Peak absurdity of CA gov

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I'm surprised we don't have warning labels on crosswalks... something like "the crosswalk lines don't protect pedestrians walking in front of moving vehicles." :-/
 
172andyou said:
Yeah, it's always funny to see california bashing here. After all, it's so wildly unsuccessful a state that if it were it's own country it would only be the 4th largest economy in the world. Imagine what could have happened with better policies! They could finally be as successful as Arkansas or Mississippi!
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Is government spending really "economy"?
 
GaryM said:
There is no such thing as peak absurdity in CA government. However absurd things are now, that level is sure to be exceeded in a matter of days, if not hours.
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A truer statement has never been posted.
 
Bob Noel said:
I'm surprised we don't have warning labels on crosswalks... something like "the crosswalk lines don't protect pedestrians walking in front of moving vehicles." :-/
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Only because it is difficult to sue the government in many circumstances.
 
Bob Noel said:
wait, are you saying the warning labels aren't about protecting people?
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Except those designed for the vision impaired. Cities and companies place their warnings everywhere and it actually seems useful.
iu
 
Pi1otguy said:
Except those designed for the vision impaired. Cities and companies place their warnings everywhere and it actually seems useful.
iu
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yeah, I love those brightly colored tripping hazards.
 
It's for vision impaired people to know when they are at a cross walk.
 
We had a project manager that demanded we put a warning label on a locked access panel to an HVAC shaft in braille. Which might makes sense for a regular door. But this was a 3' x 2' panel where the bottom was 4' off the ground. I'm sorry, but if you're blind AND you're going to take a leap of faith by climbing into an access shaft, the braille sign isn't going to help you.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
China really isn't communist any more. They have stock exchanges, privately owned businesses, and so forth. There's a lot of state control, but I wouldn't call them "communist" any more.
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Still Communist as far as the Government is concerned. But they have a Socialist market economy.
 
M20K said:
Still Communist as far as the Government is concerned. But they have a Socialist market economy.
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They have the name "communist" but it doesn't make it so. The second sentence, I can agree with.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
They have the name "communist" but it doesn't make it so. The second sentence, I can agree with.
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No, I think they are "technically" still Comunist as far as the Government. I've also heard Party-State, but then it is the "Communist" party, so we're back to the same place. :D
 
M20K said:
No, I think they are "technically" still Comunist as far as the Government. I've also heard Party-State, but then it is the "Communist" party, so we're back to the same place. :D
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That's just a restatement of your earlier comment. So yes, back to the same place.
 
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It's a violent authoritarian government where the people serve the small group of leaders, and where those leaders select their successors. That's China and that's communism. Pretty much by any definition if you look under the covers. And it's exactly the same as cattle in a feed lot or dairy farm, except the cattle always get fed, the people are only used indirectly as a source of food, and you don't have to convince the cattle that's it's a good plan.

The only twist China put on it is now they're renting out their cattle, and they let the cattle play poker.

Apologies if off topic.
 
Albany Tom said:
It's a violent authoritarian government where the people serve the small group of leaders, and where those leaders select their successors.
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Or Italy in the 1930's. Or Germany during the same period. Russa as it stands now fits that description. Many monarchies also fit that description in the past. They didn't describe themselves as "communist". "Communism" is an economic system that doesn't fit China at this time. China is certainly authoritarian now. But hardly "communist". Vietnam is the same situation as China.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
That's just a restatement of your earlier comment. So yes, back to the same place.
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It's definitely still communist. A "private sector" where the Party owns or controls almost every "private enterprise" isn't really a private sector. Or is this one of those "socialism isn't communism" arguments?
 
In a town where the garbage collection system is run by organized crime, that situation could be described as an economic system. But, it's really better described as a political system. Because the system only exists as a byproduct of the political situation, which is only successful because of the threat of violence. When done by threat of violence, the labels and the currency are all arbitrary and without meaning. The people are just playing the game with the hand they are dealt.

Or in other words, communism is not an economic system, but a political one. The promised end state is the equivalent of the paradise in many religions, a goal that is not expected to be achieved by mortals. When the controls are released, the natural state of trade will return to barter/capitalism, unless another political system pops up that attempts to control the economy. Which makes the justification of the force required to get to that point pretty funny. It isn't a case of the end justifying the means, in this case the means is the goal. The end is just a hollow promise.

