You accurately state:
Free trade� is actually a “race to the bottom� which can only be detrimental to the true human condition. Expecting first-world wage rates to compete with third-world wage rates never works.
I would hope that people would start to see that Henry Ford was absolutely correct when he blamed the banksters, vulture capitalists, and wall street types for the economic conditions, not only in the USA, but the world.
People such as “Mitt� Romney whose only expertise is to disassemble viable companies and industries, selling off the assets individually to maximize their “profits� need to be exposed and “run out of town�.
How different the world would be if capitalism followed the Ford model rather than the banking, venture capital, Wall Street and shareholder only value model.

Free trade� is actually a “race to the bottom� which can only be detrimental to the true human condition.

Let’s get something straight. No one disagrees that what is happening now is a disaster for the working poor and the middle class.
But what you’re living through now is NOT FREE MARKET CAPITALISM.

Sure, they’re claiming that all manner of allegedly ‘Free Trade Agreements’ like NAFTA are in place, in the same way that they said you were unpatriotic if you didn’t support the Patriot Act in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.
Similarly, just because the CARES Act came into fruition during Obama’s tenure, it didn’t result in better care for Americans.

In a Free Market there are NO BARRIERS to competition, there are no government enacted regulatory impediments that prevent new entrants (who are more innovative, less greedy, more concerned with providing customer satisfaction), from taking market share away from the established oligarchs.

There is NO FREE MARKET IN THE U.S TODAY – hence the reason for the exacerbated income disparity.

Simply put, there is a MINE FIELD OF BARRIERS to prevent new entrants taking market share away from the established oligarchs. This entails the consumers get LESS, WHILE PAYING MORE – hence the reason why they can’t make ends meet.
Think about it. In the past in the U.S (and in Australia where I’m from), the man of the house, often times a labourer or lowly skilled worker could, ON HIS WAGE ALONE, afford to pay off the mortgage on his home, own a car and have money left over for a rainy day, while the wife stayed home and looked after the kids.
That was a time when some semblance of Capitalism existed, when ZOG had not yet usurped complete power over government and academia. Not so today.

Now, getting back to Henry Ford’s decision to increase wages to $5 per day, let’s put that in context. It was a rational decision to MAXIMISE PROFITS – no more, no less.
You cannot increase wages in a vacuum – they need to come out of profits. And because Ford was massively investing in capital equipment, THIS INVESTMENT enabled productivity per worker to increase, thus enabling wages to grow while simultaneously increasing profits.
Simply put, you CANNOT increase productivity per worker without that capital investment.

So let me explain the role of CAPITAL INVESTMENT in an advanced economy.
What I mainly refer to is Capital Investment in PLANT & MACHINERY that increases the PRODUCTIVE OUTPUT of that society.

Let’s begin by winding the clock back 100,000 years to primitive hunter/gatherer societies.
As primitive as they were, even they knew to bury their dead – as a rotting corpse left above ground would lead to an outbreak of disease.
Here is a timeline of technological progression :

1) Ancient societies would dig a hole in the ground BY HAND, and bury the deceased when they perished in this labour intensive way.

2) Some thousands of years later as they became more sophisticated, to expedite the digging progress, crude tools were invented that resembled a modern day SPADE, and the digging process could be done much faster than before.

3) Later still, the SHOVEL was invented and the digging could be done an order of magnitude quicker still.

4) Fast forward to the 20th century and a large modern diesel powered EXCAVATOR could dig a massive hole in a single day, that would otherwise have taken One Thousand Men a whole month to undertake in the distant past.

THE REASON THAT HENRY FORD and OTHER CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY COULD AFFORD TO PAY THE HIGHEST WAGES IN THE WORLD IN THE EARLY 20th CENTURY WAS BECAUSE AMERICAN WORKERS WERE MORE PRODUCTIVE THAN WORKERS IN OTHER COUNTRIES.

Hang on, some will say, American workers didn’t work nearly as hard during their 8 hour shift than say, for example, a Mexican that TOILED IN THE SUN DURING HIS 12 HOUR SHIFT, engaged in some back breaking work.
Clearly, they’ll say, the Mexican ‘worked harder’ and therefore was ‘more productive’.

In fact NOT SO.
The productivity of a worker is measured by his OUTPUT – not be the amount of sweat on his brow.

Henry Ford made a ton of money in the early 20th century, but a SIGNIFICANT PROPORTION OF SAID PROFITS were reinvested in CAPITAL EQUIPMENT & MACHINERY (as well as R & D) THAT ENABLED HIS WORKERS TO BE MORE PRODUCTIVE.

In other words, it was the ENTREPRENEURIAL SKILL of Henry Ford that ENABLED HIS WORKERS TO GET THE HIGHEST WAGES IN THE WORLD.

Absent Henry Ford’s streamlining of the production process through specialised assembly lines and mass production with the LATEST PLANT & MACHINERY, it would NOT have been possible to double the workers wages to $5/day.
So, fast forward to today.

WHY HAS THE PRODUCTIVITY OF AMERICAN MANUFACTURING GONE DOWN TO THE POINT THAT A SINGLE INCOME IS NOT SUFFICIENT TO RAISE A FAMILY ?

And the answer is simple. THERE IS NO MORE CAPITALISM BEING PRACTISED AS WAS THE CASE IN HENRY FORD’S BOOM TIMES.

Today there is a crushing regulatory framework compounded by PUNITIVE TAXES that result in LESS AFTER TAX INCOME THAT COULD BE UTILISED TO INVEST IN CAPITAL EQUIPMENT.
Worst of all, profits of the large corporations are being squandered on SHARE BUY-BACKS instead of being reinvested in plant and machinery/R & D, which would enable U.S manufactured output to compete with the world’s best and in the process enable HIGH WAGES.

Take a look at this article from 2018 titled ‘U.S. companies spent record $1 trillion buying back own stock this year’ :

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/copmanies-spent-record-1-trillion-buying-back-their-own-stock-this-year/

You read right – that’s ONE TRILLION DOLLARS spent on share buy-backs in ONE YEAR alone.
Since the 2008/09 GFC, well north of of $ 10 trillion has been spent on share buy-backs.
Worse still, much of that is BORROWED MONEY.

In recent times, American corporations (either ZOG majority owned or ZOG affiliated), are DELIBERATELY trying to keep wages suppressed while maximising profits. That’s where the present day differs from the past.
Let me leave you with the words of the sage Bill Bonner on why Free Markets (and Free Speech) go hand in hand, and why they yield better outcomes for the working class and society as a whole:

The elite are not outsiders; they’re insiders, eager to protect their power, status, and wealth. They do not favour free speech; if free speech were allowed, ‘The People’ — or at least dissident intellectuals — would use it to criticise them!

The elite deciders believe they are no longer at the mercy of ‘old wives’ tales’ or constitutions. Like Joe Biden or Donald Trump, they think they can make up their own rules — as they go.

They’re in the position of George III, eager to protect what they’ve got against the outsiders. They don’t like free speech because it challenges their ideas. And they don’t like free markets either.
Free markets are in constant churn. One man invents a state-of-the-art camera. Then, another invents a cellphone that takes pictures too. One upstart discovers oil and before you know it, his grandson is governor of New York.

Free markets, like free speech, make everyone better off. In the competition between ideas and opinions, much like the competition between businesses, entrepreneurs and technologies, The People come out ahead.
But the insiders don’t necessarily come out ahead. They own the camera company, not tomorrow’s smartphone company; they’re the ruling class now, but not necessarily tomorrow’s governors and bureaucrats.

Naturally, they try to stop the future before it happens.

BTW, in another UR thread, I noticed that you posted an ‘Agree’ below some [mostly] dumb comments by someone called Trout, in relation to the 9/11 False Flag.
I replied comprehensively with an evisceration (several comments in fact) of Trout’s nonsense.
Unfortunately my comments were purged by Ron Unz for being off topic – even though nearly everyone else is free to post off topic commentary without repercussions.

I’m curious, seeing as you’re generally a pretty clued up bloke, what’s with the ‘Agree’, seeing as this Trout guy said some inaccurate and easily disprovable things?

