Just talking aloud here and not trying to say anything in particular: I've been an HSBC customer for 20 years, 6/7 years ago things started to get a bit weird, and then there was a full blown withdrawal. I do a small amount of business with kids of CCP folks, 2/3 years ago things in those relationships changed also. I've thought for a while now there is something pretty big brewing behind the scenes, the way Trump reacted to Zelensky saying that the USA is going to feel some stuff... again, I'm not trying to say something, I'm not saying war, aliens, paradigm shifting tech, I don't know what I'm saying, but my gut says something starkly unusual is brewing.
DEFCON started the Frankin project less than a year ago. Purpose is to work with the small mom and pop people across the country and volunteer to harden their security. The consensus being that China will be launching a major offensive in the next 5-7 years and this country filled with small pockets of people doing their own thing are deeply vulnerable to having their infrastructure being crippled in a "first strike" kind of attack. Think about it, so much of the country is decentralized and a lot of the people have their infrastructure that the country depends on just running on outdated junk.
The rest of this decade is make or break for the next 20+ years. I honestly don't know if the US is really on the right path. Maybe letting Musk cut everything so the country can focus on the core essentials will save us? Maybe it will doom us? If we go down, I suspect he will go down with us (never getting to mars) so there is that at least. Maybe it doesn't matter anymore? Maybe there really is no leadership at the top so the window has closed and we are just sleepwalking into a depressing era of pain and suffering?
Well I'm Canadian I would really prefer you didn't fall over, it means we're going down also, and I can't say we're the folks you need to be picking a fight with yet our country is boo'ing your anthem at our sports games we're so annoyed. Maybe we need to be here for some reason, I don't know, but it seems like the twilight zone...(btw:have you seen how good robots are recently? amazingly good...)
So you too have noticed "something" that cannot be quantified as "event" yet. I would say from around 2014 things started to move in strange directions here and there around the world. I am not sure if what is brewing is highly unusual, but I would say it is not something we have seen in a last 50-70 years.
Maybe it's just because they're anticipating fallout from an escalation over Taiwan?
Large US tech companies would be crippled because they'd suddenly loose access to top chips and manufacturing capacity over night.
We're living in a classic "pre-war era," similar to what people said about living in Germany between the wars. I don't know what the war is going to be about or even who the sides are going to be (hopefully I won't be on either of them), but I think that's what the tension is about.
HSBC is effectively fully exiting the west. US, Canada and this year UK was announced, also noticed the floors in our building that the ICBK are on are coming up for availability.
If you dig in, you will find that HSBC is an Asian bank with a British regulatory structure. HSBC Group is large, and functionally HQ'd in hong kong, but on top of that, as I said, if you dig in, you'll find a lot of things that show HSBC is an Asian bank with a British regulatory structure, it's why it's used by people like myself.
You’re absolutely right to be concerned. We’re watching a long-term strategy being played out and America is largely a pawn and blind to it because the average person, leaders included, can’t imagine what our world might look like beyond the next 4 years.
The reality is, strategically, China is much much much wiser than the US is and the puzzle pieces are starting to come together in all the ways that are good for them.
And if you want proof of my statement that our society is in denial, watch this comment get downvoted into oblivion.
For one, I’m somewhat familiar with Chinese culture and how their government functions. I would warn against underestimating how quickly they can turn things around, both culturally and economically. They have the ability to make sudden drastic changes with little pushback or resistance from the population. They have focus, reliably execute, and recover relatively quickly from mistakes and are getting increasingly good at social engineering to enable those things. They are thinking 50 years into the future at all times.
Yes, it’s absolutely possible they go too far and end in a revolution but I don’t see that happening in this century. The overall sentiment in the country (outside metro areas) is a tremendous amount of support for their government.
I have no objection to your claim that Chinese pivot quickly. I saw it when Tesla introduced Gigacasting. Some of the Chinese automakers announced and implemented Gigacasting as quick as possible. Quick turnaround after a new idea is presented probably comes from their long heritage of copying and reverse engineering. We have very few orgs in the US that have this kind of burn the boats thinking. Mostly they are in Silicon Valley with companies like Tesla and Apple(more so during the Jobs era but still true today).
>They have focus, reliably execute, and recover relatively quickly from mistakes and are getting increasingly good at social engineering to enable those things. They are thinking 50 years into the future at all times.
Ok all of this is true but it does not address my main point: they have a fundamental problem that began decades ago and the window has now closed to prevent a massive disaster that could take the "steam out of the economic engine". How are they going to resolve this?
>Yes, it’s absolutely possible they go too far and end in a revolution but I don’t see that happening in this century. The overall sentiment in the country (outside metro areas) is a tremendous amount of support for their government.
I haven't kept up with the lie flat movement but I imagine part of the cause of this massive birth rate problem was in fact 996. Its a sort of silent revolution agains the leadership. Young Chinese crushed with the burden of buying impossibly expensive property, having to care for elders and start a family choose to opt out. Are they going to take the people opted out and put them into camps unless they pop out kids and start spending their life doing innovation? Im sure that will do wonders for fostering innovation.
You know those stories about Soviets getting overwhelmed when they visited US supermarkets? That happens with Americans visiting Chinese downtowns. China will have no trouble outlasting the US unless things change radically.
Demographics are not the problem you think they are; industrial economies no longer rest on the shoulders of burly twentysomething coal miners shoveling sixteen tonnes of coal to get another day older and deeper in debt until blacklung disables them.
>China will have no trouble outlasting the US unless things change radically.
Um my entire point was about an issue that will definitely cause them to lose steam before the US. You provided no rebuttal to my point.
>Demographics are not the problem you think they are; industrial economies no longer rest on the shoulders of burly twentysomething coal miners shoveling sixteen tonnes of coal to get another day older and deeper in debt until blacklung disables them.
They rest on the backs of 20 somethings who are forced to take care of their elderly parents, while popping out 2-3 kids while maintaining impossible million dollar mortgages for a 1 bedroom condo while working 996 style hours. In that regard, I only see nothing but doom and gloom coming.
