Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
Control and management of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve has been turned over by the DOE to a company with virtually no history: Strategic Storage Partners, LLC, with the U.S. Government paying $1.4 billion or $280 million every year to have it managed. https://x.com/GasBuddyGuy/status/1907913212714168482
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
Suppose your US company imports $1M of high quality parts, and adds in its own components to produce finished goods sold for $1.2M per batch. Your gross profit is $200k per batch.
But wait! Suddenly a new 30% tariff is imposed on that $1M of parts. You now have to fork over $300k to customs before you sell anything. That’s cash you probably don’t have. Oh, and even if you do sell everything, you’re now losing $100k per batch.
With a sinking feeling, you realize your profitable business which you somehow managed to keep in America all these years has suddenly become unprofitable.
You post online about how bad this is but get shouted down by an angry mob, convinced that capitalists like you should die. You can’t tell nowadays if they’re on left or right.
Moreover, you don’t have the time, money, skills, or tools in house to build that $1M of parts yourself. You are being asked to do the equivalent of growing a maple tree when all you needed was a little maple syrup. So now you are faced with several tough choices.
(1) First, you may need to go into debt or fire people to quickly come up with the $300k in cash to pay for these surprise tariffs at customs. Even if the tariff might go away, it might not, so you have to get the cash somehow or risk having your shipment impounded.
(2) Next, you might need to reduce quality to stop losing $100k on each batch. You could order the lower quality $750k parts, grimace and pay 30% tariff at customs, and hope you can build and sell for the same price of $1.2M per batch despite the lower quality.
(3) Alternatively, you could keep the quality parts at $1M and instead raise prices to $1.5M per batch to get back your original margins of $200k per batch, which you need to pay employees after all. But that’s a big hike that your customer will probably not welcome, given that he’s likely dealing with his own tariff shock.
So: these tariffs don’t really give an incentive to build in the US. Because it’s far more expensive to build a screw factory than to pay even high tariffs on a foreign screw... https://x.com/balajis/status/1908236239268175927
Any business that imports $1 million of high quality parts, does a little value add and sells them on for an extra $200K is crazy. That return is nowhere near enough.
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
They are not going to miss the open goal Trump has presented them with
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
I'm far from sure that's the case. The Chinese authorities like to *appear* competent, but the signs bubbling up from under the surface are from that. They just try to hide their incompetence better - usually by blaming other minions in the system.
The way they lied, hid and dissembled the seriousness of the Covid outbreak in early 2020, when openness was key, shows that well.
They also have a shitload more debt than many people think, because it's held at a provincial rather than national level so it doesn't appear in 'Chinese' stats.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
One could add the bungled war with Vietnam, and the one-child policy.
Someone recommended the Scott Bessent interview with Tucker Carlson in the previous thread.
It’s interesting and he’s very good at explaining the issue but Carlson is pretty useless as an interviewer. It’s more a monologue. No probing questions so far more friendly full tosses on a flat track.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
One could add the bungled war with Vietnam, and the one-child policy.
Is the Vietnam bungled war a Kublai Khan reference?
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
One could add the bungled war with Vietnam, and the one-child policy.
Is the Vietnam bungled war a Kublai Khan reference?
No, the 1979 war. In truth, all the world's most powerful armed forces (USA, Russia, China), seem to struggle when faced with opponents whose only interest is in defending their home turf in depth.
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
They are not going to miss the open goal Trump has presented them with
Even Biden and the EU had tariffs on Chinese imports. Trump has just increased them and expanded them to other nations
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
And yet I was talking to a client yesterday who is convinced this is all 4D chess and a stroke of genius “even though I don’t agree with it”.
There is a great deal of sanewashing in a nation.
Trumpsplaining is becoming a disease. Radio 4 were at it this morning. A feature on the new hostility between the US and Canada, so off they go to Maine to record some cross lobster fishermen who don’t like the Canadians. The US equivalent of those barometer of British public opinion pieces that seem to focus entirely on Lancashire town centres at lunchtime on a working day.
I'd say there is no such thing as 4D chess, which is where quite a lot of novelists go wrong, when writing of war and politics, and coming up with fiendishly complex (and highly improbable), strategies and tactics.
War and politics are in principle, very simple things to get right. It's the execution that's extremely difficult. That requires basic competence, good planning, and attention to detail.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
And yet I was talking to a client yesterday who is convinced this is all 4D chess and a stroke of genius “even though I don’t agree with it”.
There is a great deal of sanewashing in a nation.
Trumpsplaining is becoming a disease. Radio 4 were at it this morning. A feature on the new hostility between the US and Canada, so off they go to Maine to record some cross lobster fishermen who don’t like the Canadians. The US equivalent of those barometer of British public opinion pieces that seem to focus entirely on Lancashire town centres at lunchtime on a working day.
But you would have to be so stupid - so very, very stupid - to president in this way that 4D chess has a whiff of plausibility to it. And it seems implausible that someone that stupid could find himself as president. And I don't like simply dismissing something because I can't see the point of it or disagree with it. So I keep looking for the 4D chess. Clearly he's not playing to the rules of the game as they were previously. The measures of success we were previously assuming are not necessarily Trump's measures of success. So: Is it just a massive personal enrichment scheme? If so, he's doing pretty well and his chances of success by that measure seem fair. Is he trying to replace American democracy with a monarchy led by tge Trump dynasty? If so, audacious, but he's made a good start. Is he governing for America but his long term aim is to pivot away from Europe and towards Russia - because, perhaps, he has an eye on Russian collapse and fears a China which has aquired Siberia? If so, again, he's made a good start. Is his endgame a North American autarky and let the rest of the world do its own thing? Again, he's made a good start.
We don't know what game he's playing - though it presumably isn't maintain-the-western-alliance-and-keep-the-DJ-buoyant-and-do-enough-to-be-reelected-by-voters-judging-you-on-those-measures, which is what most of gis predecessors have played. So we can't assume he isn't winning.
It's comforting to think he's just stupid. But I don't find it wholly convincing (those some of his henchmen clearly are).
I guess Trump is now rather busy burning down his own country to worry about others doing it to other countries.
Putin will now assume he has a free hand to ignore any "ceasefire" without consequence.
Trump's ability to have the world overlook all the other previous epic fails because he has turned this week to a fresh epic fail must run out at some point?
I had an idea. Inspired by topical events. Don’t know if it’s any good.
With all the breath of knowledge and experience, free market pirates, others who actually work/worked in the field, world renowned teachers and researchers, but at the same time all these geeky nerdy qualities (if such things are qualities) even one person “3 Way Nick” published two books on games (presumably role playing. It’s always the quiet ones)
Could we knock up something simple, but effective…
PBs How Free Market Economics Works Game.
As an educational teaching aid?
Could take it into the PB toilets, if you want to kick the idea around
I wouldn’t be able to help much - I couldn’t even manage a full stop at the end of my last sentence. I’ve never been a gamer. Plus I can’t write anything, havn’t a clue what difference is between using Which or That, where That always sounds okay to my ear so always use that. And writing affect just looks wrong spelling when read, so I always write effect instead.
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
They are not going to miss the open goal Trump has presented them with
Even Biden and the EU had tariffs on Chinese imports. Trump has just increased them and expanded them to other nations
US tariffs are not the only thing Trump has done
Trump has torched the US standing in many areas. The Chinese are already stepping in to Africa as USAID retreats
If the US is no longer at the top of the pile, somebody else will be
I have little knowledge of education but great respect for @ydoethur contributions to PB and absolutely agree that Spielman should not go to the Lords
We can find terrible nominations to the Lords across the political divide and IMHO the Lords including Bishops should be scrapped and replaced with an elected second chamber with revising powers
I don't care much what they do with the second chamber except for one thing. There should only be one elected decision making body - ie the House of Commons. To have two or more such outfits sets the country against itself.
An added and increasingly obvious benefit of the position the House of Commons holds is that it is very much harder for a charismatic psychopath to take the sort of control that is occurring in the USA. The powers of a single president are of course reinforced by having a mandate. The UK mandate belongs to 650 MPs, the PM has no less and no more than being one of those. The Lords has wisdom but no mandate. Keep it that way.
The majority of countries in the world have bicameral systems, with both being elected. This strongly suggests that it is a workable approach.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
Hmm possibly. But with Trump there'll be so many unintended consequences and some of them are likely to be worse than the intended ones.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
CEO Xi is flexible and well advised. Note his change of stance on the technocrats eg Jack Ma. He has a strong board of Directors, appointed on merit , who have to retire at the age of 68 to ensure quality succession (except for him of course).
It's similar to a well run multinational. It can make long term plans eg the Belt and Road Initiative, as it doesn't face electors every few years who want short term goodies.
I have little knowledge of education but great respect for @ydoethur contributions to PB and absolutely agree that Spielman should not go to the Lords
We can find terrible nominations to the Lords across the political divide and IMHO the Lords including Bishops should be scrapped and replaced with an elected second chamber with revising powers
There are some bad appointments in the Lords but there are also some excellent peers who were at the top of their professions and bring intelligent and apolitical scrutiny to revising legislation. Indeed Lords debates are often higher quality than Commons debates.
Have a fully elected upper house and it would use that mandate like the US Senate to try and block lower house legislation. Indeed at the moment it is possible Reform could have most seats in it
I had an idea. Inspired by topical events. Don’t know if it’s any good.
With all the breath of knowledge and experience, free market pirates, others who actually work/worked in the field, world renowned teachers and researchers, but at the same time all these geeky nerdy qualities (if such things are qualities) even one person “3 Way Nick” published two books on games (presumably role playing. It’s always the quiet ones)
Could we knock up something simple, but effective…
PBs How Free Market Economics Works Game.
As an educational teaching aid?
Could take it into the PB toilets, if you want to kick the idea around
I wouldn’t be able to help much - I couldn’t even manage a full stop at the end of my last sentence. I’ve never been a gamer. Plus I can’t write anything, havn’t a clue what difference is between using Which or That, where That always sounds okay to my ear so always use that. And writing affect just looks wrong spelling when read, so I always write effect instead.
We don't know what game he's playing - though it presumably isn't maintain-the-western-alliance-and-keep-the-DJ-buoyant-and-do-enough-to-be-reelected-by-voters-judging-you-on-those-measures, which is what most of gis predecessors have played. So we can't assume he isn't winning.
It's comforting to think he's just stupid. But I don't find it wholly convincing (those some of his henchmen clearly are).
Well, that's two different questions.
Is he succeeding in what he is trying to do? Maybe. Too early to tell.
Is what he is trying to do stupid? Yes. Objectively, unequivocally, universally, absolutely.
I have little knowledge of education but great respect for @ydoethur contributions to PB and absolutely agree that Spielman should not go to the Lords
We can find terrible nominations to the Lords across the political divide and IMHO the Lords including Bishops should be scrapped and replaced with an elected second chamber with revising powers
There are some bad appointments in the Lords but there are also some excellent peers who were at the top of their professions and bring intelligent and apolitical scrutiny to revising legislation. Indeed Lords debates are often higher quality than Commons debates.
Have a fully elected upper house and it would use that mandate like the US Senate to try and block lower house legislation. Indeed at the moment it is possible Reform could have most seats in it
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
CEO Xi is flexible and well advised. Note his change of stance on the technocrats eg Jack Ma. He has a strong board of Directors, appointed on merit , who have to retire at the age of 68 to ensure quality succession (except for him of course).
It's similar to a well run multinational. It can make long term plans eg the Belt and Road Initiative, as it doesn't face electors every few years who want short term goodies.
The CEO comparison is instructive. In listed groups a good CEO can turn bad with age and as the world moves on, and at that point they get turfed out. Xi will insist on being president for life. The previous Chinese term limits avoided this problem.
I guess Trump is now rather busy burning down his own country to worry about others doing it to other countries.
Putin will now assume he has a free hand to ignore any "ceasefire" without consequence.
Trump's ability to have the world overlook all the other previous epic fails because he has turned this week to a fresh epic fail must run out at some point?
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
CEO Xi is flexible and well advised. Note his change of stance on the technocrats eg Jack Ma. He has a strong board of Directors, appointed on merit , who have to retire at the age of 68 to ensure quality succession (except for him of course).
It's similar to a well run multinational. It can make long term plans eg the Belt and Road Initiative, as it doesn't face electors every few years who want short term goodies.
The big drawbacks are rampant corruption, suppression of personal freedom, indifference to the welfare of the masses from those at the top, and probably most important of all - inability for those at the bottom to criticise those at the top.
The ability to criticise freely is such an important function, in the modern State.
I have little knowledge of education but great respect for @ydoethur contributions to PB and absolutely agree that Spielman should not go to the Lords
We can find terrible nominations to the Lords across the political divide and IMHO the Lords including Bishops should be scrapped and replaced with an elected second chamber with revising powers
There are some bad appointments in the Lords but there are also some excellent peers who were at the top of their professions and bring intelligent and apolitical scrutiny to revising legislation. Indeed Lords debates are often higher quality than Commons debates.
Have a fully elected upper house and it would use that mandate like the US Senate to try and block lower house legislation. Indeed at the moment it is possible Reform could have most seats in it
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
CEO Xi is flexible and well advised. Note his change of stance on the technocrats eg Jack Ma. He has a strong board of Directors, appointed on merit , who have to retire at the age of 68 to ensure quality succession (except for him of course).
It's similar to a well run multinational. It can make long term plans eg the Belt and Road Initiative, as it doesn't face electors every few years who want short term goodies.
The CEO comparison is instructive. In listed groups a good CEO can turn bad with age and as the world moves on, and at that point they get turfed out. Xi will insist on being president for life. The previous Chinese term limits avoided this problem.
Aye, if you make peaceful handover of power impossible that leaves one option. Well, two, if you consider a bloodless coup and bloodier action separate things.
It's also why I think there's a good chance Xi will go for Taiwan. He's not getting any younger, the USA has the dopiest president for quite some time, and China's strategic picture (demographically) is only getting worse. Taking Taiwan would make it easier to stand back and have sufficient authority to not be put on a show trial, if he chooses to do that, or to hold on.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
One could add the bungled war with Vietnam, and the one-child policy.
Yes, there's a wide range of views on China's leadership's competence. Personally I tend to the view that incompetence is baked into autocracy and that China is no exception, and that there are dozens of areas in which poor decision-making - as a direct result of the autocratic nature of the country- has left them perilously placed (the housing market being a prime example). My view is that China is teetering on the abyss.
And yet, look at China's progress since 1980. In 1980 almost every country in Africa was richer than China. Almost the whole country existed on subsistence agriculture.