The men who built industry had only one thing on their minds–the accumulation of wealth but only for themselves–no different than the financial “robber barons� of today.
They were indeed robber barons who almost always slashed wages for those who made their success possible–their employees–always pleading poverty while living grand lives themselves. They cared not one wit about the welfare of their employees–only how much capital they could amass for themselves on the backs of these same employees.
One notable exception was Henry Ford, who KNEW that paying his employees a decent wage would come back to reward him in spades. Although not entirely altruistic, his above-average wages probably did more to forestall support for socialism or communism in the USA than just about any other action. Although Ford’s high wage structure was put in place to reduce turnover, his writings did state that he wanted his employees to be able to afford not only his products but to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
American prosperity did not filter down to the employees of the robber barons until Henry Ford broke the mold, instituting his $5 per day wage, 40-hour workweek and 8-hour workday.
Free trade� is actually a “race to the bottom� which can only be detrimental to the true human condition. Expecting first-world wage rates to compete with third-world wage rates never works.
I would hope that people would start to see that Henry Ford was absolutely correct when he blamed the banksters, vulture capitalists, and wall street types for the economic conditions, not only in the USA, but the world.
People such as “Mitt� Romney whose only expertise is to disassemble viable companies and industries, selling off the assets individually to maximize their “profits� need to be exposed and “run out of town�.
Adolf Hitler’s Germany was successful because labor in Germany was “monetized�–given intrinsic “value�, unlike what the mantra in business is still to this day, that “labor� costs must be minimized and that the “shareholder� is king.
The internationalist banksters have to do something to “nip� the monetization and valuation of labor as it will “upset the (existing) order–just what the “new world order� types want.

Ted Rall writes:

In a capitalist country with decades of rising income inequality and a modest safety net, these findings come as little surprise.

Surely Teddy boy isn’t referring to that Socialist shit-hole (otherwise known as the USSA)?
The U.S was indeed a Capitalist country once upon a time (in the 130 or so years leading up from the founding of the republic up until the creation of the ZOG owned Federal Reserve in 1913), and incomes were much more equitably distributed during that period.

In the interim, starting with ZOG sock puppet FDR’s disastrous New Deal, and exacerbated by America’s first Jewish POTUS (LBJ), and his asinine Guns and Butter programme then his ‘War on Poverty’, the income inequality became worse and poverty was exacerbated, as Big Bloated Government got even bigger.

Meanwhile, the following is an excerpt from a Tom Woods newsletter, which explains why the setting of minimim wages ALWAYS causes more impoverishment for those with the fewest skills and thus the poorest subset of the community:

Wage rates can’t rise across the board by shouting through a bullhorn. That’s not how wages rise on a free market, and it isn’t how economics works.

If wages were arbitrarily set by wicked employers, everyone in America would be earning minimum wage. As it turns out, only 1.5 percent of hourly workers in the United States earn the legal minimum.

What’s more, when you have an entry-level job anyone can be trained to do in an hour, you’re not in a strong bargaining position.

The point of an entry-level job isn’t to make a career out of it, much less try to support a household on it. It’s to give you experience and an opportunity to hit the first rung of the employment ladder.

Or it’s to give you an income while you learn a skill in your spare time — an option the Internet has made simpler than ever.

When only one company, and no one else in the world, thinks you’re worth even minimum wage, be thankful for that. If you must be angry, be angry at everyone who refused to hire you at all. Why be angry at the one place that did?

SUMMARY: If a particular worker can only offer, for example, $12 per hour of productivity because he’s straight out of high school and has a non existent skill set, you can’t expect an emploter to hire him if a $15/hour minimum wage is decreed.
Said worker will just get a pink skip and will be thrown on the unemployment scrap heap.

Similarly, low skilled workers NEVER GET THE OPPORTUNITY to get on the first rung of the employment ladder in situations where a minimum wage exists.
The government has NO BUSINESS in deciding what wage should or shouldn’t be enforced.
That is something to be decided between the employer and any potential employees.
If you believe that a particular employer is offering you an exploitative hourly wage rate, you are free to walk away.
NO ONE IS TWISTING YOUR ARM and forcing you to take that job.

Now, no one disagrees with you Teddy, that rents are too high, inflation is running riot and most people can’t make ends meet on their meagre wages.
But WHY DO YOU THINK THAT IS Teddy?

Could it just possibly be because a HUGE CHUNK of the private sector’s wealth generation is being diverted to fund:

1) The endless wars on behalf of the Apartheid Israeli state abd ZOG’s agenda?
2) To fund the millions of unproductive parasites in Federal, State and local government that get cushy retirement packages and benefits at the expense of the rest of us?
3) Bail out the corrupt ZOG owned financial institutions after they get into trouble from their reckless speculation and chicanery, as they do every few years?

Bottom Line: ALL of the above is NOT happening under Capitalism. The U.S is infested with Crony Corporatism, whereby government acts on behalf of the oligarchs to enact legislation/provide protections/hand out subsidies etc, to FAVOURED CRONIES of the corrupt politicians.

Under Free Market Capitalism there are NO Bailouts, there is no protection and regulatory impediments to prevent new more efficient entrants from taking market share away from the oligarchs.
In Capitalism there is just FIERCE COMPETITION as suppliers of goods and services compete, often functioning on wafer thin profit margins, to deliver the best products/services to consumers.

Those that fail to look after their customers soon go bust. THAT is the essence of Capitalism.
And there is precious little of it going on in the Big End of town.

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and the value of labor is determined by the employer. This whole conversation is completely devoid of that truism.

The value of a person’s labor is set by those who hire that person. This is no different than stating that the cost of any good, regardless as to its nature, is set by the consumer who pays what he thinks it is worth–and not a cent more. People pay what they want to and when the price is set too high, they do not buy. An hour’s labor is exactly the same. When the price of labor is set too high, employers do not hire.

Workers will be hired and paid for the value seen in them until the day when the costs exceed the return and, at that point, the workers will be let go. It does not matter what someone else thinks labor is worth, it only matters what the employer is willing to pay for. Every person has a labor value, but not every person’s labor is worth what do-gooders or the government dictates. Some may be worth only a small fraction of what is deemed an “acceptable” wage and, as a consequence, find themselves unemployed. Whenever it is illegal to pay less than the minimum wage, there will ALWAYS be those who are out of work BECAUSE they are not worth what is ordered.

I favor limiting high skilled or allegedly high skilled immigration. I’ve got about 60 tenants White men engineering and computer graduates working at bar tender consulting real estate sales this and that whatever they can find. They’re not recent grads either. Many middle aged Living in a high rent city paying off student loans for a worthless degree.

Meanwhile every accounting engineer computer medical highly skilled job is given to some affirmative action foreigner. Often a foreigner with a dubious degree and incompetent.

Decent living wages or half the population on life long welfare. Take your pick.

Ted, I don’t know if you read and reply to the comments to your articles here, but I’ll ask you a couple of questions in case you do:

If the federal minimum wage had kept up with inflation since 1970, it would currently be $30 an hour. The average worker is twice as productive as 1970, so make that $60.

To my knowledge, the federal minimum wage that had the greatest purchasing power was the one that began on February 1, 1968, at $1.60/hour. (There were two different federal minimum wages at that time; the jobs that were covered by the 1966 amendments to the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act had a minimum wage then of $1.15/hour.) Using the CPI-U (Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers, without seasonal adjustments) as a measure of inflation, the CPI-U for February 1968 was 34.20, and the CPI-U for December 2023 was 306.75. The result of $1.60/hour × 306.75 ÷ 34.20 = $14.35/hour, which would be the equivalent of the February 1968 minimum wage in December 2023 dollars per hour. Which measure of inflation did you use to derive your $30/hour minimum wage equivalent to that of 1970, which was also $1.60/hour?

Additionally, not all labor productivity comes directly from workers. The Office of Productivity and Technology within the Bureau of Labor Statistics divides the contributions to labor productivity into six categories: labor composition, capital intensity, information processing equipment (IPE) intensity, research and development (R&D) intensity, intellectual property products (IPP) excluding R&D intensity, and capital input excluding IPP and IPE intensity. Are you treating all six of these categories as being worker contributions, so that the minimum wage should be raised by the same ratio as the entire productivity gain?

Who is this “we” in “We need a minimum wage? Does he mean “I need a minimum wage” because journalism jobs are disappearing fast? Or, is he still trying to keep that communist dream alive of a Borg-like leftist collective of useless parasites? Does “we” mean a nation torn apart into a Civil War by the leftist intolerance and cancel culture that cancels those of us on the right, under any pretense? Perhaps he can enlighten us by explaining who this “we” is.

Over-reliance on minimum wage is a reflection of the abandonment of Keynesianism. Keynes viewed job-creation programs as an important tool. Job-creation is always in some tension with minimum wage policies. If effective job-creation programs result in a rising demand for labor, then this may increase wages. But if one simply raises the minimum wage by fiat without taking anything else into account, then this may kill the jobs. It’s a bad policy to emphasize minimum wages without any program of job-creation.

Demand the impossible: $60-an-hour minimum wage.

Make that $120-an-hour for immigrants. Better yet, $220. And, if you hirea foreigner, you have to ensure not just him, but every relative, here and at home, within the degrees of relation the Vatican disallows for marriage. After all, that’s “family”.

