Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.
Author: Ian Welsh Page 26 of 436
Obviously this is a pile of steaming garbage. Four trillion of tax cuts, paid for by cutting Medicaid (11.8 million people will lose health care according to the CBO) and perhaps 8 million people will lose food benefits under SNAP. Green energy subsidies are cut (no, shut up, there are tons of dirty energy subsidies) and there’s a huge budget increase for ICE (including more prison camps), America’s Gestapo.
And, of course, there’s all sorts of nasty in the details, like cuts to Planned Parenthood (which does far more than abortions).
A lot of Americans are going to be hurt by this. I’d go so far as to say it might be the worst American federal budget I’ve seen in my life, though Obama and the Fed’s giveaways to the rich were worse.
Oh, and politicians like Josh Hawley who pretend to care about ordinary people? Yeah, fake. He voted for the bill.
I reiterate that things in the US are going to get worse and worse for years, with only a small chance of a reversal (based on a Mamdani style left populism). Get out if you can, take steps to prepare and protect yourself if you can’t.
Update: worse than I realized. Trump obviously doesn’t give a damn in Republicans are wiped out in the mid-terms, and Republicans know that Democrats won’t reverse their cuts, so people will have no choice and the duopoly will continue:
Because of a statutory requirement to automatically impose budget cuts when legislation increases the deficit, the Big Beautiful Bill would require automatic sequestration cuts across the board, something that has been confirmed by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) but has been largely absent from the debate over the bill. Medicare is one of the programs that will face the axe, and the damage sums to $490 billion over the next ten years, starting in the next fiscal year that begins in October. While many of the safety-net cuts in the bill are delayed to help Republicans with their re-election campaigns, the Medicare cuts must begin next year.
If you’ve read this far, and you read a lot of my articles, you might wish to Subscribe or donate. I’ve written over 3,500 posts, and the site, and Ian, take money to run.
Chinese and American flags flying together
When I originally formulated this article it was just “Why does the CCP accomplish its goals?”
But that’s a stupid article. Certainly there are governments which fail to accomplish their goals, in countries which lacks state capacity or are in constrained positions. But for most of my life most Western governments haven’t been all that constrained, they just acted as if they were.
The truth is that Western governments have mostly accomplished their goals over the last 45 years: it’s just that their ur-goal was to make the rich richer. If that meant burning everything else down, they were OK with that. There are a number of reasons for this, but basically political elites were bought: do what the rich want and even if you lose office you’ll be very well taken care of. Instead of viewing government as “theirs” and their countries as “belonging to them” they viewed political office as a way to get rich. Instead of viewing the rich as their competitors for power, to be kept under control, they viewed them as their benefactors and as the ones who could put them into office. Or, put another way, most elected representatives saw themselves as de-facto employees, or contractors, of the rich and corporations.
This view has explanatory power: politicians do what you’d expect them to do if it were true. Take a look at Trump: his budget has 4 trillion in tax cuts for the rich, and to partially pay for those cuts, it is getting rid of 800 billion in Medicare funding. The idea that he’s some sort of economic populist is laughable. He’s making the rich get richer, just like every other President since Carter (though Reagan was the real inflection point.)
This wasn’t always the case. From 33 till around 68 or so, the primary policy goal in America was the growth and prosperity of the middle class, and most politicians, while they’d take the money of corporations and rich to some extent, saw them as the enemy, to be kept under control.
So, let’s turn to the CCP. They have lifted more people out of poverty than every other country combined. The one-child policy, whether you agree with it or not, did get China’s population growth under control. They are ahead in 80% of techs, when 20 years ago that number belonged to the US. They have the largest industrial economy in the world. They are reducing housing prices, which was their goal. They are reducing inequality and smashing the number of billionaires. They are installing more renewable energy than the rest of the world combined. They are building industrial stacks so that nothing they actually need comes from the rest of the world—they’re not quite there yet but they will be. (Don’t invest in TMSC long term, their near monopoly position is almost over and they will soon be overtaken by the Chinese. Three to five years at most is my guess.)
