Let’s run thru the important points:
Domestically in the US the only issue that really matters is affordability. Food, housing and medicine. This will dominate the next few years, maybe even the next decade. Mamdani will win, he will be blocked from doing much of he wants by courts and the the State and federal government, and his future will depend on him making those who stop him the villains. The mid-terms and the next election will be fought in bread and butter issues.
China is going to win the AI race, as predicted.
This is, again, because Chinese models are at least 90% cheaper to run, and mostly open source. Only a complete and utter moron would run their business using proprietary models where OpenAI or Anthropic can jack up the price any time they want or depreciate the model you actually needed. Even US startups agree, 70 to 80% of them are using Chinese open models.
American AI either bursts or causes a great depression. Or perhaps bursts and causes a depression. There isn’t any other possibility. They’re spending trillions so American business can mass replace their workers. If it works, it causes a demand depression, a great depression like the Great Depression of the 30s. Who the hell do they think will buy their products? People can barely afford food and rent, let alone fancy AI crap. When they’re homeless they aren’t going to be customers. Meanwhile the rest of the world won’t be buying US AI crap either, they’ll be buying Chinese open source AI crap.
The War of attrition is nearly won by Russia. Ukraine just doesn’t have enough men and drones, it’s that simple. Next year, absent a peace deal, the big arrow moves everyone was wondering about will happen and Ukraine will be forced into unconditional surrender.
Europe is done. They’re losing their industrial base and their tech base. The people are unhappy and turning to populist opposition, either left or right. The Eurocrats are using lawfare to make outsider parties illegal if they look likely to win. This will take some time to play out. There will be changes in government away from neoliberalism, and if they can’t be achieved peacefully there will be a lot of violence. The EUs only play here is to try and gin up a war against Russia, but if they succeed, they’ll lose the war.
China and the US are now co-equal powers but that won’t last. China is on the rise, America is gutting its own science, arts and intellectual base while immiserating its own people and keeping smart foreigners out. (Or throwing them out.) All the big spend isn’t on re-industrializing, it’s on an AI moonshot which probably won’t succeed and will burst, or which if it does succeed will cause a Great Depression.
I will remind you that rich people have limited real power. They can buy a lot of influence, but if government turns on them they are done, because they do not have private armies capable of standing up to the State’s military and paramilitary forces. If the political zeitgeist turns against them, the government can make any changes it wants. Ask various Chinese billionaires how things worked out for them when the CPC decided they were too big for their britches.
One way they lose their influence is simply by having a real, undeniable depression. They’re doing everything they can to create one. If the Fed can’t bail them out, they’re done. The Fed’s ability to print dollars is going away, they have at most one large bailout left in them. After that, they can’t, because if the dollar isn’t the unit of trade for the world, over-printing will be catastrophic. Dozens of countries have found this out, again and again. Money can’t buy what your country can’t actually do, and the US can do less and less—the rich people sold America’s ability to do things to China to get three generations of fake wealth.
We are moving towards the end-game. It will take ten to fifteen years to play out. The West will be immiserated, neo-liberalism will end, US power and Empire will collapse. There will be wars and revolutions around the globe, because the force holding the world in its post-war, post-Soviet collapse state, including such things as borders, is going away. China is not likely to engage in massive military operations thousands of miles from its border and has shown itself uninterested in what happens in other countries domestically, unless they’re countries very close to it geographically.
Covid remains a thing, more specifically long Covid. We don’t measure it much any more, since governments don’t want to know, but there are multiple data points indicating its still disabling people. (I’ll do a proper article on this at some point.)
Likewise climate change and environmental collapse are real and so are resource issues. Farmland continues to lose fertility, the food-web is collapsing, the insects and fish and bird and everything else are dying and species are going extinct. This is going to cause huge problem. 1.4 billion Chinese cannot have a Western lifestyle without catastrophic environmental issues. If this is not dealt with (and it takes more than some orbital spraying to do so), the era of Chinese supremacy is not likely to last.
China will take the complete tech lead in essentially everything and they will also become the premier space-going nation. They have actually reduced carbon emissions, a good sign, and are massively planting forests. It’s not enough, but they are the only major nation taking these issues at all seriously. They look likely to start moving industry and power generation to space over the next 20 years and if they can get space mining and refining going, that offers some hope. (This is not space colonization, and the idea is to make it self-sustaining off world minus biologicals. Dropping resources from space is easy, getting resources into space is hard.)
