#1398 - Sports and meetings

The US election took everyone by surprise.

Many media outlets were not very optimistic about Barack, and his poll support was not in the lead.

However, when the election results were announced, Barack secured 270 electoral votes, defeating his opponent by a very narrow margin to win re-election.

This result left everyone stunned.

Everyone was bearish on Barack, but he managed to win anyway.

With his successful re-election, Barack swept away the gloom and appeared high-spirited, delivering his victory speech.

Various media outlets began analyzing why Barack was able to win under such circumstances.

But before long, a major event occurred.

Thousands of protesters gathered in Manhattan, New York, attempting to occupy Wall Street, with some even bringing tents, vowing to persist for the long term. They organized themselves through the internet, aiming to turn Wall Street into Egypt's Tahrir Square.

The 'Occupy Wall Street' protests escalated, growing increasingly intense, with thousands of protesters even going to Washington, D.C. The 'Occupy Wall Street' movement quickly developed into a mass social movement sweeping across the United States.

To correspond with the 'Arab Spring' promoted by the United States, this movement was also known as the 'American Autumn'.

Among them were many unemployed young people, without jobs, yet burdened with high loan interest payments for their education.

Many chose to set up camp!

Faced with soaring housing, healthcare, and education prices, and persistently high inflation, while seeing banks receive massive bailouts and healthcare institutions and companies becoming the biggest beneficiaries over the past four years, while hundreds of thousands of people were being laid off or having their wages suspended, everyone's dissatisfaction was evident.

Most of the people involved were under 26 years old, along with university professors, engineers, and even former traders from the exchange, mostly white and middle-class.

In more than 50 major cities, including New York, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Denver, hundreds of thousands or even millions of people held up a variety of signs, with diverse demands. The main slogans included 'Protesting American politicians only care about corporate interests', 'Condemning financial giants for using money to buy politics', 'Calling for regaining influence over US political and economic decision-making', etc. In addition, environmental protection, human rights, and other issues also emerged.

Many Americans believe that the direction of social development has taken a fundamentally wrong turn, questioning whether the economic system no longer distributes the fruits equally to all levels of society.

Since Wall Street's irresponsible behavior caused the international financial crisis a few years ago, American society's criticism and condemnation of Wall Street has never ceased. Many Americans believe that government bailouts allowed Wall Street to avoid being punished for its own greed. Now, Wall Street has basically recovered, but it has failed to share the hardships with ordinary people, instead focusing on internal bonuses.

The direct trigger for 'Occupy Wall Street' was that Wall Street's big banks wanted to charge consumers higher account fees, thereby passing on the cost burden brought to banks by last year's financial regulatory reform law.

At the same time, the US economy continued to be weak, and the unemployment rate remained above 10% for many consecutive years. This was after revising the standards every year; otherwise, the unemployment rate would be even higher, leading to a large increase in the impoverished population. Today, the US poverty rate is 20.1%, and the impoverished population has reached 61.5 million, the highest since the Great Depression of 1929. At the same time, social wealth is highly concentrated in the hands of a few wealthy Americans represented by Wall Street.

Under these dire circumstances, Barack relied on strong support from African Americans and Latino illegal immigrants to win re-election by a narrow margin, directly enraging a large number of Americans.

And the arrogance of the American elite was fully revealed: 'Don't complain about Wall Street, don't complain about big banks. If you don't have a job and you're not rich, you can only blame yourself!'

Some American governors even openly stated that this is capitalism, and disaster relief and poverty alleviation are only things that socialists do.

It must be said that at this time, the two parties in the United States still had a consensus.

This protest storm sweeping across the United States was 'ignored' by the American media. Contrary to the American media's usual style of fearing that the world is not chaotic, they implemented a low-key approach. Major mainstream American media either turned a blind eye or downplayed it, which was completely different from their performance when similar events occurred in other countries.

When their own 'Wall Street Revolution' broke out, where did America's so-called 'freedom of the press' go?

