Slanted Reporting Can Lead To Bad Foreign Policies
When reading this New York Times piece about economic growth in China one might come away with the impression that the country is trending towards a recession.
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China’s Economy Is Slowing, a Worrying Sign for the World
Economic output climbed 4 percent in the last quarter of 2021, slowing from the previous quarter. Growth has faltered as home buyers and consumers become cautious.
BEIJING — Construction and property sales have slumped. Small businesses have shut because of rising costs and weak sales. Debt-laden local governments are cutting the pay of civil servants.China’s economy slowed markedly in the final months of last year as government measures to limit real estate speculation hurt other sectors as well. Lockdowns and travel restrictions to contain the coronavirus also dented consumer spending. Stringent regulations on everything from internet businesses to after-school tutoring companies have set off a wave of layoffs.
China’s National Bureau of Statistics said Monday that economic output from October through December was only 4 percent higher than during the same period a year earlier. That was a deceleration from the 4.9 percent growth in the third quarter, July through September.
The world’s demand for consumer electronics, furniture and other home comforts during the pandemic has produced record-setting exports for China, preventing its growth from stalling.
Note all the negative attributes sprinkled into nearly every sentence. China's economy must be in really bad shape.
Up to that point the piece has not mentioned its core data point - which is sensationally good and should have been in the headline.
That follows only now, after the reader has been sufficiently prepared to think it is actually bad. The sensationally good data point gets immediately dampened with another negative sentence.
Over all of last year, China’s economic output was 8.1 percent higher than in 2020, the government said. But much of the growth was in the first half of last year.
8.1% growth, after 2.3% growth in Covid 2020 seems excellent to me. It is beyond the 6% target the government had set and higher than previous estimates. For China it is the fastest growth rate in a decade.
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Overall the decades the GDP growth trend in China is moving down. This is normal for societies without population growth when they come near to their upper economic potential. In one or two decades China is likely to have consistent growth rates of around 2 to 4% with small recessions sprinkled in every now and then.
For now China's Central Bank is pushing for even higher growth:
China will open its monetary policy toolbox wider to maintain the stability of total credit, Liu Guoqiang, a deputy governor of the People's Bank of China (PBC), the country's central bank, said on Tuesday, vowing to roll out more pro-stability policies until the downward pressure on the economy is fundamentally eased.
...
In a fresh easing move, the PBC on Monday lowered the rate on seven-day reverse repurchase agreements by 10 basis points (bps) to 2.1 percent and cut the interest rate on the one-year medium-term lending facility (MLF) to 2.85 percent from 2.95 percent.The reduction in the two key policy rates was the first in about two years.
Moreover, according to Liu, commercial banks will submit optimal quotations for the loan prime rate (LPR) on Thursday. The LPR, the de facto benchmark lending rate, is updated on the 20th of every month, which falls on Thursday this time.
Unlike the 'western' central banks which printed money and lowered rates to under 0% to save their financial markets, China still has ways and means to expand its economy. Its building sector is overindebted and a bit shaky but will not be allowed to come crashing down.
The NYT tends to write in a negative tone about the economies of all perceived U.S. 'enemies'. It is a huge mistake as it leads to delusions in U.S. politicians and leaders.
When former Senator John McCain called Russia 'a gas station masquerading as a country' he demonstrated the effects of such indoctrination.
Russia is the worlds fourth biggest electricity producer directly behind the much bigger China, United States and India. It is number five in global steel production with only 2% less output than the United States. Its official GDP numbers in U.S. dollar look lower than Italy's. But an estimated one third of Russia's economy is running informal and off the books and, corrected for that, its GDP at purchase power parity is bigger than Germany's.
Readers of the New York Times and other U.S. media do not learn such things. That is why they underestimate what they are up to when they push for conflict with Russia or China. The lack of real knowledge about the world is what creates bad foreign policies.
Posted by b on January 18, 2022 at 18:30 UTC | Permalink
next page »the US mindset is governed by Lawyers and Accountants. This mindset rests upon the belief that Reality is mind borne. Ie. Faith and Belief are the cornerstones of Reality, not Objective Material Evidence. If enough people believe something, then it becomes Reality. Hence the delusional, wishful thinking reporting.
Posted by: mijj | Jan 18 2022 19:02 utc | 2
Peng sue, uighur genocide... they keep repeating the same lies to make it fact
Well the nazi's lost and goebles killed himself and his entire family so let's see what happens now.
Posted by: A.z | Jan 18 2022 19:10 utc | 3
The NYT is a tad bit negative but fair. China's economy has been slowing down in the last two quarters and 2022 will be challenging with the need to keep on lowering debt levels while GDP growth is kept above 5%.
I think you should spend more time on the astonishingly biased stuff and not this kind of stuff. Peng Shuai has been mentioned in the NYT around 100 times in the last 3 months. In the last 3 months during the Maxwell trial and after her conviction, has Bill Clinton been mentioned as linked to the girls who were sex trafficked by Maxwell? It's the best proof I've come across last year that the NYT is corrupt and a tool of ruling class and US foreign policy interests.
Posted by: crumble | Jan 18 2022 19:13 utc | 4
I agree with mijj @2 that these headlines reflect required delusional thinking to keep order within the empire. Inasmuch as did so much of our economy are financial services, which are primarily parasitic, and employ the most well off, it's a tactic that allows the plates to keep spinning, and well paid propagandists gainfully employed.
The problem is that much of the corruption is becoming too apparent. It seems a lot like the Soviet Union in its collapse.
Posted by: Michael.j | Jan 18 2022 19:27 utc | 5
- There is a saying "There are lies, bad lies and statistics". That applies to (almost) every country and also companies. But the chinese statistics are notoriously unreliable. What I do know is that China has a Debt-to-GDP ratio that's well above the same ratio for the US and the UK.
Posted by: Willy2 | Jan 18 2022 19:34 utc | 6
Now you know.
NYT can not be relied upon for objectivity.
Posted by: IronForge | Jan 18 2022 19:41 utc | 7
thanks b.... i don't want to get stuck in some alternative universe as prescribed by the nyt, wapo or any of these usa centric media outlets... nyt has been making a gradual transition to the prvada of the usa... why try to stop it?? why bother?? let them continue to indoctrinate anyone stupid enough to bother reading them! don't try to fight stupidity... humour is more fun.. see my example below..
the only thing missing here is having the poster hoyeru tell us what a pussy putin is for letting all this happen!
Posted by: james | Jan 18 2022 19:42 utc | 8
The Chinese have a nickname for the likes of gordon chang, the North American bureau chief of China's strategic foolyou agency. Thanks to their China collapse theory over the last two decades that the country has been able to keep its exponential growth under the radar, or what Deng Xiaoping called 'laying low and bidding your time'. Stories on the New York Times should be taken as entertainment rather than news.
Posted by: Cindy6 | Jan 18 2022 20:04 utc | 10
In 2020, the FIRE sector accounted for 22.3% of US GDP, while manufacturing was only 10.8%. FIRE was the largest single sector by a factor of 2. Therein lies a large piece of the story of why America is declining as an economic power.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/248004/percentage-added-to-the-us-gdp-by-industry/
Posted by: Rob | Jan 18 2022 20:08 utc | 11
There is also the point that China shifted to a "war footing" last year, with the crackdown on real estate, videogames and the tech giants and so on. Yet still achieved this impressive performance.
As for statistics, here is one.
The defence budget for Russia is about the same size as the defence budget for the UK.
I wonder who would win in a fight.
Posted by: John Cleary | Jan 18 2022 20:12 utc | 12
The US media is a massive disinformation campaign designed to serve the ends of empire. Making China (and pretty much everyone else) look like a failed state is supposed to make us appreciate the great U$A - despite declining life spans, health care managed by corporate death panels, never ending wars, rampant inflation largely due to monopolistic price gouging, a government that has utterly failed the citizenry, astronomical wealth disparity, infinite money in politics, imminent civil war, etc., etc., etc.
See how bad they have it in China!
Posted by: Black Cloud | Jan 18 2022 20:50 utc | 13
@Rob, #11:
I'm surprised that healthcare is only part of the education and social services sector, and their combined share is only 8.6% of GDP. Years ago I've heard that as a nation we spend 17-18% of GDP on healthcare. These figures don't jive.
And legal services are nowhere to be seen? I suppose it is imbedded into every other sector. The so-called legal expenditure is the most corrupt and wasteful economic activity of our society. We have one of the most unjust, most cumbersome, and least responsive system for resolving conflicts in the world, not to mention the intentional time lags between indictment and prosecution for criminals to wiggle and bribe their way out of incrimination 90+% of the time.
