Fishwrap Saturday

You asked for it. Here it is!

 

Bullet Points:

** China’s share of the global economy is shrinking for the fourth year in a row. Few are aware of this astonishing development, and even fewer predicted it. Chinese GDP equaled three-quarters of American GDP in 2021; it has fallen to just two-thirds today, when measured at market exchange rates —the relevant metric for projecting world power across the full strategic spectrum.

“The era in which China’s share of global output was surging has ended,” says Mark Williams, head of Asia at Capital Economics. The yuan may rise again, but woe betide Chinese deflation if it does. Productivity growth has collapsed and, by some measures, even turned negative. It has underperformed the US and other advanced economies since Xi Jinping took power in 2012, as China turned away from its Great Reopening.

“Chinese economic growth is being powered almost entirely by investment, despite diminishing returns and escalating debt,” says Williams. The malaise has spread to Chinese manufacturing, once thought immune.

** V for Vendetta is heading back to theaters across the US in November, just in time for its 20th anniversary.

** NYC, The Big Apple play set, coming for Christmas.

** Every bad place I’ve been in my life is because of bad decisions I’ve made. It was my fault and my fault alone. I’m financially successful now because of hard work. People who constantly blame others for their own lack of success will never succeed.

** The investigation into the recent Louvre heist revealed that the password to access its video surveillance system was “Louvre.” Which at least proves the burglars weren’t American. Because they couldn’t spell “Louver,” the password has since been heroically upgraded to “Louvre123.” My advice: Change the password to “password” in English, not “mot de passe” (French) or “kalimat almurur” (Arabic).

** The Most Confused Man in the world. Guess who. Yeah.

** Pro marriage tips.

** When I was in school, teachers told me that if I didn’t do well, I’d end up as a garbage man. They failed to mention that garbage men earn more than teachers.

** Will Australia continue to support the PRC’s military build-up?

 

Boating with EdB

I am re-posting this ad by EdB to boost the signal. He’s having problems finding a crew.

 

A Letter to the Editor

(Salt Lake City Tribune)  Gov. Cox has once again given a speech regarding housing costs. “I don’t want my grandkids to live in Indiana.”

And once again, our state government is ignoring the real problem: We have exceeded the resources available to sustain our population. There isn’t enough land to build affordable housing on. We continue to develop costly houses on poor land because all of the good land has already been built on.

In addition, we must have land to build roads to and from these houses so that people can get to jobs, shopping, etc. Our constant traffic problems clearly show we don’t have the streets to support this movement.

We also don’t have enough water to support this population.

Gov. Cox is from a farming family. He is correct: Agriculture is not the reason for our water shortages. Agriculture is using less water now than ever. The reason we are running out of water and the Great Salt Lake is drying up is not climate change or drought. We have always had droughts. The reason for the shortages is that millions of people need to drink, bathe, and cook. That is where the water is going.

Speeches are made, policies are established, and the Legislature votes on things, thinking they are addressing the problem. One cannot vote land and water into existence. I don’t know how much population Utah can actually sustain. But I am pretty sure we have long since exceeded that population.

VM Note: I don’t live in Utah, but Richard Evans (whoever he is), who wrote this letter to the editor, underscores the problem that most urban areas face. City and county governments should be prevented from issuing building permits unless they can demonstrate that there are adequate resources (above) to support that development. Fix traffic, flood control, power, and water issues before approving construction. This is an LL pet peeve.

One solution to the water problem would be to desalinate ocean water using nuclear power and pump it to where it is needed. That’s how this situation is addressed in the Middle East. Yes, it raises water prices, but it’s a long-term solution for communities, particularly in the Southwestern USA—Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, etc. Arizona bought underground saline water from Mexico, and there is a multi-billion-dollar project to pump it and desalinate it.

Trust me, it won’t lower ocean levels.

Likewise, nuclear power will meet the population’s energy needs by providing reasonably priced, reliable, on-demand electricity. Uranium is one of the more abundant elements on the planet. There is more uranium than there is tin.

It’s challenging to find visionary people in government who are more interested in serving the community than in lining their own pockets. Water problems (supply and potability) are systemic, but are completely solvable.

 

 

Zoltan-in-The-Apple

Zohran Mamdani plans to spend $230 million to purchase and refurbish a rundown grocery store in Brooklyn… owned by his cousin.

“So much for socialism,” said a spokesman for the New York Republican Party, “He’s buying a building the city can’t afford from his own family.” The building, which was closed and condemned by the city five years ago, would likely have never sold without a bit of help from the Rotten Apple.

“It’s corruption marketed as free stuff, and the Zoltan family will reap all of the rewards.”

***

Shooting Turkeys

Even in 1944, the Imperial Japanese Navy still adhered to the concept of the decisive battle. The Japanese had already fought several decisive battles with the US Navy, but never achieved the desired result. However, in 1943, the Combined Fleet gave new emphasis to the notion that a single battle could decide the war, or, in 1944, turn the tide of the conflict.

Planning for the final decisive battle had begun in August 1943 with Admiral Koga’s Third Phase War Operations Plan. The result was Plan “Z,” which foresaw that the Combined Fleet would go on the offensive to defend the strategic areas designated by the Imperial Headquarters.

The Combined Fleet predicted that the most likely area for the decisive battle would be the central Pacific. Still, it had contingency plans for everything from an attack on the Kuril Islands in the North Pacific to an allied attack far south in Western New Guinea.

Once the main Allied attack was identified, the Combined Fleet would go on the attack and seek battle with a planned action. Some of the components of the pre-war plans for the decisive fight were identifiable in the interaction of 1943-44. The Japanese planned to locate the approaching American invasion force with planes, submarines, and small surface boats.

