i might have coined a new term - ''the democracy regime." this lends itself to short term thinking and political polarization... as for capitalism, those with no morals or ethics have no restraints on their avarice... it is the opposite to cooperation and working with others... sorry to say, but this is the downside of a capitalist system and it is showing it's limitations and drawbacks at this point in time..
the usa and capitalism seems to think a winner take all ideology is superior to a system of consideration and cooperation with others... personally i don't think it is, and i think we are rapidly finding out and seeing these differences as demonstrated by the back and forth at present between usa and china...
of course trump is an ignoramus and loves to distract... whether he knew what he was saying was a lie or not - it doesn't matter... his narcissistic leadership is perfect for an empire in serious decline.. it mimics what i believe is his own serious health and mental health decline at present..
Competition is the sales pitch, but the reality is cartels are what we have. Competition is used on the out group to blunt collective action, like unions. Regulatory capture allows selective enforcement so elite collusion is interpreted as benign. The greed got so extreme that safety valves have been removed from the system leading to what western states are now experiencing - systemic breakdown.
The "winner take all" mentality is frankly juvenile. Desperate competition might be alright for adolescents, but adults should have left all that behind, just as we leave behind our Teddy bears and Hardy novels. Instead, we have elites running things who have never learned self-control/self-knowledge.
Karl, I was about to write what James wrote but he did so far more eloquently than I would have wrote, gracias y bien escrito hermano and James, excellent response sir.
It's hardly the only downside of the capitalist system. You can also add: decimation of workers pay and rights, no valuation being given to the environment, no valuation being given to social needs and goods, no valuation being given to art, poetry, etc except in so far as they can be sold, short-termism, short-sightedness, the promotion of liberalism and liberal 'values', the promotion of a privileged class of 'owners' and rentiers, the promotion of a war economy in the largest capitalist country, the destruction of productive economies by 'out-shoring' production, and so on an bloody on, in pursuit of greater profit for a small group of greedy profiteers.
It’s clear Western Humanity will need to refight the same battles fought by 19th Century reformers as the ills are roughly the same. The reason for the battle against China is it’s shown another path is possible and even performs much better.
Thanks for the article showing how China has succfully built wind power bussiness and gained a competitive advantage not only for their own power needs, but for products to sell.
I spend too much time on youtube. For some reason a channel, shows up on the right side
"
" Inside China Business
Description
Key insights and strategies for global business owners and managers, from inside the world's factory and supply chains.
We live and work in Mainland China, and travel extensively throughout the country to find the highest-quality products at competitive prices, for markets abroad.
During many of our videos, we are saying a quiet prayer for the peace of the world, and that our content is helpful to our listeners. ...."
Short videos are posted several times a week showing incredible progress in many areas.
Here are titles of a couple of them. They can be found following youtube link above.
"China jumps a generation ahead in metals race with deep-sea rovers and 3-D mapping of ocean floors"
"WATCH HOW: Homebuilders use Chinese factories to build houses, for 1/4 the cost"
two themes: anything that can be automated will be automated. Anything that can be produced in a factory will be built in a factory. In this video, completed houses are manufactured and sent around the world to be bolted together.
"WATCH HOW: China has taken over the elevator manufacturing industry"
"China's traditional fuel car exports are taking over the world"
2024 exported 6.5 million gas cars , 76% of car exports. 100 factrories.
Like this post on Wind Energy, China rushes ahead and the West fiddles around.
"China's rare earth steel is transforming infrastructure. That's bad news for the Pentagon. "
China using rare earth metals for high strenght steel. The only manufactures in the US that can use these steels are the defense industry. Since China controls the most of the world's supply, they can restrict sales to the US thus harming the US defense industry
Even if the US and Europe had crash projects, it may be that they could never catch up.
I worked for 25 years at AT&T Bell labs which touted itself when I joined in 1978 as the best R&D lab in the world. Bell Labs/AT&T existed in a monopoly enterprise and even in its best, it could not do what China is doing now.
