China's Top Leaders Meets To Set Policy Direction For The Next 5 Years

Today China's top leaders represented by the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee started the Fifth Plenum of its 19th Party Congress where they will chart the course for the economy’s development for the next 15 years and set the country’s long-term priorities, with are expected to focus on boosting technological self-sufficiency and domestic demand while Xi cements his influence over the party.

The Plenum will run until Thursday, and will conduct the country’s most important exercise in central-planning: drafting the next Five-Year Plan against the backdrop of a worsening global economy and US sanctions (it's unclear what if any role the recordings China intelligence has of Hunter Biden will play in this exercise). The plenum will also discuss a broad plan for the next 15 years, with goals that are likely to endure for at least the rest of 67-year-old President Xi Jinping’s rule, who as a reminder made himself ruler for life several years ago.

According to the FT, the process to draft a plan typically reveals the biggest worries and priorities for the Chinese leadership, although these are usually for private consumption and rarely officially disclosed to the public. This year’s meeting comes as the deadline for meeting the previous overarching goal of achieving a “moderately prosperous society”, is due to expire in 2021, the centenary of the founding of the Chinese Communist party.

Beijing has recently hinted it would broaden out its focus on economic growth to include targets for environmental protection, innovation and self-sufficient development — such as in food, energy, and in chips. The Planum will also explain how the government will meet Xi’s target of zero net carbon emissions by 2060, which is ironic since China is the world's biggest emitter of CO2.

Xi is also expected to use the exercise to consolidate his influence over the party and the party’s influence over governance, said Holly Snape, a fellow in Chinese politics at the University of Glasgow. "It’s useful to understand these broad goals in the context of an expression Xi seems fond of: the party, government, military, people, education, east, west, south, north, and centre — the party leads everything."

At the end of the meeting, China will release a brief summary of the proposals to describe the broader directions of the 14th Five-Year Plan at a high level, including discussions on “dual circulation" - in which China will develop domestic demand and self-sufficiency as the rest of the world remains stalled by coronavirus - strategy, a focus on technological innovation and a push for factor market reform. However, Goldman does not expect a GDP growth target to be announced in either the proposals or the detailed plan when it is released next March.

Below is a preview from Goldman on what to expect from China's 14th Five-Year Plan:

Main points

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will hold the Fifth Plenum of its 19th Party Congress on October 26–29 to discuss the proposals for the 14th Five-Year Plan. The finalized proposals from the party will be released to the public shortly afterwards in a brief summary. Over the next several months, the National Development and Reform Committee (NDRC) will consult specialists and coordinate efforts from other government ministries to prepare a detailed plan draft to be submitted to the National People’s Congress (NPC) for final approval during the “Two Sessions” in March 2021.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/chinas-top-leaders-meets-set-policy-direction-next-5-years

Welcome To The Corruptocracy

Most political philosophy is just an elaborate justification for theft and fraud.

What’s called the silent majority is really the ignored majority, who for the most part are happy being ignored. Their lives revolve their families, jobs, friends, and community, not the media, publicity, polls, or politics. They’re sick of elections well before they’ve seen their hundredth campaign ad, received their hundredth mailer, or ignored their hundredth telephone call. They know that politicians are phony and corrupt and make jokes about them, but hope that their rulers don’t screw things up too badly, cross their fingers, and vote for the perceived lesser of two evils.

There’s a shortage of blue-ribbon pedigrees, Ivy League degrees, and gold-plated resumés among the ignored majority, but a surfeit of hard-knocks wisdom and common sense. Benjamin Franklin said, “Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.” Everybody does foolish things, but by and large, the ignored majority learns from the dear school and puts its lessons to good use.

The gilded class denigrates those outside it: Hillary Clinton deploring the “deplorables,” Barack Obama saying working-class voters, “cling to guns or religion,” and Obama telling entrepreneurs, “you didn’t build that.” Yet, it consistently, almost invariably, demonstrates a complete lack of the common-sense street smarts found in abundance among those it disparages.

The quotes’ condescending arrogance rankles, but at a deeper level illustrate the real division in American politics—between the productive class and those it supports. At the intellectual level it’s the irreconcilable difference between those who believe that value can and should be conferred by the government, and those who know it must be created and produced. It’s believing or not believing that something can be had for nothing.

Freeloaders’ delusion stems from psychology, not ignorance. Every human faces a choice. They can produce value or they can beg, borrow, defraud, or steal it from someone else. For every advance humanity has made, there’s always been someone claiming their unfair share. Most of what we call history is merely an account of who’s stealing or defrauding from whom.

Because production is necessary for human survival, not producing anything of value creates a gaping psychological fissure, one not generally recognized or acknowledged. What’s generally accepted is that humans grasp at rationales and justifications for their actions, not just for the audience to which they’re playing, but for themselves. Most political philosophy is just an elaborate justification for theft and fraud. Political systems don’t spring from philosophies, the philosophies spring from the systems’ actual or potential beneficiaries.

Governments can take every scrap of what is produced. They can pledge every scrap of future production as repayment for their debts. The legitimization of unlimited current and future plunder leads to ever-increasing plunder and debt—and ever-diminishing production. Present governments are merely repeating a cycle that’s played out countless times throughout history.

You would think that government rapacity would be curbed when taxes, regulatory extortion, and debt disincentivize and begin reducing legitimate production. Unfortunately, that assumption flies in the face of historical fact; countless regimes have killed their golden geese. The only regimes that haven’t are those that are currently in the process of doing so.

One among many of rulers’ delusions is that the ruled are buying their lies.

Over time the victims see through the propaganda and narrative management. The lies fool the rulers more than the ruled and are essential psychological support for this predatory and parasitic class.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/welcome-corruptocracy

FULL VIDEO: ’60 Minutes’ Airs Trump Interview Cut Short By President

In an interview that’s made headlines this week, Lesley Stahl presses President Trump on rising coronavirus cases and what his priorities would be if re-elected. Stahl also speaks with Trump’s running mate, Vice President Mike Pence.

https://youtu.be/FdAh2HJ98WE

Joe Biden’s ’60 Minutes’ interview.

https://youtu.be/kSAo_1mJg0g

https://breaking911.com/full-video-60-minutes-airs-trump-interview-cut-short-by-president/