Comments by "worn down" (@worndown8280) on "Zeihan on Geopolitics" channel.

  1. Debt per capita is a thing. Eventually it will crush a nation and said nation will default. When that happens, if said nation does not have the resources to maintain its modernity, it goes back pre industrial times. Thats why a shrinking population is bad. That means less demand, which means less of a need for workers. Which means less employment and so on and so on.
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  2.  @bsmithhammer  You are right, he called them "disorganized nazis." thats much better isnt it. I think the commenter was trying to juxtapose the current trend in American politics with Germany. But maybe that is to much for you to grasp. The inability to see things from others perspectives often leads to conflict. It doesnt mean you have to agree with them, but it does let you empathize with them.
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  3.  @simonhibbs887  I think the difference is Japan was fully developed. They didnt have well over half their population living in the rice patty villages like their ancestors did for the last 5000 years. That and China's demographic collapse isnt going to be as kind as it is to Japan. Even then I fully expect Japan to start defaulting on debt in the next decade. But we shall have to see I suppose.
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  4. Per the UN the best way to reduce population growth is the empowerment and education of women, even if it is done via force. I wonder what could possibly help nations who are suffering from low birth rates could do to fix that? I wonder.
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  5. This is why the nordstream was destroyed. And it had its desired results. I wonder if the pressure nato members will start to have to put on each other will ultimately destroy the trust between those nations and ultimately nato itself, regardless of the outcome of the war in Ukraine.
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  6. Based on the SCOTUS ruling he cant. So even if he did want to, which is subject to debate. Not mentioning something isnt being for it, he just cant do it even if he would want to.
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  7. Germanys best hope is to ban all forms of birth control. Then this winter, when men and women huddle for warmth, what has always happened will happen again. I know, I know, impossible.
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  8.  P A  it was clearly a joke. The rest of the post shows that. Yet several people in this thread accused me of calling hitler. The youth have zero sense of humor these days. Red fox or Richard pryor would melt their brains I think.
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  9. Yes lets produce new consumers. Thats literally the one thing women can do that men cant. And they are choosing not to. Maybe we look at why they arent and address that.
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  10. You dont. You do what the Japanese have been doing for the last few decades. Basically slowly starving to death. Excess debt will be death to companies.
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  11. The Euro came around at the peak of production and population. Places today that have population have little production, places that have production are very quickly losing people. We had a global golden age post cold war. And few took notice of it.
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  12.  @jeffr6280  Most of their wealth, the wealthy folks you listed, isnt liquid. Should they be forced to sell their assets, it would have a deflationary impact on the markets of those assets. This would make other Americans poorer as well.
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  13. Reading the comments its like people dont understand this. Yes the solar you put on your house may reduce your total energy usage from the grid. But all those investments still have to be made to transport the energy you dont generate to you house so it doesnt go dark when the sun goes down and to keep the steam boiler hot to produce the extra power when its needed. Unless you can completely detach yourself from the grid, from any electrical use, standpoint you arent really helping reduce your carbon footprint. In fact you are likely increasing it. And if you dont have a battery wall that can go several days between recharges or if you dont get sun every day, thats just not happening.
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  14. That the US would give up policing the world.
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  15. Boy are you in for a surprise. Japan's fertility rate 1.34, South Korea's fertility rate 0.84, and Vietnam's fertility rate 1.96. In south korean only 1 woman in 4 even has a child. And all three of those nations are exporting nations. And with everyones population near max levels, or actively declining, that does not bode well for demand or their long term economies.
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  16.  @tethryss5001  shit indeed.
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  17.  @knoll9812  Its the rate of change thats the problem. In 1973 the fertility rate in Vietnam was 6. Now its 1.9. Its suspiciously been 1.9 for two decades now. I would not be surprised if their numbers are false honestly. Kind of like Chinas. But they are certainly better than China, Japan and South Korea... probably.