The intro link and the Warwick Powell link are of a similar nature. Innovation and continual modernization are joined at the hip and are part of China’s political-economic plan. I think of my 1999 paper and how far China’s progressed, while warfare is the Empire’s sole “job,” and only when employing proxies. Without massive energy generation projects, there’ll be massive social unrest if AI-tech’s electrical consumption causes consumer electricity rates to skyrocket. Trump lit the fuse laid since 1998.
In the United States, unmitigated greed has created an oligarchic dystopia where the primary goal is short term profit, which has resulted in the loss of competitiveness and increasing impoverishment of the masses in the long term. The emphasis on military spending and finance as profit generators has squandered productive capacity that otherwise could have been applied to develop products and services beneficial to humanity, while the cultural imperative of self-indulgent consumption, waste, and entertainment has dumbed down the people to the extent that they no longer possess the education and skills to support industry. We are in such a mess led by imbeciles and there's no reform in sight!
On this point I'm not so certain that they've grasped the changes underway, "The United States still maintains huge advantages in technological innovation, capital markets, and high-end talents. Silicon Valley remains the center of global technological innovation, Wall Street still holds the voice in global finance, and top universities in the United States continue to attract the best students from around the world."
What they've listed as advantages are either over stated or misunderstood. Education; money first, education second (this is a model emulated in other English speaking countries). Capital markets have no long game plan, it's about quarterly and annual results equal executive bonuses. Wall Street, not so much a voice, as a machine to output market manipulation. As for the best students... I think this is contradicted by stories of the best staying in China, and that sea turtles are not as readily snapped up.
The same neoliberal education model was implemented by John Dawkins in the late eighties. These very same problems apply in mobilising investment and there’s no sign that politicians, bureaucrats, media, and mainline academics have any clue except “more cowbell”. It’s not about rubbing their face in the mud, they live in it and are clueless.
A seeming redirect from the usual geopolitical thread that you draw…and its importance cannot be overvalued.
In my early years as a structural engineer (70s), American names such as Bechtel and Brown and Root represented the pinnacle of global project construction. The engineering/construction firm for the Jeddah International Airport, another project I worked on (80s), was Hochtief (West Germany). These names are all now lost in the sands of time — along with the expertise and management knowledge — replaced by Chinese firms whose names we would not recognize. No other country could have tackled the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. The building of the Golden Gate Bridge (1937) was the peak of American civil works. The US can now barely maintain infrastructure, let alone plan and build it for others.
Trump may have derived his “no windfarm” claim from a casual overhearing of someone on his team, such as the illustrious economist “Ron Vara” …or mixing up his lines on stage like the befuddled thespian he is.
Wanted: Candidates to become interstellar navigators. China has posted that ad, while Russia hasn’t been as demonstrative. The Empire? It’s relying on Musk and as such is a failure.
Truth. And on a related note, has the Francis Scott Key Bridge been repaired??? LOL How long would it have taken China to repair it? As this article observes, the institutions and culture in the US do not support building or even repairing infrastructure. And "Project Sunrise" set to turn Gaza into a high tech metropolis? Please. It is more likely that Tacitus' observation will apply: Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant. They make a desert and call it peace.
When I lived in California, I had several excellent solar ideas that would have made me and backers very well-off. But they competed with PG&E and SoCalEdison. Thus, the sunshine state gets power from very little solar when it could power the whole state. At least some wind power was built when politics were better, and we still had engineers and some industry to make the components. Nuts! is an apt expression.
Maybe those 'uge swathes of land all across America that Blackrock and Gates are snapping up are for the very same, thousands of hectares of electrical units/pulses, ever thirsty/hungry, like plagues of locusts, stationary forever ones. That's a long way from the Blue Ridge Mountains and Mom's Apple Pie.
The Bare Necessities -
Look for the bare necessities
The simple bare necessities
Forget about your worries and your strife
I mean the bare necessities (like two-sided toilet tissue bare)
Somewhat off topic: Venezuelean oil which Trump now controls may not be a great deal
Oil trades handled througth a buyer and raised rates to China. China refuses to buy through the middle man. China supported Venzuela not the other way around. And there is the pipe line from Canada that is many days shorter for tankers to travel.
