Comments by "Persona" (@ArawnOfAnnwn) on "VisualEconomik EN"
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This video is clearly trying to play the same 'both sides' style here made famous by media reporting on climate change. It even misreports in order to do so. For instance, the video claims the British prevented famines in their later years, such that they stopped being a thing. Literally one of the biggest famines in Indian history - the Bengal Famine - happened close to the end of British rule. The unalive count is comparable to the atrocities committed by the very enemies they were fighting in Europe. The chart that Indian manufacturing wages went up in the last few decades exactly coincides with the end of the first world war - when the Indian govt. was given a little more devolution due to their freedom struggle making the most of the war to extract concessions. In other words, that was India taking back some power over their own administration, and benefiting therein. And so on. There isn't actually much debate over the deleterious effects of British colonialism among either historians or economists, there's just a holdout of mainly conservative British and American historians (most famously Niall Ferguson) who like to argue that it was good. There are unalive count estimates that make even world war 2 seem small - like upto 165 MILLION between just 1880 and 1920. There are calculations of how much wealth was extracted of over 45 TRILLION dollars. Etc. It is well accepted in the field, just as it is with scientists on climate change, that colonialism did a lot of harm. Not just in absolute terms, but even compared to the standards at the time or the times that came before it. Via taxes, tariffs, trade restrictions and much else India fell from a QUARTER of the world economy to a hundredth of it. And no, that wasn't just the west going ahead, it was India falling apart.
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@kf8228 No. Shashi Tharoor actually suggested what Britain should do once at Oxford. Pay India 1 pound a year, not even adjusting for inflation, for the next 200 years. Just 200 bucks total, to make up for the $45 TRILLION it's estimated they stole from us. But with one CRUCIAL difference - the money would be marked as reparations, NOT aid. We don't care about the past, this is about the present. Around HALF of British think they did us a favor, and only a minority see their colonial past as having been bad. THAT is what matters, and why an explicit and lasting admission by the British govt. that colonialism was harmful, coupled with a yearly reminder of that fact, is what we'd like. It isn't about the British of the past, but those of the present and future. It's about breaking the giant ego that the west has built up as intrinsic to its identity over the course of the last half a millennium. We don't need the money, in fact we've already told the UK we don't even want their aid. But we do want their pride. We want them to admit, like the Germans were forced to after WW2, their myriad crimes and guilt. Ditto for all the other former colonial powers. The west needs to learn shame, and humility.
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At the beginning of the video I said it was 'catering to rich people', and I'm gonna say I was half-right. I didn't think of their extensive port investments, but most everything else falls under the umbrella of what I meant. They're not as decadent as, say, Monaco, but it's the same basic idea - make your country a paradise for individuals and companies with tons of money. Personally I'd rather nations develop by actually making shit and doing stuff of general utility, but I can't deny that facilitating billionaires works for these places. As regards entrepreneurs, I'm fairly certain very little of the entrepreneurship in Dubai corresponds to the romantic image of an entrepreneur starting a company in a garage with very little money. Most new enterprises will be multinationals expanding their footprint, or extremely rich people breaking off from said multinationals and starting supporting firms with their plentiful wealth, which they can even afford to fail and still be extremely rich after. Dubai may be a rags to riches story as a city, but it didn't get that way by encouraging rags to riches businessmen, but by encouraging the global elite.
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The 'work' that entrepreneurs make that this video is talking about is decision making and negotiation, facilitated by personal connections. When people criticize them for exploitation, they aren't suggesting that they literally do 'nothing', but that the actual manufacturing the product is done by others. Everyone knows the CEO takes decisions and that connections give rise to contracts. That 'work' just seems a whole lot cushier than actually working the factory floor or coding in the office. And yet it gets paid a whole lot more than either.
