Quote (Goomshill @ Mar 7 2022 11:44pm)
Unfortunately, we have to actually live in the same world as Russia and China. We don't get the luxury of closing our borders like Japan under Sakoku. We are playing a zero sum game with China, not Russia, and when we cede our sphere of influence and kick it to their waiting arms, we're orchestrating our own doom. We had decades of third way neoliberals who collaborated with China to slowly creep their influence at our expense, like a controlled fall. Then we had Trump barge in with Navarronomics saying that we can fight China on their own terms. And all the neoliberals mislabeled and accused him of wanting to just close us off and let China win on an empty board by ceding all our global stewardship. Well here we are now, with the most distilled neoliberal purist president yet, moreso than even Obama, and what do we do? Throw away the mantle of global stewardship and hand over the reins to China uncontested. All those decades of pragmatists saying how we must compromise our highminded ideals to work with less scrupulous regimes, and especially to keep the oil flowing at all costs lest the prices blow up on the middle class. This is why I say we're in a scenario that can only be explained by western incompetence and schizophrenia, not rational self-interest.
You don't win an economic war with China by ending the petrodollar and forcing global markets to embrace the relative safety and stability of the RMB. You don't win by throwing up an Iron Curtain that puts the US and EU on one side, and Russia, China, KSA, UAE, India, Mexico, Israel, Japan, etc on the other side.
the only way to "win" cleanly is to absorb a massive price inflation by redirecting production stateside, OR by automating the processes to the point where price can be maintained or at least offset by shipping costs from China, and then you're keeping consumers happy without the domestic jobs to back them.
this is the 3rd stage of automation but we're just not ready. look at how people who work react to stimulus checks, to jobs not offering enriching days for their workers, etc. We're just lucky china can pay workers dog crap wages to avoid automating most of the work themselves, if they could we'd likely see a renewed 1 child policy type reality set up in the country.