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  18.  @Gizziiusa  South Korea cant really do much. Its forces are needed where they are. And they have negligible naval assets.
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  19. Thats until the diesel runs out. Make sure you have plans for when that does happen. Most hospitals and cell towers have about 72-96 hours worth of tanks onsite, well here in the US. I do not know what Ukrainian regulations are. Best of luck to you and yours.
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  20. two main differences. Germany and Belgium have had their declines since the late 60s, The US never really had a severe drop. Just a very little below replacement level since 1972. And we have had massive amounts of immigration that cover the difference. But even the immigration is drying up in total numbers. It use to be women got married early and had children young, in their early 20s. that meant that there would be a new generation every 20 years. But since the 1970s women have pushed back their family creation time until around 30. That means in any give time period of 60 years people use to have 3 generations. But now only two. Thats a loss of a third. People dont understand how little things like that can lead to a "collapse" but it does.
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  21. And when we, the west do this (send in massive amounts of munitions), do we really think the Russians wont chose to use tactical nukes against Ukraine? If your logic is they will use them against someone who can respond with a nuclear response, why wouldnt they do that with someone who couldnt?
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  22.  @amk4956  A few issues with those numbers. California has so depleted its aquifer under the central valley that they wont be producing anything in a few decades. There simply wont be any water for those crops. I know several places in the mid west are approaching similar points as well. Then there is the new tax rules that they made for farms in California a few years ago. Most farmers are going to be taxed out of their farms. I am sure many other places that produce have similar issues. Could they build desalinization plants, yeah but the costs of it would make the farms non productive from a price standpoint.
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  23. Fed needs to get the interest rate to at least the core CPI rate, 5.5%, at the minimum. They need to put their big boy pants on and do a 200 or 300 point hike.
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  24.  @elektrotehnik94  The US is the only nation to really ever achieve something like that, repeatedly and successfully.
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  25.  @Anthony-jo7up  Yeah, people that think Japan will just sit on its hands if this happens dont understand the North East Asian theater at all. Because if Taiwan falls, you know they will want to start on the Ryukyus.
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  26.  @thmphll  Israel has. And if you look at their demographic breakdown its pretty easy to see why. Only the faithful are reproducing. The majority of the urbanite cohort isnt at replacement level.
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  27.  @calc1657  The future is made one choice at a time. Want a better future, make better choices. Not making a choice is a choice too, but seldom is it a good one.
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  28. Yup, its a way to shift payment costs. Another diversion to the elderly.
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  29.  @matthewgaudet8001  Tucker was a Democrat for many years. Just like Trump. Just like Reagan. The Irony.
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  30. Hes a globalist., Democrats and Republicans for the most part support globalism so he doesnt need to be either. He is an unabashed globalist at that. And while I disagree with globalism, I can respect him for always being upfront about it.
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  31. Biden will end up trying to move the Gazans to the US. Just like Clinton did with the Somalians. It sounds stupid I know, but thats Joe for you.
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  32.  @srwven  Their numbers only work when you ignore the manufacturing process. People have been trying to tell them this for over a decade, they dont care. Its like a cult for some people.
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  33. American labor is to highly skills. Also America, labor force participation rate is 62.6%. Imagine what would happen if the remainder was actually working instead of sucking off welfare.
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  34. I would have agreed with your last statement. But Trump this election cycle is behaving much much different. One could argue he learned his lesson about civility. Though I know its hard to look at someone with fresh eyes who you already had preconceived notions about.
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  35.  @nazcamain  If you look at their demography its a sub section of the population thats having almost all the kids. The religious. They have families out of faith. Its their duty. And they sacrifice to do it. The non religious urbanites in Israel have the same low birth rate as the rest of the west. But when your religious families all have 6 or 7 kids, it gets you above replacement level. And in 100 years, there will only be the sons and daughters of the faithful. Same as in western nations. Religion gives people hope. And hope carries most people through.
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  36.  @Big_Tex  This is funny. I read it in Hanks voice.