Secondly, an interesting thing to note about entrepreneurs and risk - the rise of major corporations historically coincided with the invention, by state decree, of the concept of the Limited Liability Company (LLC). Before that, you could still start your own business and even raise funds for it, but if it went bust you stood to lose everything - including your private wealth. There were even what were known as 'debtors prisons' - people jailed not for committing crimes, but simply for not being able to pay back their debts. It is only AFTER those risks were abolished that large private enterprises began to form. Which is ironic, considering how much they're celebrated for taking risks, since that only started when the level of actual risk was substantially reduced. Indeed the MOST RISKY investments even today aren't taken by companies at all, but by the govt., when it invests into fundamental research and long term infrastructure projects. Mariana Mazzucato has written extensively on this.
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Given VisualPolitiks' open biases, I can guess what the judgment of this video is gonna be. Now time to see if my guess was right. Edit: Yep, as expected the video was quick to dismiss the positive data and try to spin everything negatively. I particularly liked how it jumped to the conclusion that optical and metallurgical products are somehow all weapons lol! Like what, is Luxembourg a major arms producer now? Or the Netherlands? It also ignored its own graph showing all the sectors that fell down following the opening hostilities are now rising again. But most tellingly, the video plays up Ukrainian claims of Russian losses, while making no mention of Ukraine's own losses of western equipment, and more generally how the war is affecting their adversaries economy. Ukraine even changed its offensive early on precisely because of how much equipment it was losing. They're mostly not even fighting much of an armored war anymore, but an infantry one, and that looks set to continue. To be clear Russia has losses, but to pretend their enemy has none is grossly biased. The side on the offensive typically loses more in the attempt, and right now that isn't Russia, who're mostly just sitting tight and letting Ukraine throw as much as it can at them. Meanwhile the Ukrainian military and economy is at this point entirely dependent on western support. Russia is holding out not just without extra support but with active exertions by the west to undermine it. Lastly I love how the goalposts of the sanctions has shifted just like people point out the Russia's war goals did. Only difference being that Russia shifted goalposts early on and since then has held them steady, while the sanctions goalposts continue to be shifted to this day.
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This was an exceedingly alarmist video that also misrepresented a lot of things. On emissions for instance, VE paints a very misleading picture by only showing current annual emissions. Climate change is overwhelmingly a problem created by rich countries, NOT poor ones. Per capita rich citizens emit far more than poor ones by a massive margin. But okay, let's say you don't care about fairness. But not only that, if you look at TOTAL emissions, rather than current, it's again rich nations that caused the problem. The US, for instance, has emitted 25% of ALL carbon, and Europe is just behind at 22%. China? 12.5%, HALF the US. India? 3%. Making it seem like these nations are responsible is disingenuous at best.
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@Teutathis You didn't develop any blueprint and countries aren't following the same path as you did. For instance China is now the world leader in both solar energy and electric vehicles, despite still being a developing country. Many African nations are skipping physical banking networks entirely in favor of internet banking. Etc. These nations are all developing far BETTER and faster than the west did, and despite not having the same resources and control the west enjoyed.
Your population argument is just wrong and your example silly. India's fertility rate atm is literally below the minimum replacement level of 2.1 and still falling. Other nations that aren't even developed yet are even lower, cos in pretty much every case not only does the birth rate decline as nations develop, it declines much faster than their incomes rise. Thailand is still a middle income nation, yet its fertility rate is 1.3. Births are only high in very poor nations, like Ethiopia or Nigeria, that have yet to take off - and as such their emissions are tiny because their people are so poor. Even there it's falling as they start to grow.
Btw, the developed world also experienced a population spurt when it was developing. Go look up what the population of the UK or US or whoever was at the start of the industrial revolution. In fact yours was worse, as you were so bad at it cos it was highly unequal with barely any social spending on things like girls health and schools until decades into it, which lowers population growth. As such, populations in your nations grew for a century, while in developing nations today the decline can start in mere decades cos they invest into health and girls education from the outset.
And finally your diaspora argument is laughable lol. First off, those diaspora support your economies. If not for immigration most western economies would be in a downward spiral as their own people aren't enough as their populations age. Secondly the reason their emissions are higher than the nation they came from is cos YOUR emissions are higher lol. Don't blame them for just living like you do. Try lowering your own carbon intensive nation and that'll automatically affect them too. Cos, you know, they're living in your nations. Oh but of course that would require you lot to actually change yourselves, and we all know how anathema that is to you. Cope.