The only was I can square this circle is by suggesting that the leadership of the Deng era was actually anomalously competent - and anomalously unautocratic.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
It emphasises the confusion around the world at what Trump actually wants to achieve - is it mostly a negotiating position to try and force countries to remove trade barriers to US goods eg
The White House demanded that Britain and India change their health and sanitation rules to make it easier to export U.S. agricultural products. In Brazil, India and Europe, they targeted digital regulations that have entangled U.S. tech giants. And there has been an effort to sweep away barriers for U.S. carmakers wherever they exist, the diplomat said.
Or is it about massively reducing US imports and reshoring manufacturing - in which case there's not much point offering concessions. Of course it could be a bit of both, but there's definitely no point making unilateral concessions in the hope of getting favourable treatment:
Countries tried to offer up policy changes ahead of time to spare themselves from the worst of the tariffs, not always successfully. India’s government last week announced plans to scrap a 6 percent tax on the advertising revenue of foreign companies. The country was still hit with a 26 percent tariff, based on a formula that didn’t take into account the country’s policy change.
At the Munich Security Conference Vance said "Look, Germany is the one country, maybe, in NATO, that did not follow the stupid Washington consensus and allow their country to be deindustrialized during the ‘70s, ’80s, and ‘90s."
Firstly, Germany having a bigger industrial sector than some other countries is more to do with the strong engineering tradition, strong apprenticeship system, and long-term thinking of many of the owners and management of manufacturers than rejecting the Washington consensus. And it also makes Germany actually pretty vulnerable to things like massive increases in the cost of energy, trade wars, and countries like China grabbing market share.
Secondly, the US is richer than Germany, and has had overall higher GDP per capita growth than Germany over the last decades. Part of that US GDP increase is borrowed, and eventually unsustainable. But it does seem that stuff like silicon valley creates more value than traditional manufacturing - and maybe if the US had kept its manufacturing it wouldn't have made so much progress in those parts of the tech sector. Yes plenty of people in the US feel they haven't had their share of the increased wealth, but it seems unlikely that the best way to deal with that is reshoring shoe manufacturing from Vietnam and giving tax giveaways to the hyper-rich.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
And yet I was talking to a client yesterday who is convinced this is all 4D chess and a stroke of genius “even though I don’t agree with it”.
There is a great deal of sanewashing in a nation.
Trumpsplaining is becoming a disease. Radio 4 were at it this morning. A feature on the new hostility between the US and Canada, so off they go to Maine to record some cross lobster fishermen who don’t like the Canadians. The US equivalent of those barometer of British public opinion pieces that seem to focus entirely on Lancashire town centres at lunchtime on a working day.
Eg the reporting in our media of these as *reciprocal* tariffs. Taking his framing at face value.
Probably the most ridiculous example of Trumpsplaining I've come across was a recent piece for unHerd by Yanis Varoufakis. He knocked out 5000 words working up this byzantine theory taking in the gold price, the oil price, the currency markets, dollar reserves, global trade flows, yada yada, to arrive at some nirvana that the policy was seeking to realise here on earth. Made Trump sound like a visionary with a brain the size of Neptune.
I know he has to pay the rent and all but it was hogwash from start to finish. I think you get a lot of this with Trump. People much cleverer than him projecting their own 'SME' onto him. That Niall Ferguson guy does it a lot, I've noticed. On foreign policy in his case, rather than economics as with Yanis.
We don't know what game he's playing - though it presumably isn't maintain-the-western-alliance-and-keep-the-DJ-buoyant-and-do-enough-to-be-reelected-by-voters-judging-you-on-those-measures, which is what most of gis predecessors have played. So we can't assume he isn't winning.
It's comforting to think he's just stupid. But I don't find it wholly convincing (those some of his henchmen clearly are).
Well, that's two different questions.
Is he succeeding in what he is trying to do? Maybe. Too early to tell.
Is what he is trying to do stupid? Yes. Objectively, unequivocally, universally, absolutely.
Only if you assume traditional measures of success - i.e. the citizens of your country getting gradually wealthier and happier and more secure. There are countless African despots who did rather well out of the gradual impoverishment of their countries.
And I'm still not convinced that an Arctic alliance or a North American autarky would be a wholly bad result for yer average American Joe. On balance, I think it probably wouldn't. But I'm not as 100% sure as you are.
I have little knowledge of education but great respect for @ydoethur contributions to PB and absolutely agree that Spielman should not go to the Lords
We can find terrible nominations to the Lords across the political divide and IMHO the Lords including Bishops should be scrapped and replaced with an elected second chamber with revising powers
There are some bad appointments in the Lords but there are also some excellent peers who were at the top of their professions and bring intelligent and apolitical scrutiny to revising legislation. Indeed Lords debates are often higher quality than Commons debates.
Have a fully elected upper house and it would use that mandate like the US Senate to try and block lower house legislation. Indeed at the moment it is possible Reform could have most seats in it
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
CEO Xi is flexible and well advised. Note his change of stance on the technocrats eg Jack Ma. He has a strong board of Directors, appointed on merit , who have to retire at the age of 68 to ensure quality succession (except for him of course).
It's similar to a well run multinational. It can make long term plans eg the Belt and Road Initiative, as it doesn't face electors every few years who want short term goodies.
The CEO comparison is instructive. In listed groups a good CEO can turn bad with age and as the world moves on, and at that point they get turfed out. Xi will insist on being president for life. The previous Chinese term limits avoided this problem.
We don't know that he will insist of being president for life. Nor that his Board of Directors will allow him.
The governance setup in China is different from that in Russia or North Korea. It is similar to a PLC. People's League of China.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
One could add the bungled war with Vietnam, and the one-child policy.
How much CO2 did the one-child policy save the planet?
I have little knowledge of education but great respect for @ydoethur contributions to PB and absolutely agree that Spielman should not go to the Lords
We can find terrible nominations to the Lords across the political divide and IMHO the Lords including Bishops should be scrapped and replaced with an elected second chamber with revising powers
There are some bad appointments in the Lords but there are also some excellent peers who were at the top of their professions and bring intelligent and apolitical scrutiny to revising legislation. Indeed Lords debates are often higher quality than Commons debates.
Have a fully elected upper house and it would use that mandate like the US Senate to try and block lower house legislation. Indeed at the moment it is possible Reform could have most seats in it
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
CEO Xi is flexible and well advised. Note his change of stance on the technocrats eg Jack Ma. He has a strong board of Directors, appointed on merit , who have to retire at the age of 68 to ensure quality succession (except for him of course).
It's similar to a well run multinational. It can make long term plans eg the Belt and Road Initiative, as it doesn't face electors every few years who want short term goodies.
The CEO comparison is instructive. In listed groups a good CEO can turn bad with age and as the world moves on, and at that point they get turfed out. Xi will insist on being president for life. The previous Chinese term limits avoided this problem.
We don't know that he will insist of being president for life. Nor that his Board of Directors will allow him.
The governance setup in China is different from that in Russia or North Korea. It is similar to a PLC. People's League of China.
Xi broke the unwritten longstanding rule about not pursuing top officials over corruption (put in place to stop infighting) and various senior people have been axed. It seems to be Xi's show, and he has more authority than those before him, who preferred to follow the two terms and stand down model.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
One could add the bungled war with Vietnam, and the one-child policy.
Yes, there's a wide range of views on China's leadership's competence. Personally I tend to the view that incompetence is baked into autocracy and that China is no exception, and that there are dozens of areas in which poor decision-making - as a direct result of the autocratic nature of the country- has left them perilously placed (the housing market being a prime example). My view is that China is teetering on the abyss.
And yet, look at China's progress since 1980. In 1980 almost every country in Africa was richer than China. Almost the whole country existed on subsistence agriculture.
The only was I can square this circle is by suggesting that the leadership of the Deng era was actually anomalously competent - and anomalously unautocratic.
Whatever his faults, (and despite the one-child folly), I think that Deng did do an incredible amount of good, for a very high proportion of the human race.
We don't know what game he's playing - though it presumably isn't maintain-the-western-alliance-and-keep-the-DJ-buoyant-and-do-enough-to-be-reelected-by-voters-judging-you-on-those-measures, which is what most of gis predecessors have played. So we can't assume he isn't winning.
It's comforting to think he's just stupid. But I don't find it wholly convincing (those some of his henchmen clearly are).
Well, that's two different questions.
Is he succeeding in what he is trying to do? Maybe. Too early to tell.
Is what he is trying to do stupid? Yes. Objectively, unequivocally, universally, absolutely.
Only if you assume traditional measures of success - i.e. the citizens of your country getting gradually wealthier and happier and more secure. There are countless African despots who did rather well out of the gradual impoverishment of their countries.
Trump wants to be revered
I don't think going down in history as the next Mugabe is what he wants, so I do think even on his own terms what he is doing is irredeemably stupid
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
And yet I was talking to a client yesterday who is convinced this is all 4D chess and a stroke of genius “even though I don’t agree with it”.
There is a great deal of sanewashing in a nation.
Trumpsplaining is becoming a disease. Radio 4 were at it this morning. A feature on the new hostility between the US and Canada, so off they go to Maine to record some cross lobster fishermen who don’t like the Canadians. The US equivalent of those barometer of British public opinion pieces that seem to focus entirely on Lancashire town centres at lunchtime on a working day.
I'd say there is no such thing as 4D chess, which is where quite a lot of novelists go wrong, when writing of war and politics, and coming up with fiendishly complex (and highly improbable), strategies and tactics.
War and politics are in principle, very simple things to get right. It's the execution that's extremely difficult. That requires basic competence, good planning, and attention to detail.
There are people so desperate for Trump to be "right" they will literlaly come up with an explanation or justification for anything and everything.
This desperation might be motivated self-interest or the fear if Trump is "wrong", the "Blob" will be back and they'll never be removed. If you put all your hopes in one basket, it has to succeed. Failure, as someone once said, is not an option.
Trump's people know this and they also know, as some allude to on here, the only people to whom you need to listen are those who voted for you.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
And yet I was talking to a client yesterday who is convinced this is all 4D chess and a stroke of genius “even though I don’t agree with it”.
There is a great deal of sanewashing in a nation.
Trumpsplaining is becoming a disease. Radio 4 were at it this morning. A feature on the new hostility between the US and Canada, so off they go to Maine to record some cross lobster fishermen who don’t like the Canadians. The US equivalent of those barometer of British public opinion pieces that seem to focus entirely on Lancashire town centres at lunchtime on a working day.
Eg the reporting in our media of these as *reciprocal* tariffs. Taking his framing at face value.
Probably the most ridiculous example of Trumpsplaining I've come across was a recent piece for unHerd by Yanis Varoufakis. He knocked out 5000 words working up this byzantine theory taking in the gold price, the oil price, the currency markets, dollar reserves, global trade flows, yada yada, to arrive at some nirvana that the policy was seeking to realise here on earth. Made Trump sound like a visionary with a brain the size of Neptune.
I know he has to pay the rent and all but it was hogwash from start to finish. I think you get a lot of this with Trump. People much cleverer than him projecting their own 'SME' onto him. That Niall Ferguson guy does it a lot, I've noticed. On foreign policy in his case, rather than economics as with Yanis.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
CEO Xi is flexible and well advised. Note his change of stance on the technocrats eg Jack Ma. He has a strong board of Directors, appointed on merit , who have to retire at the age of 68 to ensure quality succession (except for him of course).
It's similar to a well run multinational. It can make long term plans eg the Belt and Road Initiative, as it doesn't face electors every few years who want short term goodies.
The big drawbacks are rampant corruption, suppression of personal freedom, indifference to the welfare of the masses from those at the top, and probably most important of all - inability for those at the bottom to criticise those at the top.
The ability to criticise freely is such an important function, in the modern State.
You're looking at it through Western eyes that values personal freedom over stability and a growing standard of living. Many in the East value the latter.
Western values are changing too, and the appeal of a Nietzschean Übermensch is growing. As a liberal, I watch with apprehension.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
And yet I was talking to a client yesterday who is convinced this is all 4D chess and a stroke of genius “even though I don’t agree with it”.
There is a great deal of sanewashing in a nation.
Trumpsplaining is becoming a disease. Radio 4 were at it this morning. A feature on the new hostility between the US and Canada, so off they go to Maine to record some cross lobster fishermen who don’t like the Canadians. The US equivalent of those barometer of British public opinion pieces that seem to focus entirely on Lancashire town centres at lunchtime on a working day.
I'd say there is no such thing as 4D chess, which is where quite a lot of novelists go wrong, when writing of war and politics, and coming up with fiendishly complex (and highly improbable), strategies and tactics.
War and politics are in principle, very simple things to get right. It's the execution that's extremely difficult. That requires basic competence, good planning, and attention to detail.
There are people so desperate for Trump to be "right" they will literlaly come up with an explanation or justification for anything and everything.
This desperation might be motivated self-interest or the fear if Trump is "wrong", the "Blob" will be back and they'll never be removed. If you put all your hopes in one basket, it has to succeed. Failure, as someone once said, is not an option.
Trump's people know this and they also know, as some allude to on here, the only people to whom you need to listen are those who voted for you.
It's also a polarisation problem, which is naturally deeper in a two-party system. If you hate your enemy enough that becomes the motivation rather than supporting your own side.
Hence nonsense about 'owning the libs' or 'they're annoying all the right sort of people'.
There are people so desperate for Trump to be "right" they will literlaly come up with an explanation or justification for anything and everything.
This desperation might be motivated self-interest or the fear if Trump is "wrong", the "Blob" will be back and they'll never be removed. If you put all your hopes in one basket, it has to succeed. Failure, as someone once said, is not an option.
Trump's people know this and they also know, as some allude to on here, the only people to whom you need to listen are those who voted for you.
Except Trump has also said these people will never need to vote again, so why listen to them?
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
Control and management of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve has been turned over by the DOE to a company with virtually no history: Strategic Storage Partners, LLC, with the U.S. Government paying $1.4 billion or $280 million every year to have it managed. https://x.com/GasBuddyGuy/status/1907913212714168482
The corruption is going to be stratospheric, isn't it. That's the great benefit (to Trump) of the chaos and making everything dependent on his say-so in ad-hoc off-grid conversations with god only knows who.
I had an idea. Inspired by topical events. Don’t know if it’s any good.
With all the breath of knowledge and experience, free market pirates, others who actually work/worked in the field, world renowned teachers and researchers, but at the same time all these geeky nerdy qualities (if such things are qualities) even one person “3 Way Nick” published two books on games (presumably role playing. It’s always the quiet ones)
Could we knock up something simple, but effective…
PBs How Free Market Economics Works Game.
