Comments by "MarcosElMalo2" (@MarcosElMalo2) on "Zeihan on Geopolitics"
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@captainalex157 This comment addresses the original comment and some of your reply.
Jim Baker, U.S. Secretary of State under Reagan, made an agreement with Gorbachev, an exchange of assurances. The U.S. wouldn’t support nations on Russia’s border joining NATO, but neither would the USSR use violence and aggression to put down their independence. The agreement wasn’t one-sided, it was mutually beneficial. (And let’s note that while Baker didn’t represent NATO in these talks, the U.S. could veto or delay admittance into NATO, as can any NATO member.)
Yeltsin and later Putin broke this agreement, first in 1994. As a result, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland were admitted in 1999. The Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania were added in 2004, again as a result of Russian aggression against an independence movement.
What you call provocation is the response to Russian provocation. Look at the historical context.
Also, fifteen nations, not twenty, have become NATO members since the fall of the Soviet Union, Finland being the last of the fifteen, but others applying or signaling their desire to join.
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The 30-year fixed rate hit 18% in early 1980s, and decreased to about 7% by the year 2000. Inflation peaked about the same time at 14%. At the time you got your first mortgage, inflation was at 2.75%.
I don’t think we can say what is normal interest or normal inflation over the long term. At best we can say there has been a downward trend. Incidentally, one of the charts I just looked at noted that Paul Volcker was named Fed Chairman in 1979 and embarked on an anti-inflation campaign. I think I’ll have a look at what he did that began easing inflation, although I don’t think it will be directly applicable to our current situation.
I’m going to take Peter’s claim about what the Fed is trying to do vis-a-vis international markets with a grain of salt, and take current Fed Chairman Jay Powell at his word. (His latest press briefing was yesterday—PBS Newshour has the full brief.) He is primarily attempting to avert persistent inflation. A secondary target is a soft landing for this weird recession we are in (and there’s your anomaly, because the job market is strong, etc.), but he expressed doubt that the Fed could land the economy softly. Maybe that is what Peter was talking about because when the U.S. is in a recession, the rest of the world feels it.
Personally, I’m really glad I paid down my high interest credit card debt over the past six months. I plan to be pretty frugal this holiday season and avoid accumulating more debt. Good luck to y’all in the storm we are entering. I hope we see smooth sailing before too long.
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@hohenzollern6025 You’re ignoring some key facts. The set of “jobs only humans can do” is shrinking. Perhaps economic growth has masked this fact, but what happens if the global economy enters a long period of shrinkage?
With regard to finding technicians to operate the means of production, the socialists would say, “there are always people willing to work for altruistic motives” (or perhaps for the fun of it). The capitalists might say some people will be willing to work for more than the UBI if there is still a profit motive. And a cynic might say, in either case, there are plenty of people who will seek power, advantage and ways to manipulate the system for their benefit, and they will take over whichever system you put in place. Just like always.
The real question is not “Are humans 100% replaceable?” The questions are do we need to restructure society? How should we do it?
Also, Hard AI is probably impossible, so you needn’t worry about skynet or your Abominable intelligence war. What we call AI is a tool, a human prosthetic.
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