5월 7일

 

《北风那个吹》 북풍은 그렇게 불었다

이 드라마는 까오만탕高满堂이 극복을 쓰고, 夏雨、闫妮 등이 주연을 했다. 이 드라마와 또 아래에 소개하는 드라마는 극작가 까오만탕의 자서전적인 요소가 강하다. 이 드라마는 만주의 지칭知青들을 다룬 것이고, 아래에 소개하는 것은 사범대학 시절의 경험을 다룬 것인데, 까오만탕이 모두 젊은 시절 겪었던 일이다.

 

작가 자신이 경험하거나 주변에서 보고 들은 얘기라 드라마가 호소력이 강하다. 우선 지칭이란 문혁 당시, 모택동의 명령으로 농촌에 하방된 중고생들을 가리킨다. 드라마에서 주연인 夏雨(시아위)는 만주에서 지칭, 또는插队(차뚜이)  생활을 하고 있고, 이미 刘青(류칭)이라는 같은 도래의 여성과도 연애관계에 있었다. 그런데 이들 지칭들의 대장인 牛鲜花(뉴시엔화)가 나타나고, 그녀가 지적인 시아위를 짝사랑하면서 문제가 발생하기 시작한다.

 

후에 시아위가 환자가 되어 고향에 돌아가고 싶은 마음에 사고를 일으켰다가, 정말로 바보가 되는 상황이 벌어지면서 애인이었던 류칭이 떠나고, 시아위와 뉴시엔화가 결합된다. 그리고 이어서 중국 개방 이후로까지 이야기가 계속된다.

 

10점 만점에 10점.

 

 

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《雪花那个飘》

눈꽃은 그렇게 휘날렸다

 

이 드라마는 약시 까오만탕의 극본으로 만들어졌고, 1977년 중국에서 우리의 대입시험인 까오카오가 부활된 이후, 처음으로 사범대학에 합격한 학생들의 4년간의 학창 생활을 그리고 있다. 당시 사범대학에서 일어난 갖가지 에피소드들을 작가가 모아 놓았다고 생각하면 된다.

 

당시 중국의 사범대의 풍경과 젊은이들의 생각, 사랑과 우정 등을 엿볼 수 있는 드라마이고, 우리들의 젊은 시절을 함께 회상할 수 있는 드라마이기도 하다.

 

참고로 위 두 드라마의 제목은 당시 유행하던 노래의 가사이기도 하다. 10점 만점에 10 점.

 

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《错爱》

<잘못된 사랑>은 까오만탕의 초기작에 속한다. 이 드라마는 70년대를 배경으로 외과의사인 谢季文과 그의 아내 张玫, 그리고

간호사인 周佳丽의 갈등을 그린 것이데, 잘못된 사랑이 가정을 파괴하는 과정을 자세히 그려서, 여성 시청자들의 감정을 빨아들인다. 남편의 외도 사실을 알고 상대녀인 간호사를 죽이려다 아내가 잡혀서 감옥에 가고, 남은 아이들이 계모 아래에서 갖은 고생을 하게 된다. 요즘 한국의 막장 드라마와 비슷하게 시청자들을 끌어당기는 이야기의 힘이 있다.

   

여기에서 남자 주인공인 冯远征(펑위엔정)은 그렇게 큰 역할을 하지 않지만, 나중에 중국 드라마의 주요 주연배우가 된다.

 

10점 만점에 9점.

참고로, 까오만탕은 처음에는 소설을 쓰다가 극작가로 돌아선 사람인데, 그가 쓰는 드라마가 히트를 치면서 중국에서는 황금팔을 지닌 사람이라고 불린다. 그는 경제적으로도 크게 성공한 작가이다. 그의 고향은 산동성이고, 그의 조부 대(?)에 만주 지역으로 이주해왔다고 알려졌다. 그래서 그의 드라마에 보면 산동성에 대한 애착이 있다. 현재는 따리엔 시에서 창작활동을 하고 있다.

