The core reason for America and Europe’s decline (and, in a way, Japan’s) was the belief by our elites that money was the only thing which mattered.
Money is the ability command resources from anyone who will, or must, sell. People who need to sell their labor or starve—Marx’s famous “whip of hunger.” Countries who must sell to get your money because you either make them militarily (see Venezuela right now and Iraq, both of which must sell their oil in US dollars and let the US treasury keep the money on account for them, then decide what they can spend it on, plus, of course the entire colonial era); or because they need to buy what you have.
For a long time the West had a monopoly on much of what you had to have: medicines, engines, planes, cars, tractors, fertilizer and so on. The Petrodollar was about having a monopoly on oil and all its products: gasoline, diesel, bunker fuel, jet fuel, plastics and fertilizer again. If you wanted electricity, well the equipment to make it came from the West too. If you wanted advanced weapons — the West, especially after the fall of the USSR.
During the early post war period you had options: you could get most of this from the West or the Soviets. But starting in the 70s, the USSR went into decline and then it fell, and the West was the only option.
Back to American elites: since everyone had to buy in dollars, and because they needed to get so much from the West, also had to sell in dollars, well having dollars was all that mattered. The more dollars, the more power.
What the elites forgot, thanks to complete retards like Francis Fukuyama, and sheer stupidity and greed was that smarter people than them had arranged the system this way: that it was contingent on the West having what everyone else needed, and having the military whip-hand.
Japan, poor fuckers, built an incredible industrial base and was pushing on taking the industrial lead. American leaders in the 80s, not having been taken over by complete retards made the Japanese sign the Plaza Accords, in which they would give that tech to America, open factories in the West and so on: give up their momentum, because it matters where you build.
As I’ve said many times, the tech lead follows the manufacturing floor: this is the LAW. Japan wasn’t strong enough to tell the US to go to hell. So they spent the last 4 decades in slow decline. This wasn’t primarily because of their big crash, though that was mishandled, but because they were no longer allowed to continue their industrial and technological snowball.
But by the 90s the last smart competent American elites were dead or retired, and the triumphalism over the fall of the USSR made them think, a la Fukuyama, that their system was superior, their shit didn’t stink, and they’d be on top forever. Everyone would have their system, and everyone would just keep buying and selling in dollars no matter what: it no longer mattered where things were made.
The key moment was when Clinton let China into the World Trade Organization (WTO) with developing world status. Western financiers (they weren’t capitalists, capitalists aren’t so stupid) looked at how cheap Chinese labor was and how willing they were to pollute and let workers get maimed, and they salivated. (And yes, lack of worker protections was part of it. One of my friends, in the 90s, visited a battery factory where the batteries were made by hand. Batteries are basically full of acid. Think it thru.)
So they sent industry to China and told themselves “well, we do the design here. That’s what matters.”
The Chinese leadership nodded, smiled and among themselves said, I’m sure, “what a bunch of suckers. Thank God they’re such idiots.”
And in learning to make all these things the Chinese learned the design and so on, and in time took the manufacturing lead. Then about 20 years later they took the tech lead decisively. Even three years ago American sanctions worried them.
(In 2023) Xi Jinping warned that U.S.-led technology restrictions posed “unprecedented severe challenges” to China’s development.
Today:
Han Wenxiu, the senior official overseeing day-to-day operations at the Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs (CCFEA) — the Party’s top economic policymaking body — told the China Development Forum (CDF):
“After years of effort, China’s indigenous innovation capacity has passed a critical inflection point, making it difficult for external forces to derail our development”
As for overcapacity, the Chinese are no longer apologizing for it or dancing around it. They say our companies are uncompetitive and that’s our problem.
The bet seems to be that most countries, or trading blocs, won’t get their acts together enough to materially push back against China’s export juggernaut.
- Even the U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods — unprecedented in recent history — have only succeed in diverting low-value manufactures (think toys, textiles, and fast fashion) away from the U.S. and toward new markets.
