Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by syam »

Cain Marko wrote: As per the dissidents tweet it might have been because of other reasons such as economic hardship although it seems a strange coincidence that the sudden drop in users coincided so well with the covid19 outbreak. There is little doubt that the CCP will go to great lengths to cover up their sh*t. Probly makes the Chernobyl cover up look like child's play.
It is horrible. I didn't get sleep whole night after realizing how horrible the situation is. The virus outbreak outdid Mao in killing the people. Just imagine a scenario where the elite also not safe from something. It means the whole thing is infected.
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by ricky_v »

Can anyone explain why a PRIVATE entity like the federal reserve loans money to a government? What does the govt put up as collateral?
Image
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by Gerard »

That is the US Central Bank

See Who owns the Federal Reserve?
The Federal Reserve was created in 1913 by the Federal Reserve Act to serve as the nation's central bank. The Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., is an agency of the federal government and reports to and is directly accountable to the Congress.
Some observers mistakenly consider the Federal Reserve to be a private entity because the Reserve Banks are organized similarly to private corporations. For instance, each of the 12 Reserve Banks operates within its own particular geographic area, or District, of the United States, and each is separately incorporated and has its own board of directors. Commercial banks that are members of the Federal Reserve System hold stock in their District's Reserve Bank. However, owning Reserve Bank stock is quite different from owning stock in a private company. The Reserve Banks are not operated for profit, and ownership of a certain amount of stock is, by law, a condition of membership in the System. In fact, the Reserve Banks are required by law to transfer net earnings to the U.S. Treasury, after providing for all necessary expenses of the Reserve Banks, legally required dividend payments, and maintaining a limited balance in a surplus fund.
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by ricky_v »

According to the board of governors of the Federal Reserve, "It is not 'owned' by anyone and is 'not a private, profit-making institution'. Instead, it is an independent entity within the government, having both public purposes and private aspects."[7] The U.S. Government does not own shares in the Federal Reserve System or its component banks, but does receive all of the system's annual profits after a statutory dividend of 6% on their capital investment is paid to member banks and a capital account surplus is maintained. The government also exercises some control over the Federal Reserve by appointing and setting the salaries of the system's highest-level employees.

The division of the responsibilities of a central bank into several separate and independent parts, some private and some public, results in a structure that is considered unique among central banks. It is also unusual in that an entity outside of the central bank – the U.S. Department of the Treasury – creates the currency used.
https://web.archive.org/web/20100811174 ... anks.htm#6
Commercial banks that are members of the Federal Reserve System hold stock in the Reserve Bank in their region, but they do not exercise control over the Reserve Bank or the Federal Reserve System. Holding stock in a regional Reserve Bank does not carry with it the kind of control and financial interest that holding publicly traded stock affords, and the stock may not be sold or traded. Member banks do, however, receive a fixed 6 percent dividend annually on their stock and elect six of the nine members of the Reserve Bank's board of directors.
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by tandav »

What does an economy of essentials look like? Assuming that we have widespread shutdown of most activity and have to work from home. Consumer is sitting mostly at home and all transactions are routed through delivery services... then how does the economy function... Is it possible to deliver most goods and services using only local people. What will it look like?

Low hanging fruit:
Governance will have to move online
Judiciary will have to move online
The meaning of money itself may change
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by ricky_v »

Brazil civil war incoming. The governors of the state are not heeding to the centre and are taking decisions on their own.
https://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/witzel- ... s-24320970
https://g1.globo.com/go/goias/noticia/2 ... iado.ghtml
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by ricky_v »

Do not want to derail the wuhan thread; civilizational interaction with other societies amongst our species follows a similar pattern.
First comes the "european" model of fighting with every other state, the most virulent and energetic phase.
Second comes the "3 state" model, the middling-phase if you will, where groups band together in 3 different entities for control of resources and overall dominance.
Third is the "mahajanapada" model, where the focus is not so much outwards, as inwards. Inevitably, all stable civilizations falling prey to cultural ennui reach this stage, and falter against the newer strain still in the first stage. The only way out is to co-opt the invading strain and to incorporate into the wider body of existing consciousness.
With the ever increasing channels of communication between all participating societies, the cycle keeps spinning faster. By the middle of the last century, the first model promptly morphed into the second, and with the onset of fatigue, was well on its way to the third. Following the wuhan virus, the formation of multiple *cliques for trade is on point, and is likely to remain that way till the sailing of starry seas becomes commonplace, following which the cycle will repeat.
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by Suraj »

Once the dust has settled to some extent on the coronavirus crisis, probably later in summer, my view is that one thing will become apparent to SEA, ME and EU - the OBOR / BRI brought almost the entire world economy to a standstill by acting as the carrier of a pandemic. Spain, Italy all of whom have large PRC populations engaged in manufacture that was integrated to PRC supply chains via OBOR/BRI, are going to realize this just became the modern day Silk Road that caused the Black Death.

The OBOR/BRI are Eleven's signature policy initiatives, and that's what's doing to bring him down.
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by sampat »

i wouldn't be so sure about Italy or Spain ditching China. Italians recently removed European flag and replaced it with Chinese. As they are the one helping them when EU turned its back. Spain also ordered millions (was it 400 million?) worth of medical equipment from China. It looks like China has come on top. I don't think supply chain of non-critical items will shift anytime soon from China. Only Trump is talking about ChinaVirus, rest all will talk about Chinese money.
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by ricky_v »

Med folks are very expressive and very catholic, and during this crisis bodies were cremated to such an extent that many incinerators had backlogs. The government may cave that is true, but the common mario and diego on the street, probably not.
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by Kaivalya »

Setup for Winnie the pooh has already started for good or bad

https://warontherocks.com/2020/03/china ... -of-india/

If India comes out of corona pandemic relatively unscathed, pooh bear has to explain how a democratic leader can have more impact than the supleme commandel.