As an educational teaching aid?
Could take it into the PB toilets, if you want to kick the idea around
I wouldn’t be able to help much - I couldn’t even manage a full stop at the end of my last sentence. I’ve never been a gamer. Plus I can’t write anything, havn’t a clue what difference is between using Which or That, where That always sounds okay to my ear so always use that. And writing affect just looks wrong spelling when read, so I always write effect instead.
(Which I had when smaller- no wonder I turned out the way I did.)
of which one reviewer wrote
I can give the advanced version of Poleconomy a recommendation, if only on the grounds that trying to stop the country going down the toilet is an illuminating experience.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
One could add the bungled war with Vietnam, and the one-child policy.
Yes, there's a wide range of views on China's leadership's competence. Personally I tend to the view that incompetence is baked into autocracy and that China is no exception, and that there are dozens of areas in which poor decision-making - as a direct result of the autocratic nature of the country- has left them perilously placed (the housing market being a prime example). My view is that China is teetering on the abyss.
And yet, look at China's progress since 1980. In 1980 almost every country in Africa was richer than China. Almost the whole country existed on subsistence agriculture.
The only was I can square this circle is by suggesting that the leadership of the Deng era was actually anomalously competent - and anomalously unautocratic.
Or that your assumption that incompetence is baked into autocracy is incorrect?
You can have competent or even benevolent dictatorships. But they're pretty rare. Hiero II of Syracuse and perhaps Sultan Qaboos of Oman are exceptions.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
CEO Xi is flexible and well advised. Note his change of stance on the technocrats eg Jack Ma. He has a strong board of Directors, appointed on merit , who have to retire at the age of 68 to ensure quality succession (except for him of course).
It's similar to a well run multinational. It can make long term plans eg the Belt and Road Initiative, as it doesn't face electors every few years who want short term goodies.
The big drawbacks are rampant corruption, suppression of personal freedom, indifference to the welfare of the masses from those at the top, and probably most important of all - inability for those at the bottom to criticise those at the top.
The ability to criticise freely is such an important function, in the modern State.
You're looking at it through Western eyes that values personal freedom over stability and a growing standard of living. Many in the East value the latter.
Western values are changing too, and the appeal of a Nietzschean Übermensch is growing. As a liberal, I watch with apprehension.
I think you're missing the point. The ability to criticise is not only a good in its own right, it is also a necessary part of good decision making and therefore in making people richer. This is my view, anyway. You won't rise above middle income unless you have the quality of decision making that comes with tge freedom to criticise.
"Amanda Spielman is a bad leader, an inept person, and has done enormous damage to the education of children not I think because she meant to but because she was profoundly ignorant, not especially intelligent and incredibly arrogant. You can see why she was a friend of Dominic Cummings."
This is the stuff of HIGNFY.
Are we to take the rest of it seriously?
A little bit of comedic high jinx doesn't detract from the fact that Spielman was wholly unsuitable to her role and Johnsonian era corruption has seen a vile, self-serving nincompoop on the cusp of being elevated to the House of Lords.
These personal vendettas are becoming a thing. If they're not funny they sound mean spirited. We've become adept in this country at creating monsters and it's not one of our attractive qualities.
Did the UK invent the stocks?
That is not the problem in the U.K. The problem is that we have, for far too long, had low expectations of those in charge. We have tolerated - and far too often rewarded - the incompetent, the malign, the self-serving, the dishonest, the unprofessional. We have allowed people in charge of public services to put their personal interests first or to treat the public sector as something to be plundered for profit without in return providing the quality of service we ought to expect. We have refused to hold leaders meaningfully accountable for their actions and failures to act. We have covered up gross incompetence and malfeasance and done everything possible to avoid providing effective compensation for those harmed by this.
And the result is that we have second and third rate public services, leaders who think only about what they can take rather than what they can give to those whom they are meant to serve and when any of this is pointed out to those who fail us we have to endure a load of self-pitying whining and laughable excuses. If anything works in this country it is down to those who do try to behave professionally and with some degree of responsibility and honesty and who, frankly, do not get properly recognised or rewarded.
Pointing this out is not putting people in the stocks or being mean-spirited. It is necessary and long overdue if we are even to begin changing this for the better.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
CEO Xi is flexible and well advised. Note his change of stance on the technocrats eg Jack Ma. He has a strong board of Directors, appointed on merit , who have to retire at the age of 68 to ensure quality succession (except for him of course).
It's similar to a well run multinational. It can make long term plans eg the Belt and Road Initiative, as it doesn't face electors every few years who want short term goodies.
The big drawbacks are rampant corruption, suppression of personal freedom, indifference to the welfare of the masses from those at the top, and probably most important of all - inability for those at the bottom to criticise those at the top.
The ability to criticise freely is such an important function, in the modern State.
You're looking at it through Western eyes that values personal freedom over stability and a growing standard of living. Many in the East value the latter.
Western values are changing too, and the appeal of a Nietzschean Übermensch is growing. As a liberal, I watch with apprehension.
I think you're missing the point. The ability to criticise is not only a good in its own right, it is also a necessary part of good decision making and therefore in making people richer. This is my view, anyway. You won't rise above middle income unless you have the quality of decision making that comes with tge freedom to criticise.
I think Xi's Board of Directors do constructively criticise. Hence the change of direction on some policies. Xi is also anti-corruption and cracks down hard on it which also helps good decision making.
Contrast Xi's Board with Trump's Board and the quality of their respective decision making, even though the US is more free than China.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
It emphasises the confusion around the world at what Trump actually wants to achieve - is it mostly a negotiating position to try and force countries to remove trade barriers to US goods eg
The White House demanded that Britain and India change their health and sanitation rules to make it easier to export U.S. agricultural products. In Brazil, India and Europe, they targeted digital regulations that have entangled U.S. tech giants. And there has been an effort to sweep away barriers for U.S. carmakers wherever they exist, the diplomat said.
Or is it about massively reducing US imports and reshoring manufacturing - in which case there's not much point offering concessions. Of course it could be a bit of both, but there's definitely no point making unilateral concessions in the hope of getting favourable treatment:
Countries tried to offer up policy changes ahead of time to spare themselves from the worst of the tariffs, not always successfully. India’s government last week announced plans to scrap a 6 percent tax on the advertising revenue of foreign companies. The country was still hit with a 26 percent tariff, based on a formula that didn’t take into account the country’s policy change.
At the Munich Security Conference Vance said "Look, Germany is the one country, maybe, in NATO, that did not follow the stupid Washington consensus and allow their country to be deindustrialized during the ‘70s, ’80s, and ‘90s."
Firstly, Germany having a bigger industrial sector than some other countries is more to do with the strong engineering tradition, strong apprenticeship system, and long-term thinking of many of the owners and management of manufacturers than rejecting the Washington consensus. And it also makes Germany actually pretty vulnerable to things like massive increases in the cost of energy, trade wars, and countries like China grabbing market share.
Secondly, the US is richer than Germany, and has had overall higher GDP per capita growth than Germany over the last decades. Part of that US GDP increase is borrowed, and eventually unsustainable. But it does seem that stuff like silicon valley creates more value than traditional manufacturing - and maybe if the US had kept its manufacturing it wouldn't have made so much progress in those parts of the tech sector. Yes plenty of people in the US feel they haven't had their share of the increased wealth, but it seems unlikely that the best way to deal with that is reshoring shoe manufacturing from Vietnam and giving tax giveaways to the hyper-rich.
However Trump isn't bright and his mind is set in an era that starts in the 1950s and ends in the 80s.
So manufacturing is something that he thinks creates jobs without realising that a lot of those jobs are by necessity low value added and so low paid - and creating jobs will make people happy regardless of the actual real world situation the US has established for itself.
And tax cuts keeps his mates happy which given they are the only people talking to him is not surprising.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
CEO Xi is flexible and well advised. Note his change of stance on the technocrats eg Jack Ma. He has a strong board of Directors, appointed on merit , who have to retire at the age of 68 to ensure quality succession (except for him of course).
It's similar to a well run multinational. It can make long term plans eg the Belt and Road Initiative, as it doesn't face electors every few years who want short term goodies.
The big drawbacks are rampant corruption, suppression of personal freedom, indifference to the welfare of the masses from those at the top, and probably most important of all - inability for those at the bottom to criticise those at the top.
The ability to criticise freely is such an important function, in the modern State.
You're looking at it through Western eyes that values personal freedom over stability and a growing standard of living. Many in the East value the latter.
Western values are changing too, and the appeal of a Nietzschean Übermensch is growing. As a liberal, I watch with apprehension.
I think you're missing the point. The ability to criticise is not only a good in its own right, it is also a necessary part of good decision making and therefore in making people richer. This is my view, anyway. You won't rise above middle income unless you have the quality of decision making that comes with tge freedom to criticise.
I think Xi's Board of Directors do constructively criticise. Hence the change of direction on some policies. Xi is also anti-corruption and cracks down hard on it which also helps good decision making.
Contrast Xi's Board with Trump's Board and the quality of their respective decision making, even though the US is more free than China.
Anti-corruption can also be a convenient way to get rid of rivals or those not kowtowing sufficiently.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
I'm far from sure that's the case. The Chinese authorities like to *appear* competent, but the signs bubbling up from under the surface are from that. They just try to hide their incompetence better - usually by blaming other minions in the system.
The way they lied, hid and dissembled the seriousness of the Covid outbreak in early 2020, when openness was key, shows that well.
They have lifted 1 BILLION people out of poverty in 40 years, without any major social ructions. They have neutralised any threat from Islam. They have established the world's finest largest high speed rail network. Their coastal cities now rank alongside western Europe and the USA in prosperity, even if there is a vast neglected hinterland. Their universities are shooting up the rankings, their companies are some of the most successful in the world, and the biggest. They have stealthily taken Hong Kong without a shot being fired and there is a reasonable chance they will do the same with Taiwan
They have surged to pre-eminence in world trade. They have cleverly undermined the West, in all ways, throughout this, avoiding our wars while stoking discord and rancour within our societies. Do we ever see Muslim countries/groups condemn China, even though China has a FAR worse record on Muslim rights? No, we do not. They condemn the West, because we are perceived as weak, guilty and divided
They have conjured the world's biggest navy, from nothing. They are dominant in Africa and most of Asia. They are turning Russia into a vassal state. And now they are on the cusp of overtaking the West in the foremost technologies of the time. DeepSeek did not come from nowhere. Do a DeepSeek search on "Unitree"
Is their regime perfect? Of course not. Covid was a clusterfuck. And came from their lab. Their demographics are dismal - but this is a worldwide problem that no one has solved. There are many dissenting voices that would love to overthrow Xi and his appalling cronies. The Chinese elite is cruel, brutal and greedy
But, basically competent? Yes, absolutely. What else would you have them do?! They have shown that autocracy can REALLY work, which is why democracy is in brisk retreat as so many developing countries now ape the Chinese model rather than the West
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
CEO Xi is flexible and well advised. Note his change of stance on the technocrats eg Jack Ma. He has a strong board of Directors, appointed on merit , who have to retire at the age of 68 to ensure quality succession (except for him of course).
It's similar to a well run multinational. It can make long term plans eg the Belt and Road Initiative, as it doesn't face electors every few years who want short term goodies.
The big drawbacks are rampant corruption, suppression of personal freedom, indifference to the welfare of the masses from those at the top, and probably most important of all - inability for those at the bottom to criticise those at the top.
The ability to criticise freely is such an important function, in the modern State.
You're looking at it through Western eyes that values personal freedom over stability and a growing standard of living. Many in the East value the latter.
Western values are changing too, and the appeal of a Nietzschean Übermensch is growing. As a liberal, I watch with apprehension.
I think you're missing the point. The ability to criticise is not only a good in its own right, it is also a necessary part of good decision making and therefore in making people richer. This is my view, anyway. You won't rise above middle income unless you have the quality of decision making that comes with tge freedom to criticise.
I think Xi's Board of Directors do constructively criticise. Hence the change of direction on some policies. Xi is also anti-corruption and cracks down hard on it which also helps good decision making.
Contrast Xi's Board with Trump's Board and the quality of their respective decision making, even though the US is more free than China.
Anti-corruption can also be a convenient way to get rid of rivals or those not kowtowing sufficiently.
If it's a choice between corruption or anti-corruption I choose anti-corruption every time.
You don't need anti-corruption as a convenient way to get rid of rivals or those not kowtowing sufficiently Just look at Trump!
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
I'm far from sure that's the case. The Chinese authorities like to *appear* competent, but the signs bubbling up from under the surface are from that. They just try to hide their incompetence better - usually by blaming other minions in the system.
The way they lied, hid and dissembled the seriousness of the Covid outbreak in early 2020, when openness was key, shows that well.
They have lifted 1 BILLION people out of poverty in 40 years, without any major social ructions. They have neutralised any threat from Islam. They have established the world's finest largest high speed rail network. Their coastal cities now rank alongside western Europe and the USA in prosperity, even if there is a vast neglected hinterland. Their universities are shooting up the rankings, their companies are some of the most successful in the world, and the biggest. They have stealthily taken Hong Kong without a shot being fired and there is a reasonable chance they will do the same with Taiwan
They have surged to pre-eminence in world trade. They have cleverly undermined the West, in all ways, throughout this, avoiding our wars while stoking discord and rancour within our societies. Do we ever see Muslim countries/groups condemn China, even though China has a FAR worse record on Muslim rights? No, we do not. They condemn the West, because we are perceived as weak, guilty and divided
They have conjured the world's biggest navy, from nothing. They are dominant in Africa and most of Asia. They are turning Russia into a vassal state. And now they are on the cusp of overtaking the West in the foremost technologies of the time. DeepSeek did not come from nowhere. Do a DeepSeek search on "Unitree"
Is their regime perfect? Of course not. Covid was a clusterfuck. And came from their lab. Their demographics are dismal - but this is a worldwide problem that no one has solved. There are many dissenting voices that would love to overthrow Xi and his appalling cronies. The Chinese elite is cruel, brutal and greedy
But, basically competent? Yes, absolutely. What else would you have them do?! They have shown that autocracy can REALLY work, which is why democracy is in brisk retreat as so many developing countries now ape the Chinese model rather than the West
*Might* have come from their lab. We don't know and possibly never will - which would be a shame given the stature of the pandemic as a world event. Still, there are precedents for the cause of huge happenings in history remaining uncertain. And maybe it's no bad thing, come to think of it. Life shouldn't be stripped of all its mystery.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
One could add the bungled war with Vietnam, and the one-child policy.