Seeing these figures reminds me of the cliche: figures don't lie; liar figures.
Posted by: Oriental Voice | Jan 18 2022 20:50 utc | 14
In other words media is not driving policy, rather it is driving citizens to support policy.
Posted by: Black Cloud | Jan 18 2022 20:52 utc | 15
The lack of real knowledge about the world is what creates bad foreign policies.
The vast majority of NYT and perhaps to a lesser extent WaPo readers have no power to direct foreign or domestic policy, as demonstrated by the Princeton (or Yale?) study from a few years ago that more than one MoA regular has posted here and there.
The NYT and again, to a lesser extent, the WaPo have been around a long long time and by now it's obvious what function they serve. Namely the following: Deflect for Wall Street crimes, Proselytize the up and coming PMC to accept Western imperial narratives as fact and therefore normalize (and launder) the pro-war messaging of the MISC (s is for surveillance) so that the PMC and those with whom that class has influence won't notice that both candidates in any given election have the same basic worldview and that real choice doesn't exist. This also serves to turn the regular guy plebes off from voting at all, so it's a win-win.
In short, it's simply imperial capitalist class propaganda directed inward at the professional managerial voting class so that they speak and vote in-line with directives in a self-amplifying and self-perpetuating feedback loop.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 18 2022 20:56 utc | 16
@ ld 9
b. you are preaching to the choir
Why sort of church do you go to? It's not preaching, it's a factual exposition -- big difference. Requires thinking.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jan 18 2022 20:59 utc | 17
@ Oriental Voice | Jan 18 2022 20:50 utc | 14.. i wonder if the legal expenditures is caught in the professional and business services window of robs link @11? that forms the 2nd largest % in that graph/link... i guess we need a further breakdown of what these categories include...
Posted by: james | Jan 18 2022 21:12 utc | 18
I should've been more clear in my post at 16. SOME readers of the NYT and WaPo DO have sway over foreign and domestic policy because they're politicians, members of the aristocracy/plutocracy (of the USA) or both. So it's also propaganda directed inward at them, and it's very effective as demonstrated by their past coverage of the Bolsheviks, Nazi Germany, the USSR/Stalin/Holodomor, the Korean Peninsula, Vietnam and of course Bush/Iraq, Obama and Trump. They're telling the owners and managers of the country what they want them to think and do. As many if not MoA readers also know, the NYT runs any foreign policy stories by Pentagram and SeeEyeAye censors prior to publication.
From wiki, how familiar does this look?
In 1920, Walter Lippmann and Charles Merz investigated the coverage of the Russian Revolution by The New York Times from 1917 to 1920. Their findings, published as a supplement of The New Republic, concluded that The New York Times' reporting was neither unbiased nor accurate, adding that the newspaper's news stories were not based on facts but "were determined by the hopes of the men who made up the news organizations." Lippmann and Merz alleged that the newspaper referred to events that had not taken place, atrocities that did not exist, and that it reported no fewer than 91 times that the Bolshevik regime was on the verge of collapse. "The news about Russia is an example of what people wanted to see, not what happened," Lippmann and Merz wrote. "The main censor and the main propagandist was the hope and fear in the minds of reporters and editors."
Here's the somewhat watered down list in its entirety.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_controversies_involving_The_New_York_Times
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 18 2022 21:16 utc | 19
The recent health problems have tested China but the country is moving on the right direction domestically and internationally.
domestically--
Rather than copying capitalist systems like that of the United States, the Chinese government has sought to create a system that, through various formal and informal channels, promotes connectivity between state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and nominally private Chinese enterprises. China’s leadership understands the challenges facing SOEs in being innovative and has built systems to address them. The push toward a state capitalist system—one in which ostensibly private Chinese firms compete alongside traditional SOEs—has put new and innovative Chinese companies on the global stage. The private firms Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent have managed to compete globally with multinational corporations in new and emerging high-tech fields by balancing state backing with private sector innovation and resources. Similarly, biotech giant BGI has managed to dominate the genetic sequencing industry via private investment and government subsidies and support. . .here
internationally--
The largest trade agreement in the world, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), comprising 15 nations (but not India nor the US) will lower tariffs for member economies that represent one third of the world’s GDP. The defining trait of this mega trade agreement is a recommitment to supply chain trade with lenient rules of origin that allow the cumulation of value across all members to qualify for tariff preferences. Intra-Asian trade and further coupling with the Chinese economy are in store. . . .here
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jan 18 2022 21:17 utc | 20
How about "you're kickin in open doors"
Posted by: blueswede | Jan 18 2022 21:26 utc | 21
I like that turn of phrase, but even if it's preaching to the choir or kicking in open doors, they're choirs and doors that need to be preached to and kicked in respectively. It has to be documented and analyzed publicly. When it comes to any USUK reporting on Russia, China, Cuba, Iran, etc. I always check with MoA and FAIR.org first.
I still remember the day I ran into rabid anti-Assadist Louis Proyect in the Salon.com comments section and cited a MoA article which was as usual very well sourced and linked. His only response was that "Moon of Alabama is anti-Semetic" (the conversation wasn't about Israel or Jews). I spent a few hours scouring through MoA archives and could find nothing, save one or two comments under stories to back up this assertion. so I knew then that b was making the right people uncomfortable enough to tell blatant slanderous lies and that the establishment DOES notice what gets said here.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 18 2022 21:39 utc | 22
Re 'Slanted Reporting' -- when was the last time when you heard or read the 'news leaders'- the NYT, Wapo, CNN. NBC; etc,etc - mention the Minsk Protocol?
Posted by: chet380 | Jan 18 2022 21:54 utc | 23
Meanwhile, not a word about the continuing decline in the Outlaw US Empire's GDP or the ongoing biggest financial crime ever. Some economic sectors don't reasonably rate the status they once did. Steel output is an excellent example that ought to be replaced by high-tech composites that are lighter and stronger than steel and its alloys. For example, from this 2020 listing of the top ten global carbon fiber manufacturers, we can see none are US corporations with three being German, and the remainder Japanese or Chinese; yet, carbon fiber and other composites are rapidly replacing steel and aluminum because they are more versatile, stronger, and lighter. Indeed, despite their rather poor reputation, petrochemical producers are becoming one of the top industries, something Russia with all its hydrocarbons is very keen to capitalize upon and thus further reduce its dependance on Western products and supply chains. A key point is most such industry relocated from the Outlaw US Empire when its feedstocks became too expensive during the 2000s.
There are further interesting idiosyncrasies within the Outlaw US Empire's manufacturing sector regarding capacity and utilization to be explored. Somehow, the USA's economic heartbeat continues but is faint and shallow. Given ongoing Neoliberalism, I don't expect that to improve.
Or when did you hear them mention the
"not one inch eastward"?
Posted by: blueswede | Jan 18 2022 22:19 utc | 25
@ Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 18 2022 21:39 utc | 22
Thanks Tom. I also came across the supposedly "far left" Louis Proyect, and he seemed to be very much a pseudo-left shill for the establishment. Unfortunately there seems to be a decent living to be had in that particular niche.
Posted by: Julian | Jan 18 2022 22:21 utc | 26
@james, #18:
You may be right the chart lumped legal services into professional and business services. But these days, with tax filing services, accounting services, consulting services, advertising services, etc., etc., 12.8% would also seem too low.
Never mind though :-), like I quipped, figures don't lie but liar figures. We have an economy here in the USA where real GDP is perhaps only 20% of the BIG numbers posted every year.
Your country, with natural resources as a main staple, does somewhat better.
Posted by: Oriental Voice | Jan 18 2022 22:24 utc | 27
Now if I was an AI based securities trader, I'd know exactly what I'd do: short or sell anything China. It seems written just for that.
Posted by: bobzibub | Jan 18 2022 23:04 utc | 28
An easier phase of growth involves moving underemployed villagers to industry and other higher added value jobs in cities. At some point, villagers are not underplayed anymore. The second growth component are raw materials, Chinese economy reached such size that further growth of demand leads to growth of prices of the imported materials and literally, to the import of inflation. It is not just China but the entire world experiences inflation that stems from raw materials, further growth requires restructuring the economy on national (in China) and global scale.
The parts of the restructuring that have to occur in the "collective West" seem to occur under the diktat of total idiots. The move away from fossil fuels is a good idea, IMHO. But this requires investment and choices, and the choices seem whimsical in various ways. Closing nuclear power stations that are already amortized seem an extreme folly: this source of energy offers very good net CO2 emission and cost, as almost all investments are done decades ago. And yet, it is being done in the name of "green romanticism" (thank you Friedrich von Schiller).