If dark scenarios play out especially it will push India back 21 years like Modiji mentioned and Pooh will be victorious locally and spend more on obor/pigs economies
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by chanakyaa »

Countries are preparing to protect domestic industries from the impending recession...

Australia to review all foreign investments during coronavirus
Australia will require all foreign investment proposals to be assessed by its Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) during the duration of the coronavirus crisis to prevent a fire sale of distressed corporate assets...
Germany to block foreign takeovers, protect domestic companies – top politicians
Germany will protect domestic firms from foreign takeovers, two leading politicians said on Friday, after company valuations in Europe’s largest economy have been hammered by the coronavirus pandemic. Ministers have already promised liquidity support to businesses, and introduced measures making it easier to reduce working hours rather than lay off workers...
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by vimal »

^^ This is more to protect valuable corporations from being acquired for peanuts by the Hans due to market crash. Hans can now pick stocks in many valuable assets for peanuts and control the world economy. The more I think the more bio-weapon look plausible.
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by g.sarkar »

https://www.spiegel.de/international/eu ... 8421ef3d2e'
North-South Divide
Calls for Corona Bonds Met with Familiar "Nein"

The danger of a new euro crisis is growing. Weak member states like Italy need help if they're going to survive the coronavirus lockdown financially. But the call for euro bonds has been met with stiff resistance -- especially from the Germans.
By Frank Hornig, Armin Mahler, Peter Müller, Anton Rainer und Christian Reiermann, 27.03.2020.

On Monday, Adrio Pierantoni wanted to know what the government could do for him. Like almost all Italian companies that don't produce medicine or food, Pierantoni was forced to close his small shop in the town of Fano on the Adriatic coast. It was the latest in a series of measures designed to contain the outbreak of the coronavirus, measures that have brought the Italian economy to a standstill. Pierantoni crunched the numbers. He calculated his missing sales, his outstanding loans, the difficult situation for his employees and suppliers -- and called his tax adviser. "We just wanted to ask how much support we could count on," he says. He didn't have to wait long for an answer. Pierantoni could theoretically expect to receive 600 euros ($660) once the forms finally arrived. His company, on the other hand, would get nothing.
Pierantoni's company, Zeppelin, has been around for more than 20 years. It makes tailor-made furniture for Milanese furniture stores. The company is healthy. Normally it wouldn't need any help from the state. But closed stores don't need furniture, which is why Pierantoni urgently needs money. "Six hundred euros wouldn't even pay the electricity bill now," he says. The entrepreneur often finds himself looking to Germany these days. He runs the company with his wife Gabi, a German from the southern town of Rastatt. They met through a sister-city program. Germany is also home to important customers and business partners of Zeppelin's -- as well as politicians who pass laws that Pierantoni would like to see Italy adopt. Things like protective economic measures, relief funds and billion-euro bailouts. As for the number of people infected with coronavirus, Pierantoni believes Germany is two weeks behind Italy. But as far as subsidies for the economy are concerned, "it's months ahead of us."
Two Very Different Approaches
Pierantoni gets to see first-hand how the two countries are dealing with the economic consequences of the coronavirus. Or rather, how they're able to deal with the crisis.
In Germany, money seems to be no object. On Wednesday, German lawmakers passed a supplementary budget of 156 billion euros to mitigate the shock to the country's economy. In total, the German government will provide economic aid worth 1.8 trillion euros.
Italy doesn't have these kinds of options. The country's debt load is 130 percent greater than its gross domestic product (GDP). Its financial leeway is limited. The European Commission has waived all debt requirements for member states so that national governments can borrow at will. But this will only work as long as creditors are willing to lend money to countries at reasonable rates.
Italy, as well as France, Spain and Portugal, could soon reach their limits. In view of the heavy burdens that will be placed on countries, doubts in the markets are likely to grow as to whether they'll ever be able to repay their debts. This same fear took hold of the financial markets after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. It nearly destroyed the currency union.
....
Gautam
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by DharmaB »

Apart from habal ji, I guess nobody on this forum highlighted on the conspeeracy theories much. In view of the extraordinary current situation of the world, would like to shed some light, if it may provide some hints to understand the current situation and possible scenarios. I had read much on this during last recession times and later, but then it slowly faded away from my consciousness as more and more it looked like ridiculous and delusional. But there are certainly some missing dots which could be mapped from both the real world stories and these consprcy theories to some extent. I want to be cautious in stating that, people don't like to hear much on this subject and there is no need to take anything in its totality, but there are many possibilities in this crazy crazy world. Who thought few months back that we would face a situation like this which may bring the whole world on its knees.

The big question is, is it the deep state unleashing this on China and rest of the world purposly, and making a case to fix China as the instigator ? Or is it really China doing it for their world dominance ?

Anyway wanted to share this video as to sum up for those who are interested. And would like to hear the feedback.
Moderators can issue a warning if this type of subject is not welcome here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQwfbEmGlzQ
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by ricky_v »

Image
https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking ... ug-cartels
“As governments and nations focus on the Coronavirus, there is a growing threat that cartels, criminals, terrorists, and other malign actors will try to exploit the situation for their own gain and we must not let that happen,” Trump said. “We will never let that happen. Today the United States is launching enhanced counter narcotics operations in the western hemisphere to protect the American people from the deadly scourge of illegal narcotics.”

