This I believe is an intended effect of Chinese government’s shift away from depending on housing investment as primary factor in driving growth - to bring home affordability back as home ownership has become a deterrent to marriages and child-rearing, both in severe decline and the biggest long term strategic threat to China.
We’ve needed a better industrial policy/strategy for quite sometime now, way before Trudeau happened. We have been falling behind in productivity, in investment in research and IP, all leading indicators of creation of wealth and prosperity for decades. We just can’t rely on oil and natural resource booms to keep us afloat economically. None of the prior administrations have brought that, and Trudeau’s hasn’t got that vision. Neither does PP quite frankly. He hasn’t said jack that talks to how we’re going to be more competitive, nor does he have the brains for it.
we’re almost at the back of the pack of ~40 countries in terms of disability services
This is what has fallen behind since Liberals steered towards the center a few decades ago. It’s sad really.
Honestly, his brain is smaller than I had previously thought. Who the F is electing this moron? Because I sure as heck didn’t.
It’s obvious markets are not efficient. There is NOT a single market in North America that is NOT regulated. So let’s throw out that “free market” bullshit. Free market existed in early days of industrialization. It didn’t work. If it did we’d still have slave labor and child labors working 7 days a week up to now. So what is needed is for governmentS - with an emphasis on S - the freakin provincial, municipal, and feds, to make it WORK. Housing is a necessity, not just a capitalist investment tool.
There has been Chinese-sponsored (or coerced) peace talks in Yunan in the past. There were truces that came out of them, only for fighting to break out months later with both sides accusing the other of breaking the terms of truce. With every disparate guerilla force gaining momentum and growing more powerful, there is no end in sight. Not for the next 50 years.
As a long time observer of Myanmar’s civil war, I need to clarify the somewhat misleading nature of this article. The journalist makes it appear as if RSO and the military Junta have reached some sort of a “truce”. This is further from the truth. Rohingya guerillas have had little to no presence in Burma since the military’s operations in 2017 and subsequent years marked by the infamous massacre of over 100 Rohingya villagers in August 2017. Due to the emergence of Arakan Army (AA) as a powerful guerilla force in Burma since the 2021 coup (Arakan are the native tibeto-burman people of the state of Arakan who are predominantly buddhist), and in a twist of irony, the military junta has been arming and training Rohingya guerillas as a counter to the threat from AA. Currently, AA has control of most of the state of Arakan with the exception of major cities and a Chinese-owned deep sea port.
China is doing its best to antagonize all of its neighbors.
Dirty Alberta does it again.
Guerillas the Chinese helped founded, have supported and provided arms to have become more successful than they wanted. This development clearly confirms that Chinese are worried the Junta will collapse and Burma will fall into chaos, without a central authority but under disparate armed groups with constantly shifting territories due to rivalries amongst them. They need a central government in control of the country whom they can manipulate in order to implement their strategic interests in and through Burma. It seems their support for guerilla groups have been too successful and the situation is spinning out of their grasp.
First, we saw China appeal for regional unity in helping bring about stability in Burma 12 days ago, a break from its usual go-alone stance. Now they are blocking border trade that guerillas partially depend on for their revenue to bend them to Chinese will. The Chinese still have more leverage that they haven’t used yet of course. And it is interesting they are also pressuring the Wa who are not active participants in the civil war, but possesses the largest army amongst the guerillas with 30,000 soldiers (bigger than Sweden, Hungary or Portugal).
United States of Aristocracy.
It’s not automatic that provinces will follow the Feds. But the Feds have sticks and carrots to motivate provinces. It’s politics. What provincial government wants to be seen BLOCKING a federal program to create more housing? That’s one of the sticks - politics through the media.
Federal government has the means and responsiblity to persuade and cajole provinces in certain directions when it comes impacts of policies they are implementing. They could have foreseen the housing shortage or the unemployment or the depressed wages with the immigration, foreign workers and foreign student programs they are creating, because that’s what the hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats in various government agencies are for - to plan and study all the freakin impacts- but didn’t foresee it or chose to ignore it, having faith in the “markets” to solve needs of the economy. Alas, the “markets” are slow moving and not efficient at all.
Libs have been centrist and pro-business for sometime now. While other liberal governments had balanced policies between pro-business and social responsibilities, this liberal government seems to have exuberantly responded to business wants when it comes to labour needs. This is the mess we have here.
I think Chinese are intentionally doing this. The more damage their bigger ships do to the smaller coast guard ships of Philipines, the less ships they will have to patrol and resupply their base in the Spratly islands. China has the LARGEST Navy in the world. Philippines’ dwarf in comparison.
Yeah Quebec’s pension fund is backing them I think.
lol awesome. love it! haven’t seen that one yet.
Your nick has me curious. Are you from one of the hill tribes of Burma?
It depends on how much reading you want to do. I find the most insightful author on Burma’s civil wars is Bertil Lintner, former journalist who covered Burma and Southeast Asia for decades. Thant Myint-U is the most extensively published historian on Myanmar. His 2019 book https://wwnorton.com/books/the-hidden-history-of-burma should cover the background on current conflicts and Chinese role in it (as I vaguely recall). Wikipedia is not fully reliable as it is but a location for information war on internet. I find some articles on Foreign Policy somewhat naive. Council on Foreign Relations has this brief backgrounder on Burma: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/myanmar-history-coup-military-rule-ethnic-conflict-rohingya. It devotes half a sentence to the source of ethnic wars since independence: “Divisions purposely created under British colonial rule…”. Lintner and Myint-U will give the best insights. This report is succinct in covering China’s role and influence in Burma: https://www.usip.org/publications/2018/09/chinas-role-myanmars-internal-conflicts
His brother.