- They’ve had less impact on higher-value exports to the U.S. — either because those goods were never sold there at scale (i.e. NEVs) or were exempt from the tariff regime anyway (i.e. smartphones and medical equipment).
To put it simply, the world needs what China has and can’t make it themselves. If they can make it themselves, well, it’s much cheaper coming from China and how many Western countries are willing to take a big hit to re-start their industries, and are competent enough to pull it off? (My approximate count is zero.)
And that, folks, is the end of the Western order. No one needs to buy from us any more. They’d still like to sell to us, sure, but they don’t need to because they don’t need dollars. If it’s something they need they can get it from China or, to a lesser extent Russia, India and so on. We don’t have a monopoly on anything that matters any more: the last real one was chip manufacturing, but the Chinese are catching up fast and confident that in a few years they’ll be there. In the meantime, they can make all but the most advanced chips and those are the ones that go in almost all manufactured good: the most advanced stuff is only useful for things like AI, and China’s find its way around that.
Now we come to Iran. Iran is showing that a fairly modest kit: missiles and drones, is sufficient to keep the US navy and air force far away and make any attack prohibitively expensive in men and material. Plus everyone knows that expensive US military gear needs Chinese supplies: the West doesn’t have the full kit any more, the Chinese can and in some case have, cut the West off any time they want. All those expensive radars the Iranians blew up? Well it’s not the cost (that’s irrelevant) it’s that they require materials on the Chinese have. They get rebuilt if the Chinese let America and there’s basically nothing the US can do about that.
Keynes famously said “anything we can do, we can afford.” The corollary, as I’ve written before is that it doesn’t matter how much money you have, anything you can’t do you can’t afford—or rather you can’t afford it if the people who can do it won’t sell it to you.
America had a great thing going, for America and for its allies. But American elites got stupid and didn’t understand the actual structure upholding their power. They though it was innate to a superior system and superior people, not a structure built by very smart and ruthless people over a period of about a hundred and fifty years: a structure that required maintaining.
And so, it’s over. It’s just over and anyone who tells you otherwise has zero idea what they’re talking about.
And everyone else is realizing this. Let’s take Australia, run by ‘tards even stupider than America. Twenty years ago, they had eight refineries. Now they have two. They’re running out of diesel and even if they could get crude oil (certainly not impossible, though hard) it doesn’t matter, because they can’t refine it.
This lesson should have been learned during the Covid Pandemic when the West restricted medical supplies and the logistics system stopped delivering enough international goods.
Anything really important: fuel, machinery required to maintain your infrastructure, food, medicine, etc… is something that you should be able to make yourself. If you truly can’t, you must have huge stockpiles. I would never want a country to have stockpiles less than three years of medicines, food, parts for important machinery like the electrical grid, and fuel.
None of us do.
Anyway, the structure of Western dominance is now dismantled, by Westerners. Perhaps the Chinese could have industrialized fully without us, but it would have taken a lot longer and as long as we had our own industry and tech stack, it would have just meant a cold war situation with two blocs and, absent de-industrialization, perhaps the West could have held its own, though China is innately stronger than the USSR ever was, especially with Russia as an ally.
We did this to ourselves, or our elites did, because of sheer stupidity and arrogance. Don’t underestimate how bad this will be. I’m in the “better China as hegemon than America” crowd. I think they’ll kill a lot less people. But be clear, they are going to be a hegemon, at least in industrial terms and this is going to mean a serious standard of living drop in much of the West. Europe will get hit the hardest (especially Britain) but everyone’s going to get hit hard. A few of us may make the switch over to the hegemon on favorable terms. Canada and Australia have the best chance of doing this being large countries with tons of resources and relatively small populations, but it’s not a sure thing.
Dominance and prosperity are both structural. They are always created by competent leaders and populations and when their successors become complacent they are always lost.
That’s where we are.