Yes, there's a wide range of views on China's leadership's competence. Personally I tend to the view that incompetence is baked into autocracy and that China is no exception, and that there are dozens of areas in which poor decision-making - as a direct result of the autocratic nature of the country- has left them perilously placed (the housing market being a prime example). My view is that China is teetering on the abyss.
And yet, look at China's progress since 1980. In 1980 almost every country in Africa was richer than China. Almost the whole country existed on subsistence agriculture.
The only was I can square this circle is by suggesting that the leadership of the Deng era was actually anomalously competent - and anomalously unautocratic.
Or that your assumption that incompetence is baked into autocracy is incorrect?
That's a pretty safe assumption to make, based upon scores of worked examples.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
And yet I was talking to a client yesterday who is convinced this is all 4D chess and a stroke of genius “even though I don’t agree with it”.
There is a great deal of sanewashing in a nation.
Trumpsplaining is becoming a disease. Radio 4 were at it this morning. A feature on the new hostility between the US and Canada, so off they go to Maine to record some cross lobster fishermen who don’t like the Canadians. The US equivalent of those barometer of British public opinion pieces that seem to focus entirely on Lancashire town centres at lunchtime on a working day.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
One could add the bungled war with Vietnam, and the one-child policy.
Yes, there's a wide range of views on China's leadership's competence. Personally I tend to the view that incompetence is baked into autocracy and that China is no exception, and that there are dozens of areas in which poor decision-making - as a direct result of the autocratic nature of the country- has left them perilously placed (the housing market being a prime example). My view is that China is teetering on the abyss.
And yet, look at China's progress since 1980. In 1980 almost every country in Africa was richer than China. Almost the whole country existed on subsistence agriculture.
The only was I can square this circle is by suggesting that the leadership of the Deng era was actually anomalously competent - and anomalously unautocratic.
Or that your assumption that incompetence is baked into autocracy is incorrect?
That's a pretty safe assumption to make, based upon scores of worked examples.
With immigration dropping over the next two years, those polls will look quite different IMO.
Nope. High immigration is a news story. Lower immigration is not - no cut through. Plus, boat migrants are the big story, and they will likely continue, or increase.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
One could add the bungled war with Vietnam, and the one-child policy.
Yes, there's a wide range of views on China's leadership's competence. Personally I tend to the view that incompetence is baked into autocracy and that China is no exception, and that there are dozens of areas in which poor decision-making - as a direct result of the autocratic nature of the country- has left them perilously placed (the housing market being a prime example). My view is that China is teetering on the abyss.
And yet, look at China's progress since 1980. In 1980 almost every country in Africa was richer than China. Almost the whole country existed on subsistence agriculture.
The only was I can square this circle is by suggesting that the leadership of the Deng era was actually anomalously competent - and anomalously unautocratic.
Or that your assumption that incompetence is baked into autocracy is incorrect?
That's a pretty safe assumption to make, based upon scores of worked examples.
Do you think there's a difference between "autocracy, but the leader is on a ten year term and everybody knows it'll be someone different after that" and the more common straight-up "autocracy, same guy indefinitely" ? Or is it much of a muchness?
"Amanda Spielman is a bad leader, an inept person, and has done enormous damage to the education of children not I think because she meant to but because she was profoundly ignorant, not especially intelligent and incredibly arrogant. You can see why she was a friend of Dominic Cummings."
This is the stuff of HIGNFY.
Are we to take the rest of it seriously?
A little bit of comedic high jinx doesn't detract from the fact that Spielman was wholly unsuitable to her role and Johnsonian era corruption has seen a vile, self-serving nincompoop on the cusp of being elevated to the House of Lords.
These personal vendettas are becoming a thing. If they're not funny they sound mean spirited. We've become adept in this country at creating monsters and it's not one of our attractive qualities.
Did the UK invent the stocks?
That is not the problem in the U.K. The problem is that we have, for far too long, had low expectations of those in charge. We have tolerated - and far too often rewarded - the incompetent, the malign, the self-serving, the dishonest, the unprofessional. We have allowed people in charge of public services to put their personal interests first or to treat the public sector as something to be plundered for profit without in return providing the quality of service we ought to expect. We have refused to hold leaders meaningfully accountable for their actions and failures to act. We have covered up gross incompetence and malfeasance and done everything possible to avoid providing effective compensation for those harmed by this.
And the result is that we have second and third rate public services, leaders who think only about what they can take rather than what they can give to those whom they are meant to serve and when any of this is pointed out to those who fail us we have to endure a load of self-pitying whining and laughable excuses. If anything works in this country it is down to those who do try to behave professionally and with some degree of responsibility and honesty and who, frankly, do not get properly recognised or rewarded.
Pointing this out is not putting people in the stocks or being mean-spirited. It is necessary and long overdue if we are even to begin changing this for the better.
We should expect and demand better.
I blame, to some extent anyway, Margaret Thatcher. I well remember her suggesting that graduates achieving highest grades should not enter public service but commerce, suggesting that the pursuit of profit was more important than public service. As Ms Cyclefree points out, it isn't.
When I worked in the NHS there was a period in the mid 90's when some Trusts discouraged their staff from attending conferences, on the grounds that Trusts were competing, and discussing improvements at conferences would benefit competitors.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
CEO Xi is flexible and well advised. Note his change of stance on the technocrats eg Jack Ma. He has a strong board of Directors, appointed on merit , who have to retire at the age of 68 to ensure quality succession (except for him of course).
It's similar to a well run multinational. It can make long term plans eg the Belt and Road Initiative, as it doesn't face electors every few years who want short term goodies.
The big drawbacks are rampant corruption, suppression of personal freedom, indifference to the welfare of the masses from those at the top, and probably most important of all - inability for those at the bottom to criticise those at the top.
The ability to criticise freely is such an important function, in the modern State.
You're looking at it through Western eyes that values personal freedom over stability and a growing standard of living. Many in the East value the latter.
Western values are changing too, and the appeal of a Nietzschean Übermensch is growing. As a liberal, I watch with apprehension.
Well plenty of Eastern peoples (eg Taiwanese, South Koreans, Japanese, Indonesians) have turned out to favour democracy over autocracy, too. There's nothing inherent in Easterners that makes them favour autocracy, or in Westerners that makes them favour democracy.
In general, democracies deliver the goods more effectively than autocracies do. But, the flaws of democracies tend to be glaring and obvious, whereas the flaws of autocracies are hidden. Outsiders look at the shiny new cities, autobahns, thousands of people goose-stepping in synch, and think how impressive this all is, while overlooking the wretched lives of the peasantry, the concentration camps, the secret police.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
I'm far from sure that's the case. The Chinese authorities like to *appear* competent, but the signs bubbling up from under the surface are from that. They just try to hide their incompetence better - usually by blaming other minions in the system.
The way they lied, hid and dissembled the seriousness of the Covid outbreak in early 2020, when openness was key, shows that well.
They have lifted 1 BILLION people out of poverty in 40 years, without any major social ructions. They have neutralised any threat from Islam. They have established the world's finest largest high speed rail network. Their coastal cities now rank alongside western Europe and the USA in prosperity, even if there is a vast neglected hinterland. Their universities are shooting up the rankings, their companies are some of the most successful in the world, and the biggest. They have stealthily taken Hong Kong without a shot being fired and there is a reasonable chance they will do the same with Taiwan
They have surged to pre-eminence in world trade. They have cleverly undermined the West, in all ways, throughout this, avoiding our wars while stoking discord and rancour within our societies. Do we ever see Muslim countries/groups condemn China, even though China has a FAR worse record on Muslim rights? No, we do not. They condemn the West, because we are perceived as weak, guilty and divided
They have conjured the world's biggest navy, from nothing. They are dominant in Africa and most of Asia. They are turning Russia into a vassal state. And now they are on the cusp of overtaking the West in the foremost technologies of the time. DeepSeek did not come from nowhere. Do a DeepSeek search on "Unitree"
Is their regime perfect? Of course not. Covid was a clusterfuck. And came from their lab. Their demographics are dismal - but this is a worldwide problem that no one has solved. There are many dissenting voices that would love to overthrow Xi and his appalling cronies. The Chinese elite is cruel, brutal and greedy
But, basically competent? Yes, absolutely. What else would you have them do?! They have shown that autocracy can REALLY work, which is why democracy is in brisk retreat as so many developing countries now ape the Chinese model rather than the West
Few even developing nations are one party states like China and Taiwan is not on a lease like HK and developing its own defences
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
One could add the bungled war with Vietnam, and the one-child policy.
Yes, there's a wide range of views on China's leadership's competence. Personally I tend to the view that incompetence is baked into autocracy and that China is no exception, and that there are dozens of areas in which poor decision-making - as a direct result of the autocratic nature of the country- has left them perilously placed (the housing market being a prime example). My view is that China is teetering on the abyss.
And yet, look at China's progress since 1980. In 1980 almost every country in Africa was richer than China. Almost the whole country existed on subsistence agriculture.
The only was I can square this circle is by suggesting that the leadership of the Deng era was actually anomalously competent - and anomalously unautocratic.
Or that your assumption that incompetence is baked into autocracy is incorrect?
That's a pretty safe assumption to make, based upon scores of worked examples.
Just look at China. That's a big worked example!
Compare China, with democratic Taiwan, Japan, or South Korea.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
I'm far from sure that's the case. The Chinese authorities like to *appear* competent, but the signs bubbling up from under the surface are from that. They just try to hide their incompetence better - usually by blaming other minions in the system.
The way they lied, hid and dissembled the seriousness of the Covid outbreak in early 2020, when openness was key, shows that well.
They have lifted 1 BILLION people out of poverty in 40 years, without any major social ructions. They have neutralised any threat from Islam. They have established the world's finest largest high speed rail network. Their coastal cities now rank alongside western Europe and the USA in prosperity, even if there is a vast neglected hinterland. Their universities are shooting up the rankings, their companies are some of the most successful in the world, and the biggest. They have stealthily taken Hong Kong without a shot being fired and there is a reasonable chance they will do the same with Taiwan
They have surged to pre-eminence in world trade. They have cleverly undermined the West, in all ways, throughout this, avoiding our wars while stoking discord and rancour within our societies. Do we ever see Muslim countries/groups condemn China, even though China has a FAR worse record on Muslim rights? No, we do not. They condemn the West, because we are perceived as weak, guilty and divided
They have conjured the world's biggest navy, from nothing. They are dominant in Africa and most of Asia. They are turning Russia into a vassal state. And now they are on the cusp of overtaking the West in the foremost technologies of the time. DeepSeek did not come from nowhere. Do a DeepSeek search on "Unitree"
Is their regime perfect? Of course not. Covid was a clusterfuck. And came from their lab. Their demographics are dismal - but this is a worldwide problem that no one has solved. There are many dissenting voices that would love to overthrow Xi and his appalling cronies. The Chinese elite is cruel, brutal and greedy
But, basically competent? Yes, absolutely. What else would you have them do?! They have shown that autocracy can REALLY work, which is why democracy is in brisk retreat as so many developing countries now ape the Chinese model rather than the West
*Might* have come from their lab. We don't know and possibly never will - which would be a shame given the stature of the pandemic as a world event. Still, there are precedents for the cause of huge happenings in history remaining uncertain. And maybe it's no bad thing, come to think of it. Life shouldn't be stripped of all its mystery.
At this point, anyone who still maintains there's a good chance it came from the market and not the lab is a flailing idiot who can't handle information
"'The French Academy of Medicine voted almost unanimously--97% to 3%--to say we believe SARS-CoV-2 originated from a lab error and precautions must be taken in the future,' revealed Professor Jean-François Delfraissy in a press conference April 2, 2025."
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
CEO Xi is flexible and well advised. Note his change of stance on the technocrats eg Jack Ma. He has a strong board of Directors, appointed on merit , who have to retire at the age of 68 to ensure quality succession (except for him of course).
It's similar to a well run multinational. It can make long term plans eg the Belt and Road Initiative, as it doesn't face electors every few years who want short term goodies.
The big drawbacks are rampant corruption, suppression of personal freedom, indifference to the welfare of the masses from those at the top, and probably most important of all - inability for those at the bottom to criticise those at the top.
The ability to criticise freely is such an important function, in the modern State.
You're looking at it through Western eyes that values personal freedom over stability and a growing standard of living. Many in the East value the latter.
Western values are changing too, and the appeal of a Nietzschean Übermensch is growing. As a liberal, I watch with apprehension.
Well plenty of Eastern peoples (eg Taiwanese, South Koreans, Japanese, Indonesians) have turned out to favour democracy over autocracy, too. There's nothing inherent in Easterners that makes them favour autocracy, or in Westerners that makes them favour democracy.
In general, democracies deliver the goods more effectively than autocracies do. But, the flaws of democracies tend to be glaring and obvious, whereas the flaws of autocracies are hidden. Outsiders look at the shiny new cities, autobahns, thousands of people goose-stepping in synch, and think how impressive this all is, while overlooking the wretched lives of the peasantry, the concentration camps, the secret police.
Yeah, except I have travelled widely in China and they don't have wretched lives. Sorry
Also, the Chinese "peasantry" has largely disappeared. The idea there are hundreds of millions labouring away in dismal misery in the paddy fields is simply ludicrous
It is an ubanised society. There is much discontent, as there is anywhere. Humans are naturally discontented
Is China successfully delivering greater prosperity? Yes. And in cities that are crime-free and clean compared to many western cities
"The [Washington Post] reporters note that Trump didn’t land on a [tariff] plan until less than three hours before he announced it, and made his choice with little input from business or foreign leaders.
Neither Republican lawmakers nor the president’s team knew what Trump would do.
“He’s at the peak of just not giving a f*ck anymore,” a White House official told the reporters. “Bad news stories? Doesn’t give a f*ck. He’s going to do what he’s going to do. He’s going to do what he promised to do on the campaign trail.” "
"The [Washington Post] reporters note that Trump didn’t land on a [tariff] plan until less than three hours before he announced it, and made his choice with little input from business or foreign leaders.
Neither Republican lawmakers nor the president’s team knew what Trump would do.
“He’s at the peak of just not giving a f*ck anymore,” a White House official told the reporters. “Bad news stories? Doesn’t give a f*ck. He’s going to do what he’s going to do. He’s going to do what he promised to do on the campaign trail.” "
Letter from an American email
This raises two questions
If he doesn't give a fuck, why is he still so obsessed with image? He spent more time and effort on a portrait he didn't like that nobody would ever see than on torching World trade. He absolutely gives a fuck about how people perceive him.