Did you know the League of Women Voters refused to endorse a minimum wage law unless it applied to both sexes? The earliest applied only to women. But the unions who backed that law knew exactly what they were doing– and would have applied it to black men as well, were it not for the Fourteenth Amendment.

Imagine if blacks had double the minimum wage of whites. States with such a law would indeed be “places and periods of prosperity” and see “racial tensions dissipate”!

Certainly, the economic planners have to start thinking about bringing down the cost of production, and that starts with energy. There are hidden technologies that could significantly cut the cost of energy and production for practically all of our industries and businesses, as well as the living costs of average Americans. These hidden technologies need to be considered and the numbers crunched.

Which economic planners and which hidden technologies are you referring to?

I’d guess that your second suggestion of a tiered minimum wage would have the greatest likelihood of being implemented, but I don’t know how likely that would be to happen.

For your third suggestion, taxing companies and landowners for general redistribution, I’d guess that owners of small farms would be hit hardest by a tax of 2.5% on the value of their land; farming on small plots is rarely a lucrative career.

Your fourth suggestion is similar to Harry Huntington’s (and to the defeated Swiss constitutional amendment).

On your last point, one could look at the Öffa bills from the time of Brüning’s second cabinet (after his withdrawal of the Reichsmark from the gold standard); Öffa bills were the model for Hjalmar Schacht’s Mefo bills. Both were rediscounted promissory notes that were used to stimulate the German economy by financing public works projects (and in the case of the Mefo bills, by also financing rearmament) through indirect inflation of the German money supply. Matured Mefo bills could be exchanged for Reichsmarks on demand, but their maturation period, initially 90 days, was subject to indefinite 90-day extensions. Many years ago I’d read a two-volume book on the economies of multiple countries in the 1930s that claimed that Germany had to attack Poland when it did to avoid a collapse of the Mefo bill system; I don’t remember the book’s title, but I’d still recognize the graphic design of its cover.

On your third and fourth policy suggestions, I’ll ask you similar questions about them that I’d asked of Harry Huntington:

In jurisdictions without binding referenda, which political parties would support these policies for as long as it would take for them to become law?

If they became law, what would stop companies that didn’t like those policies from relocating to jurisdictions without them? (Landowners wouldn’t have that option with their land, of course.)

This seems a rather accurate description of both the regime and the remedure
(not to say the average “economist” is much better).

The only “natural” solutions to useless eater overproduction crisis are war,
famine and pestilence (though the Black Death party will never be very popular).
Raising the minimum wage only means the Jew can and will command more
for rent – Marx already realized that (contrary to popular belief if you cannot
afford to live in Marbella there is no “right” to do so – the rich pay a premium
not to have to endure the presence of people like you. Marx also couldn´t
understand why American wages were four times higher than European ones –
the simple truth is that the American worker, if miserable enough, could always
opt for eating bio, wearing expensive fur and knocking up Injun princesses).
The late great philosopher-poet Col. Muammar al-Gaddafi had it right:
It is about the monopolization of the necessities of life …
– food = land
– shelter = housing
– speech = guns
If any of these does not belong to the people it does not matter what you call
your system; the most applicable to non-bedouin societies seems to me the
National Socialist land reform (“Reichserbhofgesetz“), a kind of socialized private
property guaranteed by the state for as long as you do not make undesirable use of it.
The current system is designed to minimize real wages, no matter how you tweak it.

This is the quintessence of halfassed shitlib meliorism, a grab bag of picayune programs with no coherent framework – when the framework is a legal requisite for any sovereign state.

If Rall was going to bid on a DoD acquisition, he would refuse to read the FAR or the MILSPECs and write a 400,000 page proposal that begins by reinventing the wheel, the inclined plane, the lever, the screw, and the pulley, and duct tape it all together at random. And because he’s so in tune with his shit-for-brains regime, he would win the full and open competition.

Exactly. That is why the only solution is a totalitarian state. I’d like to see what would happen to someone who raised prices under a strong totalitarian rule.

Certainly, the economic planners have to start thinking about bringing down the cost of production, and that starts with energy. There are hidden technologies that could significantly cut the cost of energy and production for practically all of our industries and businesses, as well as the living costs of average Americans. These hidden technologies need to be considered and the numbers crunched.

Secondly, the Federal government should bring about a two-tier minimum wage based on age, to allow for young workers finding their first employment in small local businesses (small businesses that need to keep their labor costs down), as well as for older workers who need to work these types of jobs for their daily living. Something like $9-10/hr for young persons and $13-14/hr for people over the age of 25. Perhaps this two-tier minimum wage could be further improved by making different 2-tiered minimum wage scales for different regions of the country (not too many, 6-7?).

Thirdly, a proposal by Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, should be seriously looked at. It’s an investment account created for every American called the American Equity Fund that gives back to citizens, funded by large corporations and “capitalized by taxing companies above a certain valuation 2.5% of their market value each year, payable in shares transferred to the fund, and by taxing 2.5% of the value of all privately owned lands, payable in dollars. All citizens over 18 would get an annual distribution in dollars and company shares into their accounts, people entrusted to use the money however they wanted.” I don’t know if the 2.5% numbers proposed are the best, but the idea is certainly worthy.

Fourth, the idea of a maximum salary for the executive leadership (as well as a maximum number of shares of company stock for them), implemented for mega corporations, or companies with more than a certain large number of employees, seems like a reasonable one. The money and stock saved could be ploughed back into other useful economic activities by the company.

Finally, jaded people should get over their prejudice against the National Socialist system of Germany during the time of Adolph Hitler, and examine its economic and political policies to determine why they were so successful in competition with the other countries of Europe. Time to put away self-defeating biases.

Nothing can be expected that way.

When Social Security raises the withdrawal by 3%, traders and speculators raise prices by 20%. In other words, all this is part of a complicity between the authorities and businessmen.

And at a global level it is even worse with the Free Lunch that increases and increases exploitation and then millions must be spent to repress the people, to bribe governments and international organizations or send thugs to impose white law.

I’m making a comparison doofus.

Why are you hamfisting Gaza into an article about American minimum wage you stupid moronic shill.

$60 minimum wage, great idea Ted.
That way the gangsters in DC can step in and deliver the coup de grace to small businesses all across the country and we can finally cement total rule by Amazon and Walmart.
With so few options to participate in commerce, they’ll have a much easier time locking dissenters out of the economy.
One thing about Ted, you can always count on him for brilliant ideas that will definitely improve all of our lives.

Yep. Zero is the minimum. Can’t argue with that.

And “minimum wage” used to be what you paid teenagers to work.

It wasn’t meant for adults.

Now, if they want to have TWO minimum wages… one for, say up to 20 years old, and the other for older people, no problem.

A better solution is to eliminate the minimum wage entirely and enact a maximum wage. For salaried workers (including CEOs etc.) normalize the work year at 2000 hours. Then pass a rule that the highest paid employee or contractor of any business may earn no more than 23 times what the lowest paid employee earns on an hourly basis. To make that easy to calculate, ban all non cash benefits and stock grants or stock options, and require all compensation be cash only.

That would fix the problem of wages.

The Swiss had a federal constitutional referendum in 2013 on this very issue, titled “1∶12 — For fair wages� [my English translation]. The authors of this proposed amendment put the maximum annual salary at a company at 12 times the company’s lowest annual salary, where salaries included the monetary value of all non-cash benefits; the wages of part-time workers, temporary workers, trainees, interns, etc. at a company would be decided by national legislation rather than by the amendment. On a turnout of 53.63%, Swiss voters rejected this proposed amendment by 65.3% to 34.7%.

Is there a particular reason for your choice of a maximum wage of 23 times the minimum wage?

In jurisdictions without binding referenda, which political parties would support your “1∶23� proposal for as long as it would take to become law?

If it became law, what would stop companies that didn’t like the maximum wage from relocating to jurisdictions without one?

What does any of that have to do with what I posted?

Right? Corral people into an open-air prison, deprive them of food and water, then complain about how skinny they are.

A better solution is to eliminate the minimum wage entirely and enact a maximum wage. For salaried workers (including CEOs etc.) normalize the work year at 2000 hours. Then pass a rule that the highest paid employee or contractor of any business may earn no more than 23 times what the lowest paid employee earns on an hourly basis. To make that easy to calculate, ban all non cash benefits and stock grants or stock options, and require all compensation be cash only.

That would fix the problem of wages.

If you want to pay your CEO $23 million dollars, you need to pay your lowest compensated worker $500 per hour. If you want to pay your lowest compensated worker $7.25 an hour, your CEO gets $166 an hour or so, or $333,000 a year in pay.

What about business owners? Require business owners to pay themselves a salary for their actual labor associated with the business.