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Oakchair
Several generations raised on TV, mercury/aluminum injections from birth, pesticide bathed food, and in a chemical soup, with an education system designed to make obedient livestock and this is what you get.
If you still think the ruthless psychopaths who created the west exported heavy metal based fertilizers, TV, mercury/aluminum injections, et al in mass to the developing world out of charity then that’s because you were raised by TV with a brain soaked in aluminum, a gut painted by pesticides, and a sense of self beaten to obey and like it by school.
spud
Ian:
And so, it’s over. It’s just over and anyone who tells you otherwise has zero idea what they’re talking about.
correct. just look at the stock market today. i said yesterday that there would be serious selling, boy was i wrong! i thought they must know its over with, not just the war, but what they had.
i usually do not under estimate the stupidity of market types, but looking at the markets so far this morning, they actually think we will remain on top, and that we will still be able to rob people all over the world of their labor and resources!
both smith and marx did not want the rich involved in capitalism. today the two are so inter twinned, that they are one and the same.
bill clinton touted just in time, as he touted free trade. there is going to be even more serious hunger and strife in the west. the answer the rich have is more oppression.
we will see how long they can keep the lid on. in human history, keeping the lid on gets shorter and shorter time wise.
one wonders if there will be sly offshore help in removing the lid. because the rich always plots, and even when they are down, even way down, they will still try to resurrect what they lost.
they must be completely defeated in a way that they get flattened.
KT Chong
Japan has to sign the Plaza Accord because it was a vassal that relied on the US for security.
This is what China has learned from a century of being invaded, occupied and carved up by foreign powers: If your country has foreign soldiers stationed in your country, inside your borders and your on your soils, then your country is de facto a vassal. Your do NOT have full sovereignty, self-determination or strategic autonomy.
Bob
Yes to this. The Chinese will probably be a less worse hegemon although that’s quibbling over which king you’d rather have hold a sword over you. And Britain is totally screwed. I’m sure it’s heading for third world status. It’s only fair.
bruce wilder
I studied Japanese JIT in the 1970s when they were going from strength to strength. An important social source of their ability to build superior productive capacity was patriotic social solidarity. People throughout the hierarchy of the economy understood striving and organizing to do better was a common cause in the general interest of the community. The “meaning” of proposals to reorganize some aspect of production was shaped by this understanding and helped to overcome competing interpretations, such as, “the bosses are just trying to screw us.” Of course, this culture enveloped the bosses, too, and dampened their impulses toward domination and greed.
I have been to China as well. I personally find the patriotism more than a little scary, as it embodies a sense of geopolitical entitlement. Putting that aside, it is clear that Chinese economists read the industrial development literature closely. No one there was satisfied to grab hold of some glib nonsense about wage rates and labor costs driving competitiveness. They did use dollar finance strategically on multiple levels, including but not limited to leveraging American neoliberalism to subvert American financial and corporate elites into disinvesting. In their own country, they have done a remarkable job in using socialist planning effectively to create intense local, networked production capability. Detroit and Seattle and Hollywood were accidents. The Chinese equivalents — of which there are many more — are not accidents.
cc
> “Countries who must sell to get your money because you either make them militarily (see Venezuela right now and Iraq, both of which must sell their oil in US dollars and let the US treasury keep the money on account for them, then decide what they can spend it on”
When a person does that another human being the words that come to mind are “slavery”, “enslavement”, “coercion”, “exploitation”, and “forced labour”. When a pimp does that to a young woman, it’s sexual slavery/enslavement/coercion/exploitation.
Here in Canada, our craven politicians and media suspended a member of Parliament over the coals for daring to merely ask for some even anecdotal evidence for the US propaganda line of Uighur “forced labour” in Xinjiang, China.
