Thought experiment: If this actually happened, how would it play out? What would you do?
Most people would stop going to work. So now what? How are you going to buy anything? Everyone quit, because they all have half a million bucks. What you don’t have is any food, electricity, water, or anything else that you need.
You see a guy with some food, so you offer him money for some of his food. He doesn’t want your money, he has half a million bucks and sandwiches. You are hungry, so you eventually get to the point where you offer him $50,000 for one of those sandwiches. Others see this and do the same.
Now dude is selling $50,000 sandwiches, but has no one to help make more. So he tries to hire someone, but because sandwiches are so expensive, he has to pay $45,000 per hour. Still, people do it because they need more money to buy things at the newer, higher prices. I mean, everyone is using their $500,000 a year to outbid everyone else. Prices are crazy high.
Now we have a nation of millionaires who are all paying $50,000 for a sandwich.
If we learned anything about the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, it’s that it is dangerous to be in liberal controlled areas, even more so if you don’t practice OPSEC. For that reason, I try to edit out any identifying information or anything that telegraphs my future movements. By the time you read this, I will be home, so security is not an issue for this post.
I have been in Boston at a conference for the past few days. The number of people who knew where I was can be counted on my fingers. We stayed at a nice hotel near Boston Common. We sampled plenty of local restaurants: Saltie Girl Seafood, Lucca Italian, Mike’s Pastries, M.J. O’Connor’s Irish Pub, and others. I spent a day riding the hop on/hop off bus to see some sights, and then it was time to come home.
Some of the things I wanted to see were closed because of the government shutdown: I couldn’t get in to the Bunker Hill memorial, the old Boston Naval Yard, the USS Constitution, or the meeting place of the Sons of Liberty because they were all closed. Shame.
Social media is filled with posts showing Chinese cities looking spectacular, and morons claiming this is proof that Socialism works.
It’s all smoke and mirrors, and those posting it are likely paid shills for the leaders of China. The reality is that most Chinese citizens are virtually slaves, forced to live in conditions that most Americans would NEVER willingly accept.
For example, at Foxconn (also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.), which manufactures products for Apple and other companies, many workers live in company-provided dormitories that are located on or near the factory grounds. This setup is common at large electronics manufacturing complexes in China and other parts of Asia. Workers often live in shared rooms (typically 6–10 people per room). The dorms are part of large factory campuses that also include cafeterias, shops, and recreational areas.
Most Foxconn campuses (like in Zhengzhou, Shenzhen, or Chengdu) are enormous — small cities in themselves — with tens of thousands of employees. Workers live in dormitory buildings right next to the production zones. There are 6–10 people per room sleeping in bunk beds, with shared bathrooms and showers down the hall, they have only basic furnishings: metal lockers, small desks, fans or air conditioning. Laundry facilities and common rooms are available in the building.
They eat in company cafeterias with “subsidized” meals that are paid for with payroll deduction, they shop in convenience stores using that same deductions, and have security gates limiting entrance and exit to and from the factory complex. Rent to live there and for meals is automatically deducted from wages as well.
The schedule looks like this:
6:30 a.m. – Wake up Workers get ready, have breakfast in the canteen, and line up for the shuttle or walk to the assembly building.
7:00 a.m. – Start shift Workers attend a short morning meeting, then start their station work — like assembling iPhone parts or inspecting components.
12:00 p.m. – Lunch break Around 1 hour. Some rest at their stations or go back to the dorm if close.
1:00 p.m. – Afternoon shift Work resumes. Music or motivational announcements sometimes play in the background.
8:00–9:00 p.m. – End of shift Return to the dorm, shower, relax a bit, maybe chat, watch videos, or sleep early to repeat the next day.
One day off per week (though during peak periods, even weekends may involve work or partial shifts).
They largely cannot leave, so they are forced to buy from the company store. The US tried that and moved away from it. Tennessee Ernie Ford even sang a song about it. It’s called the Truck system and has been illegal in the US for decades.
Historically (especially in 18th–19th century Britain and the U.S.), a truck system was when employers paid workers not in full cash, but partly in credit, goods, or services, often redeemable only at the employer’s store or housing. Workers were thus economically dependent on their employer for everything, including housing, food, and basic supplies. It effectively ties workers to the employer, reducing their freedom to leave or negotiate better pay. This practice was widely condemned and outlawed in many countries because it created a form of economic bondage. What China is doing is slavery.
In Foxconn’s case, workers are legally free to quit and spend their wages outside the factory, but the practical barriers (location, cost, lack of time, dependency on dorm housing) make that freedom constrained. It’s not legal bondage, but it can create economic enclosure: a self-contained world that keeps workers tethered. The average worker makes about $400-700 US dollars per month, but then has about $120 of that deducted for housing and food.
This is nothing more than slavery. These workers are prisoners and are being forced to work under penalty of being accused of a “worker contract breach,” which can result in criminal penalties like having social credit scores reduced, and are held there purely by economic slavery means.
The pictures of modern cities with great conditions are the result of the “owners” of the factories living large from the profits of these Chinese sweatshops. In places like Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing, Chengdu, and Hangzhou, the living standards can look — and often are — comparable to those in developed countries:
Modern skylines, clean public transit, high-speed rail, cashless payments everywhere.
A large urban middle class with apartments, cars, good schools, and consumer lifestyles.
