Tobita Chow

@tobitac.bsky.social

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US-China, climate, politics, imperialism and world economy Chicagoland | immigrant | he/him

These priorities speak volumes about the regime’s underlying logic. Danantara, the sovereign wealth fund designated as the central dynamo of Prabowo’s push for 8 per cent annual growth rates, has a mandate both to restructure Indonesia’s state-owned enterprises and to leverage them into an investment vehicle, consolidating diverse semi-autonomous conglomerates under a centralized managerial body which reports directly to the President. Its governance structure includes a steering committee manned by his predecessors, Jokowi and Yudhoyono, alongside an advisory board featuring Ray Dalio, Jeffrey Sachs and Thaksin Shinawatra. With potential assets claimed at nearly 15 quadrillion rupiah (around $900 billion), Danantara is already being described as the world’s seventh largest sovereign wealth fund. A number of models have been cited, ranging from Singapore’s Temasek Holdings to the China Investment Corporation and Malaysia’s Khazanah. Left unsaid is the degree to which those funds rest on disciplined party hierarchies, relatively strong planning agencies and enforceable constraints on capital—conditions nowhere to be seen in Indonesia’s oligarchic political economy, where state-owned enterprises have long been instruments for rent-seeking. Accelerated patrimonialism rather than developmental coordination seems the more likely outcome.

The answer to this question depends on how one defines success. Even unchecked deterioration of the US might be compatible with the persistence of the US as the strongest pole in a multipolar world.
China's accomplishments in the realm of production will not produce hegemony unless the Chinese Communist Party develops a globally appealing ideology and addresses the dramatic contradictions within Chinese society itself. In the 1920s, the US produced 85 percent of the world's automobiles, but it took the Great Depression, the New Deal, and another world war before the economic powerhouse could integrate its own working class and create a new world order. The same principles apply to the military dimension: humiliations in the Persian Gulf demonstrate that the US is not omnipotent, but as long as other countries remain militarily weaker than the US-NATO-Israel-OAS complex, there is no reason that the US cannot enjoy dominance without omnipotence.

which could never be revived; on the other hand, it tried to revive ancient rights in order to establish new precedents. At different times their demands included a legal minimum wage; the control of the "sweating" of women or juveniles; arbitra. tion; the engagement by the masters to find work for skilled men made redundant by machinery; the prohibition of shoddy work; the right to open trade union combination. All these demands looked forwards, as much as backwards; and they contained within them a shadowy image, not so much of a paternalist, but of a democratic community, in which industrial growth should be regulated according to ethical priorities and the pursuit of profit be subordinated to human needs.
Thus we must see the years 1811-13 as a watershed, whose streams run in one direction back to Tudor times, in another forward to the factory legislation of the next hundred years. The Luddites were some of the last Guildsmen, and at the same time some of the first to launch the agitations which lead on to the 10 Hour Movement. In both directions lay an alternative political economy and morality to that of laissez faire. During the critical decades of the Industrial Revolution, working people suffered total exposure to one of the most humanly degrading dogmas in history-that of irresponsible and unlicensed competition-and generations of outworkers died under this exposure. It was Marx who saw, in the passage of the 10 Hour Bill (1847), evidence that for "the first time... in broad daylight the political economy of the middle class succumbed to the political economy of the working class".
The men who attacked Cartwright's mill at Rawfolds were announcing this alternative political economy, albeit in a confused midnight encounter.

Farnoush Amiri
@FarnoushAmiri
🚨Scoop: An official from one of the mediating countries tells me that the 11th hour deal between US and Iran came together after the involvement of two unlikely actors: Vice President J.D. Vance and China 👀 Vance was looped in late Tuesday and China helped get Iran on board

Da Wei
China neither seeks nor intends to replace the United States in filling any so-called “vacuum”, nor should it be expected to play such a role. China is not a hegemonic power, and it does not aspire to become a superpower in the traditional sense. It has consistently defined itself as one of the world’s major countries, advocated multipolarity, and stressed that international affairs should be handled through consultation and participation by all countries.

Nor does China have the strength to fill gaps in global governance on its own. The world is multipolar, and issues should be addressed collectively through consultation. When it comes to gaps or deficits in global governance, China’s position is that existing mechanisms, including the United Nations, should be made to function more effectively and be reformed to better meet the needs of the times, rather than being replaced by any attempt to fill a supposed space left by the United States.