If indeed he doesn't give a fuck, why does nobody else? Assuming there are elections in future, anybody remotely associated with this shitshow is going to get obliterated. Why do they not care?
I wonder if the billionaires who got smoked this week will be the first ones to actually break ranks
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
One could add the bungled war with Vietnam, and the one-child policy.
Yes, there's a wide range of views on China's leadership's competence. Personally I tend to the view that incompetence is baked into autocracy and that China is no exception, and that there are dozens of areas in which poor decision-making - as a direct result of the autocratic nature of the country- has left them perilously placed (the housing market being a prime example). My view is that China is teetering on the abyss.
And yet, look at China's progress since 1980. In 1980 almost every country in Africa was richer than China. Almost the whole country existed on subsistence agriculture.
The only was I can square this circle is by suggesting that the leadership of the Deng era was actually anomalously competent - and anomalously unautocratic.
Or that your assumption that incompetence is baked into autocracy is incorrect?
That's a pretty safe assumption to make, based upon scores of worked examples.
Just look at China. That's a big worked example!
Compare China, with democratic Taiwan, Japan, or South Korea.
OK
Average GDP growth over the last ten years
China 6.1% Japan 0.7% South Korea 2.5% Taiwan 3.1%
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
One could add the bungled war with Vietnam, and the one-child policy.
Yes, there's a wide range of views on China's leadership's competence. Personally I tend to the view that incompetence is baked into autocracy and that China is no exception, and that there are dozens of areas in which poor decision-making - as a direct result of the autocratic nature of the country- has left them perilously placed (the housing market being a prime example). My view is that China is teetering on the abyss.
And yet, look at China's progress since 1980. In 1980 almost every country in Africa was richer than China. Almost the whole country existed on subsistence agriculture.
The only was I can square this circle is by suggesting that the leadership of the Deng era was actually anomalously competent - and anomalously unautocratic.
Or that your assumption that incompetence is baked into autocracy is incorrect?
That's a pretty safe assumption to make, based upon scores of worked examples.
Just look at China. That's a big worked example!
Compare China, with democratic Taiwan, Japan, or South Korea.
OK
Average GDP growth over the last ten years
China 6.1% Japan 0.7% South Korea 2.5% Taiwan 3.1%
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
One could add the bungled war with Vietnam, and the one-child policy.
Yes, there's a wide range of views on China's leadership's competence. Personally I tend to the view that incompetence is baked into autocracy and that China is no exception, and that there are dozens of areas in which poor decision-making - as a direct result of the autocratic nature of the country- has left them perilously placed (the housing market being a prime example). My view is that China is teetering on the abyss.
And yet, look at China's progress since 1980. In 1980 almost every country in Africa was richer than China. Almost the whole country existed on subsistence agriculture.
The only was I can square this circle is by suggesting that the leadership of the Deng era was actually anomalously competent - and anomalously unautocratic.
Or that your assumption that incompetence is baked into autocracy is incorrect?
That's a pretty safe assumption to make, based upon scores of worked examples.
Just look at China. That's a big worked example!
A putative Chinese equivalent to PB.com would be TOTALLY FUCKING BORING!
"And in this week's Opinion Poll, the Chinese Communist Party achieved 99.9% approval! Exactly the same as last week's poll!"
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
CEO Xi is flexible and well advised. Note his change of stance on the technocrats eg Jack Ma. He has a strong board of Directors, appointed on merit , who have to retire at the age of 68 to ensure quality succession (except for him of course).
It's similar to a well run multinational. It can make long term plans eg the Belt and Road Initiative, as it doesn't face electors every few years who want short term goodies.
The big drawbacks are rampant corruption, suppression of personal freedom, indifference to the welfare of the masses from those at the top, and probably most important of all - inability for those at the bottom to criticise those at the top.
The ability to criticise freely is such an important function, in the modern State.
You're looking at it through Western eyes that values personal freedom over stability and a growing standard of living. Many in the East value the latter.
Western values are changing too, and the appeal of a Nietzschean Übermensch is growing. As a liberal, I watch with apprehension.
Well plenty of Eastern peoples (eg Taiwanese, South Koreans, Japanese, Indonesians) have turned out to favour democracy over autocracy, too. There's nothing inherent in Easterners that makes them favour autocracy, or in Westerners that makes them favour democracy.
In general, democracies deliver the goods more effectively than autocracies do. But, the flaws of democracies tend to be glaring and obvious, whereas the flaws of autocracies are hidden. Outsiders look at the shiny new cities, autobahns, thousands of people goose-stepping in synch, and think how impressive this all is, while overlooking the wretched lives of the peasantry, the concentration camps, the secret police.
Yeah, except I have travelled widely in China and they don't have wretched lives. Sorry
Also, the Chinese "peasantry" has largely disappeared. The idea there are hundreds of millions labouring away in dismal misery in the paddy fields is simply ludicrous
It is an ubanised society. There is much discontent, as there is anywhere. Humans are naturally discontented
Is China successfully delivering greater prosperity? Yes. And in cities that are crime-free and clean compared to many western cities
The argument is not whether Chinese living standards have increased impressively, since 1976, (obviously they have), the argument is whether this proves that autocracies do a better job at raising living standards than democracies do - where I would say the evidence shows that they do not.
Autocracies are not even better at waging war (which is the metric they usually want to be judged upon), than democracies are.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
One could add the bungled war with Vietnam, and the one-child policy.
Yes, there's a wide range of views on China's leadership's competence. Personally I tend to the view that incompetence is baked into autocracy and that China is no exception, and that there are dozens of areas in which poor decision-making - as a direct result of the autocratic nature of the country- has left them perilously placed (the housing market being a prime example). My view is that China is teetering on the abyss.
And yet, look at China's progress since 1980. In 1980 almost every country in Africa was richer than China. Almost the whole country existed on subsistence agriculture.
The only was I can square this circle is by suggesting that the leadership of the Deng era was actually anomalously competent - and anomalously unautocratic.
Or that your assumption that incompetence is baked into autocracy is incorrect?
That's a pretty safe assumption to make, based upon scores of worked examples.
Just look at China. That's a big worked example!
Compare China, with democratic Taiwan, Japan, or South Korea.
OK
Average GDP growth over the last ten years
China 6.1% Japan 0.7% South Korea 2.5% Taiwan 3.1%
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
One could add the bungled war with Vietnam, and the one-child policy.
Yes, there's a wide range of views on China's leadership's competence. Personally I tend to the view that incompetence is baked into autocracy and that China is no exception, and that there are dozens of areas in which poor decision-making - as a direct result of the autocratic nature of the country- has left them perilously placed (the housing market being a prime example). My view is that China is teetering on the abyss.
And yet, look at China's progress since 1980. In 1980 almost every country in Africa was richer than China. Almost the whole country existed on subsistence agriculture.
The only was I can square this circle is by suggesting that the leadership of the Deng era was actually anomalously competent - and anomalously unautocratic.
Or that your assumption that incompetence is baked into autocracy is incorrect?
That's a pretty safe assumption to make, based upon scores of worked examples.
Just look at China. That's a big worked example!
Compare China, with democratic Taiwan, Japan, or South Korea.
OK
Average GDP growth over the last ten years
China 6.1% Japan 0.7% South Korea 2.5% Taiwan 3.1%
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
And yet I was talking to a client yesterday who is convinced this is all 4D chess and a stroke of genius “even though I don’t agree with it”.
There is a great deal of sanewashing in a nation.
Trumpsplaining is becoming a disease. Radio 4 were at it this morning. A feature on the new hostility between the US and Canada, so off they go to Maine to record some cross lobster fishermen who don’t like the Canadians. The US equivalent of those barometer of British public opinion pieces that seem to focus entirely on Lancashire town centres at lunchtime on a working day.
But you would have to be so stupid - so very, very stupid - to president in this way that 4D chess has a whiff of plausibility to it. And it seems implausible that someone that stupid could find himself as president. And I don't like simply dismissing something because I can't see the point of it or disagree with it. So I keep looking for the 4D chess. Clearly he's not playing to the rules of the game as they were previously. The measures of success we were previously assuming are not necessarily Trump's measures of success. So: Is it just a massive personal enrichment scheme? If so, he's doing pretty well and his chances of success by that measure seem fair. Is he trying to replace American democracy with a monarchy led by tge Trump dynasty? If so, audacious, but he's made a good start. Is he governing for America but his long term aim is to pivot away from Europe and towards Russia - because, perhaps, he has an eye on Russian collapse and fears a China which has aquired Siberia? If so, again, he's made a good start. Is his endgame a North American autarky and let the rest of the world do its own thing? Again, he's made a good start.
We don't know what game he's playing - though it presumably isn't maintain-the-western-alliance-and-keep-the-DJ-buoyant-and-do-enough-to-be-reelected-by-voters-judging-you-on-those-measures, which is what most of gis predecessors have played. So we can't assume he isn't winning.
It's comforting to think he's just stupid. But I don't find it wholly convincing (those some of his henchmen clearly are).
If you want to understand what game he is playing these are the two best approaches:
Imagine what a nine year old would do if they were US President Imagine what a Russian agent would do if they were US President
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
One could add the bungled war with Vietnam, and the one-child policy.
Yes, there's a wide range of views on China's leadership's competence. Personally I tend to the view that incompetence is baked into autocracy and that China is no exception, and that there are dozens of areas in which poor decision-making - as a direct result of the autocratic nature of the country- has left them perilously placed (the housing market being a prime example). My view is that China is teetering on the abyss.
And yet, look at China's progress since 1980. In 1980 almost every country in Africa was richer than China. Almost the whole country existed on subsistence agriculture.
The only was I can square this circle is by suggesting that the leadership of the Deng era was actually anomalously competent - and anomalously unautocratic.
Or that your assumption that incompetence is baked into autocracy is incorrect?
That's a pretty safe assumption to make, based upon scores of worked examples.
Just look at China. That's a big worked example!
Compare China, with democratic Taiwan, Japan, or South Korea.
OK
Average GDP growth over the last ten years
China 6.1% Japan 0.7% South Korea 2.5% Taiwan 3.1%
The developing country is growing quickly? Good Lord.
We are discussing whether the assumption that incompetence is baked into autocracy is correct. I gave a counter example. Nothing to do with whether a country is "developing" or not.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
I'm far from sure that's the case. The Chinese authorities like to *appear* competent, but the signs bubbling up from under the surface are from that. They just try to hide their incompetence better - usually by blaming other minions in the system.
The way they lied, hid and dissembled the seriousness of the Covid outbreak in early 2020, when openness was key, shows that well.
They have lifted 1 BILLION people out of poverty in 40 years, without any major social ructions. They have neutralised any threat from Islam. They have established the world's finest largest high speed rail network. Their coastal cities now rank alongside western Europe and the USA in prosperity, even if there is a vast neglected hinterland. Their universities are shooting up the rankings, their companies are some of the most successful in the world, and the biggest. They have stealthily taken Hong Kong without a shot being fired and there is a reasonable chance they will do the same with Taiwan
They have surged to pre-eminence in world trade. They have cleverly undermined the West, in all ways, throughout this, avoiding our wars while stoking discord and rancour within our societies. Do we ever see Muslim countries/groups condemn China, even though China has a FAR worse record on Muslim rights? No, we do not. They condemn the West, because we are perceived as weak, guilty and divided
They have conjured the world's biggest navy, from nothing. They are dominant in Africa and most of Asia. They are turning Russia into a vassal state. And now they are on the cusp of overtaking the West in the foremost technologies of the time. DeepSeek did not come from nowhere. Do a DeepSeek search on "Unitree"
Is their regime perfect? Of course not. Covid was a clusterfuck. And came from their lab. Their demographics are dismal - but this is a worldwide problem that no one has solved. There are many dissenting voices that would love to overthrow Xi and his appalling cronies. The Chinese elite is cruel, brutal and greedy
But, basically competent? Yes, absolutely. What else would you have them do?! They have shown that autocracy can REALLY work, which is why democracy is in brisk retreat as so many developing countries now ape the Chinese model rather than the West
You could have said similar for Russia under Lenin and Stalin, pre-WW2. In fact, the apologists for their evil did exactly that: "They have lifted millions out of poverty!" And in much less that forty years...
I also note you have put: "They have neutralised any threat from Islam." very high on your list of accomplishments. You don't appear to care about how they've 'neutralised' the 'threat'. Would you cheerlead camps containing all the UK's Muslims?
"Amanda Spielman is a bad leader, an inept person, and has done enormous damage to the education of children not I think because she meant to but because she was profoundly ignorant, not especially intelligent and incredibly arrogant. You can see why she was a friend of Dominic Cummings."
This is the stuff of HIGNFY.
Are we to take the rest of it seriously?
A little bit of comedic high jinx doesn't detract from the fact that Spielman was wholly unsuitable to her role and Johnsonian era corruption has seen a vile, self-serving nincompoop on the cusp of being elevated to the House of Lords.
These personal vendettas are becoming a thing. If they're not funny they sound mean spirited. We've become adept in this country at creating monsters and it's not one of our attractive qualities.
Did the UK invent the stocks?
That is not the problem in the U.K. The problem is that we have, for far too long, had low expectations of those in charge. We have tolerated - and far too often rewarded - the incompetent, the malign, the self-serving, the dishonest, the unprofessional. We have allowed people in charge of public services to put their personal interests first or to treat the public sector as something to be plundered for profit without in return providing the quality of service we ought to expect. We have refused to hold leaders meaningfully accountable for their actions and failures to act. We have covered up gross incompetence and malfeasance and done everything possible to avoid providing effective compensation for those harmed by this.
And the result is that we have second and third rate public services, leaders who think only about what they can take rather than what they can give to those whom they are meant to serve and when any of this is pointed out to those who fail us we have to endure a load of self-pitying whining and laughable excuses. If anything works in this country it is down to those who do try to behave professionally and with some degree of responsibility and honesty and who, frankly, do not get properly recognised or rewarded.
Pointing this out is not putting people in the stocks or being mean-spirited. It is necessary and long overdue if we are even to begin changing this for the better.
We should expect and demand better.
I blame, to some extent anyway, Margaret Thatcher. I well remember her suggesting that graduates achieving highest grades should not enter public service but commerce, suggesting that the pursuit of profit was more important than public service. As Ms Cyclefree points out, it isn't.
When I worked in the NHS there was a period in the mid 90's when some Trusts discouraged their staff from attending conferences, on the grounds that Trusts were competing, and discussing improvements at conferences would benefit competitors.