The CCP accomplishes its goals. Its primary goal is:
The Preservation of its own power. There are two branches to this: avoidance of foreign military conquest or regime change, and avoidance of domestic collapse or revolt.
To be powerful, and thus not be at the mercy of foreigners (one of Mao’s main goals) requires an educated, prosperous population and an industrial economy, because military power post-industrial revolution is primarily a result of technology plus industry. If another country can defeat you militarily, you won’t stay in power if they don’t want you to.
Domestically if the population loves you (and all polling shows vast support for the CCP) you will keep power. If they despise you, you will eventually lose power. The Soviets, with all their tanks and soldiers, fell in part because neither the people nor the elites believed in rule by the Party any more. So making the people prosperous is job one for protecting the CCP’s rule. Prosperous people don’t revolt. The Chinese believe this more than any other civilization. The entire “Mandate of Heaven” is based on this, and for over two thousand years the Chinese have regarded the government as responsible for prosperity. When it can no longer provide it, not only is overthrowing it justified, it is even virtuous. On the other hand, to overthrow a government which takes care of the people is vile, and understood as such.
Likewise, if one doesn’t want a change in which elites control the country, one can’t allow domestic power centers other than the party to spring up. This is why the CCP has been crushing billionaires. This is why the CCP banned the Falun Gong (who had widespread membership, including members in the CCP.) Bilionaires were particularly pernicious, because they corrupted party members, and those members goals changed from keeping the CCP in power by making China stronger and people more prosperous, to making a small number of people rich at the cost of general prosperity.
Xi was absolutely correct to make going after corruption his first and most important goal, because the CCP had split into factions and those factions were putting their own prosperity and strength above those of the party and the country. Left unchecked China would have fallen into a corruption spiral, inequality would have spiralled out of control and even if the CCP existed in form, it would no longer be its own power center, but controlled by others.
Now it should be understood that the CCP’s basic ideology isn’t “stay in power at all costs”. Like all ideologies it justifies it otherwise. It would say, and many party members, probably including Xi, would say that the party wants to stay in power because it can make China powerful and prosperous.
Given China’s progress since the party took over (and there was plenty of progress under Mao, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise — education and lifespand went way up), the CCP feels entirely justified in this belief.
Of course all things pass, and at some point the CCP will fail and be replaced, either in form (abolished) or by takeover. The Democratic party still exists in America, after all, but FDR or even LBJ would not recognize it, nor have any respect for it. Even Carter, the original neoliberal, by the end of his life, found it abominable. (I suspect young President Carter didn’t fully understand the consequences of what he helped birth.)
But for now, the CCP stands in its glory, having accomplished much of what it originally set out to do. It kicked out foreign occupiers. It made China strong enough that it could no longer be pushed around or occupied. It made the Chinese people prosperous. It gained the technological and industrial lead over the West.
It did so because it regards China as belonging to it, and believes that it has a responsibility to the people of China and that it deserves and will keep its power only if it delivers for the people of China: not for a minority, but for the masses.
None of this is to say the CCP is perfect, just that it’s an effective government which actually wants a prosperous population.
Our governments are effective, but what they want is richer rich people. As a result they will become ineffective and at some point they will either fall and change form and rise again, or they will devolve into full-on failed states.
If you’ve read this far, and you read a lot of my articles, you might wish to Subscribe or donate. I’ve written over 3,500 posts, and the site, and Ian, take money to run.
In 2016, Xi said that houses were for living in, not for speculating. The Chinese government took steps to reduce prices, those steps took time to bear fruit.
Likewise, rent prices have been dropping recently:
And yes, this is a result of government policy:
While, according to the PBOC, in the pre-pandemic decade, the annual rental inflation in China exceeded 1.2%, it slowed significantly in recent years and has been in the negative in the last twelve months. In March 2025, the rent of the rental housing component of the consumer price index (CPI) showed a 0.1% year-on-year decline, trending upwards, however, from -0.4% and -0.3% annual change rates previously registered in September 2024 and December 2024, respectively.
“In recent years, rents have declined due to lower income expectations and the increase in government-subsidized housing supply. This has provided tenants with more options and increased bargaining power, making lease renewals a key challenge for leasing companies,” noted Savills in their 2025 Chinese Real Estate Market Outlook.
