[Zeestein]

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Zeestein,

OT but, what part of Melbourne? I moved down here (again) about 2 months ago. I also lived in China for 5 months at start of 2007.

Ever go down to Crown?

China questions now:

What city were you in?

Thoughts on Mao?

How economically and politically powerful do you believe China will be in the next 25 years?

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1. I used to go to Crown all the time when I first started playing, then I got good @ t3h unlimited betting 6 or shorter online Hold-Them pokerz, and felt really really angry about the rake I've paid in relation to my bankroll. Now not so much, also I ran the worst in my life, literally 000's:1 when I dropped like 10k in the 5-10 game like ages ago. I lost like a 80%, 96%, 92% and 96% and a few flips for 150bb+ each time, then just regular not making draws etc. Not my biggest loss, but def closest to suicide watch!

If you're this young guy that for some reason wears sharp sportjacket/suits with dress pants and has/had an Asian gf, I definitely remember you (I used to be good friends with you gf's ex).

2. I was in Fuzhou. My grandparents are basically loaded in Chinese terms, I lived with them mostly.

3. Chairman Mao is an ideologue. You can easily equate his disregard or willful ignorance of the human cost of his social programs with many other historical figures, Stalin, Kissinger, Rumfield, Cheney, Dubya, the other Bush. The difference is that Mao kinda had the capacity and did f' up the industralization and modernization of a nation of a billion people, and directly contributed to the deaths of millions. He had good intentions though.

4. Oh man, everyone in the West think China is on the verge of like busting a cap in the rest of the world. The ruling Communist Party have a ton more stuff to sort out before that ever happens. Imagine the challenges that national infrastructure face when 500 million reolcoate from rural farming villages in the centre and western China to coastal industralized cities on the Eastern seaboard. Imagine the potential instability of the stock market bubble popping loudly (it's clearly a bubble) when more and more of China's middle-class are investing their liquid fortune into the stock market. Imagine rising inequality, only there's going to be 600-700 disenchanted and disenfranised urban and rural poor. Imagine a housing