Thank you for my Sunday first cup of coffee read. Your opening paragraph sets a helpful introduction and context for the rest of your observations. Keep roaming.
Pieter, you left out how China joined the WTO, making solemn promises to play by the rules, and never did. Recitations of hypothetical Ricardian comparative advantage are a lie, because China has massively subsidized its own tech industry to bankrupt its American competitors. The US forfeited its prosperity for the benefit of China, based on the Ricardian fairy tale.
What President Trump and some of his advisors fail to understand is that the US trade deficit represents how much the US consumes above what it produces. If the trade deficit magically went to zero the most likely result is a decline in US consumption, and that this would happen before domestic demand could grow as a counterweight. For most countries consuming more than one produces for a long period of time would be a recipe for disaster, and would set the IMF on you. But the US is different. It finances this deficit by requiring major trading partners to buy its debt. There is no real intention by the US to repay this debt (see the Mar-a-lago Accord) and if the US did the global financial system would have some big adjustments to make as so much of it is built around financing the US deficit. The deficit, and the way it is financed, is really a form of imperial tribute that the US extracts from its trading partners in order to finance its excessive consumption and military spending.
I hope once you are back you can provide some insight into the so called Mar-a-lago Accord, what it is, the intent, how plausible it is, what would happen if it went forward, and what the alternatives are.
As you say, once trust is lost it is hard to rebuild. An the US has broken trust on a global scale. This will take decades to fix even if Trump rolls this back on Monday. For Canada though it is kind of nice to be part of the rest of the world rather than being the direct target. And Canada now has an opportunity to build new trading and, much more importantly, innovation and security relationships. But let's not fool ourselves, the US is our next door neighbour and the largest economy in the world. We are going to be battered.
Good morning, Kip. Please provide a more nuanced list of those shops and their European locations. Branding "third-world Islamist barbarians" as a group of unnamed individuals does not further my understanding of your point of view. Mindfully yours, Steve
"Set up shop" is a colloquialism for move in and put down roots, not a "shop" as in a literal business. If you click the link Peter provided (https://x.com/Esther_Voet/status/1907840535139692591) you can see the pictures of these ... people ... and their utterly unhinged, libelous, and violent response to the Hamas tunnel exhibit; this is merely one example of, tragically, countless others all over Europe, including in England, Belgium, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Ireland, just off the top of my head.
Thank you for my Sunday first cup of coffee read. Your opening paragraph sets a helpful introduction and context for the rest of your observations. Keep roaming.
Will do Steve
Pieter, you left out how China joined the WTO, making solemn promises to play by the rules, and never did. Recitations of hypothetical Ricardian comparative advantage are a lie, because China has massively subsidized its own tech industry to bankrupt its American competitors. The US forfeited its prosperity for the benefit of China, based on the Ricardian fairy tale.
What President Trump and some of his advisors fail to understand is that the US trade deficit represents how much the US consumes above what it produces. If the trade deficit magically went to zero the most likely result is a decline in US consumption, and that this would happen before domestic demand could grow as a counterweight. For most countries consuming more than one produces for a long period of time would be a recipe for disaster, and would set the IMF on you. But the US is different. It finances this deficit by requiring major trading partners to buy its debt. There is no real intention by the US to repay this debt (see the Mar-a-lago Accord) and if the US did the global financial system would have some big adjustments to make as so much of it is built around financing the US deficit. The deficit, and the way it is financed, is really a form of imperial tribute that the US extracts from its trading partners in order to finance its excessive consumption and military spending.
Great read. And thank you for stepping up to the point where “In fact some people even avoid the subject ‘Israel’ when I am in the room”. Thank you.
I hope once you are back you can provide some insight into the so called Mar-a-lago Accord, what it is, the intent, how plausible it is, what would happen if it went forward, and what the alternatives are.
As you say, once trust is lost it is hard to rebuild. An the US has broken trust on a global scale. This will take decades to fix even if Trump rolls this back on Monday. For Canada though it is kind of nice to be part of the rest of the world rather than being the direct target. And Canada now has an opportunity to build new trading and, much more importantly, innovation and security relationships. But let's not fool ourselves, the US is our next door neighbour and the largest economy in the world. We are going to be battered.
I wonder if Europe feels it's better off having allowed those third-world Islamist barbarians to set up shop.
Good morning, Kip. Please provide a more nuanced list of those shops and their European locations. Branding "third-world Islamist barbarians" as a group of unnamed individuals does not further my understanding of your point of view. Mindfully yours, Steve
"Set up shop" is a colloquialism for move in and put down roots, not a "shop" as in a literal business. If you click the link Peter provided (https://x.com/Esther_Voet/status/1907840535139692591) you can see the pictures of these ... people ... and their utterly unhinged, libelous, and violent response to the Hamas tunnel exhibit; this is merely one example of, tragically, countless others all over Europe, including in England, Belgium, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Ireland, just off the top of my head.