As IF Times

Source: Donald Trump is a unique threat to American democracy – The Washington Post

Now that The Donald has secured the GOP nomination for President,  the onslaught from the mainstream media outlets begins. They’ve clearly put as much thought into their attacks as Trump puts into any given speech.  While Trump just riffs off his original main theme of Make America Great Again, the media seems to subscribe to a central talking point source for their material. Observe the following headlines from the ‘major’ news outlets:

We know that the news business is not exactly robust these days, especially among the liberal outlets and now we know why.  As these headlines from the different sources show, there’s no need to read all of them.  If you’ve read one, you’ve read them all.  This could in fact be a cost saving measure as it’s possible that only one poli-sci college student is responsible for writing the story and the news outlets just syndicate it.

In this respect, the media has adopted the Russian Pravda news model; one central source for news, no thinking needed. Instead of news collection, it’s the news collective. One of the most effective techniques of creating a reality from nothing is to flood the news space with the same repeated message until it becomes so familiar to people that over time, the narrative becomes the truth.  Good is bad, Whites are evil, hands up don’t shoot, global warming; the whole George Orwell thing.

Amusingly enough, the liberal left seems to have run up against an opponent in Donald Trump who is as adept at manipulating the message as they are accustomed to.  So, Lyin’ Ted, Little Marco and now Crooked Hilary will be part of the public discourse.  How soon before Crazy Trump is trotted out by the left?  That should be easy since all of his stated platforms are way out there; build a wall, restrict access to unknown immigrants, bring jobs to America,  America first; all crazy objectives.   The previous guy claimed to halt the oceans’ rise and lower global temperatures… yeah, that was sane stuff.  If anything, the knock on Trump may be for his lack of ambition by comparison.

link Rolls-Royce Seeks China Sales Surge for $990,000 Cars Update1 – Bloomberg.com.

The age old shell game of selling cars has come to China but has morphed into a grotesque  Frankenstein.  Shrewdly pricing the cars at under a million dollars, the Rolls-Royce company seeks to capture the value conscious Chinese buyer for their products.  After all who wants to be seen as stupid enough to pay a million dollars for a car? It’s a matter of catering to the legendary shrewd Chinese purchasers.

You would expect that in paying this lofty amount for basic transportation, all components would be top of the line and mechanically superior.  I wouldn’t bet on it.  Things wear out, grease needs to be applied and accessories age.  Naturally, for such high ticket engines, oil must be of a special type.  Specifically, it must be derived from petroleum sources in which the old dinosaurs were determined to be virgins.  Of course this is very rare and expensive to source accounting for the $24, 899 dollar cost for an oil change….every 6000 miles.  If you are unfortunate to live in a neighborhood occupied by one of the megamillionaires able to spend such money, then keeping up with the Wangs will be very problematic.

It is rumored that these cars don’t even have glass on the windshields, instead, people are posted to tell the occupants what the view is outside.  Well that’s preposterous. You’d need different language translators if someone didn’t speak Chinese.

While there are no pictures of this car, it is likely that there are upstairs and downstairs levels to accommodate larger Chinese families. Kitchens would be an optional extra.   According to this article, China has experienced a surge in millionaires last year, amounting to over 875,000   at last estimate.  Of course, those who would aspire to acquire one of these coveted status symbols would need to have net worths well north of a million dollars.  Pretty good for country that only a few years ago operated on the premise that everyone is equal.  In fact, according to 2009 estimates, the average income for city dwellers is about $2700.   This is a somewhat meaningless statistic in a nation of 1.3 billion people whose constituents range from farmers to industrialists.  Nevertheless, it is a clue that the transition from a purely communist state to a capitalist inspired, but still communist controlled one is very rocky and not every one has benefited.  The biggest trick is to be more equal than others.  At the risk of being repetitive, George Orwell’s Animal Farm satire leaps out at us once again.

In a country of over 1.3 billion people, 875,000 millionaires is not a lot, but certainly enough to keep the Rolls Royce showrooms open.  Like all cars though, canny shoppers would be wise to wait a model year.  By this time next year, the newer models will have come out which are roomier, with bigger engines and even more luxury.  The older ones can then be snapped up at the used lots for only 600 to 700 thousand, a huge savings.