“We must not let the drug cartels exploit the pandemic to threaten American lives,” Trump continued. “In cooperation with the 22 partner nations, the U.S. Southern Command will increase surveillance, disruption, and seizures of drug shipments, and provide additional support for eradication efforts that are going on right now at a record pace.”

“We are deploying additional Navy destroyers, combat ships, aircraft and helicopters, Coast Guard cutters and Air Force surveillance aircraft, doubling the capabilities in the region,” Trump continued. “Very importantly, our forces are fully equipped with personnel protective equipment, and we have taken additional safety measures to ensure that our troops remain healthy.”
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by vimal »

ricky_v wrote:Image
https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking ... ug-cartels
“As governments and nations focus on the Coronavirus, there is a growing threat that cartels, criminals, terrorists, and other malign actors will try to exploit the situation for their own gain and we must not let that happen,” Trump said. “We will never let that happen. Today the United States is launching enhanced counter narcotics operations in the western hemisphere to protect the American people from the deadly scourge of illegal narcotics.”

“We must not let the drug cartels exploit the pandemic to threaten American lives,” Trump continued. “In cooperation with the 22 partner nations, the U.S. Southern Command will increase surveillance, disruption, and seizures of drug shipments, and provide additional support for eradication efforts that are going on right now at a record pace.”

“We are deploying additional Navy destroyers, combat ships, aircraft and helicopters, Coast Guard cutters and Air Force surveillance aircraft, doubling the capabilities in the region,” Trump continued. “Very importantly, our forces are fully equipped with personnel protective equipment, and we have taken additional safety measures to ensure that our troops remain healthy.”
Meanwhile, the Chinese are buying all the stocks from S&P 500.
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by vishvak »

the Chinese are buying all the stocks from S&P 500.
The Jews were earlier villains for Germans, the Russians didn't buy so much still there was humongous cold war but Chinese are shutting down all over while buying out. Isn't above (buying out ) going to affect everyone.
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by chanakyaa »

Apologies if already posted.

Implementing Grand Strategy Toward China (PDF)
Foreward by Richard N. Haass

The first phase, which lasted from the establishment of the People’s Republic of China until rapprochement under President Richard M. Nixon, was one of open hostility. The United States much preferred that the Communists not win the internal strug- gle for power that resumed following World War II, and after they did, the two countries fought on opposite sides during the Korean War. The second phase, animated by a shared antipathy toward the Soviet Union, lasted until the end of the Cold War; it was one in which the United States and China worked together to counter the Soviet threat. In the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, the relationship entered its third phase, typified by increasing investment, trade, and China’s integration into the global economy. Now, without a strategic rationale for the relationship and a questioning of the benefits of close economic ties, we are in a fourth phase that has yet to be defined but is increasingly characterized much more by competition than cooperation.
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by anmol »

Robert D. Blackwill:-
India. In the face of an increasingly assertive China, the United States
benefits from the presence of a robust democratic power that is willing
to and capable of independently helping balance China’s rising influence in Asia.124 The United States should:
• substantially loosen its restraints on military technology transfer to India;
• regard Indian nuclear weapons as an asset in promoting a balance of power in Asia;
• markedly increase U.S.-India military-to-military cooperation, especially between the two navies;
• systemically assist India in building maritime capabilities in the Indian Ocean and beyond, including through substantial technology transfer;
• vigorously support India’s Act East policy to strengthen its power projection and influence into Southeast and East Asia; and
• abandon the idea that India will join an alliance with the United States, but craft and articulate the importance of a unique relationship that is short of an alliance yet enables closer information sharing and diplomatic and military cooperation.
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by Cyrano »

vimal wrote:
Meanwhile, the Chinese are buying all the stocks from S&P 500.
Not a word since then on these anti-narcotic operations "the greatest America has ever seen, the greatest the world has ever seen, blah blah...." mobilising a huge armada of Naval & Coast Guard assets. Typical Trump's smoke and mirrors, get some daily guests to his press show and spout inanities.
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by anmol »

Jack Posobiec, IWO
@JackPosobiec
BREAKING: Multiple US officials tell @OANN
that Kim Jong Un caught COVID19 from a Chinese doctor flown in to help with his heart valve surgery. He appears to be in stable condition for now.
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by DharmaB »

Now this...
https://twitter.com/drapr007/status/1254856518467375104
https://twitter.com/Aryanwarlord/status ... 3272799232

If we can't save ourselves from the wicked, at least a small ray of hope from the forces beyond our imagination. 2020 is getting weird day by day for sure.
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by uskumar »

Wow. I am sure this is not the first time US armed Forces have come across such unexplained stuff. But it is strange that they are releasing a video of it.
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by panduranghari »

sampat wrote:i wouldn't be so sure about Italy or Spain ditching China. Italians recently removed European flag and replaced it with Chinese. As they are the one helping them when EU turned its back. Spain also ordered millions (was it 400 million?) worth of medical equipment from China. It looks like China has come on top. I don't think supply chain of non-critical items will shift anytime soon from China. Only Trump is talking about ChinaVirus, rest all will talk about Chinese money.
Italy and Spain (and in time even Germany) will take orders from France. Not China. France runs a very independent foreign policy, EU not withstanding. France has the demographics, landmass, food productivity and technology that it will tell Spain and Italy to listen. Why because the northern African nations -who were French colonies, can supply oil. At the current level of demand, Angola, Algeria, Libya etc produce oil which is about equal to the needs of France, Italy, Spain and Germany combined. If Germany will be occupied with the worry of Russia causing troubles towards east (thus restricted oil and gas flow), with Turkey potentially stopping oil from the middle east coming to Western Europe- North Africa seems like a good source of oil. North Sea oil is what Brits will never share. EVER. With a standing army and Navy, France can ensure steady supply of oil.
China has nothing to offer. Nothing. yes France has Islamic terrorism problem which can be a source of problem. But I think they might manage it somehow. Probably by going down the route of 6th republic but using the way of the 2nd republic.

