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Monday, October 10, 2016

Globalization Is Done

I read a lot, been doing it for years, about finance and affiliated topics (a wide horizon of them), which means I’ve inevitably seen a wholesale lot of nonsense fly by. But for some reason, and I think I know why, Q3 2016 has been gunning for a top -or bottom- seat in that regard, and Q4 is looking to do it one better/worse.

Apart from the fast increasingly brainless political ‘discussions’ that don’t deserve the name, in the US and UK and beyond, there are the transnational organizations, NATO, IMF, EU and all those things, all suffocating in their own hubris, things I’ve dealt with before in for instance Globalization Is Dead, But The Idea Is Not and Why There is Trump. But none of it still seems to have trickled through anywhere that I can see.

The end of growth exposes the stupidity and ignorance of all but (and even that’s a maybe) a precious few (of our) ‘leaders’. There is no other way this could have run, because an era of growth simply selects for different people to float to the top of the pond than a period of contraction does. Can we agree on that?

‘Growth leaders’ only have to seduce voters into believing that they can keep growth going, and create more of it (though in reality they have no control over it at all). Anyone can do that. So ‘anyone’ who’s sufficiently hooked on power games will apply.

‘Contraction leaders’ have a much harder time; they must convince voters that they can minimize the ‘suffering of the herd’. Which is invariably a herd that no-one wants to belong to. A tough sell.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Globalization", with the current and even projected capacities of developed nations is little more than a plan for Colonialism under a new name. The poor nations will be raped of their natural resources, their workers be paid a pittance, and counter-globalist warfare will doom them to unimaginable tragedies. The elites will make huges profits while the common folk (the World's middle classes) will continue to be caught in an ever downward spiral.

Anonymous said...

Make no mistake. That "counter-globalist warfare" will be nothing more than the same conflicts we now have, but under a different name, with the middle classes footing the bill and providing the men and women in uniform as cannon fodder. The rich will get richer while the rest suffer. No thank you.

Anonymous said...

I like that part where the author says "brainless political ‘discussions’ that don’t deserve the name..." Lol. Yo have killed it