The major geopolitical and economic issues I have been writing about for over 20 years are coming to fruition now and will play out over the next ten years. End of Empire. End of Neoliberalism. End of dollar hegemony. End of Europe. Western economic collapse. It’s all happening, exactly on schedule.
The glimmer of hope for Westerners is that political change is also coming. Put crudely, there are three possibility: authoritarian corporatism wins thru a nasty surveillance and police state; right wing populists take charge and go nasty and mean, or left wing populists take charge and actually try to help people.
The third world will find a great deal more freedom than they’ve had for a long time. China will be the superpower, but at least for the first while seems likely to be fairly laid back about it. These countries, if they cooperate with China intelligently, will have a chance to really develop, in most cases an opportunity to make it to middle income status, since they will no longer be forbidden from the policies required to actually develop, as was the case under the IMF/World Bank “development” duopoly.
This is where we are, and where we’re going. Tighten those seatbelts and make what preparations you can. Remember that things like power and water and food will become more and more unreliable. It’s been a long time since the West and westerners had to deal with such issues, but they will be on the plate for at least thirty to fourty percent of Westerners within fifteen years in nations which do not make the turn correctly, which seems likely to be the majority.
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spud
this is excellent,
“Money can’t buy what your country can’t actually do, and the US can do less and less—the rich people sold America’s ability to do things to China to get three generations of fake wealth.”
the U.S.A. is like a banana republic. instead of banana’s, we have lots of dollars, which the neo-liberals mistake is wealth.
money is a medium of exchange and is not wealth. its wealth to a individual, but not to a country.
the individuals are about to find that out. but they are to stupid and greedy to understand what they have done, so police state here we come.
When the towering intellectual mental midget bill Clinton came to power in 1993 surrounded by elite (STANCH MEN OF BUSINESS), I predicted we would eventually collapse because what he set out to do, was to re-establish the robber baron/colonial era.
Before the imbecile left office, we were well on our way to collapse, and every attempt to paper over his hideous disastrous polices, like bush’s helicopter money, obamas trillions of dollar bailouts of the financial parasites, trillions more under trumps first term, all failed and here we are.
most incidences of genocide are directly related to free trade: Free Market Genocides: The Real History of Trade
https://evonomics.com/free-market-genocide-the-real-history-of-trade/
Free Market Genocides: The Real History of Trade
One reason this hushed-up history matters is that even today economic “rationality” and plunder often remain partners in crime.
September 10, 2022
By Jag Bhalla
…
—————————
Many wonder how the real estate markets, the stock markets etc. are booming whilst the real economy is tanking need to look no farther than the massive trade deficit caused by bill Clintons hideous, disastrous free trade/free market policies.
The money from the horrendous free trade deficit, a lot of that money gets recycled back into real estate and the stock markets, helping to blow the bubbles up to gargantuan enormous proportions that when they pop, and they always do, will take down the wests economies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWZkHozvDfM
Ian Fletcher on Why Free Trade Doesn’t Work
Economist Ian Fletcher talks about what’s wrong with free trade in an interview with documentary filmmaker Gregory Thanos.
More infhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQwhjn4H4Vc
The Coming US Debt Collapse: Top Economist Explains
Top Economist Steve Keen explains how U.S. government policies are driving the economy toward bankruptcy and why the true fix isn’t austerity, but a Modern Debt Jubilee. Using clear double-entry accounting and Ravel visualizations, Steve breaks down how private bank lending still creates most of the money in circulation, why government deficits actually generate deposits and reserves, and how open-market operations merely shuffle assets rather than create real wealth. He then shows how a Modern Debt Jubilee could reset the system cancelling unpayable debts, restoring balance sheets, and reviving real economic growth without the illusion of “printing money.”
Feral Finster
“The EUs only play here is to try and gin up a war against Russia, but if they succeed, they’ll lose the war.”
The eu play ever always only was to get the United States to fight that war for them. There never was any other plan, regardless what was said for public consumption. Hell, this has been european strategy since 1917.
Every time NATO doubles down on escalation without a Russian response, they are getting closer to that war that the eurocrats so crave.
Bill H.
California is running a special election with only one thing on the ballot. Thirty days of mail-in voting and eight days with polls open for in-person voting, all for just this one item.
