These are the posts on Grasping Reality SubStack that have, here and now, a quarter of the way through the 2000s, resonated with the SubStack audience. Question: Is there a book in here somewhere?...
Books take years to publish, so discussions of interest rates and democracy will probably be, if not settled, at least less topical by then. If we are in a dictatorship, who knows what books can be sold?
If I may blend several topics, one that should survive current events is the history of challengers to hegemony. Something broader and deeper than the Thucydides Trap. Does moving towards democracy or autocracy make a difference? Manufacturing power, soft power, alliances, science, demographics, treatment of women, immigration, geography, asset bubbles and financing? Also key person risk and the difficulties off measuring economic and military prowess. Whatever matters, or people think matters, covered in a population of hegemon challengers who were successful, and that failed.
The framing is to evaluate China, and to a lesser extent India, without trying to be an expert in either China or India, and to make it applicable for the long run while providing interesting history along the way.
ps: from your description, I'd be interested in a biography of Hoover, but the only book in local library interpreted his life through fishing. Suggestions?
Hoover seems like a tragic figure. First it was his bad luck the Fed decided to pop what it though was an asset bubble on his watch. And having seen what a disaster the UK return to gold at the old parity had been, that he and other "serious people" did not go off gold so the Fed could reflate madly after Oct. '29. [Yes, the FEd could have inflated a lot w/o going off gold, but it was a constraint.] Apparently he signed Smoot Hawley even though he knew it was mistake.
But the real tragedy was his descent into hatred of, not just criticism of, FDR and the New Deal.
Books take years to publish, so discussions of interest rates and democracy will probably be, if not settled, at least less topical by then. If we are in a dictatorship, who knows what books can be sold?
If I may blend several topics, one that should survive current events is the history of challengers to hegemony. Something broader and deeper than the Thucydides Trap. Does moving towards democracy or autocracy make a difference? Manufacturing power, soft power, alliances, science, demographics, treatment of women, immigration, geography, asset bubbles and financing? Also key person risk and the difficulties off measuring economic and military prowess. Whatever matters, or people think matters, covered in a population of hegemon challengers who were successful, and that failed.
The framing is to evaluate China, and to a lesser extent India, without trying to be an expert in either China or India, and to make it applicable for the long run while providing interesting history along the way.
ps: from your description, I'd be interested in a biography of Hoover, but the only book in local library interpreted his life through fishing. Suggestions?
Hoover seems like a tragic figure. First it was his bad luck the Fed decided to pop what it though was an asset bubble on his watch. And having seen what a disaster the UK return to gold at the old parity had been, that he and other "serious people" did not go off gold so the Fed could reflate madly after Oct. '29. [Yes, the FEd could have inflated a lot w/o going off gold, but it was a constraint.] Apparently he signed Smoot Hawley even though he knew it was mistake.
But the real tragedy was his descent into hatred of, not just criticism of, FDR and the New Deal.