What about “business profit?” It should be subject to strict capital rules–subject to government control either reinvested in the business, or taxed at a rate of 100% if not reinvested in the business.

…government ought to intercede on behalf of those who are having trouble making ends meet,…

This is a classic description of the idiocy which says that laws must be passed and policies must be implemented to correct or overcome the disastrous consequences of previous laws and policies.

Government edicts produced the current state of affairs. Why should we expect anything to be better if more are imposed?

BTW, if minimum wage arguments had any foothold in reality, then no one should be deprived of the goal of attaining wealth. Why stop at $15/hr. or $60/hr.? Why not eliminate poverty everywhere by guaranteeing that everyone receive $75/hr. or $5 million/hr.?

Where does the lunacy end?

The minimum wage will get to $60.

But gas will be $75 a gallon, a big mac $50, a starter home $2,000,000 . . .

See “hyperinflation” for more details. South America has good modern examples we can prepare ourselves to be living like in the future.

The minimum wage is always $0.00/hr as many are about to realize. For example, the UAW negotiated a deal via their usual extortion tactics and for a time the auto makers gave in to try to remain in business. Soon, plants will close in the US and pop up in Mexico or elsewhere because the UAW deal isn’t long term viable. Stellantis is rapidly failing in China, the world’s largest car market, and Ford and GM aren’t far behind. Expect these US corporations that were making more money in China than the US to soon report their woes.

The US produces too many people with little to no skill set any employer wants. This is part of the long term plan for the deep state that actually runs the country because they know a huge part of the stupid population will become their employees in the military, police, and other gov’t jobs that are essentially welfare. These people have no choice but to follow immoral orders precisely because they are stupid. The military needs bodies to throw into its wars of choice and morons that will follow orders to make the public fearful every time they see a blue costume and lights in their rear view mirror. It’s a conditioning mechanism, a psychological control mechanism.

Once you realize that the US is and has been a soft military dictatorship since at least when JFK got whacked then things become more clear. The deep state runs elections as part of their media operations to put the best actors into positions so the soap opera can continue year to year.

Don’t worry about minimum wage when the US Dollar is headed for the toilet as dedollarization intensifies. The US Fed Gov is spending like there’s no tomorrow because there is no tomorrow for the US Fed Gov in the long run. They know it and are acting accordingly to strip mine what’s left of the US before the Big Bang.

The reason the US population is failing financially is because the Fed Gov steals too much money for its wars and other clandestine operations so that everything in the US is expensive compared with the rest of the world. People only know prices are rising and have been for decades, but most don’t know why. It’s the currency (not money) printing to fund illicit projects that benefit the masters at the expense of the slaves. Simple really.

When Gallup pollsters ask Americans what causes them the most stress and worry,

Calling the doc’s office, and right away, to the receptionist, I am the enemy. What did I do? Then given the appointment for a month away or maybe 3 months away.

And removing most forms of aid including food stamps, apartment subsidies, Welfare and so on. Force people to accept available jobs by removing the free aid they get and we would have a much more realistic economy.

P.S. Same thing in Gaza and the West Bank, where UNRWA has been passing out free aid for 75 years. Gaza was filled with freeloaders who were born into and lived off of the free aid, not having to work a day in their lives. When you incentivize something, you get more it, which in Gaza’s case was lazy, freeloading citizens.

The Left should think of $60 an hour as the bare minimum necessary to live decently in the United States, and push for more for skilled labor.

You think Rall is kidding? How about starting at $50/hr?

February 13, 2024

A Monday night debate in California between several candidates vying for an open Senate seat included a question about raising the minimum wage to $50, an idea that one Democrat candidate has floated.

“In the Bay Area, I believe it was the United Way that came out with a report that very recently $127,000 for a family of four is just barely enough to get by,” Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Lee said when asked to defend her previous support of a $50 minimum wage and explain how it would be “sustainable.”
…
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/california-senate-candidates-spar-over-dems-proposal-minimum-wage

Unfortunately for the lower tiers on the economic pyramid, it doesn’t matter what the minimum wage is. It could be $100/hr or $150/hr but PRICES for everything and anything would still be higher than whatever the minimum wage earners were getting. At $50/hr, apartments will be $6k monthly instead of $3k. A haircut would be $100 instead of $30, etc.

Bernie Sanders and the Squad are still struggling to raise the federal minimum from $7.25 to $15.00 — that’s what passes for progressive! What a joke!

It’s been at $7.25 for over 20 years. Few Americans will work for that wage so we have a “labor shortage” solved by allowing millions of foreigners to cross over. When the Dems “tried” to increase it to $15 an hour, they failed despite have a majority in both houses. Several Republicans said they would support $10 an hour, but the Dems ignored them because they wanted a “labor shortage”.

Call our immigration service to hear a recording for all “asylum” seekers on how to apply for a work permit. 1-800-375-5283 This will include a social security card that allows government benefit payments and ease of living. This why Wal-Mart recently announced a reduction of wages and higher profits. These millions will also be told indirectly to vote for Biden, or they might get deported. It is illegal, but no ID is required and no questions asked so is never prosecuted.

Seriously limiting low-skill and no-skill immigration would have very much the same effect as an increase in the minimum wage, only without all of the pernicious knock-on effects which inevitably attend ham-fisted government interference in the free market.

Brandon and his clown circus , three years of democrat liberal buffoonery, homeless tent cities, a massive drug problem, no universal healthcare, no living wage. open borders and ten million illegal invaders, not even an attempt at making live bearable for the American peons.

Just war and decline.

Ted Rall says a lot of idiotic things. This article is another example.

You forgot, why there is no money, were the money went. In the 1950ies a Californian blue collar worker earned enough to pay house, car, school, etc.

Half a century of Leftist policies! The US have become a Leftist European style state with huge expenses like
bloated government,
inefficient expensive welfare, especially for the non productive people
red tape for senseless green dreams

DIE, mandatory hiring of useless “workers”
costs of ghetto lottery
costs of crime, losses, prisons, courts,

Um, no. A real minimum wage is no minimal wage at all.

First let me say that I’m moderately optimistic on the progress of PRC.

But sorry, no, you are wrong and engaging in the kind of wishful thinking that white liberals typically do with blacks.

Most of the historical Chinese warfare took place on the Central Plains, there’s even a proverbial term: é€�鹿中原 [zhú lù zhÅ�ng yuán] “Great Gambit of the Central Plainsâ€�

https://baike.baidu.com/item/�鹿中原/4699

The opening line in Romance of Three Kingdoms, “All Under Heaven, Long Divided, Must Unite; Long United, Must Divide.�

All these have been periods of constant warfare, with baleful effects on civilian population. That’s not counting massive rebellions against an established dynasty like An Lushan and Taiping.

Spring and Autumn 春秋 period (722 – 476 BC)
Warring States 战国 period (476 – 221 BC)
Three Kingdoms 三国 (AD 220 – 280)
Jin 晋 dynasty (AD 266 – 420)
Northern and Southern dynasties �北� (AD 420 – 589)
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms 五代�国 (AD 907 – 960)

The Chinese analogy would be if the Roman Empire had never fallen but had survived for 2,000 years.

This is a debatable position. There’s an exposition comparing Emperor Yang of Sui to Justinian– the former finished reconquering lost lands of the empire where as the latter didn’t

https://www.friesian.com/decdenc2.htm#sui

But even if it is, that’s not a “own”. Philosophy flourished during Greece, not Rome; during Spring and Autumn, not post-Qin unification.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Schools_of_Thought

The degradation of white European peoples in contemporary society IS largely the inevitable outcome of our judeo-masonic dictatorship symbolized by men like Fidel Trudeau.

That the “white European peoples” can be degraded at all is because they ARE “psychologically primitive!”

Even YOU admit that their degradation is inevitable!!!

So, the Chinese are ‘psychologically primitive’ are they? Compared to what? To you???!!! I would say that they must be awfully happy about that.

So all the detailed descriptions of the massacres, including the use of mastiff dogs to tear children apart, penned by the ‘conquistadores’ themselves were incorrect, were they?

The Amerindians were absorbed into the colonial population. Their genetics still exist in Hispaniola.

The people who rule China today grew up in a society steeped in abject barbarism. The Chinese remain psychologically primitive people. If anyone believes that “the Chinese IQ is high” then they don’t believe any sort of national determinism based on the factor G. This is not to deny the intelligence and talents of Chinese people or to say they are stupid and ignorant people. Quite the contrary. The notion that Chinese are a race of superior intellect does not fit history. The degradation of white European peoples in contemporary society IS largely the inevitable outcome of our judeo-masonic dictatorship symbolized by men like Fidel Trudeau. Look at Russia: just the slightest deviation from the judeo-masonic line makes them an enemy people, look how quickly they’ve regenerated!

