The brinkmanship over the US debt ceiling by grandstanding Republican political circus freaks has impacted their ratings…
Ratings agency puts US credit on negative watch should lawmakers fail to raise debt ceiling
The ratings agency Fitch placed U.S. credit on a negative watch Wednesday as lawmakers struggle to reach a deal on the debt ceiling before the country goes into default.
America’s AAA rating, the highest possible rating, was put on notice for a potential downgrade if the White House and Republicans fail to raise the debt limit.
…the idea that malicious Republican monsters would be so self destructive that they would risk actually forcing America to its knees to justify ‘owning the Dems’ is political sadism at its most Amerikan.
While this insane game of chicken actually plays out with a genuine question mark over how far demented MAGA Qanon fuckwits are prepared to go to orgasm while inflicting vast damage to the superstructure of America, China is in a far more precarious position with their now event horizon black hole of real estate…
Jiangsu City Punishes Property Developers — For Selling Too Cheaply
“It’s hard to tell what discounts can be offered once the sales resume,” Wang added.
Staff with the Kunshan housing regulator said the punishment aimed to push the developers to immediately correct their behavior and maintain the stability of the housing sector. “The unauthorized discounts have impacted the sales of the surrounding properties, which disrupted the normal order of the market,” the staff told The Paper, Sixth Tone’s sister publication.
The incident happened in the middle of a gloomy property market. In April, Kunshan saw the areas of newly built residential properties sold down by 14% compared with the previous month, which was consistent with the national trend, according to data from Zhuge Housing Data Research Center. And the average price was down by over 8% compared with March.
Lu Wenxi, an analyst at Centaline Property, said although the two Kunshan properties are not representative given their unfavorable locations, it is true that there’s a general lack of confidence in the market at the moment.
“The significant reduction in trade volume in April has resulted in turbulent emotional responses,” he told Sixth Tone. Data from China Index Academy showed the total sales volume of the country’s top 100 property companies was down 17.4% in April from the previous month.
“The market remains in a recovery process. But to what extent it can recover, no one holds absolute confidence,” Lu added.
…when the State is punishing you for selling too cheaply because of fears it will spark a collapse is the last canary to die in the coal mine.
China’s real estate market is collapsing while America is held hostage to far right conspiracy theorists.
When economies collapse, war becomes the new daddy.
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It’s been observed that the culture in certain U.S. institutions and society fosters extremely unethical and unlawful behavior, bolstered by the lack of consequences.
Wrong.
Like most countries the US is bankrupt and is charging up the credit card with no intention or ability to pay back debt. And people wonder why we have rampant inflation and a cost-of-living crisis in the West.
“Anyone who thinks that you can have infinite growth in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.” Sir David Attenborough
“Politics is concentrated economics” V.I. Lenin
“War is simply the continuation of politics by other means” Carl Gottlieb von Clausewitz
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv10sm96m
Capitalist economic crisis is the precursor to global war.
What is true for the 1930s is true now.
WWIII for the capitalist redivision of the world has already begun. It is up to us to stop it.
Opting out of WWIII
Madmen and economists are driving us to war.
We can do our bit to oppose global war by opting out. Begin by canceling all New Zealand’s military and spy pacts with all foreign powers, and with this evidence of our neutrality go before the UN to be officially recognised by a vote of the General assembly as a neutral country.
US and China economic fall will lead to war between them. And they will of course drag, NZ, Australia, and the rest of the world alongside them into an insane death spiral vortex of global violence.
Putting it all together war is the concentrated economics of economists and madmen.
Our military leaders are so wedded to the US military and economic empire for their careers, their promotions, their overseas junkets, their all expenses paid visits to the US and US overseas bases to be wooed and awed by US firepower, that these military lickspittles have lost all sense of independent rational thought of what is actually in this country’s best interests. (which is staying out of it).
Australia’s [and New Zealand’s] Defence Policy In 2023 Explained
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgspkxfkS4k&ab_channel=WorkingDogProductions
Putin sights New Zealand’s involvment in Ukraine War. U.N security council votes to void New Zealand’s petion for nutrality. No comrade general, your armchair awaits.
While I like the idea of neutrality I think it is too late. If we opted out of 5 eyes USA would immediately cancel all trade deals with us and impose huge sanctions and tariffs. They would also require Britain, Canada and most importantly Australia to follow suit. They would destroy our economy.