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 18 2022 23:11 utc | 29
@ John Cleary (12) The US just appropriated $770 billion for the Defense Department budget, which does not include funding of the intelligence services and other elements of the national security state. Russia's defense budget is between $60-65 billion per year. Which side do you think is getting more bang (literally) for the buck?
Posted by: Rob | Jan 18 2022 23:13 utc | 30
Tom Q Collins @ 22, Julian @ 26:
Louis Proyect has commented here at MoA and also infested Off-Guardian comments forums in past years. He certainly was a very unwelcome and sneering presence when he popped up (which thankfully wasn't often).
Proyect died in August last year.
Posted by: Jen | Jan 18 2022 23:27 utc | 31
IMO, the main message b is trying to get across is the big mistake of basing any policy on lies or other forms of falsehood, which is the basic mantra driving Russia and its top two diplomats, Putin and Lavrov. In his newest essay, "How the EU found itself excluded from talks on deciding Europe's future," Glenn Diesen employs that very mantra by showing what occurs when reality finally surfaces:
"In advance of the talks last week, Washington rhetorically agreed that European security cannot be decided over the heads of the EU and Ukraine, before then simply going ahead with the bilateral US-Russia format. Simply put, Washington cannot do diplomacy with Eurocrats in the room.
"The first reason is that the credibility of US security guarantees is juxtaposed with compromise. In 1962, President Kennedy and the Soviet Union reached an agreement to resolve the Cuban missile crisis, which stipulated that the US would remove its Jupiter missiles from Turkey in return for the Soviet Union removing its missiles from Cuba. Instead of celebrating the diplomatic efforts that prevented nuclear war, the US conditioned the agreement on it being kept a secret. Kennedy lied to the US public and its foreign allies. For two decades, the US public believed that the crisis had been solved by confronting Moscow in an uncompromising stance, which made the Soviets back down and grant victory to the US.
"Jack Matlock, the last US ambassador to the USSR, argues [As do many others. Link at original] that the US similarly rewrote history by claiming that the Cold War was 'won' by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, when in reality it was negotiated to an end in 1989 through compromise. According to Matlock, the consequence of US mythmaking is a national narrative in which peace is achieved by staring down and defeating its adversaries, while compromise is denounced as 'appeasement.' Consequently, actual diplomacy and compromise must be done behind closed doors." [My Emphasis]
Thus, we're finally told why the Outlaw US Empire is against any form of public diplomacy--so it can lie about it all later.
This is such an excellent article I'm very tempted to copy/paste it all, but that will just prompt b to delete it all. Of the many broken agreements and promises mentioned so far, here is yet another that shows why Putin would be led to think of trying to establish a united Europe that included Russia:
"The EU and Russia reached the pivotal EU-Russia Common Spaces Agreement in 2005, which committed [Link at original] both sides to pursue integration efforts towards the common neighborhood 'in a mutually beneficial manner, through close result-oriented EU-Russia collaboration and dialogue, thereby contributing effectively to creating a greater Europe without dividing lines'....
"Consequently, a divided Europe is destined to become increasingly irrelevant. Attempting to move the dividing lines incrementally towards Russian borders is fueling mutual sanctions and military conflicts, which results in Western Europe becoming more reliant on the US. Without strategic autonomy, EU-Russian relations will be hostage to US-Russian relations, to the extent the West Europeans have little to contribute. During the Cold War, the continent was at least the center of attention and a key priority for the US, while in the present era, EU members are becoming ever-more dependent on the US, which in turn is forced to prioritize East Asia as the center of gravity." [My Emphasis]
The lies and falsehoods have caused both the Outlaw US Empire and the EU to dig their own very deep holes from which the only way to extricate themselves is to finally acknowledge the Truth, apologize, swallow pride while ejecting any thoughts of being in a position of power, and pragmatically negotiate.
IMO, continuing to uphold the lies and falsehoods will eventually lead to war--and the same also applies to the cases of China and Taiwan, the Koreas, and Occupied Palestine. Unfortunately, IMO nobody in a position of power within the Outlaw US Empire or its vassals is aware of where the Truth lies, which makes the situation extremely dangerous with the Russians, Chinese, Koreans, and Palestinians and its allies all aware of the Truth and the many attempts to distort/destroy it.
says UK defense budget for 2021 was USD68 billion, so john is correct - UK and russia budget for this is very similar and less then 1/10th that of the usa's... janes article here - UK Defence Budget: Still a balancing act
Posted by: james | Jan 18 2022 23:35 utc | 33
This is going a bit off-topic though the general theme is that slanted reporting among major news media outlets and organisations occurs because these organisations are unwilling to bite the hand that feeds them and instead fawn over it.
Here's an interesting article on the Gates Foundation's influence on major news media organisations:
Journalism’s Gates keepers
"... As philanthropists increasingly fill in the funding gaps at news organizations—a role that is almost certain to expand in the media downturn following the coronavirus pandemic—an underexamined worry is how this will affect the ways newsrooms report on their benefactors. Nowhere does this concern loom larger than with the Gates Foundation, a leading donor to newsrooms and a frequent subject of favorable news coverage.[Article writer Tim Schwab] recently examined nearly twenty thousand charitable grants the Gates Foundation had made through the end of June and found more than $250 million going toward journalism. Recipients included news operations like the BBC, NBC, Al Jazeera, ProPublica, National Journal, The Guardian, Univision, Medium, the Financial Times, The Atlantic, the Texas Tribune, Gannett, Washington Monthly, Le Monde, and the Center for Investigative Reporting; charitable organizations affiliated with news outlets, like BBC Media Action and the New York Times’ Neediest Cases Fund; media companies such as Participant, whose documentary Waiting for “Superman” supports Gates’s agenda on charter schools; journalistic organizations such as the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, the National Press Foundation, and the International Center for Journalists; and a variety of other groups creating news content or working on journalism, such as the Leo Burnett Company, an ad agency that Gates commissioned to create a “news site” to promote the success of aid groups. In some cases, recipients say they distributed part of the funding as subgrants to other journalistic organizations—which makes it difficult to see the full picture of Gates’s funding into the fourth estate ..."
No wonder people think of the odious Bill Gates as a demigod figure!
Posted by: Jen | Jan 18 2022 23:39 utc | 34
Posted by: Julian | Jan 18 2022 22:21 utc | 26
and
Posted by: Jen | Jan 18 2022 23:27 utc | 31
Julian, Jen: I was getting ready to reply to your post when I saw Jen's. I was aware that Proyect was writing for a very small pet project called Washington Babylon (which I learned of from a MoA comment in the past) up until September or October of last year. I just checked there and there's an article with a video interview up called "Louis Proyect's Last Words" or something similar. Guess that's in reference to his having passed.
Even when he was still around and especially for the last 10 years, I found him far more often in various comments sections (including here now that Jen refreshed my memory) than I found published works from him. I concluded that he had to have been on *somebody's* payroll and that it must have been a State Department or CIA adjacent (or a hasbara outfit) because of the extremely low volume of actual work and his policing of comments at Salon and elsewhere.
He was definitely NOT "far left" by any stretch of the imagination if that entails being anti-war in some capacity. I don't think he commented much on anything other than his hatred of Assad and love of Israel.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 18 2022 23:39 utc | 35
re Louis Proyect @22 and @26
I also noticed that Louis Proyect was extremely anti Assad and surprisingly tolerant of American imperialism, all while posting as "The Unrepentant Marxist" on his eponymous blog. He was a frequent contributor to Counterpunch.
In case you were not aware, he passed away in August of 2021 at which point none other than Jeffrey St Clair wrote
"We lost another good friend today in Louis N. Proyect. ... Lou had his passions, Syria, being one, which often put him on the wrong side of many doctrinaire anti-Imperialists." (Emphasis is mine.)
which tells you a lot about the editorial slant at Counterpunch.
Posted by: spudski | Jan 18 2022 23:41 utc | 36
Apologies to Jen and Tom Q Collins - your posts that note Mr Proyect's demise were not showing when I began composing my submission.
Posted by: spudski | Jan 18 2022 23:46 utc | 37
I think the headline inverts the chain of events. Slanted reporting comes after as a justification and cover for bad foreign policies.
Posted by: Figleaf23 | Jan 18 2022 23:49 utc | 38
"China's economy is growing, but at what cost?"
Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Jan 18 2022 23:53 utc | 39
Louis Proyect was one of those "left wing" people like GorgeRise Mindbot who are the biggest supporters of imperialism. They're always calling for war. Jeff Danziger (a Vietnam war veteran "peace" cartoonist) is at least as bad and maybe worse.
Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Jan 18 2022 23:56 utc | 40
spudski | Jan 18 2022 23:41 utc | 36
Jeffrey St Clair wrote
"We lost another good friend today in Louis N. Proyect. ... Lou had his passions, Syria, being one, which often put him on the wrong side of many doctrinaire anti-Imperialists."
--------
as enjoyable as St Clair himself is, it's this of kind of stuff why i don't throw any spare change in CP's direction. There are a few others, but none as wretched as the Proyector.
Posted by: rjb1.5 | Jan 18 2022 23:57 utc | 41
among other things, this is part of the "China's covid policy is destroying the economy" narrative.
if the USG wanted Americans to get vaccinated, they should put the vaccines in the chicken. then while they are getting their growth hormones and antibiotics and gmo-grain fed gmo chicken of tomorrow chicken mcnuggets today w/the special sauce and grease fries, 95% of the population would be vaxxed, double vaxxed, or boosted in a week.
Posted by: rjb1.5 | Jan 19 2022 0:01 utc | 42
the GDP growth trend in China is moving down??
China's economy is accelerating.
You're confusing its rate of acceleration with growth itself.
China's GDP rate of acceleration was 9.4 percent in 2011 but will be only 8.5% this year.
In 2011, China's GDP grew by $1.2 trillion, but will grow by $2 trillion this year, because the base GDP in 2011 was $10.3 trillion, while this year it will be $20.2 trillion.
Please don't fall into the MSM trap of calling this a 'growth' rate.
There's no such thing as a growth rate. It's an acceleration rate.
"After decades of double-digit growth, the Chinese economy is slowing down".
No. Its economy is speeding up. Its rate of acceleration is changing.
Its GDP us growing faster than any economy in history has grown.
Its 2008 economy 'grew' 9.7%, but since its GDP was then $10 Tn, it grew by $0.97 Tn.
Next year, accelerating at 8%, it will add $2.4 trillion to its GDP, far more than the rest of the world combined.
Since China's population is unchanged, we can see that individual Chinese productivity has more than doubled in the intervening decade
Posted by: Godfree Roberts | Jan 19 2022 0:06 utc | 43
Today's Global Times editorial condemns the rich-poor inequality of our times.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202201/1246330.shtml
So, the top 10 richest people owns 6 times more wealth than the poorest 3.1 Billion. And here is what they think to be the culprit:
The extreme unfairness is largely due to the "floodgate of stimulus policies" adopted by the US and other developed countries, and the money for bailouts, through various mechanisms, was "legally" received by the rich people. In recent decades, a similar situation has repeatedly occurred whenever there is a global crisis, and it was the big Wall Street companies that took the subsidies of the US government during the 2008 international financial crisis. These subsidies did not translate into solutions to social problems including unemployment, but were instead used to pay out huge dividends to corporate executives, such as the reported record-breaking $29.7 billion in dividends from the three largest Wall Street banks, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. It eventually ignited the anger of the US underclass, leading to the "Occupy Wall Street" protest.
There, stated clearly in black and white: stimulus/loose-money policies are the means for the rich to 'legally' grab the societal wealth. The underclass can protest all they want, they can occupy Wall Street all they want, at the end of the day they don't mean a thing and they won't make no difference.
Posted by: Oriental Voice | Jan 19 2022 0:21 utc | 44
@Oriental Voice #14
The figure is low because the insurance aspect is separated out. The health insurance scammers are part of the FIRE category: finance, insurance and real estate.
Legal services is part of professional services. However, the total industry revenue is not really that high: $66B? $68B? out of the total professional services sector being in the $3T range.
I don't know how reliable the Statista data is - sometimes they're great, other times they're really far off. I have seen numerous estimates of FIRE being 40% of the US economy, not 25%, and that was at least 10 years ago.
Posted by: c1ue | Jan 19 2022 0:23 utc | 45
@c1ue, #44,
thanks for the embellishment of the statistical data. Yes, they tweet this and twist that, and one scratches one's head to make sense of what they are reading. It's accountants' specialty skill.
Posted by: Oriental Voice | Jan 19 2022 0:30 utc | 46
In my opinion, and as perusers of international affairs, as well as astute readers of the mainstream propaganda model which all the Western media now follow, I believe I/we can be sure of one thing (which b so nicely points out in bold in this article): That no matter how relatively good the governments of many of these global south/third world/developing nations or leaders or societies are, no matter what good alternatives they try or want to attempt, the NYT, WA Post, Financial Times, the Guardian, the WSJ et. al. will always and inevitably emphasize the 'faults' and 'failures' of these governments and economies, absolutely regardless of how much these governments and the people try to equalize the incredible injustices and vast inequalities which have basically been left to them as former colonies or dependencies and/or been foisted upon them by the World Bank, the IMF, the US Treasury and the overall dictatorship of the capitalist market system since WWII.
whether it is Russia post-Yeltsin, China under the CCP, Morales in Bolivia, Madero in Venezuela,, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, or even a very moderate progressive like Obrador in Mexico, etc etc etc, the capitalists as a Ruling Class and through their mouthpieces in all the Western mainstream media will always find fault and very very seldom give praise to any improvements under any of these progressive governments - which the Capitalist Class hasn't bought off or (yet) destroyed....
All of the above nations are under constant 'attack' and we can expect the same to continue for the foreseeable future, though I might be wrong
Posted by: michaelj72 | Jan 19 2022 0:39 utc | 47
Posted by: rjb1.5 | Jan 18 2022 23:57 utc | 41
St Clair, if it's the guy who puts together his "Roaming Charges" list over at Counterpunch every week, often writes good material. As with many 'liberal' (I can't say leftist per se, but maybe he is) pundits and whatnot, he got caught up in the florid and over-the-top language about all things Trump and thus some of his writings smack of hyperbole and hyper-wokeness (not that I disagree with him on many of the principals). I definitely don't think he backs the Democrats inasmuch as he writes about the working class and the environment.
I recalled a few other places where I ran into Proyect in comments: The Intercept before they closed them and FAIR.org. Always, always pro-regime change in the Middle East, anti-Russia and completely and tellingly silent on imperial capitalist plunder of South and Central America. I could be wrong but I think I remember him coming in on the 'side' of Random Guydo once or twice.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 19 2022 0:39 utc | 48
There, stated clearly in black and white: stimulus/loose-money policies are the means for the rich to 'legally' grab the societal wealth. The underclass can protest all they want, they can occupy Wall Street all they want, at the end of the day they don't mean a thing and they won't make no difference.
__________________________________________________________________
LOL there you have it.
Before covid and the collapse of 2008 came along the rich and the poor were on completely even footing - there was no wealth disparity. Its only the stimulus policies in response to those disruptions that have created wealth disparity.
The conclusion everyone must draw from that story is that workers must get back to work at whatever menial labor they can find and bust their asses doing that labor and then that will once again restore everything to the fair and equal distribution of societal wealth that existed before those disruptions came along.
Ha Ha ha... If you believe that story you are so stupid that you deserve to be robbed by the rich.
Posted by: jinn | Jan 19 2022 0:41 utc | 49
Posted by: c1ue | Jan 19 2022 0:23 utc | 44
The figure is low because the insurance aspect is separated out.
_____________________________________________
Yes, that and some of the 13% that is attributed to professional services is probably doctors fees.
The BEA says that healthcare share of GDP for 2020 was close to 20% of GDP
Posted by: jinn | Jan 19 2022 0:51 utc | 50
@Tom_Q_Collins #47
St. Clair is an unworthy successor at Counterpunch.
I don't care if someone hates Trump or is biased towards the Democrat party due to historical loyalty or what not, but it is inexcusable when a publication supposedly against the mainstream succumbs to woke nonsense. The quality of material there took a nosedive when St. Clair took over such that I never, ever read anything from there unless it is referenced elsewhere.
Posted by: c1ue | Jan 19 2022 1:03 utc | 51
@ Rob 30
The US just appropriated $770 billion for the Defense Department budget
No, the National Defense Authorization Act just passed doesn’t actually provide any money. So the Pentagon is operating by a Continuing Resolution at the 2021 level, $705 billion. The NDAA already passed calls for funding at $777.7 billion in fiscal year 2022. (all a waste of money)
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jan 19 2022 1:06 utc | 52
NYTIMES is very informative, if we use the correct FILTERS.