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@shanep.7184 Sure. But 'how the market economy works' is also why slavery and child labour worked - indeed the defenders of both practices back in the day often used the free market as their main defense of it. It's also why blood diamonds worked. And why fake cures and snake oil salesmen worked. It's also why sweatshops and drug pushing and sex work exploitation work. These are all market phenomena, but that doesn't make them not exploitation. And guess what? Some of them went away, or substantially reduced, when the conditions the market had to operate in changed - usually by way of govt. decree or worker agitation. Markets work in the conditions created for them - those conditions are malleable. The most successful market interventions aren't even seen as interventions today, we just take them for granted. But they are interventions.
As for being indispensable, this is exceptionalist idealism. We will never have a world where every person is their own unique snowflake irreplaceable by anyone else. Indeed if we did we likely wouldn't even be able to accomplish anything. Fungibility isn't just an essential feature of currency, it's also pretty vital for labor too. Companies would be one unexpected quitting or death away from collapse if all their employees were irreplaceable. So would govts. be with their civil servants. No organization can work with nothing but mavericks and savants.
A good system, like a good design, is set up for the average participant, not the outlier. For the mean, median or mode, not the exception. That means ensuring the replaceable workers are compensated. You wouldn't call an education system where most students fail horribly but a few gifted kids top the world a good system, nor a health system that fails to provide good care for the average Joe with a flu but manages to have elite hospitals staffed with the best specialists of all good either. In fact we literally see that in reality - with places like Finland and France ranking way higher than the US in education and health respectively. And yet somehow that kind of philosophy is touted as good practice for the economy? Yeah no. Indeed this is even recognized as the flaw it is - but only when it happens outside the West. Commentators often use the existence of enormously wealthy individuals or families in otherwise poor countries as an avenue to criticize said nations. And yet that kind of discrepancy is what you're championing here for companies. Hell in many cases those people are also similarly unique, with few if anyone else being able to take their place (even if their position isn't based on skill but a myriad of other factors). No, if those states aren't doing right by their people, firms are similarly not doing right by their workers. And, as mentioned above, historically they did even worse - until they had no choice but to do better, whether due to state decree or worker agitation.
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@fankrys Also, sanctions have never worked as an 'incentive'. They've literally been one long series of failures at doing just that, over the course of decades of use, with the only claimed success story being that of apartheid South Africa which already had a strong local movement against it. Even now - Iran's been under sanctions for ages. They're still helping the Russians, even at the risk of more sanctions and the scuttling of the new nuclear deal that's still being finalized. Even goddamn North Korea, which barely has an economy, hasn't been cowed by sanctions. All sanctions do is make people hate you. I'd argue they make them hate you even more than war in fact, since sanctions also just come off as cowardly. At least war involves you putting your own necks on the line, sanctions don't. The west keeps using sanctions not because they've ever proven themselves effective, but simply because it's a convenient way to pretend you're doing something without risking getting your own soldiers embroiled in war. Sanctions are precisely for the home votebase - to convince the citizenry that we're doing something, while risking little.
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@gentiannushi3343 Lol, you don't know history much. South Korea first developed under an autocracy, only becoming democratic later. Singapore is autocratic to this day, and was developed by one man - Lee Kuan Yew, who is still held in high regard. Rwanda meanwhile is currently experiencing its first taste of development, under an autocrat. And since you didn't guess which nation is was that carried out the largest poverty reduction in history, it's China. Which also had the second highest fdi inflows for decades btw, since that matters to you. For context, that was 3 times the US' whole population raised. While the US, despite being much richer, also has the highest poverty rate among its peers in the OECD (one of the 'perks' of being 'business friendly'). Point being that the world isn't as simple as your naive view of it would like it to be. There's many ways to build prosperity. I notice you've still failed to address your blatant mischaracterization. Talk about bringing one's own house in order, you haven't even brought your narrative in order.
