This article is going to be a bit disorganized. I’m stuck on how to proceed with quantifying Chinese influence on the USG, and this is an attempt to do a brain dump on what I’ve learned and to maybe get unstuck.
A while back it struck me that I should attempt to quantify the amount of USD it costs the Chicoms1 to buy US politicians. This is easier said than done. I did some digging and while I can put together a plausible narrative2, the numbers are harder to put down in any meaningful way.
For example: Mitch McConnell, the current senate majority leader, married 39 year old Elaine Chao in 19933. The McConnells then roughly 15 years later received a 5 million dollar dowry from the Chao family, who runs an international shipping company with close ties to the Chicoms. So did it only cost between 5 and 25 million4 dollars to buy influence with Mitch McConnell? To put this into context this is 7.88644 × 10-6% of all wealth measured in dollars at the most while Warren Buffet5 has 0.03%. This is how much it costs to purchase influence with supposedly one of the most powerful men in the world who influences the largest government budget in the world and who runs a governing body that can crush or grow (mostly crush) industries. This seems absurd, but it appears that most of Mitch McConnell’s wealth originates in China. Put in this light it is clear that congress’s incentives are aligned so as to crush US industry to the extent possible. Now this is not to exclude the influence of campaign donors. McConnell’s biggest donor as of now is NORPAC6 at $160,075, so you know, it’s not just China, there’s Israel too. So we have these numbers, but what do they mean? How to measure influence? The result is legislation passed, but calculating the shifts in wealth resulting from legislation is hard and it is an open question for me at this point as to how to do this. I could just categorize any legislation McConnell passed as favorable or unfavorable to China, but this seems unsatisfying. Numbers are much more satisfying.
What else is interesting about all this is just how widely it is known and tolerated. This information is widely available in pantsuit publications. I can only assume almost everyone in Washington knows and accepts that China is running the show.
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- This is the narrative I see. US businesses sought cheap labor in China and moved production there, making the Chicoms wealthy. The Chicoms used measly percentages of this money to buy US politicians, who then cause more and more manufacturing to be moved to China, who then use more measly sums to buy more influence in a feedback loop that will ultimately result in the collapse of the US economy. [↩]
- Who in the hell with any money or power nowadays marries a nearly 40 year old woman? Unless maybe they’re a homo? The marriage is predictably unfruitful. I’m seriously trying to get into the mindset. OK your wife is now 45 and dried up. You still have some libido left, and lots of money. What do you do? You use lube? Or you don’t have sex with her anymore? Or you just don’t have sex? Or you have an affair? But then whoever you have the affair with has leverage on you, or their brother does or whatever. But if you don’t get married everyone thinks you’re gay and it’s hard to get elected in some states (I suspect especially in Kentucky) while gay. Or Maybe you’re just really easily aroused and a post menopausal woman still does it for you. But what does that say about you? I don’t even know. Maybe you like “influence” more than sex. But what kind of fucked up person likes influence more than sex? What perverted shit are they going to do? What does the country they run look like? Does it look like pre-revolutionary China with a bunch of low-to-no-t eunuchs running the imperial household? [↩]
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- Another eunuch? His current wife Astrid Menks is 74 years old. [↩]
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It isn't clear to me that it "costs them" anything at all. Or rather, that discussing the subject in terms of dollars sheds any light on it.
By the same token one could attempt to calculate e.g. Stalin's "cost to rule the SU" by adding up cost of the ink and paper used to write his memos, the cost in rubles of his desk telephone, his meals, etc.
Some nominally largest donor somewhere may be "NORPAC at $160,075" but some rando schmuck who comes up with $160,075 (~24 btc just now) won't be buying a "NORPAC". In fact he may or may not be able to buy toilet paper, depending on locale.
It isn't about the dollars.
Well it doesn't cost them much. And what you say is true, but, why bother with the giving out money at all then if not for *some reason*? And if bribery didn't work, then nobody would do it. It is *true* that in many cases it's never just plata, but plomo too, but I don't see the plomo in McConnell's case. Perhaps one should always just assume there's plomo? Stalin had plenty of plomo.
As I understand, the implicit threat to sell off U.S. treasury obligations is sufficient "plomo."
Re: the old wives -- I don't see the problem; even a very junior lizard is reliably serviced by "interns" etc. and "scandal" can only take place if he falls from grace with his commander. (Otherwise, if someone attempts to create a "scandal", it goes under news blackout; or, at worst, the result is a Chandra Levy, rather than a Lewinski.)
Have you ever checked out https://www.reddit.com/r/DeadBedrooms/? I suspect fortunately for you you have not. Maybe I'm naive but I think many of these people are celibate.
On the other hand yes there are many instances of cheaters "getting away with it" without being defrocked, like Joe Biden, Clinton, etc. But in these cases everyone knows what's going on, even the plebs.
Re: treasury obligations, I am likely out of my depth there, but wouldn't that be sort of a pyrrhic victory option? I know they've been stockpiling gold but who gives a shit about gold?
I admit that I find it difficult to imagine a celibate lizard. For Reddit paupers, yes, it is probably the norm, but for nomenklatura? I suppose it isn't entirely impossible. And some are homosexual, a la the old British elite, and promoted through the ranks on that basis.
Re: treasury bonds -- unlike e.g. nukes, this particular whip has an adjustment dial, and so gives possibility of warning shots; hence they need not take it all the way to pyrrhic victory.
Gold stockpile is not the reason why China is the rider, and USA -- the horse. AFAIK the reason is simply that the former has an industrial base, while the latter -- has just about reverted to 18th century level.