GARY OLSON—China has admirably succeeded in eradicating extreme poverty among impoverished rural residents although some 600 million people still live on $154 a month. For example, there is a major disparity between rural and urban areas. Further, China has 607 billionaires, second only to the United States. This is 87 fewer than last year, and Forbes reports that China’s billionaires are some $500 billion pooer than last year and worth $1.96 trillion to $2.5 trillion in 2021… A series of regulatory reforms wiped out over $1 trillion in market value for Chinese-linked firms, mostly in the high-tech sector.
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BRUCE LERRO—As many of you know, there was a recent election in France that was very close between Macron, Le Pen and the left wing candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Macron got 27% of the vote. Le Pen got 23% and the Mélenchon got about 21 ½%. The left-wing candidate failed by one point short of qualifying for the second round. So the French had to decide between the neoliberal Macron and the more conservative (or supposed fascist) Le Pen. Suddenly the neoliberal Macron discovers the linear political spectrum and presents himself, not as the center right candidate that he is, but closer to the Enlightenment values of New Deal liberalism.
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PATRICE GREANVILLE—The ruling billionaires—whimsical, petulantly childish, and poorly-educated—unidimensional characters like most businessmen, along with their legions of cowardly, sycophantic advisers and political front men, have no solutions. How could they? For one thing, this mob is still trying to balance a pyramid on its apex. Flash Alert: This is not in the pyramid’s nature. They constantly seek cures to capitalist symptoms using the capitalist playbook.
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Editor’s Note: We are lucky to have French-American Jeff J. Brown, an expert on China, the Mideast, France, and other cultures, as one of our editorial pillars. (Jeff is of course the editor-in-chief of the unique China Rising blog, a sister entity to TGP). His expertise on China, indispensable for any American or Westerner, spanning already three major books, is detailed below. In this episode, Jeff joins Ania K., to chat about the rapidly deteriorating situation in France and the EU/NATO blocs, in general, as self-serving, US-pushed neoliberal imperial policies seem to be finally harvesting the same reaction across the continent in hitherto contained populations: anger, frustration and an almost universal desire for regime change that still lacks a fitting political channel.
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BRUCE LERRO—“Emotions” are one of those words that everyone thinks understand until you press them with questions. Broadly speaking, Western philosophers have not thought well of emotions. It was not until the time of the Romantics at the end of the 18th century that the tide turned in favor of the emotions. Here is a history of how the leading lights of the West thought of emotions.