What France will want is to control Suez. We can work with France in achieving this. It will work for us too. We have experience and ability. Do we have the will?

China is far away from Suez. And their navy has no blue water experience whatsoever.
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by panduranghari »

anmol wrote:Robert D. Blackwill:-
India. In the face of an increasingly assertive China, the United States
benefits from the presence of a robust democratic power that is willing
to and capable of independently helping balance China’s rising influence in Asia.124 The United States should:
• substantially loosen its restraints on military technology transfer to India;
• regard Indian nuclear weapons as an asset in promoting a balance of power in Asia;
• markedly increase U.S.-India military-to-military cooperation, especially between the two navies;
• systemically assist India in building maritime capabilities in the Indian Ocean and beyond, including through substantial technology transfer;
• vigorously support India’s Act East policy to strengthen its power projection and influence into Southeast and East Asia; and
• abandon the idea that India will join an alliance with the United States, but craft and articulate the importance of a unique relationship that is short of an alliance yet enables closer information sharing and diplomatic and military cooperation.
Isnt that great! I doubt it will happen though K. Subrahmayam garu did think it was inevitable.
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by chanakyaa »

Post WWII experiment using debt, fiat money, interest rates seems to continue dye a slow death. In the post COVID world, I wouldn't be surprised if the system goes through complete overhaul.

Instead of saying here is FREE money, it sounds intelligent to say lending at minus 1 percent

ECB recalibrates targeted lending operations to further support real economy
> Interest rate on all targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTRO III) reduced by 25 basis points to -0.5% from June 2020 to June 2021
> For banks meeting the lending threshold of 0% introduced on 12 March 2020, the interest rate can be as low as -1%
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by chanakyaa »

$1=75 INR and Euro 1 = 81 INR. Time to negotiate these exchange rates. Misuse of post WW2 financial system has reached epic proportions.

Negative Interest Rates: Rewarding Profligacy
L. Dwayne BarneyPaul A. Cleveland
Presently there are trillions of dollars of bonds throughout the world with negative interest rates. This is an unprecedented turn of events, and one that has many nonprofessional investors confused. Savers are understandably puzzled as to how it is possible for bonds to carry negative interest rates. After all, would an intelligent person really lend $1,000 to someone only to be paid back $950 one year from now?

Economists historically have taken it as a given that people prefer current consumption over the promise of an equivalent amount of consumption at some specified date in the distant future. If you ask anyone whether they would like $1,000 today or $1,000 in ten years, or even in a year, the choice is uniformly for the immediate cash. The future is uncertain, and the preference is always for the immediate reward. Indeed, this preference for current over future consumption is why interest rates exist: people need to be compensated for postponing consumption to a future point in time.

How is it, then, that so many of the world’s bonds are presently carrying negative yields?

Who is buying these securities? The answer is that they are being purchased by various central banks using new fiat money created with the express purpose of decreasing their yields. Central banks, having the luxury of legally and effortlessly creating new money, are not much concerned with the matter of whether bond prices are too high to make them a prudent investment. Rather, they purport to be actively managing interest rates for macroeconomic reasons such as to stimulate growth, encourage employment, and ensure that inflation is near its long-term “target.”

Consider how the process works through a simple, albeit fictitious, numerical example. A rational investor would find it folly to pay $1,030 for a bond that promises to pay back $1,000 one year from now. But a money-printing central bank, having no profit or loss concerns, would not hesitate to buy such a security—profit is not an issue when bonds are bought with money that is created out of thin air. If the Federal Reserve chooses to create new money and buy bonds, it can drive prices up as high as it would like. In the case of our numerical example, if the Fed drives the price up to $1,030, it has imposed a –3 percent interest rate on the market. If the central bank wants the rate to go even lower, say to –4 percent, then it is a straightforward matter of creating more money and buying more bonds to drive the price up to $1,040.

...
Throughout history governments have seen new money creation as a clever way to increase spending without having to increase taxes. In the United States the central bank is, at least in theory, “independent” of the federal government. This separation has tended to prevent runaway inflation resulting from excessive new-money financing of government spending programs. Of course, the federal government is still able to finance its spending by selling bonds. And, to the extent that the bonds are purchased by the Federal Reserve with newly created money, it is essentially equivalent to having the federal government print the cash to finance its spending on its own. The only catch for a spendthrift government is that the Fed is not required to buy the government’s bonds. Should the Fed decide not to continue buying the bonds, their prices would fall and interest rates would rise to a market-determined level. The US government is fortunate that this has not happened. Since the financial crisis the Federal Reserve has for the most part been a willing buyer of government debt, and interest rates have been driven to all-time lows as a result.

As central bankers have continued to push interest rates on bonds ever lower, savers are forced to search elsewhere for a decent rate of return. This has been especially true for retirees, who historically have looked toward government and corporate bonds as relatively safe investments for their retirement portfolios. Now, since these securities generate little to no return, they seek riskier investment options. The process begins by moving money into blue chip stocks and then later into shares of startup companies. Thus, we increasingly find them investing in shares of Spotify, Uber, and Tesla on the off chance that these companies eventually make a profit. (If this strategy doesn’t work, the blackjack tables in Las Vegas present another alternative.)

