What’s Going On with New York’s Migrant Problem?

THE arrival of new migrants has pushed the population of New York City's shelters to record levels and has stretched services past their capacity. Already, the city has 84,526 homeless people, including 27,530 children, the highest levels since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Yet it’d appear there is no mechanism how to stop the influx. Since tens of thousands of migrants began arriving in the city, Mayor Eric Adams has searched for one place after another to house them.

       A year after, some of the Mayor’s appointees resigned and current officials are still scrambling to house them. News adds that rows of cots inside school gymnasiums are set up, busing some people to the northern suburbs and suspending the normal review process for the opening of new shelters.

       Other media accounts: “The migrant crisis in New York City is reaching a breaking point, with some asylum seekers now being forced to sleep on the streets. In midtown Manhattan, asylum seekers are sleeping on the sidewalks outside the Roosevelt Hotel, which is now a migrant processing center for city shelters.” 🏦🏃🏦

NEW York Times: “Migrant Crisis, a ‘Time Bomb’ for Democrats, Poses Test for Hochul.” / “New York Plans to Convert Parts of Midtown Manhattan to Housing.” Gov. Kathy Hochul’s role in responding to an influx of migrants to New York has put her in an uncomfortable and politically delicate position in recent weeks. In the city, Mayor Eric Adams announced plans to rezone manufacturing areas south of Times Square and allow more office buildings to be converted to housing.

       Meanwhile, the Democratic Party’s loudest mouth in NY, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a.k.a. has other priorities. Such as this: An Instagram video in which she told her 1.5 million followers that “U.S. sunscreens are far behind the rest of the world,” adding, “We deserve better here in the U.S.”

Okay, then. 🗽🤨🗽

OTHER news: “Scathing Letter Reveals Tension Among New York Democrats Over Migrant Crisis.” And adds: “The letter, responding to New York City’s list of demands for state help, said the city had already rebuffed some of the state’s offers and had been slow to aid migrants.” New York has the 2nd biggest federal funding, and hosts the world’s most number of billionaires. What to do? Gov. Hochul, Mayor Adams, and AOC? Blame George Santos maybe? 

       At least the shamed rep from the state’s 3rd congressional district would probably calm New Yorkers down with a stunning revelation that his BFF Bruce Wayne bought some abandoned buildings at Long Island City and acres of land in Hudson to accommodate migrants. Not far-fetched. Lie, that is.  

       Anyhow, we don’t really know what’s up with New York’s leadership, Democrat or Republican. Last I read, Gov. Hochul's hubby benefited from a business deal because of you know why. A year or so ago, she lavished sports-crazy New York with proposals to build new billion$ sports arenas. Meantime, the Manhattan DA looks into Mayor Adams' "circle of support," among other Netflix worthy plotlines. And AOC per The Guardian: “Sunscreen socialism: AOC divides the left with call for better skincare options.” At least, this one is funnier than George, for the time being. 🗽🏃‍♀️🏃

MORE News: “A New York City Migrant Contractor Faces Scrutiny in Sexual Assault Cases.” The city gave DocGo contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to care for migrants. Now it faces problems. Nonstop problems. Gotham City is indeed in a deep, deep funk. Issues, issues. Meanwhile, Mayor Eric Adams said it costs the city $383 a night per migrant family. It's projected that NYC will spend $3.6 billion a year, but that's only at the current rate. 

       And: “Mayor Adams Says Migrant Influx Will Cost New York City $12 Billion.” And adds: “As newcomers continue to arrive in the hundreds each week, the city increased its estimate for how much it will cost to house them.” Do they nonchalantly cross the border? Nearly 500 migrants enter NYC each day. The city is serving more than 90,000 asylum seekers who have arrived since last spring, on top of more than 54,800 still in the city's care. Absurd. 🗽🏃‍♀️🏃

Photo credits: National Geographic. WGRZ.

China’s Geographical (Trade) Expansionism.

ASSOCIATED Press: “Courts: Florida ban on property purchases by citizens of China and some other countries is challenged." Long before Sinophobia engulfed 21st century or the internet universe, we Filipinos were already thrust on a Chinese world of land acquisitions. One day, they moved in the `hood with a hardware shop and convenience store, next they owned the entire block. These days, they lord over giant malls, the size of a small town, all over the archipelago, and more. But that is the Chinese way, always been. 