Posted by: Viktor K | Jan 19 2022 1:06 utc | 53
@jinn #49
20% seems high but who knows.
The real point is that America as a nation pays at least twice as much for health care, as a percentage of GDP, as anyone else and that it is transparently clear that health care in the US is not better unless you are able to afford a $50K/year health insurance premium (i.e. are rich).
As I have repeatedly stated: the health care scam is the biggest single parasite on the American people today.
The excess spending is in the $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion PER YEAR. This is far in excess of the entire MIC/Defense budget including VA and black appropriations.
Every single moment going by in which neither political party addresses this black hole is a condemnation of their very existence - indisputable proof that they are failing in their fiduciary duty to their own population.
Posted by: c1ue | Jan 19 2022 1:07 utc | 54
...from Reuters, Jan 17
Autocracies outdo democracies on public trust - survey
Jan 18 (Reuters) - Public trust in governments running the world's democracies has fallen to new lows over their handling of the pandemic and amid a widespread sense of economic pessimism, a global survey has found.
The Edelman Trust Barometer, which for two decades has polled thousands of people on trust in their governments, media, business and NGOs, conversely showed rising scores in several autocratic states, notably China. . .
The biggest losers of public trust over the last year were institutions in Germany, down 7 points to 46, Australia at 53 (-6), the Netherlands at 57 (-6), South Korea at 42 (-5) and the United States at 43 (-5).
By contrast, public trust in institutions in China stood at 83%, up 11 points, 76% in United Arab Emirates (+9) and 66% in Thailand (+5). . .here. . .h/t Peter Lee
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jan 19 2022 1:49 utc | 55
@ jinn | Jan 19 2022 0:41 utc | 48... you'd come across as less of a jackass if you spoke kindly to others while acknowledging who you were quoting.. i will continue to skip your posts henceforth..
Posted by: james | Jan 19 2022 1:50 utc | 56
Posted by: Rob | Jan 18 2022 20:08 utc | 11
---
In 2020, the FIRE sector accounted for 22.3% of US GDP, while manufacturing was only 10.8%. FIRE was the largest single sector by a factor of 2. Therein lies a large piece of the story of why America is declining as an economic power.
And how much of that 10.8% was the direct result of military industrial complex?
For the F-35A the ‘Gross Weapon Unit Cost’ in budget documents is $110 million per unit for 2021 with a total $1.7 trillion projected lifetime cost for the F-35 program.
According to Forbes the "F-35 fleet will be costing the Air Force $4.4 billion more annually to operate than it can afford."
Posted by: Sushi | Jan 19 2022 1:57 utc | 57
I guess you're now just finding out how the New York Times buries information.
The paper did this repeatedly with the Trump Russia Collusion narrative. 36 paragraphs into a sensational, speculative, groundless story there would be a paragraph, "As of yet there is no evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians."
The New York Times is simply not a credible paper.
Posted by: Offshoreguy | Jan 19 2022 2:02 utc | 58
. . .we're talking money here. . .
from AsiaTimes, Jan 18. . .
China is luring record levels of investment into the country’s technology sector, even as it clamps down on consumer-technology firms like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and ride-hailing company Didi Global Inc.
Unlike in previous years, when most Chinese tech funding went to internet startups in e-commerce, the bulk of the money in the past year headed into areas that hew more closely to Communist Party priorities, such as semiconductors, biotechnology and information technology.
Venture-capital investors put $129 billion into more than 5,300 startups in China in 2021, higher than the market’s last record of around $115 billion for 2018, according to data from investment database Preqin, which has tracked China venture-capital deals since 2000.. . .here
from WallStreetJournal, Jan 13 . . .
Taiwan's TSMC has announced the largest annual capital spending budget of any company in the history of the semiconductor industry.
The world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) foundry and semiconductor contract manufacturer plans to spend US$44 billion in 2022 to upgrade and expand its production capacity. That’s an increase of one-third or more from the $30 billion spent last year. . .here
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jan 19 2022 2:04 utc | 59
@ Sushi 56
F-35A the ‘Gross Weapon Unit Cost’ in budget documents is $110 million per unit
How about $176 or $208 million?
. . .from the web. . .
>The pilot ejected safely from the aircraft (sustaining non-life threatening injuries) while the aircraft, valued at $175,983,949, rolled, caught fire, and was completely destroyed...here
>UAE could get up to 50 F-35s in $10B sale . .$208 million per untested prototype fault-ridden not-ready-production jet -- what a deal! . ..here
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jan 19 2022 2:13 utc | 60
@c1ue, #53:
As I have repeatedly stated: the health care scam is the biggest single parasite on the American people today.
It's a toss up between the health care sector or the legal sector. But yes, they are parasites galore indeed!!!
Posted by: Oriental Voice | Jan 19 2022 2:31 utc | 61
Posted by: c1ue | Jan 19 2022 1:03 utc | 50
I wasn't aware he was a successor to anyone. Who did he take over for? When I used the term "woke" in that context, I meant from the typical 'white American conservative' perspective which views any discussions of US racial history or racial justice with contempt and applies the contemptuous "woke" label. I have by no means read all or even most of St Clair's commentary having only recently 'discovered' Counterpunch, but I haven't found anything he's written to be inaccurate lately. I presume, based on your previous commenting history, that you disagree with him on the global warming/climate change stuff?
Agree for the most part with your comment #53, however.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 19 2022 2:58 utc | 62
@Posted by: Oriental Voice | Jan 18 2022 20:50 utc | 14
@Posted by: c1ue | Jan 19 2022 0:23 utc | 44
@Posted by: jinn | Jan 19 2022 0:51 utc | 49
"The National Health Expenditure Accounts (NHEA) are the official estimates of total health care spending in the United States. Dating back to 1960, the NHEA measures annual U.S. expenditures for health care goods and services, public health activities, government administration, the net cost of health insurance, and investment related to health care. The data are presented by type of service, sources of funding, and type of sponsor.
U.S. health care spending grew 9.7 percent in 2020, reaching $4.1 trillion or $12,530 per person. As a share of the nation's Gross Domestic Product, health spending accounted for 19.7 percent."
Then add in the war budget, the rest of FIRE, all the oligopolistic profits (wireless, cable etc. way more expensive than Europe), then add in the understatement of inflation from the mid-1990s onwards and so much of US GDP is just crap and misrepresentation.
Posted by: Roger | Jan 19 2022 3:14 utc | 63
in other news, water is wet. Since when is it news that western media is propaganda?
And YES, Putin IS a pussy who hesitated 3 times cuz USA got him by the balls and he couldn't react correctly when USA stole Ukraine. He was so afraid he will get sanctioned he didnt react when he should have. And now he cant even make a simple move or the sanctions hammer will shatter Russia's spine. he is stuck and USA is loving it.
So James, tell me where my assessment is wrong. Personal attacks don't make a good argument, bud. I'll be waiting.
Posted by: Hoyeru | Jan 19 2022 3:18 utc | 64
James wrote:
you'd come across as less of a jackass if you spoke kindly to others while acknowledging who you were quoting.. i will continue to skip your posts henceforth..
________________________________________________
Well thank you James i always appreciate your kind words.
Posted by: jinn | Jan 19 2022 3:32 utc | 65
I'm certain everyone here knows it's really a distraction to either coverup bad policies, or to mislead the public to support bad policies that benefit only the few.
The kleptocracy is desperately trying to steer the general public away from anything related to socialism. They don't want the local population to look elsewhere for answers to their problems and suppress any urges to lash out at them.
Remember midterms is coming up and, the kleptocracy in the US need something negative to elevate their candidates.
Posted by: Ian2 | Jan 19 2022 3:51 utc | 66
>In one or two decades China is likely to have consistent growth rates of >around 2 to 4% with small recessions sprinkled in every now and then.
Reading here recently about the brand-new city of 6 million China is equipping for future researches, I've been studying up on ARPA and the once intergalactic network now know as the internet.
Since China already has a system of future plans running on a 5 year clock, who's to say that they won't seed that new city with 1,000..10,000 of their most accomplished ~25 year-olds and task them with assembling teams that burn for what they do. Like ARPA did in the 60s, but 100 times bigger.
Thousands of trillions could be added to world GDP from the tech coming out of that place every few years. That would end our planed-by-industry hunter-gatherer robber-baron approach to life and commerce.
With more networking as we go forward, I don't see them peak in your Timeframe. Not at all. Thats too incremental, too contiguous a projection for me.