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@Nguyenducky That's an ironic thing for you to say. Wasn't that China's age old position? Send gifts to the Chinese emperor to flatter him as great. Kingdoms even as far away as Malaya did it. Now you want to pay obeisance to the US instead? Also how did Vietnam 'provoke' the US, pray? By having a civil war that was none of their business? And it isn't 'easy' at all. When Bangladesh was fighting for its independence, they tried pressuring us (with force i.e. their navy) to let their oppressors win. When we face nuclear armed enemies on either side, they still drop sanctions on us for daring to get nukes ourselves. Which Iran, a country they've already messed in before, is facing right now, but Israel gets a free pass. What did Gautemala or Panama do to 'deserve' their US interventions? What business is it of the US who runs Iraq? And so on. Living in peace with the US requires you to utterly transform yourselves to align with them like what Japan was forced to do. In that case, since you seem okay with that and given your nearest threat is China, why not just do that for China instead? Doesn't sound so appealing now, does it? The US is ultimately oceans away from most of the places it lays down terms for, which means it really has no business getting involved there as developments elsewhere on Earth don't threaten it much. In other words, it should be a LOT easier to be at peace with the US than it is. It isn't, due to nearly 500 years of western ethos insisting on their cultural superiority and hence responsibility to shape the world in their own image. Carried out first by the Europeans, and now by the Americans.
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Sanctions haven't ever deterred anyone. They've literally been one long series of failures at doing just that, over the course of decades of use, with the only claimed success story being that of apartheid South Africa which already had a strong local movement against it. Even now - Iran's been under sanctions for ages. They're still helping the Russians, even at the risk of more sanctions and the scuttling of the new nuclear deal that's still being finalized. Even goddamn North Korea, which barely has an economy, hasn't been cowed by sanctions. All sanctions do is make people hate you. I'd argue they make them hate you even more than war in fact, since sanctions also just come off as cowardly. At least war involves you putting your own necks on the line, sanctions don't. The west keeps using sanctions not because they've ever proven themselves effective, but simply because it's a convenient way to pretend you're doing something without risking getting your own soldiers embroiled in war. Sanctions are, in other words, precisely for the home votebase - to convince the home population that we're doing something, but risking little.
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Ah of course, ye olde Luddite story. Why am I not surprised to hear the neoliberal Visual Economik trot out that classic tale? Automation DID kill off a lot of jobs - in the primary sector i.e. in agriculture. And then in the secondary sector i.e. manufacturing. So we all moved on to the tertiary sector i.e. services. Well what's next? There is no further sector of the economy. If more service sector jobs are automated, where is mass employment going to come from next? I've never heard any economist come up with a good answer, apart from a handful of small scale ideas like how everyone is going on nowadays about 'prompt writers', which btw advancements in AI (like AutoGPT) already trying to render obsolete. We used to say humans could focus on what humans are good at, namely the creative fields - and now AI has undermined them before any of the others. In any case we don't need a few new niche job titles, we need new sources of MASS employment. So far the only significant answer that gets trotted out is a massive expansion of the healthcare sector caused by population aging - basically loads of younger folks caring for old folks.
The part about automation adopting companies creating jobs actually shows something else that is worrying about AI - consolidation and concentration of power. Companies that didn't automate were driven out of business, while companies that did ate up all their market and expanded, hence were responsible for most new job creation - at the cost of making them ever more dominant parts of the economy. Indeed this process stops working once the market has already been fully consolidated (an oligopoly) and expansion opportunities reduce (which is more likely in the future now thanks to separate rising phenomenon - de-globalisation and protectionism). AI by its very design fits right in with that. The supplier effect mentioned right after is also threatened by de-globalisation btw - most job creation by multinational giants is in poor nations.
Then there's the truly funny section of the video talking about reducing working hours, backed up by a graph showing the same. It's funny cos it makes it seem like companies did this out of the goodness of their hearts now that technology meant they didn't need workers to work as long (which btw contradicts the earlier part of the video which shows they used the new capabilities to ramp up production, a far cry from them relaxing their workforce). No, working hours have reduced because labor movements pushed for it and govts. slowly got onboard with it. This mechanism relies on labor, especially low-level mass labor, being just as necessary for future corporate success, which AI directly undermines. The other reason why it happened is due to more and more work being based on hourly wages and/or contract or gig arrangements - and in those cases less hours worked directly translates into less income earned.
