We were once indispensable. Now we’re just unpredictable. Economic power runs on trust. Trump has burned trust in America to the ground. Brexit slashed Britain’s growth. Trumpxit is now doing the...
The question is, can it? I was intrigued that the EU has built an alternative to US-owned server farms to manage cloud applications, a clear riposte to Amazon and Microsoft. The problem for Europe is becoming a target for Chinese exports, plus a threat from Russia in the east. Perhaps Europe should foster stronger ties with nations in the south? The US is the center of gravity in trade and defense. It will be very hard to find equivalent alternatives.
Remember the impact on Europe after Rome fell? It took more than half a millennium to recover. Until relatively recently, Europeans looked to the Roman Empire as a high point in civilization.
The linked article fails to mention a parallel that is ALSO all-too-relevant to the USA: thanks to 20th Century Europe’s ultra nationalism, the continent destroyed its economies, taking Russia and Britain down the drain, too
Per Dimsom et al in the UBS Global Investment Returns Yearbook: Summary Edition 2024 (which IIRC you quoted and included the chart i’ve re-examined), Europe recovered quite a bit but they’d given the US a huge advantage. Britain’s resentment may have started festering well before Johnson’s jackassery, and sowed the seeds for Brexit
OTOH, I believe US resentment that led to Trumpist ultra-nationalism is a home-grown error, fostered by decades of rising inequality and malevolent political forces that encouraged sink-or-swim policies as alternatives to a nanny state
I've wondered over the last 5 years why Britain doesn't own up to its stupid mistake and try to claw its way back into the EU. There will be lots of humble-pie to eat and a more stringent breakaway clause, but it they could regain membership it would benefit all concerned.
Britain caused teh EU so much trouble that the EU was apparently not that interested in Britain rejoining, although that has probably changed now. In Britain, the Reform party (once the Brexit Party) is gaining power and would certainly not want to rejoin. As in the US, there is a strain of xenophobia for 'furrners" as many parts of the UK are in steep decline. The Labour Party is fearful that trying to rejoin Europe would leave them ousted from power. Hence the timid "making Brexit work" with suggestions of reducing red tape and making trade with Europe easier again - if they can.
Yes, it would benefit everyone who wants to repair that relationship. However, I fear the specter of a right-wing takeover of power, probably with a Tory-Reform coalition, will prevent that from happening.
Turn on any BBC interview with a Tory interviewee, and there is the inevitable "before the election last year, Britain had the highest growth rate in the EU". Austerity and Brexit were the underlying causes of the malaise in the UK and the continuing problem of reversing the economic shambles.
I think Paul Kennedy's thesis on the rise and fall of empires adequately explains Britain's fall, its fantasy of empire lasting well into my formative years, and even resurrected by Brexiteers invoking Elizabethan "buccaneering". What happened to letting go of Europe, recreating favorable trade deals with Europe (the easiest to do), and, more importantly, with the faster-growing Asia? Almost nothing. Poor Britain is even now wrestling with kissing Trump's ring and offering a trade deal to the US that further undermines the makeup of the British economy and in the case of food, would block any food exports to the EU.
Trumpxit is less like the slow decline of an empire and exactly like its moniker, Brexit, a sudden self-inflicted harm. Worse, it wasn't even debated, just assumed based on Trump's win and the appalling cultish obeisance of the already crazed Republican Party. Trump seems to have assumed that acting like a mob boss would force countries to kowtow. Just as Brexiteers thought Brexit would free Britain to have both EU trade and global trade deals outside the EU, so Trump assumes that his opening salvoes will reverse the trade goods trade deficit and rebuild US manufacturing. More likely it will do neither as the US is increasingly cut off from foreign trade and investment.
I don't believe I am the only one who believes that China will more rapidly invade Taiwan and control the supply of TSMC's chips to the USA, a retaliation against the imposition of prior export controls on Taiwanese high-end chips to China. No tariff exemption on chips would then apply for the US industry, and China could then squeeze US manufacturing an goods, let alone the big AI companies requiring NVIDIA GPUs.
Meanwhile, Europe is worried that it could be the new target of China's exports. What will their response be?
The wider problem is not economic. Trump is derailing the US response to global heating, making the already feeble attempts of the world to decarbonize worse. Britain is also wobbling badly, and the right-wing in Europe is also trying to set back progress. We are in for a nasty ride with a worsening climate, which will in turn cost more to mitigate, stimulate resource wars, especially for fresh water, and climate migration. The geographic imbalance already ensures that climate refugees must go north. This cannot possibly end well.