Posted by: Michael | Jan 19 2022 4:04 utc | 67
I guess the 'preaching to the choir' & 'kicking an open door' comments stem from the fact that bulldust 'analysis' of PRC's economy have been a recurrent topic here at MoA for more than a decade. Late december used to be when NYT, WaPo WSJ etc began their trash talk of China's economy, but I guess the beating of war drums against Russia & the desperate efforts to distract from woeful public health policies have delayed that until mid January this year.
I get b's notion that the publication of these lies by establishment media engenders bad policy, although I'm not sure I agree with it.
After all someone has to decide and develop the sleazy mistruths in the first place, which requires that person to comprehend the actual reality. The odds of that someone being a mainstream hack are laughable. Mainstream hacks put what they are told to say into fancy prose, 'off-the-cuff' soundbites and easy to absorb graphics.
The mistruths are dreamed up higher up the old totem pole by types close to, if not actual, policy-makers.
So yes the middle managers & co likely believe all the tosh but I doubt the supreme string-pullers do, of course some believe their own bullshit after a time though when they do that they lose the ability to generate effective lies.
Counterpunch finally succeeded in pissing me off sufficiently to decide they will no longer cop my miserable donations ever again. This article by managing editor Joshua Franks was the one that done it. I was unaware of the man's existence until I came across the article, which is an attempt at pure unadulterated character assassination (of Jimmy Dore - one of several agin him pushed out in the same week by different media outlets which suggests Dore has the dems really worried. Good job Jimmy).
I have assumed that rather than the old way of flicking ten or twenty grand a year to CP and letting them do their usual of publishing a few pro dem stories among more cogent, researched & incisive articles about that hypocritical & corrupt half of the amerikan empire party, that the dems have put their foot down by upsizing the donation but insisting CP install a 'managing editor' to do what that creepette did at the Intercept.
Yet I went to the CP site just before knocking this missive out and found the leading articles were back to stuff that is incisive.
That just tells us that unlike the NYT, CP is smart enough to leaven its bullshit with facts, or that Franks is having a tough time trying to steer something as diverse a range of opinions as CP. Not to worry I'm still not gonna pay for Jimmy Dore's failed assassins.
Posted by: Debsisdead | Jan 19 2022 4:10 utc | 68
karlof1 @ 32 stated;
''The lies and falsehoods have caused both the Outlaw US Empire and the EU to dig their own very deep holes from which the only way to extricate themselves is to finally acknowledge the Truth, apologize, swallow pride while ejecting any thoughts of being in a position of power, and pragmatically negotiate.''
Great post, thanks, but, don't hold your breath until the above correct scenario takes place.
Posted by: vetinLA | Jan 19 2022 4:17 utc | 69
Willy2 & 6
Way to confuse Total Social Financing (central government debt, local government debt to the central government, corporate debt and personal debt) with Central Government Debt. That's like comparing whole apples with apple slices.
Posted by: NML | Jan 19 2022 4:48 utc | 70
hoyeru - perhaps you can converse with jinn... good luck!~
Posted by: james | Jan 19 2022 4:57 utc | 71
Thanks b. The MSM on many occasions distort China's economic success. At the same time they under report on the crimes of the too big to fail Wall Street Banks. Pamela and Russ Martens story from yesterday's Wall Street on Parade states that the Fed's QE bailout for these banks may be at 48 Trillion (up from 8.8 trillion). This taking place from Sept. 2019 thru July 2020. If they are correct this would be 3X the amount printed by the Fed 11 years ago. Thank you Karlof for referencing this site in your previous comments.
Posted by: Michael Crockett | Jan 19 2022 5:04 utc | 72
Let me correct my post@71. Not 48 trillion but actually 19.87 trillion. My apologies to the bar.
Posted by: Michael Crockett | Jan 19 2022 5:48 utc | 73
Rereading it appears the 19.87 trillion is for the fourth quarter of 2019. I am not sure about the data for the first six months of 2020.
Posted by: Michael Crockett | Jan 19 2022 6:41 utc | 74
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jan 19 2022 2:13 utc | 59
Good catch!
I was only off by $98 million per unit. I can think of no better use for that money than the purchase of military hardware which rolls over, catches fire, and self destructs.
Still is a lesser cost than the $48 Trillion cost of keeping a few banks afloat. Ooops. I meant $19.87 Trillion a quarter x four or $79.48 Trillion per year. I'm beginning to think I should be working at the NYT.
Cheers!
Posted by: Sushi | Jan 19 2022 7:14 utc | 75
Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 19 2022 2:58 utc | 61
I wasn't aware he was a successor to anyone. Who did he take over for?
Counterpunch was formerly edited by Alex Cockburn, elder brother of Patrick Cockburn (journalist). After Alex passed away and Jeffrey St Clair took over as editor, I found the editorial content drifting in a direction I didn't agree with.
B's effort at objectivity is refreshing, and in my view usually very successful; the comments section entertaining and often informative if I dwell long enough.
Posted by: Cantab | Jan 19 2022 7:17 utc | 76
Debsisdead | 67
Counterpunch finally succeeded in pissing me off sufficiently to decide they will no longer cop my miserable donations ever again. This article by managing editor Joshua Franks was the one that done it.
What made that article weird was that I remember back in the day Counterpunch was big on the whole vaccines-cause-autism* thing and condemning big Pharma for poisoning the children.
It's interesting to note how all that's turned around and now vaccines are an unalloyed good and big Pharm are terrific guys.
I don't know if it was the change in leadership or something else that caused the switch. Both positions come across as just opportunistic.
Agree about the character assassination.
* A claim I always considered bogus, incidentally. But then, I work in the field and so might be considered to be biased by actual knowledge and research.
Posted by: Kukulkan | Jan 19 2022 7:28 utc | 77
Debsisdead | Jan 19 2022 4:10 utc | 67
CP has been dropping in my line-up of bookmarks for quite some time. That same article by J. Frank
dropped it off the page. Yeah, what a blatant hit piece on J Dore & R. Kennedy jr.! Jeffrey St. Clair
has a nice wit about him but not enough to keep me around. 'CounterFluff' as gordog labeled it.
(btw, someone asked, St. Clair was a co-founder along with Alex Cockburn and continued on after Alex died.)
It's just another rag now. I agree it's prolly been co-opted.
Love Jimmy Dore, especially when I have the time to put up with his presentation style. Same with Mercouris.
Posted by: waynorinorway | Jan 19 2022 7:34 utc | 78
Cantab @75 & Kukulkan @76, please excuse me, I didn't refresh before I posted.
Posted by: waynorinorway | Jan 19 2022 7:38 utc | 79
It is completely impossible that China, or any developed country, will be growing at %2 in two decades. There are many ways of measuring peak oil; the most useful is the total energy from oil available to the rest of the economy once the oil industry's own consumption has been accounted for. That has been falling for decades and explains why standard of living (as opposed to GDP based on inflated money) has been falling for years and will continue to fall for decades more.
Posted by: Tim | Jan 19 2022 8:45 utc | 80
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jan 19 2022 1:49 utc | 54 -- "...from Reuters, Jan 17: Autocracies outdo democracies on public trust...."
That headline is yet another example of misleading slant by the MSM propaganda mills.
It is not autocracies or democracies per se that the public trusts or distrusts.
People instinctually know to trust those governments that work FOR them, and to distrust those that work AGAINST them.
So here is how I would fix that headline: "Good governance outdoes bad governance on public trust."
But of course Reuters will NEVER agree. They secure their position in the propaganda universe by pretending all of life on Earth is about the GOOD democracies vs the BAD autocracies.
Posted by: kiwiklown | Jan 19 2022 9:10 utc | 81
the US Ruling Class and its elites simply can't stand the thought that China is now on par with (or has surpassed) the US economy, and that Russia has weapons that can whip the pants off of the US and nato combined.
the Elites simply don't want to believe it... and are in Denial, big time.
China actually you know like produces things, while the US economy has been largely hollowed out, financialized and taken over by the parasitic non-productive FIRE sector
as an aside, counterPunch is one of the few left-wing places I can find really good articles on global warming etc etc (such as this recent one counterpunch.org/2022/01/14/the-oceans-are-overheating/ ) & which also many times have terrific links/references. So I still visit from time to time.
Posted by: michaelj72 | Jan 19 2022 11:49 utc | 82
Posted by: michaelj72 | Jan 19 2022 11:49 utc | 81
Agree, CounterPunch went all in on the political wars here, and COVID, but still good on ecological issues and support for the previous owners of the continent. I imagine is it easy to get misled down there in Petrolia.