I just read Galton’s letter. It seemed like private correspondence between John Howard and Tony Abbott, or the maunderings of Malcolm Turnbull’s diaries. By the by, the natives of the Caribbean were not supplanted by ‘the Negroes’ as Galton asserts-they were exterminated, ruthlessly and savagely, particularly in Hispaniola, by the Spanish, those monuments to Western Civilization.

Where, anywhere, anywhen, has China ‘managed the affairs of smaller nations’? And simpy projecting the catastrophic crimes of malevolent meddling of the UK and USA onto China, as if that proves some inevitable future practise, is simply ludicrous.

ripe for what took off most notably in Britain.

Are you aware of Francis Galton’s 1864

That’s what I was referring to. 1864 was a long time ago, now, and it’s been a while since the UK was leading anyone into modernity.

You’re right about mulga’s view of China as being totally uninterested in managing the affairs of smaller nations as quite naive. America used similar rhetoric a century ago and through the 1950s. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Uk once said such things about itself . Look where we are now.

I think you are right that, in a number of respects, China is leading the world, quite often for good, but that was ‘t what I was writing about. If you prefer the simple minded version why didn’t the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions leading to the Enlightenmt and and modernity occur in high IQ East Asia which, according to Gregory Clark were ripe for what took off most notably in Britain.

Are you aware of Francis Galton’s 1864 letter to The Times headed “Africa for the Chinese”? I guess not as it would not fit well with your screeching prejudices.

Please elaborate and explain is my polite request despite strongly suspecting that you only gave what I wrote the most superficial skimming.

China IS leading the world. Only in the West is that denied, hidden, and the truth inverted.
For decades, when China was weak, it aided African countries to build infrastructure. Meanwhile the ever poisonous West imposed neo-imperial and neo-colonial measures on Africa and Latin America through the ‘economic hit-men’ of the Washington Consensus of the IMF, World Bank, WTO and the private Western banks, while assiduously supporting apartheid South Africa and numerous larcenous butchers like Mobutu, Savimbi, Kagame etc.
Whereas Western LIES concerning ‘Chinese debt traps’ are, as ever, 100% fraudulent, real Western debt traps were sprung on poor countries numerous times, particularly after Volker raised global interest rates to the sky in the early 80s. This devastated debt-burdened poor countries, whereupon the IMF etc ghouls descended with ‘Structural Assistance Plans’ that prioritised paying interest on odious debt to the West, and the utter destruction of public health, education and welfare provision, and the privatisation, at larcenous prices, of all the countries’ assets.
As a result tens of millions of the poor, particularly children, dies needlessly. There, Top Level, is the truth of your glorious West-a machine for destruction, and a Moloch that devours children by the millions. THAT is what China is leading the world away from-Western barbarity.

Based on this comment, I would say “denial� is the biggest problem facing Western countries today.

Yes totally different though possibly with just as much violence as one would expect in a Malthusian world. What one word do you think might best capture China’s failure to lead the world into modernity? Hubris? That would be amongst the elite. Is it too great a stretch to compare what the Western, especially American, elite have been doing in their pursuit of the gains from neoliberalism and globalism which have made the American led Weat so unequal so quickly? My inclination would be to excuse the latter to some extent only because there were intellectually respectable supporting arguments and both clear advance warning of the damage and how it would result and be borne. In the other hand I wouldn’t deny the malign influence of the greed-is-good elite-because-rich who seem to lack that top of Maslow’s hierarchy morality whereas I imagine the mandarinate, however limited and imiting by hubris, to have been properly high minded, at least by comparison.

The ‘global warming’ crusade has an end. You better believe it. If in good health, youngish or middle-aged and not accident prone, you’ll get to experience it. Cheers.

Already have. China et al lead humanity. The USA leads the Western psychopaths. The West will attempt to bully, coerce, bribe and murder the various ‘niggers’ into line, as ever, and may destroy the world in doing so, but China and Russia (and India if it ever wakes up)won’t let them get away with it again.

Glad to hear it – the ignore list AND your having left this land (hopefully, for good). A guy, and a country, can take only so much pissing and moaning.

Go to mainland China as a White guy, and see how the little kids act

Been there, done that. I was in the top .000001% of white ancestry when I was there. I look white to them.

Congratulations, you are the first Unz commenter on my ignore list.

Kung Flu

All I have to say you is that you are a stupid shithead. Nothing more to say.

Well, we have different tastes regarding the writing. I didn’t mention Ron Paul, but he should go without saying for anyone who cares about freedom in the slightest. I do like Mike Whitney – his writing on the Kung Flu PanicFest was excellent!

Ron Unz gets a LOT right, but he has this anti-all-things-American attitude, as do lots of the writers he features. It pisses me off, because, though the current Potomac Regime is and has been a bad force in the world, going back a half century, from there to the Founding, America has generally been a force for good.

How about you don’t respond because I already don’t care about what you think happened?

Tough shit, as your pissing and moaning is too much to put up with.

Americans have been the most tolerant people of foreigners the world has ever seen! Right now, there are something like 15-18% of the people in this country not having been born here. For years, Americans, like myself, have been extremely welcoming, many even to their own detriment, that of their families (i.e. re job prospects), and their communities (diversity is not a strength – anyone with any sense knows that).

Would the Chinese put up with even 1% of the people in their country being foreigners? Hell, no, and that’s their business. I don’t blame them at all.

I know lots of Chinese people who live near me. They are respectful and therefore treated very respectfully (by White people), even when people ARE sick of their taking advantages of things here. If you think China is so much better, than why do they get every kind of visa available, come illegally through Newark, and/or overstay visas for life in order to stay?

In fact, I know a Chinese preacher, doing everything he can possibly do to stay, even though he wasn’t good as a Pastor and was let go by the small church. He will never go home, from what I can see. Is he doing the Ministry that Americans just won’t do?! Maybe he’s not got the guts to minister in China, where he’s from.

Digression over with, no, you are full of it regarding Americans’ reaction to the Kung Flu. Most of us knew what the PanicFest was about early on. WAY too many people went along with the Totalitarianism, but a majority of us were not worried sick about Black Death 2.0. We were worried about the direction our country was going, and there’s no blame there on the Chinese.

Those I know personally who were scared shitless didn’t turn their fear into anti-Chinese anger. These things come from over there every decade or so. Why blame a virus on the people who live where it originated? Viruses don’t care. If anything, the Americans that were truly scared could have blamed the pro-immigration-invasion Commies who wouldn’t let the US Gov’t cut off the flights straight outta China. Personally, I didn’t give a crap, because I know a PanicFest when I see one.

– I have observed co-workers of Chinese ethnicity hounded from their jobs in public health. Most of them ended up working in Chinese-owned firms.

There are people with accents so thick that they can’t communicate. That’s bad in healthcare. Otherwise, your claim is complete bullshit.

– multiple incidents where I was verbally and very aggressively harassed with no provocation from me whatsoever and called names in public for being Chinese

Sure, I could believe that, if you made it clear it was a Black! guy who did that. They are just like that. Rude, stupid, and with lots of self-esteem is how so many of them go through life now. But, you know this already.

Started during the Trump Presidency? BS. It’s in your imagination. You are being a sniveling whiner about your treatment. Do you only remember some bad incidents? Go to mainland China as a White guy, and see how the little kids act. They are rude about pointing out the White Ghosts. I don’t care too much, as it’s not my country, and they have every right to be rude.

I hope it works out for you well in Taiwan nonetheless, but please don’t take out all your troubles on your own family either. When you point your finger ’cause your plans fell through, you’ve got 3 more fingers pointing at you, yeah….

Video Link

““Social Darwinismâ€� is merely a syllogistic consequence of ordinary “Darwinism,â€�”

No, it doesn’t work this way. “Darwinismâ€� is a science precisely because it talks ONLY about attributes it can define, measure and control, and draws ONLY limited conclusion based purely on experimental results. Do scientists understand free will, motivation or intelligence? Are they even connected to genes? Partly, totally? You can’t make extension (“syllogistic consequence” or otherwise) with “Darwinismâ€� anymore than you can make extension of Newtonian Inertia (1st) law to conclude that human society couldn’t move unless there was external forces, or make conclusion that human brain couldn’t reason its own consistency because it is “a syllogistic consequence” of Incompleteness Theorem. But judging from your writing, you not only believe “Social Darwinismâ€� but also its “selective pressure” is sufficient for China’s case. You remind me of the smart economists that invented elaborate theories with math models to predict social activities like stock price (e.g. Black-Scholes equation) or using Uncertainty Principle to talk about human behaviors. The difference is that the Nobel laureates are either very famous, or very rich or both, and you are here calling name on person you disagree with.