I think part of the problem is that people are taught that what a person says is what they believe in most cases. In many cases I think that's true, particularly in the technical fields, but the percentage within the leaders of any religious, political or economic group is probably a lot lower than many people would believe. Now that I say that, perhaps the leaders of any group.

And no, none of this really has anything to do with California. A closer example to California would be the Big Bang episode where the guys accidentally set fire to the rented van while trying to change a tire.
 
Lindberg said:
It's definitely still communist. A "private sector" where the Party owns or controls almost every "private enterprise" isn't really a private sector. Or is this one of those "socialism isn't communism" arguments?
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In China, the party doesn't control almost every private enterprise. One of my good friends owns a gym- think something like Anytime Fitness, Golds, or another gym except it isn't a franchise. She leases the space from a landlord, and she owns the equipment inside her gym. Her involvement with the government is the same as someone owning a similar business here in Scott's Bluff, Nebraska- taxes, licensing, and so forth. Another friend has a business selling pharmaceutical compounds they discovered. They have patents, and the input from the government for this is the same as in the USA regarding safety and efficacy. I work with people who own an import and distribution company, by training their staff on products made by my employer; they don't get told what they can import or distribute from either local or foreign manufacturers. JD.com, Alibaba, and Tencent are all stock equity companies; Alibaba is listed on the NYSE. These are share-holder owned companies like Intel, Nvidia, AMD, or Lockheed-Martin.

Lindberg said:
Or is this one of those "socialism isn't communism" arguments?
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That isn't anything I said or even intended. but if you want to go that way, pretty much all of the world is communist by that statement. Most of the world has pretty good healthcare affordable to the individual supported by the government in some way. The USA has social programs such as social security, medicare, medicaid, and unemployment insurance all sponsored by the government.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
In China, the party doesn't control almost every private enterprise. One of my good friends owns a gym- think something like Anytime Fitness, Golds, or another gym except it isn't a franchise. She leases the space from a landlord, and she owns the equipment inside her gym. Her involvement with the government is the same as someone owning a similar business here in Scott's Bluff, Nebraska- taxes, licensing, and so forth. Another friend has a business selling pharmaceutical compounds they discovered. They have patents, and the input from the government for this is the same as in the USA regarding safety and efficacy. I work with people who own an import and distribution company, by training their staff on products made by my employer; they don't get told what they can import or distribute from either local or foreign manufacturers. JD.com, Alibaba, and Tencent are all stock equity companies; Alibaba is listed on the NYSE. These are share-holder owned companies like Intel, Nvidia, AMD, or Lockheed-Martin.


That isn't anything I said or even intended. but if you want to go that way, pretty much all of the world is communist by that statement. Most of the world has pretty good healthcare affordable to the individual supported by the government in some way. The USA has social programs such as social security, medicare, medicaid, and unemployment insurance all sponsored by the government.
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No golden shares or party members at your friends' companies? I think these are yours.

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1757684350436.jpeg

 
Lindberg said:
No golden shares or party members at your friends' companies? I think these are yours.
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The vast majority of businesses in China are not connected with the state. So no reason to question his story. He wasn't talking about mega-corps.

That is different, of course, from saying that the economy is not highly managed by the state, since it is also true that the largest businesses almost all have connections to the government.

sccei.fsi.stanford.edu

The Rise of the State-Connected Private Sector in China

sccei.fsi.stanford.edu sccei.fsi.stanford.edu
 
Lindberg said:
No golden shares or party members at your friends' companies? I think these are yours.

1757684001485-jpeg.145050

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Nope. It really doesn't work that way. No more so than it does here. Congresscritters, the president, and judges get stock here, too. The economy is heavily managed over there but individual companies are allowed to manage their own affairs. Large companies do have much more scrutiny there.

My friend's gym is a sole proprietorship. She makes a living, but isn't wealthy. She certainly doesn't have any government staff as your reference claims that she should.
“All Chinese companies, public or private, are required to have a member of the CCP on staff to hand down official party edicts. In addition, many companies have an internal CCP committee that comprises part of the governance structure,”
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Your reference, Vision Times is is affiliated with Falun Gong and they aren't credible news. Their leader has some interesting beliefs:

Interview with Li Hongzhi

TIME: How does Falun Gong differ from other types of qigong?Li: There are different practices of qigong in China and in other countries, but they...
time.com time.com
TIME: Why does chaos reign now?
Li: Of course there is not just one reason. The biggest cause of society’s change today is that people no longer believe in orthodox religion. They go to church, but they no longer believe in God. They feel free to do anything. The second reason is that since the beginning of this century, aliens have begun to invade the human mind and its ideology and culture.

