弹弓 in Chinese, of which the meaning is broad. They don’t differentiate by size, especially as nowadays as only the hand/toy variant are actively used.

3 confederate flags. One for each K in its name

The amount you’d need to get rid off would put you in territory or pure fantasy though. Also, the government would probably step in and force a merger.

The problem is: these guys aren’t foundational to how these companies work. Killing them might cause some confusion, and even make it so the upper management stops squabbling for personal gain for a decade. You’d probably strengthen it.

If, by some miracle, you do cause the whole organization to unravel and split up: you’ll likely get a repeat of standard oil, where the new companies combined expanded so much quicker and made so much more profit. Just like how pruning a tree makes it healthier and grow with more vigor.

Better to let the rot start from the roots.

Regardless of whether you need it. Taking a prolonged leave will leave you feeling better and more productive. Leave shouldn’t be taken right on the precipice of burnout, quite the opposite.

Being out of office means another 4 years of amazing fundraising

As someone working in Chinese media. It’s qualitative. One of the issues is that except for the most prosperous cities, other regions in China have a hard time getting their media sectors of the ground. One reason is due to the government providing relatively lucrative, large and low effort projects, which hamper development. These projects, depending on the committee (and whether or not they want to get bribed and wait out the clock), can just be pigeonholed for months if not years, with no funding reaching these companies. In the meanwhile, these companies don’t dare take on bigger projects because “what if we suddenly get the money next month and we have to start”. A lot of time and opportunity is squandered, and the staff of these companies take on projects that might not be their right fit, as such you have a problem with specialization and creating task-orientated pipelines that improve quality and completion time.

There are more graduates in media than vacancies. From this year on, the majority of provinces will scrap media studies from most universities that don’t have such a specialization.

The issues are systemic, and very much on the quality side of things. China’s government puts too much trust in that the quality of its media and thus cultural power will rise with the same amount as their GDP does.

China dominates in scientific adoption and implementation, quality of research (especially scientific collaboration) is still lagging behind. The West still has at least a decade lead on media and culture.

When the intellectual cadres of China were sent to the country side, these wereactivities to bring culture, science and technology, and medical and health care to the rural areas.

When the intellectual cadres of the West get sent to the country side, or wherever, it will be for the purpose of casting away illusions.

Sometimes I wonder whether these chronically online internet leftists are just spoiled suburban kids that don’t have the social skills to become influencers and merely turned to leftism because they are too poorly socialized to take the next step.

The West owns enough potential mines, the problem is that they don’t care about developing them. Instead they’ll sit on the land for a few years and then sell it on. Also, the problem isn’t the availability of the metals but the processing. China does the processing, and as such they have to buy from China.

“Battle for Resources” is only a partial truth. The resources or rather productive forces will remain underdeveloped as long as capitalists can inflate their spreadsheets through the virtual economy and hiking prices in the short term.