        China's expansionism isn't military. But sheer economics. 

        In all, Chinese companies have gained control of 6.48 million hectares of land devoted to agriculture, forestry and mining around the world from 2011 to 2020, mostly in Asia and Africa. That figure dwarfs the combined hectares controlled by the British, Americans, and Japanese. 

       Fact is, China has been buying lands since the 1970s at the early stages of Deng Xiaoping's "open door" policy. The combined area of land purchased or leased by Chinese companies over the past decade is equal to the total land area of Sri Lanka or Lithuania and much larger than acquisitions by their counterparts in the U.S. and other major countries, according to Land Matrix, a European land monitoring organization. 

       For example, Chinese companies are heavily involved in banana cultivation in Myanmar. Banana exports from Myanmar soared 250 times from $1.5 million in 2013 to $370 million in 2020. In the southern Vietnamese province of Binh Phuoc, China's New Hope Liuhe, a leading Chinese livestock company, bought a 75-hectare plot of land developed in 2019. Amid soaring timber prices, a Chinese company, Wan Peng, has been shipping large quantities of timber from Congo to China. Chinese companies are also buying mines. China Minmetals invested $280 million in Tanzania in 2019, and China Non-Ferrous Metal Mining poured $730 million into a mining operation in Guinea in 2020.

       The Chinese land acquisitions within the soy sector in Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia are also widespread. China bought as much as 71 percent of Argentina's soybean production in 2013, and. 4.95 percent of Brazil's the following year. ⛰🏝🇨🇳

MEANWHILE, true. China owns 380,000 acres of land in the U.S. Should that worry Americans? Not really. Chinese-owned lands in the U.S. are far less than what Canada, Netherlands, Italy, the U.K. and Germany, in that order, each own. China is #18 on the list of foreign investors in the United States, believe it or not. 

      But China’s rise — coupled with its geopolitical heft and its strategic goals that are sometimes at odds with Washington’s — has raised questions over who owns this land and how much control the Chinese government has over the ownership. Or is paranoia borned out of historical Sinophobia? Or anti-Chinese sentiment is a fear or dislike of China, Chinese people or Chinese culture. ⛰🏝🇨🇳

Homelessness in America.

NEW York Times: “Federal Policy on Homelessness Becomes New Target of the Right.” And adds: “The approach known as Housing First has long enjoyed bipartisan support. But conservatives are pushing efforts to replace it with programs that put more emphasis on sobriety and employment.” What is wrong with sobriety and employment? Come on, now. That isn’t a “conservative” take but a primal sense of maturity and grownup responsibility. 

       Let’s look at “homelessness” in countries with diverse cultural facts and economic well-being. Iceland, Japan, Thailand, Costa Rica, Chile, and Ghana have the lowest rate of homelessness in the world. 

       According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), there are around 582,000 Americans experiencing homelessness in 2022. And over 11,000 homeless shelters nationwide. 

       Shelters are not a fact in other countries but lack/shortage of employment yet homelessness isn’t a national crisis or local level issue. In the U.S., drive around, what we see are “We are hiring!” signs. On a larger context, it is so confounding that America has so much money tossed to a war elsewhere while numbers of the homeless in our midst continue to soar. 🚶‍♀️🚶🛖

NEW York Times: “With Pandemic Aid Ending, Vermont’s Homeless Are Forced From Hotels.” Hotels are emptied of about 2,800 homeless people living there as part of a pandemic-era program — and offering them tents — after federal funding ran out. While White House keeps on trumpeting employment highs. Confounding. Meanwhile, more than 200,000 migrants “freely” cross the southern border monthly since Jan 2021. Yet politics seem unable to stop the surge. 

       As the number of homeless citizens spikes in major cities, border breaches seem unabated. In April, there were 211,401 alien encounters along the Southwest Border, up almost 10 percent from the previous month and up nearly 20 percent from April 2021. 