 

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 it 기업
가짜 뉴스가 기업에 좋은지 나쁜지 우리가 결정한다.


매체 소비자
무엇이 가짜 뉴스인지 결정하는 일은 우리에게 달린 것 같은데.

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NassimNicholasTaleb

 

IYIs, Intellectuals Yet Idiots, favor things that work in theory but not in practice to things that work in practice but not in theory.

 

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제로 금리나 마이너스 금리는 문명을 파괴한다.

마이너스 금리는 거품을 만들고 있고, 마침내는 경제적 파탄에 이르게 될 것이다.

마이너스 금리의 다음 순서는 현금의 말살이다. 하지만 그렇게 되면 재정적인 사적 비밀은 사라지게 된다.

또한 언어의 혼란 역시 문명의 타락을 촉진하고 있다.

 

 

Doug Casey On The End Of Western Civilization

 

 

Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,

 

 

 

Nick Giambruno: The decline of Western Civilization is on a lot of people’s minds.

 

Let’s talk about this trend.

 

Doug Casey: Western Civilization has its origins in ancient Greece. It’s unique among the world’s civilizations in putting the individual—as opposed to the collective—in a central position. It enshrined logic and rational thought—as opposed to mysticism and superstition—as the way to deal with the world. It’s because of this that we have science, technology, great literature and art, capitalism, personal freedom, the concept of progress, and much, much more. In fact, almost everything worth having in the material world is due to Western Civilization.

 

Ayn Rand once said “East minus West equals zero.” I think she went a bit too far, as a rhetorical device, but she was essentially right. When you look at what the world’s other civilizations have brought to the party, at least over the last 2,500 years, it’s trivial.

 

I lived in the Orient for years. There are many things I love about it—martial arts, yoga, and the cuisine among them. But all the progress they’ve made is due to adopting the fruits of the West.

 

Nick Giambruno: There are so many things degrading Western Civilization. Where do we begin?

 

Doug Casey: It’s been said, correctly, that a civilization always collapses from within. World War 1, in 1914, signaled the start of the long collapse of Western Civilization. Of course, termites were already eating away at the foundations, with the writings of people like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx. It’s been on an accelerating downward path ever since, even though technology and science have been improving at a quantum pace. They are, however, like delayed action flywheels, operating on stored energy and accumulated capital. Without capital, intellectual freedom, and entrepreneurialism, science and technology will slow down. I’m optimistic we’ll make it to Kurzweil’s Singularity, but there are no guarantees.

 

Things also changed with the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. Before that, the US used gold coinage for money. “The dollar” was just a name for 1/20th of an ounce of gold. That is what the dollar was. Paper dollars were just receipts for gold on deposit in the Treasury. The income tax, enacted the same year, threw more sand in the gears of civilization. The world was much freer before the events of 1913 and 1914, which acted to put the State at the center of everything.

 

The Fed and the income tax are both disastrous and unnecessary things, enemies of the common man in every way. Unfortunately, people have come to believe they’re fixtures in the cosmic firmament. They’re the main reasons—there are many other reasons, though, unfortunately—why the average American’s standard of living has been dropping since the early 1970s. In fact, were it not for these things, and the immense amount of capital destroyed during the numerous wars of the last 100 years, I expect we’d have already colonized the moon and Mars. Among many other things…

 

But I want to re-emphasize that the science, the technology, and all the wonderful toys we have are not the essence of Western Civilization. They’re consequences of individualism, capitalism, rational thought, and personal freedom. It’s critical not to confuse cause and effect.

 

Nick Giambruno: You mentioned that the average American’s standard of living has dropped since the early 1970s. This is directly related to the US government abandoning the dollar’s last link to gold in 1971. Since then, the Federal Reserve has been able to debase the US dollar without limit.

 

I think the dollar’s transformation into a purely fiat currency has eroded the rule of law and morality in the US. It’s similar to what happened in the Roman Empire after it started debasing its currency.

 

What do you think, Doug?

