Friday, May 03, 2019
One dumb, one evocative
Sailer, as always, asks evocative questions.
Is “Belt and Road” plural or singular? More fundamentally, what does “Belt and Road” mean? It always reminds me of the old “Belt and Suspenders” wheese, but I don’t think it’s supposed to be funny. How is the Belt and Road tied into the suppression of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang (Sinkiang)?First question is dumb, unless he's being Zennish. Belt means sea connections, road means truck roads and railroads. As I've noted, the GEOGRAPHICAL purpose of the Road is simply to factor the Western Hemisphere out of the world, to Ctrl-Z Columbus. Second question is the sharpie. Muslim countries are backing away from the Road, mainly because it requires huge DEBT to China if they want to participate. They don't seem to be focusing on China's anti-Muslim pogrom. Should they be worrying about the Uigurs? It's not necessary. The two things go together. Debts and bets are the NYC way of doing things, and NYC hates Muslims. NYC/DC is killing millions of Muslims in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc; and NYC/DC is suiciding millions of Christians here at home. China is NYC squared. The Chinese invented banking and gambling, so it's perfectly consistent that they also pogrom Muslims and other Natural Law believers who don't go along with debt and gambling. This is the part that scares me about the Road, not China's internal pogroms. Connecting is voluntary, but after everyone else is tied, the pressure on outliers will be immense. Will Malaysia or Pakistan be allowed to connect in their own way without debt? Remains to be seen. Russia may be the crucial variable. The Russian empire forms the heart of the Road. The project can't possibly work without Russia. Up till now, Russia has been on the Natural Law side of the ledger. Its feudal/Soviet tradition works with very little debt, though debt isn't explicitly proscribed. Up till now Putin has carried on the low-debt tradition, but lately he's been making more NYCish noises. = = = = = Later: His first question turned out to be evocative after all,
Labels: MMT, Natural law = Sharia law, Natural law = Soviet law
¶ 12:36 AM
