The Long Game
CDR Salamander is an important blog because he repeatedly strikes important topics in an insightful way. In his blog, Keeping an Eye on the Long Game, he strikes important points that are useful to remember.
China’s working-age population, which peaked in 2011, is projected to decline by nearly a quarter by 2050. Meanwhile, the number of elderly Chinese will rise from 200 million to 500 million at midcentury, and providing for their needs will be a mounting challenge for China’s workers and policymakers.
Last week, Country Garden, one of China’s largest remaining developers, missed interest payments on debt with a face value of $1 billion, sending new shock waves through the sector. The monthly value of new home sales by China’s 100 largest property developers has fallen more than 80% since late 2020. Looking forward, annual housing demand is estimated at between nine million and 10 million units, well below the peak (much of it speculative) of 14 million purchases in 2021.
The Christmas orders from the US that China relies upon to fuel its economy did not come in and factories from small to mega have been laying off workers (in a communist country that promises 100% employment)
The unemployment rate for China’s youth reached an all-time record of 21.3% in June. China’s National Bureau of Statistics responded by ceasing publication of the rate.
As mentioned before on this blog, I have received a number of feelers from Chinese businesses asking for help as they’re tossed out of Europe and Africa. There’s not much that I can do for them.
The persecution of foreigners in China persists and tourism is way off since Covid.
Identify the Aircraft
Bullet Points:
** The mountebanks live in a world of narratives, not truths. Internal reaction, not reality, is real to them. Their feelings do not care about your facts. It is not so much that they are deliberately lying. They would not indulge in such obvious unselfaware self-parody where that the case. The categories of truth and falsehood have no meaning to the cult of relative truth, subjective reality, or postmodern nihilism. Their claims are based on what they feel, not what they see.
The claims are magical thinking: the actions of the activists are symbolic or, in a hellish fashion, sacramental, where the symbolic gesture or word is meant to create real change in the real world: as when using the word “colored person” inflates racism, whereas “person of color” deflates racism. By magic. One must pronounce the abracadabras just so and exactly right to effectuate the mystic spell.
** Pedo Joe’s favorite political action committee (PAC), Future Forward, has some ‘splainin’ to do – after a $12 million “discrepancy” was found in its financial disclosures, the Washington Free Beacon reports.
** Nobody cares what you do in your bedroom – but it would be great if you stopped telling little kids about it.
** A friendly reminder:
** Hunter Biden’s business partner used the federal position he was handed during the Obama administration to court an Eastern European company whose board Hunter was eager to join, according to a batch of emails obtained by The Daily Wire through a Freedom of Information Act request.
** Video reposted by Fox News reporter Will Cain (who owns property in Maui) shows a group of angry Maui fire survivors giving the middle finger and hurling f-bombs at Joe Biden as his motorcade passed by. It is just one of many hostile receptions given Biden after he took two vacations and repeatedly said “no comment” before finally visiting the fire-ravaged Hawaiian island after nearly two weeks.
Will the FBI be dispatching teams to Maui to execute the people who flipped him off as he drove past? Well — they used to be democrat voters. Maybe it depends on their willingness to return to the fold?
Beans, is that you?
Maps
Wyoming appears to me to be the perfect wedding destination state!
Identify the Aircraft:
Kawasaki Ki-48 ‘Lily’
Wow, you’re awake at this hour? The AI truly never sleeps.
He’s on a mission to destroy me since I can usually ID old Japanese aircraft faster than AI;)
Indigenous design or a copy of the Martin A-20 Baltimore in British service)?
Indigenous. Lily came into service first and was evidently based on the Kawasaki Ki-45 fighter.
Parallel evolution given basically the same specs and equipment. Again.
Espionage as we now understand it in terms of methods and sources wasn’t completely necessary because attaches of all the nations both friend and foe were busy getting shown around and taking photos. That changed at some point. But in those days between the war, there was a race for parity. Nobody really grasped air supremacy.
So, Wyoming is the cheapest place to get wed and probably the prettiest. Still too expensive. Unless it’s the cost of everyone going off roading and horse riding through the mountains.
I was going to say, what is wrong with Californians, but I don’t want you to hunt me down and finish me off.
Larry is now a proud resident of Arizona and would agree!
Do you recall the wedding in Yellowstone? Very low budget. A dress and priest held at gunpoint.
I know nothing, nothing, nothing….
Our DIL’s brother and his bride had a beautiful Western Wedding. Horses, and all. Quite charming, and I shed a tear looking at the pix. It looked **perfect**, like what Idiotwood portrays, but real.
Brother now resides in Wyoming (I’m a “Greenie”, albeit about as close as you can get but still in Colorado). He also has a wedding coming up…in Wyoming.
He plays not to lose…there will be no living with him now.
The California number is probably heavily skewed by the entertainment industry.
Thirty years ago in San Diego I knew a young Vietnamese guy whose family spent $20,000 on his traditional Vietnamese wedding. I mentioned that was the down payment on a house, and he rolled his eyes and said, I know, but I had no say.
We got to pay for two weddings. Luckily both girls made an effort to control costs.
Dog vs Cats. Does anyone really “own” a cat?
Wedding costs. God grief that is a lot of money.
Armor. If that is Beans he is wearing a work of art. Wow, what craftsmanship.
