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Off topic, but Peter, have you seen this?

https://www.theepochtimes.com/china/ccp-replaces-head-of-securities-regulator-restricts-short-selling-amid-stock-market-meltdown-5584887?utm_source=ref_share&utm_campaign=copy

China has decided that investors can only buy stocks on their exchange - no selling allowed! So, tens of millions of Chinese have lost money in the residential real estate market, and now 200 million citizens are losing their shirts in the stock market. The exchange reopens (after the New Year’s holiday) in three days. Dum de dum, what could happen next? Peter, I am SO MUCH looking forward to your exciting analysis on this topic in the coming days!

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Beijing has used regulatory interventions before to "stabilize" their financial markets. The end result has been the Chinese equivalent of Wall Street's "plunge protection team" shoveling money into the market to halt the slide--which is to say the regulatory approach has failed miserably.

The deflationary death spiral that Beijing is trying to halt may prove to be China's version of America's "Great Depression" back in the 1930s. It's too soon to really push that analogy, but there quite a few warning signals that the economy has spiraled out of Beijing's control.

China is in a bad state.

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Yes! I’ve been trying to think of a pathway by which the Chinese could rid themselves of the CCP, but can’t come up with anything viable. They don’t have any weapons, so no armed Revolution, right? Their votes count for nothing, their social media is controlled, etc. But, the more you bottle up rage like this, the rage of having dutifully worked your tails off to be a ‘good citizen’, only to have your life savings wiped out - well, it has to come to a very bad end. We’ve already seen ‘lying flat’ and ‘let it rot’ - what’s next should be the rage of people who have nothing left to lose.

Pleas keep us apprised of whatever you learn, Peter. Thanks!

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These historic cycles, bound up in a people’s culture, are fascinating. The CCP have fallen into the old trap, like an Emperor of previous times, of thinking that they can have their cake (total power in a command economy) while eating it too (the wealth-building of a capitalist system). Fools!

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"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed." -- Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration Of Independence.

No matter how much "control" the CCP thinks it has, if the people are pushed far enough, if the people are made to suffer enough, then there will be an uprising. It will be a violent and bloody uprising, and it will be the downfall of the CCP.

China has I believe 2.5 million soldiers. China has 1.3 billion people. No matter how many weapons the soldiers have, those are not good odds for the soldiers who want to live to see another day.

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I think you will be proved right!

I also think it’s high time I upgraded to ‘founding’, so I just did.

Thanks for all of your efforts, Peter!

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Many thanks!

If you look at Chinese history, it has always oscillated between two extremes: Imperial Dynasty and Warring States. Given the near anarchy that existed during the period of Chiang Kai-Shek and the Kuomindang after the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912, we can quickly see that the CCP is merely the latest iteration of the Imperial Dynasty phase.

For China, the Warring States period was never a question of "if", and always a question of "when". We do not know the "when", but anyone taking the historical long view on China has to conclude there has always been a "when". Given Mao Zedong's own obsession with Chinese history (he was quite the admirer of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of a united China), it is sadly ironic that the CCP itself has so little appreciation for China's history.

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I would argue that there are players in the DNC who have already decided that Joe Biden should not be their nominee, and the back room dealing is already underway. Their convention is going to be a shitstorm.

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The challenge that they have is they keep denying that Biden has any cognitive issues. So long as the narrative is that Biden is fine,they're preventing the very change they want to make.

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I’ll bet someone has a betting pool on when, exactly, the ‘doctor’s report’ will be released stating that, oh gee, Biden has suddenly been diagnosed with dementia. “We had no idea; it was a sudden decline”.

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That’s why the convention is going to be chaotic.

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1968 is going to look like a model of political order by comparison

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🤣 And…. She is a dude.

Might be interesting to see the first tranny president!

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