5eyes does the least possible trade deals with NZ anyway. We have to give up our sovereignty but not only that pay people to take our sovereignty. This is what you get when you employ pussies to do a man’s job.
….They would also require Britain, Canada and most importantly Australia to follow suit. They would destroy our economy. Peter+H
And that in a nutshell is how imperialism works folks.
The US is not our ally, more like our overseer.
And while I agree US punishment for falling out of line would be bad. I would argue it would be not as bad as joining in a global war.
I agree, almost every offensive war is the result of a mistake. A miscalculation, a failure of domestic policy, economics or just a mistake or more simply a failure to communicate. Some men you just can’t reach.
A war between people in which brother has to fight brother, human rights against human. That is the ultimate failure born out of the failures of those we put into power. Given the opportunity we all want peace, and we all want to avoid deaths cold embrace. And we all turn to some sort of religious prayer when we run out of options to live.
Not that giving each other empathy to communicate to find common ground without warfare is the greatest tragedy man can inflict on itself. Americas greatest failure (or any other empire) is not in its battlefield tactics but it’s failure is incompotent governance that leads to the impression that leads to an environment that allows inequalities to spread in the first place.
A governments lack of compotence and lack of empathy for its own people is leading the people towards one of the most devastating wars in all of human history. And because we still have a chance to stop WW3 from ever happening the New Zealand government will have to evolve in order to survive the wrath of its own people.
The American military is built to install fear with the largest capital ships that cause any political fracturing to throw down there arms and give up and well that fear was actually the grim determination of people with nothing to lose except for there freedom. And there retreat in the face of overwhelming odds is just a tacticical retreat when they can strike back, on another day, when odds are in there favour.
They say that peace time militaries are built for the last war and I think if New Zealand had actually built NZDF for the last war niether American nor Chinese interests would be conducting soft power operations in our yard and niether would have gained any momentum or been pitted against each other. But no, NZDF is not built to fight the last war it is built to fight imaginary battles going on in the heads of mad men like Hitler and fear driven people like Green Party defence, foreign affairs and trade theory activists.
But even if NZDF has the most ineffective leadership in parliament and treasury, the average military person, the ones that will be on the frontlines dying, well they will find a way to adapt. When a person’s life is at stack they will find a way to evolve.
Today NZDF must be woken from its Hellen Clark era sleeping stage back into war mode.
Now we can take a look at the doctoral and rearmament phase of an evolving hegemonic threat.
The betrayal of Afghanistan and the inadequate response material for climate disasters raises two red flags for Prime minister Chippie.
First, the betrayal of Afghanistan and Chippies core of officers highlights a much wider problem that runs rampant through out every government department. A lack of fairness and transparency that runs rampant through out the government means that the best and brightest and the most willing to co-operate are not actually excelling in the system. Instead a lot of corruption and patronage in the colonial system has been inherited by the current government. When Jacinda handed over the reigns to Chippie he still has to cut deals with Maori or Fiji or America / China Australia or whoever political and economic elite who control much of the wealth and there fore a lot of political and economic power.
There has been no attempt to progress taxation or put checks and balances on any individual in power. If anything these institutions are being eroded so that wealthy lobbyist and there wealthy donors can loot the reserve bank of New Zealand and basically do whatever they want. And so we have woke ideology, a dangerous ideology twisting and warping biological realities so that 2+2=5 to now NZDF think it’s there mission to include woman, homosexuals and transvestites in the front lines of combat and will essentially advise Chippie on strategic decisions and military recapitalisation and also around the day to day operations of governance, policy and parliament. How did they get there well they really believe in human rights lol. They also come from middle and upper classes and have the right political synergies with education and corporate elites. Then you have overweight and arrogant individuals more focused on personal gain rather than doing ones job.
The culture of an organisation or government is extremely important when it’s clear that no one believes in the rule of law or transparency and fairness it’s actually given our criminals and low quality individuals a huge advantage over thier more compitant counterparts who are maybe not as willing to do unethical things for power. And so rising up through the ranks of the military, police, government and New Zealands corporations are not component individuals. We no longer operate with in a merit based system so what’s ended up happening is the core of officers and management get inundated with selfish power hungry individuals who will do anything for a promotion.
This woke power system dynamics of inclusion really only has one advantage that is people stay busy fighting over the scraps that the wealthy can be arsed pissing down on them to realise that they really need to overthrow powerful public and private corporate elites. The consequences of this system is an extremely delusional and incompetent leadership.