Yet these politicians and media say nothing when the US viciously beats and enslaves entire countries like Venezuela and Iraq to force them to spread open their natural resources for the US and its buddies, with ostensible payment held in US-controlled banks, with total US control over how that money can be spent. That is forced labour, yet our hypocritical Canadian establishment must never ever say or even imply that about the US, yet must always say or imply that about China – even when no credible evidence exists. Not even the slightest questioning of that indoctrination is allowed. Carney goes along with that, Michael Ma goes along with that, our craven establishment media goes along with that.
In the West’s “rules-based order”, the US and its gang (NATO, the “Golden Billion”) are the pimps. The gang leader and his genocidal buddy thought they would give Iran a vicious beating to put her into her place, and force her to submissively work for their gang like they did to Iraq and Venezuela.
> “A few of us may make the switch over to the hegemon on favorable terms. Canada and Australia have the best chance of doing this being large countries with tons of resources and relatively small populations, but it’s not a sure thing.”
Which is why it’s so stupid of Carney, Parliament, our media, and the rest of Canadian establishment to continue to push the bogus “forced Uighur labour in Xinjiang” US propaganda line. That’s not going to help us switch on favourable terms.
They are stuck in their ways and old habits of serving the Empire, even as it’s becoming clear to the rest of the world that the Emperor has no clothes.
cc
Correction: “When a person does that another human being” was missing the word “to”, and should have been “When a person does that to another human being” …
And “Michael Ma goes along with that” should perhaps have been “Michael Ma goes along with that after getting the McCarthyism treatment”. He did, in fairness, try to contest the US propaganda narrative that Margaret McCuaig-Johnston regurgitated.
If Carney wants to diversify Canadian trade to our second-largest trading partner to lessen our dependence on the USA, then it might be a good idea for Canada to take a more objective, evidence-based stance (with so much evidence of genocide in Gaza and Palestine vs. next to none in Xinjiang) and eventually officially retract Parliament’s 2021 condemnation – a move even more stupid than Parliament’s the standing ovation for the Nazi SS veteran. That would go a long way to bringing back how well Canada was once seen by China (and the rest of the world) in the days of Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien.
Mark Level
So Trump is going to make a speech tonite at 7 pm EST. He craves attention. Pundits unsure whether he’ll TACO, announce we “won” and would carpet bomb Iran’s oil and desalinization plants for 2 more weeks before withdrawing. If he does the latter, he will doom all the Gulf “monarchies” (just family dictatorships, mainly imposed by the Brits, though FDR empowered Saudis, the worst of the bunch.) Iran still has the firepower to flatten small states like UAE, even Qatar, etc. Seem to be allied with Oman, maybe Pakistan (a tough call, always bad actors), and if the dictator who fled Bahrain doesn’t return, revolution continues, they won’t be on the hit list. . . .
Response to some posts above: Oakchair, you’re right. Some of us avoided that shit, but most ‘Muricans know no better, will eat literal shit and wonder why they feel bad. Freakenomics guys attributed falling crime rates by the 1990s to 2 things: 1. Liberal Abortion Laws. Fewer unwanted children born. 2. Unleaded gas, fewer people losing IQ points with less lead exposure. But the current you cite mitigates against unleaded gas, US Ruling Class chooses the worst choice 10x out of 10, rare exceptions. (Obama wanted to make a “Grand Bargain” with the R’s to gut Social Security and Medicare. They considered him a “N—–r” so no Grand Bargain made.
to spud– yes, stock traders are criminally insane for the most part, have rare successes. (See Scott Besent, under his mentor George Soros’ tutelage, crashing the British pound.)
Money lust makes people stupid, they can only see short-term rapine and looting.
To KT Chong: I’ve never been a fan of Yukio Mishima, a gay Fascist obsessed with martial “glory” (a Pete Hegseth type, though much smarter). But too bad Japan doesn’t have a Mishima now, with a movement behind him. The perfect historical moment for such a person, instead they’ll flush their country down the loo.
