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The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

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Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#181

Post by xt00 »

puranjay wrote: post #107
next_xibalba wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of his predictions have failed? How many are timebound and falsifiable? I am not specifically familiar with Zehain, but I am very well acquainted with figures who generate many predictions, have a small number become true, and then get treated as oracles for years before the truth is exposed: predicting the future in massive, chaotic systems is nearly impossible.

His core arguments focus on geography and demographics, both of which are “hard” problems. Declining populations simply cannot maintain the “grow at all costs” current economic order. Even an advanced country like Japan with plenty of automation and high productivity rates hasn’t see any growth in two decades since its population itself doesn’t grow anymore. Even if you don’t go by his more alarmist arguments, you ha…

One major differentiator between the US and China is that China traditionally / currently is not considered a good destination for foreigners / immigrants. (even Chinese people inside China from lower tier cities / countryside struggle to gain residency in top tier cities or get good jobs / benefits). Whereas the US, for all of its flailing around politically, is perceived by many people in many countries as a good place to move. So immigration is a major leverage point the US can / should use to keep the economic engine going. A working age person coming to the US and working hard is basically one of the best case scenarios -- the US tax-base did almost nothing then suddenly you have a new productive person. Contrary to tons of rhetoric, unless you have a failing business, virtually all people at your company will maintain employment if their production is more valuable than what you pay them -- so they end up being a net gain. And last time I checked, not many people come from another country with furniture, a house, a car, etc.. (so they both produce for some company, and consume likely at much higher levels than say boomers who already own virtually everything they need). So, hopefully the US doesn't lose its "mindshare" leadership around being a good destination for immigrants, because in the next 50 years we will see more and more battles for bringing immigrants to your country to make up for the low birth rates.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#182

Post by ok_dad »

downrightmike wrote: post #138
Animats wrote: post #131

China's Navy is now bigger than the US Navy. Few have noticed. China's third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, was launched last week. This is the lead ship of a new carrier class. Carrier #4 is said to be under construction at Dalian. (There's so much shipbuilding in China that it's hard to tell if a new hull is a warship or just another giant container ship.) These are not nuclear powered. That's expected with the next…

But is it any good? That's the question. I don't doubt that they'll try something in the next 10 years, because now is the largest force they'll ever be able to muster. One child policy screwed them.

The success of the US Navy in the past was due to constant training and the empowerment of the officer corps at the junior ranks, and billions in cash thrown at tech and equipment. If China can afford to train well, has decent technology that’s reliable, and is flexible enough to allow power to disseminate the ranks, then I assume they are on the way to overtaking the US Navy in ability as the USN wanes due to lack of leadership and misplaced priorities.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#183

Post by ginjas »

marcinzm wrote: post #32
ginjas wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's supposed to be the arbiter of civil rights, fairness, and enablement, with the convenient side effect of enriching a very small group of people who actually pull the strings so the ends justify the means? Even the premise is wrong

Name a system that doesn't enrich a small group of people when actually implemented in real life. So yeah you pick the least bad of the options you have. edit: That also includes being stable against competing systems. A utopia that is conquered in 5 minutes and replaced with a dystopia is not a utopia.

Imo let's be real, drop the pretension. I'd rather we get off the notion that these things are possible. I.e. we are ruled by smart people (aristocracy), that enrich themselves, but that are smart and have skin in the game. Rather than dumb (and impressionable) collective deciding in a popularity contest, probably _extremely_ influenced by a 3rd party (media), pretending it's fulfilling its duty, while it's actually falling in some 'cool' 'wolf's' song, that only accomplishes short term gains, while mortgaging our future.

Just drop the pretension.

Edit: maybe I'm schizo-ranting, but in my opinion, this is a very sober/hyperconscious perspective, that should be had by everyone. Not this Plato's Cave bs, that we live in a 'free democracy' where nobody questions status quo, except a minority of right-left non-npc people.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#184

Post by more_corn »

ProjectArcturis wrote: post #173
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #75

I’ve been following Zeihan since his first book. I’m yet to find a credible counter argument to his theses. And he’s being proven right at an alarming pace this year. So far this year we’ve had: - A land war in Europe - Food insecurity in the developing world - Breakdown of supply chains and shipping routes - Nation states resorting to seizing each other’s ships (see Greece-Iran issue recently). Everything that he ha…

I've never heard of Zeihan. The article touts his prowess of predicting a Russian invasion of Ukraine in his book published in late 2014. Well, Russia had just seized Crimea and eastern Donbass in February of 2014, so this doesn't strike me as a particularly prescient call.