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  37.  @jaysilence3314  Peter gets a lot of things right, but immigration is a blind spot for him. He largely supports it because immigration artificially boosts GDP, which causes inflation due to deficit spending and then you need more immigration and so on. But eventually this leads to a run away effect. This will eventually lead to collapse though. We are nearing that point in the west. Thats when pogroms begin unfortunately. And again, people like Peter will pivot on their heels and be for it.
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  38.  @jon_jpn  Its not a win for the workers already in Canada. They will see their wages stagnate or decline. Thats a political problem. Canada's core problem is that its an export driven economy in a world awash with export driven economies. Its one saving grace is that it shares a border with the US. What Canada needs, which Zeihan didnt overtly say but infered, is internal demand. Hence his comment about older people buying property and then ghosting off to another country to live.
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  39.  @jon_jpn  internal demand is primarily from those who create families. Wage stagnation is a problem when you flood any field with foreign workers, domestically, while at the same time subsidizing their education.
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  40. as a teenager in the 80s I remember auto union members beating Japanese cars with bats and crowbars. And everyone freaking out when the Japanese bought Rockefeller Center. A few years later they had to sell it at a massive discount. Good times.
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  41. Our friends of course, the Saudi's. lol
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  42.  @buildmotosykletist1987  nah, they just would have to take the longer route. The same one they do when there is typhoon. It will make things a tad more expensive. But they will still get the stuff, unlike China.
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  43.  @tukkajumala  I wish it were so, I've been deployed to places where the state imploded. It's always dirty getting to the future.
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  44. With all their imported Syrian refugees this should be fun. Right now there are what over a million of them there? Germany is going to rip itself apart as it starts to freeze this winter.
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  45.  @bighands69  You would not just be wrong, but utterly and stupendously wrong. Look up the UNs Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). All of the SDG's, all 17, are enacted to reduce growth. They dont care about women, they just want to reduce growth, even as it plunges over the edge of discoverability in many developed nations. Women are being used. And statistically, well educated women, at the Masters and the Grad level and higher rarely marry and dont have hardly any kids. Their divorce rate, when they do marry is about 90% and if they have a child, more often than not its in their late 30s or early 40s. Hard to have more than one when thats when you start. More women in the US now have their first child in their 40s than in their 20s. A people cant recover from that. Thats to say nothing of just the economic repercussions from that.
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  46.  @doomedbook1020  I am not sure if that far is needed. But certainly stopping incentivizing the current behaviors would be a positive moment.
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  47. Peter doesnt get this. Its not city living or industrialization that drops fertility rates. Japan industrialized in the late 1800s and early 1900s, their birth rate was near 6 child per women and by the time WWII came around is was at 5. So what is it that drops fertility rates, ask the UN. Its part of their global policy. Empowering women drops fertility rates. Because at a certain point women dont "need" men. At that point you have men and women who dont need each other and then pop, population implodes. And I am not sure what numbers Perter is looking at. But the US has been below replacement rates since 1972. The only thing that has pushed off the same collapse now facing other nations is endless immigration. But even the immigration today is not so much people wanting to come to the US, but our foreign policies destoying other nations so those people have no other choice but to move. Even then, most of that immigration isnt coming to the US, they would rather go to another nation like Mexico. Similar culture, language and better purchasing power. There are no good answers going forward.
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  48.  @doctorx1924  Many of the Venezuelans who came up to the US recently have been expressing that. That this isnt what they were told when they decided to move from there to here. And yet I hear know talk of just who is telling these people these things? I imagine its NGO groups like the kind who were helping migrants from Africa to Italy before the EU was forced to hold them to human trafficking standards. I think the EU allowed it because they understand the same policy effects that are effecting population decline in Europe as well, but lack the political spine to admit it. Just like in the US.
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  49. until the gravy train ends
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  50. Peter Zeihan pimping his own head merch. He is the Pewdiepie of economic demography.
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