Hence, who wants to buy the oil that Trump now controls?
"US traders struggling to find buyers for Venezuelan oil, as China shifts supply chain to Canada
China’s ability to pivot to different markets and thus avoid Trump’s attempts at control has produced awesome results. China anticipated Trump’s Trade War escalation upon returning to office and has countered very effectively. IMO, China’s dependency on imported oil will wane thanks to its NEV push. The two trolls that provided FUD in their comments shows the Empire’s desperation.
The seemingly unrelated article reminded me of an America long ago that was willing to innovate and invest in the future. Shaken out of its educational lethargy by Sputnik, the US government invested hugely in developing the needed engineering and scientific talent needed for an obvious future. I was a beneficiary as I was chosen as a high school Junior to spend a whole summer on the government's dime at Oregon State University studying Earth/Space Science. China is like the US back then, willing to do what the future demands. Not any longer.
I would note that GE Vernova, Siemens of Germany, and Mitsubishi/Hitachi of Japan are all heavily involved in the necessary energy infrastructure technologies and subcontract with Chinese companies. So the problems are being worked, essentially by global consortia. Therefore technological development is shared and none of the multipolar competitors are particularly lacking there. The problems lie elsewhere. The policy, planning horizons, political, societal. As your article notes, China is advantaged. The US is clandestinely moving to a Chinese societal model because of the perception that it works better (more tools to force outcomes). I think there are ways for either system to work if the US had the inclination to make it happen. Incentives properly targeted for something other than someone’s pocket.
One should not equal the nominal power of installed wind farms with that of nuclear PP. NPP running constantly, giving basic power to the grid. Whereas, the power nomination for wind farms refers to maximal reachable power in a gap of suitable wind force. To strong, the windmill will be switched of. To weak, fewer power is generated or even none. So, let's assume, all the wind farms are interconnected. China being a big country, one may assume that there is always somewhere some wind and the overall fluctuation is not between 0 and MAX, but between 0,3 and 0,6. Fine. They profit from a centralized energy grid. Not a hodgepodge of grid operators with varying standards and horrors about additional investment.
Lifetime. May be the Chinese mills are built better and they last longer than the Western counterparts. Garbage handling afterwards. A lot of garbage.
Environment. Wind mills aren't environment friendly. I'm not talking about shredded birds. About pollution - by abrasion from the wings. Imagine, what a sandstorm combined with the high speed of the blades makes out of them. A lot of harmful dust in the near and not so near environment.
China will be using a new method for harvesting wind energy reported in an article I linked to early last month. The constant winds in the upper atmosphere are the generator. That and other things are part of what China calls its Low Altitude Economy that’s part of its new 5-year plan.
Just smoke and mirrors and spraying large numbers about really. Wind energy typically has a capacity factor of 25% because there is no way to drive them at optimal out put. Also, though the wind numbers sound impressive they are a drop in the bucket for Chinese energy production. It wouldn't move the needle if they stopped tommorrow.
The Chinese are smart enough to know that you have to keep intermittent power at a small % of overall demand. If you don't there be the dragons of complexity, instability and redundancy. The latter because at some time output will drop to zero, and you still need power. Chinese wind power is little more than window dressing.
China's made great strides to restore some of its massive desertified landscapes but its supertrawlers (with Norwegian ones) are hoovering up life in the ocean. Its sheer appetite for materials and energy make it chart topping for climate changing emissions, regardless of its vast renewables. Coal is still the dominant energy source and coal and oil use keep rising. It hoovers up raw materials including foodstuffs obtained from cleared tropical forests. This is a Faustian competition, in the not too distant end lose-lose.
thanks karl..
i might have coined a new term - ''the democracy regime." this lends itself to short term thinking and political polarization... as for capitalism, those with no morals or ethics have no restraints on their avarice... it is the opposite to cooperation and working with others... sorry to say, but this is the downside of a capitalist system and it is showing it's limitations and drawbacks at this point in time..
the usa and capitalism seems to think a winner take all ideology is superior to a system of consideration and cooperation with others... personally i don't think it is, and i think we are rapidly finding out and seeing these differences as demonstrated by the back and forth at present between usa and china...
of course trump is an ignoramus and loves to distract... whether he knew what he was saying was a lie or not - it doesn't matter... his narcissistic leadership is perfect for an empire in serious decline.. it mimics what i believe is his own serious health and mental health decline at present..
