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The Changing World Order

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Re: The Changing World Order

#101

Post by leereeves »

nopinsight wrote: post #83
airstrike wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US population: ~330 million; EU, ~450 million => Total: 780 million. China's population: ~1400 million. Domestic demand is clearly not China's disadvantage. Population size doesn't paint a full picture. China's GDP per capita is still less than a third of the US. A lot of those 1.4 billion have absolutely appalling living standards.

That is why I mentioned they still have a significant room for further development. (Many people's quality of life in major cities, from all reports I have seen, is no worse than that of the west's middle class, except for pollution.) If a country is economically well-governed and still developing, the quality of life for most everyone will improve over time. Most people who have studied or traveled to one of the Asi…

Population can be a burden. As the US has learned, economic systems can't grow forever; maintaining the US standard of living is a significant strain both geopolitically and environmentally. It will be much harder to provide a similar standard of living for 1.4 billion people.

I suspect that China will hit similar limits soon, if they haven't already. We do see signs of environmental and geopolitical strain there.

Re: The Changing World Order

#102

Post by tarsinge »

airstrike wrote: post #2

> a rising world power (China) challenging the overextended existing world power (the US) This is a pretty bold claim, at least for now. People have been claiming this is the case for decades, but I still don't see it. Western (US / EU) demand is what drives China's growth. Technology in China is still by and large imported / copied. The West can move manufacturing back home (or anywhere else with cheap labor) and Ch…

The question is how these trends will evolve in the future. The trends in education for example, China has a huge population, it’s hypothetical but do you think US engineering and innovation keep up if it’s then vastly outnumbered in 20 years?

Re: The Changing World Order

#103

Post by DennisP »

lonelappde wrote: post #99
tryptophan wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol. Dalio is too big to bother with insider trading. With $160bill under management, that leaves like what, ~50 companies he can't just buy outright in the entire world? Please stop watching Billions and thinking it represents anything close to reality.

He can't buy all the companies. That's only 1% of just the NYSE market cap. What is the max size of asset that can profit 4%/yr alpha from insider trading?

I think he means any of the companies, not all at once. And I'll note again that stock picking is not what their fund does anyway.

Re: The Changing World Order

#104

Post by nopinsight »

leereeves wrote: post #101
nopinsight wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is why I mentioned they still have a significant room for further development. (Many people's quality of life in major cities, from all reports I have seen, is no worse than that of the west's middle class, except for pollution.) If a country is economically well-governed and still developing, the quality of life for most everyone will improve over time. Most people who have studied or traveled to one of the Asi…

Population can be a burden. As the US has learned, economic systems can't grow forever; maintaining the US standard of living is a significant strain both geopolitically and environmentally. It will be much harder to provide a similar standard of living for 1.4 billion people. I suspect that China will hit similar limits soon, if they haven't already. We do see signs of environmental and geopolitical strain there.

It depends on the direction of growth.

Antibiotics by itself improves the quality of life a great deal and does not take much resources to produce.

If a country moves toward an innovation-driven economy, its growth can be less constrained by physical resources.

Re: The Changing World Order

#105

Post by api »

tanilama wrote: post #91
api wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't quite a lot of what you say about China true about the USA in the 19th century? Not saying the cases are the same and I am skeptical of grand historical theses, but I don't think you can glibly dismiss China either. Personally I see China replacing a superpower, but the superpower being replaced is Russia. Russia is by nearly every metric declining and much faster than the USA. The question is whether the USA…

Russia is objectively no longer a superpower but a shell of its past self. US after Cold War and before 2008 will be remembered as a very special country by history. China or the post great recession US can only imagine that power and influence, they can't match it.

That was kinda my point. We had a brief period of a unipolar world with the US as the sole superpower. I don't think that's stable or likely to persist, and it looks like China is already filling the empty niche.

I think the 21st century will have China and the US as the two superpowers and the rivalry will be mostly economic and technological rather than military (via build up and proxy wars) and propagandistic.