       In FY 2021, a record 122,000 children were taken into U.S. custody without their parents. Why without their parents? Of course, you know why. Yet the issue stays as is. A partisanship theater of murkthrow. 🚶‍♀️🚶🛖

<>Electric Cars and China.

NEW York Times: “The U.S. Needs Minerals for Electric Cars. Everyone Else Wants Them Too.” And adds: “The United States is entering an array of agreements to secure the critical minerals necessary for the energy transition, but it’s not clear which of the arrangements can succeed.” 

       To run, EVs require six times the mineral input, by weight, of conventional vehicles. These minerals are needed and America’s push for “climate change” autos is hobbled by impending shortage of those valuable thingies, which the U.S. doesn’t have much. Importation is imperative.  

       What are those? Cobalt, nickel, lithium and manganese. But mining and processing them can be harmful for workers, their communities and the local environment. Here are the top 5 cobalt producers by country: Democratic Republic of Congo, Russia, Australia, Canada, and the Philippines. Nickel: Indonesia, Philippines, Russia. Lithium: Chile, Australia, Argentina, China. Within Europe, Portugal has smaller quantities of the valuable raw material. Manganese: South Africa, China, Australia, Gabon.

       Leading U.S. electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla gets most of its lithium from China’s Ganfeng Lithium. At the end of 2021, Tesla inked a fresh three year lithium supply deal with the top lithium producer. News: “Can the World Make an Electric Car Battery Without China?” And adds: “From mines to refineries and factories, China began investing decades ago. Today, most of your electric car batteries are made in China and that’s unlikely to change soon.”       

And then we talk, again, of Foxconn, main manufacturer of top U.S. technology giants, mainly Apple Inc. Taiwan-owned Foxconn has 12 factories in China, including the largest in Shenzhen province. Main supplier of Foxconn’s silicon (for microchips) is, of course, China. 🚕🔋🚙

Poverty. Crime. Jobs. In America.

NEWS months ago. New York Times: “New Orleans Mayor Moves Past Failed Recall Effort, but Unease Persists.” And adds: “LaToya Cantrell remains in office, but frustration among residents has continued to spread as crime remains high and basic services sputter.” The Big Easy though, compared with other states, isn’t the prime of unease. Poorest is Detroit; most crime-infested, St. Louis; highest unemployment rate, Nevada at 5.5 percent. NO isn’t even in the Top 10 in those categories. 

       News has a way at singling out certain targets and then blurs the larger picture. Detroit is the poorest city in the United States with a median income of $27,838. Poverty rate, 37.9 percent; unemployment rate, 19.8 percent. Joblessness in this famous Michigan city is the highest of anywhere else in the nation and more than five times higher than the national unemployment rate. 

       New Orleans isn’t even in the top ten poorest. The rest: Cleveland, Dayton OH), Hartford CT, Rochester NY, Newark NJ, Jackson MS, Syracuse NY, Birmingham AL, and Springfield MA.

Ten highest crime cities in the United States? St. Louis, Detroit, Baltimore, Memphis, Little Rock, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Albuquerque. No NO. 

       In June 2023, Nevada and the District of Columbia had the highest unemployment rates of any state in the United States. The unemployment rate in Nevada was 5.4 percent, and 5.1 percent in the District of Columbia. California also had a high unemployment rate, reaching 4.6 percent during the same time period. Louisiana is not in the Top 10. 🗽🇺🇸🗽

Photo credit: NPR.

<>China Stuff.

DURING the Chinese Communist Party's 100th year anniversary in July 2021, Xi Jinping reiterated China's "Common Prosperity" ideal in several speeches. Ushered by then Chairman Mao Zedong in 1953, “Common Prosperity” stated a goal to bolster social equality and economic equity. Easily, the political slogan meant collective ownership. In the 1970s, ensuing leader Deng Xiaoping modified it as collective entrepreneurial sense leading to open-door policy. But some could get rich before others. 

       Then 21st century strode in. China and the United States, or CCP chief Jiang Zemin and President Bill Clinton, signed a defining trade pact in 2000, which paved the way for Beijing to enter the World Trade Organization as MFN (most favored nation) the following year. And we know how stuff all went down following that year. China soared as the world’s #2 economy, behind the U.S. 