Socrates. But I have no leisure for them at all; and the reason, my friend, is this: I am not yet able, as the Delphic inscription has it, to know myself; so it seems to me ridiculous, when I do not yet know that, to investigate irrelevant things. And so I dismiss these matters and accepting the customary belief about them, as I was saying just now, I investigate not these things, but myself, to know whether I am a monster more complicated and more furious than Typhon or a gentler and simpler creature, to whom a divine and quiet lot is given by nature. But, my friend, while we were talking, is not this the tree to which you were leading us?

Some social media personalities have expressed similar views. Conservative commentators Kevin Hodge and Keith Hodge, who go by the monicker Hodgetwins, said the “war isn’t as popular as the Zionist shills on X say it is”.

“President Trump has completely LIED to his voters, backstabbed our country and has disgraced his legacy beyond repair at this point,” they wrote on X.

Tweet from Ayanna Pressley @AyannaPressley

Some of us ran for Congress on a platform of abolishing ICE in 2018.

We were maligned, called “radical” and “fringe” — but really we were just the canaries in the coal mine.

And devastatingly, everything we warned about has come to bear, and more.

Wittgenstein used to say to me, 'Go the bloody hard way' ;
and he would write this in letters as well. I remember this
more often, perhaps, than any other single remark of his.
He might have added something like (I am not quoting his
words now): 'Otherwise you will never be able to do what
you want to do. There is even something important in
going the hard way: in going against the tendency to seek
comfort or stimulus in this or that'. For generally he was
not thinking of different 'ways' which you might follow in
order to get what you were seeking. It was a question of
what you seek.

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Paradoxically, de-risking from America means accepting more China risk. And the Chinese themselves have pioneered the weaponisation of interdependence — witness the pressure they have put on the US, Japan and others through their near monopoly on the processing of rare earths and critical minerals.

Love of fatherland,
the hatred of fatherlands

Mr. K. did not think it necessary to live in any particular country. He said: "I can go hungry anywhere." One day, however, he was walking through a city that was occupied by the enemy of the country in which he was living. An officer of this enemy came toward him and forced him to step down from the pavement. Mr. K. stepped down and realized that he felt outraged at this man, and not only at this man, but especially at the country to which the man belonged, that is, he wanted it to be wiped from the face of the earth. "What made me," asked Mr. K., "become a nationalist for this one minute? It was because I encountered a nationalist. But that is precisely why this stupidity has to be rooted out, because it makes whoever encounters it stupid."

We have seen this movie before. When the Brexit referendum passed, despite the sharp increase in uncertainty, the economic impact was initially minimal. But a decade later, the UK is estimated to have lost between 6 to 8 per cent of GDP relative to its pre-Brexit trajectory. The lesson is simple: structural damage reveals itself slowly, and always too late to be reversed.

Although China is still Venezuela's largest buyer of crude, with billions of dollars owed to Beijing, bilateral trade peaked the year before Maduro took power.
Beijing's loans also reached a historical high in 2012 and then tapered off, according to Tang Xiaoyang, a professor in international relations at Tsinghua University.
Since then, economic ties with Venezuela have chilled as it descended into chaos while commodity prices turned lower, even as China positioned itself as a champion of the Global South and a counterweight to the US-led world order.

Tweet from Nicholas Burns

China has lost face in Venezuela after the U.S. capture of Maduro. In response, it’s unleashing its massive propaganda network to paint the U.S. as a rogue superpower. My interview with CNBC.

Libs of TikTok

Not me. I would never try to run over law enforcement officers. Interesting admission though...

Tobita Chow @tobitac
She could have been any one of us.

lan Miles Cheong @ianmiles

No, I don't think so. Most people are not stupid or suicidal enough to drive into police officers.

Tobita Chow @tobitac
She could have been any one of us.

Dinesh D'Souza @DineshDSou...

Do you habitually drive your car into law enforcement personnel?

Tobita Chow @tobitac
She could have been any one of us.

Katie Miller @KatieMiller
Replying to @tobitac
No, sane Americans aren't protesting ICE and

I think that people aren't fully free until they're in a struggle for justice. And that means for everyone. It's a struggle of such importance that they are willing, if necessary, to die for it. I think that's what you have to do before you're really free. Then you've got something to live for. You don't want to die, because you've got so much you want to do. This struggle is so important that it gives a meaning to life. Now that sounds like a contradiction, but I encourage people to push limits, to try to take that step, because that's when they are really free. I saw this happen during the time of the sit-ins and the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

Some firms are pushing out the sales timeline even further. This year, private equity firms including Accel-KKR have started selling their companies from one continuation vehicle to another.
The industry calls these new funds "CV-squared."

