The Future of Commercial Aviation, Travel and Tourism

[jk]

Re: The Future of Commercial Aviation, Travel and Tourism

i thought xi was foolishly inward looking when he pumped up the china 2025 initiative- it brought the world's attention to what was really going on. all of the other stuff since, the border skirmishes, hong kong, and so on, i think is meant for chinese domestic consumption. their economy is slowing and although they've been successful in bringing a huge number of peoplle out of abject poverty, they are global middle income at best, they botched covid until they became extremely intrusive and controlling over broad swaths of the country, and they are constantly threatened by peripheral ethnic populations, notably in tibet and xinjiang. the social credit system plus some strong arm tactics are meant to keep control even in the absence of stunning [even if overstated] economic growth. an emerging cold war with the u.s. can only help for domestic control purposes.

meanwhile the chinese and u.s. economies are heavily intertwined, but if appears that the momentum in the u.s. is to disentangle the economies, which will take time.

[Mega]

Re: The Future of Commercial Aviation, Travel and Tourism

WE just dumped them from our 5G Telecom system

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: The Future of Commercial Aviation, Travel and Tourism

WE just dumped them from our 5G Telecom system

Not a bad thing. Takes away a plausible worry and helps develop other suppliers.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: The Future of Commercial Aviation, Travel and Tourism

In a de-globalizing, increasingly fractious world, those nations fortunate enough to have endowments of energy resources and farmland combined with an educated workforce and sound, functioning public institutions would appear best positioned to recover from the devastation of the virus. Provided they haven't already sold it all out to the Chinese.

In the tech world the block chain may prove the gravest threat to the dominance of Google and Facebook, as it transfers power back into the hands of individual consumers. Cryptocurrencies perhaps the greatest future threat to the conventional banking industry?

China mystifies. After a long period of acting the Dragon internally and the Panda externally, it seems to have chosen an odd time to become belligerent on so many fronts? Military excursions in the South China Sea and at the high altitude border with India. Hong Kong. Intimidating Australia and Canada. Threats against the UK and others over Huwai. For an economy so dependent on exports it seems to be assuming the rest of the world can't live without China. Assuming the upcoming election and the pulling down of the remaining statues (are there any left?) will keep the USA distracted indefinitely is a risky gambit.

Crypto is interesting.

The US will not let its dollar hegemony to go without a brutal fight, despite its continuous abuse of the exorbitant privilege.

Facebook’s Libra crypto effort was stillborn, likely due to lack of trust and discomfort with the associated power.

China’s digital yuan effort, despite being centralised rather than distributed like bitcoin, continues its slow relentless progress.

I’ve been published recently covering a few of these related issues.

Not only is China’s One Belt, One Road Initiative staggering in inflation adjusted scale to the Marshall Plan, but the growing debt trap diplomacy story still fails to weave in the digital layer.

Kenya has a railroad to nowhere funded with Chinese debt.

Refinancing it on friendly terms, but with conditions such as issuing social media platform licenses(WeChat over Facebook ecosystem) would be a win/win

CCP/PLA/MSS get to play admin to Kenya

Kenya’s ruling party gets to play moderator under China’s perpetual platform admin and ensure their continuity of power.

Then eventually slip in Digital Yuan as the default/dominant platform transaction means of exchange.

That’s why I reference BATH and FAANG as the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines of the digital layer.

I’ve also been published recently about China’s ability to activate nationalism to distract away from domestic problems with near shore foreign military adventure(akin to Argentine Junta in the Falklands in 1982).

But with a conservative predetermined outcome akin to US in Grenada in 1983.

So I think Chinese military adventurism will be a combo of the two, but with even more conservative predetermined outcome, perhaps planned like the Turkish coup attempt in 2016......mission execution begins when markets close on a Friday, resolved by Monday morning open.

Maybe Xi is like a Chinese Reagan, “It’s morning in America/China”, keen to go down in history In placing China back in its rightful global place.

But at the same time having to balance the policy and cultural promotion of Nazi Aryan(Han) racial superiority-like unintended consequences with the problems of maintain the pact of delivering higher quality of life and standard of living or get Tiananmen’d.

Personally, I think China views BATH and digital Yuan as the “combined arms operations” means to gain a sustainable global franchise to remain in a position of dominant power/influence indefinitely with a fast aging population.

I think we are already neck deep in a digital Cold War.

Having visited Africa’s Serengeti, it reminds me of both thr wet season and the dry season.

In the wet season all the species seem to get along fat, dumb, and happy.