I don't think it was the Great Recession that cut America down to size. I think it was the Iraq war. We "won" but it was a classic Pyrrhic victory that cost us both a ton of capital (I wonder if it caused the Great Recession) and our reputation on the world stage. We basically burned our Cold War victory on that. Bush II was the worst president of the last 100 years, in my opinion worse than Nixon and worse than Trump has been so far in terms of actual damage done. I don't think there would be a President Trump either were it not for that damage.

Re: The Changing World Order

#106

Post by api »

cheez wrote: post #43
ericmay wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that doesn’t really matter. It’s like if you have a net worth of $50 and an income of $100, but your buddies have an income of $100,000 and a debt of $70,000

Kind of. But which one would you bet on in a startup position?

The latter. Wealth is a verb, not a noun. It's measured in flow, not money in the bank. Idle wealth is not wealth.

Re: The Changing World Order

#107

Post by api »

hylaride wrote: post #73
cheez wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's roughly the same but per capita, definitely worse. IMO, Russia will bide her time. They have a lot of intelligent, entrepreneurial people. Just need the government to loosen up a bit. Or perhaps, most of the economy doesn't need GDP.

As a whole Russia’s entrepreneurs are leaving because they know if you get big enough, the corruption will come into play. Their government needs to do more than just loosen up.

From all that I've read, corruption is why Africa has been so poor and missed out on much of the development of the 20th century. Why bother investing in anything when it will just be stolen by the local strong man?

Re: The Changing World Order

#108

Post by justinzollars »

Alekhine wrote: post #78
justinzollars wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Technology in China is still by and large imported / copied. When I visited China, I felt like I was in the future. We have fallen behind, and we literarily have shipped the "Arsenal of Democracy" to China. Their airports are bigger and better, the high speed rail was amazing, and the subway system was simple to navigate. China has innovated in important ways - they have beat us to 5G, and they have weapons systems…

Who gives a damn if their infrastructure is new and modern? Was that technology developed in China? It's possible, but I doubt it. And what kind of visit was this where you were inspecting their weapon systems, and ascertained that they could take out the best of what the American military has, based on some knowledge of military technology you magically have?

> and ascertained that they could take out the best of what the American military has, based on some knowledge of military technology you magically have?

Thats called reading. https://www.rand.org/blog/2019/10/how-the-united-states-coul...

https://www.amazon.com/Destined-War-America-Escape-Thucydide...

Re: The Changing World Order

#109

Post by clairity »

lonelappde wrote: post #98
clairity wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

economics lectures i attended a decade ago indicated that china has already surpassed the US in gdp, but to give us face and to not decelerate their growth, china manipulates their numbers and monetary policy to keep up appearances that the US is still larger. china has 4x our population and growing like a weed. it’s naive to think they haven’t/won’t/can’t eclipse the US economy. it’s another reason we should overhau…

In publicly announced numbers, China has larger GDP by purchasing power parity. (I'm not sure if that's equivalent to your currency manipulation interpretation.)

yes, ppp gdp was largely on par a decade ago too. apparently that's not as worrying to american politicians and policymakers as nominal gdp, as it's nominal gdp being manipulated for appearances (besides monetary policy, the government apparently has enough tentacles into industry and regional accounting to do so).

Re: The Changing World Order

#110

Post by nazgulnarsil »

airstrike wrote: post #2

> a rising world power (China) challenging the overextended existing world power (the US) This is a pretty bold claim, at least for now. People have been claiming this is the case for decades, but I still don't see it. Western (US / EU) demand is what drives China's growth. Technology in China is still by and large imported / copied. The West can move manufacturing back home (or anywhere else with cheap labor) and Ch…

The West can move manufacturing back home (or anywhere else with cheap labor

No it can't. An empire is the complexity*robustness of its supply chains, and supply chains are much less modular on the ground than they appear to be from the air.

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