I bought two denim maxi skirts and some wool sweaters, so this is now StellaEveryDay. 😁
#fashion
Subsidiarity?
Yes, but I think the EU actually did that, on a smaller scale, with things like freedom of movement and internal markets. By freeing the individual or business from national burdens or limitations.
I have worked for companies that escaped draconian national regulations by reforming on the EU level or suing in EU courts.
It's complicated.
Everyone around me thought I was nuts, for wanting to buy it. 😅
Well, all governments are dictatorships, to some degree, but there are obviously more and less extreme examples, and we tend to give the less extreme examples different names.
That said, there are things the EU brought, that really did integrate our countries tighter, which I appreciate. I can't really imagine going back, and don't desire it.
EU isn't all that great. It could be, but it isn't. Needs major reforms.
They were probably never born. The birth and fertility statistics stopped being plausible, years before COVID.
This is sadly typical of German women.
Men in Cologne throw things (fireworks?) at her head, on New Year's Eve and she becomes upset that it's being "instrumentalized" by right-wing politics, is trying to bury the story, and refuses to press charges because that would encourage the racists, or something.
The German left has completely failed their women, by brainwashing and shaming them like this. Their behavior is now completely erratic and illogical, as they are so confused about how they should respond when personally attacked.
Brilliant
In Romania is already happening
Yesterday they increased the price of gasoline and diesel by 0.5 RON/liter, which means higher prices for all products from the first day of the year.
Sound on 🤣😂🤣😂 https://video.nostr.build/bef66aae49cb17ba932a939f70b63e633a604d86375ac4500df0dde9fe915e6d.mp4
Amateurs. Everyone knows you slowly jack up the prices before adoption, not rapidly afterward. 😅
Insult me, personally, and the convo is over.
Okay, so you're just a troll.
That doesn't mean those countries compare negatively on _every thing_, but it's silly to claim that they don't compare negatively on _some things_.
And it's blatantly obvious what they are worst at.
Just as you try to defend Russian suppression of free speech as the West being _almost as bad, sort of, on a long enough timeline_, you are quick to defend Chinese corruption as the West being _almost as bad, sort of, on a long enough time line_.
Don't bother. You got nothing.
Nope.
I think it's an irrelevant question, tho. There is no evidence that a random Chinese resident would know any more about Chinese corruption than someone with decades of industrial experience interacting with Chinese suppliers, competitors, and coworkers, as both an internal auditor and tester.
I have a question for you:
Do you have any evidence to the contrary? Do you have proof that Chinese national statistics are reliable, and that the supply-chains and all levels of government are generally honest, efficient, and free of corruption?
They do. That's why they regularly have anti-corruption purges and etc., but that is not effective. You can't cure a centralized system's corruption with random controls. Controls are only to identify problems, not to fix them. That is a core rule of Quality Assurance (which we learned from the Japanese).
Also, you don't know if the people in the control functions are not also corrupt. This is a deep, cultural problem inherent to centralized systems, that any problem becomes endemic, so that even the auditors end up in one the game.
Decentralized systems are messier and more chaotic, and harder to steer, but problems from one section tend to not spread as quickly to the others.
Because you can cross-check their data with statistical data that is more independent and objective, from other sources. Like satellite imagery, import/export statistics, etc.
If those data sets correlate well across all surrounding or economically-similar countries, but produce less correlation there, then that is an indicator that there is some "there" there.
We can also tell a lot from other information that they publish not aligning or even being at odds with each other. Both cannot be correct.
It's industrial corruption. Terrifyingly common. The screws were only _slightly_ smaller and lighter than the standard, but that increased the friction during rotation. You couldn't see the difference, with the naked eye.
And just try returning the boxes for a refund. 😅
Skim off tiny amounts of metal, from each screw, over millions of screws, and pocket the difference. Most people won't test them.
This is why European airplane part producers have to have databases for tracking the origins of every single part, right down to the screws. If someone reports a producer delivering sub-par screws, all of the planes need to be grounded, taken apart, and the screws have to be replaced. If an accident happens, they check all of the parts and sue the part manufacturers.
Or, like, a local software department works with some engineers within the same company, located in China. These are some of the best software engineers they have, but the mentality makes interaction burdensome, so they only get lower-criticality assignments. For instance, the department set an 80% test coverage goal, and the German engineers were embarrassed to admit that they hadn't even managed to reach 50%, after a year. Really terrible. The Chinese engineers hit 100% coverage. Wow. Amazing, right? Except that most of the tests were just:
```
Setup Test
#TBD
Teardown Test
```
They didn't realize that Germans software devs would read the code. But they have electrical engineers. They still read code.
Sort of beyond the point that their data is garbage.
I'm not claiming that the CCP leaders are faking these statistics on purpose.
I'm claiming that there are people all up and down the Chinese chain of command and the industrial supply lines that siphon off value and fudge the numbers, for their personal gain. This accumulates over time, so that the statistics that the CCP depends on _for their own decisions_, are full of noise. That is how they end up building entire towns for people that have not been born, and then the towns stay empty and the real estate investors go bankrupt.
Central planning — and the nonsense statistics it depends on — are inherently inefficient and ineffective. There is no transparency. There are no watchdogs. There are no investigative journalists or oppositional critics. There are no real elections, where a fresh set of people take a look at the books. Every once in a while, there is a demonstrative purge, to calm the public, and then it's quickly back to normal.