Stock prices have been bid up ever higher as investors have been forced to flee from bonds whose yields are close to zero or even negative. Although the Federal Reserve did not buy stocks directly, its massive bond purchases over the past decade have distorted stock prices by pushing people out of bonds and into equities. Foreign central banks are driving up stock prices in a more direct manner. Many of them have no qualms about creating new money and purchasing stocks outright. An inspection of foreign central bank balance sheets will show a variety of assets, including shares of Apple, Microsoft, and so forth. Even with the current downturn in economic activity and the resulting drop in stock prices, many are still overpriced.
...(more)
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by anmol »

Image
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by Rony »

The Future of the Dollar
To be sure, the United States needs to take China seriously as a formidable economic competitor. But when it comes to the primacy of the dollar, the main risk stems not from Beijing but from Washington itself. The United States must maintain an economy that inspires global credibility and confidence. Failure to do so will, over time, put the U.S. dollar’s position in peril.

The dollar’s status is a proxy for the fundamental soundness of the American political and economic system. To safeguard the dollar’s position, the U.S. economy must remain a model of success and for emulation. That, in turn, requires a political system capable of implementing policies that will allow more Americans to flourish and achieve economic prosperity. It also requires a political system capable of maintaining the country’s fiscal health. History knows of no country that remained on top without fiscal prudence over the long term. The U.S. political system must be responsive to today’s economic challenges.

The United States’ economic policy choices abroad also matter greatly because they affect U.S. credibility and, to a large extent, determine its ability to shape global outcomes. To sustain that leadership, the United States should champion an initiative to adjust and update the global rules and norms that govern trade, investment, and competition in technology to reflect twenty-first-century realities.

Washington should also be mindful that unilateral sanctions—made possible by the primacy of the dollar—are not free of cost. Weaponizing the dollar in this way can energize both U.S. allies and foes to develop alternative reserve currencies—and maybe even to join forces to do so. That is precisely why the European Union has been pushing to further promote the euro in international transactions.

By the same token, whether the RMB joins the dollar as a major reserve currency will be determined entirely by how China reshapes its own economy. But if Beijing successfully implements the needed reforms, it will create an economy that is more attractive for the export of U.S. goods and services and establish a more level playing field for U.S. companies operating in China—changes that will benefit the United States.

The value of a national currency to its holders is ultimately a reflection of the country’s economic and political fundamentals. How the United States emerges in the years following the COVID-19 crisis will be an important test. First and foremost, the country must foster macroeconomic policies that put it on a sustainable path to manage the national debt and the trajectory of the structural fiscal deficit, and it must not squander the fundamentals that have sustained its economic might, all of which are rooted in a spirit of innovation and effective government. If Washington adheres to this course, there is every reason to have confidence in the dollar.
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by ricky_v »

https://www.project-syndicate.org/comme ... ky-2020-05
The scope for such compromises suggests the EU could readily agree on a powerful recovery plan that preserves all three essential elements of the Merkel-Macron proposal: bonds issued by the EU in its own name; pan-European taxes on cross-border activities; and leverage to benefit from low interest rates. If EU leaders can rise to this challenge, Europe’s “Hamiltonian moment” will finally have arrived.
The key innovation is financing the recovery fund with bonds issued directly by the EU in its own name and guaranteed by its own revenues, instead of using funds raised by national governments, whether acting together or separately. Merkel presumably insisted on this mechanism to avoid the vexations of jointly guaranteed “Eurobonds,” which German public opinion deems politically toxic and possibly unconstitutional, because German taxes could end up paying for Italian or Spanish debts.
To guarantee and service hundreds of billions of euros of new borrowing on its own account, the EU will require more tax revenue than it now receives. Merkel and Macron have therefore proposed increasing the European Commission’s budget from 1.2% to 2% of EU gross national income, yielding about €180 billion per year in extra revenue.
That leads to the third game-changing innovation in the Merkel-Macron plan: permitting the EU to leverage its activities with borrowing, instead of just using the EU budget as a pass-through mechanism from pan-European taxes to current spending. Because of today’s near-zero interest rates for triple-A sovereign borrowers, the leverage potentially available to the EU from a modest amount of extra revenue is enormous.
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by ricky_v »

A dated articlehttps://aeon.co/essays/has-progress-in- ... -to-a-halt
Yet there once was an age when speculation matched reality. It spluttered to a halt more than 40 years ago. Most of what has happened since has been merely incremental improvements upon what came before. That true age of innovation – I’ll call it the Golden Quarter – ran from approximately 1945 to 1971. Just about everything that defines the modern world either came about, or had its seeds sown, during this time. The Pill. Electronics. Computers and the birth of the internet. Nuclear power. Television. Antibiotics. Space travel. Civil rights.
Today, progress is defined almost entirely by consumer-driven, often banal improvements in information technology.
As the US technologist Peter Thiel once put it: ‘We wanted flying cars, we got 140 characters.’
In The Great Stagnation, Cowen argues that progress ground to a halt because the ‘low-hanging fruit’ had been plucked off. These fruits include the cultivation of unused land, mass education, and the capitalisation by technologists of the scientific breakthroughs made in the 19th century. It is possible that the advances we saw in the period 1945-1970 were similarly quick wins, and that further progress is much harder. Going from the prop-airliners of the 1930s to the jets of the 1960s was, perhaps, just easier than going from today’s aircraft to something much better.
The superyachts, fast cars, private jets and other gewgaws of Planet Rich simply did not exist when people such as Andrew Carnegie walked the earth and, though they are no doubt nice to have, these fripperies don’t much advance the frontiers of knowledge. Furthermore, as the French economist Thomas Piketty pointed out in Capital (2014), money now begets money more than at any time in recent history. When wealth accumulates so spectacularly by doing nothing, there is less impetus to invest in genuine innovation.
Thus the purpose of the iPhone 6 is not to be better than the iPhone 5, but to make aspirational people buy a new iPhone (and feel better for doing so). In a very unequal society, aspiration becomes a powerful force. This is new, and the paradoxical result is that true innovation, as opposed to its marketing proxy, is stymied.
Student bodies used to be hotbeds of dissent, even revolution; today’s hyper-conformist youth is more interested in the policing of language and stifling debate when it counters the prevailing wisdom. Forty years ago a burgeoning media allowed dissent to flower. Today’s very different social media seems, despite democratic appearances, to be enforcing a climate of timidity and encouraging groupthink.
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by Manish_Sharma »

