Bulletins and News Discussion from March 10th to March 16th, 2025 - The New World Struggles To Be Born; Now Is The Time Of Proxy Wars - COTW: Myanmar

Image is from Wikipedia's article on the war..

I've wanted to cover Myanmar for a while now but haven't had the needed knowledge to write much more than "This situation really sucks." After doing a little reading on the situation, I feel even more confused. A decent analogy is the Syrian Civil War, at least while Assad was in power (though it's still pretty true today) - many different opposition groups, some co-operating with the United States, others not. The main government supported partially by an anti-American superpower, but who could live with that government collapsing if there are deals to be made with the group coming into power. A conflict kept going and exploited at least partially by the United States and other imperial core powers, though with plenty of genuine domestic animosity and desires for political independence.

Recently, the Myanmar government - the mainstream media uses "junta", which is probably accurate despite the connotations - has promised elections at the end of 2025. This doesn't seem likely to happen, and even if it did, how this would work in a country as war-torn as Myanmar is unclear. The government is losing territory and soldiers at a quick pace; they now hold only 21% of the country, though that 21% does at least comprise many of the cities. It's difficult to get a handle on the number of people affected because civil wars and insurgencies have been ongoing in some shape or form for decades, but we're talking at least millions displaced and thousands of civilians killed.

Here's a comment by @TheGenderWitch@hexbear.net from fairly recently that covers the situation in Myanmar:

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Intel appoints chip industry veteran Lip-Bu Tan as CEO
March 12 (Reuters) - Intel (INTC.O), opens new tab on Wednesday named former board member and chip industry veteran Lip-Bu Tan as its CEO and signaled the struggling but storied chipmaker was unlikely to split up its chip-design and manufacturing operations.
The appointment, effective March 18, comes three months after Intel ousted CEO and company veteran Pat Gelsinger, whose costly and ambitious plan to turn the company around was faltering and sapping investor confidence.
Tan, a former Intel board member, had been seen as a CEO contender thanks to his deep experience in the chip industry as well as a longtime technology investor in promising startups. He was approached by Intel's board in December to gauge his interest in taking up the job, Reuters had reported.
"Together, we will work hard to restore Intel's position as a world-class products company, establish ourselves as a world-class foundry and delight our customers like never before," Tan said in a letter to Intel employees on Wednesday.
…
Tan, 65, is a Malaysian-born executive who grew up in Singapore and holds degrees in physics, nuclear engineering and business administration.
He served as CEO of Intel supplier and chip-design software Cadence Design Systems (CDNS.O), opens new tab from 2009 to 2021. During his term, the company's revenue and stock surged.
Tan left Intel's board last year over disagreements on how to turn around the company. He grew frustrated by the company’s large workforce, its approach to contract manufacturing and Intel’s risk-averse and bureaucratic culture, Reuters previously reported.
Tan will rejoin the board, Intel said.
Tan "brings stability and experience to a role that needs someone of his caliber, which is why I believe the company will likely stay the course with his appointment and continue to develop foundry and product," said Anshel Sag, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.
Tan's appointment comes as Trump pushes for more manufacturing in the country, threatening tariffs on imports that have roiled global markets for weeks. While Trump has made no direct comment about Intel publicly, he has said that Asian countries including Taiwan have snatched away the United States' edge in chipmaking.
lol, Nvidia, AMD and Intel CEOs are all ethnic Chinese now.
- lol, Nvidia, AMD and Intel CEOs are all ethnic Chinese now.
  I'm surprised we haven't been seeing more "Jewish cabal" type conspiracies surrounding Chinese business leaders. Weird that they attributed Bolshevism to Jewishness, but don't do similar for Chinese socialism.
- lol, Nvidia, AMD and Intel CEOs are all ethnic Chinese now.
  I think this is mainly because the unit economics around chips are based completely in East Asian labor and the enabling cultural attitudes towards it.
  While the economics of American labor are harder to work out on paper, a lot of the waste that happens in American companies has to do with American hierarchies and relations within the "work sphere" and social attitudes towards work. This is extremely well documented in the 20th especially as it relate to the manufacture of cars. In America workers in the sphere of work are not treated with respect. They are cogs who spin. In Asia while the organization of work is similar, the function and relation between workers and management is different. Essentially the American system makes it impossible for rank and file workers to bring continuous improvement to their processes while Asian work culture are much more amenable to that. It's really the "up or out" or the "up or trash" attitude that many American corporations hold as part of their culture. In American work culture the default is your boss is right and you're wrong because of your relative positions so any improvements either cannot exist or are suppressed by theft of credit, lack of incentive, etc. In Asian work culture while deference to roles is more important, there is a system and an acknowledgement of a worker's role in improving their own process, and as such systems are in place and culturally accepted to reward workers for making the enterprise more efficient.
  Despite the professionalism that is more common in Asia, the working conditions for Asian workers tend to be much worse. Either way boss keeps most of the money at the end of the day tho, such is exploitation.

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