       And so under the leadership of Xi Jinping, Common Prosperity gained large-scale prominence, yet again redefined as more equal distribution of income, but also saying that it is not uniform egalitarianism. Egalitarianism is the doctrine that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities.    Clearly, Xi’s definition of the word is exclusively Chinese, which many of us outside the Great Wall are unable to fully comprehend. 🇨🇳🇨🇳🇨🇳

MEANWHILE, according to data from Forbes, the United States has the highest number of billionaires in the world with a total of 724 billionaires. This is followed by China with 698 billionaires and India with 237 billionaires. Although Statista and the Hurun Global Rich List 2023 say, China housed the highest number of billionaires worldwide in 2023. In detail, there were 969 billionaires living in China. By comparison, 691 billionaires resided in the United States. (Take note as well that China’s population is 4x larger than the U.S.) 

       And so in 2021 as The Dragon contemplated, Xi reminded the 1.4 billion Chinese that individual wealth has been "uncontrollable" in the last two decades, at least. But there must be a way to level some discrepancies somehow. 

       What followed: Alibaba, one of the world's largest retailers and e-commerce companies, donated $15.5 billion to the program. Another tech giant Tencent, doubled the money. Etc etcetera. Total donations by China’s 49 top philanthropists rose to a record $10 billion, while the top 10 gave away 6.3 percent of their combined wealth. Most of the money will go toward rural revitalization and helping grow earnings for low-income groups. And China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative. 

       By the way, China’s super-rich technology sector are private corporations. Most of major industries are state-owned. 🇨🇳🇨🇳🇨🇳

THE Belt and Road Initiative a.k.a. New Silk Road is a global infrastructure development strategy adopted by the Chinese government in 2013 to invest in more than 150 countries and international organizations. It is considered a centerpiece of Xi Jinping's foreign policy. 

       Hence, post-Covid, China eases up on its manufacturing mojo to focus on BRI investments globally and upgrade of countryside life, a continuum of "Four Modernizations" that Deng Xiaoping started in the 1970s. 

       The Four Modernizations were goals formally announced by China's first Premier Zhou Enlai to strengthen the fields of agriculture, industry, defense, and science and technology in China. The strategy was adopted as a means of rejuvenating China's economy in 1977, following the death of Mao, and later were among the defining features of Deng’s tenure as the paramount leader. In those years, China (quietly) bought tracts of lands in four corners of the globe. 

       Meantime, China has also loaned out (via its 4 state owned banks) $1.5 trillion in direct loans and trade credits to many countries in the past 10 years before Covid. These countries are unable to heed repayments due to the pandemic obvious and then the Ukraine War happened. (Remember as well that China holds $1+ trillion of US national debt as well.) 

       But China as China prepared for these. 🇨🇳🇨🇳🇨🇳

DESPITE China’s stature as #6 in oil production, it doesn't sell/export its oil, instead the Chinese buy as the world's #1 oil importer. No brainer. But a prolonged war isn't good for China as the shudder affects ongoing BRI projects and countryside development, as well as Beijing FDIs scattered all over the globe. What about the gargantuan loans? Debtors, mostly low income economies, wouldn’t be able to issue repayments.  

       Many say, the Chinese majority are poor, anyways. There’d be disagreements on the word "poverty" because we in America define it per our sociocultural experience. China is a different world although glimpses of Western lifestyle can be seen in some cities. 

       Yet the fact is, Chinese visitors are a major tourism moneymaker in many cities globally. And Chinese investors and business owners are all over, many as young as 17 year olds. But if we visit Chinese countryside, we'd see traditional life, which we may say "poor." That is more Han Buddhism/traditionalism than Chinese socialism. 

       But I can't dispute the fact that they are a lot happier than most Americans. Example: China ranks #3 as the country with the largest pet dog population but on festivities, fireworks are all for fun. No reason to get depressed, irate, or sad. Dogs out there enjoy the crazy noise and insane dragon dance fanfare. Need I say that the Chinese of 600 to 900 A.D. manufactured fireworks from saltpeter (potassium nitrate), charcoal, sulfur and other ingredients such as herbs? It was first known as “black powder.” Which the Western saw and turned into gunpowder. But that’d be another subject to discuss and blog. 🇨🇳🇨🇳🇨🇳

GEOPOLITICS: Ukraine, Russia, United States, E.U., NATO, and a war that has to end.

