Economy Trump opposes US defaulting on Chinese-held debt

[MicroBrew]

Got some bad news for you. Investors are flocking there like it's the last lifeboat on Titanic.

https://asiatimes.com/2020/04/bond-investors-swarm-to-china-a-safe-harbor/

You do know how Germany was treated after WWI was a major contributing factor in the rise of Hitler right? Harsh terms under the Treaty of Versailles failed to prevent the rearmament of Germany in the 1930's. That's not to mention the rise of nationalism due to perceived hardship imposed by foreign power actually solidified the Third Reich. The goal is to weaken the CCP, not strength its grip on power.

Wouldn't matter if the CCP grew stronger, because they have been growing stronger as a result of Western world giving them access to the WTO and the US giving them Most favored nation status, along with all the tech transfer. The CCP has grown very powerfull over the years because of the West taking a soft line towards them and working with them. Just like how the Saudis could never have spread their Wahhabi ideology far and wide if not for petro dollars. The West played a crucial role in making China the monster it is.

So divesting from China and pulling back won't make things worse. It will only mean China has less money and technology to advance its goal of world hegemony. Situation is not comparable to 3rd Reich Germany as China is not on par with the US on military tech and nukes exist.

 

[Deleted member 159002]

That's another example of right-wing blame-shifting. It wasn't an intelligence failure; it was a failure of the Bush administration to properly process intelligence because of highly motivated reasoning.

Lets look at the article polishheadlock posted, and what he used it to claim. In response to dismissal of the article Polishheadlock said:

You actually think the US Intelligence agencies didn't know? Lol

When polishheadlock originally posted the article he said:

Lol Trump knew they were covering up because our intelligence agencies told him but he still publicly backed Xi like he publicly backs Kim and any other autocrat.

Nowhere does the article say Trump knew the Chinese were covering up the virus. It doesn't even say the intelligence community (IC) knew about the virus. Here's what the article says:

n mid-November, U.S. military and intelligence analysts began to suspect that something might be wrong in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. The CIA was getting reports from the city that there was an outbreak of pneumonia. High resolution spy satellite photographs showed activity around medical centers and diminishing traffic in the streets. National Security Agency eavesdropping detected an increase in what appeared to be medical calls within the city, in the surrounding Hubei Province, and between Wuhan and government offices in Beijing.

For about a month, there was no way to assemble the scattered bits of intelligence into any confident assessment of what was happening, say four U.S. intelligence and defense officials, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the raw reports. But as the activity increased and the reports from the city continued, some officials at the CIA and the National Center for Medical Intelligence began musing about whether something more serious than pneumonia or a seasonal flu might be spreading. Maybe something worse – something even more contagious.

According to the article the IC's level of certainty regarding the Chinese virus sounds no better than its level of certainty regarding Iraq WMDs.

The article goes on to say:

Early in January, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) started including a warning in many of President Trump’s daily intelligence briefs, say two of the officials who helped compile it. The president, they say, was uninterested. So were Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and other senior officials, the officials say, who routinely receive copies of the PDB and generally avoid confronting the president. What the intelligence officials and health experts could not tell the President— and still cannot today — is where the virus came from.

In the article it links to with the word "uninterested", nowhere does the article say the content of any (much less "many") of the President's daily intelligence briefings in early January, much less that the IC was certain about Chinese origins, what the virus does to the body, and how it spreads:

https://time.com/5797636/trump-botched-coronavirus-response/

 

[MeatheadMike]

You would default on all US bonds, and immediately end the USA as a country

Yea I was thinking such an idiotic idea couldn't possibly be what they were suggesting... but I guess I was wrong.

 

[Jack V Savage]

I think you're cherry-picking bits from the first piece and acting in bad faith. Not really going to bother with that. But this other piece is also very interesting.