There can be no peace if envy and jealousy exist for they obstruct collectiveness.
they obstruct peace - yes.. both the peace of one would engages with them, and anyone who tries to relate to them..
Competition is the sales pitch, but the reality is cartels are what we have. Competition is used on the out group to blunt collective action, like unions. Regulatory capture allows selective enforcement so elite collusion is interpreted as benign. The greed got so extreme that safety valves have been removed from the system leading to what western states are now experiencing - systemic breakdown.
The "winner take all" mentality is frankly juvenile. Desperate competition might be alright for adolescents, but adults should have left all that behind, just as we leave behind our Teddy bears and Hardy novels. Instead, we have elites running things who have never learned self-control/self-knowledge.
Karl, I was about to write what James wrote but he did so far more eloquently than I would have wrote, gracias y bien escrito hermano and James, excellent response sir.
"this is the downside of a capitalist system"
It's hardly the only downside of the capitalist system. You can also add: decimation of workers pay and rights, no valuation being given to the environment, no valuation being given to social needs and goods, no valuation being given to art, poetry, etc except in so far as they can be sold, short-termism, short-sightedness, the promotion of liberalism and liberal 'values', the promotion of a privileged class of 'owners' and rentiers, the promotion of a war economy in the largest capitalist country, the destruction of productive economies by 'out-shoring' production, and so on an bloody on, in pursuit of greater profit for a small group of greedy profiteers.
It’s clear Western Humanity will need to refight the same battles fought by 19th Century reformers as the ills are roughly the same. The reason for the battle against China is it’s shown another path is possible and even performs much better.
fully concur jams.. thanks for articulating all that..
Thanks for the article showing how China has succfully built wind power bussiness and gained a competitive advantage not only for their own power needs, but for products to sell.
I spend too much time on youtube. For some reason a channel, shows up on the right side
"
" Inside China Business
Description
Key insights and strategies for global business owners and managers, from inside the world's factory and supply chains.
We live and work in Mainland China, and travel extensively throughout the country to find the highest-quality products at competitive prices, for markets abroad.
During many of our videos, we are saying a quiet prayer for the peace of the world, and that our content is helpful to our listeners. ...."
https://www.youtube.com/@Inside_China_Business
Short videos are posted several times a week showing incredible progress in many areas.
Here are titles of a couple of them. They can be found following youtube link above.
"China jumps a generation ahead in metals race with deep-sea rovers and 3-D mapping of ocean floors"
"WATCH HOW: Homebuilders use Chinese factories to build houses, for 1/4 the cost"
two themes: anything that can be automated will be automated. Anything that can be produced in a factory will be built in a factory. In this video, completed houses are manufactured and sent around the world to be bolted together.
"WATCH HOW: China has taken over the elevator manufacturing industry"
"China's traditional fuel car exports are taking over the world"
2024 exported 6.5 million gas cars , 76% of car exports. 100 factrories.
Like this post on Wind Energy, China rushes ahead and the West fiddles around.
"China's rare earth steel is transforming infrastructure. That's bad news for the Pentagon. "
China using rare earth metals for high strenght steel. The only manufactures in the US that can use these steels are the defense industry. Since China controls the most of the world's supply, they can restrict sales to the US thus harming the US defense industry
Even if the US and Europe had crash projects, it may be that they could never catch up.
I worked for 25 years at AT&T Bell labs which touted itself when I joined in 1978 as the best R&D lab in the world. Bell Labs/AT&T existed in a monopoly enterprise and even in its best, it could not do what China is doing now.