The reality is that tens of thousands of Americans took to the streets, chanting slogans such as 'We are the 99%', 'Wall Street must be responsible for all crises', 'Get money out of elections', 'Jobs, not war', 'Revolution now', 'Rebuild America', targeting Wall Street's unbridled greed, the US government's irresponsible indulgence, and the difficult living conditions of the people.

Liu Tao shook his head as he looked at the related reports.

It must be said that the United States has its own unique national conditions.

Don't look at how grand and fierce it seems; in reality, there is no organization, let alone cohesion. It's like a plate of loose sand.

When similar movements occur in other countries, American politicians will invariably invoke slogans such as democracy, freedom, and human rights, waving flags, making comments, and seeking class interests. But when it comes to the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement of their own people, these politicians have a different face. In their mouths, the demonstrators are a group of 'losers', 'troublemakers', and 'thugs'.

Liu Tao took a helicopter to Sanya to attend the regional integration military conference.

The ASEAN Allied Forces have now entered the mid-stage of integration.

Now it's time to talk about the issue of each member state contributing military expenses!

The scale of the ASEAN Allied Forces was determined long ago. The ASEAN Allied Forces will be built into a rapid reaction force, integrating a total of 42 combined arms brigades and 2 combined arms divisions, totaling 500,000 land rapid reaction troops. The rapid reaction force will be mainly light combined arms brigades, supplemented by medium combined arms brigades, amphibious combined arms brigades, and air assault brigades!

The rapid reaction force mainly ensures the security of ASEAN!

As for the navy, it is composed of four aircraft carrier formations with four 001-type light aircraft carriers as the core, used to ensure maritime security.

The air force includes a large number of second-generation, second-and-a-half-generation fighters, and some third-generation fighters.

The military expenditure of the ASEAN Allied Forces naturally needs to be borne by the ASEAN countries.

And how much each member state contributes needs to be resolved in a meeting.

The military expenditure here naturally also includes the cost of eliminating old and weak equipment, retirement placement, and the cost of purchasing weapons and equipment.

Not to mention anything else, the ASEAN Allied Forces Air Force will gradually eliminate second-generation aircraft, and by 2020, all fighter jets will be composed of second-and-a-half-generation and third-generation fighters.

The cost of purchasing advanced fighter jets and the cost of air force airports and air force construction is not a small amount.

International opinion generally believes that a ratio of military expenditure to GDP between 2% and 4% is a relatively reasonable and safe range.

Everyone knows that a high military expenditure ratio has a great impact on the country's development. An increase in military expenditure means that investment in other fields may decrease, such as education, medical care, and infrastructure. The development of these fields is crucial for the country's long-term development and improvement of people's livelihoods. Therefore, a high military expenditure ratio may lead to an imbalance in the country's economic structure and even trigger social dissatisfaction and unrest.

After friendly consultations between all parties, the ratio of military expenditure to GDP that each country has to contribute is not 4%, nor 3%, but 2%!

That is, ASEAN countries will take 2% of their GDP each year as the military expenditure of the ASEAN Allied Forces.

This ratio is relatively low and relatively friendly to ASEAN countries.

It is also acceptable to all countries.

You should know that before the meeting, some countries thought that the ratio would be 10%, and even the most optimistic people thought it would be 5%.

No one thought that the final figure would be 2%.

How could this not make the ASEAN countries happy!

This also means that the region's defense and security are all handed over to the ASEAN Allied Forces, and all countries only need to work hard to develop the economy and improve people's livelihoods.

You should know that not long ago, the European Allied Forces set the ratio of military expenditure to GDP for each member state at 3.5%, and the ASEAN Allied Forces, which is also an allied force, has half the military expenditure ratio of the European Allied Forces.

How could this not make the ASEAN countries happy.

As for the ASEAN Allied Forces Headquarters and the command headquarters of various war zones, this is not too important, and professional teams will naturally solve it.

After the meeting, everyone happily attended the celebration banquet, which was held in the style of a state banquet, to entertain all parties.

At the end of the year, Liu Tao went to Hong Kong.

This annual regional integration conference was held in Hong Kong, and the scope of the conference was very wide, covering economy, politics, military, culture, and so on.

In addition to various political figures, there were also scholars, entrepreneurs, and so on.

