Sunday as it happens… Blood Sports, sunny skies, dogs and more… A couple interesting conversations going on…
The world is a small place.
One ol buddy was discussing the manufacturing capacity of China. There is always a buzz about China’s troubles, Chine’s pending fail, China, China, China…
China is an interesting topic… how you view China depends where you live, depends what team you support.
I have a very good Malay/ Singaporean friend that trusts China way more than the USA.
Australia has a strong, very socialist/ communist oriented “Labor Party”. In December 1899, the world’s first labor party government was formed in Queensland.
“Labor” is deep in bed with China and, China IS Australia’s biggest trading partner.
Our incumbent Labor PM spent a week in China this year being wined and dined. A week! An entourage of over 100. He never met with Xi but got paraded around the country in a huge PR stunt.
Then, later in the year (just a month or so ago) Our PM threw a 2week long/ $100m two stop talk fest in Fiji and Tuvalu. He preached a common heritage and prompted Pacific leaders to drop the China-marriage.
He praised the Solomons and handed SI PM Wale half a billion.
Back home, there are calls (many calls) for the Gov to get China out of major infrastructure leases… Port of Darwin, Perth, Melbourne, many airports, and more are long term leased to China.
My take is the govt is too lazy, too inept and too broke to maintain things of importance so they “lease” to China. Not 1000% bad, it is a lease, but it is lazy and, not by a long shot, best first option.
Quick cash in hand for releasing vital controls.
Our PM is in Turkey now, at the COP talk fest. Spending mega bucks… I think the entourage for this is 140 people. Spending billions preaching from different hymnals… depends what crowd he is in front of… he changes his tune from speech to speech.
Add to this the Aukus deal, (A nuke sub base is being built in West Aus).
And the fact we here in Aus are in an undeclared recession. Mismanagement and govt intervention has trashed the housing market. Values dropping in a scary free-fall… As price-of-everything rises consistently.
Big hit to the “average” citizen.
The US is no better off… The US is in a confused, incestuous identity crisis and cant decide if they are good guys or bad guys… support neutering sick children or not? Continue diluting the US demographic with more imports of impoverished people or manage our own first? One side praises Cuba for being a shining light in the world, the other side wishes for more war.
I see a lot of confusion/ metal illness…
China is very much a part of the global mental illness and both profits from and fails alongside the rest of the world.
Manufacturing is an old concept in many ways.
Like animal husbandry, once you lose the skills, you may not get them back, ever.
And it’s hard work.
Hard honest work as near as I can see, does not suit the socialist agenda. Hard honest work is not supported by the Gov here. You can earn more claiming inability to work than working. You work you make 1000 a week and pay half in rent. You go on the “dole” and you get your bills paid and get 500 in the hand. Winner- winner…
Manufacturing now a days is less and less labor intensive and more and more automated/ robotic. Sheer number of hands isn’t the automatic winner any more… Use to be, in my day, we were educated and prepared to work in a factory. Not too much education, just enough to be a good drone for the machine. Being able to read and run numbers not really required.
But those jobs aint the status quo any more.
The need for raw materials never will end. This is where China is a bit stymied. Yet here in Aus ( a resource rich land) we’re being led down a path of virtue where coal is bad, iron ore is bad, petroleum is bad… More and more mining operations simply closing down. Same with coal fired power plants.
So the world goes, so China goes, me thinks…
The future of manufacturing is far from the reality we have known. I think Elon Musk has more understanding of modern manufacturing and scaling production than anyone I have listened to.
I want to buy one of his robots.
So I simply do not get the main-stream, audience appeasing rhetoric driven by ratings.
But then, talking heads, of all ilks, do what talking heads do…
Entertain their audience.
Some picts from my week:
Smiles
Leave a Reply