Comments on: We’re not witnessing the beginning of the end of American power, but the end of its beginning

By: Richard Morchoe

Richard Morchoe — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 14:45:12 +0000

Roo_ster says part 2 has it exactly.

The only rational course for the US is withdrawal of its forces and pursuing a neutralist foreign policy.

By: Roo_ster

Roo_ster — Sun, 16 Jun 2024 21:47:23 +0000

1. Zeihan knows that he makes bank by fluffing up the ruling & managerial classes by telling them what they want to hear in a confident manner. “You go girrrrrrl!” gets more air kisses than, “Girl, you’ll go home alone tonight if you don’t change that outfit.”

2. Bretton Woods was the capstone of US-ian imperialism and buggering of actual Americans. Imperialists sell out their native stock to benefit the satraps and native & alien ruling class sorts, with whom they all find they have more in common than the folks from whence they came.

By: Bomag

Bomag — Sun, 16 Jun 2024 11:19:06 +0000

Jim: nailed it.

Phileas: good comment; thanks for the historical reflection. Zeihan is different, for his social class, in that he leans in on demography and differences in people/populations; but he does so in service to coming up with the anodyne, acceptable conclusions for the GoodThinkers of his class.

By: Curtis

Curtis — Sun, 16 Jun 2024 06:08:51 +0000

The old world passeth away. It sure was nice while it lasted.

By: Phileas Frogg

Phileas Frogg — Sat, 15 Jun 2024 15:52:42 +0000

While I always feel compelled to give credit to anyone willing to “put their money where their mouth is” with these kinds of predictions, this is one of the more embarrassing misses I’ve ever seen. Zeihan, like many of his social class, seems to be too detached to be able to meaningfully leverage the available information in an effective way. A few key errors in his premises produce massive predictive failures when it comes to the particulars.

Conversely, to date the best predictors have been:
- Lothrop Stoddard (Predicted the end of European Imperialism, the Revanchism of Germany, and the Rise of Japan).
- Emmanuel Todd (Predicted the fall of the USSR and the USA within a decade in both cases).
- Thomas Carlyle (Shooting Niagara is a perfect general prediction of the results of liberal democracy).
- Patrick Buchanan (Along with Robert Bork he nailed the causes of American decline, and how failing to goal tend those areas doomed us).

By: Jim

Jim — Sat, 15 Jun 2024 15:10:20 +0000

On the bright side, the U.S. government is incarcerating its domestic political enemies so that it will be able to competently respond to threats in the future.

By: Adar

Adar — Sat, 15 Jun 2024 13:56:41 +0000

“The Americans offered to use their navy to protect all maritime trade, regardless of who was buying or selling the cargoes”

“He who controls the oceans controls the trade. He who controls the trade controls the commerce. He who controls the commerce controls the world.” — Sir Walter Raleigh.

By: Bob Sykes

Bob Sykes — Sat, 15 Jun 2024 12:54:14 +0000

About one-third of the world’s manufacturing capacity resides in China. And Chinese factories are the most advanced and efficient in the world. They have two-thirds of the world’s industrial robots, and they optimize their plants using AI running on 5G networks. They have 80 % of all the 5G bases in the world.

China has two-thirds of all the high speed (>200 km/hr) trackage in the world, and all their major cities are connected by high speed rail.

They annually make 55 to 60% of all the commercial shipping by tonnage.

They have two of the three fastest supercomputers in the world, made entirely from Chinese designs, hardware, and operating systems. They have more supercomputers than the US.

China’s real economic growth rate is two to three times as fast as ours.

All their cities are clean, modern, and safe. There are no minority no-go zones, or hordes of homeless people, or feces/urine covered sidewalks.

Russia, with the fourth largest economy in the world, is China’s closest ally. They are the dominant alliance in the world, and they are getting stronger while the US and the West are fading away. BRICS 10 is the future, and will soon be BRICS 60.

By: DJB

DJB — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 23:25:30 +0000

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp
“The GDP value of the United States represents 10.93 percent of the world economy. source: World Bank”

From 25% to 11% of the world GDP in a decade.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/17/europe/ukraine-shell-supplies-intl/index.html

We lack the manufacturing capacity to replace the artillery shells used by the Ukraine.

We are hardly the superpower Zeihan predicted in 2014.

By: Alex S.

Alex S. — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 21:21:43 +0000

“While American aid helped get Western Europe back on its feet, it was American markets’ absorption of every bolt, table, and car that the Western Europeans could produce that proved to be the determining factor in resuscitating their fortunes. ”

Completely false. There was no big export from Europe to US. The European growth was made internally mostly.