And Good Morning, one and all.
That's probably some of it. But there's also what I can only describe as old-fashioned morality.
Ofsted sits in judgement over schools, heads and teachers, in a professional-life-or-death way. That's necessary. But it only works if those doing the judgement are unimpeachable. And AS wasn't, for the reasons the good doctor listed. Had there been an OfstOfsted inspection, she would have failed.
(It's why I've never sought that sort of role. I've got the sort of temperament that takes "judge not, lest ye be judged" too seriously and I fear buckling under that load. Thank goodness there are others more robust than me.)
It's the "rules are for the little people, not for me" that grates. And something in the formation of the British Ruling Class promotes that attitude.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
One could add the bungled war with Vietnam, and the one-child policy.
Yes, there's a wide range of views on China's leadership's competence. Personally I tend to the view that incompetence is baked into autocracy and that China is no exception, and that there are dozens of areas in which poor decision-making - as a direct result of the autocratic nature of the country- has left them perilously placed (the housing market being a prime example). My view is that China is teetering on the abyss.
And yet, look at China's progress since 1980. In 1980 almost every country in Africa was richer than China. Almost the whole country existed on subsistence agriculture.
The only was I can square this circle is by suggesting that the leadership of the Deng era was actually anomalously competent - and anomalously unautocratic.
Or that your assumption that incompetence is baked into autocracy is incorrect?
That's a pretty safe assumption to make, based upon scores of worked examples.
Just look at China. That's a big worked example!
Compare China, with democratic Taiwan, Japan, or South Korea.
OK
Average GDP growth over the last ten years
China 6.1% Japan 0.7% South Korea 2.5% Taiwan 3.1%
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
One could add the bungled war with Vietnam, and the one-child policy.
Yes, there's a wide range of views on China's leadership's competence. Personally I tend to the view that incompetence is baked into autocracy and that China is no exception, and that there are dozens of areas in which poor decision-making - as a direct result of the autocratic nature of the country- has left them perilously placed (the housing market being a prime example). My view is that China is teetering on the abyss.
And yet, look at China's progress since 1980. In 1980 almost every country in Africa was richer than China. Almost the whole country existed on subsistence agriculture.
The only was I can square this circle is by suggesting that the leadership of the Deng era was actually anomalously competent - and anomalously unautocratic.
Or that your assumption that incompetence is baked into autocracy is incorrect?
That's a pretty safe assumption to make, based upon scores of worked examples.
Just look at China. That's a big worked example!
Compare China, with democratic Taiwan, Japan, or South Korea.
OK
Average GDP growth over the last ten years
China 6.1% Japan 0.7% South Korea 2.5% Taiwan 3.1%
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
One could add the bungled war with Vietnam, and the one-child policy.
Yes, there's a wide range of views on China's leadership's competence. Personally I tend to the view that incompetence is baked into autocracy and that China is no exception, and that there are dozens of areas in which poor decision-making - as a direct result of the autocratic nature of the country- has left them perilously placed (the housing market being a prime example). My view is that China is teetering on the abyss.
And yet, look at China's progress since 1980. In 1980 almost every country in Africa was richer than China. Almost the whole country existed on subsistence agriculture.
The only was I can square this circle is by suggesting that the leadership of the Deng era was actually anomalously competent - and anomalously unautocratic.
Or that your assumption that incompetence is baked into autocracy is incorrect?
That's a pretty safe assumption to make, based upon scores of worked examples.
Just look at China. That's a big worked example!
Compare China, with democratic Taiwan, Japan, or South Korea.
OK
Average GDP growth over the last ten years
China 6.1% Japan 0.7% South Korea 2.5% Taiwan 3.1%
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
CEO Xi is flexible and well advised. Note his change of stance on the technocrats eg Jack Ma. He has a strong board of Directors, appointed on merit , who have to retire at the age of 68 to ensure quality succession (except for him of course).
It's similar to a well run multinational. It can make long term plans eg the Belt and Road Initiative, as it doesn't face electors every few years who want short term goodies.
The big drawbacks are rampant corruption, suppression of personal freedom, indifference to the welfare of the masses from those at the top, and probably most important of all - inability for those at the bottom to criticise those at the top.
The ability to criticise freely is such an important function, in the modern State.
You're looking at it through Western eyes that values personal freedom over stability and a growing standard of living. Many in the East value the latter.
Western values are changing too, and the appeal of a Nietzschean Übermensch is growing. As a liberal, I watch with apprehension.
Well plenty of Eastern peoples (eg Taiwanese, South Koreans, Japanese, Indonesians) have turned out to favour democracy over autocracy, too. There's nothing inherent in Easterners that makes them favour autocracy, or in Westerners that makes them favour democracy.
In general, democracies deliver the goods more effectively than autocracies do. But, the flaws of democracies tend to be glaring and obvious, whereas the flaws of autocracies are hidden. Outsiders look at the shiny new cities, autobahns, thousands of people goose-stepping in synch, and think how impressive this all is, while overlooking the wretched lives of the peasantry, the concentration camps, the secret police.
Yeah, except I have travelled widely in China and they don't have wretched lives. Sorry
Also, the Chinese "peasantry" has largely disappeared. The idea there are hundreds of millions labouring away in dismal misery in the paddy fields is simply ludicrous
It is an ubanised society. There is much discontent, as there is anywhere. Humans are naturally discontented
Is China successfully delivering greater prosperity? Yes. And in cities that are crime-free and clean compared to many western cities
The argument is not whether Chinese living standards have increased impressively, since 1976, (obviously they have), the argument is whether this proves that autocracies do a better job at raising living standards than democracies do - where I would say the evidence shows that they do not.
Autocracies are not even better at waging war (which is the metric they usually want to be judged upon), than democracies are.
Intuitively a well run autocracy (Singapore, UAE) will be better at managing the economy than a well run democracy as it has the advantage of consistent long term planning and investment, but a typical democracy is better than a typical autocracy. More importantly a badly run democracy can quickly turn course whereas a badly run autocracy is far more likely to fall into a viscious circle and further decline that is hard to move on from.
David Frum @davidfrum.bsky.social · 12h Americans are going to think of Joe Biden the way post 1918 Viennese thought of Franz Josef: "maybe he was a little confused in his final days, but at least we could then have real cream in our coffee."
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
One could add the bungled war with Vietnam, and the one-child policy.
Yes, there's a wide range of views on China's leadership's competence. Personally I tend to the view that incompetence is baked into autocracy and that China is no exception, and that there are dozens of areas in which poor decision-making - as a direct result of the autocratic nature of the country- has left them perilously placed (the housing market being a prime example). My view is that China is teetering on the abyss.
And yet, look at China's progress since 1980. In 1980 almost every country in Africa was richer than China. Almost the whole country existed on subsistence agriculture.
The only was I can square this circle is by suggesting that the leadership of the Deng era was actually anomalously competent - and anomalously unautocratic.
Or that your assumption that incompetence is baked into autocracy is incorrect?
That's a pretty safe assumption to make, based upon scores of worked examples.
Just look at China. That's a big worked example!
Compare China, with democratic Taiwan, Japan, or South Korea.
OK
Average GDP growth over the last ten years
China 6.1% Japan 0.7% South Korea 2.5% Taiwan 3.1%
You're overlooking the base figure that each country is coming from.
You said that it is a pretty safe assumption, based upon scores of worked examples, that incompetence is baked into autocracy. I gave a counter example. Were you only referring to rich countries?
But I have to admit that the US, currently under an autocracy, is a good example of incompetence. On the other hand, China, also an autocracy, is a good example of competence.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
The US isn't an autocracy yet, despite Trump's tendencies, and the readiness of his party to facilitate them.
China isn't exactly a pure autocracy, either, though it's gone most of the way under Xi.
"Amanda Spielman is a bad leader, an inept person, and has done enormous damage to the education of children not I think because she meant to but because she was profoundly ignorant, not especially intelligent and incredibly arrogant. You can see why she was a friend of Dominic Cummings."
This is the stuff of HIGNFY.
Are we to take the rest of it seriously?
A little bit of comedic high jinx doesn't detract from the fact that Spielman was wholly unsuitable to her role and Johnsonian era corruption has seen a vile, self-serving nincompoop on the cusp of being elevated to the House of Lords.
These personal vendettas are becoming a thing. If they're not funny they sound mean spirited. We've become adept in this country at creating monsters and it's not one of our attractive qualities.
Did the UK invent the stocks?
That is not the problem in the U.K. The problem is that we have, for far too long, had low expectations of those in charge. We have tolerated - and far too often rewarded - the incompetent, the malign, the self-serving, the dishonest, the unprofessional. We have allowed people in charge of public services to put their personal interests first or to treat the public sector as something to be plundered for profit without in return providing the quality of service we ought to expect. We have refused to hold leaders meaningfully accountable for their actions and failures to act. We have covered up gross incompetence and malfeasance and done everything possible to avoid providing effective compensation for those harmed by this.
And the result is that we have second and third rate public services, leaders who think only about what they can take rather than what they can give to those whom they are meant to serve and when any of this is pointed out to those who fail us we have to endure a load of self-pitying whining and laughable excuses. If anything works in this country it is down to those who do try to behave professionally and with some degree of responsibility and honesty and who, frankly, do not get properly recognised or rewarded.
Pointing this out is not putting people in the stocks or being mean-spirited. It is necessary and long overdue if we are even to begin changing this for the better.
We should expect and demand better.
I blame, to some extent anyway, Margaret Thatcher. I well remember her suggesting that graduates achieving highest grades should not enter public service but commerce, suggesting that the pursuit of profit was more important than public service. As Ms Cyclefree points out, it isn't.
When I worked in the NHS there was a period in the mid 90's when some Trusts discouraged their staff from attending conferences, on the grounds that Trusts were competing, and discussing improvements at conferences would benefit competitors.
And Good Morning, one and all.
That's probably some of it. But there's also what I can only describe as old-fashioned morality.
Ofsted sits in judgement over schools, heads and teachers, in a professional-life-or-death way. That's necessary. But it only works if those doing the judgement are unimpeachable. And AS wasn't, for the reasons the good doctor listed. Had there been an OfstOfsted inspection, she would have failed.
(It's why I've never sought that sort of role. I've got the sort of temperament that takes "judge not, lest ye be judged" too seriously and I fear buckling under that load. Thank goodness there are others more robust than me.)
It's the "rules are for the little people, not for me" that grates. And something in the formation of the British Ruling Class promotes that attitude.
I can't comment on Ofsted, because I'm not, and never have been, a teacher. I'm surrounded by them (wife, mother-in-law, grandson, granddaughter-in-law) so I've seen enough to know that whatever experience I had, many years ago, of education isn't relevant to what happens now.
But your last couple of sentences do strike a bell, and I suggest it's all down to an attitude engrained, especially in the English, by first the descendants of William the Bastard and his followers and secondly by the Established Church.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
CEO Xi is flexible and well advised. Note his change of stance on the technocrats eg Jack Ma. He has a strong board of Directors, appointed on merit , who have to retire at the age of 68 to ensure quality succession (except for him of course).
It's similar to a well run multinational. It can make long term plans eg the Belt and Road Initiative, as it doesn't face electors every few years who want short term goodies.
The big drawbacks are rampant corruption, suppression of personal freedom, indifference to the welfare of the masses from those at the top, and probably most important of all - inability for those at the bottom to criticise those at the top.
The ability to criticise freely is such an important function, in the modern State.
You're looking at it through Western eyes that values personal freedom over stability and a growing standard of living. Many in the East value the latter.
Western values are changing too, and the appeal of a Nietzschean Übermensch is growing. As a liberal, I watch with apprehension.
Well plenty of Eastern peoples (eg Taiwanese, South Koreans, Japanese, Indonesians) have turned out to favour democracy over autocracy, too. There's nothing inherent in Easterners that makes them favour autocracy, or in Westerners that makes them favour democracy.
In general, democracies deliver the goods more effectively than autocracies do. But, the flaws of democracies tend to be glaring and obvious, whereas the flaws of autocracies are hidden. Outsiders look at the shiny new cities, autobahns, thousands of people goose-stepping in synch, and think how impressive this all is, while overlooking the wretched lives of the peasantry, the concentration camps, the secret police.
Yeah, except I have travelled widely in China and they don't have wretched lives. Sorry
Also, the Chinese "peasantry" has largely disappeared. The idea there are hundreds of millions labouring away in dismal misery in the paddy fields is simply ludicrous
It is an ubanised society. There is much discontent, as there is anywhere. Humans are naturally discontented
Is China successfully delivering greater prosperity? Yes. And in cities that are crime-free and clean compared to many western cities
The argument is not whether Chinese living standards have increased impressively, since 1976, (obviously they have), the argument is whether this proves that autocracies do a better job at raising living standards than democracies do - where I would say the evidence shows that they do not.
Autocracies are not even better at waging war (which is the metric they usually want to be judged upon), than democracies are.
Intuitively a well run autocracy (Singapore, UAE) will be better at managing the economy than a well run democracy as it has the advantage of consistent long term planning and investment, but a typical democracy is better than a typical autocracy. More importantly a badly run democracy can quickly turn course whereas a badly run autocracy is far more likely to fall into a viscious circle and further decline that is hard to move on from.
David Davis's point about the crucial bit of democracy being the ability to change its mind.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
CEO Xi is flexible and well advised. Note his change of stance on the technocrats eg Jack Ma. He has a strong board of Directors, appointed on merit , who have to retire at the age of 68 to ensure quality succession (except for him of course).
It's similar to a well run multinational. It can make long term plans eg the Belt and Road Initiative, as it doesn't face electors every few years who want short term goodies.
The big drawbacks are rampant corruption, suppression of personal freedom, indifference to the welfare of the masses from those at the top, and probably most important of all - inability for those at the bottom to criticise those at the top.
The ability to criticise freely is such an important function, in the modern State.
You're looking at it through Western eyes that values personal freedom over stability and a growing standard of living. Many in the East value the latter.
Western values are changing too, and the appeal of a Nietzschean Übermensch is growing. As a liberal, I watch with apprehension.
Well plenty of Eastern peoples (eg Taiwanese, South Koreans, Japanese, Indonesians) have turned out to favour democracy over autocracy, too. There's nothing inherent in Easterners that makes them favour autocracy, or in Westerners that makes them favour democracy.
In general, democracies deliver the goods more effectively than autocracies do. But, the flaws of democracies tend to be glaring and obvious, whereas the flaws of autocracies are hidden. Outsiders look at the shiny new cities, autobahns, thousands of people goose-stepping in synch, and think how impressive this all is, while overlooking the wretched lives of the peasantry, the concentration camps, the secret police.