Bob, yes “a less worse hegemon” is something needed, a low bar. Who could be as bad as 21st century monster Emperors, starting with Bush Jr. and culminating with Diaper Don? It’s hardly imaginable. Piggybacking to bruce wilder, I generally eschew patriotism, the first refuge of scoundrels, murderers (see Hegseth). But China is an ancient society with a real culture, and not the degraded filth pit that is late Imperial USA, so I think they have every right to feel that way.
To cc, viz the Uighur scam– Yes, the worst, dumbest tribalists fall for such grifts, the “10 minutes of Hate for Goldstein”, the Other. We have one commenter on here who loves some Ukrainian Fascists and the Uighur head-choppers, acid throwers. Because . . . he supposes their “enemies” are worse, lacking any actual evidence or the ability to make a coherent argument beyond “X people good!! “Y people bad!! Seeing Y people die gives me a hard-on!”
As stated at the start, fearing a big, heavy shoe that will destroy up to 1/3 of the earth’s population tonight. Can anyone restrain the mad king? Nobody in his court will hire a Wrestler to strangle him in the bathtub, unfortunately. (The up side: maybe Trump’s destructive destruction (no such thing as Creative Destructive) could end C02 releases, or slash them 70% and Climate Change will slow? We can’t know for now.
Some of you will have heard it– A poor family’s hore runs away. The neighbor says, “That’s bad news”, the patriarch replies, “It depends.” The son goes looking for the horse, regains it but is thrown and badly injures his leg. Seemed like good news, neighbor’s sorry bad news with it, dad says “it depends.” A war starts and the son is subject to the draft but the injury keeps him out of the battle. Good news? As always, it depends.
Egoculexegonos
(The up side: maybe Trump’s destructive destruction (no such thing as Creative Destructive) could end C02 releases, or slash them 70% and Climate Change will slow? We can’t know for now.
—
I hate to say this, but don’t bank on that ML. Even if we stopped emitting CO2 (et caetera) cold turkey now, the atmosphere would anyway be locked in for (quite a big big big buncha) decades into mounting positive feedbacks. Only quickly removing hothouse gases from the atmosphere or shielding it with bloody sulphur or other effective aerosols (bar unexpected reactions) would do something to help stabilize the currently galloping radiative imbalance. All unicorn poo wishes.
Besides this, global heating is not our (Homo sapiens’) only environmental plight. We (well, actually, mainly our intraspecific, mind-controlling parasites) have damaged what we consider our exclusive home beyond useful recognition and we’re still effectively unaware of it. Holocene gave us a chance and Idiocene stole (past tense is correct) it from us. If our species manages to survive this one it will only be due to sheer numbers and genetical and cultural diversity coupled with serendipitous luck.
mago
Glad to see you tell that horse parable Mr Level. The story has more parts, but your comment on that and other things is much appreciated.
NGG
As good friend of mine, who was a USNA grad, retired submarine “commander” used to say, it is time to declare victory, and retire from the field. He passed years ago.
He was true friend – I think of him often and his sage advice.
StewartM
The key moment was when Clinton let China into the World Trade Organization (WTO) with developing world status.
The only thing that Clinton did was to make what was started in 1980 into a permanent feature. Previously, the same thing was being done by a presidential waiver every year. Sure, making it permanent might be a bad thing, but it’s not a black and white moment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States%E2%80%93China_Relations_Act_of_2000
Formal diplomatic relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China were not established until 1979, and even afterwards, trade relations were hampered by the high tariff rates of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. After the two governments settled asset claims dating from the Korean War in 1950, Congress temporarily granted China most favored nation status in 1980. However, Chinese-American trade was still hindered by the Jackson–Vanik amendment of 1974, which made trade with the United States contingent on certain human rights metrics. The Jackson–Vanik amendment enabled the president to issue an annual waiver, which were issued from 1980. However, this requirement was inconsistent with the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) that prohibit discrimination of members,[8] so the United States opposed China’s membership of WTO.