https://www.haaretz.com/amp/middle-east ... ssion=true

Caliph Erdogan? Why Turkey's President Is Quietly Courting Indian Muslims
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by ramana »

The Turkish Consulate is very, very active in Jubilee Hills Hyderabad.
And Mumbai. Bengluru is not too distant third.
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by m_saini »

UK wants 5G alliance of 10 countries, including India, to avoid reliance on Chinese Huawei

https://theprint.in/world/uk-wants-5g-a ... ei/431735/

10 countries mentioned are India, Australia, South Korea, France, Canada, Germany, Japan, Italy, US, UK
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by chanakyaa »

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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by NRao »

EU won’t ally with US against China, foreign policy chief says before Pompeo meeting
The European Union’s foreign policy chief has ruled out a transatlantic alliance against China and dismissed “systematic rivalry” with Beijing, just hours before he is due to talk to his US counterpart.

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell called for a “big, positive agenda for EU-China cooperation” on Sunday, just a day before he and the 27 foreign ministers from the bloc are expected to have a videoconference with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The meeting is expected to focus on China and “disinformation”, and will be followed in a week’s time by the first EU-China summit under European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel. The two EU chiefs will meet Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, with the discussions expected to focus on market access.

In a post on his official site on Sunday, Borrell said the EU would not pick a side in the US-China conflict, adding that the European style of diplomacy focused on multilateralism and cooperation.

“Amid US-China tensions as the main axis of global politics, the pressure to ‘choose sides’ is increasing,” he said. “We as Europeans have to do it ‘My Way’, with all the challenges this brings.”

He also offered the clearest sign yet that the EU was prepared to tone down its rhetoric of treating China as a “systemic rival”, a policy reached by the last EU Commission team whose term ended late last year.

“Our relations with China are unavoidably complex and multifaceted,” Borrell said. “The words ‘systemic rival’ have drawn a lot of attention, maybe more for the ‘rival’ than the ‘systemic’ part of the expression.

“But it doesn’t mean that we are embarking [on] a systematic rivalry.”

Virginie Battu-Henriksson, Borrell’s spokeswoman, said the statement did not amount to a policy change.

“This is not at all in contradiction with the strategic outlook, which clearly said China is, simultaneously, in different policy areas, a cooperation partner with whom the EU has closely aligned objectives, a negotiating partner with whom the EU needs to find a balance of interests, an economic competitor in the pursuit of technological leadership, and a systemic rival promoting alternative models of governance,” she said.

To avoid conflict beyond its trade war and geopolitical contest with the US, China has repeatedly rejected the idea of systemic rivalry with the EU, saying its relations with the bloc were based on partnership.

“With cooperation and consensus always greater than competition and differences, China and the EU are long-term, comprehensive, strategic partners,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Borrell in a meeting last week.

Borrell’s post echoed this view, promising a “big, positive agenda for EU-China cooperation”.

“China is playing an ever-growing role in global politics, and we have great interest in working together on the many issues where its role is essential, from the recovery of the pandemic to climate change and sustainable connectivity,” he said.

While there had been few results from the EU’s push for China to open up its market further, Borrell said this was an area “where good faith negotiations can produce good outcomes for both sides”.

“I hope we can conclude them as soon as possible to end the current situation of asymmetric openness,” he said, referring to the negotiations over the EU-China investment treaty that both sides hope to complete this year.

While the EU and the US share similar concerns about China’s state-controlled economy, the bloc has rejected calls to hew closer to Washington’s path.

“US-China relations are set on a path of global competition, regardless who will be in the White House next January. And this confrontation will frame the future world order,” Borrell wrote.

He said the transatlantic relationship remained vital for Europe – “the values we share form its bedrock” – but it was strained by US President Donald Trump, whose administration “has taken unilateral decisions with which we do not always agree”.

“The European Way for sure includes working with like-minded to keep the multilateral system as a space for cooperation, even if great powers use it increasingly as a battleground,” he said.

“We must uphold and defend our own interests and values. We must use as a compass not the expectations or pressures from outsiders, but what we as the EU want and need.”

But this was not always easy.

“It is no secret that the 27 member states have differing views on how to best approach this. Some push for alignment, others for equidistance,” he said.
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by NRao »

On the flip side.

EU to discuss greater defence cooperation in face of US-China tensions
EU ministers are to discuss the need for greater defence cooperation and a renewed intelligence assessment in the face of a heightened risk of a China-US military confrontation.

The call for greater EU defence cooperation comes in a Franco-German joint paper and, although familiar, has been given added urgency by fears in the bloc that the US and China will become locked in a permanent big power confrontation.

The paper, due to be discussed by EU defence ministers on Tuesday and first obtained by Bloomberg News, says defence integration is necessitated by “the return of power competition and confrontation and the ensuing threat to the rules-based international order”.

The memo proposes that the EU’s intelligence arm should produce a classified threat assessment by the end of the year, on the basis of which it can decide on how to enhance its joint capabilities in the future, in areas ranging from peacekeeping to space and cybersecurity.

