So I read this book. It's good. You learn stuff. I read this book.. You learn different stuff. I read this book, I read this book I read like three books about North Korea, I read I bunch of books.

You know what book really cracks it?

So this is a book about Mandarin Squares. They're awesome. For as ridiculously important as they were, they aren't even that expensive these days, either, which is pretty weird for something you find out about from a webinar hosted by Christie's. And their invention is impossibly Chinese.

So you've got a far-flung empire. You need the ability to know exactly who's important and who isn't, and you need to be able to do it without knowing who they are. It's heraldry, yeah, but it's heraldry on top of heraldry, heraldry for your whole family, which you never take off, so that not only do the peasants know they have to bow to you, they know how low, and all the other nomenklatura walking around know where they are in the pecking order even if they see you clear across the room because that mandarin square? It's like a goddamn superman badge on your chest, and your wife's chest, and the chest of everybody who matters.

I'll have more to say about this? 'cuz i'm in the midst of stuff? But fundamentally, China is a command economy, has always been a command economy, will always be a command economy, and everybody who lacks command tries to have some sort of life within that command. The richer you are, the more fun you have, and for 99% of the peasants out there you will never be rich and the 1% is going to remind you of that every goddamn day of your life.

Fuck yeah China has "two systems" and has done since the founding of the Shaolin temple in 500AD if not before. That's as far back as Bertil Linter could trace it; "shaolin" is code for "triad" and if you've ever wondered why the Chinese are so heaviliy into Bitcoin it's because you need an economy that doesn't belong to Xi and always have.

"Socialism" as it applies to China and Russia is a lie, and always has been. Richard Pipes refused to discuss Russian "communism" because the system as it existed had nothing to do with Engels. He called it "Marxism-Leninism" and eventually "Stalinism" because yeah everything is a collective, unless you're a part of the nomenklatura, in which case you get whatever you want, assuming you're in the right place in the pecking order. The Russians learned that from the Golden Horde who learned it from the Chinese. It's interesting - the organizational structure of Europe was much more hierarchical than Asia which eventually led to a merchant class while the organizational structure of China has always been about the man on the top and whoever can eke out some favor in the pecking order underneath.

So... what is the Billian-Yuan Question? Will they escape the middle-income trap?

No.