Ben Shapiro today

[Krazykarl]

I enjoy listening to Ben's perspectives and his delivery today was especially informative. The economy! Economic failure has historical precedent in triggering armed conflict. History is cyclic. Yes, the indicators are lining up again...

https://youtu.be/sJOsGDeWEJI

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

NO! It's global Warming that is driving the badness...

Listening to it now. I think it is potenitally more WWI like in that we'll see a drop off in international trade. That leads to higher prices, fewer choices, less reasons to avoid war, and hard times for the poor.

[nick84]

I listened to this earlier, but I guess I was only half paying attention, I may have to revisit it. I had thought his point wasn't that economic failure drove nations to war; more that it was potential or imminent economic failure while at parity with rivals that drove nations to war.

The most salient example of this is obviously China today. It isn't the actual collapse that will get them to lash out, it's when the leadership sees that the collapse has become inevitable and their last card to play is conflict. Again, maybe I'll have to re-listen. Curious to see what others say.

[yoni]

I think that when it comes to China, they really are not sure what to do.

If you remember Putin and covid leader met in person before Russia went into Ukraine. I have no doubt that the chicoms were watching Ukraine and were going to invade Taiwan based on what Putin told them was going to happen in Ukraine.

But ZERO of what Putin thought was going to happen and even worse for China the world kind of united and responded to. Russia in a way they never thought was possible. The international companies running Russian oil fields pulled out, Russian oil will not survive the winter. This shocked China. NATO pulled together, in a way nobody thought it would. This shocked China. The Ukraine has fought Russia to a stand still. This really shocked China. The Ukraine had months to get ready for war, Taiwan has been getting ready for like 70 years. Taiwan can make a nuke in a few months time they have the technology.

China is falling apart internally and winter has not even started.

The question for Xi, is do I risk it all by attempting to invade Taiwan or do I hold my power tight for what might becoming in terms of internal strife?

[Krazykarl]

It feels like China continues to build in strength while watching the United States crumble from within. Domestic concerns and strife have truly distracted our "Management." If a unifying cause were to become present, like a war, China would be hard pressed to defeat a focused United States that has shed the constraints of polarization.

In other words, China wins by doing nothing.

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

Which shows you why China let loose the Wuhan Flu- Trump and MAGA was going to drive America to the point where they didn’t need China as much. Putin uses natural gas, China uses cheap production to lever against us. Every on-shoring project for the US means less leverage and power for China. Now with Trump out of the way and Biden/Dems willing to play, time is on the side of China- but they are seeing what the moderization of weapons has done to balance of offense/defense that should scare the crap out of them.

Look at the recent Taiwan actions. Pelosi goes and they go nuts. All these MIL excercises, MRBMs over Taiwan, sending ships and planes. But when two US cruisers pass the Straits—- nothing. I think this signals that the action is for domestic consumption and that the lack of response to the actual us warships is to message that they don’t want to go hot, for now. That’s what I read of it. Otherwise I would have been running constant air, surface, and sub ops on the US ships.

[Adrenaline_6]

It feels like China continues to build in strength while watching the United States crumble from within. Domestic concerns and strife have truly distracted our "Management." If a unifying cause were to become present, like a war, China would be hard pressed to defeat a focused United States that has shed the constraints of polarization.

In other words, China wins by doing nothing.

China is on the verge of economic collapse. They are just hiding it well. Like Yoni mentioned, Winter will be a true test for them....and for Europe.

[TAZ]

Wonder if China is now telling Putin what price he will pay for all the gas not going west to start coming east. China is energy starved like the rest of the world, except they have places to burn oil, coal and gas cause they don’t give a rats ass about MMGW.

Part of he thinks China used Putin as a canary to see what would happen and played them to get energy on their terms.


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[gsd2053]

Wonder if China is now telling Putin what price he will pay for all the gas not going west to start coming east. China is energy starved like the rest of the world, except they have places to burn oil, coal and gas cause they don’t give a rats ass about MMGW.

Part of he thinks China used Putin as a canary to see what would happen and played them to get energy on their terms.


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China and Russia have stepped up and been holding a lot of joint military exercises for the past several years.