INVASION: An unwelcome intrusion into another's domain. Inhuman, unlawful, evil. Yet it’d offer current events clarity to look back to where/when the armed hostilities started. By doing so, we would see some sense in knowing more about geopolitical power play and the forces involved, and why. 

       First, let’s go to 2014: Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, then part of Ukraine. In that year, NATO allies agreed to halt the cuts they made after the Cold War ended. National military budgets were upgraded, and moved toward spending 2 percent of GDP on defense by 2024. With that target date closing in, and the biggest land war in Europe in decades ravaging Ukraine, NATO is expected to commit to a new budget goal.

       Vladimir Putin said that Russian troops in the Crimean peninsula were aimed "to ensure proper conditions for the people of Crimea to be able to freely express their will," whilst Ukraine and other nations argue that such intervention is a violation of Ukraine's sovereignty. And so on and so forth. 

THEN there’s the war in Donbas. The coal-rich Ukrainian region was already crushed by war since 2014, at least, as part of the broader Russo-Ukrainian War. Russian-backed separatists versus the Ukrainian military. Armed hostilities were still at it until it was subsumed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Yet the world never really paid attention with Donbas, although the oblast turned into ruins and rubble with almost 15,000 dead as of 2021.

       Clearly, conflict between Russia and Ukraine is deep. You may google more history before 2014, including the Chernobyl disaster in Kyiv in 1986. Yet per natural gas export, the two countries somehow found reason to sit for mutual profit. Approximately 80 percent of natural gas that Russia sends to the E.U. used to pass through Ukraine territory. Moscow then paid Kyiv billions$ as transit tax for the passage. 

       Then came the unresolved “gas dispute” between Moscow’s Gazprom and Kyiv’s Naftogaz, dating back to 2008. These disputes have grown beyond simple business disagreements into transnational political issues—involving political leaders from several countries—that threaten natural gas supplies in numerous European countries dependent on natural gas imports from Russian suppliers. Repeat: Russia provides approximately a quarter of the natural gas consumed in the European Union.

       During this conflict, Russia claimed Ukraine was not paying for gas, but diverting that which was intended to be exported to the EU from the pipelines. Ukrainian officials at first denied the accusation, but later Naftogaz admitted that because of harsh winter (lower than minus 30C) some natural gas intended for other European countries was retained and used for domestic needs. Etc etcetera. 

NORD Stream 2, which is mainly funded by Russia, was nearing completion when the war broke out in early last year. NS 2 was half-Moscow funded and the other half by 4 European utility/energy giants Uniper, Wintershall Dea, OMV, Engie, and Royal Dutch Shell. The pipeline negates Ukraine. Moscow’s natural gas would instead pass by the Baltic Sea onto Western Europe to Germany. 

       Russia’s business rivals, mainly U.S. corporate giants, loudly sounded that Nord Stream 2 was Russia’s tactic to (politically) rule Europe via its massive fuel exports. The U.S. was only #4 in fuel (gas and oil, or either) export in E.U. that time.  

       By now, we know how stuff went down. Meanwhile, due to perennial double-digit unemployment in Ukraine, around 4 million Ukrainians used to work in Russia before the war. 

NEWS: “How NATO's expansion helped drive Putin to invade Ukraine.” I don’t sincerely believe that Vladimir Putin will to invade Ukraine. A major reason was China inked a $117 billion oil deal with Russia, on a discount, a week or so before the war. The summer before, China also signed a $400 billion oil deal with Iran. Take note that prior to all these, Saudi Arabia was China’s top importer. Yes, China is world’s #1 oil importer. As we  know it by now, these three giants are BFFs. With BRICS buddy India, priority of these “emerging economies” is economy, and war–especially prolonged war–easily derails economic activity.