 

Doug Casey: All the world’s governments and central banks share a common philosophy, which drives these policies. They believe that you create economic activity by stimulating demand, and you stimulate demand by printing money. And, of course, it’s true, in a way. Roughly the same way a counterfeiter can stimulate a local economy.

 

Unfortunately, they ignore that, and completely ignore that the way a person or a society becomes wealthy is by producing more than they consume and saving the difference. That difference, savings, is how you create capital. Without capital you’re reduced to subsistence, scratching at the earth with a stick. These people think that by inflating—which is to say destroying—the currency, they can create prosperity. But what they’re really doing, is destroying capital: When you destroy the value of the currency, that discourages people from saving it. And when people don’t save, they can’t build capital, and the vicious cycle goes on.

 

This is destructive for civilization itself, in both the long term and the short term. The more paper money, the more credit, they create, the more society focuses on finance, as opposed to production. It’s why there are many times more people studying finance than science. The focus is increasingly on speculation, not production. Financial engineering, not mechanical, electrical, or chemical engineering. And lots of laws and regulations to keep the unstable structure from collapsing.

 

What keeps a truly civil society together isn’t laws, regulations, and police. It's peer pressure, social opprobrium, moral approbation, and your reputation. These are the four elements that keep things together. Western Civilization is built on voluntarism. But, as the State grows, that’s being replaced by coercion in every aspect of society. There are regulations on the most obscure areas of life. As Harvey Silverglate pointed out in his book, the average American commits three felonies a day. Whether he’s caught and prosecuted is a subject of luck and the arbitrary will of some functionary. That’s antithetical to the core values of Western Civilization.

 

Nick Giambruno: Speaking of ancient civilizations like Rome, interest rates are about the lowest they’ve been in 5,000 years of recorded history. Trillions of dollars’ worth of government bonds trade at negative yields.

 

Of course, this couldn’t happen in a free market. It’s only possible because of central bank manipulation.

 

How will artificially low interest rates affect the collapse of Western Civilization?

 

Doug Casey: It’s really, really serious. I previously thought it was metaphysically impossible to have negative interest rates but, in the Bizarro World central banks have created, it’s happened.

 

Negative interest rates discourage saving. Once again, saving is what builds capital. Without capital you wind up as an empty shell—Rome in 450 A.D., or Detroit today—lots of wonderful but empty buildings and no economic activity. Worse, it forces people to desperately put their money in all manner of idiotic speculations in an effort to stay ahead of inflation. They wind up chasing the bubbles the funny money creates.

 

Let me re-emphasize something: in order for science and technology to advance you need capital. Where does capital come from? It comes from people producing more than they consume and saving the difference. Debt, on the other hand, means you’re living above your means. You’re either consuming the capital others have saved, or you’re mortgaging your future.

 

Zero and negative interest rate policies, and the creation of money out of nowhere, are actually destructive of civilization itself. It makes the average guy feel that he’s not in control of his own destiny. He starts believing that the State, or luck, or Allah will provide for him. That attitude is typical of people from backward parts of the world—not Western Civilization.

 

Nick Giambruno: What does it say about the economy and society that people work so hard to interpret what officials from the Federal Reserve and other central banks say?

 

Doug Casey: It’s a shameful waste of time. They remind me of primitives seeking the counsel of witch doctors. One hundred years ago, the richest people in the country—the Rockefellers, the Carnegies, and such—made their money creating industries that actually made stuff. Now, the richest people in the country just shuffle money around. They get rich because they’re close to the government and the hydrant of currency materialized by the Federal Reserve. I’d say it’s a sign that society in the US has become quite degraded.

 

The world revolves much less around actual production, but around guessing the direction of financial markets. Negative interest rates are creating bubbles, and will eventually result in an economic collapse.

 

Nick Giambruno: Negative interest rates are essentially a tax on savings. A lot of people would rather pull their money out of the bank and stuff it under a mattress than suffer that sting.

