"The Iraq War, launched in 2003 – resulting in over 100,000 deaths"
Isn't this an extreme low-ball estimate?
Thomas Piketty: 'The reality is the US is losing control of the world'
31–40 of 212 posts
Re: Thomas Piketty: 'The reality is the US is losing control of the world'
#32Thank god. I don't understand how we, as in humanity, allow a single country to be "world police". Seriously, no one asked for it.
Diplomacy before the "world police" era involved a lot more war than you might be willing to stomach.
You can say this but the people who need to hear it won’t listen. They lack the perspective of actually reading history to understand the scale at which people were killed before the world police era.
But even reading history isn’t enough. I think we’re fundamentally not equipped to understand what a large number of deaths actually looks and feels like. 10 deaths happening in our vicinity is an unbearable tragedy. 1 million deaths is just a number. So folks are struck by a nostalgia for a time when humans killed each other by the millions.
In some ways they remind me of the people who long for the days before vaccines eliminated a bunch of diseases.
Re: Thomas Piketty: 'The reality is the US is losing control of the world'
#33Largely the US isn't losing control, it's giving it up willingly. For what reason, no one knows yet.
I think the US is giving up control willingly and turning more isolationist. It has been building for some time but I do not thing it is forced. It is a deliberate policy shift turning away from trying to control and police the world. America is pushed in and on to other countries and societies that a retraction might be the best thing
I don't believe it's trying to give up control, the current US administration don't want to be the world police but still wants the control given by being the world police, both can't exist at the same time and some sort of reckoning will happen.
Re: Thomas Piketty: 'The reality is the US is losing control of the world'
#34Largely the US isn't losing control, it's giving it up willingly. For what reason, no one knows yet.
Trump's project is to turn the US into a playground for oligarchs such as himself, like in Putin's Russia. It doesn't matter if the US becomes way poorer and weaker in the process. "Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven".
Thiel and Musk want to decentralize as much as possible, and split everything into small autonomies, so they can pit different jurisdictions against each other, and pressure/manipulate them. That's fairly sure. The goal has never been revealed, but one can assume it is not because it hurts their interests.
Re: Thomas Piketty: 'The reality is the US is losing control of the world'
#35There's a very real chance the USA will get lucky and find a new means of economic domination through its AI companies and the looming space build-out. Its self-destructiveness right now, flouting longstanding alliances and truckling to its enemies, would ruin it in any other moment in its history. But in these unusual circumstances, it might not matter.
Re: Thomas Piketty: 'The reality is the US is losing control of the world'
#36Lol, the US deficits are what sustains the production of demand stricken surplus economies. Everything that has happened is the ultimate result of surplus countries doubling down on mercantalist investment than growing internal consumption. If a rebalancing were to occur, it is the surplus countries hit with mass unemployment that will hurt much more than deficit countries that can move production back at a much quic…
Why assume rebalancing is mainly a demand problem but not a (slow) supply-constrained adjustment driven by demographics, capital stickiness, and institutional limits (in deficit countries)?
Re: Thomas Piketty: 'The reality is the US is losing control of the world'
#37Thank god. I don't understand how we, as in humanity, allow a single country to be "world police". Seriously, no one asked for it.
Allow? It just happens, and when you're the weaker part in the equation, there's not much you can do against it. Where Russia and the USA give up power, China will grab it.
Re: Thomas Piketty: 'The reality is the US is losing control of the world'
#38The real problem is not the US no longer being the influence it was for "the west" (to simplify). The real problem is, what takes the space the US previously filled and still partly/mostly fills. The US are by no means innocent of terrorism and invasion of other countries, but at least with countries commonly counted as "the west", the US was a friendly nation. If we have the likes of terrorist states like Russia tak…
Both political far sides are rocking the boat, not just rights even tho they are in power. It's both of them together and the dysfunction of their inability to compromise or reason on anything. Moderates or centrist voters in the USA have no representation and haven't for some time.
Re: Thomas Piketty: 'The reality is the US is losing control of the world'
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's because it's not worth the expense. Vanity is a hell of a drug, but it has its limits.
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.
> 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.
That's just explaining why it's not worth the expense.
Re: Thomas Piketty: 'The reality is the US is losing control of the world'
#40Earlier 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.
Not only did they lose the popular vote, they lost it repeatedly. Although it was only a matter of degree at each step, Clinton was more isolationist than Bush and Dole. Bush was more isolationist than Gore and Kerry. Obama was more isolationist than McCain and Romney.
Trump was more isolationist than Clinton, Biden was more isolationist than first-term Trump and Trump beat Biden last year partially on the basis of becoming much more isolationist than his first term version, surpassing Biden.