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Btw, on a more general note, I gotta love how all the comment replies here are focused on the military side of things rather than economic. And also all on Russia while ignoring Ukraine. Shows what you guys all really care about. This war is basically being treated by western gawkers like an IRL version of a Marvel flick, where it's all about the cool action scenes and their heroes taking down the villain. Despite even this video being about the economy, not battlefield, all everyone cares about is the cool action on the battlefield. And like any Marvel flick, everyone doesn't bother about the injuries to their hero (Ukraine) cos they 'know' none of that matters as long as it wins. The sad thing is, with such a childish attitude to war, you people are gonna quickly forget about Ukraine whenever this war ends (however it ends), as it simply won't hype you up as much anymore. They'll be left to pick up the pieces with whatever goodwill they can scrounge together from much more dour European bureaucrats, as the public moves on to its next big blockbuster - the great war with China. That one should be a huge hit, and the promotional push for it is already underway!
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@korayven9255 "It's not a question of if Russia's economy breaks if they are unable to win outright or cut off the aid" - ironically someone else above brought up history. Well here's the history of sanctions - they've failed in every instance. Literally the only major example of sanctions ever achieving their stated goal is that of apartheid South Africa, and that example is heavily doubted in academic circles as the country already had a strong anti-apartheid movement ongoing by the time they were implemented - which, also ironically, was also supported by Russia (hence why South Africa still has good ties with Moscow). Other that that disputed 'success story', sanctions are one long string of failures, despite the passage of decades in some cases. Cuba still hasn't caved in, neither has Iran, neither has Korea, etc. And all these nations are just being driven further and further into the arms of your worst nightmare - the second largest economy on Earth. Have fun trying to sanction them to death next, and crashing the whole world economy in the process. Sanctions may hurt Russia sure, but they won't stop it, just as they haven't stopped anyone else they were used on. Meanwhile Ukraine is being subjected to far worse economic damage than any sanction package could ever achieve. If that tap ever dries up, as I expect it will (at least in terms of the magnitude of it they're getting) if and when the war ends, they're in bigger trouble.
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@korayven9255 NATO? Looks like you're at least cottoning on to what this war is actually about. Good on you for that. And you're right that NATO will try to make the most of Ukraine if it gets a free hand to do so, which is precisely why Russia will keep doing everything to prevent that. And likely China too in the long run, as they see NATO much the same way Russia does and don't wish to see it grow. If NATO wants to get involved in Ukraine, they're gonna be locked into a real forever war that'll destroy what's left of Ukraine. Russia has warned about NATO for over 30 years, including just before this war, which was ignored until they finally decided to act on it and hence NATO has finally chosen to exercise a bit more caution in its recent meetings. How long that'll last I don't know, but the outcome of it not lasting isn't as rosy as you'd like to think. They already have an office in Japan now, this conflict will go global if you keep pushing your luck.
That said, unlike all of you action junkies, I wasn't referring to NATO when I said Ukraine would be forgotten after the war. NATO is led by serious men. I was, unlike all of you action junkies, firstly referring to Ukraine's economy rather than military, and further to that I was referring to political contributions as opposed to bureaucratic ones (that's why I mentioned them still getting some basic support from 'dour European bureaucrats'). The level of support they're getting now is partly because of how politically hyped this war is, after the war that won't be the case. If NATO chooses to and gets to set up shop in Ukraine, it'll do what it does elsewhere - build bases for NATO troops. That has a minor economic impact at best, not even close to what's needed to rebuild the country. Most of that requires boring economic aid to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, an amount you'll never be able to rustle up after the war without major popular backing - a popular backing that won't be as popular once the exciting part of the conflict has died down. You can see that clearly in all other foreign aid the west has sent out over the years - it's a pittance compared to both what is needed and what they could send. NATO isn't gonna do that for you, you people are gonna have to push govts. for it over a sustained period of decades. I'm skeptical that the childishness on display in the above comments bodes at all well for the future of that endeavour.
