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Home » Open thread 11/30/23

Open thread 11/30/23

The New Neo Posted on by

Twins competing against each other. I think the sequence with the ball is most impressive. But I have no idea how anyone does any of this:

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Open thread 11/30/23 — 24 Comments

  5. At the former first lady Carter’s funeral there was a performance of the the song ” Imagine”. As the writer of this Breitbart article points out , along with others, what a strange song to sing , ” …imagine there’s no Heaven…” at the funeral of someone who was supposed to be a devout Christian.
    https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2023/11/29/trisha-yearwood-garth-brooks-mocked-for-singing-atheist-anthem-imagine-at-devotedly-christian-roselyn-carters-funeral/

  6. As Chases Eagles indicates, it’s 11/30/23, not December.

    Focusing with a bunch of grandchildren around can be tough. At my house last week, the activity and noise level caused by one well-behaved five-year-old girl was astounding.

  8. I imagine it’s like juggling or (in my long ago case) a scimitar/dagger routine; hundreds of hours of practice at the precision needed. The girls are beautifully impressive.

    Here’s another person that is mesmerizingly precise that you might find interesting.

  11. Focusing with a bunch of grandchildren around can be tough.

    Kate:

    Such a beautiful problem! And I know you know it.

  12. My latest find — perfect MTV pop from JJG. Hilarious.

    Jean-Jacques Goldman, “Je marche seul — I walk alone (Clip officiel)” (1985)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AS0wPLnAhY

    This is his 80s glory. Trying to explain JJG in Anglo terms — he is his own man, but I can sure hear a synthesis of Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen and The Cars. Plus he is Harry Potter cute.

    I love feeling part-French, however limited that part might be.

  14. RE: China –Which has been called “the land of shortcuts and facades,” is falling apart.

    It may not look like it from the glittering Chinese Communist propaganda videos and the laudatory comments of China’s paid Western shills, but China is, in fact, actually falling apart.

    A number of simultaneous trends spell very bad times ahead for China.

    As the effects of the former “one child policy,” work their way through the Chinese population, China’s is now in an irrevocable demographic death spiral, and their population is due to shrink very rapidly in the near future. (To make things even worse reputable Chinese statistical institutions have also recently reported that the most recent Census somehow over estimated the number of people in the younger population—key to economic prosperity–by one hundred million.)

    This will obviously have a major effect on the amount of manpower China will have available to carry out whatever projections of it’s power and influence it has planned, and it’s place in the world.

    China’s population is rapidly aging, and this cohort is rapidly growing, yet Chinese retirement benefits are reportedly very minimal, and many of the multiple children in a family which earlier generations could count on to support their parents and grandparents in their old age were just not born, and won’t be around to take up the burden.

    China has reportedly embarked on a Xenophobic campaign to label foreigners as “spies,” and is apparently trying to drive them out of China.

    Meanwhile, reacting to an increasingly unprofitable and hostile business climate, an increasing number of major foreign manufacturing firms are removing their operations from China, and often relocating them to southeast Asia, leading to massive layoffs of massive numbers of Chinese workers.

    There are a reported 20 million vacant apartments–many of them not even completed. Two of China’ s biggest real estate developers have gone bankrupt, with the third ranked company apparently also headed for bankruptcy.

    All this at a time when the real estate sector contributes an estimated 30% or more of China’s GDP, and many people’s wealth is tied up in the real estate market, which is the only vehicle available for people to accumulate wealth in Communist China.

    Mortgage payment strikes are also breaking out in some locations, as people who paid large up front fees to secure apartments–which where then never built–have started to stop paying their mortgage payments, which started at the time they signed the purchase paperwork.

    In the midst of all of this economic turmoil, some banks have also refused to let people withdraw their deposits.

    China also has a huge problem with numerous recent collapses of various high rise apartments, gymnasiums, highways, underwater highway tunnels, large commercial structures like expo centers, and other structures, which have apparently been built with substandard materials and using short cut construction methods.

    Gigantic, largely unoccupied “ghost cities” (I wonder if we could label them Chinese Communist “follies”)–both completed and uncompleted–exist in many locations in China.

    See, for instance, a major new city, Xiongan, built near Beijing which Xi planned as a new government, academic, and commercial center, but which is largely unoccupied, or Tianducheng, a massive, large scale, largely unoccupied reproduction of France’s Eiffel Tower and the avenues and buildings in the area around it.*

    Then, of course, there is China’s extremely ambitious “Belt and Road Initiative”–planned to ultimately cost a total of $4 trillion dollars–and designed to extend the reach, influence, economic clout, trade, and military power of China in a major way–and in which many of the less developed (and mostly poor) countries which got Chinese construction loans to build roads, railway and other transportation systems, dams, airports, and seaports, cannot make their interest payments on a $trillion dollars in loans.

    * See https://www.nomadasaurus.com/tianducheng-chinas-strange-city-paris/

  15. P.S. It also appears that some–perhaps many–of these “Belt and Road” projects in poor and underdeveloped countries appear to be “vanity” projects, rather than ones which are really needed.

  16. Snow on Pine,

    That story on Tianducheng is eerie. I also watched a few, short videos filmed there. huxley and others have commented on Peter Ziehan’s predictions for China. It is difficult to see how they avoid an economic collapse, even if it is temporary. But the government has tremendous power and the ability to control a great deal. Maybe they can strategize a better future?

  23. Holy crap, Snow, that was freaky. I’ve been following the construction fiasco in China for a while but that last vid was shocking.

    I built my farm house by hand, alone and I’ll put gold doubloons I did a better job than that.

  24. But the government has tremendous power and the ability to control a great deal. Maybe they can strategize a better future?

    Rufus T. Firefly:

    Peter Zeihan points out in some detail that Xi has been systematically purging China of leaders and potential leaders who might challenge his power.

    Hence, almost all decision-making falls to Xi and it’s too big a job for any human being.

    Even if one admires, as many like Tom Friedman, the ease of China to make the big decisions with little opposition, one can’t expect Xi to make reliably good decisions.

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