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Comment by elvirs | Hacker News Reader

im noticing a trend of our government offloading its responsibility to protect us and hiding its incompetence by pointing finger at foreign nations. -elections fucked up? -russia.

-corporations dont protect consumer data? -china.

-drugs and gang violence? -mexico and other south american nations.

-unemployment? -canada and tarrifs.

come on already.

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Funny, China has been using that excuse for the last century. Blame the foreign influence!

It was China's reality for about a century, not merely an excuse.

Sure, but then we can also say we were influenced by foreign powers in our history as well and trot that out whenever convenient. I mean, it's not as though France didn't intervene to screw over the Brits.

In this case, the actual foreign abuse overlaps significantly with the other comment's "for the last century" period.

[flagged]

Please do not use HN for political and especially not nationalistic battle.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

“Except Japan” is an exceptionally bizarre clause to use here. It’s like saying “except Nazis” when talking about what Jews have suffered.

If you just said “since the mid 20th century” that would make a lot more sense.

Oh boy I'm sure you are a western sympathizer of China, and I am almost ashamed of myself for not being nearly as defensive.

Japan and said nieghbors has been at war with the middle kindom for millennia, East Asians will be hating each other for another millennium, but does this justify China's never-ending hate towards the entire world? More specifically anyone else who's not a communist country or ally?

And the vast amount of people Japan so ruthlessly and nefariously massacred in China is only a fraction of what communism scored?

Not to mention the CCP just loves to ride this hatred, they are "the only savior and protector" of Chinese afterall.

It makes you wonder if sometimes people make opinionated comments on here just to elicit free lessons in some unfamiliar topic.

I mean, I do that sometimes. Once there was a thread discussing an app, and I wanted to know if the app has a certain feature. Instead of just asking whether it has that feature, I posted a comment saying "the only thing preventing me from switching to [app] is its lack of [feature]", thinking I'm more likely to get a response that way. And indeed right away I got a correction from an angry poster with just the information I was looking for. lmao

I admit my historical views are (or was?) extremely skewed, flawed and uninformed, I'm never proud of that, but I will never hate myself for it too since those are what Chinese textbooks and society taught me since I'm born.

I do regret that I came to realize it a bit late in my life tho, but that's what life is right?

What about Soviet meddling in their domestic politics, was that interference or was that welcome internationalism from fellow Marxists, or should we ask old hands from the KMT?

In perspective, it hasn't really been that long since the Cold War - most of those lizards are (unfortunately) still alive and pining for the glory days.

Politicians have been blaming scapegoats as long as there have been politics.

North Korea hacked sony - how do we know? That’s when it started

Unemployment is particularly an odd one to put in there. Nobody is complaining about macro unemployment due to Canada or tariffs. Tariffs aren't causing serious problems so far. In fact pretty much every report indicates they're helping the US, with China eating the bulk of the cost up to now. US steel companies are booming for the first time in decades. Steel & aluminum tariffs are also not harming the economy yet.[1]

Employment is increasingly setting records on almost everything. Check out the job demand boom on durable goods manufacturing [2]:

https://i.imgur.com/CViKovj.png

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/11/steel-and-aluminum-tariffs-a...

[2] https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/u-s-factories-are-posting-job-op...

My suppliers are facing extreme pricing pressure, and most are raising prices on many commodities. I’ve had more contract performance issues in the last 6 months than in the last decade.

Employment is tough to measure. Acecdotally, my employer is attracting many mid/senior level people who are good who are taking entry/journeyman level gigs. That’s usually a forward indicator of bad times ahead, in my experience.

Another factor is that tariffs are mechanisms that pick winners and losers. Automated steel and aluminum mills may be booming, but in contrast I just donated to a food drive for dairy farmers in my old hometown — many of whom will be bankrupt soon. They have to choose between heating the barn or buying food. Tariffs are also destroying small and midsize farmers in grain and other commodities.

unemployment numbers are distorted. they count all part time jobs and gig economy signups as employment. these arent jobs, you can afford a decent life with this kind 'employment'. people working as teachers, working as salesperson at an official car dealerships, working in retail cant afford to rent an apartment and are living from shared rooms.

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