Comments by "Doncarlo" (@doujinflip) on "Zeihan on Geopolitics" channel.

  1. The Dutch became far more defensive since they decolonized and lost interest in much more than preventing further loss. That said I've heard the Dutch are among the best developers and practitioners of modern cybersecurity.
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  2. I'm sure those farmers would gladly sell a mile-deep strip of their land so that the feds can install an effective defense in depth that minimizes the number of new hires on a permanent government payroll.
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  3. Although it’s more accurate to describe the fall of AUD and CAD against the USD. The SGD has been stable against the greeback.
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  4. Right, a lot of social media economists don’t realize that efficiency and resilience are actually competing interests. The “inflation” that the CHIPS and Inflation Reduction Acts target is the long term one that’s bound to happen if America’s businesses continue pursuing its profits through shortsighted cost-cutting rather than sustained continuity.
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  5. And lack of supply, which if anything is the stronger influence this time.
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  6. Or rather past notions of the economy, getting constantly overturned like a dynamic market should. Remember walking forward actually involves falling down into the next step.
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  7. Until cartels develop innovations in demining an area, and now you've just armed drug runners with IEDs.
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  8. EVs are depressed due to lack of charging and expensive offerings for the overall experience. We hear about Tesla and BYD all the time, but quietly Hyundai/Kia EVs still sell well.
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  9. Fear is a great motivator, both for ad revenue and for votes.
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  10.  @silentvoiceinthedark5665 Mostly because some key processes of the pre-PC era weren’t well documented. A similar issue arises with old software and it’s long deprecated languages that very few people ever knew to begin with. What we can do is recreate the capabilities practically from scratch, which is just as amazing and ultimately what matters in the end.
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  11. ​ @mikehammer4018  Any cross-Straits shooting is going to cause all voyages to China's ports to become uninsurable. The West doesn't even need to dominate the seas and skies, just provide enough return fire to keep the SCS unsafe for civilian traffic and thus starve the Mainland of vital food and fuel imports.
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  12. It's also the most socially conservative province, with more sentiment towards the "free" US than their "nanny" in Ottawa. Ironically in the US itself the opposite is true, with the coastal liberal states funding the conservative interior.
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  13. Nice thoughts but inflation and automation mean that if we don't enjoy ourselves now, we likely won't get the chance in the future either. Staying alive isn't terribly difficult, but staying motivated is only getting more impossible.
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  14. Right, the PLA's overwhelming manpower means nothing if most of them are stuck on the Mainland waiting for an increasingly delayed boat ride straight into the target reference points of Taiwanese artillery.
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  15. Founders aren't always the best leaders to maximize the effect and profit down the line though.
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  16. "Excessive" debt loads are like outrunning a bear attack -- you don't have to be faster than the bear, just faster than everyone else. And the USD has been outpacing every other alternative since the British Empire collapsed.
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  17. It's only gotten worse now that Zero-COVID flopped dramatically while China graduated record numbers of college students right as the government hit hard on the tech, real estate, and foreign-owned companies that absorb most of them.
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  18. Taiwan is pro-American, but that doesn't mean it actually wants to become part of the US. Japan and the Philippines would be stronger candidates and they're not petitioning to cede itself to Washington.
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  19. Barriers are a force multiplier, but there has to be a force to multiply. That ironically means more government spending on expensive personnel who can effectively react to incursions.
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  20. Western economies aren't as vulnerable because of better fundamentals -- immigration-boosted demographics, more useful education, more natural startup scene, more open media and public discussion, more solid grasp of the total production chain (R&D, Sales & Services) instead of just the Manufacturing middle-income trap. If anything the concerns are overblown because of deliberate dramatization for attention grabs.
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  21. Those aren't statistically accurate polls, self-selection is too biased to those who even know of the poll's existence. People are called at random for this reason.
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  22. His predictions on the timeline and severity might be clickbait, but his takes on the overall trends hold up.
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  23. Wouldn't be surprised if it's related to the earlier seismic activity that occurred further south of the island. Fun fact: the Blue Lagoon is actually the wastewater of said geothermal plant, after extracting its energy for electricity and central heating. That's how clean geothermal can be ♨
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  24. Unfortunately the voting method has to fundamentally change first, say to ranked-choice. A winner-take-all ballot naturally converges on two choices: the one victor, and the collection of losers.
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  25. Globally yes. But the local pollution effects are way more acute and severe.
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  26. Job competition will do that, especially as remote work opened up a lot of other paycheck possibilities and Mexico's growing industries mean they're no longer as desperate to secretly come north. Plus there's still way to many Americans needing support for skills retraining and chronic health issues which further reduces the effective labor pool, making it an employees' market.
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  27. That's like asking the Secretary of Defense to be a grunt in a foxhole. His value-added (and what he gets paid most for) comes from information analysis and grand strategy, not from dealing with coworkers' personal issues that have no appreciable value in the wider game.
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  28. Inflation is caused by demand outstripping supply. Money was loose to help ensure Americans could afford to survive the disruptions. It may have been generous for a bit too long, but definitely the other side of the equation is the failure of global production and trade to bounce back as quickly as demand did… and much of that is due to continuing Dynamic Zero-COVID shutting down China along with Russia’s “special military operation” blocking reliable trade out of Eastern Europe.