Garbage in. Garbage out. From top to bottom. From coast to coast.
They might as well have the Minnesota Democratic Party run their country.
⚡️🇮🇱🇺🇸 ALERT - Israeli cybersecurity billionaire Shlomo Kramer says "it's time to limit the First Amendment."
"We need to control all the social platforms…And take control of what they are saying."
https://blossom.primal.net/c505ad4dc505fbc4daebdc5d276c558a05184967f5ce3bbb136a598ab05ed6d8.mp4
Well, no surprise, coming from someone whose entire business model depends upon controlling and monitoring IT systems.
Yeah, I heard about it really early, but didn't think I could afford one because I thought you had to buy a whole coin and I only had my saved-up pin money.
Oh well.
Everyone includes them. The difference is that China includes the wages of employees that don't even exist.
> they don't make conflicts for their own benefits like the US does... they got their shit together minding their own business
This isn't right. This isn't even wrong. Bizarre.
We have some Chinese people, on here. I don't know if they want to go on record discussing the CCP, tho.
My previous company had to order some parts from China, during COVID, as the local producer was overwhelmed with orders, and the safety-critical components _literally melted_ in the test. We had to throw away the entire batch.
They put those components in their cars, that's why we ordered from them.
There are a few chinese nostr developers if I'm not mistaken.
There's a lot of misinformation and propaganda about China, specially on the US and EU. I recommend this channel https://www.youtube.com/c/Adri%C3%A1nD%C3%ADazMarro for an outsider's perspective, he has been living and doing business in China for >20 years. Take everything with a grain of salt but I think his view is nuanced and accurate.
China is itself aware of how endemic the corruption is, and how badly it damages their military readiness. This is public record, even within China.
They saw what happened to Russia in Ukraine and got downright spooked, as they know that their own government _and industry_ is more corrupt than the Russian one.
There are a few chinese nostr developers if I'm not mistaken.
There's a lot of misinformation and propaganda about China, specially on the US and EU. I recommend this channel https://www.youtube.com/c/Adri%C3%A1nD%C3%ADazMarro for an outsider's perspective, he has been living and doing business in China for >20 years. Take everything with a grain of salt but I think his view is nuanced and accurate.
I have relatives that are regularly over there, as they have business dealings in China, and I also hear from them.
Yeah, the China GDP is also totally fake.
Dictatorships always have garbage data because everyone lies to everyone, every steals from everyone, nobody admits mistakes, everyone passes the buck, and the central government dictates everything top-down.
That is why it's called a dictatorship: everything is decided by dictate. You could also call it a fiatship, I suppose.
This is the same reason why China can't risk war with Taiwan:
* It doesn't know how many soldiers it actually has. (fewer than it thinks)
* It doesn't know if those soldiers can react to battlefield conditions. (they can't)
* It doesn't know how many weapons and vehicles it actually has. (fewer than it thinks)
* It doesn't know if the stuff it does have, is complete, high-quality and in good repair. (it isn't)
* The Russian stuff it bought has been shown, in Ukraine, to be sorta shit, but it's own stuff has never been tried out in real battle conditions and is probably _way_ shittier. (it is)
* They have nukes, but their nuke department is so notoriously incompetent and corrupt, that one of the world's greatest dangers is that the Chinese accidentally nuke themselves. (not joking)
My New Year's resolution is to become a whole coiner. I'm not sure which year this will happen on, but I'm hoping it is this one.
Happy stacking.
GM. It is 2026 and this our current world in numbers:
* Russia is now 201 weeks into its one-week special operation in Ukraine, and the lights are going out near Moscow.
* As part of peace negotiations, Ukraine is being asked to reduce its military from 880k to 600k, which would still give it the second largest military in Europe (after Russia, with 1.300k). It is now a major arms exporter.
* Bitcoin is still on sale, at €75k, but the hodlers are shopping the sale.
* Gold and silver have Peter Schiff gloating non-stop, at €3.700 and €60, respectively.
* Trump is 33.768 hours into the 24-hour Ukraine Peace Deal, but still working hard toward a strong finish.
* The U.S. mid-term elections are in 306 days.
* American WTI crude has crashed down to $58/barrel (with Russian Ural crude typically at least $20 below that). Both countries are groaning under the drop in revenue, which has resulted in the USA blockading Venezuelan oil cargo.
* Iran's consumer price inflation is approaching 50%, with 70% reported for food. Protests have ensued.
* Bulgaria is the 21st country to join the euro.
* The Middle East is not yet at peace, but the biggest hot war, in the Palestine region, has largely ended.
* China is sabre rattling, to deflect from its endemic battle against deflation. Threats are focused on Russia, India, and Taiwan.
Specifically, they went to *Siberia*.
I don't need to tell you, what that means.
Happy New Year 🥂🎇🎆
Nah, I'll just put them all to shame by looking like a kween in a floor-length dress. 😁
Well, with different currencies, you have to account for the prices being unaligned.
Ladies, why are you not dressed like this?
https://handcraftedhistory.blog/2018/10/24/tutorial-the-simple-medieval-viking-dress/comment-page-3/
It's more sour and the rise is minimal.
Okay, enough playing with ChatGPT, for today. GN! 🌜