In the article it links to with the word "uninterested", nowhere does the article say the content of any (much less "many") of the President's daily intelligence briefings in early January, much less that the IC was certain about Chinese origins, what the virus does to the body, and how it spreads:

https://time.com/5797636/trump-botched-coronavirus-response/

This part:

“The current U.S. policy to deny visas to travelers from China and to quarantine returning Americans is not the right approach,” Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and expert in disease outbreak detection and response at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, testified to Congress on February 5. “I am deeply concerned that these measures will make us less safe by diverting public health resources from higher priority disease mitigation approaches.”

Two days earlier, former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb had warned “we have to assume it’s already here and circulating.”

is very much along the lines that the travel ban was getting (Biden made almost the exact same comment at the time), but GOP propagandists are trying to rewrite that to try to claim that Trump was criticized not for responding ineffectively but for racism (?) or something--the standard go-to move when Trump wants to change the subject.

Later:

That initial strategy was not without validity, epidemiologists and former U.S. health officials tell TIME. Those measures likely helped to slow the spread of the virus. The problem, they say, is that once it was clear that the virus was within our borders officials did not pivot quickly enough to changing circumstances.

And those new circumstances, experts told TIME, were entirely predictable. In a world linked by tens of thousands of flights a day, it’s nearly impossible to completely contain the transmission of an infectious disease like COVID-19, in part because people carrying the virus do not necessarily show symptoms. An effective response, experts say, would have required that administration officials capitalized on the temporary delay of new infections offered by containment strategies in order to aggressively prepare for inevitable outbreaks. But not one of the dozens of experts, doctors or former public health officials who spoke with TIME thought that the Trump administration used that delay effectively.

The problem, they say, is partly that the administration misallocated limited resources. By being told to focus on monitoring a small number of quarantined travelers returning to the U.S., public health departments were not fully engaged in preparing mitigation efforts in communities, where we now know the virus was already infecting more people. Healthcare workers could have used that time to coordinate with hospitals, track suspected cases, funnel resources to diagnostics, prepare vulnerable populations, like nursing homes, and promote mitigation measures, such as isolating known cases outside of a hospital.

Another key point (note that the piece was written in early March):

When it finally became indisputable that an outbreak was underway in Washington state, the administration was slow to catch up. There were not enough COVID-19 testing kits, hotlines were overwhelmed, and hospitals and public health departments were hobbled by a lack of reliable statistics on the spread of the disease. Experts say the U.S. response is now likely weeks—if not months—behind schedule.

And:

The Trump Administration only last week began authorizing disease surveillance within major American cities, where the medical community has been blind for weeks to the expanding number of new cases. Additionally, the drive to quarantine individuals from certain countries—China, Italy, Korea—discounted those from other nations, where the virus was also being transmitted. Taken together, the federal government’s singular focus on containment came at the expense of a more comprehensive—and more effective—approach, Nuzzo said.

In ideal circumstances, infectious disease experts tell TIME, the government would also have focused on mobilizing capacity to test for COVID-19 prior to the first reported case on U.S. soil. It would have sent test-kits to hospitals and clinics around the nation to identify any new infections and, armed with that data, officials would have tailored a rapid response, issuing public recommendations on sanitation practices, when to seek medical treatment, and how to limit the spread of the disease.

And the response to all that? Try to get his sheeplike followers to change what they call the virus and call for punishing China! It's actually funny how similar Trump and the CCP are, and how they have the same kinds of fans.

 

[Deleted member 159002]

I think you're cherry-picking bits from the first piece and acting in bad faith. Not really going to bother with that. But this other piece is also very interesting.



This part:



is very much along the lines that the travel ban was getting (Biden made almost the exact same comment at the time), but GOP propagandists are trying to rewrite that to try to claim that Trump was criticized not for responding ineffectively but for racism (?) or something--the standard go-to move when Trump wants to change the subject.

Later:



Another key point (note that the piece was written in early March):



And:



And the response to all that? Try to get his sheeplike followers to change what they call the virus and call for punishing China! It's actually funny how similar Trump and the CCP are, and how they have the same kinds of fans.

