hotbathenthusiast

China has risen way less in terms of GDP per capita, even using power purchasing parity estimates. Japan is at 52k $, China only at 23k (Wikipedia).

I cannot ultimately judge this but the common wisdom about the Chinese social contract seems to be that the citizens get comparatively high economic security for comparatively low civil liberties. And while China’s pro-poor growth has certainly been more than impressive historically, I am not sure that the comparatively still low incomes especially in the inner parts of China are sufficient to maintain this social contract if growth does really slow down significantly.

Edit: I agree in general though that the state of Japan is probably not be as bad as it is made out to be in the article.

Sound great! Being gently touched in the face always feels wonderful, I think, no matter whether in a romantic or a non-romantic setting like yours. Scratches the itch for intimacy with another being.

I played my first official league game of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and it was a great experience. Not professional gaming or anything, just hobby gaming in the lowest league. But I always wanted to do that and finally found a group of nice people to do it with.

Does anyone know of an estimation of the net progressiveness (or regressiveness, I guess)? I only found this neat overview of the tax regime changes by EY.