Trump is both providing military aid, and, I suspect, working to lay the pathway for American companies to shift their production there, should it be needed.
(a.k.a. Bastion Of Liberty)
"Keep clear of the dupes that talk democracy,
And the dogs that bark revolution.
Drunk with talk, liars and believers.
I believe in my tusks.
Long live freedom and damn the ideologies!"
(Robinson Jeffers)
Monday, February 24, 2020
Trump's India Trip - NOT Just Sightseeing
It probably won't be reported that way, but my gut reaction to the Indian trip is that he is working with India to ensure that medications and medical supplies will not be disrupted in the Coronavirus crisis. Trump is in his wheelhouse here, using one ally to play against another. India has to be concerned about the virus affecting its economy.
It always struck me a beyond odd that our corporate sellouts chose China as their roost for tens of thousands of US factories. Communist dictatorship? Check. Iffy legal system? Check. Astronomically difficult language to learn? Check. Few English speakers? Check.
ReplyDeleteCompare that to India with its literate, English-speaking population with common law courts and democratic institutions. Some kind of hell hole, right? And if massive container ships can reduce unit shipping costs to very low levels, what difference would another ocean leg to India have mattered?
Ditto, the Philippines.
Wow. You mean he's not dancing around in native garb and making an ass of himself like Trudeau? Shocking!
ReplyDeleteValid points about the treacherous system in China, Colonel, but the Indians and Filipinos didn't have the reputation for quality workmanship, whether that was accurate or imagined, that the Chinese did.
ReplyDeleteI think you're right about that, Mr. Day. Having lived long enough I remember when India was still hampered by the remnants of Ghandi's spinning wheel nonsense. In the last 20 or 30 years, however, it's hard to look at India as not being able to manage high tech projects. The tech giants can't get enough of them for H1B visa work and I remember all the Filipino "tech reps" who maintained power and water purification systems in Nam. How hard would it have been to establish training programs for these obviously intelligent and friendly people?
ReplyDeleteToo, strengthening an almost-certain "strategic competitor" seemed not to concern the China crowd -- but it should have. On balance, I'd rather have seen corporations spend more on training in the short term than have the whole nation have to deal with China's, um, muscle flexing in the long term.
Given the large numbers of underemployed Indian young people, I can't help but think that little additional training would have been necessary.
Still, if you watch any YouTube videos of generic Oriental manual workers you have to marvel at their efficiency and skill.
In our time in Africa, some of the mining operations literally had to train guys just "out of the bush." Instructor would hole up a wrench and the class would repeat in unison, "wrench." The process of bringing the whole world up with education on tech skills is a large, slow one but it would be founded in a more inspiring vision than the "fight terrorism" and "import raw third-world backwardness" garbage that pollutes Western thinking now in the worst way. Looking at the Dem presidential line up just now makes me want to weep with frustration at the horrific lost opportunities to get the world back on track. The boomers and millenials look to enshrine chaos and anti-reason as their signature accomplishments.