Maui, I don’t know if anything will convince a dyed in the wool Democrat to change their voting affiliation. Why let facts get in the way. I do feel sorry for the people who lost their homes in the fire, that must be terrible but they are reaping the results of years of “water equity” and other asinine decisions.
Hey, straight after sending The Comedian Actor in a Hoodie another few hundred millions, he offered $700 to each Maui resident…because…you know…as the Dem’s defend it…that’s the FEMA limit (as if an arbitrary limit mattered).
You can imprison a cat, but you’ll never convince it you own it, and then one day you’ll realize it owns you…..
Dogs have Owners.
Cats have Staff.
True! (even our barn cats believe this)
Maui- A prescribed mess by the juveniles in the room who think they’re adults and the smartest people around. Making excuses on top of excuses. Later this week or early next week this will get overshadowed by another playbook media event.
Local resident’s application of “the bird” was appropriate.
Not cynical, a realist trying not to get boiled in the pot as the bums turn up the heat.
You are absolutely correct. The possible numbers of missing persons (1,000) would headline a death toll of 1,100 which will get buried on page three or not be mentioned by the MSM at all. They will keep the area contained and drag feet till a ” playbook media event” can run cover for this sinister arsonry. All in the name of Hoho’s anthem to reduce “pollution”. Oh, did she slip and pull a LGB gaff ( ” most secure election” )?
That helm is an early 12th Century design. Sigh, looks nice.
Mine is a conical with a nasal, upon a cage for the face and flat panels for the sides, based upon 1050-1070s helm but uparmored to meet SCA specifications.
Miss wearing it. Dammit. So miss fighting. Dammit. Still dream of it. Dammit.
Dammit, dammit, dammit. Hate getting old and getting broke. Dammit.
Don’t fear the reaper…(more cowbell)
Universities are requiring to ” voluntarily” mask up Beans. TSA may be following suit in September. How far will the mask allegiance be carried out again? Your conical, nasal, or any bascinet should suffice for breathing abilities if such should be required. No fogging of my glasses if I had 5 bills to lay out for one of these. I was able to just cut a silver dollar size hole on my M95 and wrote my emancipation in permanent marker – ” I can breath”
During the first mask silliness I was tempted to buy a plague doctor’s mask – the one that resembles a bird’s head. I thought it would be a fitting comment…for those who would get the point. If we’re having a second round of what didn’t work the first time I’d be tempted to start checking prices again.
Haha. I shopped fairly seriously for a plague doctor mask back then. But I’d have had to switch back to contact lenses….
Maui – comment over at AOSHQ: “I’m sure the dead from the fire will be memorialized with a nice statue in an obscure park among all the new condos that will be built on the site.”
Seems to sum it up nicely.
Exactly…yet by the time it happens few will remember “the event” because there will be a hundred newer events to distract the focus. That is the main Dem playbook firehose go-to.
There was a guy…a Maui democrat resident…absolutely filleting The Puppet & The Mrs on their late to the disaster visit:
“Why does the wife ALWAYS need to travel with this Walmart greeter, we didn’t vote for her!”
”He has the unmitigated gall to compare his tiny kitchen fire where he almost lost a cat or his Corvette to incinerated children!!!”
Guy was pissed, did not hold back….and rightfully so..as the media covered for The Implanted Resident.
Maui will be memory-holed by Friday.
Libs have the attention span of a ferret on speed.
I heard it was less than a goldfish, which is 8 seconds…so The Left is dumber than a goldfish. Makes perfect sense, so not engaging these fools keeps the brain from hurting.
That long?
It’s a diminishing ability when ones face is bent into the phone screen causing low blood flow to the brain due to a bent neck (which will manifest in their 60’s as hunchback).
Good photo of Beans.
And right in the x ring of relativism/magical thinking. We see it all around and look what it’s done to Science… pan to rabbit’s foot juju facemask.
CS Lewis drives the point home in The Abolition of Man and That Hideous Strength. Well worth the read/reread.
Beans is the Lord High Executioner…
Looks like that knight in the Indiana Jones cup room. Choose wisely.
Beans?
The choice would be broadsword, mace or battleaxe.
Interesting helmet… Not that ‘I’ would want to fight in that thing… And yes, back in the day, tours were freely given to all kinds of manufacturing plants to ‘show how much better’ we were… sigh Espionage wasn’t even a glimmer in most of America’s thoughts back then.
No big orders from the Big Retailers? In August for the Christmas Season?? Wow…..must be something going on here. More than meets they eye, methinks….
“Magical Thinking”…..as in “Magical Negro” from the old days.
That must be how they say “Let’s Go Brandon!” in Hawaii…
I just don’t care for cats. My son loves cats, and is looking forward to getting one. I most definitely get the whole “Pets Are Family” thing, but I just have *my* preferences.
The closest I came to pet cats was wild bobcats here in the White Wolf Mine. I’d put milk out for them. Sometimes milk and a cracked egg. My thinking was that they’d work to keep the rodent population in check. Then no more bobcats, but I saw mountain lion tracks. Still cats, but not the sort I want hanging out. End of milk.
You have Pebbles-the-Wonder Dog, DRJIM. Who’d need a cat when you have a wonder dog?