In March, total profits of industrial companies rose 2.6%, according to National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data.

2.6% rise in 1 month is fine to call a surge

And so do the hiduvatas. I’m forced to encounter enough of these mfs irl. What’s your point?

No. In this specific situation where everyone else has already slipped the tariffs?

China is the biggest target, it hasn’t been isolated from the world economy or the free trade system. America is making an attempt to isolate china but how many countries will play along?

What soft power they retain will be aimed at “traditional values” crowd

Fair enough. But there is more to soft power than just cultural factors. The reliability of the American market itself is in question, and this is not a good thing. America going with fascist aesthetics is nowhere near as America trying to interfere with the global gravy train.

It is impossible to convince the Europeans to side with the global south out of the goodness of their hearts (which they don’t have). However, fucking with their wallets will cause everyone except the most ardent European hitlerites to rethink their relationship with America.

Russia has a low unemployment rate and a strong trade surplus, which are the 2 macroeconomics factors that are really important. The former means that they are running their economy close to its physical limits, the latter means that their financial position wrt other countries is improving over time.

The government deficit itself is not really so important, since the conservation of money during trading means that

Net debt of Russian private sector + net debt of Russian government + net debt of rest of world to Russia = 0

Since money can only flow between these 3 sectors.

So as long as there is a trade surplus, the “net debt of rest of world to russia” is increasing, and this can be divided between the government or the private sector.

As a side note, this is why austerity efforts are always doomed. Any debt that the government isn’t picking up is picked up by the private sector. Only actual way to reduce debts is by fixing the trade balance.

I never said this would work I just said I think this is their thinking.

It would have been best to clarify this in your initial comment.

I think it would be a mistake to view China as isolated in this. First of all, Russia, Vietnam and Iran are pretty strong partners to have. Secondly, there is the BRICS bloc, which has been growing largely due to American abuses of the international finance system. America flip flopping so hard on tariffs and then extorting every country in the world will no doubt cause American soft power to decline rapidly in the coming years as countries grow weary.

Also, on a purely military and industrial basis, China outclasses the whole of the west by such a margin that there really isn’t anything to worry about. China of all countries cannot have its industries decimated short of nuclear strikes.

Damn, I was about to wonder what the fuck was going in Japan.

India’s navy is still orders of magnitude below the standard of the modern Chinese fleet, and their doctrine is outdated in modern naval warfare

This assumes that things remain the same for the foreseeable future. If WW3 starts and finishes by the end of the decade, I would agree with this point. However, it is difficult to imagine that India will make no headway in military modernisation by 2030, especially if it has plans to participate in hostilities against China.

Not to mention, in a collaboration scenario, the west can help india speed up modernisation (and it will have its own internal initiative as well)

Also, their land borders with China are all nearly impassable Himalayan mountains and narrow passes,

They don’t need to conquer China through the himalayas. They just need to occupy Chinese efforts and attention.

the least capable major power in the world militarily relative to other similarly sized countries

The only country with a similar size is China.

1. I wasn’t purely talking about military strength. India has a relatively large industrial base (decent amounts of steel production and large labor pool) which could in theory supply the west
2. India has the ability to help enforce a blockade of the straits of Malacca.
3. India has borders with China, meaning they could occupy a front and divert resources
4. India is building up missiles and ships. It’s not as if they don’t have any domestic production of weapons.
5. India has a large population for youth, and therefore could supply the west with a large amount of manpower

I still think that in a ww3 scenario, China will win no matter what, but the west could drag things out much longer if they have India.

Please don’t …

If china manages its relationship with India well enough that the us can’t get Indian help during ww3, then that’s pretty much checkmate for the us.

Nuclear war or help from India is literally the only possibility of western imperialism ever defeating china (although in either scenario, western imperialism will also collapse).

The UK has a population of 66 million.

6.8% of the country is an impoverished child.

the president would preserve the possibility of going down in history as a great wartime victor.

He doubted that a war was necessary or winnable. But he sent American soldiers all the same.