Steve Bannon and Noam Chomsky laughing together

The second takeaway is that the Trump administration wants allies to follow his economic lead on China even as the US shuts the door to their exports.

‘Predatory’ Actions

The complication is that Trump’s own approach to China is currently centered on rapprochement and making a deal that allies think will leave them behind. But Trump’s strategy is written as if there was no such negotiation underway. It calls for allies to work with the US “to counteract predatory economic practices and use our combined economic power to help safeguard our prime position in the world economy” and for “consolidating our alliance system into an economic group.”

It wants European allies and Japan, Korea, Canada and Mexico to adopt “trade policies that help rebalance China’s economy towards household consumption” (a pseudonym for tariffs).

The Municipal Finance Authority of British Columbia (MFA BC)
offers valuable insights into how the financing of sustainable
infrastructure can be addressed by cities for cities. The MFA BC
offers long-term, low-cost, and appropriate financing to B.C. local
governments, based on cooperative values and the MFA BC’s
pro-public mandate. Because the MFA BC is owned by cities for
cities, it can pool the borrowing capacity of local governments
in B.C. The MFA BC is also backed by local property taxes,
meaning there is very little chance of the bank ever going bust.
Financial markets, from which the MFA BC borrows, like this,
and hence the MFA BC has a very strong AAA credit rating
(which is higher than the Province of B.C.’s). This, plus the fact
that the MFA BC is the sole lender to B.C. municipalities and
does not need to compete with private banks, means it can
provide the most competitive interest rates possible to local
governments (and other public bodies). Only 19 employees
manage over $10 billion in assets, making the MFA BC perhaps
the most efficient bank in the world (in terms of assets per
employee managed). It has also never suffered a loan default.
The MFA BC also offers municipal and public bodies an
investment option with very low fees charged. At the same
time, the MFA BC helps the training of local government
employees. The MFA BC collaborates with other public entities
to assess climate threats and align municipal operations with
sustainability principles. The MFA BC is a successful, financially
sustainable, and democratically governed public municipal
development bank that provides low-cost, long-term loans.

“Our lives are filled with intense competition, life-or-death struggles and zero-sum games at all times and in all places,” said Weibo user Daphnedorset. When an incident like the one involving the Taiwanese singer Zheng “escalates into a situation where supporters of people with disabilities and low-income workers take turns labeling the other as bullies, perhaps we should reflect on where this absurdity comes from.”

Out of concern for the safety and well-being of our neighbors, and in response to the increased presence of ICE in our community, we are postponing our Movies in the Yard event. We remain committed to creating spaces of joy and belonging, and will reschedule when it is safe for all to gather.

We invite you to reflect up Bishop Eaton’s words about the current events found here:

https://www.elca.org/news-and-events/elca-statement-on-supreme-court-ruling-that-allows-racial-profiling-in-immigration-enforcement

The U.S. President's tariff policy = Trump could help tame capitalism
A guest post by Kohei Saito

The rejection of growth was long considered the idea of the left. Now the »MAGA« movement has discovered it for itself. Trump's economic shock policy could lead to a new kind of better economy.

Tweet from Elon Musk: White people are a rapidly diminishing minority of global population

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AI Overview

In the primary, Zohran Mamdani received endorsements from the following unions: Local 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, the United Auto Workers (UAW) Region 9A, and the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA). These endorsements were significant as they came from major labor

$As China-US competition intensifies, Indian foreign policy has engaged with China, the US, and other actors in the infrastructure domain and technology networks. What factors and dynamics shape this polyalignment? The existing literature has primarily conceptualised India’s foreign policy behaviour as ‘hedging’. Conversely, this paper argues that India’s polyalignment in infrastructure and technology networks is shaped by the fragmented nature of foreign policy decision-making authority in India and the relations between the Modi government, different fractions of domestic capital, and their allies in the state apparatus. In the infrastructure domain, political cronies benefit from a securocrat-driven anti-China policy that protects domestic markets and creates new investment opportunities abroad. In technology networks, however, capitalists favouring greater access to the Chinese market and their partners in economic ministries have successfully promoted renewed openness to China. While both policies are consistent with the interests of domestic capital, the latter is inconsistent with India’s stated national security interests – demonstrating that class power, not a clever hedging strategy, defines the exact contours of India’s response to the ‘Second Cold War’. The paper ultimately demonstrates the need to consider how state transformation dynamics shape political decisions within the context of networked competition.$