By 1984, the United States had become China’s third-largest trading partner, and China became America’s 14th largest. However, the annual renewal of China’s MFN status was constantly challenged by anti-Chinese pressure groups during US congressional hearings. For example, U.S. imports from China almost doubled within five years from $51.5 billion in 1996 to $102 billion in 2001.[9] The American textile industry lobbied Congress for, and received, tariffs on Chinese textiles according to the WTO Agreement on Textiles and Clothing. In reaction to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, the Bush I administration and Congress imposed administrative and legal constraints on investment, exports, and other trade relations with China.[8] In 1991, China only accounted for 1% of total imports to the United States.[10] The Clinton presidency from 1992 started with an executive order (128590) that linked renewal of China’s MFN status with seven human rights conditions, including “preservation of Tibetan indigenous religion and culture” and “access to prisons for international human rights organizations”—Clinton reversed this position a year later. Other challenges to Sino-American relations in this decade included the Cox Committee investigations against supposed nonprofit involvement in “promoting communism”, the persecution of Taiwanese-American scientist Wen Ho Lee for unproven allegations of espionage for the PRC, and the 1999 United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. But relations warmed after the September 2001 initiation of the war on terror.[11]
For many years, China was the most important country which required an annual waiver to maintain free trade status. The waiver for the PRC had been in effect since 1980. Every year between 1989 and 1999, legislation was introduced in Congress to disapprove the President’s waiver. The legislation had sought to tie free trade with China to meeting certain human rights conditions that go beyond freedom of emigration. All such attempted legislation failed to pass. The requirement of an annual waiver was inconsistent with the rules of the World Trade Organization, and for the PRC to join the WTO, Congressional action was needed to grant permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) to China.[12] This was accomplished in 2000 with the United States–China Relations Act of 2000, allowing China to join WTO in 2001.[4][5][6] China’s most favoured nation (MFN) status was made permanent on December 27, 2001.[7]
StewartM
looked at how cheap Chinese labor was and how willing they were to pollute and let workers get maimed, and they salivated. (And yes, lack of worker protections was part of it. One of my friends, in the 90s, visited a battery factory where the batteries were made by hand. Batteries are basically full of acid. Think it thru.)
At my old company, one of the solvents we used was hexafluoroisopropanol. Not a terrible solvent in all ways compared to some of the alternatives, but it causes immediate and irreversable eye damage on contact.
I have no idea what it costs now–but it used to be something like $10,000 per liter. It’s no longer made in the US, but in India. I am certain that that price tag doesn’t reflect any precautions taken to protect the workers there.
(Looking it up recently, it’s now $1600 per liter and is made in China at lower cost. If that’s true, it’s just goes to show you what globalization was all about. It was just another form of price-gouging).
Alvin
I’m not sure if knowing about money is as important for Canadians as finally learning how to make good whiskey. Maybe learn that first.
different clue
Clinton did many things which, taken together, add up to a Black and White moment in my mind. His particular legislative and regulatory decomplishments have been detailed in detail here in past comments.
He was a key player in the DLC’s patient work to demolitionize the old New Dealocrat Party and build a New Yuppie Scumocrat Party on the demolition site left in its place.
I hope that after he is dead . . . . that a group of Memory Pilgrims will organize to place some dead rats on his grave upon every anniversary of his death.
different clue
When does money matter? When there are things you need, or even maybe just want, and only money will buy them. While they still exist and while money itself still exists.
Jan Wiklund
I think the Americans began their way downwards in 1944 when they insisted on the “dollar privilege”. Since then they have been able to live by selling dollars. Which innately creates a Dutch disease situation – selling dollars is so profitable that more serious production is crowded out.
The Spanish did the same thing when they decided to live from selling silver from Potosí in the 16th century. This was vastly more profitable than producing things, so producing things was crowded out. Until then Spain had had a superior steel industry in Toledo and a superior textile industry in Segovia. But they disappeared. And Spain got poorer and poorer.