“Stop election rigging by manipulating (rigging) electoral districts specifically to give Democrats five more seats in Congress.” Current polling says the measure will pass. First politicians quit concealing their lies because the public did not care, now they don’t hide their lies because the public is participating in those lies.
spud
i do not blame the rich, the rich are parasites, given their freedom, they will feed till all die.
who is to blame? when a government abdicates its responsibility to govern, and turns governing over to parasites, what we face today is the inevitable results.
as Bill Black has said, the corporate tribunals under free trade, are kangaroo courts.
https://neweconomicperspectives.org/2015/04/obama-tpp-every-one-that-doeth-evil-hateth-the-light.html
Give away U.S. and other nations’ sovereignty to a kangaroo (non) court dominated by lawyers for CEOs
Allow these kangaroo non-courts to destroy vital regulations and bankrupt nations at the behest of the worst corporate CEO plunderers – exposing the world to even more frequent and severe financial crises. I have explained these last two points in more detail in the past. These provisions of TPP are so bad that they are depraved – and we have abundant, terrible, and global experience under past, more limited Faux Trade deals with the same provisions to know that the word “depraved” is the appropriate description.”
so who cares if the W.T.O. collapses, good riddance!
so i blame the politicians who unleashed the parasites onto us. that does not leave the parasites off of the hook. they need to be caged also.
Adam Eran
One variation on your predictions: the oligarchs see things starting to circle the drain, then hand government/ public policy to the populist progressives, who will then fail, because it’s way too late. The oligarchs then get to say “See! I told you it wouldn’t work!”
NGG
Well – as to the U.S. and the current crop to MAGA oligarchs – I am reminded of P.J.O’Rourke’s Quote: Republicans say government doesnt work – then get elected and prove it. While I believe both parties have abandoned 80% of the country, the current administration seems to be exceeding all expectations.
cc
“forbidden from the policies required to actually develop, as was the case under the IMF/World Bank “development” duopoly.”
That made me think that Israel’s containment of Gaza and the West Bank and not allowing Palestinians to develop is a microcosm of the West’s containment of the Global South and not allowing independent, sovereign states to develop. Of course, Israel is a creation of, and deeply intertwined part of, the Anglo-American-Five-Eyes-led West (aka The Golden Billion).
And when the contained and periodically-mowed try to resist their containment, The West rains vicious sanctions, murder, assassination, terrorism, famine, and massacre on them, all while proclaiming peace-making, human rights, right-to-protect, rule-based order, freedom and democracy. But that containment by the Golden Billion 12.5% minority of the 87.5% majority seven billion rest of the world will not continue forever. The Palestinians have a right to resist, even though the 1% elite of the Golden Billion would have us believe otherwise.
“Remember that things like power and water and food will become more and more unreliable.”
If power becomes unreliable, that puts crypto into question …
GrimJim
I think the US has maybe one to three years, tops, before actual, full-on collapse, a la Yugoslav Wars, starts hitting.
The real tell on timing will be if/when Trump transforms the Fed into his own personal bank. When that happens, the timer speeds up FAST. Especially if we are already going through troubling times (i.e., the liquidity issues keep building as they have of late, and monthly consumer debt payments collapse, as we are about to see, as people need money for food, among other issues).
So if the banks go tits up, with a Trump assist or not, we’ll be seeing the timeline scrunch down.
Also, is any of the smoke and mirrors international incidents Trump is drumming up turn into real shooting wars, things can go sideways fast. Attacking Mexio or Venezuela ensures that just about every nation south of the Rio Grande turns against us instantly, except maybe Argentina (which should start using German as its official language any day now).
But the result of that or any of the half-dozen other shadow wars Trump wants to start, actually going hot, means the US$ is toast. So there is that to look forward to.
But again, that just speeds things up.
Anything Trump does internationally just speeds up the domestic collapse that much faster.
And he and his people are doing everything in their power to speed that up with their domestic policies.
Will they have their panopticon in place and strong enough to old, and will they have the boots on the ground in time to maintain absolute authoritarian power?
Who knows.
There is no unified Left, or even unified Liberal opposition.
Potential opposition groups do not even know they are groups! They are coffee klatches and meme clubs.
The only real opposition I’m seeing so far is small, localized neighborhood anti-ICE groups out to protect their own.