As tensions escalate Chippie is hard pressed to rely on the leadership of his inner circle of generals and commanders and advisory report experts to create comprehensive military strategy and economic securities rather relying on hand picked lobbyist representing corporate interests pushing woke dogma and inclusion and diversity who he thinks can solve massive problems like a war in Afghanistan or inequality or housing crises or whatever. These hand picked problem solvers pushing for biological terms like woman be rebranded as pregnant people are just as big of a problem as some one who would deny NZDFs Afghani translators safe haven for them and there families. It’s just a bit more ruthless and aligned more towards Hitler’s Sith like nature than actual inclusion and diversity. Very delusional indeed.
Now one entity that has enjoyed a massive growth in power is our spy agencies that are more inline with the Gestapo. Now this isn’t a military or federal intelligence organisation it is a basket of intelligence services that works inside of the political organisation that supports wealthy tech entrepreneurs because for America to be superior they have to have the sometimes wealthiest person on the planet. Realising that there is massive corruptions and incompetency those who still live with in a free society must give the government unlimited power to go after wealth taxes, tax dodgers and fire all the spooks and corrupt individuals in treasury, the tax office, Oranga Tamariki, officers/commanders, lobbyist or who ever they are. All things considered internal promotions based on merit rather than inclusion is not a bad strategy when you consider how much of the domestic economy is distracting all national leaders away from the goal of global cooperation.
Now on to the second red flag, response material. Feel free to label this chapter 2/2 instead of another really long rant if you’re that kind of lazy, no hope, anti everything activist.
The tactical options open to defence planners are extremely limited and they lack any strategic value because they lack any ultra long haul anything like F-15 fighter jets, C17 heavy air lift, Patriot missile systems, Tomma Hawk Cruise missiles or large military transports and trucks. Did I mention drones and we have to start manufacturing a lot of this material ourselves. And offensive cyber capabilities. Enemy adversaries can just do hit and run cyber attacks before the SAS could scramble.
The 1st NZ SAS to thier credit is a fine organisation but everything is a wheeled/floating or flying casket coffin box with little to fuck all self protection. Like I said they lack direct fires, indirect fires, navel fires and air support and at a minimum puts a population of 5 million into contact with populations that are far larger. And so putting these really well trained and really expensive soilders into and surrounding them with really cheap force multipliers that can’t be adaptable due to complaints over how we work up budgets makes zero rational sense and is a huge national security risk.
And so NZDF can be designed to be a lot more capable and that’s the dilemma between budget priorities vs capabilities and that is a dilemma Kiwis just don’t won’t to fund. The dilemma is actually the fact that great powers build better fighter jets, tanks and battleships. So we’re going to have to begin planning and implementation of our own military industrial complex. This is why defence procurement is watched over by budgetary watchdogs rather than defence planners and engineers. Luckily for the security classes keeping costs down has the potential to turn into the most successful defence forces rivaled only by The All Blacks. But as that success builds it must signal an end to all major military operations indefinitely.
To even begin to understand how to end major military operations for all practical uses we have to understand the concept of “High, Low Mix” philosophy pioneered by U.S. Navy Admiral Elmo Zumwaltz Jnr, the person named after the budget busting Zumwalt Stealth Cruiser. The purpose of the high low mix is to save taxpayers money the idea being that no nation China or America could even afford to build large numbers of expensive Rolls Royce battleships and battle formations for prolonged periods of time.
The issue with an all “high” military is that there would not be enough numbers to patrol the world.
The difference between an all “low” green party defence, foreign affairs and trade theory policy is that we could procure enough numbers then NZDF would not have the capabilities to meet certain kinds of threats or perform particular types of missions.
In order to have both high low mix NZDF has to have a mix of powerfull capabilities and a mix of capabilities that are good enough. There not only has to be a mix of high and low capabilities but adaptable as well.
During peace time low end capabilities like corvettes and peacekeepers have to be numerous enough to manage boarder skirmishes and regional crises but during high end conflict these forces must be held back to manage convoys, regional crises while high end capabilities are deployed into the most dangerous hot spots.
For example NZ bought relatively expensive frigates with a price tag of a billion for two, which was supplemented by low cost, relatively unarmed fleet of seven protector class multi role ships for a billion dollars. Similarly the P3 Orion’s and NH-90 helicopters and light armoured vehicles is the high mix platforms for giving eyes to the navy and mobility to the army for another billion dollars.