Yeah, except I have travelled widely in China and they don't have wretched lives. Sorry
Also, the Chinese "peasantry" has largely disappeared. The idea there are hundreds of millions labouring away in dismal misery in the paddy fields is simply ludicrous
It is an ubanised society. There is much discontent, as there is anywhere. Humans are naturally discontented
Is China successfully delivering greater prosperity? Yes. And in cities that are crime-free and clean compared to many western cities
The argument is not whether Chinese living standards have increased impressively, since 1976, (obviously they have), the argument is whether this proves that autocracies do a better job at raising living standards than democracies do - where I would say the evidence shows that they do not.
Autocracies are not even better at waging war (which is the metric they usually want to be judged upon), than democracies are.
Intuitively a well run autocracy (Singapore, UAE) will be better at managing the economy than a well run democracy as it has the advantage of consistent long term planning and investment, but a typical democracy is better than a typical autocracy. More importantly a badly run democracy can quickly turn course whereas a badly run autocracy is far more likely to fall into a viscious circle and further decline that is hard to move on from.
David Davis's point about the crucial bit of democracy being the ability to change its mind.
On infrastructure we manage to change our mind a bit too often.....
In the light of the header I thought I'd have a look at how someone with such limited common sense, management and people skills keeps being pushed ever upwards. Her CV is an absolute textbook case in what it takes to become a big cheese in Conservative Party circles.
Suppose your US company imports $1M of high quality parts, and adds in its own components to produce finished goods sold for $1.2M per batch. Your gross profit is $200k per batch.
But wait! Suddenly a new 30% tariff is imposed on that $1M of parts. You now have to fork over $300k to customs before you sell anything. That’s cash you probably don’t have. Oh, and even if you do sell everything, you’re now losing $100k per batch.
With a sinking feeling, you realize your profitable business which you somehow managed to keep in America all these years has suddenly become unprofitable.
You post online about how bad this is but get shouted down by an angry mob, convinced that capitalists like you should die. You can’t tell nowadays if they’re on left or right.
Moreover, you don’t have the time, money, skills, or tools in house to build that $1M of parts yourself. You are being asked to do the equivalent of growing a maple tree when all you needed was a little maple syrup. So now you are faced with several tough choices.
(1) First, you may need to go into debt or fire people to quickly come up with the $300k in cash to pay for these surprise tariffs at customs. Even if the tariff might go away, it might not, so you have to get the cash somehow or risk having your shipment impounded.
(2) Next, you might need to reduce quality to stop losing $100k on each batch. You could order the lower quality $750k parts, grimace and pay 30% tariff at customs, and hope you can build and sell for the same price of $1.2M per batch despite the lower quality.
(3) Alternatively, you could keep the quality parts at $1M and instead raise prices to $1.5M per batch to get back your original margins of $200k per batch, which you need to pay employees after all. But that’s a big hike that your customer will probably not welcome, given that he’s likely dealing with his own tariff shock.
So: these tariffs don’t really give an incentive to build in the US. Because it’s far more expensive to build a screw factory than to pay even high tariffs on a foreign screw... https://x.com/balajis/status/1908236239268175927
Any business that imports $1 million of high quality parts, does a little value add and sells them on for an extra $200K is crazy. That return is nowhere near enough.
It's an extreme, simplified illustrative example. Business is too complicated to explain the whole thing in a tweet - but it demonstrates quite well the effect of Trump's tariffs.
Ironically, the trade barrier which might best accomplish what Trump's trying to do is VAT. It's a large hurdle for importers of basic manufactured goods, but domestic industries can offset the VAT on their inputs, working in a manner which a pure sales tax can't.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
One could add the bungled war with Vietnam, and the one-child policy.
Yes, there's a wide range of views on China's leadership's competence. Personally I tend to the view that incompetence is baked into autocracy and that China is no exception, and that there are dozens of areas in which poor decision-making - as a direct result of the autocratic nature of the country- has left them perilously placed (the housing market being a prime example). My view is that China is teetering on the abyss.
And yet, look at China's progress since 1980. In 1980 almost every country in Africa was richer than China. Almost the whole country existed on subsistence agriculture.
The only was I can square this circle is by suggesting that the leadership of the Deng era was actually anomalously competent - and anomalously unautocratic.
Or that your assumption that incompetence is baked into autocracy is incorrect?
That's a pretty safe assumption to make, based upon scores of worked examples.
Just look at China. That's a big worked example!
Compare China, with democratic Taiwan, Japan, or South Korea.
OK
Average GDP growth over the last ten years
China 6.1% Japan 0.7% South Korea 2.5% Taiwan 3.1%
"Amanda Spielman is a bad leader, an inept person, and has done enormous damage to the education of children not I think because she meant to but because she was profoundly ignorant, not especially intelligent and incredibly arrogant. You can see why she was a friend of Dominic Cummings."
This is the stuff of HIGNFY.
Are we to take the rest of it seriously?
A little bit of comedic high jinx doesn't detract from the fact that Spielman was wholly unsuitable to her role and Johnsonian era corruption has seen a vile, self-serving nincompoop on the cusp of being elevated to the House of Lords.
These personal vendettas are becoming a thing. If they're not funny they sound mean spirited. We've become adept in this country at creating monsters and it's not one of our attractive qualities.
Did the UK invent the stocks?
That is not the problem in the U.K. The problem is that we have, for far too long, had low expectations of those in charge. We have tolerated - and far too often rewarded - the incompetent, the malign, the self-serving, the dishonest, the unprofessional. We have allowed people in charge of public services to put their personal interests first or to treat the public sector as something to be plundered for profit without in return providing the quality of service we ought to expect. We have refused to hold leaders meaningfully accountable for their actions and failures to act. We have covered up gross incompetence and malfeasance and done everything possible to avoid providing effective compensation for those harmed by this.
And the result is that we have second and third rate public services, leaders who think only about what they can take rather than what they can give to those whom they are meant to serve and when any of this is pointed out to those who fail us we have to endure a load of self-pitying whining and laughable excuses. If anything works in this country it is down to those who do try to behave professionally and with some degree of responsibility and honesty and who, frankly, do not get properly recognised or rewarded.
Pointing this out is not putting people in the stocks or being mean-spirited. It is necessary and long overdue if we are even to begin changing this for the better.
We should expect and demand better.
I blame, to some extent anyway, Margaret Thatcher. I well remember her suggesting that graduates achieving highest grades should not enter public service but commerce, suggesting that the pursuit of profit was more important than public service. As Ms Cyclefree points out, it isn't.
When I worked in the NHS there was a period in the mid 90's when some Trusts discouraged their staff from attending conferences, on the grounds that Trusts were competing, and discussing improvements at conferences would benefit competitors.
And Good Morning, one and all.
That's probably some of it. But there's also what I can only describe as old-fashioned morality.
Ofsted sits in judgement over schools, heads and teachers, in a professional-life-or-death way. That's necessary. But it only works if those doing the judgement are unimpeachable. And AS wasn't, for the reasons the good doctor listed. Had there been an OfstOfsted inspection, she would have failed.
(It's why I've never sought that sort of role. I've got the sort of temperament that takes "judge not, lest ye be judged" too seriously and I fear buckling under that load. Thank goodness there are others more robust than me.)
It's the "rules are for the little people, not for me" that grates. And something in the formation of the British Ruling Class promotes that attitude.
I can't comment on Ofsted, because I'm not, and never have been, a teacher. I'm surrounded by them (wife, mother-in-law, grandson, granddaughter-in-law) so I've seen enough to know that whatever experience I had, many years ago, of education isn't relevant to what happens now.
But your last couple of sentences do strike a bell, and I suggest it's all down to an attitude engrained, especially in the English, by first the descendants of William the Bastard and his followers and secondly by the Established Church.
Probably not a popular opinion here, but private schools are another reason much of the establishment think there are different sets of rules for the elite and the rest.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
One could add the bungled war with Vietnam, and the one-child policy.
Yes, there's a wide range of views on China's leadership's competence. Personally I tend to the view that incompetence is baked into autocracy and that China is no exception, and that there are dozens of areas in which poor decision-making - as a direct result of the autocratic nature of the country- has left them perilously placed (the housing market being a prime example). My view is that China is teetering on the abyss.
And yet, look at China's progress since 1980. In 1980 almost every country in Africa was richer than China. Almost the whole country existed on subsistence agriculture.
The only was I can square this circle is by suggesting that the leadership of the Deng era was actually anomalously competent - and anomalously unautocratic.
Or that your assumption that incompetence is baked into autocracy is incorrect?
That's a pretty safe assumption to make, based upon scores of worked examples.
Just look at China. That's a big worked example!
Compare China, with democratic Taiwan, Japan, or South Korea.
OK
Average GDP growth over the last ten years
China 6.1% Japan 0.7% South Korea 2.5% Taiwan 3.1%
You're overlooking the base figure that each country is coming from.
You said that it is a pretty safe assumption, based upon scores of worked examples, that incompetence is baked into autocracy. I gave a counter example. Were you only referring to rich countries?
But I have to admit that the US, currently under an autocracy, is a good example of incompetence. On the other hand, China, also an autocracy, is a good example of competence.
There doesn't appear to be a general rule.
The US is not *yet* an autocracy. If it becomes one under Trump, we can safely assume that it will become not just less free but also less competently run.
But, if you do want worked examples of efficiency/inefficiency, in terms of outcomes between democracies and autocracies, compare:
East v West Germany; North v South Korea; China v Taiwan; just about anywhere in Eastern Europe under Communism v Eastern Europe after 1991. Indonesia under Sukarno/Suharto, and Indonesia as a democracy.
Trump’s team did actually spend weeks calculating the true reciprocal tariff rates for each country, and then he just decided not to do that anymore and based it on trade deficits.
DOGE, key appointments, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, bombing the Houthis, tariffs ... there's a theme. No strategy or prep or planning or due diligence, all on the whim of a single individual. It's no way to carry on at the best of times and it's downright scary when the individual in question is not only lazy and borderline stupid but doesn't even mean well.
The only saving grace (and it's not much) is that lazy, stupid and malign is preferable to clever, hardworking and malign.
The best feature of autocracies is that they are usually incompetent. Indeed, competent people are seen as a threat to the Leader.
China being a very very notable exception
They made some of the most ruinous policy errors in world history under Mao. Then had a pretty sensible couple of decades. Xi has changed the dynamic again. I’m not sure that will end well.
CEO Xi is flexible and well advised. Note his change of stance on the technocrats eg Jack Ma. He has a strong board of Directors, appointed on merit , who have to retire at the age of 68 to ensure quality succession (except for him of course).
It's similar to a well run multinational. It can make long term plans eg the Belt and Road Initiative, as it doesn't face electors every few years who want short term goodies.
The big drawbacks are rampant corruption, suppression of personal freedom, indifference to the welfare of the masses from those at the top, and probably most important of all - inability for those at the bottom to criticise those at the top.
The ability to criticise freely is such an important function, in the modern State.
You're looking at it through Western eyes that values personal freedom over stability and a growing standard of living. Many in the East value the latter.
Western values are changing too, and the appeal of a Nietzschean Übermensch is growing. As a liberal, I watch with apprehension.
Well plenty of Eastern peoples (eg Taiwanese, South Koreans, Japanese, Indonesians) have turned out to favour democracy over autocracy, too. There's nothing inherent in Easterners that makes them favour autocracy, or in Westerners that makes them favour democracy.
In general, democracies deliver the goods more effectively than autocracies do. But, the flaws of democracies tend to be glaring and obvious, whereas the flaws of autocracies are hidden. Outsiders look at the shiny new cities, autobahns, thousands of people goose-stepping in synch, and think how impressive this all is, while overlooking the wretched lives of the peasantry, the concentration camps, the secret police.
Yeah, except I have travelled widely in China and they don't have wretched lives. Sorry
Also, the Chinese "peasantry" has largely disappeared. The idea there are hundreds of millions labouring away in dismal misery in the paddy fields is simply ludicrous
It is an ubanised society. There is much discontent, as there is anywhere. Humans are naturally discontented
Is China successfully delivering greater prosperity? Yes. And in cities that are crime-free and clean compared to many western cities
The argument is not whether Chinese living standards have increased impressively, since 1976, (obviously they have), the argument is whether this proves that autocracies do a better job at raising living standards than democracies do - where I would say the evidence shows that they do not.
Autocracies are not even better at waging war (which is the metric they usually want to be judged upon), than democracies are.
Intuitively a well run autocracy (Singapore, UAE) will be better at managing the economy than a well run democracy as it has the advantage of consistent long term planning and investment, but a typical democracy is better than a typical autocracy. More importantly a badly run democracy can quickly turn course whereas a badly run autocracy is far more likely to fall into a viscious circle and further decline that is hard to move on from.
Point of order, Singapore is Partly Free, according to Freedom House, whereas the UAE is classed as Not Free. Scores are Singapore 48/100 versus UAE 18/100. Compare 84/100 for USA and 92/100 for Blighty.
Comments
https://x.com/GasBuddyGuy/status/1907913212714168482
It’s interesting and he’s very good at explaining the issue but Carlson is pretty useless as an interviewer. It’s more a monologue. No probing questions so far more friendly full tosses on a flat track.
And it seems implausible that someone that stupid could find himself as president.
And I don't like simply dismissing something because I can't see the point of it or disagree with it.
So I keep looking for the 4D chess. Clearly he's not playing to the rules of the game as they were previously. The measures of success we were previously assuming are not necessarily Trump's measures of success.
So:
Is it just a massive personal enrichment scheme? If so, he's doing pretty well and his chances of success by that measure seem fair.
Is he trying to replace American democracy with a monarchy led by tge Trump dynasty? If so, audacious, but he's made a good start.
Is he governing for America but his long term aim is to pivot away from Europe and towards Russia - because, perhaps, he has an eye on Russian collapse and fears a China which has aquired Siberia? If so, again, he's made a good start.
Is his endgame a North American autarky and let the rest of the world do its own thing? Again, he's made a good start.
We don't know what game he's playing - though it presumably isn't maintain-the-western-alliance-and-keep-the-DJ-buoyant-and-do-enough-to-be-reelected-by-voters-judging-you-on-those-measures, which is what most of gis predecessors have played. So we can't assume he isn't winning.
It's comforting to think he's just stupid. But I don't find it wholly convincing (those some of his henchmen clearly are).