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@paulomilan515 Fine, I'll copy my comments - On emissions for instance, VE paints a very misleading picture by only showing current annual emissions. Climate change is overwhelmingly a problem created by rich countries, NOT poor ones. Per capita rich citizens emit far more than poor ones by a massive margin. But okay, let's say you don't care about fairness. But not only that, if you look at TOTAL emissions, rather than current, it's again rich nations that caused the problem. The US, for instance, has emitted 25% of ALL carbon, and Europe is just behind at 22%. China? 12.5%, HALF the US. India? 3%. Making it seem like these nations are responsible is disingenuous at best.
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@ep5019 The millions of deaths, economic devastation, draining of wealth, manipulation of social divisions, asinine actual divisions (borders), etc. etc. Tens of millions of people forcibly moved across continents for labor, reducing one of the wealthiest nations on Earth from a quarter of world gdp to less than 1%, literally fighting wars against the other wealthiest nation on Earth just to push your interests as the largest drug lords in history, killing literally HALF the population of the Congo is as little as 2 decades, to name just a few examples. Not that I expect you lot to acknowledge your sins. You've had half a millennium spent building up the biggest ego on Earth, that won't go away. Ironically it's that very ego that's the reason why it matters that you do. As that isn't the past, but the present.
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@BS-cc4ks There's multiple things wrong here. Firstly, "If the only way a country can prosper is for anyone to take responsibility for victimizing them" - I don't see where I wrote that at all. This never had anything to do with 'unlocking' success for anyone. Hell in that case, I would just go the whole hog and expect reparations as well. Nowhere did I claim countries couldn't succeed until the west apologized - indeed my argument focused on the change doing so would have on the west itself, not its victim. That's why I used the word ego so much.
Secondly, try using that argument on an actual victim rather than just in the abstract - for instance, a ra*e victim. Try telling them that they should just move on and not even expect an apology, let alone justice against their abuser. See how it goes. But perhaps they're not thinking rationally. Okay, try suggesting that to others then, when talking about the crime. Again, likely not gonna be accepted. Point being that this sagacious argument is only ever trotted out in a few cases, colonialism being one. Why is the west so gung-ho in supporting Israel now in its massive response to being briefly made a victim recently? Tell them to move on too. Why did the west itself launch two huge wars just to avenge a much smaller attack? And so on. The people spouting this nonsense don't even live by it themselves.
Thirdly, you talk about folks supposedly reveling in 'blaming their ills on someone else'. This is just another version of ye olde 'the poor and/or miserable actually like being poor and/or miserable cos that absolves them of responsibility'. It's such a dumb take. Why? Cos what do you think being POOR and/or MISERABLE means?! You think the homeless dude sleeping on the street actually LIKES his life?! Being miserable feels, you know, MISERABLE! This silly take doesn't make sense even for individuals, let alone countries. No one ENJOYS being in a poor country, blaming someone else doesn't magically turn pain into pleasure. It's still a miserable life that you would rather not have and so desperately want to change. "blame all your ills" - do you know what 'ills' are?! You might as well claim that sick people like being sick. You know what's way better than blaming someone else? Not having said ills to blame others for in the first place. There's PLENTY of incentive to change things.
Fourthly, you talk about 'bad incentives', but fail to recognise your own. Your 'bad incentive' for the victims I dealt with above, but there's also effects on the perpetrators too - which is the whole reason I stressed the importance of owning up to it, NOT to somehow change much for the victims. By ignoring, negating or denying their past crimes, people in the west today can just look at the state of their nations versus others around the world and draw the most favorable conclusion for themselves - that it speaks to their own innate superiority to everyone else. In other words, to feed their egos. Rich people do this all the time, so much so that even the word 'aristocracy' translates to 'rule of the BEST'. Not of the 'wealthy' or 'elite', but 'best'. It's very nice to be able to pat yourself on the back, whether you deserve it or not. Some are even trying to push for 'western civilization' courses to be taught in school or university, which is a ludicrous idea from an academic pov cos the west is not a monolith and there's already plenty taught about its various histories. The real purpose of such drives is to emphasise the separation of the 'west' from the 'rest'. Typically positively i.e. to show everyone how the west is best. This kind of ego-stroking is exactly what an admission of guilt and flaws most threatens, and hence why it's needed. And you can literally see examples of this above, as with ep5019. It was never for helping US, it was about how it would change YOU. The west looks at things from atop a pedestal it places itself on. The point is to knock them off of it and bring them back down to Earth.