But NZDF must also increase its personal numbers, lethality and breadth of capabilities to be able to move tactical battalion sized elements of 800 by sea on 24 hour watch during low end crises and expanding those numbers to a regiment sized element of 2400 hundred made up of 800 soldiers and with a mix of different technical trades, drivers, cooks, artillery etc totaling 2400, moved around by air mobility during high end conflicts while during peace time those air/personal assets are deployed on humanitarian and disaster relief efforts and the soilders can keep soildering
But it is the political considerations, not technical requirements that dictate that NZDF be smaller and less capable compared to the efforts behind desires for larger share of South Pacific and Antartic resources. Literally everyone is waiting for the Antartica treaty to end in a few years so they can come down here for the Great Southern Goldrush.
Like the Navy, the Airforce is all high end costs and capabilities there new toys must be 3000 tons heavier and fast enough and leathal enough and have better ideas in enough numbers. But even with the limitations New Zealanders place on defence are high, and successful border skirmishes, crises and resource raids and loss of sovereignty, those expectations must be low. NZDF has to be able to adapt and act independently in rough seas or war torn land for extended periods of time and with substantial speed, after all constant war gaming has put everyone in a high state of readiness and natural disasters or what ever crises is rolling around almost weekly sometimes. With Siberia, Antartica theyre Almost melted it’s going to dump a trillion tons of carbon into the atmosphere, that’s a chemical reaction waiting to explode into regular strong weather events and resource wars.
But in order to increase and maintain lethality at a reasonable price the public, media and corporate elites would have to allow the return of domestic manufacturing. But how can we brainwash them if there incomes rise they would argue.
In order to maintain lethality at fixed prices NZDF planers would have to get into munitions manufacturing and military hardware/weapons and platforms fit outs, refits, upgradeds, maintainance and other developmental and modernisation work. But NZDF can work towards budget limitations, defence contractors can’t.
A big procurement cost is the research. That can be mitigated by purchasing cheap stripped out bare bones superstructures and platforms from already tested and from active production lines at bulk whole sale prices. But the really expensive bit is the development bit and integration of complex weapon systems and very specific and sensitive technology into those platforms at a far cheaper rate than if it was purchased at a retail price. We would only be purchasing molded steel and doing all the putting together on shore where as the new P-8s was purchased fully assembled and flew in fully operational.
Any cost savings would have to be slamed back into Military manufacturing the idea being the we could financially manage over a longer period of time the same or similar money. As well as Manufacturing and recycling a family of expensive Multi million dollar a piece long range missiles like Norway’s 200k anti ship missile the NSM and the air launched version the JSM and an assortment of other missiles like surface to air and air to ground and anti tank as well as heavier munitions as well as play around with electric coil and rail guns and laser weapons further reducing the logistical and financial burden. I don’t expect the financial burden would decrease faster than the cost would increase over time but I would expect the down stream benifits of having a pool of extremely technical tradespeople would be a net positive on the economy over all.
While certain compromises and consessions can be made with trade and security partners imposed on certain areas, no compromises have been made. We are all masking our bad intentions only when Kiwis mask bad intentions they think no combat capabilities is a net positive. After all hard lessons are being learnt the hard way from capability shortfalls, terrorism and degeneracy. And also from NZDF experiences during COVID and the Afghan War.
At the time The Right Honourable Helen Clark was disarming NZDF she failed to acknowledge that her peacekeeping force couldn’t handle the types of conflicts she would send them into and the conflicts NZDF would have to handle after she left like non Maari supremacist movements, longer range and lower flying anti ship missiles, less radar cross section. NZDF has to be multi Mission which means to be flexible and capable across an array of threats. Such a force should be capable of being independent and forward deployed against a variety of threats including air, sea, sub sea and surface launched cruise missiles and anti air missiles, theatre ballistic missiles, mines, small craft, drone swarms, natural disaster, loss of sovereignty and rights, espionage and corporate espionage, torpedoes and various types of chemical, radiological, biological and kenetic weaponry. NZDF should also be able to contribute to offensive power projection alliance that says if you fire a nuke we will send you back to the stone Age.