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  29. ​Only in manufacturing, which according to the Smiling Curve is the least value-added and most replaceable middle step compared to R&D and Sales & Services at the ends. Ends that China fails to get a grip on because the mindset and policies those require would be "destabilizing".
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  30. That's because there's now too few ways to immigrate legally. It's only gotten more restricted over time. Hence the surge of irregular entry for immediate asylum claim to get a case processed in a reasonable amount of time.
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  31. It's traditional in that it uses the whole virus, treated in a way to make it inactive. Problem seems to be using the whole thing also creates more messy and less effective antibodies, as opposed to much more focused samples of the spike protein that mRNA and viral vector alternatives produce.
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  32. It would have to continue at likewise inflating rates to keep that upward spiral. Like he said, it's naturally self-correcting.
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  33.  @garywood97  The previous times the US tried to disengage and go America First dragged us into WW1, WW2, and 9/11. Demobilization comes at the cost of deterrence.
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  34. Simple minded commenters focus solely on America's money supply, when global aggregate supply is what's driving prices upward.
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  35. The last one the PLA pulled off was Hainan in 1950, but that operation had a much closer distance and plenty of pro-Communist agents already staged on the island. On the other hand, the PLA never managed to gain a foothold on the even smaller Kinmen and Matsu Islands that are likewise just a short swim away.
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  36. On bulk carrying trains and especially ships it’s actually not that much per additional ton. CO2 is a global effect, but it would be the Chinese breathing all that sulfur and mercury and other breeze blown pollutants.
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  37. Also very long delayed and still full of questionable build quality along its whole length, even when only connecting to the next major city over.
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  38. All the damage happened on the ground. The only space debris might be satellites they lose control of before it's able to get in touch with the remaining ground stations.
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  39. Depends on the altitude. A low orbiting spy satellite will just fall in and burn up. A mid-range GLONASS bird strike could cause problems, but between LEO and Geostationary is not that crowded to begin with.
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  40. You'd still need to separate the salt from the brine, which is still mostly water. This process is not exactly quick or economical -- there's a reason we still mine for it underground despite every place with a seafront theoretically having unlimited access to the stuff. Also the KSA doesn't have as much money as they'd be comfortable with going forward. They're pushing hard for Neom and other foreigner-attracting projects because as oil demand stalls, their citizenry which is way over the territory's natural carrying capacity threaten to revolt when their buying power driven almost exclusively by oil revenues likewise sees no positive future. It's in the name Saudi Arabia, a polity whose leadership changes directly through blood and burials, and not necessarily a peaceful one at that.
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  41. Both are true. Youth unemployment is alarming because of the collapse of real estate and education markets which had employed a lot of graduates, as well as the exodus of companies to cheaper/closer/less hostile countries. At the same time, the youth are the ones driving innovation and establishing demands for new markets, which an increasingly aged society isn't so quick to take up if they do so at all. So China ends up clutching to a limited consumption economy revolving around increasingly worthless condos and other vapid symbols of wealth, as opposed to things they can truly monopolize like popular arts and cultural approachability to foreign audiences.
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  42.  @alexjones7845  Because of Trump's money printer going brrrr as COVID shut down normal market movement. Granted it was arguably necessary to get money to the people and prevent a more devastating downturn like what not-so-socialist China is experiencing now, and probably was run a bit too long as the supply side is still catching up leading to shortages that drove the surge of inflation we had.
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  43. They're told, they just don't believe it because of how tribalist they still are. No significant multiethnic regime lasted that long on the continent until the Europeans were able to expand inward from the coastal trading ports in the late 1800s.
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  44. They kinda can't, a fully free float would annihilate China's economy and with it the CPC's grip on power.
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  45. ​ @asdasdasddgdgdfgdg His timelines can be aggressive, but the overall trends he predicts from are solid.
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  46. There's at least 5m Americans living abroad, likely leaning Democrat as being a social conservative isn't exactly conducive to the mental tolerance and flexibility required to be a voluntary emigrant. Republicans overseas would be concentrated among the 1m military servicemembers who enjoy the insulation of a base compound and expenses-paid travels. I happen to be both a veteran and an expat, and this is what I've noticed. The main hurdle after actually deciding to vote (itself a problem among all Americans) seems to be the submission of ballots since there's not always an embassy or consulate nearby to drop it off at, and the "home" state may not be so accommodating to those voting outside of a physical queue of your "correct" district with the "right" form of ID in hand.
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  47. It's balanced by more GDP demand to keep up with the rising standards of living. Like Boomers didn't require broadband mobile internet to complete their careers, but for Millennials lacking this is a real quick way to get left behind.
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  48. No it is always a he, especially in the upper echelons of politics. Nigeria is socially very traditionalist with a strong sense of gender roles, enforced by the churches/mosques everyone regularly attends due to likewise strong religiosity. Source: I lived there for a few years.
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  49. Not affordably. Overland transport is nowhere near as cheap as floating it on water, especially when most of the demand is on the other side of the country along the coast.
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  50. And no challenges because of Party-monopolized state, within which is mutually-assured destruction of its membership from all the corruption required to make the numbers needed for promotions and increased authority.
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