Paul Midler 孟天
@paulmidler
Author of Poorly Made in China. Early spotter of the cracks in globalization.
Deng Xiaoping was purged twice and came back each time. If you can’t survive a night of the long knives, what good are you?
Is there anything more Chinese than a purge? Historically, leaders who failed to purge were removed, while those who did were, at worst, called ruthless.
First they came for Scarborough Shoal, and we said it was just a rock. Then they came for the Spratlys, and we told ourselves it was just sand. One day they will do land reclamation off the coast of Florida, and - what? - we’ll issue a statement?
Meet Tian Kun—a built-in-China dredging vessel, the largest of its kind in Asia. Capable of scooping enough sand in 1 hour to lift a whole soccer field by 1 meter, it helps to build ports, reshape islands, and dredge waterways for Belt and Road partner countries.
If true, this is a shocking development. Chinese decentralization had allowed competition and unfettered. A return to centralization was most often about balancing the economic score card (or it was about consolidating power). “Maybe we don’t need competition” is new, unusual.
Xi Jinping questions whether every province needs to be developing industries in AI, compute, and EVs. From the Central Urban Work Meeting: “When it comes to launching projects, it’s always the same few things: artificial intelligence, computing power, and new energy vehicles.…
China is sending middle managers to Africa and India to take advantage of cheap labor there. Why couldn’t U.S. companies do the same? Hire away managers from China (or send Americans) to train and supervise cheap labor pools. Why? Because we are LAZY.
Mainstream economists now call for industrial policy. This is a sea change compared to even 10 years ago. nytimes.com/2025/07/14/opi…
Not many Americans have gardeners.
NEW - Hunter Biden crashes out over whites and migrants: "White men in America are 45 more times likely to commit a fucking violent crime than an immigrant... I say fuck you!"
Antisemitism today often takes the form of anti-Israel sentiment. Doesn’t mean everyone who opposes Israel is antisemitic, but it’s enough to give pause.
Israel is a rich country that doesn’t need American aid. America is far from the Middle East with limited resources there and doesn’t need to be telling Israel what to do. It’s past time for a more normal relationship. slowboring.com/p/america-shou…
Jews of all ages fear physical assault, as it turns out.
These political shifts among Ivy League Jewish students are remarkable:
You can “think” with a pen. Just as easily, thinking brain can be stimulated through conversation. Reading something good (or bad) can inspire though. Or you can split yourself into two or three persons and host an internal debate. LLM has room in there somewhere—why not?
Yes. Writing is not a second thing that happens after thinking. The act of writing is an act of thinking. Writing *is* thinking. Students, academics, and anyone else who outsources their writing to LLMs will find their screens full of words and their minds emptied of thought.
What seems haphazard to Americans is a corps de ballet—an intricate coordination. On vacation last year, riding one-handed through Saigon. It’s more than skill. It’s communal flow.
If you leave major cities of China and visit ‘smaller towns’ (still well over 1m people) - you can see haphazard traffic and women driving around on scooters with a 3 yr old clinging on in the back - no helmets. These are the people eating our lunch? Only because we let them.
Taiwanese simply don’t believe this. Pew Research (2023) found that 67% of people in Taiwan identify primarily as Taiwanese, 28% identify as both Taiwanese and Chinese, and only 3% identify primarily as Chinese.
Taiwan is part of China, period. The Taiwan question is China’s internal affair. How to resolve it is a matter for the Chinese people and Chinese people only. Whatever the DPP authorities do or say, it won’t change the fact that both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one…
Poland’s Jewish population by town (percentage). Hitler called Poland a “Jewish state” to justify invasion. Warsaw 30.1% Łódź 33.5% Lwów 31.9% Kraków 25.8% Vilnius 28.2% Lublin 34.7% Białystok 43.0% By comparison… Berlin 4.3% Frankfurt 4.7% Hamburg 3.5%
Can somebody explain to me why leftists get so angry at the thought of English people remaining a majority in England
Mafia films present an alternative moral universe. They allow audience to wonder what we would do in a given circumstance. Characters operate by a strict internal code which contrasts sharply with hypocrisy of mainstream society.
Mafia films are popular and do well because they portray men you would like to hang out with. The crass humor. The food. The camaraderie. It’s not realistic, but there is a reason these movies are a social lubricant for men getting to know one another.
Couple years ago, I pitched a theory: Beijing policy makers are working to mirror the U.S. economy, which involves matching U.S. economic policy. Motivation can’t be explained here, but suffice to say China’s stimulus is a match for U.S. $4 trillion credit expansion via OBBB.
"China's M2 money supply just exploded to ~$46 trillion, surging by over $2 trillion since the beginning of the year"
Culture never the problem. The cities are failing us. The media’s lies. Tech bros. Immigrants. Corporate greed. Always something else to blame.
Cities are failing families, and parents are opting out. NYC lost 17% of its under-5 population since 2020. SF has more dogs than kids. Meanwhile, birthrates plummet. The US won't succeed without fixing this. Yesterday I published an 8-part "Abundance for Families" agenda: 🧵
All this reveals is that per-capita GDP is a horrible metric.
The Chinese do really well. Especially when they're not in China.
If socialism works, it doesn’t do so for very long anyway.
Socialism isn’t wrong because it has compassion. It’s wrong because it doesn’t work.
“Kill switches” have been found in some Chinese-made solar equipment deployed in the U.S. but (a) no companies have been named and (b) U.S. government doesn’t appear willing to do anything about it. If true, remove ambiguity with legislation.
This beautiful road atlas and a stack of CDs could get you cross country.
Good times
U.S. National Debt increase by %: 2001: 2.3% (Bush) 2002: 7.4% (Bush) 2003: 8.5% (Bush) 2004: 9.2% (Bush) 2005: 7.5% (Bush) 2006: 7.3% (Bush) 2007: 5.9% (Bush) 2008: 11.2% (Bush) 2009: 18.9% (Obama) 2010: 13.9% (Obama) 2011: 9.1% (Obama) 2012: 8.6% (Obama) 2013: 4.2% (Obama)…
What have we been spending so much on?
Flow is the subconscious taking over from the conscious. And yes, there is likely a reward mechanism.
"the largest predictor of flow states is the Big Five trait of conscientiousness...flow seems to emerge out of hard work and discipline, and in fact, maybe it could be thought of as an internal reward for intense effort and focus on a single activity"