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@Pyrrhic. "it’s not a problem" - for now. It's an ever more precarious house of cards that's just waiting for some big change in the world order and then the whole thing will collapse like all other card houses. By contrast not being so indebted would allow it to take a major shock. The fall of the British Empire, for instance, didn't make Britain itself fall.
And btw, the world can make a new reserve currency if needed. There's already a candidate for it - not the Euro or Yuan, but the IMF's Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). They aren't suited for the role as is, but if needed during a crisis a new version could be created that would serve the needs of international trade. The world doesn't do so cos it doesn't need to, the dollar serves the role - for now. But if the dollar is shaken, and no ready replacements are on hand, one can be made.
Assuming one is even needed. Note that for most of human history there was no such thing as a global reserve currency, yet trade still flowed. You don't need one for international trade, it just makes trade easier and simpler. Not having one would reduce global financial efficiency somewhat, but it wouldn't kill it.
So basically the US is banking on its hegemony to last forever. That's even more arrogant than the Nazis were - at least they only banked on lasting for a 1000 years. If the US hegemony is ever shaken, its whole economy will fall apart.
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@DavidHalko "They were brutal" - and there you've already contradicted yourself. I was focused more on the 'free' part. No one has been building and safeguarding roads out of the goodness of their hearts, it was from where they drew their power. Also your piracy argument is silly. That's just an excuse Americans use to justify their hegemony, that has never been proved. Safeguard from pirates? Lol no. Modern piracy is a pale shadow of what it was. Any middle income country navy could stamp out piracy in their waters. And do, as for example the Somali pirates were easily dispatched by an international, not just US, task force. The US navy isn't even properly structured for fighting pirates - you don't need aircraft carriers to fight poor men in dinghy boats. No, the US navy spends its treasure not to 'safeguard trade routes', but to fight other navies. And armies, in the case of the carriers. It isn't for anyone else's benefit, it's to maintain their hegemony.
The world does not owe the US any 'taxes' to begin with. And you're free to retreat from your oh-so-generous self-appointed role as the 'police' whenever you want, it's not like anyone can stop you from doing so. You don't. Cos as much as Americans love to complain about it, Washington knows that it serves US power projection to continue to do so.
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@DavidHalko "using Crony Capitalism, which is another brand of Socialism" - lmao! Yeah sure, let's just brand capitalism as socialism too next whenever we don't like it. You know what you sound like? Not a capitalist. Nor a socialist. Not any kind of economic theorist. You sound like a puritan i.e. a religious zealot. Your ideas remind me of Calvinists and the like in Christianity, or for a closer to present example, Wahabism in Islam. Reality has to be perfectly pure or else it just isn't the thing you claim to believe in, whether that's your religion or, in your case, your economic ideology. Nah bro, crony capitalism is still capitalism. Besides, if you want to be that puritan about it, you should really be an anarchist.
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@dirac1254 Well I was more referring to the statement that their demographics 'will go back up', which makes it seem like their problems are going to go away. I suppose yes, a declining population does increase their GDP per capita, but that's more of a statistical artifact from the denominator getting smaller rather than meaning the economy is actually better as the OP seemed to be implying. If it is actually possible for them to reach a post-labor economy via mechanization, then it does at least mean there's fewer people to support with said economy. That said, if such a thing actually happens, it'd invert the current population rhetoric we have - suddenly Japan, China, Europe, etc. are viable again, while India and Africa are in a soup.