A century from now, the world will look very different, and probably not in a good way.
That is like a childish tantrum. "If I can't play, I'm taking my ball home!"
China might then recreate the facility in its homeland with surviving TSMC personnel. Would anyone trust the USA to create a local TSMC in the heartland safely? Or what if that bombing allows other countries like China to target facilities in the US, like Intel's fabs? This is the sort of escalation that leads to all-out war. Is the current US administration that crazy? (Don't answer that!)
Alas for the madness which afflicts crowds and for the charlatans and con men who know how to foment and exploit it. The history of the world is not of a steady rise of economic integration, good sense, technological progress and shared prosperity, facing new challenges together in how to break dependence on carbon. It's a story interrupted by collapses of countries and at times the world into irrationality and conflict, self-inflicted harm, and wars against science and learning or specialized knowledge.
The Republican (and Democrat) Congress does nothing to stop Trump and save the USA. A few judges are trying. People are protesting. ICE secret police are unAmerican. Economists are taking a stand but top lawyers appease. Who has any decency?
Maybe (Brexit) there were enough cultural differences, for example the EU might have wanted to have them go metric and drive on the right side of the road. There are probably other things like that that they did not want to be a part of the E.U.,for example, having their manufacturing go totally metric. And also drop the English system of measures.
And who are we to talk. We never gave up the English system either. Remember when there were mileage signs given in both English and metric. That must have quietly disappeared from the roadways.
Mechanics have to deal with metric and English, having two sets of tools. Wonder how they feel about that.
Science is only metric, and that is fine with me. On containers, there is usually both metric and English. When the dominant one is metric they are winning on that product, but I can live with it.
A lot of labels now say “Made in USA from global sources”. Or the other way around.
I would be sad if we had to give up English, so we are in the same shape as the U.K. In that regard.
Trumpxit. Brilliant. Trademark it.
And pronounce the X as one does in Mandarin, sorta like “sh”
This has an awesome grasp of economic history, which makes it so depressing. As the Republicans often say: elections have consequences.
So it's come to this: the world interprets America as damage and routes around it.
The question is, can it? I was intrigued that the EU has built an alternative to US-owned server farms to manage cloud applications, a clear riposte to Amazon and Microsoft. The problem for Europe is becoming a target for Chinese exports, plus a threat from Russia in the east. Perhaps Europe should foster stronger ties with nations in the south? The US is the center of gravity in trade and defense. It will be very hard to find equivalent alternatives.
Remember the impact on Europe after Rome fell? It took more than half a millennium to recover. Until relatively recently, Europeans looked to the Roman Empire as a high point in civilization.
The linked article fails to mention a parallel that is ALSO all-too-relevant to the USA: thanks to 20th Century Europe’s ultra nationalism, the continent destroyed its economies, taking Russia and Britain down the drain, too
Per Dimsom et al in the UBS Global Investment Returns Yearbook: Summary Edition 2024 (which IIRC you quoted and included the chart i’ve re-examined), Europe recovered quite a bit but they’d given the US a huge advantage. Britain’s resentment may have started festering well before Johnson’s jackassery, and sowed the seeds for Brexit
OTOH, I believe US resentment that led to Trumpist ultra-nationalism is a home-grown error, fostered by decades of rising inequality and malevolent political forces that encouraged sink-or-swim policies as alternatives to a nanny state
When can I send this to my conservative friends.
I've wondered over the last 5 years why Britain doesn't own up to its stupid mistake and try to claw its way back into the EU. There will be lots of humble-pie to eat and a more stringent breakaway clause, but it they could regain membership it would benefit all concerned.
Is it feasible?
Britain caused teh EU so much trouble that the EU was apparently not that interested in Britain rejoining, although that has probably changed now. In Britain, the Reform party (once the Brexit Party) is gaining power and would certainly not want to rejoin. As in the US, there is a strain of xenophobia for 'furrners" as many parts of the UK are in steep decline. The Labour Party is fearful that trying to rejoin Europe would leave them ousted from power. Hence the timid "making Brexit work" with suggestions of reducing red tape and making trade with Europe easier again - if they can.
Yes, it would benefit everyone who wants to repair that relationship. However, I fear the specter of a right-wing takeover of power, probably with a Tory-Reform coalition, will prevent that from happening.