Now you might think “this means the Chinese economy or citizen is in trouble!” No.
In stark contrast to the slowdown across housing and industry, however, Chinese consumers appear motivated to open their wallets and spend on goods. Retail sales grew 6.4% in May, topping expectations and sharply accelerating from April’s 5.1% rise.
Now, standard Western economists think that the real-estate market slumping is bad, and retail trade going up is good, but they’re both good and they’re both a result of government policy. China wants relatively cheap real-estate and to increase the size of its domestic consumer market so its industry is less reliant on exports. (Trump has kindly demonstrated the problem with over-reliance on trade partners.)
The thing is that if real-estate had kept going up in price the way it did in the past, the CCP would be in danger: their legitimacy rests on the idea that people’s lives keep betting better. For many years I kept reading young people in China saying they couldn’t afford to own a home. That was (and still is, to some extent) a problem. Xi acted on it.
Further high real-estate prices increase the costs of every single business, since they increase the costs of employees. China wants to stay an industrial power, not become worthless rentiers and financiers, and as such real-estate can’t be allowed to increase too much.
Now for a long time real-estate is how city government financed themselves. It was an engine which allowed growth. But when it started becoming a financial game, with people owning multiple condos or houses; prices increasing faster than wages and people locked out of ownership Beijing acted.
You can’t be an industrial power if rentiers: people who expect to make money thru time arbitrage and managed scarcity, are in charge of your society.
It is also true that if you aren’t a major manufacturing power you can’t become or remain a major military power. (Britain says “Hi!” America says, “uhhhhh….”)
Anyway, China needs to keep housing and rental prices down. At the very least they need to increase less than wage increases and for many years.
All signs are, that as is most often the case, the CCP is succeeding at the policy goals it set out for itself.
If you’ve read this far, and you read a lot of my articles, you might wish to Subscribe or donate. I’ve written over 3,500 posts, and the site, and Ian, take money to run.
I’ll keep this one short and sweet.
Tesla was contacted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Monday after videos posted on social media showed the company’s robotaxis driving in a chaotic manner on public roads in Austin, Texas.
Elon Musk’s electric vehicle maker debuted autonomous trips in Austin on Sunday, opening the service to a limited number of riders by invitation only.
In the videos shared widely online, one Tesla robotaxi was spotted traveling the wrong way down a road, and another was shown braking hard in the middle of traffic, responding to “stationary police vehicles outside its driving path,” among several other examples.
Elon Musk is not that smart. He chose to use cameras only, and not Lidar, against the advice of his own engineers.
China has robotaxis already. They work fine. They have Lidar.
Tesla is doomed. Their cars are worse than those of their competitors and more expensive. Robotaxis aren’t going to work. The only thing saving Tesla right now is 100% tariffs on Chinese autos, but even non Chinese electric cars are better and often cheaper.
Meanwhile Musk is in a feud with Trump, Trump has threatened to remove subsidies for Musk enterprises and Musk (again, an idiot) has said Trump should go ahead. And yes, he does need those subsidies.
The majority of Musk’s wealth is tied up in Tesla, and it’s days are numbered. Meanwhile Starship keeps exploding, the last time during fueling, not even after launch. There are a lot of competitors to SpaceX, and w/o NASA contracts SpaceX doesn’t look so hot either. Right now NASA is stuck with Musk, but that’s not going to last.
Musk isn’t going to be the world’s richest man much longer.
If you’ve read this far, and you read a lot of my articles, you might wish to Subscribe or donate. I’ve written over 3,500 posts, and the site, and Ian, take money to run.
Just a quick word that my friend and ex-boss Sean-Paul Kelley is posting fairly often now. Sean-Paul founded the (now defunct) Agonist blog back in the day, which was very important during the Iraq War. He also gave me my first salaried blogging job as the managing editor of the Agonist. (I received some money for writing at BOPNews, but only some.)
I’m pleased to have him here. Do take the time to read the author byline above posts so you know if it’s him or me. Because almost all writing here has been mine and the blog is titled “Ian Welsh” people often assume all posts are from me. Sean-Paul’s more of an old school blogger than I am. Remember that guest posters are invited in part to give different takes than I would and I don’t pre-approve their posts, unless they’re very infrequent or new.