Mark Level
Thanks to mago for the comment, and yes, no need to tell the whole story, the main message is clear and obvious once the pattern gets a few repeats.
Thanks also to Egoculexegonos for a thoughtful and informed response. Yeah, I’m not banking on much of anything recently except Trump will fuck up, every single time. He is an agent of planetary “civilizational” destruction. He imagines he’s making US “stronger” but his Nihilism has won out. He’s staging a war for the dumbest “reasons” imaginable. Bill Clinton bombed an Aspirin factory to distract from spooging on Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress. Donny launches wars so he and his Epstein Class buddies can win “bigly” on Market Swings, and everyone else will be driven into abject poverty, quickly. That doesn’t end well.
I was engaging in Copium. You’re unlikely to see me engage in Hopium, that is pure arsenic-quality poison. The speech was incoherent (of course) and Sen. Chris Murphy had the best Tweet to the effect that The public has no idea what he’s going to do, as he has no idea what he’s going to do.
All the smarter people, one example is former Ambassador Chas Freeman, see that any US “allies” are suckers and need to Get Out!! ASAP. I didn’t watch the Video but the Lede said that MBS now has No Choice except to break with USreal and ally with Iran, unless he wants his society to rapidly collapse. Add to that Trump stated that MBS had to “kiss my ass” to a GCC meeting that MBS was in. Insanely insulting to someone from a very conservative culture.
I know many of these “leaders” are either directly Epstein Class affiliated or trapped, e.g. see Iraq, US Treasury still has partial control over ALL their Oil Assets, can just steal it all if a clean break is made. But what choice do they have if the alternative is Trump bombs Iranian Oil, Desalinization, Electricity Grid and Iran responds by doing the same to KSA, nothing left ? . . . Currently listening to Alex Krainer on Nima’s program. Stopped listening to Krainer 2 weeks into T’s 2nd term, a moron who believed 100% that DJT was “MAGA”, no unnecessary wars, no whoring for Zionism, gonna help the poor CHUDS, LOL. Well, Trump lost Alex Krainer. “The markets don’t believe him. Nobody believes him.”
The best analogy for ANY government still nominally allied with Trump/USrael is that of an animal caught in a trap that still has the option to escape. Think of the monkey trying to get food out of a jar but gripping the food means its hand cannot exit with the prize. Or in the case of the Saudis, a big cat or bear with its hand caught in a trap. You can lose your life, or your hand. I know which choice I would make, I’m not lining up for any Darwin Award.
Trump is old, as demented as Sleepy Joe, schizotypic if not yet full on schizophrenic. He talks to imaginary “Iranian” interlocutors who don’t exist, and insists we (Americans mainly but not exclusively) believe in his fictional delusions. He will die soon, must have some sense of that, so his Nihilism is pretty total. He’ll go down bragging, looting markets, flailing and failing.
Some animals are fleeing the trap: Spain, even Italy (under a neo-fascist leader no less), even the Euro-Slugs wouldn’t “open the Strait” and sink their vessels, seeing that “Daddy” not willing to do so.
Anyone who believes Don the Con deserves the destruction coming their way. He’s 5 steps over the cliff already, no need to join him.
KT Chong
No one seems to be complaining about China’s “overcapacity” and “overproduction” any more, (except for America’s house slave mam Ursula von der Liar.) Due to the current oil and gas crisis — aka the “Hormuz Crisis”, soon to be joined by the “Bab-el-Mandab Crisis” — the world is pivoting away from oil and gas towards green and renewal energy, ASAP. Now China can’t keep up the sudden surges of global demands for EVs, batteries, and solar panels.