Posted by: Bemildred | Jan 19 2022 12:05 utc | 83
"Readers of the New York Times and other U.S. media do not learn such things. That is why they underestimate what they are up to when they push for conflict with Russia or China. The lack of real knowledge about the world is what creates bad foreign policies."
And bad foreign policies contribute to the collapse of the nation making those said policies.
Posted by: Rufus Arrr | Jan 19 2022 12:48 utc | 84
Speaking about China... I have just posted my article on what it is like experiencing a Social Credit Score decline when you are inside a Coronavirus outbreak. I think that the entire article will be enlightening for many MoA readers, and nothing like you would ever see in the "Western news".
https://metallicman.com/chinas-social-scoring-system-as-used-to-control-coronavirus-outbreaks-a-first-hand-account/
Posted by: Rufus Arrr | Jan 19 2022 12:53 utc | 85
...more slanted reporting by the New York Times
Here's a long article out this week from the NYT with a lot of detail about the suffering in Donbas but lacking most of the facts about how things happened.
There's nothing about the US-led coup featuring Nuland and McCain, nothing about the neo-Nazis, nothing about Russia's naval port and ethnic Russians in Crimea, and Russia giving away Crimea sixty years ago, nothing about UN Resolution 2202(2015), nothing about US "iron-clad" support of the failed government which the US created.. . . No, it's: "Russian belligerence has drawn the world’s attention back to the eight-year-old secessionist rebellion in the Donbas region: a deadlocked, time-warped conflict with no end in sight.."
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jan 19 2022 13:17 utc | 87
Rufus Arrr | Jan 19 2022 13:04 utc | 85
seen from your eyes China is not that much different from being in the US Military. The part about putting down pets would be included, I remember from Emergency Evacuation Order drills that pets would be euthanized when their humans were removed from the area. Sadly even the military does not have a requirement to visit ones elders.
So yes, I suppose order and discipline are good things and seem to be working well for China. The rebel in me still cannot accept that lifestyle, I grew up in a time when people hitchhiked from coast to coast and never had to show their "papers". I was also raised with our heroes being rugged individualists and we always rooted for the underdog. Your description reminds me of the Borg where resistance is futile. As attractive and effective this style of government is it still makes me very uncomfortable.
thanks for sharing. I will explore some more of your site now.
Posted by: dan of steele | Jan 19 2022 13:45 utc | 88
@ dan of steele 87
order and discipline are good things and seem to be working well for China. The rebel in me still cannot accept that lifestyle
That's correct. Chinese for thousands of years have valued order and discipline, coming from Confucius who promoted ethics, good behavior, and moral character. The politicians in Washington are still hoping that Chinese will some day be like us, "rugged individualists," and it's not ever going to happen especially now when the rugged individualist thing seems to be a large detriment on the national scene.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jan 19 2022 13:59 utc | 89
Rufus Arrr @85
Sir, may I point out a typo on the cited page
"Why so many people have this negative idea aobut the social credit scoring system…"
'about' is mis-spelled, I guess so..
Thank you
Posted by: R | Jan 19 2022 14:14 utc | 90
o/t ... EU natgas
* Moldova has another standoff. National utility company can't make contractual payment due 20Jan. Asked for extension but Gazprom rejected (they're already getting a big discount). Gov't issues state of emergency. Situation complicated by 50% ownership of Moldovan gas utility by Gazprom, making responsibility unclear.
* EU (TTF) ICE futures for next winter 2022-2023, range around €60's /TWh, found some support on the charts. Marginally relaxed signal actually, compared to the heated language coming from the diplomats
* Talk of "shutting down NS2"... um, they never started it. IMHO no real intention of doing so
Posted by: ptb | Jan 19 2022 14:51 utc | 91
Good piece. A note on American ‘press’. The proverbial 4th estate (aka corporate media) in the US is dominated by 6 large corporations- National Amusements, Disney, Time Warner, Comcast, News Corp and Sony; combined net worth $430 billion (See: https://www.webfx.com/blog/internet/the-6-companies-that-own-almost-all-media-infographic). Like other large corporations, media conglomerates have the same class interests as Wall St and thus, serve as the ‘ministry of propaganda’ to promote policies which increase corporate power and profits and maintain US global hegemony. The paper of record (NYT) and Washington Post are little more than sounding board for the US ruling elite and thus, function primarily as the ‘ministry of propaganda’ for large financial interests. David Sanger is chief Washington correspondent for the NYT and also member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), whose members include corporate executives, bankers, and other representatives of the ruling elite. The ruling elite are enraged the Russia-China-Iran axis has obtained military and economic parity with the US and has become an increasingly assertive obstacle to US global power. The NYT and other corporate media outlets spew out an endless stream of propaganda and nonsense against China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, DPRK (N Korea) and any other nation that defies the American empire.
Rufus #85
I live in Anyang where we have extremely strict lockdown because a district as an outbreak, and a nearby small city, Tangyin, has a cluster fuck outbreak caused by students returning from Tianjin.
8th day of lockdown with whole city deserted. No cars allowed unless with letter of authorization. No entry/exit from residential compounds from 7am-7pm. The night entry is only for 1 hour and ends at 8pm. Nobody is allowed downstairs. And we in Evergrande has a big beautiful garden!
ALL shops shut under threat of heavy fine. All pharmacies and minimarts, supermarkets are closed and not allowed to sell directly. So everyone is buying via apps.
The Green Code you showed is the general health status provided by telcos based on your cell phone locations over 14 days. There's no vaccination status in it.
The vaccination status is on the national app which is more used for those traveling outside of their province.
People have been arrested by police for refusing to be lockdown but those are not beaten or maced like in Australia or the west.
Tomorrow will be the 9th nucleic test. I hope the lockdown will be lifted as it's only 1 district with outbreak and no other cases outside of it.
Posted by: Surferket | Jan 19 2022 15:16 utc | 93
Posted by: Tim | Jan 19 2022 8:45 utc | 79There are many ways of measuring peak oil; the most useful is the total energy from oil available to the rest of the economy once the oil industry's own consumption has been accounted for.
A second critical calculation is Energy Available for Export (EAE). The US for example seeks to export NGL to Europe. But the amount of such energy available for export is dependent on the producer state having energy flows surplus to its own domestic needs.
Many of the ME oil kingdoms seek to "industrialize." So KSA and UAE are focused on becoming transport or tourist or business hubs which means they will require an increased share of domestic production to support domestic consumption. This results in a decline in the energy available for export.
A producing nation may come to face a conflict between keeping the lights on in the Abu Dhabi office towers, or obtaining the foreign income associated with energy sales. Some domestic demand may be highly inelastic especially the energy required to extract and process hydrocarbons (KSA) and other critical uses (running seawater distillation plants to provide agricultural water and/or potable water).
Where it begins to get interesting is the effect of global market pricing. A hypothetical - The US builds market share and sells increasing amounts of NGL to Europe. The US then suffers a production decline, or a sudden domestic demand increase due to extreme cold (or extreme heat and AC usage), and no longer has a domestic export surplus.
It can be anticipated that the Europeans would then bid up the price to attract US NGL shipments. Capitalism is based on response to market pricing. Should the EU bid up the price the available surplus would depart the US resulting in domestic consumers increasing their bid for available supply.
I think you can see where this is going. Having seen the impacts of the 1970's OPEC embargo (many of these effects never made it into the media) I think it likely there may be a future similar scenario.
In the event of any form of conflict there certainly will be such a hike as energy is critical to any modern military and energy storage and transport facilities will become key targets.
Cheers!
Posted by: Sushi | Jan 19 2022 15:19 utc | 94
Electric Vehicle production and sales in China exploded last year and were highest in December. The correction in real estate is overdue and good news despite being a drag on growth statistics.
U.S. media skews all news toward bad news. Domestic economic, pandemic and other reporting are not exceptional. Maybe it's a bit more skewed for China and Russia, but all the news that's fit to print skews negative. Broadcast news is even worse.
Posted by: Martin Brock | Jan 19 2022 15:26 utc | 95
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jan 19 2022 13:17 utc | 86
Also no mention of the fact the outbreak of Donbass revolt was sparked by a
Ukrainian SU-25 Frogfoot ground attack aircraft killing civilians. The SU-25 came in over a (Lugansk?)city centre park firing its cannon and killed 8 persons standing on the steps of the civic building. To the best of my knowledge there was no prior conflict at the time. This video was presented on You-Tube but has since been disappeared (the disappearance of inconvenient evidence is another hallmark of western democracy).
