Month: August 2024

China’s enormous subsidies come from trading profits. US and European subsidies come from taxpayers.

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)
Inside China Business.

CATL and SMIC are two giant Chinese companies that are often singled out by Western think tanks as two firms who benefit from China’s subsidies, at the expense of foreign competition.

But all industrialized countries employ government subsidies, which help favored domestic industries grow. China, however, uniquely can invest in preferred sectors by channeling its massive trading surpluses, and providing low-cost access to its world-leading supply chains and logistics systems.

In contrast, North American and European companies who seek government incentives and subsidies are competing with other spending priorities, as all the funds come from taxpayers. This reality requires of companies seeking government help to do so through proxies, lobbying efforts, and through think-tanks who create research that can be published and used by lawmakers to justify the use of taxpayer funds.

China’s enormous subsidies come from trading profits. US and European subsidies come from taxpayers

MacArthur’s Last Stand Against a Winless War

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

If war breaks out in Asia, the U.S. won’t send ground troops. Take note, Philippines!

The Strategy of Denial, pp 117-118

MacArthur’s Last Stand Against a Winless War

Never get involved in a land war in Asia, MacArthur had told Kennedy, because if you do, you will be repeating the same mistake the Japanese made in World War II—deploying millions of soldiers in a futile attempt to win a conflict that cannot be won.

…

Kennedy appreciated MacArthur’s soothing judgment on Cuba (and would soon change the military’s top leadership—perhaps in keeping with MacArthur’s views), but then shifted the subject to Laos and Vietnam, where communist insurgencies were gaining strength. The Congress, he added, was pressuring him to deploy U.S. troops in response. MacArthur disagreed vehemently: “Anyone wanting to commit ground troops to Asia should have his head examined,” he said. That same day, Kennedy memorialized what MacArthur told him: “MacArthur believes it would be a mistake to fight in Laos,” he wrote in a memorandum of the meeting, adding, “He thinks our line should be Japan, Formosa, and the Philippines.” MacArthur’s warning about fighting in Asia impressed Kennedy, who repeated it in the months ahead and especially whenever military leaders urged him to take action. “Well now,” the young president would say in his lilting New England twang, “you gentlemen, you go back and convince General MacArthur, then I’ll be convinced.” So it is that MacArthur’s warning (which has come down to us as “never get involved in a land war in Asia”), entered American lore as a kind of Nicene Creed of military wisdom—unquestioned, repeated, fundamental.  

Full video

Che Guevara: Socialism and man in Cuba

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Dear compañero,

Though belatedly, I am completing these notes in the course of my trip through Africa, hoping in this way to keep my promise. I would like to do so by dealing with the theme set forth in the title above. I think it may be of interest to Uruguayan readers.

A common argument from the mouths of capitalist spokespeople, in the ideological struggle against socialism, is that socialism, or the period of building socialism into which we have entered, is characterized by the abolition of the individual for the sake of the state. I will not try to refute this argument solely on theoretical grounds but rather to establish the facts as they exist in Cuba and then add comments of a general nature. Let me begin by broadly sketching the history of our revolutionary struggle before and after the taking of power.

Che Guevara: Socialism and man in Cuba