It's laughable that you accuse me of cherry picking for pointing out the uncertainty in the IC according to polishheadlock's source (which he used to claim "Trump knew they [the Chinese] were covering up because our intelligence agencies told him") and respond by quoting two people to argue against something I didn't argue for here (that the travel restrictions were good policy). Not only are you cherry picking (contra Jennifer Nuzzo, Fauci said the travel restrictions were good policy), you're making a straw man.

Polisheadlock said the IC knew about the Chinese government covering up the Chinese virus and shared this knowledge with Trump. His source does not show this. The article polishheadlock quoted to argue Trump knew about a Chinese coverup links to another Time article as its source for its claim that in early January Trump received "many" daily intelligence briefings that gave him "a warning" (notice how polishheadlock's article doesn't say what this supposed warning was). But the article polishheadlock's article links to says no such thing.

To borrow the nomenclature polisheadlock's article uses to describe the IC's analysis, I'm going to muse that it appears to be the case that maybe Time wanted to spread fake news with this story.

 

[Jack V Savage]

To borrow the nomenclature polisheadlock's article uses to describe the IC's analysis, I'm going to muse that it appears to be the case that maybe Time wanted to spread fake news with this story.

Yeah, I think it's lunacy to posit that Time (Time!) is trying to spread fake news as part of some nefarious plot against Dear Leader. Trumpism increasingly seems to be literally a cult.

 

[Deleted member 159002]

Yeah, I think it's lunacy to posit that Time (Time!) is trying to spread fake news as part of some nefarious plot against Dear Leader. Trumpism increasingly seems to be literally a cult.

Why? To work for Time does someone need to have attained a level of righteousness that precludes them from spreading fake news? Is being an Eagle Scout a job requirement for Time staff?

 

[KOFalconPunch]

Why? To work for Time does someone need to have attained a level of righteousness that precludes them from spreading fake news? Is being an Eagle Scout a job requirement for Time staff?

I don’t think that moron realizes there was a time when Time magazine (omg Time!) ran a cover of Hitler as “The Best Person of the Year”.

Stalin twice afterwards but it’s Time! What the fuck is the emphasis on Time magazine even supposed to represent?!<Lmaoo>

 

[Orgasmo]

I dont think what was done to Germany was the right thing to do for sure, however, I do think something must be done and all options should be on the table(including military action).

What I do know is it must be a joint effort by all nations affected by the virus. China wont be able to worm out of anything if they are facing a combined effort from US,Italy, UK, Spain, Canada, Australia,etc.

The right way is to strengthen international institutions (i.e. WTO and WHO) and build coalitions with other allies and like-minded partners (i.e. TTP). Instead Trump has been shitting on everybody and gutting UN bodies that allowed China to exploit the gaps. With Europeans pissed off and UN looking for new sources of funding, CCP is now playing the role of sugar daddy. Essentially US has been pushing its potential partners in the direction of China for the last 3 years.

Military action is pretty much out of the question. China is the third largest nuclear power on earth, and its industrial capability exceeds that of US. In recent war simulation exercises conducted by RAND, results were far from encouraging. When the battle space is near continental China, things did not go well for US.

“If the United States had to fight Russia in a Baltic contingency or China in a war over Taiwan, Americans could face a decisive military defeat,” the bi-partisan National Defense Strategy Commission concluded in November. Now, experts from RAND Corporation are backing up those assessments.

“In our games, when we fight Russia and China, ‘blue’ gets its ass handed to it,” David Ochmanek, a RAND warfare analyst, explained to a crowd at the Center for a New American Security. “We lose a lot of people. We lose a lot of equipment. We usually fail to achieve our objective of preventing aggression by the adversary.”

https://sofrep.com/news/russia-and-...efenses-could-fold-in-a-large-scale-conflict/

Soviet Union wasn't beaten by war, but by exposing the weaknesses of its political-socio-economic system through a network of Western alliances that had much better standard of living.
​

 

[Orgasmo]

Wouldn't matter if the CCP grew stronger, because they have been growing stronger as a result of Western world giving them access to the WTO and the US giving them Most favored nation status, along with all the tech transfer. The CCP has grown very powerfull over the years because of the West taking a soft line towards them and working with them. Just like how the Saudis could never have spread their Wahhabi ideology far and wide if not for petro dollars. The West played a crucial role in making China the monster it is.

