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According to the WHO, Chinese health authorities did not detect new or unusual pathogens, and the rise in respiratory illnesses has not resulted in patient loads that exceed hospital capacities. 

This is also China’s first full flu season since the lifting late last year of some of the world’s most stringent Covid-19 restrictions, which minimized many people’s exposure to a wide range of pathogens for three years.
Countries such as Australia and New Zealand that also had “zero-Covid” restrictions experienced similar surges in respiratory diseases when they were lifted, and the United States had its own “tripledemic” of respiratory viruses last year
 
Nothing novel. 

Do we believe this?
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1 hour ago, Neonmoon said:

Well I’m not a conspiracy wacko, so yes. 

If it was something novel, even in China, reports would being to leak using terms like “unexplained” or “unknown” 

 

A group I work with was the first indicator of COVID. They were working with refugees in Bangladesh. One day they all left. This was in November pre outbreak. 

I am not a theorist, shit happens, but I do not trust China's reporting on a thing.  

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3 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

Well I’m not a conspiracy wacko, so yes. 

If it was something novel, even in China, reports would being to leak using terms like “unexplained” or “unknown” 

 

In your opinion, if you don’t take the Chinese government at their word, you’re a conspiracy wacko?

 That’s a next level trust I wish I had. 

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7 hours ago, HendersonHorns said:

In your opinion, if you don’t take the Chinese government at their word, you’re a conspiracy wacko?

 That’s a next level trust I wish I had. 

In my opinion, assuming every report of a viral incident in China is a reason to get the vapors leans a bit tin foil. 

ymmv 

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11 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

If it was something novel, even in China, reports would being to leak using terms like “unexplained” or “unknown” 

If such reports were leaking at all.

And this would damn sure not be happening:

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 Hospitals in northern China appear to be “overwhelmed with sick children” as the country grapples with a surge in respiratory illnesses and clusters of pneumonia, prompting the World Health Organization to ask Beijing for more data.

At the Beijing Children’s Hospital in the capital, long lines of people were waiting to register during a visit by NBC News on Thursday. Waiting rooms were crowded with parents and children, some of them on IV drips.

I distrust the Chinese government as much as most here, but if something was going on, NBC News would not be anywhere near any hospitals, let alone one of their flagship hospitals. 

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On 11/25/2023 at 2:22 AM, InkaUtexas said:

You all hear of the new emerging virus? Hard to track. Hits kids hard. Reminds me of the early days of Covid reporting. First reports that something was fucked up though came from a friend in Burma.

Yay china. 

HONG KONG — Hospitals in northern China appear to be “overwhelmed with sick children” as the country grapples with a surge in respiratory illnesses and clusters of pneumonia, prompting the World Health Organization to ask Beijing for more data.

At the Beijing Children’s Hospital in the capital, long lines of people were waiting to register during a visit by NBC News on Thursday. Waiting rooms were crowded with parents and children, some of them on IV drips.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-hospitals-children-pneumonia-respiratory-illness-who-data-rcna126480

 

Minor point, but getting an IV drip is the norm for most hospital visits over there. It's like something patients expect and not a sign of anything out of the ordinary.

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11 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

No it wouldn't.  Not legally.  That's a smokescreen for being socially and politically irresponsible.

Perhaps you missed the part where legislators of a certain, umm, political affiliation have regularly introduced bills that would make just that statutory law -- the only consideration is immediate shareholder value, otherwise, it's a breach of fiduciary duty?

Seriously.  That's the proposal, and it will end up passing.

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12 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Perhaps you missed the part where legislators of a certain, umm, political affiliation have regularly introduced bills that would make just that statutory law -- the only consideration is immediate shareholder value, otherwise, it's a breach of fiduciary duty?

Seriously.  That's the proposal, and it will end up passing.

No I wasn't, but no one is going to incorporate in a state with that in their corporate laws.

In Delaware and the places that matter, I am unaware of any judicial or legislative erosion of the business judgment rule.

One reality though is that "entrepreneurial" lawyers bring a shareholder class action any time the share price drops more than a few percentage points and it can be connected in the vaguest way to a securities law violation or breach of fiduciary duty.  Unfortunately, those things are expensive to defend/settle and may give rise to some more arguments that anything that isn't this quarter's share price is an invalid consideration, practically if not legally speaking.

Even Marty fuckin Lipton is in favor of an expanded business judgment rule/diluted shareholder value duty. https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2019/08/24/stakeholder-governance-and-the-fiduciary-duties-of-directors/

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  • 2 weeks later...

Fuck China. fuck Russia. They are pretty much aligned with one another and have been for a Long time. Tom Clancy wrote about their alignment a long ass time ago. Wake up limey dumbasses! China is in the same league with Russia. Shocker! They’ve been doing war games since the late 1980’s. For military readiness. The thing is their economy sucks. Their government sucks. The only thing left to do is try to steal assets or a country with them. Fuck them both. 

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On 11/16/2023 at 10:55 AM, Captainant said:

what's so shocking and gross? These are publicly traded American companies - it's their job to make as much money as possible to pass on to their shareholders as possible. Ethics, right/wrong, long-term ramifications? Nahhh fuck all that just think of all the money that can be made getting more into bed with China!

It was quite the trend around 2017-18 to take as much chinese money as possible and even change/censor products globally to be more appealing to the chinese market.

In our system, it would be a violation of those corporate officer's fiduciary duty if they DIDN'T whore their businesses to china.

This fiduciary duty speech is over rated.   No company was sued for not investing in China.   Or for any other reason I recall.   If so, hardly a deluge.  Companies can make choices based on what they think is “right “ among other things.