Tech professionals, designers, engineers, and businesspeople can earn salaries on par with or higher than those in some Western cities (adjusted for cost of living).
Poverty in these urban centers has become rare, and many people live comfortably by global standards.
Prosperity is not universal. China’s growth model has relied on hundreds of millions of migrant workers from rural areas who move to cities for factory or construction work.
These workers often earn 2,000–4,000 RMB/month (≈ US$280–560).
Many live in dormitories or shared housing to save money.
They often lack urban residency rights (hukou), which limits access to public schools, healthcare, and social benefits.
For them, life can still feel precarious and exhausting, with long hours, low pay, little time off. It’s not “slave labor” in the legal sense (they’re paid and can leave), but it’s often wage labor under intense pressure — especially in export manufacturing and gig economy jobs.
The city life you see in those posts is not the reality for the overwhelming majority of people in China. Of course, China claims prosperity. China officially declared an end to extreme poverty in 2020 — meaning almost no one lives below the UN standard of $2.15/day. Uh, so their claim to a workers’ paradise is that no one makes less than $2.15 a day.
The modern Chinese city is real — but it doesn’t represent everyone’s experience. Less than 1% of China’s population lives in those gorgeous cities in nice buildings.
Region
Quintile
Per-Capita Income (RMB)
Approx. USD
Urban
Lowest 20%
18,000
≈ $2,500
Urban
Highest 20%
113,750
≈ $16,250
Urban
Highest 1%
515,000
≈ $70,000
Rural
Lowest 20%
5,400
≈ $775
Rural
Highest 20%
53,800
≈ $7,700
Imagine working 72 hours per week and making $2,500 per year. The fact that the AVERAGE wage for a rural peasant is around $1200 per year, you know why you don’t see many pictures of rural life in China. As I said, the US did this in the era of sweatshops during the early 20th century. Workers were locked in factories that had no fire escapes, forced to work long hours for low pay, and child labor was the norm. Workplace injury and death were fairly common, while the rich owners lived in absolute luxury. Life for the rich people that owned the factories was pure splendor. See the difference between first class and steerage class on the Titanic for an example.
This isn’t anything new. Anyhow, this post has been long enough, and I think I’ve made my point.
They called EMS. It took EMS an hour and 28 minutes to arrive.
When they got to the hospital, the ambulance had to wait 30 minutes to offload their patient
There was a Four hour wait to see a doctor who ordered a CT scan
Another hour to get the CT
yet another hour to get the results and confirm that the woman had had a stroke
My iPhone log tells me I called 999 at 10.51am. My mum was finally settled in a bed on a ward at 1.30am the next day. All in all, it had indeed taken almost 15 hours between me reporting the symptoms of a stroke in my mother, to her receiving the correct care for it.
At the end of it all, they had to pay out of pocket to see a private specialist. The issue is that by then, it is too late and the damage from the stroke is mostly permanent. Free healthcare, my ass.
Now let’s contrast that with the US:
Here in the US, an ALS ambulance arrives in 10 minutes or less 80% of the time (that is the standard). Still, the average 911 call to arrival at the hospital is 36 minutes in the US.
From hitting the door, patients have 10 minutes to see a doctor.
15 minutes to see the stroke team. (every nurse in my ED is certified by the NIH as a stroke team member)
Door to CT time is 25 minutes.
Door to results of the CT being reported is 45 minutes.
Door to needle time (time from entering the hospital until receiving clot busting drugs) 60 minutes.
My hospital beats every one of those metrics. The times I have given tNK or tPA were less than half of that. When someone with these symptoms enters our facility, the CT is done as quickly as we can move them to the CT room. The doctor and the ED stroke team are nearly instant. Our door to needle time is 27 minutes, on average.
A couple of people made comments to my post on earning my MBA. I did it for a number of reasons-
At nearly 60 years old, I go home at night with a sore back, feet, and legs. I was upset about being forced to take unpaid training, and other things. I am a huge proponent of this:
If you are unhappy with your job, you have two choices: you can improve your worth and get a better job, or you can bitch about it and become miserable.
I decided to do something about it, I thought long and hard about what I wanted, and how I needed to get there. I went back to school to get a master’s degree- a business one. Getting an MSN would not change things, but an MBA would qualify me for management or at least an administrative position.
That’s great advice for anyone- if you don’t like your job, what are you doing to better yourself? How are you going to move forward? You can complain, or you can DO something about it. Which plan is more likely to get you what you want?
Exciting news- As of today, I am an MBA-holding graduate. I have completed my MBA. I have requested a meeting with hospital administration concerning my future with the hospital. Ever since I let it be known that I am looking for work and have an MBA, a BSN, and multiple board certifications, recruiters have been blowing up my email with pitches about why I should work for them. I have agreed to six different meetings with the administrators of other hospitals in the coming two weeks.
I am going into that meeting with my hospital’s admin holding all of the cards. I’m going to attempt to leverage this into a major opportunity. Big changes coming.
The case bears similarity to that of former nurse Niels Högel, who was handed a life sentence in 2019 after he was convicted of murdering 85 patients at two hospitals in northern Germany. He is believed to be the most prolific killer in Germany’s modern history.
He calls himself the “collector” and hates them, even though he was never a slave, he doesn’t know anyone who ever was a slave, and that family he hates so much? None of them ever owned slaves, or ever knew anyone who ever did. He even admits that the family he hates so much is broke.
This is class envy- blacks hate you and want you dead.
