• congressbaseballfan [she/her]
    ·
    4 years ago

    President Xi was a bad dude, and he ran a bunch of bad boys. If you used pomade in your hair, you had to wear a bathing cap, and so he was on the board, wouldn’t listen to me, I said, ‘Listen Jack, you, off the board, I’ll come up and drag you off.’”

    “Well, he came off and said, ‘I’ll meet you outside,’”

    “He was waiting there for me with investments in rail and automotive technology. Not a joke.”

    • fmmg1778 [they/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      4 years ago

      President Xi does unironically have some of the best hair on a world leader rn tho

      :xi:

      It has clearly never been left in a rain barrel to get rusty

  • Coolkidbozzy [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    "We don't get moving, they're going to eat our lunch," Biden said, referring to Chinese investments in rail and automotive technology.

    train gang

  • ComradeKingfisher [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    And immediately following the call, Biden used it to make a pitch to Congress for his $700 billion plan to invest in infrastructure, manufacturing, electric vehicles, artificial intelligence and other sectors

    compared to:

    Nearly all of China’s 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions have announced key infrastructure investment plans for the next 5-7 years, covering 24,515 projects at RMB43 trillion (~$6.7T), of which around 25% will be spent on transportation projects. https://www.financeasia.com/article/infrastructure-investment-will-play-a-key-role-in-chinas-economic-recovery/465372

    $6.7T vs $700B :hahaha:

    • gammison [none/use name]
      ·
      edit-2
      4 years ago

      Meanwhile the Pentagon's budget is over 700 billion a year (China's is around 200 billion). You could cut the Pentagon budget in half for 10 years, do a 3.5 trillion dollar plan, and still spend 150 billion more a year on military than China does. And that's only federal budget, you could probably carve out another couple trillion from state and municipalities. All of this too could be done without even changing tax revenue. Tax the wealthy and you could easily 2x it.

      • DasKarlBarx [he/him,comrade/them]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Yeah but then how will my friend who is the largest shareholder in a company which contracts to the military buy his forth yacht and eighth house?

  • shitstorm [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Xi told Biden that the two sides would have different views sometimes, but that "the key is to respect each other, treat each other as equals, and properly manage and handle them in a constructive manner." He said that Taiwan, Hong Kong and Xinjiang were internal matters and that the U.S. should "respect China's core interests and act cautiously."

    Fuck around, find out.

  • YouKnowIt [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    The national humiliation of having to compete, from the underdog position, in infrastructure and mass transportation as a 100 year world superpower will only be surpassed when we completely fuck it up

  • late90smullbowl [they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    4 years ago

    What, capitalism can't compete against a near-peer with central planning? It's all been a lie?