It's kinda weird that a marxist country doesn't understand that raising aggregate demand is a core aspect of industrial development. Under the marxist lens democracies succeed because the interests of consumers are represented, accelerating aggregate demand. From abolition, civil rights act, consumerism, wokeism, welfare, etc. half of American history has been innovating on ways to increase aggregate demand. The hukou system, lack of strong safety net, weak capital markets, cracking down on consumerist media, etc. don't help. I can see why someone would want to avoid overproduction and consumerism but stronger social nets would probably net decrease unemployment here. The treatlerite is simultaneously America's greatest weakness and strength.

America needs a Shenzhen of the West it will be built differently, in a way that fits our country's existing topology but it's incredibly important we are competitive on 1) talent 2) capital 3) factory & infrastructure density right now our version of this is spread out across the western US - SF has software talent and capital - LA has hardware talent and factories, but is limited by scale - The Texas Triangle is where you go to scale we need to either bring these things closer together or make it easier to travel between all these places the important outcome is that this will increase cross-pollination and collaboration, and this in turn will compound progress the metric must be "same day round trip" - you should be able to go anywhere in the zone and return to the same bed every night this threshold is important because opportunities emerge out of both: 1) serendipity 2) low-predictability socializing both of which happen when you can afford to be less intentional about where you show up, because the cost for you to do so is lower the second you're forced to be intentional, you triage what's "worth it" to show up for and your likelihood of unexpected interactions plummets density is the key to velocity. this is why cities have long been important for civilizational progress. same problem, new opportunity, new stakes.

China’s low domestic demand results in high unemployment and widespread suffering among the Chinese people even if it is effective as increasing industrial power in the short to medium term. The system is fundamentally unstable. China also needs to be saved by AI and automation

I have done some informally vetting of the idea (and have some relevant experience here) and think it could work in practice not just in theory -- so I hope the relevant folks in the Commission and the major capitals give it a new look 12/12 cfr.org/articles/how-use-rus…

Politico is reporting, unsurprisingly, that the Europeans need to mobilize more funds for Ukraine -- I think there is a pretty easy way to do it that respects Belgium's redlines, but it take a bit of financial creativity 1/ many