“You’re confused. … the population always grew to match it, putting tremendous pressure on local rural life, very likely causing the exact effect I mention”

Perhaps you are confused with what I said. I am a non-believer of “Social Darwinismâ€�, so I am not making argument against or for it here. My point is that you can’t talk only about one direction of the selective pressure without talking about the other. For example, free market may be in play during the good times in the rural, but during difficult times (e.g. population limit in your case), political skills might be more important. You need to examine situations that contradict your thesis. More importantly, you also need to consider factors that are important to Chinese society, like Confucianism, which is humanistic in nature and is diagonal opposite of “Darwinism.â€� The universal respects of old is non-meritocratic, and Confucian harmonious society emphasized cooperation, not competition. Similarly, there are many examples from Daoism, Buddhism etc. I can talk for 3 hours why they are anti-“Darwinismâ€� or non-“Darwinismâ€�, but I want to be brief. You can’t pick and choose attributes, or simply selectively talk about one side only.

“obvious speculation of rebelliousness”

No person adds speculation which he thinks is ridiculous in his paper (unless as negative example – which is clearly not the case here). You repeatedly state that Chinese are “socially conformists.” which is close to the “speculation.” You also seem to regret the research wasn’t carried out. These indicate you clearly somewhat approve or agree with the stupid and racist “speculation.”

And we have seen the dark movie before. Blacks were speculated to be not able to think for themselves. And then it was found that they had smaller brains. And genetic “evidences” were found. And millions of Blacks were on the free trip across the ocean to the New World to start their new lives. Sadly, Blacks lacked the power and experience that we have to fight back today. Also, don’t forget that having the Japanese gene qualified you as a potential “spy” during the right time in the right place, so much that free accommodation were provided. I am not saying Ron Unz plans or even knows these, but why shouldn’t Chinese be vigilant about the “speculation?”

“a brilliant Chinese-born genetic researcher”

Here you go. Part two of the movie: a researcher, a very brilliant one, ready to find any deficiency of the Chinese genes.

“I vaguely remember, weren’t you the idiot who in 2020 was claiming that whites all across America were violently attacking Asians as random”

No, I didn’t. I claimed, in multiple comments including exchanges with you, Whites’ attacks (verbally, politically, e.g. “Chinese virus”) everywhere (including this web site) *CAUSED* Asians to be violently attacked. In 2020, overall crime rates in US were down for every races due to lock-down, but crimes against Asians went up 150%. So, strictly, you and the racist commenters (including an idiot troll that still tries to stick “Kung Flu” on all Chinese) are accomplices, though very minor ones, of those crimes. And yet you turn around and accuse me of falsely accusing the White people.

Your action is very dishonorable, even if you want to hide behind “vaguely remember.” But coming from you, I am not surprise. For example, although I agree with you on the bio-weapon threads 100%, the ways you distort and insult people that we disagree with are really sickening for me to watch. That is why talking to unprincipled people requires total alertness and is so tiresome.

MangledBrain

I like mulga but her endless global warming crusade has gotten really tiresome. Used to have better comments.

The whole idea of a “hate crime� is anathema to the US Constitution, being a type of double jeopardy.

Probably true.

Now, you say you read this site, Man, for the articles on the US and “her place in the world�.

Ron Unz specifically has a very good handle on that. One of the best in print, to be honest.

Steve Sailer, John Derbyshire, or Paul Kersey

Some of my least favorite authors on the site.

Steve Sailer refused to publish one of my comments the first time I read his article, which I didn’t think was particularly good anyway. Did he ban me from using the term “nigger?� Something I said about Hindu? I don’t remember. So I have no use for the guy and don’t read him. I think he’s kind of a twat.

John Derbyshire is better, although an anti-immigrant activist who is himself an immigrant and married to a Chinese immigrant woman… it’s more than a little strange, and because he’s in a WMAF to a kind of ugly Chinese woman I think he’s probably gay. I do read his articles if they are on the front page.

I have not read Paul Kersey that I can remember.

Besides Sailer and Derbyshire the only other TUR I’ve found annoying is Hudson, whose articles I ignore because he also banned a bunch of comments of mine. He’s the worst in that regard. Derb is the least annoying of the 3 and sometimes I like his articles.

My favorite non-Ron authors are Durso (very underrated) and Anglin. Escobar, Giraldi, Whitney, Barrett are good too. There are others. I liked how Jane Weir interacted with her commenters. I read most articles on the front page and find most of them interesting. Ron Unz is a good editor imo.

Anyway, you would know that, yes, almost all that crap about a surge of anti-Oriental violence was just a ramp-up of Black! violence in general.

This has not been my personal experience nor that of many people I have spoken with although it is likely different in different cities. The Washington DC metro has a lot of blacks in .gov so it’s probably not representative of the country as a whole. The MSM does a lot more to protect white feelings than you want to admit. That being said I don’t like niggers very much and agree they have a general propensity for violence.

assuming they are all Chinese and specifically responsible for the Kung Flu?

I think you have no idea what you are talking about in this paragraph, though I am unsurprised there are people like you on this site who are willing to blithely wave your hand like this. Most Chinese-American people I know have stories about how much more hostile America became from both whites and blacks after they were blamed for the America virus. Pretty much every Taiwanese-American I meet here has stories. You do not understand your own country very well.

As for your beefs with White people in America you described, they are neither hate crimes nor crimes at all, period. How about I respond to that in another comment? I gotta go for now.

These are examples of people attacking me for no reason other than looking Chinese. I’m unsurprised there are commenters attempting to minimize them. You weren’t there. How about you don’t respond because I already don’t care about what you think happened?

Thanks for the clarification earlier – your comment was directed at the MangledBrain, and I should have seen that.

Anyway, regarding this one: The whole idea of a “hate crime” is anathema to the US Constitution, being a type of double jeopardy. Yes, sentencing will take into account circumstances and motives, but whether someone murdered you in cold blood out of hatefulness of White or Oriental people, or just because he wanted your cash, you are just as dead.

Now, you say you read this site, Man, for the articles on the US and “her place in the world”. Do you read much of Steve Sailer, John Derbyshire, or Paul Kersey who, though writing about a myriad of topics, also (most especially the latter) write about the racial problems and BS Establishment Narrative thereof. It’s stuff you can’t just read anywhere. Anyway, you would know that, yes, almost all that crap about a surge of anti-Oriental violence was just a ramp-up of Black! violence in general.

Do the “teens” hit up the Orientals in Flushing or wherever because they hate them? Did they hate them, assuming they are all Chinese and specifically responsible for the Kung Flu? Nah, the latter is Ron’s take, and I do think that’s naive. It’s hard to differentiate the Black! thug’s hatred due to envy or just their wanting to make a quick score of $300, knowing the Orientals in lots of place carry lots of cash (due to their policy of avoidance of taxes). They pick on the small guy, or more often lady too.

As for your beefs with White people in America you described, they are neither hate crimes nor crimes at all, period. How about I respond to that in another comment? I gotta go for now.

Those “Asians� are obviously Muslim. Most Orientals won’t rape you even if they have you at gunpoint, as what happened in the last Pacific all-out race war when Japanese tended to shoot rather than rape white females (though they raped plenty of Asian women).

I’m not sure if you have ever travelled to places like Japan or Taiwan but it’s a pretty good place to feel sexually invisible. My once rather attractive Norwegian-American social studies teacher at my expat school in China is now single and in her 50s after spending her younger years in China. She used to love teaching us about the Bedouin. Probably got rape fantasies about Muslims from being surrounded by uninterested Chinese males and WMAFs.

More hate disseminated by “Far Right� scum, huh?

Telegram comment posted by Mark Collett:

Girl, 15, is raped TWICE after flagging down a car following her first attack only to be set upon by the driver 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4736452/Girl-15-raped-TWICE-two-different-men-day.html

Police say teen first attacked at Witton railway station in Birmingham on Tuesday
Girl then flagged down vehicle outside the station and was raped a second time
First attacker described as Asian with light skin, brown eyes, skinny and 6ft tall
Second also Asian, in early 20s, 5ft 7ins tall, of large build with a cropped beard

https://t.me/markacollett/9023

Diversity Is Our Strength, goy!

From what I vaguely remember, weren’t you the idiot who in 2020 was claiming that whites all across America were violently attacking Asians as random when everybody knew perfectly well that around 90% of the attacks were by blacks?

Now this really shows the limits of book smarts and high IQs. A lot of hate crimes against Asians by whites are simply not classified as hate crimes. While I have not yet been actually physically assaulted by a white person recently for being Chinese the level of hostility is very high. Let me just give you a few examples from my own personal experience since the Trump election.