(Those who remember Mandos will get this. Out of a hundred Mandos posts, I might have agreed with one.) That said, Sean-Paul and I agree about most things.
As a Canadian, the issue of people removing snow from the sidewalk is a big deal. Some years ago, I lived near a house where they never removed the snow. It piled up until it was almost four feet high, and some partial thaws meant that underneath all that snow was ice. Every time I had to walk in that direction I cursed the owners (there was an SUV that came and went, so I knew it wasn’t uninhabited). One time, I did slip, and I was furious, even though the pain of the fall was minor.
Thing is, I don’t enjoy being furious or upset. Oh, a little anger is sometimes nice enough, but overall it’s an unpleasant feeling unless you’ve been having even worse emotions like fear, despair, powerlessness, or self-pity.
This is what Buddha called the second arrow. If you’ve been shot by an arrow, you’re in pain. If you’re upset that you’ve been shot by an arrow, you’re adding additional suffering.
Let’s run through three scenarios. Imagine each of them briefly, as if they happened to you:
1) You turn a corner and trip over a fallen branch, falling. You’re a little hurt (abraded hands), but basically okay. How upset are you?
2) You slip on some ice someone was supposed to clean up and fall. You’re a little hurt, but basically okay. How upset are you?
3) You’re walking down the street, and someone sticks out their leg and trips you, then laughs at you. You fall, but catch yourself. While a little hurt, you’re basically okay. How upset are you?
If you’re a normal person either #2 (negligence) or #3 (active malevolence) upsets you more. Probably, it’s the asshole who tripped you. (You might also get upset at the branch and kick it, swear at it, or enjoy breaking it, but hopefully not.)
The point here is that being upset makes your suffering worse. It also doesn’t deal with whatever caused the problem. Picking up the branch you tripped over, getting the city to fine the person not shoveling their snow, and either calling the cops or in times and places where it’s allowed, beating the hell out of the guy who tripped you might make sure there are no repeats.
You can do any of those things without being upset, through cold, clear calculation. If you don’t remove the branch, you or someone else could trip over it again. If you don’t convince the homeowner to shovel the snow, same thing. If you don’t make the tripper decide tripping people is a bad idea, he’ll do it again.
Much of why we get upset is that we have expectations about how other people should behave or even how the world should be. (How dare that branch trip you up!) Then, we think that if someone hurts us, we should get upset.
But, again, being upset doesn’t hurt the other person (though a display of anger might make a difference if you can make them scared of you) and doesn’t get them to change their behaviour. Indeed, in the case of the tripper, they want you to be upset. Your anger is part of their reward, just like how online trolls are trying to make you angry.
Being upset does hurt you, though. It makes your suffering worse.
But if you believe you should be upset, you will be.
So the first step is to ask yourself: What benefit there is to being upset? Do this all the time when something makes you upset, just ask yourself, “Does this help? Do I like feeling this?” Maybe you do (usually in the case of anger), but most of the time, the honest answer is gong to be no.
Over time, if you keep doing this, you’ll be upset less and less. You’ll change the reflex.
We add suffering to almost everything. If you get a bad headache and are upset because it “isn’t fair,” that adds suffering to the headache. If you get upset at yourself for doing something stupid, that adds suffering. I used to be like that; I stopped when I realized that, after decades of being harsh with myself, my behaviour hadn’t changed. In other words, being upset when I made a mistake wasn’t reducing the number of mistakes, it was just making me unhappy. (When I did stop being too self-critical, mistakes decreased somewhat, ironically.)
Buddha’s Second Arrow is the low-lying fruit, the easiest way to reduce your suffering — suffering which doesn’t help you deal with whatever issues you face. When you’re cool and calm, you’re more likely to fix whatever the problem is — if it can be fixed — faster and more competently than you are upset.
Pull out the second arrow.
If you’ve read this far, and you read a lot of my articles, you might wish to Subscribe or donate. I’ve written over 3,500 posts, and the site, and Ian, take money to run.