Electric vehicle sales surge amid petrol price pain (Australia):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-S8YCQfmcQ
Iran war sends Aussies into meltdown as OIL Prices Skyrocket – EV Sales SURGE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntcp3eK-qOk
Oil prices surge, reaching $103; airfares rise; EV sales jump (Thailand):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMtd8r1xEXA
EV surge: electrified vehicle sales up nearly 70% (The Philippines):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njw4Ul9ctqE
‘Even with price caps, gasoline is too expensive’ Oil price surge drives China’s EV boom:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlTVHwBRSyc
China’s EV Export Surge: Reshaping the Global Auto Industry:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BesQ3T59I6M
Etc., etc., etc.
The “overcapacity” seems to be a foresight and prescience, and China can’t make ’em fast enough for exporting to countries that need ’em ASAP — I say, China must further expand production capacity! 😂
It seems that Trump has prematurely ended the war of petrostate (America and the West) vs. electrostate (China and the Global South)!
KT Chong
“The key moment was when Clinton let China into the World Trade Organization (WTO) with developing world status…”
India joined the WTO in 1995, six years before China did in 2001. So why hasn’t India been able to develop, grow and industrialize like China has?
P.S. Modi actually surrendered to Trump in February, and India has become a US vassal state. It is no longer non-align or neutral. This outcome has always inevitable — unlike China that has lots of leverages, (like control of rare earths, critical minerals, critical supply chains,) Modi really has no card to play against Trump. I know it has not hit most people yet that India is now a US vassal, but this will become clear in a few years.
KT Chong
More P.S. I think Trump has something on Modi — and, more important, Modi’s allies Adani, on serious corruption — just as it is rumored that Netanyahu has something on Trump (from Epstein; Trump might have raped underage girls, and Epstein passed on the videos to Israel.) The February 2026 Trade Deal — which vassalized India — was the price Modi paid to keep the US Department of Justice from digging deeper into Adani other Indian conglomerates or government officials and charging them.
Feral Finster
Britain already is a Third World country, just it is very good at self-promotion, a sort of open-air museum for addled tourists.
spud
when you look at today’s stock market, you really have to wonder how long is it going to take the pigeons to understand its over. they have been investing in mirages that have no real concrete assets, have not produced any thing on their own of any real value, and have been exploiting the labor and resources of weak or corrupt compliant governments of other countries.
anyone could see this was going to happen, 1993 was the real beginning, but most were giddy at the time of what was unfolding, foaming at the mouth for easy money anyway that they could acquire it, no empathy, no remorse, no ethics, who cares about tomorrow. but 2008 should have been a splash of cold water in the face. but buy 2024, you should have been exiting stage left pronto, and getting ready for the coming storm.
it looks like its going to be a long slow long painful death, as every feather gets plucked, till nothing is left but raw skin.
Feral Finster
@ Mark Level:
“He’s staging a war for the dumbest “reasons” imaginable. Bill Clinton bombed an Aspirin factory to distract from spooging on Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress. Donny launches wars so he and his Epstein Class buddies can win “bigly” on Market Swings, and everyone else will be driven into abject poverty, quickly. That doesn’t end well.”
What are you talking about? Rulers have always behaved this way, used their subject like so many cattle to feed their appetites and egos.
Just that in recent years the rulers went through elaborate and oh so touching charades that, once you stripped the self-serving hypocritical happy talk away, still boiled down to Mine Is Bigger Than Yours.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Feral Finster
@K T Chong: I doubt that there is anything Trump could have that would affect Modi’s popularity, especially taking into account the caste and patron-client nature of Indian politics.
Modi could be feasting on rate steak after a steamy afternoon of receptive anal sex with Trump and Vance and that would not affect the bases of his coalition.
They’d just make excuses.
A much simpler answer – the United States is strong and vengeful. Russia is seen as weak and impotent. It is the nature of humans to identify with and seek the friendship of bullies, tyrants and aggressors.
The Indian upper classes look to the US and ape American habits and ways, not Russian. The people who matter in India would be sorely cheezed, were the visas to be cut off, the Indian middle classes would be sorely hurt, were the American remittances to go bye bye.