So divesting from China and pulling back won't make things worse. It will only mean China has less money and technology to advance its goal of world hegemony. Situation is not comparable to 3rd Reich Germany as China is not on par with the US on military tech and nukes exist.

Certainly, but the incompetence of Trump administration at handling the COVID-19 crisis has allowed China to get a head start. Investors are rushing there because it's perceived to be safer than US as they managed to suppress the spread of the virus, while US is neck deep in the mud.

Just a note, Germany was not on par with US at the outbreak of WWII either. US was outproducing everyone else by 3 to 1 due to its massive industrial capacity. Today China has that crown, and their internationally filed patents (a measure of innovation) just exceeded US last year. Not to mention they have the most STEM majors to feed their economy.


Shit ain't looking good in the long run unless US starts building coalition instead of alienating allies.

 

[D3thr0n3d K1ng]

The right way is to strengthen international institutions (i.e. WTO and WHO) and build coalitions with other allies and like-minded partners (i.e. TTP). Instead Trump has been shitting on everybody and gutting UN bodies that allowed China to exploit the gaps. With Europeans pissed off and UN looking for new sources of funding, CCP is now playing the role of sugar daddy. Essentially US has been pushing its potential partners in the direction of China for the last 3 years.

Military action is pretty much out of the question. China is the third largest nuclear power on earth, and its industrial capability exceeds that of US. In recent war simulation exercises conducted by RAND, results were far from encouraging. When the battle space is near continental China, things did not go well for US.

https://sofrep.com/news/russia-and-...efenses-could-fold-in-a-large-scale-conflict/

Soviet Union wasn't beaten by war, but by exposing the weaknesses of its political-socio-economic system through a network of Western alliances that had much better standard of living.
​

Yet there are still tons of posters on here who claim Murka has the greatest military in the world.

 

[KOFalconPunch]

Yet there are still tons of posters on here who claim Murka has the greatest military in the world.

We clearly do.

 

[HereticBD]

Yeah, I think it's lunacy to posit that Time (Time!) is trying to spread fake news as part of some nefarious plot against Dear Leader. Trumpism increasingly seems to be literally a cult.

This is the first time I'm hearing about Time(Time!), spreading fake news for an agenda...

Oh' wait...


I repeat, you're slippin' Jackie. Jack V Kong looms...

 

[7437]

I don’t think that moron realizes there was a time when Time magazine (omg Time!) ran a cover of Hitler as “The Best Person of the Year”.

Stalin twice afterwards but it’s Time! What the fuck is the emphasis on Time magazine even supposed to represent?!<Lmaoo>

Show me when Hitler was "the best person of the year"

I'll wait

 

[HereticBD]

Show me when Hitler was "the best person of the year"

I'll wait

Don't get all literal. They put the motherfucker on their cover and claimed he was "The Person Of The Year". Not a title they would give him, post Holocaust. At that time, he was just a guy bringing Germany out of a depression. The point is, who cares what Time Magazine says?

 

[7437]

Don't get all literal. They put the motherfucker on their cover and claimed he was "The Person Of The Year". Not a title they would givehim, post Holocaust. At that time, he was just a guy bringing Germany out of a depression. The point is, who cares what Time Magazine says?

I will take anything put into quotes as a quote, or as a lie. That's the point of that punctuation.

 

[HereticBD]

I will take anything put into quotes as a quote, or as a lie. That's the point of that punctuation.

But you knew what he meant. It doesn't make you clever to point out irrelevant technicalities. The "Time Magazine Person of the Year", is not awarded with negative intent, and you know it.

 

[KOFalconPunch]

Show me when Hitler was "the best person of the year"

I'll wait

Go back to school then. You’re not done.

 

[7437]

Go back to school then. You’re not done.

No source then. Thought so.

 

[KOFalconPunch]

No source then. Thought so.

Let me help you out. I understand you’re kinda slow.