The EU has launched several initiatives to deepen its defence integration in the past, including by encouraging greater joint defence procurement, so reducing duplication, but the shift towards integration has become more pronounced after the bloc’s initially stumbling joint response to coronavirus.

The intelligence assessment will mark a moment after the US presidential elections for the EU to assess the risk of a deep strategic conflict.

The EU foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, at the same time said the bloc would launch a bilateral dialogue with the US on the challenges posed by a more assertive China in an effort to reach a common understanding. Borrell was speaking after EU foreign ministers held a virtual two-hour meeting with the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, covering the main points of dispute between them including China and the potential Israeli annexation of Palestinian territory on the West Bank.

Borrell has said the tension between China and the US has become the main axis of current global politics and the pressure on the EU to “select a side” among the two is increasing.

Borrell said: “We as Europe must find our own independent way of doing things, even though this will bring various challenges.” But some EU states say it is inconceivable in terms of values for the EU to be equidistant between China and the US.

Borrell is known to be resistant to talk of a new cold war, arguing all the big issues on trade and the climate crisis require Chinese cooperation. At the same time, the EU shares US frustration at the lack of access to Chinese markets, and the role of Chinese state companies.

EU policymakers are also worried that the US is about to impose a form of extra-territorial sanction by blacklisting European companies that cooperate with the Chinese state telecommunications company Huawei.

The US and EU bilateral dialogue will instead try to find more limited areas of cooperation by pressing China to do more to open access to markets and by resisting sensitive security investments.

Borrell said the mood of the meeting was not one in which Pompeo either accepted or rejected the EU point of view, adding he was sure the secretary of state would have been aware of the internal differences within the union.

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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by vijayk »

Any thoughts on this?

The ungoverned globe

The end of the liberal order would unleash chaos; its continuance means unconstrained economic suffering. What to do?
In the aftermath of the Second World War, the administrations of presidents Franklin D Roosevelt and then Harry S Truman in the United States led in the construction of the liberal order – a set of international institutions agreed upon by nation-states. The goal was to sustain peace and prosperity in the decades after the devastation of the war, and in doing so prevent both communism and fascism from spreading. But over the last 30 years of the 20th century, the liberal order changed. It is no longer primarily about protecting the West from communism and fascism by pushing up wages, creating large social programmes, and building strong safety nets. Instead, it has become an engine for globalisation, economically integrating the whole world into a singular system. The liberal order has transformed from a means of defending liberalism into a means of exporting it everywhere.

The contemporary liberal order does this by making two things mobile: capital and labour. Capital mobility enables assets and businesses to move to different locations where different sets of economic rules exist. When capital is mobile, capital controls don’t prevent individuals and firms from moving their assets out of a particular economy, and trade barriers enable businesses to operate offshore without facing imposing tariffs. Labour mobility is about moving workers from place to place, in pursuit of the jobs that are relocated through capital mobility.

The liberal order enables rapid flows of investment and people from place to place. These flows facilitate economic growth and reduce the cost of consumer goods, but they also produce instability. Moving too much money too quickly into any particular part of the world generates bubbles. Taking too much money out too quickly produces credit crunches. Adding too many people to a region too quickly strains its public services and potentially pushes down wages. Taking too many people out of a region too quickly produces brain drain, starving the region of the skills it needs to thrive. The order keeps capital and labour mobile, and maintains the flows. But it doesn’t govern them, and that means the flows can get out of hand and cause trouble.

The liberal order exists on three levels: the global, the regional and the national. At the global level, the order consists of large international organisations that mainly focus on the regulation of trade, borrowing and investment, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. At the regional level, the liberal order creates tighter trade relationships, through agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) – now the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) – and block organisations such as the European Union (EU). In the case of the EU, the regional institutions also provide free movement of people, a currency union, and a common set of fiscal rules and regulations. At the national level, the liberal order is embodied by the political parties that are committed to defending and maintaining it, including most of the traditional centre-Right, centrist and centre-Left parties.

To put it another way, the liberal order consists of a lot of economic integration, but this economic integration still depends on the continued commitment and participation of nation-states. The institutions that exist at the global and regional level don’t have direct connections to voters. They rely on the ability of the national parties that support the order to remain politically competitive on their home turfs. As the liberal parties weaken, the order weakens.
Voters want the catharsis of antiestablishment rhetoric, but they don’t want to pay the price for antiestablishment policy. Trump – who has always been a good showman – is happy to oblige. He walks a tightrope, appearing to fight the liberal order without actually fighting it.

Trump won’t rip the liberal order apart, but he creates space for the person who will

This balancing act is difficult to maintain. If a government pushes it too far against the liberal order, the order will call its bluff, exposing its lack of willingness to pay the price for genuinely opposing the order. This is what happened to the Left-wing SYRIZA and its leader Alexis Tsipras in Greece. Its confrontation with the EU was too direct for the EU to tolerate, and the EU forced Greece to either accept the economic consequences of withdrawal from the order or acknowledge its lack of willingness to follow through. Once Tsipras’s bluff was exposed, his party was discredited.

At the same time, if a government avoids bombastic rhetoric and tries to manage down expectations, it might not even appear to be a threat to the liberal order in the first place. This is what happened to Theresa May in the UK. As prime minister, May’s rhetorical style wasn’t very aggressive, and the Brexit deal she proposed didn’t make large changes to the UK’s trading arrangements with the EU. This caused the more antiestablishment wing of her Conservative Party to rebel, replacing her with Boris Johnson. Johnson immediately scored an electoral victory running a much more openly antiestablishment campaign, with far more bellicose anti-European rhetoric. Once Johnson won, he implemented a Brexit deal that was nearly indistinguishable from May’s, and the UK’s trading relations with Europe continue largely unchanged for now. Investors know that the relationship is secure for the time being, and Brexit hasn’t yet brought about any major increase in the cost of goods and services. The performance is what matters.

