In 2024, what more do we need to say?! Whether Biden steps down is a decision he seems to have reserved to himself: I see no "economic" factors at work, just a painful case of very human personal vanity. Whether Trump survived was a matter of chance (it seems), but a Trump presidency will - I think we might agree - set the USA and most probably the world** on a different course than any plausible Democrat victory this year. (American isolationism has always been there, for more than 200 years, and its triumph over pragmatic internationalism has often been possible but never guaranteed.) Neither is it a given that Russia would be in the hands of a dictatorial, brooding, fretful revanchist at this hour: nor that China would be in the hands of an all-powerful monomaniac nationalist.
It seems to me that if one wants to argue against any of this, one has to have a thesis that requires stepping back to so distant a perspective (1,000 years? 5,000 years?) that all meaningful granularity is lost for any but anthropological, almost biological purposes.
ND
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** Some, though not I, hold that a Trump presidency will result in the US being withdrawn from global cooperation on actions related to climate change - with globally damaging consequences. Interestingly, those folks are often highly materialistic lefty-greens. If they couple their theoretical materialism with their fear of Trump, it must give them some uncomfortable ideological pangs. (Of course, the whole of Reality ought to be fairly painful for them at frequent intervals ... )
14 comments:
"Great men are almost always bad men"
Lord Acton.
China, China, China - that's the mighty elephant in the global drawing room.
Whether Xi is a Great Man (Vlad certainly is if you compare 1999 and today Russia), but China v US is all that counts.
China's productive capacity is AFAIK still growing as Europe's (i.e. Germany) diminishes, the US are slowly increasing pressure, but can they really take the hit that major economic warfare implies?
I remember only a few years ago Western health officials were bidding for mask cargoes on Chinese runways - has there been a combined Western initiative to rebuild capacity in masks, bandages, dressings? Not that I know.
Pretty much every consumer good on the shelves is from the Far East, every phone, laptop, tablet, memory stick.
It’s a very sensible point to make, anon. The West relies on the far east.
However, doesn’t that cut both ways? Who does China trade with if the western democracies decide not to buy?
"if the western democracies decide not to buy?"
I can just imagine, as Asda, Tesco, John Lewis, Sainsbury's non-food shelves empty and Poundland, B&N, Home Bargains follow suit.
Then you find Screwfix, Toolstation, and all the big DIY chains are empty except for European pine and Indonesian furniture made from endangered timber.
Amazon has hardly anything, second hand SD cards are like gold dust. That motherboard you've not got round to fitting has quadrupled in price.
What think you, BQ? Who would crack first?
Trump has a very direct way of pointing out the obvious which is Europe have been falling behind in terms of their own protection. You might argue that Germany have been prevented from developing into a medium European power for a couple of reasons, but perhaps this is the turning point.
If he does get elected, the pain will be felt here in Europe and not in the US so why does anyone think he has to do anything for anyone other than those that elected him.
Great Man? Nah. Just a democrat. (SmallD)
I wish I were an American now.
One lad emigrates to Australia this month. The other has just been promoted to a senior position in his American medicinal research company and will probably be off to America soon too.
Immigration is only part of the catastrophe. The brain drain is the more serious matter.
OTOH the US is going to have to get used to no longer being a global power, so those of us with kids in Oz/NZ will be thoughtful - Oz is pretty indefensible unless anti-shipping missiles become unstoppable.
Disclosure, I have one out there, another on the way in two months, a third in Europe. One out of four left here, but HMG seem to prefer Francophone Africans with three kids to "our lot".
Getting back on topic, I don't know enough about Xi vs his predecessors, but I do think VVP will be seen, at least by Russians (assuming there are any in a hundred years), as a Great Man.
“Putin inherited a ransacked and bewildered country, with a poor and demoralized people,” Solzhenitsyn told the German magazine Der Spiegel in a 2007 interview, when Putin was still president. “And he started to do what was possible, a slow and gradual restoration. These efforts were not noticed, nor appreciated, immediately. In any case, one is hard-pressed to find examples in history when steps by one country to restore its strength were met favorably by other governments.”
I'm looking forward to Brexit (= Brandon exit).
PS - FT on the arms boom in Central Russia.
Financial Times – “How the war in Ukraine is reviving Russia’s rustbelt”
Looking at his pay cheque, which has tripled since 2022, Russian factory worker Anton does not know whether to laugh or cry.
The 37-year old is painfully aware that the rise is the result of President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine and turn Russia into a war economy.
“On the one hand, it’s war, and people — even my relatives — are dying,” said Anton, whose uncle was killed in Ukraine.
“But then . . . there is this rebirth of manufacturing,” he said, with the war having a “genuinely positive effect” on people’s quality of life in his region. “Have we ever had a period like this, in the history of our country, when us ‘proles’ have earned this much?” he added.
As Russia braces for a long war, state orders to arm, fuel, feed and clothe the army are injecting vast sums of money into the economy.
This has led to a boom where many expected western sanctions to deal a painful blow: Russia’s economy is forecast to grow 3 per cent this year, far above the US and most European states.
By the end of 2023, industrial output was up in almost 60 per cent of Russian regions. Chuvashia recorded the second-highest rate, with its factories producing 27 per cent more than the year before, local data shows.
Across Russia, the defence sector has rushed to hire staff in an already tight labour market. “The same day I quit my old job, I was offered a new one,” said one worker in his fifties. At his new workplace in Chuvashia’s capital, Cheboksary, management has doubled the number of machine units working round the clock.
Businesses have pushed up wages to retain staff. The young worker’s pay had increased by “at least twice as much”, while five others said their salaries had also shot up. Anton said his pay had increased from around Rbs40,000 ($450) a month before the war to Rbs120,000 today.
Although a majority of people in Chuvashia are employed in the public sector, where salaries have remained the same, the region’s average monthly wage reached a record Rbs68,657 in December last year, almost double the prewar level, according to official data.
To meet demand, some are returning to jobs they last did in the 1990s, when the Soviet Union collapsed, said Natalia Zubarevich, an economist and expert on Russia’s regions. “They’re in their sixties but they’re coming back because it’s really lucrative.”
The worker in his fifties said older labourers were in demand because of their skills. “No one has been training as a lathe worker, not for years,” he said. “The Soviet foundations were lost . . . So mostly its pensioners working or almost pensioners like me.”
Pay negotiations had become easier and management more keen to compromise, Anton said: “They’re really trying hard to keep us.”
OT - rare thing - white riot in Harehills, Leeds
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13648949/Shocking-video-shows-huge-gang-thugs-overturning-police-car-Leeds.html
Where is Rishi on this list?
"Where is Rishi on this list?"
LOL.
I guess Trump could qualify if he ever actually DOES something other than frighten liberals.
I remember when he was first standing, almost as a joke candidate, seeing a tweet from him from around 2013. He'd been criticising the government, and someone asked him more or less - "If you know what to do, why don't you stand for President?".
@realDonaldTrump If you hate America so much, you should run for President and fix things
— Russell Steinberg (@Russ_Steinberg) February 7, 2013
Trump's response?
"Be careful!"
https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/14/13288718/twitter-trump-joke-meme-russell-steinberg-interview
Turns out the white riot in Leeds was a Roma riot, because Social Services took five Roma children into care, allegedly after one fell out of a window.
Our new GDP is gonna be great!
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