In the dry season, the fangs come out.

I believe the Chinese people will accept and justify any negative consequences to the world to continue China’s relentless growth.

I also believe that you don’t have to move the needle too much to shift from the left declaring the right Nazis, to declaring everything made in China practically has a swastika on it.

I was at Steve Blank’s house about 6 months ago with a bunch of other folks for a dinner, I think his recent post sums up a big part of the problem: https://steveblank.com/2020/06/18/th...-21st-century/

He’s well worth following on this topic.

[jk]

Re: The Future of Commercial Aviation, Travel and Tourism

at the risk of extending this detour further away from its original track, i'd like to add that i think btc's future is solely as a collector's item. there will be a digital currency in the u.s.: fedcoin. it will be as centrally controlled and monitored as the digital yuan. it will be justified as a way to prevent money laundering and tax avoidance. and it will track every financial transaction conducted in digital dollars. the only way to escape scrutiny will be barter and cash. and i'm not sure cash has a future.

gold and silver will provide an alternative, untraceable currency.

returning to the question of the future of aviation, trains, buses and travel, i can imagine that it could be years before i get on an airplane again. i am old enough to be considered high risk. the only events which would certainly change my behavior is the appearance of a very effective, well-established vaccine* and/or a very effective, well-established prophylactic drug** and/or a very effective, well-established treatment. my best guess is that my next airplane trip will be spring of 2022. there's a small chance it could be much earlier, but i think there's a fatter right tail that would mean it would be significantly later.

even if we soon get a vaccine, a prophylactic and/or a treatment, it will take substantial time before we can verify it is very effective, well-tolerated, and has minimal side effect risks. i will not be among the first to take a new vaccine or prophylactic drug- only time and administration to large populations can reveal the risks. if i get the illness, however, i will be open to the possibility of new treatments.
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* the fda has announced that they will require any vaccine to be at least 50% effective to be licensed. effectiveness in this instance means either suppression of infection altogether or significant moderation of the disease course. would you play "you bet your life" with a 50% effective vaccine? i.e. rely on the vaccine in deciding to expose yourself to a high risk activity. how about if that vaccine hasn't been around very long and you can't know about potential side effects down the road?

** e.g. apilomod, a licensed anti-cancer drug, was #1 in a gates foundation study of 13,000 drugs for inhibiting in-vitro SARS-CoV-2 replication. it is currently in trials for the treatment of mild-moderate covid-19. if that is successful i expect its next trials to go in 2 directions: 1. the treatment of severe cases, 2. prophylaxis for high-risk populations, i.e. healthcare workers and others. if this latter protective action works, the next step would be prophylaxis for broader populations. in the absence of a very effective vaccine, i can imagine outcomes in which we will be taking this drug, or something similar, regularly for the rest of our lives. this would be equivalent to taking prophylactic anti-malarials when traveling to certain parts of the world, except for the fact that covid-19 exists the world over.

[jk]

Re: The Future of Commercial Aviation, Travel and Tourism

I was at Steve Blank’s house about 6 months ago with a bunch of other folks for a dinner, I think his recent post sums up a big part of the problem: https://steveblank.com/2020/06/18/th...-21st-century/

He’s well worth following on this topic.

i'm sure the taiwanese have been watching events in hong kong with great interest, and that the anti-ccp party which won the recent elections has been further strengthened. steve blank's post to which you point goes as far as analyzing chinese attacks on microchip fabs in taiwan. do you think the chinese will risk going kinetic in the near [2-5year] future?

[touchring]

Re: The Future of Commercial Aviation, Travel and Tourism

i'm sure the taiwanese have been watching events in hong kong with great interest, and that the anti-ccp party which won the recent elections has been further strengthened. steve blank's post to which you point goes as far as analyzing chinese attacks on microchip fabs in taiwan. do you think the chinese will risk going kinetic in the near [2-5year] future?

If it happens, it will be a nuclear war, not conventional.

[GRG55]

Re: The Future of Commercial Aviation, Travel and Tourism

If it happens, it will be a nuclear war, not conventional.

What possibly could be the benefit to the CCP to nuke Taiwan? It is all downside, 100%, for them to do something like that.

If a nuke war starts anywhere in the world it seems more likely to be a marginal failing nation with the bomb (NK, Pakistan) that initiates it.

[jpatter666]

Re: The Future of Commercial Aviation, Travel and Tourism

What possibly could be the benefit to the CCP to nuke Taiwan? It is all downside, 100%, for them to do something like that.

