marqus12

51 minutes ago, Walker88 said:

Not sure what I got for free. Did the US get Canada? Saudi Arabia? Am I the Burgermeister of Koh Samui? Where's my decorative stationary?

 

Yes, the US has made some bad mistakes, but on balance has also done a lot of good things, and if you think the BRI is without fault, you are deluding yourself or engaging in your own 'stupid propaganda'.

 

I have personally seen the Belt and Road Initiative at work in Myanmar. Pay off the generals and then abuse the locals and the environment purely for China. China has engaged in slash and burn timber harvesting in Kachin State, open pit mining of a variety of resources, damming the confluence of the two rivers meeting at Myitsone (which resulted in the forced movement of 15,000 Kachin people and provided a total of 2 jobs to Myanmars---Lo Hsing Han and his son Steven Law---while China imported 100,000 Chinese laborers to do the work) until the KIA attacked a few Chinese engineers and scared off the dam builders. Oh, and every last kilowatt of generated power was to go to China. For gold mining, Chinese companies used a cyanide leaching process. The cyanide got into the ground water, killing wildlife and people. Other Chinese Govt owned companies used mercury. They did hire a few Myanmar for that, where workers kneaded mercury by hand into a slurry to leach out the gold.  Do you know the genesis of the Mad Hatter? That's the result of Hg exposure.

 

The BRI is hardly noble. Your defense of it might qualify as 'stupid propaganda'.

My God! Before, we only had Wu Mao in this small forum
Now also Wu Trump...555
Your posts are too long and they are boring, not convincing

Have a nice writing. Shalom !

19 minutes ago, Walker88 said:

Here's an interesting anecdote that should serve as a warning:

 

Many years ago, Henry Kissinger visited China and met with the then-Commerce Minister and senior Politburo member Bo Xilai (now in jail for 'corruption'). Bo had a map on his office wall that ostensibly depicted all of China. The map included not only Taiwan, but also all of Myanmar. Kissinger joked that there likely was some cartographer busy at work making an "ancient" map, soon to be discovered, that had Myanmar as an historical part, or 'renegade province' of the Middle Kingdom. Certainly the map indicated the Communist Party's territorial ambitions. Until SPDC gave up power to the NLD and ASSK, Myanmar was firmly on the road to becoming a Vassal State of China, with dammed rivers sending 100% of the power generated to China, a port in Yakhine State, ownership of most of Mandalay, control of all the mineral and timber resources of Kachin State, and oil and gas pipelines running from Yakhine to Yunnan.

 

It would come as no surprise if some senior Chinese official has a map on his wall currently that includes Thailand as part of the "Motherland".

 

Political Correctness has altered many historical names, one of which is to replace Imperialism with "Belt and Road Initiative". A rose by any other name.....

I think that such stupid propaganda won't do much in the long run
Offer investments, your own belt & road version and compete economically

with the Chinese.
But you are so full of pride and used to getting everything for free that you

are not mentally able to do it..

9 minutes ago, Brunolem said:

A few months of pandemic and lockdowns are not enough to change the world.

 

It could happen if there was a second wave of infections and new lockdowns, but that is unlikely.

There will be as many waves as necessary
nothing will stop them from saving you from c19
Ingrate!

????

2 hours ago, MikeyIdea said:

The problem is that you can't really protect the elderly in Sweden the way the covid-19 response is implemented. Put them in care homes and they risk dying, let them be treated at home and they risk dying, in both cases because health care workers don't have proper protective equipment and they're not moved to hospital to protect the curve. Take care of them yourself and they are at risk because you can't protect yourself fully in a society where so many people don't care and you are forced by law to send your children to school where there is no social distancing. The kids must take public transportation to school and again, there's no social distancing there either. 

 

you should move somewhere to a more responsible country where lockdown saves lives.

31 minutes ago, Bender Rodriguez said:

but humanity is out to kill them all

Don't worry about other viruses, bacteria, cancer etc.
Total war is declared only covid.

Ordinary People in a socialist paradise are realistically taxed at 70-80%

of their own income.
Even peasants did not have to give away so much of their income / so

much of their work.
Slaves were more expensive to maintain than modern peasants.

If one have some assets then the choice between early retirement

and further work is simply a choice between freedom and security.

In tanzania, samples were taken from goats, pheasants and from a banana tree
then sent to a specialized laboratory that found all these samples had coronavirus
????

39 minutes ago, brucec64 said:

But give the rest of us the same choice we give you, and stop trying to pretend that you have saved any lives. All you have done is impoverished billions

War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength ... lockdown is saving lives ????

1 million people die each year from HIV
Why are 'women selling love' not in permanent lock down?
After all, all of them can be assumed to be super spreaders...

"As of 2018 one quarter of the world's population is thought to have latent infection with TB.^[6] New infections occur in about 1% of the population each year.^[12] In 2018, there were more than 10 million cases of active TB which resulted in 1.5 million deaths"

Why didn't I even know that?
Why didn't anyone warn me?
Where was the lockdown when you needed it?
Serial killers ruled the world in 2018?
They tried to murder me in 2018?

No one wants to buy bonds of the socialist republics of the West anymore.

And the socialist paradises of the west has enormous debt, huge budget deficits,

they must print tens of trillions ... they had to cool the economy

so that inflation would not explode, distract people, find a scapegoat,
and by the way maybe can break the supply chains with that monster

who doesn't want these wonderful bonds with interest rates well below inflation.

They should loosen visas as they were before 2014 at least for a few years.

But aren't these news in the media sometimes directed at Chinese ?
"Send us wagons of tourists or we will let backpackers back in"

If at all possible because of geopolitics
They should return to easy visas for 2-3 years
This country in the region that will be able to offer

easy entry and stay can gain a long-term advantage over its neighbors.

When I flew to Asia for the first time I chose Thailand and not Vietnam

or Philippines because the ticket was the cheapest and I got 30 days 

for free at the airport.
Of course, during the first trip I was overcharge for everything.
Then Thailand was the most popular, let everyone in and

made the best money.

2 hours ago, fred110 said:

If it's required, I'll just leave my phone home.

it will be compulsory to take a smartphone with you
for truck drivers in my country this has just become mandatory,

but in a moment all drivers will be affected.

my country is currently a guinea pig
they are checking if there is a lot of resistance to laws restricting freedom,

if there is not after a few weeks / months the same bill appears in US.

Putin and his people are afraid that some new Iliych Ulianov shoot them into space

so they began to use covid very much.

masks are intended to hinder communication,

plebs together could come to interesting conclusions and get angry.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/05/05/get-ready-for-the-next-game-changer-the-digital-yuan/

impending poverty and totalitarianism???

8 hours ago, tomacht8 said:

How exactly are the numbers of people killed by the flu now? Strange you don't hear anything.
Where are the annual flu deaths now?

If it's true that US hospitals get $ 4,000 for the flu patient and $ 40,000 for diagnosing covid and putting on a respirator....