Various systems currently managed by NZDF virtually fail in every area NZDF is required to operate in. This is why a domestic military industrial complex will be so revolutionary. Radar and other detection and targeting and communications devices will be the must crucial component making up any NZDF design. It revolutionises the detect and engage sequence. Compare it to what we’ve got now NZDF can not be updated on any fire control station about air, sea, land or even missile movements in real time. Remembering that we are not planning for the hypothetical wars playing out in our heads rather planing for the last war and adapting those plans as capabilities rise or decline out of favour.
At best NZDFs best detection range is it’s ANZACs over the horizon detection capability of only about 12kms meaning it can only get one opportunity to engage a missile before closing in on the minimum engagement range. Having two frigates is just an unexceptionable idea. Having no air combat is totally out of the question NZDF can not operate with no fighter jets of our own in the region just one misshap it doesn’t even need to be a warship and our whole navy gets recalled back to port. There is no room for errors and miss-calculations or budget considerations.
In contrast a larger, 6000 ton frigate and fighter gets integrated into an array of domestically produced air defence, land sea and air systems would multiply the minimum engagement range by a factor of atleast 2. And in the case of Agis Spy6 automating the track and detect sequence meaning there is no extended periods of manual handling flicking switches and pressing buttons.
The next revolution is NZDFs limitations to deploy force, project power and track and deploy missiles. we already have anti submarine capabilities but to revolutionise NZDF planers would integrate weapons and communications with censors on Satallites including weaponised drones which unifies it all into a highly automated system. National security is already getting a revolutionary software upgrade with its with its new data centre the revolution in hardware need’s to be commensurate with that resulting in increased reaction time for decision makers and as you already know reaction times mater.
But the reality is New Zealand couldn’t afford the numbers of battle ships and fighter jets and missile ashore systems, we couldn’t even afford the low end numbers required. That’s why the emphases in getting wrapped up in long ranged missiles and domestic production so that we could afford to outfit a dozen fighter jets for frigate, six corvettes and some bushmasters or trucks with launch tubes fitted out by battle labs of our own. But that’s not going to happen no matter how genius plans look on paper we are political amateurs on stage. Non military minds just won’t get how important NZDF is to economic security and prosperity and so more robust “activist” will try and take all the funding away from NZDF and end up killing NZDF along with the Treaty of Waitangi. No NZDF, no protection, no treaty.
A debt ceiling fight in Congress is the end of the US economy?
The US economy is in decline because for decades it has been stealing value from other countries who trade in US$.
Its debt has been backed by dollar holdings in countries that are still producing value like China.
As these countries develop and challenge the fiat US$ the whole US economy is poised to collapse.
Going to war to prop up this shambles blows back to make it worse.
Congress is panicking about the symptom of rising debt not the inherent cause of the impending collapse.
Similarly China is not collapsing because it property boom is over. That is a symptom of the private speculation. The centralised state capitalism is strong enough to make private owners pay for their speculation rather than provoke a crash, and when necessary step in to buy up bad assets cheap.
The US and China a both imperialist powers but the US in rapid decline and cannot compete economically with China, hence the sanctions and drive to war.
The answer it not to pick sides with any of these exploiting imperialist powers but to unite workers in every country to overthrow their ruling classes and the destruction of nature and humanity.
I suggest we try to unite people in NZ who can see that we are going down a rabbit hole. Start an organisation called Working Democracy – get the domain name now.
And concentrate on both aspects, a democracy that works for us and one with jobs for people, even government organised but which will earn them their room and board. When proved themselves, a place at a polytechnic learning a skill that is useful structurally, probably building, maintenance, joinery, planting trees. Now there is an idea.
Don’t think about uniting workers round the world get onto doing what little NZ can do at home; that’s little enough but it’s a start.
Are America and China destined for war? – expert explains
https://www.youtubwbe.com/watch?v=Gm7pPzD_mAQ&ab_channel=Channel4News
And the answer is: Yes they are destined for war, they are preparing for war they will have a war. However this expert says that as an eternal optimist he hopes both sides realise that they live on a finite planet sharing the same single bio-sphere. They do realise this, but both sides feel that they can have a conventional war that doesn’t destroy the planet, And we know this is true because we can see that this is the sort of war that both sides are preparing for.
We shouldn’t be preparing for the imaginary wars taking place in the heads of mad men or fear driven people. We should be preparing for the last war. A war in which weapons of mass destruction unleashes untold chaos and destruction.
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