Arming Taiwan, Employee Behavior, and the Chinese Social Contract

Nov 8, 2023

The US is quietly arming Taiwan to the teeth: “He says the $80 million is the tip of what could be a very large iceberg, and notes that in July President Biden used discretionary powers to approve the sale of military services and equipment worth $500 million to Taiwan.”
- Worth noting (and from that same piece), though: “Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year, FMF has been used to send around $4 billion of military aid to Kyiv.”
Pretty much everyone is pressuring Israel’s government for a ceasefire of some kind, but it’s not happening (so far).
- Also:
  - Israel’s forces have pushed into Gaza City and cut the Gaza Strip into northern and southern regions (to carve-up Hamas’ forces and leadership, they’ve said)
  - Israel says it will provide security in Gaza, but won’t govern (the US has told them it’s not a fan of this idea)
  - Russia, China, and Iran have said they back Hamas (and essentially all of the Middle East and many South American and African countries are either backing Hamas, pro-Palestinian, or anti-Israeli-incursion)
  - And some are doing what South Africa just did: recalling their diplomats from Israel in protest of their assault on Gaza
A lot of US households are food insecure, especially single mothers raising their children alone (these numbers were a lot lower during the pandemic, when enhanced social safety nets were implemented):
Employers have found a new employee behavior to be upset about, following the suppose trends of quiet-quitting and holding-out-for-more-money: now they’re not quitting as often as wanted and anticipated.
The outsider candidate in Argentina’s upcoming presidential runoff election, Milei, has a narrow lead over the insider, Massa, 48.5% to 44.7%—that election will be held on November 19, and you can learn more about it, what’s at stake, and how extreme Milei is (and how bad things are in the economy, thereabouts) in this Let’s Know Things episode.
And there was a great piece at the Financial Times, recently, about how China’s social contract is being broken as the economy falters, “common prosperity” starts to seem like an empty slogan, and optimism finds fewer toeholds.