The intro link and the Warwick Powell link are of a similar nature. Innovation and continual modernization are joined at the hip and are part of China’s political-economic plan. I think of my 1999 paper and how far China’s progressed, while warfare is the Empire’s sole “job,” and only when employing proxies. Without massive energy generation projects, there’ll be massive social unrest if AI-tech’s electrical consumption causes consumer electricity rates to skyrocket. Trump lit the fuse laid since 1998.
In the United States, unmitigated greed has created an oligarchic dystopia where the primary goal is short term profit, which has resulted in the loss of competitiveness and increasing impoverishment of the masses in the long term. The emphasis on military spending and finance as profit generators has squandered productive capacity that otherwise could have been applied to develop products and services beneficial to humanity, while the cultural imperative of self-indulgent consumption, waste, and entertainment has dumbed down the people to the extent that they no longer possess the education and skills to support industry. We are in such a mess led by imbeciles and there's no reform in sight!
On this point I'm not so certain that they've grasped the changes underway, "The United States still maintains huge advantages in technological innovation, capital markets, and high-end talents. Silicon Valley remains the center of global technological innovation, Wall Street still holds the voice in global finance, and top universities in the United States continue to attract the best students from around the world."
What they've listed as advantages are either over stated or misunderstood. Education; money first, education second (this is a model emulated in other English speaking countries). Capital markets have no long game plan, it's about quarterly and annual results equal executive bonuses. Wall Street, not so much a voice, as a machine to output market manipulation. As for the best students... I think this is contradicted by stories of the best staying in China, and that sea turtles are not as readily snapped up.
IMO, the author made a conscious effort not to rub Uncle Sam’s face in the mud.
The same neoliberal education model was implemented by John Dawkins in the late eighties. These very same problems apply in mobilising investment and there’s no sign that politicians, bureaucrats, media, and mainline academics have any clue except “more cowbell”. It’s not about rubbing their face in the mud, they live in it and are clueless.
So, we should call them grubs?
A seeming redirect from the usual geopolitical thread that you draw…and its importance cannot be overvalued.
In my early years as a structural engineer (70s), American names such as Bechtel and Brown and Root represented the pinnacle of global project construction. The engineering/construction firm for the Jeddah International Airport, another project I worked on (80s), was Hochtief (West Germany). These names are all now lost in the sands of time — along with the expertise and management knowledge — replaced by Chinese firms whose names we would not recognize. No other country could have tackled the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. The building of the Golden Gate Bridge (1937) was the peak of American civil works. The US can now barely maintain infrastructure, let alone plan and build it for others.
Trump may have derived his “no windfarm” claim from a casual overhearing of someone on his team, such as the illustrious economist “Ron Vara” …or mixing up his lines on stage like the befuddled thespian he is.
Wanted: Candidates to become interstellar navigators. China has posted that ad, while Russia hasn’t been as demonstrative. The Empire? It’s relying on Musk and as such is a failure.
The best articulated essay on the differences between China and the hegemon that I have read to date.
Thank you Karl!!!
Truth. And on a related note, has the Francis Scott Key Bridge been repaired??? LOL How long would it have taken China to repair it? As this article observes, the institutions and culture in the US do not support building or even repairing infrastructure. And "Project Sunrise" set to turn Gaza into a high tech metropolis? Please. It is more likely that Tacitus' observation will apply: Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant. They make a desert and call it peace.
When I lived in California, I had several excellent solar ideas that would have made me and backers very well-off. But they competed with PG&E and SoCalEdison. Thus, the sunshine state gets power from very little solar when it could power the whole state. At least some wind power was built when politics were better, and we still had engineers and some industry to make the components. Nuts! is an apt expression.
Maybe those 'uge swathes of land all across America that Blackrock and Gates are snapping up are for the very same, thousands of hectares of electrical units/pulses, ever thirsty/hungry, like plagues of locusts, stationary forever ones. That's a long way from the Blue Ridge Mountains and Mom's Apple Pie.
The Bare Necessities -
Look for the bare necessities
The simple bare necessities
Forget about your worries and your strife
I mean the bare necessities (like two-sided toilet tissue bare)
Old Mother Nature's recipes
That bring the bare necessities of life
Somewhat off topic: Venezuelean oil which Trump now controls may not be a great deal
Oil trades handled througth a buyer and raised rates to China. China refuses to buy through the middle man. China supported Venzuela not the other way around. And there is the pipe line from Canada that is many days shorter for tankers to travel.
