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Thomas Piketty: 'The reality is the US is losing control of the world'

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Re: Thomas Piketty: 'The reality is the US is losing control of the world'

#121

Post by spwa4 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #97
Hendrikto wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do not get votes, it’s not the voters who failed, it is you. If politicians got that through their heads, and started trying to convince voters on their own merit, instead of simply trash-talking their opponents and telling people they voted “wrong”, they would start to get things done again, and we could actually solve real problems.

When voters vote for the person who baseless attacked an election (counts as treason in my book), and campaigned on aiding and abetting those who perpetrated treason against the country, it is the voters (and non voters) who failed.

Why? If you look at history you will quickly realize that voters vote pretty much like shareholders do. While not excluding every last other factor, democratic voters vote largely in their own short term economic interest. Trump convinced them that was where he was superior and was rewarded with the election.

If you like democracy ... then what's wrong with that?

Re: Thomas Piketty: 'The reality is the US is losing control of the world'

#122

Post by stfp »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #22
tmountain wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The America First agenda is predicated by isolationism. You have a demagogue with whom nobody is willing to say "no" and an army of self serving sycophants lined up to try and win favors. The political messaging is all built around zero sum language and arguments, and toughness is demonstrated by punitive measures taken against any allies deemed "weaker" than the U.S. (basically everyone). Those who know where this w…

> Those who know where this will lead are unwilling to speak up and the rest follow. They did speak up. And they lost the popular vote. Democracy is only as good as its voters. A country is only as good as its people. Replace good with productive/sane/not corrupt, etc.

I don’t know if that’s meaningfully true. When a candidate lies and the information distribution industries are by and large just repeating the lies, on top of decades of voter suppression measures, can we say that the popular vote really represents what people want? I don’t think so. So yeah one candidate will win by a razor-thin margin but I don’t think that actually gives legitimacy to what is happening.

Re: Thomas Piketty: 'The reality is the US is losing control of the world'

#123

Post by flowerthoughts »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #84

Before WWII America was content with it's own company and business. Then we found ourselves holding the big stick and everybody looking to us to solve their problems. If we go back to being peers, so what? Rich people who've capitalized on the favored position will cry and complain (and spend billions trying to keep control) but the world will go on.

I read somewhere that the sentiment in Europe after WW2 was that Soviet had a bigger impact than the US. But narrative has shifted over time. I'd guess Churchill saw the US as a last resort, not the goto fixer. Happy to be corrected by someone who knows history, thouogh.

It seems the US wasn't in the war until two years after it started, and was drawn in due to Pearl Harbor. Even the protection of Atlantic trade was handled by the UK and Canada until 1941: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_the_United...

Re: Thomas Piketty: 'The reality is the US is losing control of the world'

#124

Post by orwin »

smallmancontrov wrote: post #111
ksec wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Power should be measured in relative terms not absolute. I would argue everything should be measured in relative terms. More often than not this is not the case. >The US would have to be keeping up with China, India, and rest of world to maintain its previous pole position. This is the biggest problem I see. US is not keeping up. Nor its willingness to compete. Taking the US dollar as world reserve currency for gran…

> Taking the US dollar as world reserve currency for granted. It's the exact opposite: US citizens got fed up with the domestic problems created by Triffin's Dilemma and wanted out. Remember, the "imperial revenue" in our model doesn't get helicoptered into the economy, it pumps assets. Stocks, bonds, and real estate. Your share of the imperial loot is proportional to the value of the assets that you own, and worse,…

The fact that successive US governments choose to use their economic hegemony to pump assets rather than invest in their education and healthcare, or at least in their infrastructure, doesn't contradict the fact that it was a great gift, engineered since Bretton-Woods, confirmed at the Smithsonian institute and a few years later at the Kingston accords (and btw, had nothing to do with gold standard but the convertibility of the Dollar. The gold standard realistically ended in the 50s (died for the 5th time in the US alone), and for the 1st time, stayed dead).

