> an enemy that isn't concerned with civilian casualties
You mean like when the Zionists openly stopped food from getting into Gaza, while the western governments were backing the Zuonists? Those people concerned with civilian casualties?
An enemy unconcerned with civilian casualties, give me a break.
Isn't this the country the US and UK invaded in 2003 because of non-existent WMDs (shades of Iran today) and overthrew the nationalist, secular leader, so that it has now fallen more into the hands of Islamists?
Incidentally Iraq's parliament told the US military to leave in 2020 and the US has refused. So this is going on under the continued US military occupation of this country.
1. The US invaded on false pretenses. We should never have been there.
2. Saddam Hussein and his family were brutal dictators who shouldn't be mourned. We didn't exactly topple the leadership of, say, Sweden.
Hussein was a secular leader in much the same way as Stalin was. Their horrific abuses weren't driven by religion, but that's little comfort to the lives they destroyed.
This happened two years after the US invaded. In fact the US had encouraged religious Shiite uprising in the south, which is universally acknowledged. The US military invasion shifting power to mullahs, the Baathist has to make concessions, which they had not for decades before.
> Pensions fund a significant part of PE and they do so because they need around a 7% return in order to look solvent.
Pensions fund PE because PE can do a short term cooking of the books in order to smooth out the growth curve. So the return is usually positive each year, not raising problems.
Also what does significant mean? Pensions are the main mechanism non-wealthy people are investing in PE. Being that millions are involved, you would expect pensions would have a sizable portion of the market, but family offices and high net worth offices dominate. If it offers above average returns, why would they not invest? PE is like every other asset class other than housing, the top 1% own a large chunk, the top 20% own the majority, and the bottom 50% own very little. Decisions are not driven by sone fireman, they are driven by the wealthy like everything else. And the origin and continuation of pushing for retirement to come from capital investment comes from the wealthy as well.
Right, but the CalPERS is sliced into over 2 million pieces, whereas a family office or gulf sovereign wealth fund has much less divvying up. It looks big until you see it has to be divided 2 million ways, as opposed to maybe 20 ways with a family office. The distribution is unequal. But most asset classes are like that, although less so for a single family house.
> Taiwan is not simply an island claimed by Beijing
Yes, China claims Taiwan and China are the same country. Not mentioned is that US policy also says that Taiwan and China are the same country. In fact Taiwan policy is that China and Taiwan are the same country. You would think reading this that Taiwan had declared independence from China as a separate country.
Also on the topic of "simply an island" - Taiwan is not just the island of Taiwan, they are on Kinmen island in the harbor of Xiamen on the mainland PRC. This would be like Manhattan receiving imperial proclamations about its "sovereignty" from China.
The fact is Taiwan was Chinese long before the United States even existed, just like the Russian Navy has been in Crimea since before the US existed. The US funded and armed separatist forces - but in 1900 the US was raising its flag in Beijing's imperial city. The historical development is these imperial intrusions have been pushed back by China. Taiwan is important to China and the US is too occupied blockading Cuba, slaughtering Venezuelan and Iranian leadership, aiding the genocide of Gaza and the invasions of Syria and Lebanon etc., while its health secretary fights against vaccines.
> Taiwan policy is that China and Taiwan are the same country
This is as useful as saying both South Korea and North Korea have the policy that South Korea and North Korea are the same country. Which was actually true until a few years ago.
And just like in the case of Taiwan, they would be the same country if not for US invasion and continued occupation of the south. That's not hyperbole by the way, the military in the south is literally under US command.
For starters, Taiwan wasn't invaded nor occupied by the US. South Korea wasn't invaded by the US either, unless you want to say the Soviet Union invaded the North. Even so, that would be, at least, an innacurate description of the events.
Furthermore, the technical definition for "military occupation", according to Hague Convention, S.3 Art.43:
Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army.
The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised.
US is not a hostile army nor has established authority over SK's government and/or territory. In fact, US only controls the SK's army during wartime, which is not the case currently. The link you cite says US and SK are meeting together to negotiate the transition of wartime OPCON to SK as well, and US seems willing, even with Trump in power.
For starters, Taiwan is a province of China where US currently sells weapons and has political capture. This would be akin to China placing weapons in Texas and openly supporting separatism there.
