I hate to be the one to tell you this, Jones, but China has been stronger than the U.S. for some time. The massive manufacturing infrastructure created in China is far greater than the U.S. has ever achieved. Factors such as average income, GDP, etc. are just financial indicators. Publications like MarketWatch, Bloomberg , etc. simply measure monetary transactions. We have now a financialized economy, practically no economy. We sell each other financial products, insurance stocks, consulting, etc. and think we are doing something.
I like to measure an economy in terms of lime production. If you think about it, lime is the basis of civilization. The ancient Romans denuded the forests of Europe and Britain in order to produce lime from limestone and oyster shells, used to make mortar, glass, concrete, and iron. The ancient Egyptians had covered those massive pyramids with lime based stucco so they were blinding white. You get the idea. I have no figures on lime production in China, but they produced more concrete (you need lime for that) in the last three years than the U.S. did in the entire 20th century. Their electrical generation surpassed the U.S. years ago. Ditto steel production. They build entire cities for a million people in three years flat, including high speed rail connecting to them. Many of them are still unoccupied, referred to as ghost cities. No doubt they will eventually be occupied. Meanwhile, in California, we try to build a single high speed rail line connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco and it becomes bogged down in bureaucracy, minority set-asides, corruption, over-regulation and political correctness with the result that billions are wasted and nothing will be built. If the U.S. doesn't regain its position as a manufacturing powerhouse and the parliament of whores we call our government doesn't stop selling us out to China we are finished. On Wednesday, March 25, 2020, 06:03:44 PM UTC, Jones Beene <[email protected]> wrote: China will emerge from the coronavirus crisis stronger than the U.S., experts warn...This is the headline from the MarketWatch newsletter... They make a good case for the shocking prediction, whether you like it or not. China is going back to work now - as of TODAY even Hunan is off of the "stay at home" rule. They will be back to work so as to have more than a three month headstart on the USA (most likely). This can make a huge difference. Hmm... was such a scenario as this is turning out to be -- predictable? Perhaps predictable by an AI? If so - let's say that a country which wished to overtake the US as the leader of the World economy - had developed an AI which foretold this scenario and how to pull it off. Lets say the simulation was rock-solid and always came back with the same result. This creates an opportunity. With a population of 1.5 billion, would it not make good economic sense, never mind the humanity, to engineer a virus and start it at home... but it is engineered to have the traits which would favor a desired end-game ? The sacrifice to do this was less than 5000 souls, which is almost insignificant in the Big Picture. we have been killing off that many every month for some time with opiods. Thank you very much Big Pharma. Even if this economic good fortune was not planned out and did not happen, and there is zero proof that it did happen, the lesson here to remember is that it could happen. And not just in Sci-Fi. Maybe it could happen next year and/or ... maybe it is Putin who is actually pulling the strings... and not the Chinese.. Jones