 

The economic central planners know this. It’s why they’re using negative interest rates to ramp up the War on Cash—the push to eliminate paper currency and create a cashless society.

 

The banking system is very fragile. Banks don’t hold much paper cash. It’s mostly digital bytes on a computer. If people start withdrawing paper money en masse, it won’t take much to bring the whole system down.

 

Their solution is to make accessing cash harder, and in some cases, illegal. That’s why the economic witch doctors at Harvard are pounding the table to get rid of the $100 bill.

 

Take France, for example. It’s now illegal to make cash transactions over €1,000 without documenting them properly.

 

Negative interest rates have turbocharged the War on Cash. If the central planners win this war, it would be the final deathblow to financial privacy.

 

How does this all relate to the collapse of Western Civilization?

 

Doug Casey: I believe the next step in their idiotic plan is to abolish cash. Decades ago they got rid of gold coinage, which used to circulate day to day in people’s pockets. Then they got rid of silver coinage. Now, they’re planning to get rid of cash altogether. So you won’t even have euros or dollars or pounds in your wallet anymore, or if you do, it will only be very small denominations. Everything else is going to have to be done through electronic payment processing.

 

This is a huge disaster for the average person: absolutely everything that you buy or sell, other than perhaps a candy bar or a hamburger, is going to have to go through the banking system. Thus, the government will be able to monitor every transaction and payment. Financial privacy, even what’s left of it today, will literally cease to exist.

 

Privacy is one of the big differences between a civilized society and a primitive society. In a primitive society, in your little dirt hut village, anybody can look through your window or pull back the flap on your tent. You have no privacy. Everybody can hear everything; see anything. This was one of the marvelous things about Western Civilization—privacy was valued, and respected. But that concept, like so many others, is on its way out…

 

Nick Giambruno: You’ve mentioned before that language and words provide important clues to the collapse of Western Civilization. How so?

 

Doug Casey: Many of the words you hear, especially on television and other media, are confused, conflated, or completely misused. Many recent changes in the way words are used are corrupting the language. As George Orwell liked to point out, to control language is to control thought. The corruption of language is adding to the corruption of civilization itself. This is not a trivial factor in the degradation of Western Civilization.

 

Words—their exact meanings, and how they’re used—are critically important. If you don’t mean what you say and say what you mean, then it’s impossible to communicate accurately. Forget about transmitting philosophical concepts.

 

Take for example shareholders and stakeholders. We all know that a shareholder actually owns a share in a company, but have you noticed that over the last generation shareholders have become less important than stakeholders? Even though stakeholders are just hangers-on, employees, or people who are looking to get in on a shakedown. But everybody slavishly acknowledges, “Yes, we’ve got to look out for the stakeholders.”

 

Where did that concept come from? It’s a recent creation, but Boobus americanus seems to think it was carved in stone at the country’s founding.

 

We’re told to protect them, as if they were a valuable and endangered species. I say, “A pox upon stakeholders.” If they want a vote in what a company does, then they ought to become shareholders. Stakeholders are a class of being created out of nothing by Cultural Marxists for the purpose of shaking down shareholders.

 

 

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위엔화가 심상치 않다. 평가절하가 있을지 모른다.

 

The Last Time This Happened, China Devalued

 

 

by Tyler Durden

 

May 6, 2017 7:30 PM

 

 

"It's quiet, too quiet", "the calm before the storm", "the deep breath before the plunge" - you name the idiom, there is nowhere it applies more than US equity markets (lowest closing range in 65 years).

 

However, if ever there was a catalyst for chaos, it is the collapse in uncertainty around the Chinese Yuan...

 

As Bloomberg notes, the eerie stability in the yuan is reminiscent of the period leading up to China’s unexpected currency devaluation in August 2015. The one-year implied volatility of the yuan has dropped to about 4.7 percent, from about 8 percent at the beginning of the year.

 

Investors should be worried: The surge in volatility triggered by the yuan’s sudden depreciation two years ago rippled across the world and set off a rout in equities and other risky assets.

 

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