       China’s purchase of oil and major commodities from Russia totaled $88.3 billion in 2022. Although Russia isn’t China’s top importer, overall. What I am saying is, a war that is expected to shudder the global market because Russia is involved, would adversely affect China’s business, especially financial investments and contractual cooperation with 147 countries via Belt and Road Initiative projects. Meanwhile, as of 2022, China has sunk almost $68 billion on BRI, which is of course a modest estimate. This: China has loaned $900+ billion to 151 lower-income countries before Feb 2022. 

       Why would the CCP want a war? Doesn’t make an iota of sense to the intensely trade-minded Chinese. 

BACK to NATO and Russia. Boris Yeltsin in 1991 in Helsinki: "We believe that the eastward expansion of NATO is a mistake and a serious one at that," the ex-Russian post-Cold War president said. "Nevertheless, in order to minimize the negative consequences for Russia, we decided to sign an agreement with NATO." Those agreements included an array of security and economic issues, including further sharp reductions in the two nations’ nuclear arsenals.

       In the most ambitious accord, the two countries agreed in principle to negotiate a new arms control treaty that over the next decade would reduce the number of deployed strategic warheads by about a third from the levels agreed to.

       How would arms control work if a huge military alliance continues to expand? What is the sense in that? Remember, Russia dissolved the Warsaw Pact, NATO’s counterpart in Eastern Europe, alongside dissolution of the USSR and end of Cold War in 1991. 

       However, to Kremlin’s dismay, NATO further expanded, adding the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland (1999), Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia (2004), Albania and Croatia (2009), Montenegro (2017), North Macedonia (2020), and Finland (2023). 

WHY Ukraine is important?

       Ukraine, as the largest former Soviet republic in Europe besides Russia itself, has been a key part of alliance talks since it declared independence from the USSR in 1991. In the three decades since, NATO expansion has put four members on Ukraine's borders.

       Putin himself has long said that he believes Ukrainians and Russians to be a single people, unified by language, culture and religion. In July 2021, he wrote a long essay about the "historical unity" between the two nations. Before the war, there are 5.8 million Ukrainians living in Russia; 8.3 million Russians in Ukraine. Easily, they are kin, pretty much like the Chinese in the Mainland and in Taiwan.  

       For the U.S. and its Western allies, a successful and independent Ukraine was a potent potential symbol that Russia's time as a powerful empire had come to an end, political watchers say. A NATO membership would have sealed it? Maybe.  

       Meanwhile, in April, Finland joined NATO in a major blow to Russia. Sweden’s accession seems imminent. However, on Ukraine’s requested admission into NATO, President Joe Biden told CNN in an interview: “I don’t think it’s ready for membership.” Or the West isn’t ready to 101 percent infuriate the Kremlin? 

       NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg adds there’s no timetable set for Ukraine’s membership. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy blasted the organization’s failure to set a timetable for his country’s admission as “absurd.” 

       While it’s not on the agenda, NATO hopes that Belarus, Lithuania’s big neighbor, and Russia’s main backer, will not do some surprise moves. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said in June that his country has received Russian tactical nuclear weapons.

       Despite all these, Western countries are still willing to keep sending weapons to help Ukraine do the job that NATO was designed to do — hold the line against a Russian invasion. Why not just end the war? The United States has forwarded $75 billion (out of $113 billion approved by Congress) of taxpayer’s money to Ukraine, as of end of 2022. The European Union has given $35 billion, so far. NATO members actually committed at least 75.2 billion euros (or $80.5bn) in financial, humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine between January 24 and November 20, 2022.

       Yet darkness still shrouds the glade. As I end this post, Russia’s threat to pull out of the Ukraine grain deal raises fears about global food security. And more movements of valuable merch, fuel, and products are shuddered. At this juncture, major global businesses are competing for gargantuan profit. Sure. But if this monstrous idiocy goes on, it is not just China’s BRI or FDIs or India’s shrewd trade juggling would suffer big. Peoples of the world are easy victims, of course. And I am not talking about a full-blown world war either. (Despite my fears, I am not that paranoid.) 

       But Western powers don’t seem to care. Sad and tragic. ☮️☮️☮️

Photo credits: Futures Platform. 360info. Geopolitika.hu