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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dr. Voodoo who wrote (154896)	3/21/2020 12:52:31 AM
From: sense	2 Recommendations Recommended By arun gera dvdw© Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 218117

Chinese thinking is... how to put this... still mostly focused on self referential justification in a context... winning the game justifies playing the game, just as winning justifies cheating to win... But, the context may not be what they assume it must be... as the game might not be what is assumed ? As simple as I can make it ? There is a cultural divide... which is expanding... and spreading virally, with too little note paid... Most people are so unaware of it that they're not knowingly asserting themselves on a side ? And that often results in contradictory behavior... in the degree choices offered mask and conflict with fundamental belief, without the overt awareness of those being thus conflicted in the choices offered them. In European history, as ever before elsewhere, the ancestors of modern people were the property of their lord, and of the King. The industrial revolution changed the "values" in attachments to the land as the only source of wealth... but did little to alter people's foundational belief they were owned ? So, Marx, being not all that revolutionary, ignored the individual aspirations inherent in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, and transferred, en masse, all the citizens ownership papers from the King to the State... and Europeans all nodded their tacit approval. In one result, freedom means different things to different people. Freedom in Germany means accepting being owned by the state, but with the state being free of external control. In Spain today, you see that conflict emerging in Catalonia... where a clear majority would prefer either owning themselves, or being owned by Catalonia rather than by Madrid ? But as the essential conflict is seen there, it is still only seen and unresolved, with most trying hard to avoid thinking too much about it. How's that for the sweep of human history in a paragraph? It might be convenient to sweep left / right political disputes under that rubric... but that doesn't work ? All the (genuine) left and right disagree about, is who should own you, not whether anyone should ? Outside governance, it occurs again in finance, presented as a question with some relevance in context... Today, I assume it is still true, if you are seeking venture capital funding for a venture... the question will quickly be asked of any aspiring entrepreneur: "What's more important, who you know, or what you know ?" Note, the question isn't asked in terms of "Which is better, Autocracy or Meritocracy ?" as you think it might be, if asked in context of a free market ? Nor is it presented as a test of one's integrity... in the affirmative sense... rather than as a test of one's reliability in accepting deliberately misplaced loyalties ? Corruption can't work and sustain itself... if it doesn't work to sort out the un-corruptable at the gate ? Again, a free market requires: no fraud, no monopoly, and no obstacles to participation... as well as shared good faith in the willing cooperation of all participants ? But, without obstacles to participation... you likely wouldn't need to be asking a VC for money ? After all... there need to be rules to prevent people just going off and... starting businesses... without surrendering control of them to others at the start ? So, in what many, until recently, were able to believe was a "post-slavery" society... it turns out that Lincon's destruction of the fetters of slavery... perhaps wasn't as fully broad and liberating as has been portrayed... as a newer, softer, approach to a much less bothersome form of constraint in servitude has been constructed: work when and where as you will, but do pay your credit card bill ? That's just ignoring the whole sex slave trade issue, of course... as, VISA or Mastercard are still good for that... just no AMEX ? The cultural question... isn't changed... by altering the swath in scope and limits in the degree ? Everyone of a particular generation likely believes that the greatest revolutionary anthem of their age... [can't use that term in searching or you get "national anthems" and "La Marseillaise"... have to add "modern" to the search string, which returns with "protest songs"]... will be some chart buster from the 60's, no doubt with the Beatles at the top of the list. First one I clicked on, 10 Influential Songs That Changed the World, and yep... there they are with a picture right on top... along with a short list of lefty cultural touchstones... all still ENTIRELY derivative of the European legacy in accepting being owned only quibbling with "by whom" ? That difference also defines much of our urban and rural cultural differences... depending on ones distance from the center ? It contains the Eastern states near colonization of the Western states... as resource plantations... and the cultural divides between east and west, north and south, in the United States ? Shockingly, though, it isn't often addressed overtly... or even illuminated in modern "traps" leading to loss ? My own shocking take on the most revolutionary anthem produced by western art since 1776... Leslie Gore... nailed it... Recorded in 1963, when Gore was 17... shockingly won a Grammy only in 2016... You Don't Own Me... beyond what is claimed of it, clearly might be considered an expression of angst in an adolescent coming of age anthem... which I think is perfectly apropos of the political implication in a revolutionary masterpiece... in an infantile world which, in large measure, has not yet reached political puberty. Sometimes, it really is just that simple... As a bit of art, the song is so typically American... and dead spot on in the main stream... that it won't ever occur to most American's... that our mainstream thought expressed in this simple song... is considered outrageously radical in the rest of the world... if it is allowed to be considered as a political statement... I'll end without too much more... noting only that Chinese, in business, have much in common with Sicilian vegetable vendors... jealous in their guarding of quality, reserving the best for family, friends, only their most favored customers, necessarily excluding un-favored customers, while excluding all in making selections for themselves, as in the petty tyranny of the vegetable stalls, extending the culture of corruption of Cosa Nostra ("our thing") into daily life... Essentially, customers are viewed as property, as without rights, and their business the legitimate spoils of a competition the outcome of which is determined by things other than "no obstacles to participation" in the market. You have to have freedom... in order to have a free market ? Not saying American's aren't also corrupt in business (or, government, obviously) as proven by their accepting and advocating the fraud that business with China is about "free trade"... But that they are corrupt is not accepted as "just how things are" and naturally tolerated by the rest of society, who allow themselves to be owned by it ? They don't own us. In America, you pick your own damned tomatoes off of the display... either getting the best of them, if you care, and know how to pick 'em... or else don't... and we don't care ? It's your choice. No one else's. Perhaps the culture here, developed in overt conflict with its progenitors, in the protection of significant isolation, is not yet reverted to wild type ? The corruption here has not won our hearts and minds, or extracted any surrender... and so, as we succeed, so the culture of resistance to central authority's claims of ownership is spread... informing others... they do have rights... and do have a voice... and do have a choice... if they will just make it rather than submit to being owned. American's... could give a rat's ass what China thinks is owed them... because we might do business with them... or might not. But, why would we... if they're a pain in the ass... and prove they can't be trusted ? Much less... threatening ? The customer is always right. We are not obligated to continue doing business... and certainly won't tolerate being threatened... and, although always willing to tolerate and overlook a few eccentricities... when thresholds have been crossed... fuggedaboudit