Thank you!
Turn on any BBC interview with a Tory interviewee, and there is the inevitable "before the election last year, Britain had the highest growth rate in the EU". Austerity and Brexit were the underlying causes of the malaise in the UK and the continuing problem of reversing the economic shambles.
I think Paul Kennedy's thesis on the rise and fall of empires adequately explains Britain's fall, its fantasy of empire lasting well into my formative years, and even resurrected by Brexiteers invoking Elizabethan "buccaneering". What happened to letting go of Europe, recreating favorable trade deals with Europe (the easiest to do), and, more importantly, with the faster-growing Asia? Almost nothing. Poor Britain is even now wrestling with kissing Trump's ring and offering a trade deal to the US that further undermines the makeup of the British economy and in the case of food, would block any food exports to the EU.
Trumpxit is less like the slow decline of an empire and exactly like its moniker, Brexit, a sudden self-inflicted harm. Worse, it wasn't even debated, just assumed based on Trump's win and the appalling cultish obeisance of the already crazed Republican Party. Trump seems to have assumed that acting like a mob boss would force countries to kowtow. Just as Brexiteers thought Brexit would free Britain to have both EU trade and global trade deals outside the EU, so Trump assumes that his opening salvoes will reverse the trade goods trade deficit and rebuild US manufacturing. More likely it will do neither as the US is increasingly cut off from foreign trade and investment.
I don't believe I am the only one who believes that China will more rapidly invade Taiwan and control the supply of TSMC's chips to the USA, a retaliation against the imposition of prior export controls on Taiwanese high-end chips to China. No tariff exemption on chips would then apply for the US industry, and China could then squeeze US manufacturing an goods, let alone the big AI companies requiring NVIDIA GPUs.
Meanwhile, Europe is worried that it could be the new target of China's exports. What will their response be?
The wider problem is not economic. Trump is derailing the US response to global heating, making the already feeble attempts of the world to decarbonize worse. Britain is also wobbling badly, and the right-wing in Europe is also trying to set back progress. We are in for a nasty ride with a worsening climate, which will in turn cost more to mitigate, stimulate resource wars, especially for fresh water, and climate migration. The geographic imbalance already ensures that climate refugees must go north. This cannot possibly end well.
A century from now, the world will look very different, and probably not in a good way.
Except the U.S. will bomb TSMC before letting China get it. A loss for the entire world.
That is like a childish tantrum. "If I can't play, I'm taking my ball home!"
China might then recreate the facility in its homeland with surviving TSMC personnel. Would anyone trust the USA to create a local TSMC in the heartland safely? Or what if that bombing allows other countries like China to target facilities in the US, like Intel's fabs? This is the sort of escalation that leads to all-out war. Is the current US administration that crazy? (Don't answer that!)
Alas for the madness which afflicts crowds and for the charlatans and con men who know how to foment and exploit it. The history of the world is not of a steady rise of economic integration, good sense, technological progress and shared prosperity, facing new challenges together in how to break dependence on carbon. It's a story interrupted by collapses of countries and at times the world into irrationality and conflict, self-inflicted harm, and wars against science and learning or specialized knowledge.
The Republican (and Democrat) Congress does nothing to stop Trump and save the USA. A few judges are trying. People are protesting. ICE secret police are unAmerican. Economists are taking a stand but top lawyers appease. Who has any decency?
Great assesment. Thank you.
A fear I've had is that a Xi led China sees this as a chance to spread Marxism...or take Taiwan.
"Look at the US. Sufferring the long forseen collapse of capitalism run wild"
Xi is no Deng Xiaoping.
Maybe (Brexit) there were enough cultural differences, for example the EU might have wanted to have them go metric and drive on the right side of the road. There are probably other things like that that they did not want to be a part of the E.U.,for example, having their manufacturing go totally metric. And also drop the English system of measures.
And who are we to talk. We never gave up the English system either. Remember when there were mileage signs given in both English and metric. That must have quietly disappeared from the roadways.
Mechanics have to deal with metric and English, having two sets of tools. Wonder how they feel about that.
Science is only metric, and that is fine with me. On containers, there is usually both metric and English. When the dominant one is metric they are winning on that product, but I can live with it.
A lot of labels now say “Made in USA from global sources”. Or the other way around.
I would be sad if we had to give up English, so we are in the same shape as the U.K. In that regard.
Well done.