Comment by philwelch 2 days ago
> I think this is a win for national security. I don't think the government applying such levers to change how the market allocates capital probably won't be a win for economic output or quality of life.
National security and global freedom of navigation are essential preconditions for our current level of economic output and quality of life. In the long run, it’s not an either/or.
And you would imagine that quality of life would be better if the U.S. found itself on the losing side of a major war? Your premise that there seems to be hopelessness is more of a media driven phenomenon than reality. There is just no evidence that "the future is trending downward" - at least in the U.S. Every measure you look at shows that for Americans life has improved and continues to - especially in comparison with our global contemporaries.
I'd go as far to say that even a credible threat of war against the USA would have a substantial negative impact on our economy and by extension our quality of life; practically all of us would be impacted. People who don't see that are missing how much the OVERWHELMING majority of Americans have benefitted from USA hegemony over the past several decades.
Think of it another way, the US is only 5% of the global population. That means that 5% is benefiting at the expense of the other 95% due to this hegemon and the other 95% is trying to chip away at this and seems to be failing (as far as we can see but there is so much BS on both sides who really knows)
But wait, of that 5% we can clearly see many negative indicators among at least half (if not more) of the population.
If you are not in tech or part of the asset owning class then your wages have been flat or in decline. With the ever increasing amount of inflation in most goods, your lifestyle has been in decline.
So really only a subset of that 5% has been the beneficiary of the hegemon. Does that look like a thing to be proud of? A small in-group of people have got it going while everyone else is trending negative either now or going in that direction in the future.
It begs asking the same question I mentioned in my original post: Who are we really fighting for? The answer to this question really depends on if you have empathy for others or if you just care about yourself or your "tribe".
>practically all of us would be impacted.
To be fair, I did also point out that I hope that people in this bucket at least receive some crumbs from the top. Thats all we could hope for. But if you continue on that thought process, if the hegemon dies at least there would be some justice if it took out the top with everyone else.
The ideal future would be a US that is checked by other rivals that can equal its might.
This would have multiple repercussions: The idea of an evangelical christian fueled "end times" would be over, the propping up of Israel would be much more painful than it is now which would result in severe scrutinization.
The chances of other economies given a chance to emerge might be higher if the cost of the west meddling in its affairs gets more expensive.
Life would be harder for people like me, but there would be more peace when going to bed at night.
> There only seems to be hopelessness on the horizon. [...] As someone who also feels like the future is trending downward, [...]
What are you talking about? We are living in an age of unprecedented global peace and prosperity. Most people never had as good as today, and things are set to improve further.
There are clear trends even acknowledged among the most pro-American analysts that the coming world will see a reversal of good fortunes by many in the world. We are living in a environment propped up by many things that are going away. There are many risks that can contribute to that. Of course if I knew exactly what would happen down to the day, i'd be betting in the stock market so these are more general trends which is what I was referring to.
Poor leaning trends include:
1. The collapse of governments that were pushed to the end by the US and its partners: Pakistan(deposed leader), Iran(sanctions, deposed leader), Venezuela(sanction, attempted to depose leader in 22), and I guess you can now throw Ukraine and possibly Russia there as well(collapsed economy, massive population casualties + collapse level birth rates)
2. The US has essentially acted as a bully towards many countries in the global south and while many of them have had to just take it, they now have another bully (China) that they can play off of each other.
In the short term it will be painful as the US tries to keep people on their side through backhanded efforts (Pakistan, Bolivia) but in the end the countries know that the China is a unreliable ally that only wants to dump their manufacturing overflow and take resources back while the US is an unreliable ally that bullies everyone into positions that favor itself(4 years loudly and then the next 4 years quietly) so with no other hope, the best move to play is trying to extract as much as they can from both sides (Djibouti for example). Not sure if you can make the argument that "unprecedented global peace and prosperity" is coming to these countries, they are just trying to get by with what they can.
3. Lets not forget climate change: Overwhelming % of historical emissions caused mainly by the west and with the consequences to be dealt mainly to the third world. Where is the justice in that?
>Why are you so focused on the US? The world is a big place, and everyone has agency.
The post is about the US, the thread is about the US and the message I originally replied to was about the US....
If you are talking more generally, I am baffled as to why you would ask that. The US's actions are reducing/removing free agency for a significant percentage of people on the planet. I am pro-humanity. Those people are no less deserving of all the possibilities that life has to offer but just as importantly, they deserve every chance to improve their lot. Since we have concrete proof that the US has acted to cause problems in other countries, they will be criticized.
Well, sure. The essential tradeoff is always figuring out how much to economically kneecap yourself in the short term to maintain economic independence in the long term.
And, of course, if you overshoot and the other guys outgrow you as a result, that limits your ability to be secure as well.
It's simple. If one day we run out of people willing to work on goods for us for pittance, the price of goods we consume will rise and our quality of life will drop, because we won't be able to afford as much stuff. Right now, there are still billions in people living in poverty in countries that are friendly to capitalism (so, easy to set up a factory, a sewing sweatshop etc. there), so that risk is far from us.
I’m not convinced… there’s so much room for technology to fill the gap. Companies that fail to properly invest in tech to replace this labor will be beaten by those who do, and quality of life may actually improve as the marginal cost of production marches ever downward.
Well maybe your quality of life but for the common man in the US? There only seems to be hopelessness on the horizon. It makes you think, who are we really fighting for?
As someone who also feels like the future is trending downward, I hope we can at least get some crumbs from the top.