From the point of view of the liberal order, this strategy is suboptimal, and it works only from the premise that the liberal order doesn’t enjoy much legitimacy. It’s a defensive strategy, aimed at maintaining an international order that no longer inspires people of its own accord. The order would prefer to restore its legitimacy and get populations enthusiastic about further integration. By maintaining itself through allowing national governments to performatively mock it, the legitimacy of the liberal order is further corroded. It becomes even less credible and even less inspiring. This means that governments have to go further and further with their performances of defiance to continue to please ever more grouchy voting populations
In this way, the radical democracy strategy becomes an inversion of the nationalist strategy. Both the radical democrats and the nationalists would create a situation in which the nation-state cannot meaningfully be blamed for the consequences of the liberal order. The nationalists accomplish this by blaming the order, performing subversion while continuing to obey. The radical democrats accomplish this by creating new institutions that make the people themselves feel responsible for their own situations. They attempt to ‘responsibilise’ ordinary voters. The nationalist strategy’s weakness is that it maintains the liberal order by condemning it, undermining the very thing it maintains. The radical democrats completely divert attention from the order by making politics about the local level – about you. You become the one responsible for the order, for the flows, and for any instability those flows bring to your community.

These local institutions, however, cannot actually alter the flows. This responsibility is built on lies and misdirection. It functions as an elaborate way of forcing the citizens to internalise the political system’s failures as their own. Radical democrats would give citizens the appearance of direct power without the fact of it, obscuring where the real power lies – with the liberal order. That would suit the order just fine. But radical democracy wouldn’t deal with the substance of the grievances that have led so many voters to grow frustrated. It would enable the order to continue disappointing people by convincing them that they are the ones disappointing themselves.

The other option is to make a genuine effort to build some kind of global polity

Opponents of the liberal order have substantive grievances. Rapid, ungoverned flows of capital and labour destabilise their lives. The nation-state cannot take back control of the flows, and radical democracy provides only an illusion of control. To truly govern the flows, the liberal order itself must be made directly responsible to the people whose lives it affects. As long as the liberal order is organised through global and regional institutions that have no direct links to voting populations, it will be mediated through networks of nation-states. As economic integration increases, those nation-states lose the ability to meaningfully represent their populations in the order’s institutions. The more economic power the liberal order has, the more vestigial the nation-states become. The nation-states attempt to obscure this reality with nationalism and radical democratic reforms, and in doing so they enable themselves and the order to go on, but at a cost of completely stripping the public of any meaningful say. The nation-state continues, but only as a shell of itself, unable to represent anything. The liberal order continues, but with no legitimacy, at best surviving by pitting individuals and groups against each other in local fights with no practical stakes.
So we are faced with a terrible choice. We can continue to embrace the nationalist strategy of keeping the liberal order alive by creating the conditions under which it will die. That will end in the dissolution of the order, collapsing economic growth, with massive increases in the costs of goods and services. Our living standards will be dramatically reduced. The nation-state will make a comeback, but at the cost of the prosperity that we have been building since the Second World War.

Or we can embrace radical democratic reforms, and attempt to convince ourselves that they will empower us, or at least give us the satisfying feeling of empowerment. We can retreat into localism, even as the critical decisions are taken far away from us. We can build a realm of illusions, where the institutions we participate in are not the ones that shape our lives.

Finally, we could try to salvage the order by constructing institutions that enable us to meaningfully govern it. But to do that, we’d have learn to do politics with people who are different from us. Can that be done? Probably not. And that means either the nation-states will kill the liberal order, or they will find a way to disguise it in democratic daydreams. The liberal order might not last much longer.
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Re: Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

Post by panduranghari »

vijayk wrote:Any thoughts on this?

The ungoverned globe
Thank you for posting this. Reads like the 'ode to the good ol' days'.

The author conveniently claims the liberal world order is dying due to rise of nation states. He probably means the rise of non anglo saxon nation states who are rightfully reclaiming their place in the world order. China wants to take over the world hence it is using the current institutions to reclaim their position. Now if the current institutions die away, how does China reconcile to the efforts taken? Starting own institutions I hear you say. But truly who trusts them anyway. Even they do not have the military might to impose their will.

The author claims
Voters want the catharsis of antiestablishment rhetoric, but they don’t want to pay the price for antiestablishment policy
I disagree. Because common man understands nothing about the grand scheme but they know whats good for them. They will ask for freebies because the politician will oblige not understanding that nothing is free and there is a price to pay. The only problem is price to pay is usually a few decades away.

I wonder why shouldn't politicians have professional indemnity?
So we are faced with a terrible choice. We can continue to embrace the nationalist strategy of keeping the liberal order alive by creating the conditions under which it will die. That will end in the dissolution of the order, collapsing economic growth, with massive increases in the costs of goods and services. Our living standards will be dramatically reduced. The nation-state will make a comeback, but at the cost of the prosperity that we have been building since the Second World War.
Thats what the 4th turning is all about anyway. Old order dies and a new one is born. Schumpeter called it creative destruction.

Indian response (as of now) in Ladakh sounds like we love conventions, rules. We dare not break them due to the fear of ' लोग क्या कहेंगे'. I think the break down of the world liberal order will free us from this straightjacket. But do we have a plan to shape the future world order other than the paens of becoming विश्वगुरु.
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