Submarines and land-based aircraft would have worn down the American fleet, creating the most favorable conditions for a decisive battle. The climactic point of the decisive battle would have been the intervention of the First Mobile Fleet. Plan Z had four other secondary plans (designated A to D), of which two involved only ship attacks, one a combined attack by aircraft and ships, and the fourth air attacks by carrier and land-based aircraft.

Responsibility for planning the decisive battle fell to Admiral Toyoda after Koga’s death, who kept Plan Z in its general form but with some modifications. The reworked plan was called “A-Go” and, after the American landings in the Gilberts and Marshalls, focused on the Marianas. In April 1944, the Marianas were designated as an area of ​​national importance to be defended at all costs (including deploying the First Mobile Fleet, all land-based air units, and all submarines). Warnings of any major US Navy operation would be issued by land-based aircraft responsible for reconnaissance of large US Navy bases and anchorages.

In addition to their basic reconnaissance responsibilities, the land-based air units were tasked with neutralizing at least a third of American aircraft carriers before the decisive battle phase. Following the attacks of the ground-based aircraft, the First Mobile Fleet would deliver the decisive blow.

The Japanese aircraft carriers would have operated beyond the attack range of TF 58 (it is important to note that the Japanese land-based aircraft and the First Mobile Fleet were aimed against the American carrier force, not against the invasion fleet, which would be attacked and destroyed after the annihilation of TF 58).

Operation “A-Go” was rehearsed in a series of tabletop maneuvers and war games. The first was held aboard the Taiho, the flagship of Ozawa (he would have been responsible for the execution of the A-Go plan), on April 27, 1944. On May 02, the Navy General Staff supervised a war game and a study of the general staff on the flagship of the Combined Fleet, the light cruiser Oyodo anchored in Tokyo Bay, on the Taiho, and on the flagships of the subordinate units.

The results were critiqued the same day, with Emperor Hirohito in attendance. On 06 May, further table maneuvers were conducted on the Taiho. The final version of the A-Go plan, contained in Imperial Headquarters order number 373, emphasized air operations and surprise. The land-based air force and the Combined Fleet would cooperate to destroy the enemy in a single blow.

Toyoda’s parallel order number 76 to the Combined Fleet envisioned a decisive battle in the western Caroline Islands. If the Americans had failed to cooperate and attacked the Marianas instead, they would have been assaulted by land-based air forces and then lured towards Palau, where the decisive daylight battle would have been fought. Success was predicted on the basis of constant attrition from continuous aircraft, ship, and submarine attacks to reduce the American carrier force, giving the First Mobile Fleet a real chance of victory.

Analysis :

Like the Japanese Imperial Navy’s previous plans for decisive battle, these plans were based on misconceptions: that the Americans would fight as the Imperial Navy staff expected, that the Japanese military would collaborate on standard plans, and that such plans were feasible.

In fact, these plans were bizarre, abstruse because they never took into account all possible variables (for example, the Americans had their own strategy that did not agree with the wishes of the Japanese), that the state of the air and naval forces of the Japanese armed forces in 1944 it was awful (planes and ships inferior in quantity and quality compared to American ones and pilots with little training), an increasingly accentuated tendency to overestimate one’s own successes. The result of such poor strategic planning would have been the end of the Combined Fleet as an operational force in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, with three aircraft carriers sunk, two tankers sunk, about 395 aircraft destroyed (including 200 land-based planes), and six ships badly damaged.

***

How Will Japan Respond?

I don’t think that the PRC invading Taiwan is a foregone conclusion. Some believe that Xi will be emboldened by Putin’s recent success on the Ukrainian Front, but that’s not how the Chinese usually think.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi stated during questioning in the House of Representatives that if an “emergency situation in Taiwan” involves the use of force by the other side, it could constitute a “situation threatening the survival of the nation” under Japan’s security legislation, enabling Japan to exercise its right to collective self-defense. However, this would depend on the specific circumstances of the actual incident.

Japan’s female prime minister clearly possesses Asian foresight. She seems to have discerned that mainland China’s unification efforts are entering a substantive phase. Xi Jinping is pleased to see that Taiwan now has a Kuomintang (KMT) chairperson advocating reunification. Moreover, this female chairperson, Cheng Li-wen, possesses sufficient ambition to persuade the island’s citizens to accept Communist Party leadership.

Therefore, Xi Jinping can envision that once China’s drones, navy, and airborne forces are positioned before Taiwanese citizens, the KMT chairperson may well surrender to the heavily armed Chinese Communist Party. This could be justified on grounds of safeguarding the lives of all island residents and avoiding Ukraine-style casualties. The US’s abundance of responsibility in the region under Trump will undoubtedly be used as one of the arguments for surrender by the KMT.

However, the Lai Ching-te-led government and his troops would not readily accept such a surrender. Thus, a war becomes inevitable. In this case, it would be a massive challenge for Japan.

***

Identify the Ship

1

Late WW2 construction and modernized, but (possibly) prematurely sent to the nacker’s yard because she didn’t transition to the age of missiles. Gun club membership had its limitations. I think that she was a training ship for a while because she was relatively new.

2 & 3

It represents a revolution in ship design aimed at reducing radar cross-section.

4

***

Parting Shot

I guess only New York City was dumb enough to go full communist….. Minneapolis rejected Somali communist Omar Fateh, and it looks like Seattle is going to reject communist Katie Wilson… So basically, last night went as expected…. Neo-Marxists won in democrat strongholds.

End