The thinking of the American liberal mind never fails to horrify me.

Literally the entire top level of the government is appointed by the president, who also effectively has supreme veto power over every decision (since vetos can only be overturned by 2/3rds majority, which probably won’t happen).

Like at this point literally just make an absolute monarchy it would be more efficient.

I am posting this article because recently there has been a narrative going around that Russia violated the ceasefire on Ukrainian energy infrastructure. However, even according to western media, the AFU violated the ceasefire pretty much immediately, effectively rendering it void. It’s important context that is missing from western pop narratives.

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I don’t think a universal basic income is a good idea. The capitalists will just use it to supress wages, since the amount of wages is generally constrained by what is necessary for workers to survive. Reducing that amount will cause wages to fall.

A much better idea would be to give an unconditional basic income to everybody not currently working. This forces capitalists to maintain a minimum level of wages, while making unemployment survivable.

The only downside I can think of is that the capitalists will then do everything in their power to lower this kind of basic income. And they will use propaganda on those who are working to convince them that they are being forced to keep “dead weight” afloat. Although the latter possibility exists with a universal income as well.

Beijing told EU officials that China’s second-ranked leader Premier Li Qiang would meet the presidents of the European Council and Commission in Brussels for the summit rather than Xi, two people familiar with the matter said.

This is some nothing burger nonsense. Xi might literally just be having constipation. Who gives a shit (pun not intended)?

I don’t see how his plans are lacking actually. They’ve already established dialogue with Russia. It’s going well both according to the US and Russia. Seems to me that there’s a very good chance they will come to an agreement this year.

I agree that the end of the war will be negotiated by the Trump admin, and likely this year, since the AFU can’thold out much longer. Certainly, his relationship with Russia is much better than Biden’s, but tbh that’s a very low bar to clear.

When I say that Trump’s plans are lacking, I am referring to his overall geopolitical strategy. I might have missed out on some development that happened recently since I haven’t kept up with the news this week, or maybe I just don’t see the big picture yet.

Ruining the relations with Europe could be part of the strategy here.

This is a possibility, I’ll keep an eye on it.

Whom do they need hard power against if they normalize relations with Russia exactly?

They will need some level of hard power maintained in europe to pressure any European government or left-wing movement against doing things that will harm American investments. They will need hard power to defend against the ruse of such movements to begin with. I don’t think it’s far fetched to assume that the Trump admin is aware of the possibility of large scale populist upheavals in Europe bringing harm to American assets. Especially with climate change and nationalist sentiments intensifying.

That’s in the optimistic scenario that relations with Russia are fully normalised. Although I suppose in a full divestment scenario none of this is necessary.

I think Trump genuinely understands that the war is a sunk cost, and on top of it he knows that it’s going to be an Albatross around his neck if he doesn’t end it.

I don’t think it matters what Trump’s genuine beliefs are or aren’t. His administration’s ability to execute his plans is severely lacking, that’s even assuming that his words line up with what the admin wants behind closed doors.

Furthermore, the rapprochement with Russia will allow him to divert resources to Asia which is where the US sees a real threat now. In the grand scheme of things, Europe is just not that important anymore from the US perspective.

I think it will prove to be much more difficult to divest from Europe than people are expecting, and that like most of Trump’s gambits, his admin will half ass it and call it a day.

The amount of American capital invested into Europe is staggering. The UK alone has more American FDI than the entirety of the south-east Asia (including China). US corporations also store 64% of their foreign assets in Europe. My point is that America cannot actually divest from Europe. It has to maintain a hard power and soft power presence in the continent to safeguard its capital. If Europe starts buying large quantities of American weapons (as Trump wants them to), it only strengthens American interest in the region.

I expect that either the US and Russia work something out, which I think is most likely, or the US will simply bail on Ukraine and cut their losses. The reality is that the US is unable to keep the war going much longer materially, and unlike the Europeans, they actually acknowledge this fact.

Well, the Americans and Russians will have to work something out at some point to end the war.