Their only saving grace at this point is that this Kleptokakistocracy really, truly, is made up of the WORST people who hire only the WORST people for the WORST reasons.
It is incompetent boobery all the way down, and all the way up.
That’s what might save us from an authoritarian nightmare in the end, is that they are just so incompetent — literally, running on nothing but the fumes of decades of “deep state” competence, such as it was — that they piss away all the real power and wealth they have before they try to drop the hammer.
Then, of course, we are all going to be dealing with Anarchy — and not the good kind, more like the Somalia kind, writ real large.
One to three years, tops.
different clue
@Spud,
I once offered the name Korporate Kangaroo Kourts for those Investor State Dispute Courts you wrote about. If you like that name for them, feel free to use it. If not, then not.
@Feral Finster,
I too have understood NATO to be a long-running Euro-Anglo conspiracy against America. Anti-Americanitic Leftist Sneermongers have long gotten that reversed.
But that remains my theory.
Is there a way to “observationally test” that theory with a vague prediction? I think there is. If America drops out of NATO and NATO remains together as a thing, Canada will remain in NATO. If events play out that way, with NATO surviving an American exit, and Canada remaining in NATO; that would go to show that Canada is a lot more “European” in culture and society than America is.
If events prove me wrong, everybody can look back and laugh at my conditional if-then prediction.
bruce wilder
“Mamdani will win, he will be blocked from doing much of he wants by courts and the the State and federal government, and his future will depend on him making those who stop him the villains.”
Matt Stoller, who I really like, keeps trying the rhetorical gambit of claiming that Mamdani has “substance”, that he “knows things” (in contrast to the usual neoliberal suspects) but I don’t buy it. I mean I agree that neoliberal Democrats do not have a clue how to govern (see “abundance”) which is just compounded by legacy Democrats not wanting to govern. I want to believe that Mamdani wants to deliver concrete material benefits, but sincerity is not institutional knowledge. Maybe he has some advisors out of view who know where the bodies are buried and in which wheelhouses the levers of power are waiting to be pulled. But, I seriously doubt it. New York City is Byzantine in its administrative and jurisdictional complexity and Mamdani’s coalition includes some factions that positively value incompetence. I am sure Ian is right — Mamdani will encounter fierce opposition — but he has to win some of those upcoming battles not just be the victim. Consistent losers are never “good guys fighting the good fight”. Martyrs are the exception that prove the rule. I doubt Mamdani’s experience to date has prepared him to govern aggressively.
There is a deeper, broader problem in U.S. politics. The 90% are getting pummeled economically, but very few leaders or even opinionators are volunteering to represent the interests of the 90%. Those who do surface are often extremely marginalized, “damaged goods” in multiple ways. Or, more likely they are clearly grifters working for the 1/10th of 1%, putting on a show, blockading and misdirecting the anger. When we are down to Mamdani and Platner — Katie Porter presumably knocked out, take note — things are desperate and difficult.
This desperate, difficult state of affairs is attributable in large part to the American People — the 90% at least — being politically stupid and credulous almost beyond all comprehension. I am convinced that the vast majority effectively vote at random, responding without reflection to professionally designed manipulations with less intelligence than Pavlov’s dogs. They’ve been trained into this state of learned helplessness, outrage exhaustion and memoryless reactivity, no doubt, but most people I know personally just project their own fecklessness onto others. They are good for two or three pointless rants a year, but they are not available to be organized in support of a coherent movement.
This last is the source of my profound pessimism. Mamdani could be 10x what I think he is and he would not a fraction of the superhuman politician needed to overcome the shattered polity.
KT Chong
Domestically, the Republican civil war over Israel could ultimately be disastrous for the Democrats.
Israel — alongside immigration and inflation — was one of the three key issues that destroyed the Democratic Party last year, and now it is tearing apart the Republican Party. On this issue, young voters lean decisively one way, while older voters lean another.
The real problem for Democrats is this: the Republican Party is highly susceptible to populist uprisings (just look at the Tea Party and MAGA movements), while the Democratic establishment repeatedly crushes progressive and populist insurgencies. The party has not meaningfully evolved in 20 to 30 years; it remains the same centrist, neoliberal machine it has long been.
That means if Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens, and their populist anti-Israel insurgent movement prevail this time — as such forces typically do within the GOP — they could beat the Democrats to the punch on this issue. Many young Americans, disillusioned by a Democratic establishment that ignores and suppresses their grievances on this generation-defining issue, may jump ship to the other side. Just as many Bernie Bros eventually became MAGA supporters, this shift could repeat on a larger, more consequential scale.