Second, the US absolutely did invade Korea. In September 1945, the US Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) took over the southern half of the peninsula. It ruled for three full years, outlawed local people's committees, and kept using the old Japanese colonial bureaucracy. That is a textbook military occupation. When the Korean War broke out in 1950, the US provided 90 percent of all combat forces and placed the South Korean military under the operational control of an American general. There weren't even any elections under the occupation until the late 80s. It was a literal dictatorship.
That control has never truly gone away. Today, South Korea is under de facto US military occupation. The US runs Camp Humphreys, the largest overseas US base on the planet, with its own postal service and currency. More importantly, the US controlled Combined Forces Command holds wartime operational control over the entire South Korean military. If fighting resumes, Seoul's army does not answer to Seoul, but to a four star American general. And a US dominated UN Command still publicly dictates what South Korea's parliament can legislate near the DMZ.
Taiwan is like Texas, if USA suffered a coup and the original ruling government took residence in Texas. In other words, not like today's Texas. Underpinning your comment is the notion that terrorities that once belonged to a nation should always belong to them forever more. That's textbox imperialism. You are also overselling US influence over Taiwan's politics, specially in regards to separatism. US isn't interested in an actual independent Taiwan, nor unification under the ROC.
In regards to the occupation argument, actual military occupation requires a hostile army, in which US's didn't qualify, even with their outlawing of PCs (which don't serve as actual represention for the Korea's populace, specially in the North, after the Soviets' actual colonialist meddling over them). We can agree that US's attempt to reestablish order was poorly done (by incompetence and/or constraints), but it objectively doesn't fit the criteria for military occupation. We can relax the conventional definition to include US's control, but that would include the USSR over the North.
In the Korean War, while USA may have provided troops, this was done by the ROK's request. In multiple times, USA was more than willing to leave ROK should it ask (or even let them). Even your citation shows this. You also use the phrase "There weren't even any elections under the occupation until the late 80s" as if USA was responsible for this. USAMGIK was already gone, replaced by ROK proper. Also it's wrong. ROK had two de facto republican regimes (five de jure) prior to the current one, but they were plagued by coup. Still, they had elections. And that's only considering presidential elections. Also, none of this, aside from the organization of the first democractic election, involved the US. So it wasn't a singular dictatorship (specially in comparison to NK), much less one US-controlled.
Even the "de facto" current occupation is wrong. Did you mean to say "de jure"? CFC might give a US general control during wartime, but that hasn't been the case since December 1994, and this might change relatively soon, as noted by the article you linked. UNC only has enough legitimate authority to facilitate diplomacy and keep the armistice and, as far as I can tell, US hasn't abused it. Finally, the existence of a military base of a foreign country isn't an indication of de jure occupation, even less so de facto. Only when this foreign country uses it as pressure and that results in visible policy changes it becomes evidence of occupation. Has that happened?
Here is cabinet minister and minister of National Security publishing a video of him smacking around the people on the flotilla who were trying to bring food to Gaza. They were seized in international waters incidentally. He also has them tied up and in other ways humiliated.
If this is what they are boasting about doing to Europeans in countries who have been aiding his government, imagine what they are doing in private - and to Palestinians.
I work at a company creating wealth, and heirs who own stock collect dividends from the company. What work did they do? You're talking about the guy sitting near you who you don't feel is working hard enough, and nothing of the parasitic heirs expropriating the product of unpaid surplus time of those working and creating wealth. Which unions are formed to rest control back from.
If we roll back 10,000 years, people often worked less hours per week. No class society where we have to serve the rich. Drinking alcohol, painting caves. Sounds pretty good.
> The stock market keeps going up in the face of the indefinite closure of Hormuz. We're investing in datacenters at a scale that only makes sense
If there is a psychosis, what is it? It is not an AI psychosis - modern AI started in the 1940s, or by some definitions before, and made progress up until 15 years ago to where deep neural networks became viable. And it has been progress on every front since then. No psychosis, it is doing well.
You mention the stock market, and that is another story. Cryptocurrencies, sub-prime loans, dot-com crash, Asian financial crisis. The economy has veered from crisis to crisis, overproduction and overproduction to crashes and bailouts.
AI is doing just fine - the past 15 years are a success for it we did not see in the decades before. If the economy as constituted is dealing with this in a "psychotic" fashion, it would not be the first time.
You mean like when the Zionists openly stopped food from getting into Gaza, while the western governments were backing the Zuonists? Those people concerned with civilian casualties?
An enemy unconcerned with civilian casualties, give me a break.
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