Re: Thomas Piketty: 'The reality is the US is losing control of the world'

#125

Post by smallmancontrov »

orwin wrote: post #124
smallmancontrov wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taking the US dollar as world reserve currency for granted. It's the exact opposite: US citizens got fed up with the domestic problems created by Triffin's Dilemma and wanted out. Remember, the "imperial revenue" in our model doesn't get helicoptered into the economy, it pumps assets. Stocks, bonds, and real estate. Your share of the imperial loot is proportional to the value of the assets that you own, and worse,…

The fact that successive US governments choose to use their economic hegemony to pump assets rather than invest in their education and healthcare, or at least in their infrastructure, doesn't contradict the fact that it was a great gift, engineered since Bretton-Woods, confirmed at the Smithsonian institute and a few years later at the Kingston accords (and btw, had nothing to do with gold standard but the convertibi…

True. We could have taxed and spent enough to spread the wealth around. We chose not to, and now the proverbial children who weren't embraced by the village are burning it down to feel its warmth.

I'm not against calling reserve currency status a privilege so long as you are crystal clear on the point that it was a privilege for America but a curse for most Americans.

Re: Thomas Piketty: 'The reality is the US is losing control of the world'

#126

Post by mattmaroon »

padjo wrote: post #80
mattmaroon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not that it’s not worth the expense, it’s that we’re unable to continue funding global peace and prosperity ourselves. And we shouldn’t have to. I don’t agree with Trump about much but he’s correct that the other liberal democracies have been more than happy to have us foot the bill for keeping the wolves at bay while looking down on us for doing it.

You have to consider how much it felt like progress for Europe to become less militaristic. The continent had been obliterated by war and then divided and filled with tanks during the cold war. For Europe, reducing military spending was seen as a welcome step away from the internal conflicts of the past. This is changing now, and while America may see this as a victory I find it hard to welcome headlines like “German…

These are fair points and I get it, but the world of today is very different than the world of the early to mid 1900s. Lack of military is far from the only thing keeping Germany from attacking other European countries now. I feel reasonably confident that no matter how many tanks Germany builds, they won’t go rolling into France in my lifetime. What they may do is repel Russia (though even then, I am skeptical that any major nation will attack a NATO country.)

Re: Thomas Piketty: 'The reality is the US is losing control of the world'

#127

Post by smallmancontrov »

throwaway5465 wrote: post #71
jnmandal wrote: post #19

Without entering (and winning) some kind of major conflict, this was always going to happen. Two things are important to think about. 1. Power should be measured in relative terms not absolute. (For a good treatise on this, read Paul Kennedy's Rise and Fall of the Great Powers ). The US would have to be keeping up with China, India, and rest of world to maintain its previous pole position. 2. Great nations/empires ge…

China has grown old before it grew rich. The past decade has been one of a collapsed houehold sector (and birth rate below the already gloomy concensus back in 2010), general deflation, and bright lights and conspicious technology achieved only through throwing government spending at ritzy projects - centrally planned growth and waste. Being unable to escape the domestic security agenda will forever neuter global asp…

The "centrally planned growth is hollow and doomed" narrative doesn't seem to fit China like it fit the USSR. Did the USSR ever make 80% of the stuff in your home?

As for making friends, the US empire is highly atypical in its "friendliness" and it's entirely plausible that its successor will revert to the mean.

Re: Thomas Piketty: 'The reality is the US is losing control of the world'

#128

Post by corimaith »

vdupras wrote: post #109
corimaith wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, try building a product nobody wants and let's see how long you stay solvent... Brush up on macroeconomics first maybe

That's why I said "set it on fire". This whole economic speak is just a cover to avoid saying that trade imbalance is a fealty payment to the US. It's ridiculous to say that a country that was previously sending out stuff for free to the US would suddenly have a big existential problem when they suddenly don't have to do it anymore. They will have other problems due to a changing world order, that's for sure, but fig…

>for free to the US would suddenly have a big existential problem

No they're not sending it for free, the US dollars and IOUs are real and ultimately translated into maintaining the salaries of millions of factory workers. Thats the whole point of export driven growth. Trying to abstract away the balance sheet as imaginary is not how real economics works.

The CCP, the IMF, World Bank, BIS, etc certainly aren't thinking like you are, growing consumption has proven extremely difficult in practice over growing industry.

Re: Thomas Piketty: 'The reality is the US is losing control of the world'

#129

Post by Incipient »

I'm not sure anyone really is debating if the US is losing its control, I feel that's a given - I'd say much quicker recently than before, but still happening.

I'm personally worried who takes over - none of the other parties vying for power instil even the vaguest sense of wanting to maintain the status quo. I feel fairly malicious authoritarianism and corruption will be observed in our own countries within this century (if that matters to you, depends on your age I suppose).

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