Good morning. Today is the second of three weekly collaborations with the FT’s Unhedged newsletter put out by robert.armstrong@ft.com and ethan.wu@ft.com which is essential daily reading. If you want to read more from Unhedged -- usually for Premium FT subscribers only -- you can get a free 30 day trial by clicking
Unhedged make the mistake of equating spreadsheets with real resource activity. The true story of "multipolarity" won't take place on a spreadsheet -- it will take place in "meatspace" or "real resource land." Don't just follow the money; follow the molecules ...
"Multipolarity brings into the open what the Chimerica vision buried, namely political and geopolitical differences. The South China Sea has become a militarised zone. And the old battlefields of the cold war have sprung back to life, from Ukraine to Yemen by way of the Caucasus, Syria, Israel and Palestine. On the face of it, this is another dimension of power in which the US actually has huge superiority."
The issue with Chimerica was/is that the Chinese refused to allow their assets to be purchased with funny money generated from thin air by the Wall Street. As was/is with the Russians, who, after 2000 took back control of their resources and economy. The Americans tought they were on the top of the world and had the rug pulled from under their feet, and now it is they that are lashing out.
Malaysia and Indonesia have agreed to not use dollars in trade between them and with other countries in ASEAN. What it matters in real world is how the real economy works, what the "global investors" do with their surpluses is less important, since ultimately, states can impose capital controls, and generate themselves investment. Especially when China is now a good source of technology for the vast majority of the world. Have you seen the high speed double decker train built by the Chinese?
John Kirby just spoke the devastating quiet part aloud in yesterday’s press conference, admitting that they’re at the “end of the rope” in respect of supporting Ukraine. As Obama said, Russia has escalating dominance in Ukraine. China has escalating dominance in her part of the world.
Plutocrats/oligarchs everywhere hold on to the dollar empire, and hate with their guts any "authoritarian" regime that keeps them under a modicum of control, and this is why they love the US which is a plutocracy, and for the most part of its history was a plutocracy:
"The contemporary US is a plutocracy – the term is not intended polemically, but as a statement substantiated by the facts and accepted by most informed commentators. It simply describes a country in which networks of corporate interests set the policy agenda via lobbying and political donation, and where hard data show that, over decades, in literally every translation of advocacy into legislative acts, the interests of the wealthy prevail. Plutocracy in fact is the form that rule typically takes in the US; most states, says Turchin, have a form of rule to which they revert over centuries after crisis periods, and ‘culture is persistent’ here. The US is reverting to type after the crisis of the Great Depression spurred elites, in their own self-interest, to turn off the wealth pump; this new co-operative instinct was consolidated by the experience of World War II, so that the decades from the early 1930s saw ‘the Great Compression’, with the gap between the wealthiest in society and ordinary citizens narrowing. Reversal of this trend is a reversion to type."
Interesting. Unfortunately this piece on the dollar is incomplete because it looks only at one side of what is actually going on global eceomoics and the challenge, especially, developing nations face from decade to decade. Without getting into a thesis here, think of it this way, any system that appears to be stable, usually has "shock absorbers" that take out the shocks and disruptions to the system. So, if you want to do a complete look, take a look at the random cycles of pains that IMF is constantly propopping up countries for. This is not the complete story.
Unhedged make the mistake of equating spreadsheets with real resource activity. The true story of "multipolarity" won't take place on a spreadsheet -- it will take place in "meatspace" or "real resource land." Don't just follow the money; follow the molecules ...
"Multipolarity brings into the open what the Chimerica vision buried, namely political and geopolitical differences. The South China Sea has become a militarised zone. And the old battlefields of the cold war have sprung back to life, from Ukraine to Yemen by way of the Caucasus, Syria, Israel and Palestine. On the face of it, this is another dimension of power in which the US actually has huge superiority."
The issue with Chimerica was/is that the Chinese refused to allow their assets to be purchased with funny money generated from thin air by the Wall Street. As was/is with the Russians, who, after 2000 took back control of their resources and economy. The Americans tought they were on the top of the world and had the rug pulled from under their feet, and now it is they that are lashing out.
Malaysia and Indonesia have agreed to not use dollars in trade between them and with other countries in ASEAN. What it matters in real world is how the real economy works, what the "global investors" do with their surpluses is less important, since ultimately, states can impose capital controls, and generate themselves investment. Especially when China is now a good source of technology for the vast majority of the world. Have you seen the high speed double decker train built by the Chinese?
John Kirby just spoke the devastating quiet part aloud in yesterday’s press conference, admitting that they’re at the “end of the rope” in respect of supporting Ukraine. As Obama said, Russia has escalating dominance in Ukraine. China has escalating dominance in her part of the world.
Plutocrats/oligarchs everywhere hold on to the dollar empire, and hate with their guts any "authoritarian" regime that keeps them under a modicum of control, and this is why they love the US which is a plutocracy, and for the most part of its history was a plutocracy:
"The contemporary US is a plutocracy – the term is not intended polemically, but as a statement substantiated by the facts and accepted by most informed commentators. It simply describes a country in which networks of corporate interests set the policy agenda via lobbying and political donation, and where hard data show that, over decades, in literally every translation of advocacy into legislative acts, the interests of the wealthy prevail. Plutocracy in fact is the form that rule typically takes in the US; most states, says Turchin, have a form of rule to which they revert over centuries after crisis periods, and ‘culture is persistent’ here. The US is reverting to type after the crisis of the Great Depression spurred elites, in their own self-interest, to turn off the wealth pump; this new co-operative instinct was consolidated by the experience of World War II, so that the decades from the early 1930s saw ‘the Great Compression’, with the gap between the wealthiest in society and ordinary citizens narrowing. Reversal of this trend is a reversion to type."
https://drb.ie/articles/there-will-be-blood-2/
Interesting. Unfortunately this piece on the dollar is incomplete because it looks only at one side of what is actually going on global eceomoics and the challenge, especially, developing nations face from decade to decade. Without getting into a thesis here, think of it this way, any system that appears to be stable, usually has "shock absorbers" that take out the shocks and disruptions to the system. So, if you want to do a complete look, take a look at the random cycles of pains that IMF is constantly propopping up countries for. This is not the complete story.