If it's any consolation it's pretty bad to say but it might be good for humanity in the end. Half the issues they have is the lack of men caused by a previous war with a figure that Putin is trying to emulate now.
Putin is sending more of his men to their deaths unnecessarily. Could have been avoided by not starting the war. But what's done is done, now that it is started the men that has been liquidated will help restrict Russia in the future. They still haven't recovered from WW2.
Her mistake was to do it in a Muslim country. I have a Muslim friend you wouldn't even know if they didn't tell you.
Outdrinks everyone, sometimes eats pork but rarely. But that's because they only get pub food, according to him food just takes up space that can otherwise be occupied by beer/vodka/gin/burbon. Noone else I know Muslim or not goes to this extreme, it can't possibly be good for their liver.
He's at least smart enough not to do this in a Muslim country.
Actually for me it's quite good. Get like 1/3 back from dental. Then a bit back from gym fees. Optical is another one I use regularly and I get a massage a year. And most importantly ambulance cover just in case.
Granted one or two of them I would have skipped if I wasn't paying private health (optical and massage).
At the higher salaries if people didn't want to pay the Medicare surcharge and having to buy junk policies they can funnel their discretionary income into investments, the costs of the investments can be negatively geared so you can earn for example a million dollars and only pay 90000 taxable income worth of tax (an extreme example I know). ASX, property, into the business etc. where you reduce your taxable income in exchange for gaining (investable) assets.
I mean Joe Lycett was briefly known as Hugo Boss, name didn't stick after he changed it back.
There's actually a famous instance of it happening. K-19. They had to go into the reactor room to fix up the cooling because of botched manufacturing process.
What happened to them after can only be described as gruesome. I'd rather a bullet to the brain after.
If China wanted peaceful unification they can have it tomorrow.
Cede all power to Taiwan and they can be one country. They definitely won't be bullied by Taiwan and unlike China Taiwan would accept differing opinions. It's been done successfully before to a large extent. East and West Germany joined together as one country without the need for border fences or two systems in one country. Just imagine what a basket case of a country if it happened the other way around. 2 systems, border fences different currencies, declining standings on corruption, political freedom etc.
But of course they'll never do that. Because deep down it's not the country they care about. They only care about the CCP itself.
Edit: looks like the wumaos are in force, not surprising as a large number of them are otherwise unemployed now 😂
It's not even internal strife. It all comes down to it's now or never. If they let this opportunity slip by they will never get Taiwan.
Their population is declining and there's nothing that can be done about it in any meaningful way. Nothing has worked to get people to have more children. As they get older people of military age will decline.
Right now this generation the males outnumber the females. Which means expendable soldiers. These people will never marry and benefit the state in anyway.
The leverage China has is it's consumers it's one of the largest markets. But the Chinese buying things to support international companies is quite minuscule as a percentage of the population and will decline as time goes on, they get all the media attention that's all . They've been struggling to boost internal consumption for years.
And it isn't that surprising. Chinese people are one of the most tightarse people ever. They haggle everything and that's even if they get to the point of actually going to buy it. Spending money to make money usually doesn't factor in.
Dictators seem to outlive most people it seems. Mugabe made it to 90s. Obiang is 81. Everyone is waiting for Putin. Xi could also join this club, if he starts hitting the gym.
I like NSW governments policy. Highrise depends on infrastructure and not how far it is from the CBD. But it is still not good enough.
We have 220m+ in Parramatta which is 20km from CBD and from what I understand the application for it to be higher was denied because it was too close to the airport.
Macquarie Park, Rhodes are new suburbs with 150m+ (definition for a skyscraper). Many others are getting 100m+, Olympic Park, Liverpool etc.
So it is quite spread out already. Even places very far away from Sydney like Penrith, Rouse Hill, Edmondson Park and Leppington will be zoned for high rise.
But we need to overhaul the zoning laws for the missing middle. In Sydney Bankstown to Marrickville and Revesby to Turella should all be up for 100m towers or maximum allowed due to proximity to airport.
Three times the minimum salary doesn't seem too enticing to go into a warzone. Money is useless if you're dead and won't cover for your disabilities if you get injured. But hey that's just me, each to their own I guess.
Might be a good thing in the end. There is a way to remove him, he will go sooner or later, everyone dies eventually, not even the most powerful dictator can get around that.
What we do know is that he has stuffed up his country for his own personal gain. Killed off so many jobs because Jack Ma and co was getting too powerful. These are high value tech sector jobs that the now unemployed youths would have been happy to be employed as.
He has put in alot of money into state owned enterprises which doesn't have as much output as more pseudo private companies. Causing higher unemployment.
Zero covid lockdown that was a big cause of this economic situation well it was Xis policy and noone could tell him it wasn't a good idea until it was too little too late.
Again as I say he has stuffed his country up for his personal gain which wouldn't even matter in a few decades time once he passes away. But the damage to his country will be lasting and affect future generations (not that he will care, it doesn't affect him).
Imagine the alternative in which we have a competent dictator. We may all be conquered and have to live under their political model. That's a hard no from me.
Through drones we are seeing a first hand view of the war. First time I've seen a person shot, someone blown up. It's not like the Hollywood films that's for sure.
No bleeding, missing arms like every war film in Hollywood. You don't see anything, they get shot and just become lifeless. No visible blood or anything. Similarly the drone dropped grenades, I would have thought they would be missing body parts.
But on the outside you wouldn't even know it's terminal injuries. And there was another one where the tank commander landed on the roof due to a cook off in what seemed to be in one piece. But then someone calculated the G force as 300gs.
Thanks to drones I now know people mostly go out on a whimper and not a bang.