For example, this time at the education conference, there was a proposal to focus on establishing several universities in Nanyang and to uniformly include the universities in the national college entrance examination enrollment.

The topic of education conferences has actually existed for several years.

In recent years, Nanyang has also been adjusting education, forming a similar education system, but in Nanyang, the proportion of public education is relatively small, and the proportion of private education is relatively large.

Nanyang is not without universities, such as the Singapore Institute of Technology, which is a relatively good university.

But it is clear that the overall strength of Nanyang's universities is relatively weak.

Whether to unify the national college entrance examination and uniformly include it in the national college entrance examination enrollment is a matter that must be carefully considered.

There are also issues such as people of different origins studying in various places.

Of course, there is also medical care. Nanyang's medical care is mainly private and supplemented by public. Whether to increase investment in public hospitals is also worth discussing.

Integration seems simple, but in fact, it involves all aspects, and there are countless problems that need to be solved.

Integration in the military field is relatively easy.

Of course, there are more subdivided fields. For example, in the film field, some filmmakers hope to break down the restrictions and obstacles in various places and completely form a unified film market, and box office statistics are not counted separately, but together.

The entire integration forms a large market. Even though economic integration is now nominally, it is more of a formal integration, such as using a unified currency, such as eliminating internal tariff barriers to achieve zero tariffs within the region, implementing unified tariffs externally, such as no visas, personnel flow within the region, and so on.

But there are also many problems that need to be solved.

Even the unification of laws needs time to do.

The regional integration conference, which lasted for a week, had a lot of hot topics, attracting a lot of attention.

For example, Singapore has been working hard in recent years to strive for Singapore to become the central city of Nanyang.

Once this goal is achieved, the benefits for Singapore will be self-evident. The benefits brought by the financial services industry alone are enough for Singaporeans to lie down and live a comfortable life.

In fact, located in the important strategic location of the Strait of Malacca, Singapore does have this opportunity, and it can completely become the central city of Nanyang.

Moreover, the proportion of Chinese in Singapore is now absolutely the vast majority, and the language is also Mandarin, but the text, like Hong Kong, uses traditional characters.

Throughout Nanyang, the proportion of Chinese in Singapore is the highest, far ahead.

This conference was finally approved, establishing Singapore as the regional central city of Nanyang, becoming a multi-functional central positioning of regional economic center, high-level scientific and technological innovation center, commercial and logistics center, and international exchange center.

This is definitely a major boon for Singapore.

To this day, the Strait of Malacca carries a quarter of global trade, and Singapore, as the crossroads of the Strait of Malacca, major banks need to set up branches in Singapore, which has spawned a large number of financial services, and Singapore has become an important financial center in the world.

But there is an important uncertainty in Singapore, which is this uncertainty, which makes there a lot of development uncertainty here.

Now, with Singapore being identified as the regional central city of Nanyang, all functional positioning is clear, which means that Singapore has changed from uncertainty to certainty, giving everyone a reassurance, and also representing that there is a vast future here.

And not only the financial industry, with the support policies, it is foreseeable that Singapore will usher in great development in biomedical, oil refining and chemical industries, electronics industries, and so on.

Before that, Singapore's original intention to build an oil refining center had already failed and was tossed to the point where it could not be done. Now, this oil refining center will no longer be a dream.

As long as Singapore undertakes a part of the oil refining business in the region, it will be enough to become a major oil refining center in the world.

There is also the shipbuilding industry. As long as it is supported, Singapore can easily become one of the largest shipbuilding bases in Nanyang.

As for the electronics industry, China is a strong point in this regard. As long as it is supported, one can imagine how big the market here is.

It can be said that Singapore is the country that has benefited the most from this conference!

Of course, the entire ASEAN countries will benefit greatly from this conference, and it is foreseeable that more capital will flow to the ASEAN region.

The market here will become larger and larger, full of infinite vitality.

However, military experts and enthusiasts are more concerned about the ASEAN Allied Forces.

And they were not disappointed. The ASEAN Allied Forces development blueprint was also officially announced to the public.(End of this chapter)