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@michaelajustin3443 India was not outclassed by Europe. When Europeans first came to India, they had to bow down to the Mughal emperor, as well as the other Indian states. They already had guns and cannons and all the rest. So why did India fall? Ironically due to the opposite reason of China. Because of that infamous phrase - divide and conquer. Europe didn't fight all of India and win, they pitted kingdom after kingdom against each other, and offered their services as mercenary troops. They did lose as well, however the conquest of India wasn't done by the British crown, it was done by an entirely new kind of entity - the East India Company. Which came back from every setback cos of how enormously profitable it was. The Company wasn't seen as a political entity, but just traders and soldiers for hire. And, ironically, some of its later large investors were Indians themselves. The EIC made lots of money, used that to hire Indian soldiers, used those soldiers to fight strategic wars between Indian states in order to extract more favors, and even bribed their way to victory on several occasions. There was nothing grand about the British conquest of India. It wasn't even British, it was a private company carving up the region over decades of interference. Only after 1857 did the Crown take control of India.
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@michaelajustin3443 India was not outclassed by Europe. When Europeans first came to India, they had to bow to the Mughal emperor, as well as other Indian states. They already had guns. So how was India taken over? Ironically due to the opposite reason of China i.e. because of divide and conquer. Europe didn't fight all of India, they pitted kingdom after kingdom against each other, and offered their services as mercenaries. They did lose as well, however the conquest of India wasn't done by the British crown, it was done by an entirely new kind of entity - the East India Company. Which came back from every setback cos of how enormously profitable it was. The Company wasn't seen as a political entity, but just traders and soldiers for hire. And, ironically, some of its later large investors were Indians themselves. The EIC made lots of money, used that to hire Indian soldiers, used those soldiers to fight strategic wars between Indian states in order to extract more favors, and even bribed their way to victory on several occasions. There was nothing grand about the British conquest. It wasn't even British, it was a private company carving up the region over decades of interference. Only after 1857 did the Crown take control.
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@michaelajustin3443 India was not outclassed by Europe. When Europeans first came to India, they had to pay respect to the Mughal emperor, as well as other Indian states. They already had guns. So how was India taken over? Ironically due to the opposite reason of China i.e. because of divide and conquer. Europe didn't fight all of India, they pitted kingdom after kingdom against each other, and offered their services as mercenaries. They did lose as well, however the conquest of India wasn't done by the British crown, it was done by an entirely new kind of entity - the East India Company. Which came back from every setback cos of how enormously profitable it was. The Company wasn't seen as a political entity, but just traders and soldiers for hire. And, ironically, some of its later large investors were Indians themselves. The EIC made lots of money, used that to hire Indian soldiers, used those soldiers to fight strategic wars between Indian states in order to extract more favors, and even bribed their way to victory on several occasions. There was nothing grand about the British conquest. It wasn't even British, it was a private company carving up the region over decades of interference. Only after 1857 did the Crown take control.
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@michaelajustin3443 India was not outclassed by Europe. When Europeans first came to India, they had to pay respect to the Mughal emperor, as well as other Indian states. They already had guns. So how was India taken over? Ironically due to the opposite reason of China i.e. because of divide and conquer. Europe didn't fight all of India, they pitted kingdom after kingdom against each other, and offered their services as mercenaries. They did lose as well, however the conquest of India wasn't done by the British crown, it was done by an entirely new kind of entity - the East India Company. Which came back from every setback cos of how enormously profitable it was. The Company wasn't seen as a political entity, but just traders and soldiers for hire. And, ironically, some of its later large investors were Indians themselves. The EIC made lots of money, used that to hire Indian soldiers, used those soldiers to fight strategic wars between Indian states in order to extract more favors, and even bribed their way to victory on several occasions. It was a private company carving up the region over decades of interference. Only after 1857 did the Crown take control - by then the conquest was done.
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Lol people have touted pride and sentiment as marketing boosts for ages, and it has achieved almost jack shit. You think Made in Ukraine is gonna sway customers? How about Made in (your own damn country)? That's been tried by so many small businesses as a way to get sales, and by and large they're all still small businesses cos, guess what, most consumers don't give a shit. On the flipside Made in Israel hasn't dissuaded consumers despite the best efforts of the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) movement. Cos, like I said, most don't give a shit. As for corruption and cronyism, Ukraine's govt. now is even more centralized and empowered relative to its populace than it ever was (duh, they're under martial law). And unaccountable power is the perfect breeding ground for corruption and cronyism.
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