From Zero Hedge:
I won’t harp on Taiwan (or Chinese Taipei) or the “one country, two systems” policy because we touched on those in Things You Will Never See. It is easy to see how ambiguity might have helped as it lets everyone claim what they want, but the reality is that it is a bit absurd. As tensions rise around Taiwan I certainly have trouble fitting many of the statements and policies into a coherent and predictable pattern for what happens next. Maybe these marriages of convenience where we avoid the details (to avoid conflict) tend to end badly? If Taiwan is truly independent and a nation that we have stated we will support military, then why does a senior official visiting spark such a strong reaction from China? Is it because they believe that we accept the one country, two systems policy? It just seems more and more difficult to believe that the positions regarding Taiwan can co-exist. Taiwan has become a major discussion point, so I will summarize the Geopolitical Intelligence Group’s current view:
China does not want conflict with the U.S. so any aggressive behavior on their part would have to be framed as responding to some aggression from Taiwan. They would need (or want) a pretext, which brings back bad memories from discussing Putin and Ukraine late last year.
The timing of any possible invasion or use of force has moved closer. Still unlikely and not the base case for most of the GIG, but a risk that has become more real over the past few weeks.
The economic and political pressure points that China has with Taiwan will be used even more aggressively to shift behavior.
There are parallels and lessons to be learned from Russia’s invasion, but there are also some differences:
Russia’s military system is a barbell (with senior officers and conscripts) and little in the way of non-commissioned officers (NCOs). China has had much more direct exposure to the U.S. (and NATO) style of command (joint exercises, etc.) so it may not face the same issues as Russia. The joint exercises conducted with land, sea, and air power as they intimidated Taiwan showed a level of coordination the Russians haven’t exhibited.
The Chinese military equipment, while untested, may not fail in actual use at the pace that Russian equipment has been failing.
Ukraine was poorly supplied with equipment at the start of the war (not the case with Taiwan), which has a well-equipped and well-trained military. But it is an island, making re-supply much more difficult. In Ukraine, the land route from the West into Ukraine is easy and well controlled. Also, NATO countries adjoin Ukraine, so we are to a large extent operating in our own backyard. Any conflict around Taiwan would be in China’s backyard, giving them logistical advantages.
Even without the prospect of war, I can confirm that more people are revisiting discussions with Academy regarding our supply chain theories. We’ve been highlighting to investors and corporations that supply chain “security” is an issue and we expect a shift in supply chains to become more oriented around North/South transportation lines rather than East/West. Taiwan was effectively blockaded for a few days (many ships apparently wouldn’t go into the area with China and Taiwan conducting live fire exercises).
I’m old enough to remember when we were at war with deflation. That deflation kept central bankers and politicians up at night. It seems crazy, but I could almost be convinced that Japan has been trying to create inflation for 4 decades. Heck, I’d swear that it was less than a year ago that inflation was “transitory,” and many believed that, but I must be misremembering. (Read more.)
From The Z-man:
Feudalism is a term that either brings to mind serfs slaving away on the land or knights on horseback jousting at tournaments. Neither image has much to do with the socioeconomic system that grew up after the fall of the Western Roman empire and carried on into the 18th century. Both the knight and the serf were real things, but they are not what defined the feudal order. It is the system in which people of all ranks lived that defined what we think of as feudalism.
That system was a series of interlocking relationships. It began with reciprocal relationships between the warrior elite. The leaders of the various peoples slowly evolved rules for dealing with one another. Over time those rules extended to the people over whom they ruled. First it was the vertical relationships and then the horizontal relationships. Most of these rules were not written down. They were the habit of mind that everyone understood and accepted.
What we think of as freedom and liberty come from the feudal era. The two words are used interchangeably today, but it was not always so. Liberty was the right to act within the context of the rules. Freedom was a state in which there were no rules. In the feudal age, liberty was the range of actions for people of a class. Freedman had different liberties than Knights or serfs. Freedom, on the other hand, was being free from those reciprocal relationships that defined the system.
One of the interesting things about the feudal order that has been forgotten is that freedom was a powerful weapon used by kings. Freeing people from their feudal obligations did not necessarily grant them more liberties, but it did weaken the power of the people to whom they no longer had obligations. Freeing the serf from his duties to his lord not only meant he could sell his labor but it meant that his lord no longer had control over him or the proceeds of his labor.
In a system where everyone is defined by their relationship with everyone around them, monarchical power is diffused through the system. The noble who controlled a portion of the kingdom had a great deal of power relative to the king, because all of the rights and duties of his people flowed through him to the king. Once those people were free then they reported directly to the king. A great irony of the feudal order is that individual freedom turned out to be the great centralizing force in politics.
A similar dynamic is at work in this age. As recent as the 1950’s the primary duty of most men was to their family. From there it was their community then the larger political entities like city, county and state. Outside of the draft and the post office, people had no reason to think about the national government. Go back further and the national government played little role in the life of Americans. You could live your life never having had contact with the national government.
As Americans have been freed from the old rules of life, like marriage, family and community, the power of the government has grown. The weakening of state and local government by direct intervention by the federal government has corresponded with the collapse in things like property rights and freedom of association. Young women are no longer dependent on a man, but they are entirely dependent on government. It is impossible to live without interacting with government now.
The conventional conservative critique argues that personal liberty has declined because the power of the state has increased. In reality, personally liberty has declined because freedom has increased. As people have been freed from their particular obligations to one another, their liberties have declined, which is what has allowed the power of the federal state to grow. Each new “freedom” comes with less liberty and therefore a declining ability to resist the state. (Read more.)
From American Greatness:
Former President Donald Trump said the FBI “stole” three of his passports during its raid on Mar-a-Lago last Monday, calling the unprecedented search a “third world” “assault” on a “political opponent.”
“Wow! In the raid by the FBI of Mar-a-Lago, they stole my three Passports (one expired), along with everything else,” Trump posted on his Truth Social account. “This is an assault on a political opponent at a level never seen before in our Country.” He added: “Third World!”
Agents hauled off approximately 20 boxes of materials, after carrying out a broad search warrant at the former president’s private residence in Palm Beach, Fla.
The Mar-a-Lago search warrant and property receipt were unsealed on Friday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart. The search warrant indicated that Trump is under investigation for violating the Espionage Act, among other crimes dealing with the mishandling of classified records.
The Department of Justice on Monday said it opposed the unsealing of the affidavit that was used to secure Reinhart’s permission to obtain the search warrant.
“If disclosed, the affidavit would serve as a roadmap to the government’s ongoing investigation, providing specific details about its direction and likely course, in a manner that is highly likely to compromise future investigative steps,” DOJ lawyers wrote in a filing responding to efforts by news outlets to make it public.
The property receipt showed that FBI agents collected four sets of top secret documents, three sets of secret documents, and three sets of confidential documents.
Trump and his allies have disputed the National Archives’ classification of those records, arguing they have all been declassified.
“It was all declassified,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on August 12. He added that the feds didn’t need to “seize” anything. “They could have had it anytime they wanted without playing politics and breaking into Mar-a-Lago. It was in secured storage, with an additional lock put on as per their request,” he said.
Former National Security Council official Kash Patel, whom Trump made his representative in the National Archives dispute, said in an interview on Fox News Sunday that in October of 2020, Trump was issued a sweeping declassification order for every RussiaGate document, and every Hillary Clinton document. (Read more.)
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