessional form of government, since al-Qaeda originated
in Afghanistan and has spread to many other countries from southeast
Asia to northern Africa where there is no confessional form of
government.

However, you seem to have changed your mind anyway, because now you're
saying that Iraq's government isn't confessional after all.

Here's an article on the subject:

-- Muhasasa system / Confessional politics ensured Iran’s colonisation
of Iraq
https://thearabweekly.com/confessional-p...ation-iraq
(ArabWeekly, 4-Dec-2019)

This article blames Iraq's confessional Muhasasa System on the
Americans, who supposedly imposed it on the Iraqis, after Saddam was
deposed. Whereas you blame the rise of ISIS on the confessional
system, this article blames the violent interference of Iran into Iraq
on the confessional system.

Both of these make the logical error of assuming that correlation
implies causation. Irrespective of the form of government, both
al-Qaeda and Iran would have infiltrated Iraq. Iran's infiltration
follows from the Iran/Iraq war, and al-Qaeda's infiltration follows
from its spread to numerous countries.

Reading the Arab Weekly article leads me to an interesting
speculation. We know that Iraq attacked Iran with WMDs, and Iran was
convinced that Iraq was developing more WMDs, and only ended their own
nuclear development program in 2003 with Khamenei's fatwa, after the
Iraq war proved that Iraq was not developing WMDs. The speculation,
based on my reading of the Arab Weekly article, is that Iran demanded
of George Bush to implement a weak confessional form of government in
Iraq, in exchange for the fatwa to end nuclear development.

[Marypoza]

(01-17-2020, 06:59 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 17-Jan-2020 World View: Financial crisis this year?

(01-17-2020, 04:01 PM)Marypoza Wrote: >   -- that's this year

Yes, it certainly is.

There are actually a lot of people today who are pretty certain that a
financial crisis is coming soon.  You don't hear much about it because
it's one of those forbidden subjects, like the coming war with China.
In addition, most economists are idiots and don't have the vaguest
clue what's going on, which can be determined by looking at their
records.  Currently, an economist will predict economic growth or
recession according to the following deeply algorithmic economic
formula: If you're a nevertrumper, predict recession, but if you
support Trump, predict growth.

Higgenbotham in the Financial Topics topic of the Generational
Dynamics forum analyzes the likelihood of an imminent stock market
crash on a regular basis.  He's the most accurate person around
because he puts his money where his mouth is -- he's constantly making
short investments, because he wants to be a big winner when the market
crashes.  However, he's had his ups and downs doing this because, as
he very well knows from frequently quoting John Maynard Keynes as
saying, "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay
solvent."

At any rate, the market has recently, once again, gone parabolic, which
is what happens prior to a crash.

(01-17-2020, 04:01 PM)Marypoza Wrote: >   Bernie/Tulsi 2020

So did you enjoy watching that little spat this week between Bernie
Sanders and Pocahontas as much as I did?

CNN wanted to make sure that everyone saw it and enjoyed it.  It
appears that CNN hates Sanders almost as much as they hate Trump, if
that's possible.

-- not as much as l enjoyed watching her #s tank. And she is now 1 of the countries most disliked Senators, right up there with Moscow Mitch. Bernie, of course, remains the most liked senator. AT&T owns CNN. Bernie wants 2 break up the telecoms. Do the math

[John J. Xenakis]

** 22-Jan-2020 World View: Price of gold

• Price of gold, 1851-2010, in constant 2010 dollars (Motley
  Fool)

• Price of gold, 1974-present
  (https://goldprice.org/gold-price-history.html)

Gold is in a huge bubble. If you buy gold, you will end up losing
around $1,000 per ounce.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 22-Jan-2020 World View: Lebanon riots continue as Hezbollah ministers form new government

Thick, grey smoki hung over the center of Lebanon's capital city
Beirut on Wednesday, as another day of rioting near the Parliament
building and the shopping mall. This was another day of violent
confrontations between protesters and police that began on October 17,
causing the prime minister to resign and the government to collapse on
October 29.

** 19-Jan-20 World View -- Violence surges in street protests in Lebanon as economy collapses
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e200119


The new riots follow the selection of a new acting prime minister,
Hassan Diab, and Diab's selection of a new Cabinet. The selections
were driven by Hezbollah, and Diab and the 20 Cabinet ministers are
all thought to be aligned with Hezbollah.

Hezbollah, led by Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, is a puppet of Iran and
Syria. The US, Israel, Canada and the Arab League consider Hezbollah
a terrorist organization. However, Australia and most of the European
Union differentiate between its legitimate political activities and
its militant wing.

This represents a historic change in the structure of Lebanon's
government. As I described in the article referenced above, Lebanon
has a "confessional" system of government, where power is divided
based on sectarian affiliation or confession, where the functions of
the government are to be split equally among Sunni Muslim, Shia
Muslim, and Christian factions. But now politicians in other factions
are saying that "Hezbollah is now completing its takeover of Lebanon
through the new government."

This is only enraging the protesters. One 40-year-old protester is
quoted as saying, "We are here to say this government doesn't
represent the revolutionaries as the prime minister Hassan Diab
says. ... They are the same parties, the same corrupt political
elite."

A 62-year-old engineer said, "This is an anti-people government, it is
a sectarian government which is not representative of the social and
demographic terrain of the Lebanese population."

Many of the protesters are coming from the impoverished city of
Tripoli in northern Lebanon. They are quoted as saying that the new
cabinet is just a rubber stamp of the existing government. They
insist that the protests and riots will continue indefinitedly,
saying, "We have nothing to lose."

---- Sources:

-- New government shows Hezbollah ‘takeover of Lebanon is complete’
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1616716/middle-east
(Arab News, 22-Jan-2020)

-- Lebanon announces new 'expert' government
https://www.dw.com/en/lebanon-announces-...a-52102252
(Deutsche Welle, 21-Jan-2020)

-- Lebanese Cabinet faces multiple challenges, growing unrest
https://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east...t-1.615766
(Stars and Stripes, AP, 22-Jan-2020)

-- Lebanon protests are dividing the country’s struggling media
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/media/p...media.html
(Al Arabiya, Riyadh, 5-Dec-2019)

-- Protesters condemn Hassan Diab’s new government in Lebanon
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/mi...itics.html
(Al Arabiya, Riyadh, 22-Jan-2020)

-- Rich Lebanese hoarding cash despite capital controls
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/feature...trols.html
(Al Arabiya, Riyadh, 21-Jan-2020)