– I have observed co-workers of Chinese ethnicity hounded from their jobs in public health. Most of them ended up working in Chinese-owned firms.
– multiple incidents where I was verbally and very aggressively harassed with no provocation from me whatsoever and called names in public for being Chinese
– the last time I went out for lunch in America before I left a white person made it a point to sit next to me at a bar and purposefully give me COVID by coughing heavily in my food and drink. Before the Unz commentariat inevitably attempts to gaslight me into thinking this didn’t happen my white friend who I was having lunch with saw the whole thing and agreed with my assessment of the situation. This delayed my escape to Taiwan by several weeks.

It’s probably true that it would be worse if I lived in a majority black community. However you are in no position to call d dan an idiot for saying this, and the number of people returning to Taiwan with similar (usually worse, since I’m tall and half-white) horror stories about life in America gives the lie to these assertions.

To be quite frank I have learned more about China from a few snarky comments from d dan than your articles, although to be fair to you that is probably untrue for most Unz readers. In any case I do not read Unz Review for its comments on Chinese history or domestic politics, but rather its many excellent articles on the United States of America and her place in the world.

I don’t think that’s correct if we’re looking at the more crucial metric of per capita GDP. China experience huge population growth under Mao

Well, I believe what you quoted in your article was overall gdp growth, which is more important in terms of overall national power, though gdp per capita is as you note more important in raising living standards. I’ll see about finding a source.

Polygamy was only an elite phenomenon in China, and I doubt if even 1% of the children born were to polygamous fathers.

Polygamy has generally been the province of the well-off wherever it was practiced. This article (which cites a scholarly book on the topic written by a female academic that would help this discussion) claims the practice was “common.� Unfortunately I was unable to find percentages or reliable statistics. It’s very difficult to learn anything useful about China in the English-language internet. For example, even low-ranking government officials were expected to keep a concubine:

https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/love-and-marriage-social-regulations#:~:text=In%20imperial%20China%20a%20man,but%20also%20in%20ordinary%20families.

Needham also disagrees with your assessment about polygamy being so uncommon or socially unimportant which I quoted. My own great-grandfather had three wives, and he was not extremely wealthy, merely well-to-do. The system of polygamy you describe where it is only practiced by the elite, and has a negligible impact on society, is more accurate of modern China, where the practice is de jure illegal (including in Taiwan, HK & Macao).

Also, I’m afraid, Man, that you have me confused with someone named Greta. On the Peak Stupidity blog, there are well over 100 posts with the Global Climate Stupidity topic key, and not a ONE of them is anything but against what’s now dubbed the Climate Calamity™.

The climate stuff is directed towards mulga, sorry that was indeed confusing

It is EASILY reconciled. The Chinese support the central Government but riot over local problems, no doubt hoping to get the Government, either central or provincial or local, to remedy their distress, which they inevitably do, it being a system that works for the people, not rich parasites who own, and control, Western oligarchies. You just need to use your brain and leave your prejudices aside.

It is a double-edged sword to have sub-normal, Rightwing, racist, cretins like you denying anthropogenic climate destabilisation as it rapidly worsens. At least the cosmos will be cleansed of scum like you, but it will also lose all those sane and decent humans and their achievements, living, dead and yet to be born. Such a pity.

Godfree might be a ‘one-off’ but, alas, their are millions of your scuttling, Rightwing, invertebrate species. The West is infested with them.

Mr. Unz, D. Dan, LittleRedBot, D.B.Cooper (it’s been a while) and a few others are not necessarily trolls but rather Chinese ten-center types – probably paid 10 cents RMB per comment – to defend China on the internet no matter how piddly or correct the slur may be.

These guys are slow to the draw though, so old China-hand John Derbyshire may have written his thoughts a week back, and after 120 comments, these guys will come on spouting their BS.

Then, there is Godfree Roberts. He is a special case. They made one last UberCommunist and broke the mold. But you had him on as a writer way back, didn’t you? Diverse perspectives, indeed!

Well, I mean, which point does the guy have? It can’t be both of them, since they are completely contradictory. 1) We Chinese people have been the most satisfied with our governments compared to anyone else in the world. AND 2) We have lots of results, disturbances, and insurrections so are a very rebellious people. (Revolting, sure… OK, that was gratuitous, but I couldn’t pass it up.)

Pick one, man, and get back to me. It’s pretty funny that Mr. MangledBrain put these both up within 3 minutes of each other. That’s using both sides of your brain!

Also, I’m afraid, Man, that you have me confused with someone named Greta. On the Peak Stupidity blog, there are well over 100 posts with the Global Climate Stupidity topic key, and not a ONE of them is anything but against what’s now dubbed the Climate Calamityâ„¢.

Actually, it went from Global Ass-Freezing to Global Warming to Climate Change to Global Climate Disruptionâ„¢ to the Climate Crisis! to the Climate Calamityâ„¢ over the last half a century, depending on things like … the weather. Be careful using those 2 trademarked ones, as Peak Stupidity has a large team of lawyers.

doesn’t seem tonke that a battle expanding the centralized state to the tarim basin or north vietnam would disturb the life of many a village in the Central Plains.
Just the fact that China remained a centralized functioning state .for .century after century is enough to impress a European.

The only thing I’ll pretend to know about China is that they will be displacing the United States as world leader.

Thanks for putting him right on Social Darwinism. I’m not so sure about China weeding out trouble makers more than others. Apart from there being long periods in which the disgruntled could head off to the underdeveloped South West a comparison could be made with the effect of capital punishment in England for example reducing the numbers of violent people and the export of the more disorderly lower orders as indentured servants, almost equivalent to slaves, in the South and as convicts, to America and then Australia.

Total BS. Give on good reason for alleging that I “studiously”** ignore Chinese people on China. Did you switch your brain off and conclude that some such nonsense was proven by my asking some specific non-Chinese (and d-dan whom you didn’t notice) for a comment?

**and you could take a look at your fatuous stylistic can’t and explain “studiously”.

absolutely correct. COVID drove him nuts, and has never acknowledged it.

Sure Ronnie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_wars_and_battles

Do you actually know why the initial British settlement (invasion if you like) was as a penalty colony or are you just witlessly displaying your ignorance? I rather fancy not too populous areas ofthe equatorial tropics as places to live if the world overheats. But, even after China stops paying a lot for Australian iron ore . Australia is going to be OK.

@mulga

I can name that tune write a complete contradiction in 3 minutes!

I’m afraid he’s got a point, mulgers. I believe your faith in the Climate Cult is making you see double. You may want to try a fresh pair of reality goggles..

May I join in this conversation to learn something? (I’m serious. Though I only did a first year university course in Chinese many years ago I have been lecturing my young extended family for yonks that anyone who doesn’t speak Chinese in the 2030s will be like someone who doesn’t speak English today). My long understanding of the latent, growing and actual importannce of China has drawn my attention for example to Ron’s Social Darwinism thesis as you perhaps correctly call it But can you demonstrate to me that Ron went any further (and erroneously) than to suggest that there was genetic selection for intelligence, persistence, focus etc amongst peasants whose numerous children could only be provided with enough land to go on multiplying their gene lines if the forebear could succeed as a farmer well enough to provide that inheritance?

Separate,different, but related question: what do you think of my comment to Johny Walker 123 (on which I also invited Ron’s comment). You should have a much deeper background knowledge from which to comment. I suppose I could say that the apparent hubris which allowed China to be humiliated (as the CCP unfortunately likes to put it) was not so much a foolish hubris but, im the case of the Mongol and Mannchu Emperors being overcome and overimpressed by the civilisation they had conquered and, in the case of the manarinate, a kind of social snobbery (or however I put it earlier).

Welcome PM Dutton, the Fuhrer that Austfailia has been waiting for.

Australia is too weak, sparsely populated, and remote to fash effectively. In the long run our dear Toppers and friends are fooked. There’s a reason that place started out as a penal colony.

Because we all light fingered gentry,
Walks along with a log on our toes…


Video Link

There’s a lot of projection when it comes to westerners with limited knowledge writing about China, and they tend to fill in the blanks with projection. Social Darwinists (for example Mr. Unz has a high belief in his own IQ and abilities) project social Darwinism. Free market neo-liberals point out China’s low taxes and lack of regulation. Religious types exaggerate the number of Christians in the country. Jews often point out China’s excellent track record of Keeping Jews Alive. Neo-Nazis emphasize “socialism with Chinese characteristics.� Imperialists point to China as a “neo-imperialist� nation. The World Bank and IMF accuse China of “debt-trap diplomacy.� Where actual knowledge is slim, projection rules.

I have read many books on China to the effect of “I spent a year in China, can’t speak Chinese, but here are my expert opinions.� I would not take any of them very seriously. While this essay was above average, most books and articles written about China in English have a very, very low bar to cross.