Among Democrats under 50, roughly 71% hold an unfavorable view of Israel, with younger voters leading the strongest opposition. Democratic primary voters overwhelmingly support sanctions on Israel, exceeding 65%, including calls for arms embargoes and economic restrictions. Independent young voters demonstrate similarly critical views. This reflects a profound shift within the Democratic base that the party establishment has so far failed to adequately acknowledge or address. If the GOP insurgency on Israel wins the narrative first, the Democratic Party risks losing a huge chunk of these vital young voters.
The Democratic Party should be genuinely worried instead of celebrating the Republican civil war. This could turn out to be disastrous for Democrats, and their time is running out.
KT Chong
Just realized:
Democrats lost the 2024 elections over three I’s: Immigration, Inflation, and Israel.
spud
different clue,
sounds good to me.
bruce wilder,
voters are paying attention now, but to late, with no real left to educate them. it seems a roof over their heads and full bellies mean more to them now than football!
KT Chong
This situation is reminiscent of the parallel populist insurgencies of the late 2000s and early 2010s: the Tea Party movement on the right and Occupy Wall Street on the left. Both emerged as grassroots responses to widespread economic dissatisfaction but followed divergent trajectories.
The Tea Party ultimately prevailed within the Republican Party. It successfully reshaped the GOP’s agenda, contributed significantly to the rise of Donald Trump, and wielded considerable influence over policy decisions. In contrast, Occupy Wall Street was largely ignored, controlled, and ultimately crushed by the Obama administration and the Democratic Party establishment.
This current intraparty civil war on the right versus the disconnect and suppression on the left closely mirrors that earlier parallelism of the Tea Party versus Occupy Wall Street. This familiar parallelism screams “iceberg ahead!” for the Democrats.
bruce wilder
the three key issues that destroyed the Democratic Party last year
there was only one issue “destroying” the Democratic Party last year: the absolute insistence of the Establishment on running a ham sandwich for President with no primary selection process
The Democratic Party will never implement any agenda favored by its electorate and opposed by its donor class. It can be cutting off the criminal regime of Netanyahoo or Zelensky. It can be a $20 minimum wage. It can be a limit on usury. It can be limits on immigration. Just getting a Democratic politician to speak out is near impossible.
Curt Kastens
The article and the comments point to an eagle, and a lion, and a tiger, and a bear. But, no one points to the elephant sized two headed bull that dominates the game.
i suspect that for the author this ommision is deliberate. Because once everyone recognizes that the elephant sized two headed bull is real and not just a distant holigraph the game will be comming to an end. It is impolite to point out that the gull is real because that will bring the game to an end even faster.
As for everyone else I suspect that they were just distracted by the framing of the comment.
Different Clue,
I put the chances of NATO being an organization that favors Europe over the US at about 5%. The reason that I do not put it at zero is because history has taught me that British elites are very diabolical. I would not rule it out completely that there the US is also a covert asset of the commonwealth. Oh and I had to come back and add this, there is some evidence to support this, like the Brits convincing the Americans to overthrow Mosadeq. Though I think that the Nordstream incident and the Suez Canal incident trump all other evidence by miles. But I suppose one could pass these off as clever European double moves to muddy the waters about who is in charge.
Therefore I do not think that the US will ever pull out of NATO. But I do like your test.
Yes if the US pulls out of NATO and Canada remains part of NAT0 I will agree that you had very good insticts about the relationship between NA/O and the US that were decades ahead of its time.
Curt Kastens
Shit I just got the stiimulation directors joke. Mossad and Mosadeq. One is contianed in the other. Yes one could quibble. But that does not make the joke any less funny.
And still people deny that I am the world’s most underrated commedian.
someofparts
My friends/relations with adult children don’t know what is about to hit them. I hope their families are prepared.
someofparts
I’m waiting for the political cartoon of Trump playing golf in his bunker under the former east wing while above ground the D.C. landscape is festooned with mushroom clouds.
Also, lest we be too unkind to the poor befuddled Democrats, give credit where credit is due. Their main job was to stop the left wing and in this they have been a huge success.
joey_n
@ different clue
I don’t know if this counts as an event, but wouldn’t the presence of US military bases on European soil suggest that NATO exists for the US to call the shots in Europe and not the other way around? Do any European nations have their military bases on US soil?