Except that from January to March this year pundits swore up and down that Russia wouldn’t launch a full invasion of Ukraine. When it happened a lot of people were surprised. You could have made a killing in the stock market if you’d realized that Russia would certainly invade, and they probably had a deadline in order to maximize the summer fighting season. It seemed obvious to me, but not so obvious that I positioned myself properly in the stock market.

Everything is obvious after the fact. Look around for the people asserting that it’s obvious BEFORE the fact and measure their accuracy. Those people might have useful insight.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#185

Post by achenet »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #75

I’ve been following Zeihan since his first book. I’m yet to find a credible counter argument to his theses. And he’s being proven right at an alarming pace this year. So far this year we’ve had: - A land war in Europe - Food insecurity in the developing world - Breakdown of supply chains and shipping routes - Nation states resorting to seizing each other’s ships (see Greece-Iran issue recently). Everything that he ha…

Reading his book The End of Everything is Just Beginning, he posits a history of early human evolution that is throughly debunked in The Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow.

Not that this invalidates his future predictions, but...

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#186

Post by Jistern »

hintymad wrote: post #167

This is probably an unpopular opinion: it pains me to see the manufacturing industry decline in the US. I don't really mind paying $300 for a pair of shoes. Yes, it will be expensive, but then I'll just buy fewer pairs. In return, more people get decent jobs, or so I hope. And no, I'm not talking about just the so-called "low-end" manufacturing, but also the high end. Indeed, how can we even grow "high-end" talent if…

The problem in the US is fair distribution of income, not lack of production. In other words, we don't need to make more stuff.

"When you are a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." This is faulty reasoning that probably makes sense to an engineer because, well, engineers usually make stuff.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#187

Post by more_corn »

antisthenes wrote: post #152
arcturus17 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t argue with demographics, so you wouldn’t have argued with Malthus? He was completely wrong, at the very least in timescale.

Malthus only has to be right once and the timeline is completely irrelevant.

Timelines are actually super relevant. Predicting when something will happen is sometimes more important than predicting that it will happen.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#188

Post by riku_iki »

DennisP wrote: post #145
bombcar wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sanctions are a "one time weapon" I fear, and many many countries are now including "what if we or someone we trade with gets sanctioned by the US" as part of their contingency planning.

If financial sanctions get bypassed, another cheap US option is to confiscate a couple ships heading to the sanctioned country, making commercial shipping insurance difficult to get. That would be a pretty big step though, essentially changing the US from the guarantor of the open seas to their biggest threat. So that might precipitate Zeihan's Disorder instead of preventing it.

They did it with Venezuela-Iran oil tankers already.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#189

Post by smrtinsert »

hintymad wrote: post #167

This is probably an unpopular opinion: it pains me to see the manufacturing industry decline in the US. I don't really mind paying $300 for a pair of shoes. Yes, it will be expensive, but then I'll just buy fewer pairs. In return, more people get decent jobs, or so I hope. And no, I'm not talking about just the so-called "low-end" manufacturing, but also the high end. Indeed, how can we even grow "high-end" talent if…

I haven't seen any compelling evidence that protectionism works in the grand scheme of things. I have seen other though, frequently: https://hbr.org/1987/05/why-protectionism-doesnt-pay

Seems anti-capitalist to me.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#190

Post by floxy »

DennisP wrote: post #117
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #75

I’ve been following Zeihan since his first book. I’m yet to find a credible counter argument to his theses. And he’s being proven right at an alarming pace this year. So far this year we’ve had: - A land war in Europe - Food insecurity in the developing world - Breakdown of supply chains and shipping routes - Nation states resorting to seizing each other’s ships (see Greece-Iran issue recently). Everything that he ha…

I just read all Zeihan's books. The only counterargument I can think of is that maybe with our interdependent world, sanctions have gotten effective enough to substitute for US military power to some extent. Zeihan himself has said China has to be reevaluating the idea of an attack on Taiwan, after seeing the sanctions and boycotts against Russia. Sanctions haven't stopped Russia but Russia is a food and fuel exporte…

What are some good examples of when sanctions "worked"? Apartheid-era South Africa? Maybe in delaying Iran developing nuclear weapons? Are any of the following considered success stories for sanctions?

  - Saddam era Iraq
  - North Korea
  - Cuba
  - Venezuela
Apparently the U.S. has quite a list of sanctions:

https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/...

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