Brazilians are on the exact opposite side of the world from China, so are not in a geographic location that makes it easy to learn about this country.

Maybe… since there are a lot of, you know, Chinese people who can speak perfectly good English now… maybe just ask them what China is like? Especially since China is cutting back significantly on the number of foreigners who are even allowed in the country.

Commenter “pachacuti� recommended this tweeter, Manju Baturu, and I think he is very funny and accurately represents the attitudes of many younger Chinese urban millennials. Some Chinese admire Jews. Others admire Hitler. No one fights about it:

Equestrian performance at the Pegasus City in Wuxi, China, built by Hailan Group, the largest textile conglomerate in China. The President of Hailan group Zhou Jianping is a big fan of Adolf Hitler and Austrian Equestrianism, so he spent millions to build this thing. Have a look. pic.twitter.com/hXHOiPUq0T— Manju Baturu (@Xongkuro) June 9, 2023

It’s hard for me to understand why you so studiously ignore actual Chinese people on China, WoZ. Would you ignore Americans on topics pertaining to America? Would you ignore Germans on topics pertaining to Germany? Would you ignore Arabs on their countries? You certainly have very questionable taste in sources on knowledge about the superpower in your own backyard, and persist in this habit for reasons I have trouble fathoming.

June 11, 2023 at 5:10 am GMT

I suspect that once you add up all the peasant revolts, civil disturbances and insurrections, the Chinese are the MOST ‘revolting’ people in history. Even today there are hundreds of demos every week, with people expressing their piss-offedness over something or other. The mark of a successful local official is how well they defuse these outbursts.

June 11, 2023 at 5:13 am GMT

The fact remains that ALL surveys of popular opinion in China, undertaken by local and foreign organisations, find popular satisfaction with government and society to be among the very highest on Earth, and far above the situation in the ‘democratic’ West.

I can name that tune write a complete contradiction in 3 minutes!

Get out of Australia, MulBowski!

An article with a similar title (Social Darwinism in modern China) appeared a few months before yours. Abstract:

After evolutionary theory was introduced in China, Herbert Spencer’s interpretation of it in the form of social Darwinism persuaded the Chinese that if they wanted to strengthen their nation, they would have to accept the brutal truth of natural selection, in which the principle of survival of the fittest rules. This version of evolutionary theory, when combined with the pragmatic thrust of Confucianism and the realpolitik of legalism from China’s indigenous tradition, started a storm of materialism and utilitarianism in modern China. In the process, the traditional social order based on the rule of propriety (li) was completely subverted and replaced by a new order predicated on the rule of competition and power. This development produced a new mental outlook that privileged power over everything else, seriously undermined the rules of ethics and caused serious political consequences in the late Qing and early Republican period. This intellectual development may have contributed to ending the dynastic rule in China, but it was also responsible for ruining the newborn Republican China. The Chinese intellectuals of the May Fourth era critically reflected on this problematic legacy. While still believing in the notion of progress, they abandoned social Darwinism and embraced the idea of evolution through mutual assistance. Thus began a historical shift in modern China from focusing on wealth and power to focusing on civilization as China’s salvation.

I suppose you already know it, but just in case and for the benefit of others:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17535654.2012.718605

Europe raped the rest of the world, while China preferred peaceful trade. The silver extricated from Potosi in Bolivia, at the expense of SIX MILLION lives (no Museum in every city for THAT Holocaust)alone was sufficient to kick-start capitalist accumulation. I’m sorry, Toppers, but Europeans are no Master Race.

How much Johnny Walker, Top Level? Red or Black? Green or Gold? No-you’d be a true Blue Label man, wouldn’t you.

Summon I will. Your construction was ambiguous, I can say in my defence.
Neo-liberalism is exemplified by our very own Liberal Party stooge, Philip Lowe, appointed to the Reserve Bank by Morriscum, declaring that interest rates would NOT rise until 2024 when that suited the Liberal regime, then raising them relentlessly once Labor won office. While sneering at the proles and demanding yet more wage reductions, after ten years of falling wages (in real terms).
All too easy, so sayonara ‘Greasy’ Albanese, the pluperfect ALP (Another Liberal Party)inadequate. Welcome PM Dutton, the Fuhrer that Austfailia has been waiting for.

What do you think of my speculations in response to Johnny Walker?

It remains of interest to understand why it was Europe where modernity took off through a succession of non political as well as political revolutions. China in particular seemed to have all the ingredients but maybe the very prestige of those with high culture stopped people aspiring to do crass materially gainful things. I know practically nothing relevant but the closing down after the great naval expedition that got as far as Africa maybe gives a clue. And I recall the story of the contempt shown by the Emperor about 1795 to the British envoy who showed him British goods. Another speculation is that ancient Chinese culture was so prestigious that it over impressed the Mongol and Manchu interlopers. What do you think?

Mendacious disinformation regarding US bio-warfare from, what else, Top Level, known as ‘Sorbent’ to his Yankee masters.
The facts remain obdurate. One, the USA has by very far the greatest bio-warfare establishment on Earth, probably exceeding all those of other countries combined. Hundreds of labs (no-one knows how many) military and private, scattered across the world, including several in Ukraine and many surrounding China.
Second, the USA, alone, has vetoed the Bioweapons Treaty inspections regime being enforced, since 2000. Third, as reported a few years ago in USA Today, the US bio-warfare apparatus at home has suffered scores of accidents, leaks, escapes of biological agents and lab animals, infection of personnel and at least one death, over the last couple of decades. AMRIID at Fort Detrick itself was closed in July 2019 because of leaks from its suppose biological ‘disposal’ facilities.
Third the USA has used bio-warfare, most notoriously in Korea, but also against Cuba (dengue, that killed children, and Africa Swine Fever)and who knows where else. The USA gave sanctuary to Ishii Shiro, the infamous Japanese butcher of Unit 731 infamy, after WWII, but he had been a honoured guest to the USA and advocate of biological warfare since the 20s.
Fourth, the US has been investigating coronaviruses since the late 80s, after they were seen to cause myocarditis in rabbits. Then China was attacked several times with ASF and bird flus in the years before CoViD 19. You add up these facts, and many more besides, and you get the picture, particularly with incidents where high level US officials like Robert Kadlec openly advocated bio-warfare, and US agents were caught illegally prospecting for bat viruses in India, in collaboration with local labs but without informing the Indian Government.
China knows EXACTLY what happened and who was responsible. They say nothing because the evil, filthy, lying, racist, scum vermin of the Western MSM and other propaganda systems would simply denounce it as lies and Chinese agit-prop. Why waste your breath when time is better spent preparing for the next US attack, because it is surely coming.
Regarding the origin of SARS CoV2, one plus one plus one makes three, unless you are Top Level, where it comes to ‘God Bless America’!!! I sometimes almost pity the USA, for the hideously low quality, by every measure, of their Imperial boot-lickers

The fact remains that ALL surveys of popular opinion in China, undertaken by local and foreign organisations, find popular satisfaction with government and society to be among the very highest on Earth, and far above the situation in the ‘democratic’ West.

I suspect that once you add up all the peasant revolts, civil disturbances and insurrections, the Chinese are the MOST ‘revolting’ people in history. Even today there are hundreds of demos every week, with people expressing their piss-offedness over something or other. The mark of a successful local official is how well they defuse these outbursts.

(This comment is not really directed at d dan but rather Ron Unz et al):

“�悌忠信，礼义廉耻�

As d dan did not provide a translation for the Unz commentariat I thought I would lend a hand here.

This is difficult to research in English. Googling “Four Cardinal virtues� or “Four Cardinal principles� gets you a bunch of results, most of which are not Chinese (apparently Aristotle and Catholics also have their own “four Cardinal virtues�). In English, “Four Cardinal principles� points to this, a set of communist ideologies from
Deng Xiaoping at the start of reform and opening (glasnost and perestroika in Russian), however the name of these four sounds much more different compared to the name of the ancient four principles in the original Chinese:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Cardinal_Principles#:~:text=The%20principle%20of%20upholding%20the,Zedong%20Thought%20and%20Marxism–Leninism

Anyway, back to “�悌忠信，礼义廉耻�

Here is a book on the subject in English though I am unsure if it is available in America:

https://www.books.com.tw/products/CN11775173

Unlike Science and Civilization in Ancient China this will only set you back about $15 US dollars. There are a few pages of preview (in English in the link).

Helpful, albeit brief link (note the Chinese portion of the hyperlink is just the traditional character form of “礼义廉耻â€� which d dan wrote in simplified characters – they are exactly the same thing):
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/禮義廉�

Another link:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Cardinal_Principles_and_Eight_Virtues

The difficulty in googling these fundamental Chinese philosophies brings to mind Big Brother’s dictum:

Ignorance is Strength.