Moreover, which side of the Atlantic stood to benefit from these wars the most? Last I checked, in the case of Ukraine in 2014, the likes of Robert Kagan and Victoria Nuland hailed from the USA, and the Europeans were happily trading with Russia before the conflict even started. Need I also mention the RAND report?
mago
KT Chong keeps hitting it out of the ball park in my humble estimation.
Reminds me of a certain Barry Mar I knew back in the day when I was kicking it in Seattle.
Barry was a savvy Chinese businessman with holdings in the International District, and I can’t help but thinking of him when I read KT these days.
Just dropped in to drop some personal rando stuff.
Don’t mind me.
bruce wilder
Last I checked, in the case of Ukraine in 2014, the likes of Robert Kagan and Victoria Nuland hailed from the USA
Quite a few players nominally on “the American side” have family history that gives them motivation to join in long-standing Eastern European feuds that have no obvious connection to specifically American interests. Nuland certainly, and Blinken. Anne Applebaum is married to a sometime Polish foreign minister. And, it is not just the U.S. The now former Georgia President was French, descended from refugees who had fled to France. Crystia Freeland in Canada.
This kind of hijacking of U.S. national interest is common.
Some Guy
A good summary, but I think missing one very important piece, the role played by media/social media, especially in the US.
In short, social media brain rot is making the US elite (more) insane and I think this opens up a wider range of possible outcomes (almost all bad) than what we have seen in the past as we move forward, especially in the US, where the rot is most advanced. We see this already with Trump, where every day some insanity occurs that would never have been expected even a few years ago – but the rot is still advancing.
I think a lot will depend on the impending Republican civil war that KT references above, although the Democratic party will be mostly an irrelevant bystander. If the Cuomo faction of the right wing prevails, you might well see a very dramatic crackdown on social media, beyond anything you might currently expect. Whether this will work or not remains to be seen, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it keeps a lid on things for a while, people are pretty easily controlled by the media, especially in the West.
On the other hand, if the Fuentes faction wins, then all bets are off and the US might be facing total chaos and mayhem over the next decade or two, although arguably it might be better off in the long run – if anything survives the short run.
Ray Blaak
> They look likely to start moving industry and power generation to space over the next
> 20 years and if they can get space mining and refining going, that offers some hope.
> (This is not space colonization, and the idea is to make it self-sustaining off world minus
> biologicals. Dropping resources from space is easy, getting resources into space is
> hard.)
I don’t think most people understand just how difficult even space mining and manufacturing will be:
– We know how to work in a breathable atmosphere with gravity, warm temperatures, diesel construction equipment
– We don’t know how to mine and manufacture in a vacuum, zero/low-g, extreme cold and heat, radiation, with equipment still to be invented
– We don’t know our mining sources: everyone says the moon, but its minerals are in low concentrations
– Minining asteroids opens up many more problems, given the distance
– How do we go to the asteroids? with robots? people? how do we bring product / ores back?
– Do we bring the asteroid itself to near-earth orbit? They tend to be piles of loosely held rubble. Is that even at all safe?
– We need basic research to figure out if we can even do at all reasonably.
Here is a great interview with Zach Weinersmith, a co-author of the “A City on Mars”. All of it is worth a listen for appreciating just how the nitty gritty practical details of space living and working can give surprise obstacles. The discussion about space mining starts at around 41m 42s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iFidSz_KK4&t=2502s
Ian Welsh
Of course we don’t know how to do it, having never done most of it. We should have started the learning process no later than the 80s, so we’d be closer to being able to to do it, or know it was truly infeasible at our current tech level. (Note that tech levels change in response to what we do. If we do more of something, we often get a lot better at it.)
My guess is that workers in space will be rotated pretty often (6 months, tops), as an aside, and that it’ll be like old-time jobs where you made a huge amount of money over a short period because the job sucked so much but actually requires skills. (Back around 87 a friend of mine was offered a job as a mining engineer in remote Australia. All living expenses covered, paid vacations in company condos, etc, etc. Five year contract. One million US clear (real money back then.) He didn’t take it. But for that money, back then, he could have bought a nice house in a good neighbourhood, cash, and still had a few hundred thousand left. Two such contracts and he would have been able to retire if he chose.