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16 minutes ago, nbmishoid said:

Companies can make choices based on what they think is “right “ among other things.

And what they more often than not think is "right" is making the most money possible for their shareholders. Because it sure as shit ain't looking out for their employees or customers

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5 hours ago, nbmishoid said:

Especially not that.

yeah pretty much the opposite. find the way to fuck over every one else as much as possible for more. 

that's it. that's the ethos. 

pretend your employees matter. throw pizza parties. do whatever. but when that big ugly quarterly pr annual number comes, better juice it any way possible and fuck the long term business metrics because I'm making so much in one year as an executive that i could live 5 lifetimes in 5 years but only if that shareholder fucking value is strong qoq

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On 12/29/2023 at 1:28 AM, Schulz2.0 said:

China warning people on social media (Weibo) not to talk negatively about the economy.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/29/china-cracks-down-on-negativity-over-economy-in-bid-to-boost-confidence

41 minutes ago, Schulz2.0 said:

One of the OSINT channels I follow, the guy tracks stuff like China fucking around with Taiwan.  A day or two ago, he mentioned that China has been much better behaved over the past 8-9 weeks in terms of stirring shit up - namely not being overly aggressive in or near Taiwanese waters and airspace, clearly announcing their movements in advance, etc. He speculated that they wanted something from the US or other countries, or were trying to improve their image for some reason, maybe in light of the Red Sea stuff, etc.

In light of China cracking down on their people saying anything bad about the economy, and the need for foreign investments, wonder if all of that is tied together.  Economic issues can seem to move slowly until they don’t.

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https://appleinsider.com/articles/24/01/04/apples-suppliers-have-so-far-spent-16-billion-to-move-from-china

Quote

New research says that Apple's suppliers including iPhone manufacturer Foxconn have invested $16 billion since 2018, in an increasing plan to move or reshore manufacturing away from over-reliance on China. Apple and most or all technology firms that have previously been entirely dependent on China, have been working to move away from that reliance, in part because of continued US/China trade tensions. In at least Apple's case, there have also been major delays in production because of China's COVID measures and its problems with power supply.

New research by investment bank TD Cowen seen by AppleInsider estimates that Apple's loss of earnings because of China are considerable, and in part are behind its suppliers moving, or reshoring, to other countries. "Over the last four years since the start of the pandemic, we estimate Apple's revenues have been impacted by over $30 billion," says TD Cowen in the note. This comes from "undersupplying the market due to production disruptions stemming from component supply, available labor pool, and/or government-mandated movement restrictions."

Quote

TD Cowen's analysts believe that because of this impact on its manufacturing chain, Apple and its 188 major suppliers are all investing to reshore as quickly as possible — and that they will continue to do so. "We believe these risks are ongoing in nature and that unforeseen environmental disasters could also be included as a non-trivial factor to monitor," write the analysts. "We think the current geographic and labor supply diversification can materially reduce the impact of future production disruptions, which at the peak reduced Apple's revenues by $4-8B per quarter."

So there is a cost to reshoring, and TD Cowen estimates that Apple's suppliers have spent around "$16B for diversifying production assets away from China to India, Mexico, the US, and Vietnam," since 2018. "While supplier reshoring does entail higher costs near-term, we believe there are benefits to the product costs long-term once the ex-China capacity is fully at scale," continues the report. "We envisage a multi-year process before Apple sees full operating margin benefits as... partners leverage the local labor pool."

 

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2 hours ago, Johnny Chimpo said:

Me Chinese, me play joke, me go peepee in your ICBM fuel cell. 

Somewhat unrelated, but why is that a “Chinese” joke? I never go that growing up as an immigrant here. 

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In the Past Week, the U.S. Navy in Coordination with the Filipino Government has reportedly begun the Pre-Deployment of Support Assets including Fuel from Bases in the Pacific to Former Naval Base Subic Bay in the Northern Philippines in anticipation for the Results of the ongoing Taiwanese Elections, which some Officials are worried may cause “Aggressive or Hostile Actions” by China against Taiwan.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-67920532

Taiwanese voters have chosen William Lai as their president in a historic election, cementing a path that is increasingly divergent from China.

The result is likely to anger Beijing, which calls Mr Lai a "troublemaker" for his views on independence.

.... 

"The country will continue to walk the right path forward. We will not look backwards," he told the world's media in a press conference.

Later while addressing tens of thousands of ecstatic supporters on the streets of Taipei, Mr Lai characterised his win as a triumph of democracy.

"We've done it. We didn't let external forces influence our election. That's because we decided that only we can choose our president," he said. In the lead-up to the polls, Taiwan had accused China of attempting to interfere with the process.

But Mr Lai also had a message for China.

He told reporters he favoured more exchanges and dialogue over obstructionism and conflict, and called for peace and stability with Beijing.

At the same time, he added, he would "maintain the cross-strait status quo" - neither seeking independence nor unification with China - and pledged to "safeguard Taiwan from threats fr om China".

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1 hour ago, Parliament said:

Bloomberg's corruption story is getting traction.  TBH it sounded too fantastical to be true, but I guess it's real.  Seems like a big deal.

And yet we know they’ve dismissed a bunch of high-ranking defense officials and corporate executives, so something is clearly going on.  Some of these people have been publicly charged and even fined or imprisoned, and others just stop showing up in the public org charts.  

There’s a joke about you can take communism out of Russia, but you can’t take the Russia out of communism, and that seems to be the case here.  The system encourages people to cut corners and falsify records to meet quotas, and if you never expect to use the majority of systems (whether it be tanks or missiles), and either you are skimming off the top, or covering up production problems, then you can shuffle systems around and cover up problems.

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