With all the breath of knowledge and experience, free market pirates, others who actually work/worked in the field, world renowned teachers and researchers, but at the same time all these geeky nerdy qualities (if such things are qualities) even one person “3 Way Nick” published two books on games (presumably role playing. It’s always the quiet ones)
Could we knock up something simple, but effective…
PBs How Free Market Economics Works Game.
As an educational teaching aid?
Could take it into the PB toilets, if you want to kick the idea around
I wouldn’t be able to help much - I couldn’t even manage a full stop at the end of my last sentence. I’ve never been a gamer. Plus I can’t write anything, havn’t a clue what difference is between using Which or That, where That always sounds okay to my ear so always use that. And writing affect just looks wrong spelling when read, so I always write effect instead.
Trump has torched the US standing in many areas. The Chinese are already stepping in to Africa as USAID retreats
If the US is no longer at the top of the pile, somebody else will be
Note his change of stance on the technocrats eg Jack Ma.
He has a strong board of Directors, appointed on merit , who have to retire at the age of 68 to ensure quality succession (except for him of course).
It's similar to a well run multinational. It can make long term plans eg the Belt and Road Initiative, as it doesn't face electors every few years who want short term goodies.
Have a fully elected upper house and it would use that mandate like the US Senate to try and block lower house legislation. Indeed at the moment it is possible Reform could have most seats in it
Is he succeeding in what he is trying to do? Maybe. Too early to tell.
Is what he is trying to do stupid? Yes. Objectively, unequivocally, universally, absolutely.
The ability to criticise freely is such an important function, in the modern State.
It's also why I think there's a good chance Xi will go for Taiwan. He's not getting any younger, the USA has the dopiest president for quite some time, and China's strategic picture (demographically) is only getting worse. Taking Taiwan would make it easier to stand back and have sufficient authority to not be put on a show trial, if he chooses to do that, or to hold on.
And yet, look at China's progress since 1980. In 1980 almost every country in Africa was richer than China. Almost the whole country existed on subsistence agriculture.
The only was I can square this circle is by suggesting that the leadership of the Deng era was actually anomalously competent - and anomalously unautocratic.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/04/04/trump-tariffs-reason-advisers/
It emphasises the confusion around the world at what Trump actually wants to achieve - is it mostly a negotiating position to try and force countries to remove trade barriers to US goods eg
The White House demanded that Britain and India change their health and sanitation rules to make it easier to export U.S. agricultural products. In Brazil, India and Europe, they targeted digital regulations that have entangled U.S. tech giants. And there has been an effort to sweep away barriers for U.S. carmakers wherever they exist, the diplomat said.
Or is it about massively reducing US imports and reshoring manufacturing - in which case there's not much point offering concessions. Of course it could be a bit of both, but there's definitely no point making unilateral concessions in the hope of getting favourable treatment:
Countries tried to offer up policy changes ahead of time to spare themselves from the worst of the tariffs, not always successfully. India’s government last week announced plans to scrap a 6 percent tax on the advertising revenue of foreign companies. The country was still hit with a 26 percent tariff, based on a formula that didn’t take into account the country’s policy change.
At the Munich Security Conference Vance said "Look, Germany is the one country, maybe, in NATO, that did not follow the stupid Washington consensus and allow their country to be deindustrialized during the ‘70s, ’80s, and ‘90s."
Firstly, Germany having a bigger industrial sector than some other countries is more to do with the strong engineering tradition, strong apprenticeship system, and long-term thinking of many of the owners and management of manufacturers than rejecting the Washington consensus. And it also makes Germany actually pretty vulnerable to things like massive increases in the cost of energy, trade wars, and countries like China grabbing market share.
Secondly, the US is richer than Germany, and has had overall higher GDP per capita growth than Germany over the last decades. Part of that US GDP increase is borrowed, and eventually unsustainable. But it does seem that stuff like silicon valley creates more value than traditional manufacturing - and maybe if the US had kept its manufacturing it wouldn't have made so much progress in those parts of the tech sector. Yes plenty of people in the US feel they haven't had their share of the increased wealth, but it seems unlikely that the best way to deal with that is reshoring shoe manufacturing from Vietnam and giving tax giveaways to the hyper-rich.
Probably the most ridiculous example of Trumpsplaining I've come across was a recent piece for unHerd by Yanis Varoufakis. He knocked out 5000 words working up this byzantine theory taking in the gold price, the oil price, the currency markets, dollar reserves, global trade flows, yada yada, to arrive at some nirvana that the policy was seeking to realise here on earth. Made Trump sound like a visionary with a brain the size of Neptune.
I know he has to pay the rent and all but it was hogwash from start to finish. I think you get a lot of this with Trump. People much cleverer than him projecting their own 'SME' onto him. That Niall Ferguson guy does it a lot, I've noticed. On foreign policy in his case, rather than economics as with Yanis.
There are countless African despots who did rather well out of the gradual impoverishment of their countries.
And I'm still not convinced that an Arctic alliance or a North American autarky would be a wholly bad result for yer average American Joe. On balance, I think it probably wouldn't. But I'm not as 100% sure as you are.
The governance setup in China is different from that in Russia or North Korea.
It is similar to a PLC. People's League of China.
I don't think going down in history as the next Mugabe is what he wants, so I do think even on his own terms what he is doing is irredeemably stupid
This desperation might be motivated self-interest or the fear if Trump is "wrong", the "Blob" will be back and they'll never be removed. If you put all your hopes in one basket, it has to succeed. Failure, as someone once said, is not an option.
Trump's people know this and they also know, as some allude to on here, the only people to whom you need to listen are those who voted for you.
Many in the East value the latter.
Western values are changing too, and the appeal of a Nietzschean Übermensch is growing.
As a liberal, I watch with apprehension.
Hence nonsense about 'owning the libs' or 'they're annoying all the right sort of people'.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poleconomy
(Which I had when smaller- no wonder I turned out the way I did.)
of which one reviewer wrote
I can give the advanced version of Poleconomy a recommendation, if only on the grounds that trying to stop the country going down the toilet is an illuminating experience.
This week he announced the tariffs, and the news cycles that followed it are stock market crash and $3000 iphones.
Even if we assume for a second that his policy results in onshoring that news cycle is 2 years away
This is my view, anyway. You won't rise above middle income unless you have the quality of decision making that comes with tge freedom to criticise.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/breaking-sainz-hit-with-three-place-grid-penalty-over-hamilton-incident.79hjAxd1KtHAKGIl9uu45O
And the result is that we have second and third rate public services, leaders who think only about what they can take rather than what they can give to those whom they are meant to serve and when any of this is pointed out to those who fail us we have to endure a load of self-pitying whining and laughable excuses. If anything works in this country it is down to those who do try to behave professionally and with some degree of responsibility and honesty and who, frankly, do not get properly recognised or rewarded.
Pointing this out is not putting people in the stocks or being mean-spirited. It is necessary and long overdue if we are even to begin changing this for the better.
We should expect and demand better.
Contrast Xi's Board with Trump's Board and the quality of their respective decision making, even though the US is more free than China.
So manufacturing is something that he thinks creates jobs without realising that a lot of those jobs are by necessity low value added and so low paid - and creating jobs will make people happy regardless of the actual real world situation the US has established for itself.
And tax cuts keeps his mates happy which given they are the only people talking to him is not surprising.
They have lifted 1 BILLION people out of poverty in 40 years, without any major social ructions. They have neutralised any threat from Islam. They have established the world's finest largest high speed rail network. Their coastal cities now rank alongside western Europe and the USA in prosperity, even if there is a vast neglected hinterland. Their universities are shooting up the rankings, their companies are some of the most successful in the world, and the biggest. They have stealthily taken Hong Kong without a shot being fired and there is a reasonable chance they will do the same with Taiwan
They have surged to pre-eminence in world trade. They have cleverly undermined the West, in all ways, throughout this, avoiding our wars while stoking discord and rancour within our societies. Do we ever see Muslim countries/groups condemn China, even though China has a FAR worse record on Muslim rights? No, we do not. They condemn the West, because we are perceived as weak, guilty and divided
They have conjured the world's biggest navy, from nothing. They are dominant in Africa and most of Asia. They are turning Russia into a vassal state. And now they are on the cusp of overtaking the West in the foremost technologies of the time. DeepSeek did not come from nowhere. Do a DeepSeek search on "Unitree"
Is their regime perfect? Of course not. Covid was a clusterfuck. And came from their lab. Their demographics are dismal - but this is a worldwide problem that no one has solved. There are many dissenting voices that would love to overthrow Xi and his appalling cronies. The Chinese elite is cruel, brutal and greedy
But, basically competent? Yes, absolutely. What else would you have them do?! They have shown that autocracy can REALLY work, which is why democracy is in brisk retreat as so many developing countries now ape the Chinese model rather than the West
You don't need anti-corruption as a convenient way to get rid of rivals or those not kowtowing sufficiently
Just look at Trump!
https://x.com/Wahlen_DE/status/1908442477981294670
Union: 24% (-2)
AfD: 24% (+1)
SPD: 16%
GRÜNE: 11% (-1)
LINKE: 11% (+1)
BSW: 4% (-1)
FDP: 4% (+1)
Sonstige: 6% (+1)
As Ms Cyclefree points out, it isn't.
When I worked in the NHS there was a period in the mid 90's when some Trusts discouraged their staff from attending conferences, on the grounds that Trusts were competing, and discussing improvements at conferences would benefit competitors.
And Good Morning, one and all.
In general, democracies deliver the goods more effectively than autocracies do. But, the flaws of democracies tend to be glaring and obvious, whereas the flaws of autocracies are hidden. Outsiders look at the shiny new cities, autobahns, thousands of people goose-stepping in synch, and think how impressive this all is, while overlooking the wretched lives of the peasantry, the concentration camps, the secret police.
"'The French Academy of Medicine voted almost unanimously--97% to 3%--to say we believe SARS-CoV-2 originated from a lab error and precautions must be taken in the future,' revealed Professor Jean-François Delfraissy in a press conference April 2, 2025."
So, yeah, you. Idiot
https://x.com/R_H_Ebright/status/1907452384135070199
Also, the Chinese "peasantry" has largely disappeared. The idea there are hundreds of millions labouring away in dismal misery in the paddy fields is simply ludicrous
It is an ubanised society. There is much discontent, as there is anywhere. Humans are naturally discontented
Is China successfully delivering greater prosperity? Yes. And in cities that are crime-free and clean compared to many western cities
Neither Republican lawmakers nor the president’s team knew what Trump would do.
“He’s at the peak of just not giving a f*ck anymore,” a White House official told the reporters. “Bad news stories? Doesn’t give a f*ck. He’s going to do what he’s going to do. He’s going to do what he promised to do on the campaign trail.” "
Letter from an American email
If he doesn't give a fuck, why is he still so obsessed with image? He spent more time and effort on a portrait he didn't like that nobody would ever see than on torching World trade. He absolutely gives a fuck about how people perceive him.
If indeed he doesn't give a fuck, why does nobody else? Assuming there are elections in future, anybody remotely associated with this shitshow is going to get obliterated. Why do they not care?
I wonder if the billionaires who got smoked this week will be the first ones to actually break ranks
Average GDP growth over the last ten years
China 6.1%
Japan 0.7%
South Korea 2.5%
Taiwan 3.1%
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_real_GDP_growth_rate#List_(2013–2023)
"And in this week's Opinion Poll, the Chinese Communist Party achieved 99.9% approval! Exactly the same as last week's poll!"
Autocracies are not even better at waging war (which is the metric they usually want to be judged upon), than democracies are.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again:
House of Lords = House of Unelected Has-Beens!
Imagine what a nine year old would do if they were US President
Imagine what a Russian agent would do if they were US President
Both seem to track actual events pretty well.
I gave a counter example.
Nothing to do with whether a country is "developing" or not.
I also note you have put: "They have neutralised any threat from Islam." very high on your list of accomplishments. You don't appear to care about how they've 'neutralised' the 'threat'. Would you cheerlead camps containing all the UK's Muslims?
Ofsted sits in judgement over schools, heads and teachers, in a professional-life-or-death way. That's necessary. But it only works if those doing the judgement are unimpeachable. And AS wasn't, for the reasons the good doctor listed. Had there been an OfstOfsted inspection, she would have failed.
(It's why I've never sought that sort of role. I've got the sort of temperament that takes "judge not, lest ye be judged" too seriously and I fear buckling under that load. Thank goodness there are others more robust than me.)
It's the "rules are for the little people, not for me" that grates. And something in the formation of the British Ruling Class promotes that attitude.
That's because we are generally pretty well off
If you are a Russian agent, what does success look like?
On current trend, the second looks likely. Still no idea on the first.
·
12h
Americans are going to think of Joe Biden the way post 1918 Viennese thought of Franz Josef: "maybe he was a little confused in his final days, but at least we could then have real cream in our coffee."
https://bsky.app/profile/davidfrum.bsky.social/post/3llzej4z7u225
I gave a counter example.
Were you only referring to rich countries?
But I have to admit that the US, currently under an autocracy, is a good example of incompetence.
On the other hand, China, also an autocracy, is a good example of competence.
There doesn't appear to be a general rule.
China isn't exactly a pure autocracy, either, though it's gone most of the way under Xi.
But your last couple of sentences do strike a bell, and I suggest it's all down to an attitude engrained, especially in the English, by first the descendants of William the Bastard and his followers and secondly by the Established Church.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Spielman
When this sort of patronage occurs in other parties we quite rightly call it corruption. In the Conservative Party it is just the natural order.
Business is too complicated to explain the whole thing in a tweet - but it demonstrates quite well the effect of Trump's tariffs.
Ironically, the trade barrier which might best accomplish what Trump's trying to do is VAT.
It's a large hurdle for importers of basic manufactured goods, but domestic industries can offset the VAT on their inputs, working in a manner which a pure sales tax can't.
The downside, of course, is added complexity.
But, if you do want worked examples of efficiency/inefficiency, in terms of outcomes between democracies and autocracies, compare:
East v West Germany; North v South Korea; China v Taiwan; just about anywhere in Eastern Europe under Communism v Eastern Europe after 1991. Indonesia under Sukarno/Suharto, and Indonesia as a democracy.
Scores are Singapore 48/100 versus UAE 18/100.
Compare 84/100 for USA and 92/100 for Blighty.
China is down at 9/100.
https://freedomhouse.org/country/china
https://freedomhouse.org/country/singapore
https://freedomhouse.org/country/united-arab-emirates
https://freedomhouse.org/country/united-kingdom
https://freedomhouse.org/country/united-states