Hence, who wants to buy the oil that Trump now controls?
"US traders struggling to find buyers for Venezuelan oil, as China shifts supply chain to Canada
Inside China Business"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n7uPbEacyw
China’s ability to pivot to different markets and thus avoid Trump’s attempts at control has produced awesome results. China anticipated Trump’s Trade War escalation upon returning to office and has countered very effectively. IMO, China’s dependency on imported oil will wane thanks to its NEV push. The two trolls that provided FUD in their comments shows the Empire’s desperation.
The seemingly unrelated article reminded me of an America long ago that was willing to innovate and invest in the future. Shaken out of its educational lethargy by Sputnik, the US government invested hugely in developing the needed engineering and scientific talent needed for an obvious future. I was a beneficiary as I was chosen as a high school Junior to spend a whole summer on the government's dime at Oregon State University studying Earth/Space Science. China is like the US back then, willing to do what the future demands. Not any longer.
I would note that GE Vernova, Siemens of Germany, and Mitsubishi/Hitachi of Japan are all heavily involved in the necessary energy infrastructure technologies and subcontract with Chinese companies. So the problems are being worked, essentially by global consortia. Therefore technological development is shared and none of the multipolar competitors are particularly lacking there. The problems lie elsewhere. The policy, planning horizons, political, societal. As your article notes, China is advantaged. The US is clandestinely moving to a Chinese societal model because of the perception that it works better (more tools to force outcomes). I think there are ways for either system to work if the US had the inclination to make it happen. Incentives properly targeted for something other than someone’s pocket.
One should not equal the nominal power of installed wind farms with that of nuclear PP. NPP running constantly, giving basic power to the grid. Whereas, the power nomination for wind farms refers to maximal reachable power in a gap of suitable wind force. To strong, the windmill will be switched of. To weak, fewer power is generated or even none. So, let's assume, all the wind farms are interconnected. China being a big country, one may assume that there is always somewhere some wind and the overall fluctuation is not between 0 and MAX, but between 0,3 and 0,6. Fine. They profit from a centralized energy grid. Not a hodgepodge of grid operators with varying standards and horrors about additional investment.
Lifetime. May be the Chinese mills are built better and they last longer than the Western counterparts. Garbage handling afterwards. A lot of garbage.
Environment. Wind mills aren't environment friendly. I'm not talking about shredded birds. About pollution - by abrasion from the wings. Imagine, what a sandstorm combined with the high speed of the blades makes out of them. A lot of harmful dust in the near and not so near environment.
Climate. Wind farms have impact on the micro climate. Making it hotter and drier. Such studies exist, however, mostly in China. One annotation as an example https://english.cas.cn/newsroom/research_news/earth/202109/t20210923_283982.shtml
China will be using a new method for harvesting wind energy reported in an article I linked to early last month. The constant winds in the upper atmosphere are the generator. That and other things are part of what China calls its Low Altitude Economy that’s part of its new 5-year plan.
Just smoke and mirrors and spraying large numbers about really. Wind energy typically has a capacity factor of 25% because there is no way to drive them at optimal out put. Also, though the wind numbers sound impressive they are a drop in the bucket for Chinese energy production. It wouldn't move the needle if they stopped tommorrow.
The Chinese are smart enough to know that you have to keep intermittent power at a small % of overall demand. If you don't there be the dragons of complexity, instability and redundancy. The latter because at some time output will drop to zero, and you still need power. Chinese wind power is little more than window dressing.
China's made great strides to restore some of its massive desertified landscapes but its supertrawlers (with Norwegian ones) are hoovering up life in the ocean. Its sheer appetite for materials and energy make it chart topping for climate changing emissions, regardless of its vast renewables. Coal is still the dominant energy source and coal and oil use keep rising. It hoovers up raw materials including foodstuffs obtained from cleared tropical forests. This is a Faustian competition, in the not too distant end lose-lose.