If a nuke war starts anywhere in the world it seems more likely to be a marginal failing nation with the bomb (NK, Pakistan) that initiates it.

Opposite way. If it gets desperate Taiwan could use tactical nukes on the beachheads -- and then threaten Beijing and Shanghai directly.

Which brings to mind two highly pertinent questions.

1 ) Percentage chance Taiwan has nukes already
2 ) Timespan from a decision to obtain nuclear weapons to actual implementation for a full-fledged technical power.

China also has to contend with the likelihood that within weeks of an invasion, Japan will almost certainly go nuclear -- followed by other countries surrounding China.

[jk]

Re: The Future of Commercial Aviation, Travel and Tourism

i think blank's scenario was more consistent with e.g. conventional cruise missiles taking out microchip fabs specifically. the question would be who would retaliate and in what manner.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: The Future of Commercial Aviation, Travel and Tourism

i'm sure the taiwanese have been watching events in hong kong with great interest, and that the anti-ccp party which won the recent elections has been further strengthened. steve blank's post to which you point goes as far as analyzing chinese attacks on microchip fabs in taiwan. do you think the chinese will risk going kinetic in the near [2-5year] future?

It doesn’t necessarily have to be a missile attack with conventional warheads.

It could be deniable(but implausible) cyber kinetic attack.

It could be a number of ways/means to achieve the same effects(denying US, or others, of critical supply chain items).

[lakedaemonian]

Re: The Future of Commercial Aviation, Travel and Tourism

If it happens, it will be a nuclear war, not conventional.

As per my last post, there are a whole lot of ways to skin a cat.

It only below the threshold of a nuclear response, but below the threshold of a conventional kinetic response.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: The Future of Commercial Aviation, Travel and Tourism

Opposite way. If it gets desperate Taiwan could use tactical nukes on the beachheads -- and then threaten Beijing and Shanghai directly.

Which brings to mind two highly pertinent questions.

1 ) Percentage chance Taiwan has nukes already
2 ) Timespan from a decision to obtain nuclear weapons to actual implementation for a full-fledged technical power.

China also has to contend with the likelihood that within weeks of an invasion, Japan will almost certainly go nuclear -- followed by other countries surrounding China.

Taiwan possesses the capacity to rapidly develop a nuclear capability, bar enriched uranium or plutonium cores.

It is possible Taiwan could have acquired several, but I wouldn’t know, or even want to guess, the probability.

The rest of the problem around development and delivery would be pretty straight forward for Taiwan.

Taiwan would be in a similar boat as South Korea, Turkey, Japan, and Australia.

South Africa developed a decent nuclear capability with a small team and relatively small budget(and an unknown level of assumed collaboration from Israel).

If I had to guess, Taiwan(and a few other countries) could have conducted deniable research into simple gravity bomb design and rapid development in such a compartmentalised way as to deny it from an international regulatory perspective, but dust it off and rapidly develop it when things get existential.

Just my 0.02c

[lakedaemonian]

Re: The Future of Commercial Aviation, Travel and Tourism

What possibly could be the benefit to the CCP to nuke Taiwan? It is all downside, 100%, for them to do something like that.

If a nuke war starts anywhere in the world it seems more likely to be a marginal failing nation with the bomb (NK, Pakistan) that initiates it.

One of my biggest concerns has not been the Pakistan/India nuclear flashpoint, it’s the international response to escalating posturing.

In the 90’s with the Kargil incident, it was inevitable that the US would de escalate the potentially lethal posturing.

Today?

Tomorrow?

There is the unknown and unpredictable US foreign policy behaviour of perhaps the US saying “Fight if you want, but we will liquidate anything that threatens the US.”

Perhaps in hope of an India/Pak black hole sucking in China.

“Time and space” is a term used often in the military in relation to decision making cycles.

The time and space between India & Pakistan is seconds, compared to the 25-30 minutes between the US and Soviet Union In the Cold War.

[touchring]

Re: The Future of Commercial Aviation, Travel and Tourism

What possibly could be the benefit to the CCP to nuke Taiwan? It is all downside, 100%, for them to do something like that.

If a nuke war starts anywhere in the world it seems more likely to be a marginal failing nation with the bomb (NK, Pakistan) that initiates it.

I'm not saying CCP will nuke Taiwan.

What's the benefit of building fortifications in the middle of oceans? Why fight over rock mountain? These are not actions of logic. You're not dealing with a rational player. In fact, NK is more logical. Everything they do is to illicit economic benefit.

Anyway, there's only 1 country in the world that uses and will use nukes again if pressed to the extreme.