TIME: Where do they come from?
Li: The aliens come from other planets. The names that I use for these planets are different . Some are from dimensions that human beings have not yet discovered. The key is how they have corrupted mankind. Everyone knows that from the beginning until now, there has never been a development of culture like today. Although it has been several thousand years, it has never been like now.

The aliens have introduced modern machinery like computers and airplanes. They started by teaching mankind about modern science, so people believe more and more science, and spiritually, they are controlled. Everyone thinks that scientists invent on their own when in fact their inspiration is manipulated by the aliens. In terms of culture and spirit, they already control man. Mankind cannot live without science.


The ultimate purpose is to replace humans. If cloning human beings succeeds, the aliens can officially replace humans. Why does a corpse lie dead, even though it is the same as a living body? The difference is the soul, which is the life of the body. If people reproduce a human person, the gods in heaven will not give its body a human soul. The aliens will take that opportunity to replace the human soul and by doing so they will enter earth and become earthlings.

When such people grow up, they will help replace humans with aliens. They will produce more and more clones. There will no longer be humans reproduced by humans. They will act like humans, but they will introduce legislation to stop human reproduction.
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Communism is an economic and political system distinguished by collective ownership of the means of production. Political coercion is inherent because people must be forced to act against their individual economic interest. All communist states are defacto dictatorships with one party rule, with opposition to the party repressed.

China attempted pure communism from the 40's through the 70's. Seeing that the economic theory of Marxism was a flop, they changed to a hybrid economy with private enterprise under a high degree of state control. They retained the Communist political system of one party rule and repression of dissent. The party still calls themselves the Communist Party of China, so there's that.

Eg you're both right!!
 
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Lindberg said:
So do you dispute the facts? Is the NYT a more credible source? This article mentions both Alibaba and Tencent:

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If you (or your citation) had actually posted any facts, I wouldn't have disputed them.

NYT is certainly more credible, but that article is 3 years old. It also doesn't say very much. Things change a lot there in a short time, as it does over here now. How often have tariffs been applied and removed in the past 8 months or so? The article also mentions the very largest of companies; such companies also are handled differently here in the USA compared to medium and small businesses. Those companies are the equivalent of Microsoft, Google, Meta, Citibank, Chase, and Amazon and similar companies with very large capitalization and market share.
When he did talk about markets, the message was established rhetoric. He lauded “socialist market economic reform,” while also arguing that China’s economy should “give full play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation.”

Under Mr. Xi’s leadership, China is returning to its roots: a state-controlled economy that demands businesses conform to the aims of the Chinese Communist Party.
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That certainly is worthy of any politician. It doesn't say anything. I wonder what the aims of the CCP are for a small gym? For a company that distributes laboratory equipment? For a pharma wannabe?

Billionaire tycoons, including Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, have been driven underground or imprisoned after criticizing the government.
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...After criticizing the government...We all know and agree they are authoritarian. This isn't about business per se. Jack Ma is out and about again as of March of this year. Few people still know whether he was jailed or just stayed home. AFAIK, he still runs the company.

From the outset, American Express ran up against Mr. Xi’s agenda. Initially, American Express had proposed teaming up with Tencent, a target in Beijing’s crackdown on powerful technology companies, but the country’s central bank encouraged a marriage with the much smaller LianLian, according to two people with knowledge of the talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity given the political sensitivities.
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Tencent is a very powerful company. I have an relatively easy time getting around China because I have WeChat pay. Nearly all businesses take WeChat pay or QQ pay, which is also owned by Tencent. I've visited some small shops and museums that take neither cash or credit cards, but they take WeChat or QQ. I don't have an Amex card, but I think that if I did, it would work with WeChat now. I got access to WeChat pay after this article was printed. The article was posted in 2022, but I could use their payment system in 2023.

WeChat is also used for communication (VOIP phone, texting), buy and sell, and has its own marketplace. Such a company would have a large amount of scrutiny here. Tencent is a combination of Meta, Chase, and Citibank. You don't think those companies don't get government attention here? The crackdown mentioned in the article may have been transaction fees.
 
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