Also no mention of a major unprovoked attack in Odessa where Ukrainian militia surrounded, trapped, and then burned to death the occupants of a major civic building. Video at one time posted to You-tube showed the charred building interior and the bodies of secretarial staff stripped naked, raped, then strangled with their own telephone cord before being incinerated.
Ukrainian militia repeatedly voiced the need to exterminate the "rats" - the Russian language population located in the Donbass. The response to these provocations was the two provinces acting to protect themselves by declaring independence. They later received RF support.
I have not found any useful English language history of these events as I doubt it is in Western interests to publish such a history. "Fuck the EU"
Posted by: Sushi | Jan 19 2022 15:37 utc | 96
Good work. A good report I can link to social media.
Most Americans are utterly convinced they are well informed, thanks to the "free press." We got "both sides" reported, after all. This failure of imagination boggles my mind nowadays. However 55 years ago, early in elementary school, I had the strong impression from my school books and TV that only Americans had cities and didn't live in grass huts.
Recently a "well informed" friend of mine, who spends hours a day forwarding news stories from online sources (mostly Yahoo News) to all his friends, gave a thumbs down to a comment I sent him regarding Ukraine which included a few sentences about the referendum in Crimea, and comparing it to the non-referendums in places reorganized by western forces, such as Bosnia.
He railed against the referendum, saying it was absolutely phoney, conducted by Russians, with Russians counting the votes. No vote ever goes 95%.
We'd had this argument many times before, and he simply erases from his memory whatever I said the last time. This time I forwarded the long list reported in Wikipedia of post-referendum surveys conducted by Gallop, Pew Research, German firms, US professors, etc., all pointing to the fact that the Crimean referendum well represented the feelings of Crimeans as a whole, then and since, with even Tartars coming to view the new regime as better than before.
But I know it takes a while to get past seeing others only in grass huts, and some won't ever.
Posted by: Charles Peterson | Jan 19 2022 16:35 utc | 97
Debsisdead @67: "After all someone has to decide and develop the sleazy mistruths in the first place, which requires that person to comprehend the actual reality."
True horror lies in the realization that you are wrong here. There is no natural law that requires a deliberately false narrative (worldview) be built upon a foundation of accurate perception. The people running the show and crafting today's sleazy mistruths have themselves consumed yesterday's mistruths and internalized them. The people providing what passes for leadership in the West have "gone off the rails" long ago and are now cruising around in reality bubbles of their own making.
Wealth buys one insulation from reality. At the lower end that means footwear and set of clothing to protect one from weather and rough terrain. Hunger is the standard condition in the natural world so some wealthy buys you distance from that too. If one has a hand in producing that clothing and food then the process of that production will keep one in touch with reality even as the insulation those products provide protects from reality.
Labor thus restores the link to reality that insulation from the harsher aspects of reality weakens. Unfortunately, the degree of restoration declines the further one is from the "feet-in-the-furrows" level of labor.
At the other extreme, high finance capitalists, and even their most trusted lieutenants and strategists, are as distant from this grounding in reality as technology and culture allow... and modern technology and culture enable complete divorce from reality for those who can afford it. At this level one is not just insulated from reality by clothing and all of the food one could ever want, but also by armies of yes-men (and yes-women) who are eager to tell the boss whatever they want to hear; armies of sycophants who themselves are overly insulated and distant from reality.
The horror lies in the realization that these are the people calling the shots in the West.
This condition creates a contradiction, though. The people responsible for generating the narratives du jour have slipped their anchor to reality and are spiraling off into the distance, chasing their own narrative tails. Meanwhile a portion of the population still works in real production jobs and so are not really free to follow the fantasy narratives they are being fed ("Fiery But Peaceful Protests" versus "Unarmed But Violent White Supremacist Insurrection", for example). This contradiction gives rise to the current cultural diversion between the salt-of-the-Earth deplorables and the elite Professional/Managerial class.
In any case, the reason to automatically assume that the elites have a solid grip on reality is because the alternative is too frightening. Arguments like "They wouldn't start a war because it wouldn't be in their best interests!" do not apply because the leadership in the West is so far detached from reality that they no longer can tell what is in their own best interests. We are being led by people who are not only blindingly incompetent, but who dismiss the evidence of their own senses if it contradicts their delusion.
And they have atom bombs.
It cannot be overstated that this is a very precarious time for humanity.
Posted by: William Gruff | Jan 19 2022 16:44 utc | 98
Emergency statement of the People's Militia of the DPR dated 01/19/2022.
- The Ukrainian regime is preparing a series of sabotage/terrorist attacks on the territory of the People's Republics near the line of contact between the parties.
- Transformer substations, water and gas pipelines, power lines will be attacked. In the future, it is planned to carry out a number of terrorist attacks on industrial facilities with hazardous chemical production.
- The attacks are planned to be carried out under the guise of military personnel of the People's Militia of the DPR and special operations forces of the armed forces of the Russian Federation.
- In order to carry out sabotage, the Ukrainian side has formed six sabotage groups. They were trained by British specialists. After the sabotage, information and psychological operations forces [of Ukraine] will distribute video materials of "interrogations" of servicemen of the People's Militia of the DPR who allegedly went over to the side of Ukraine, which will "confirm" the participation of Russian special operations forces in terrorist acts on the territories of the Donbass Republics.
-
Well, everything is as expected. Ukrainian terrorists, apparently, will [again] attack the Donbass, disguised as the "Russian army". The false flag operation that the US is so "worried" about, and which Russia is credited with "preparing". The habitual and traditional method of American propaganda - to accuse the enemy of what you are doing yourself. Banal and predictable, heh. Useful life hack - listen to American statements and turn everything upside down - then you will get the truth.
Emergency statement of the People's Militia of the DPR dated 01/19/2022.
- The Ukrainian regime is preparing a series of sabotage/terrorist attacks on the territory of the People's Republics near the line of contact between the parties.
- Transformer substations, water and gas pipelines, power lines will be attacked. In the future, it is planned to carry out a number of terrorist attacks on industrial facilities with hazardous chemical production.
- The attacks are planned to be carried out under the guise of military personnel of the People's Militia of the DPR and special operations forces of the armed forces of the Russian Federation.
- In order to carry out sabotage, the Ukrainian side has formed six sabotage groups. They were trained by British specialists. After the sabotage, information and psychological operations forces [of Ukraine] will distribute video materials of "interrogations" of servicemen of the People's Militia of the DPR who allegedly went over to the side of Ukraine, which will "confirm" the participation of Russian special operations forces in terrorist acts on the territories of the Donbass Republics.
-
Well, everything is as expected. Ukrainian terrorists, apparently, will [again] attack the Donbass, disguised as the "Russian army". The false flag operation that the US is so "worried" about, and which Russia is credited with "preparing". The habitual and traditional method of American propaganda - to accuse the enemy of what you are doing yourself. Banal and predictable, heh. Useful life hack - listen to American statements and turn everything upside down - then you will get the truth.
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China GDP growth during COVID of 2.3% and 8.1% - an average of 5.2%
US GDP growth 2020 -3.5% and forecast to rise 5.6% in 2021 - an average of 1.05%
EU GDP growth 2020 -6.1% and forecast to rise 4.2% in 2021 - an average of -0.95%
Japan GDP growth 2020 -4.8% and forecast to rise 1.8% in 2021 - an average of -1.5%
P.S. Russia GDP was -3% in 2020 and 4.3% in 2021 - an average of 1.15%, easily beating the EU and Japan and even just better than the US.
I think that the US and EU 2021 forecasts are a little bit high given the latest data for Q4 (retail sales, car sales), but even the above is very telling. China got a growth jump on its main competitors over 2020 and 2021 of 4+% vs. the US, 6+% vs. the EU and nearly 7% vs. Japan. EU and Japanese GDP has pretty much stagnated for the past decade and may well continue to do the same as China continues to grow at 5% for the next decade.
The underlying story is the continued faster growth in China vs. the West, with the Chinese economy becoming equal (on a PPP basis) to that of the US+EU+Japan around 2030. One also has to take into account that the Chinese economy is much more oriented around actually producing things rather than "producing" rentier financial returns and bullshit that is counted as GDP (e.g. the US sick care sector). Together with the Chinese dominance of many of the new technology sectors this will drive large geopolitical and geoeconomics changes this decade.
2022 forecasts: China 5%; US 3.5%; EU 4.3%; Russia 2.5%, before returning to trend growth rates (i.e. EU and Russia relatively slow, US a little bit faster, China with a 3% yearly advantage compounding over the years).
Posted by: Roger | Jan 18 2022 19:01 utc | 1