Nice analysis. The golden age of globalization does appear to be over. Trust is now in the process of collapse.
Zoltan Pozsar's recent dispatch "This is What the New World Order Will Look Like "After Europe's Minsky Moment "Where $2 trillion of German Value Depends on $20 billion of Russian Gas," parallels the logic of your analysis about Chinese concerns about food security.
Poszar argues that in 2022 global supply chains, whether they produce military or civilian goods are facing a Minsky moment (which during the 2008 financial crisis was about the implosion of the long-term intermediation chains of shadow banking, and is today about the implosion of the long-intermediation supply chains, whether food, chips, or artillery shells. The triggers aren't (as in 2008) a lack of liquidity and capital but instead a lack of inventory and protection, in a globalized production system where major countries design at home and manage from home, but source, produce and ship from abroad.
Pozsar claims that today inventory for supply chains is what liquidity was for banks in 2007-2008, when big banks ran "just-in-time" liquidity while presently big international firms run "just-in-time" supply chains, from which they had previously assumed that they could always source what they needed, without dramatically moving the price.
In 2007-2008 there was the Federal Reserve Bank, acting as the world's financial hegemon that managed to stabilize the financial crisis, however in 2022 the major political hegemon, the U.S, is being directly challenged by China and Russia with no clarity as to the depth of the ensuing instability which might occur.
"China clearly thinks so, anyway, and is determined to be prepared to live in this new world as it is. What’s troubling is that so many of our leaders in the West still clearly are not."
The Merry Resetters (and all the other WEF hostages) will eventually get schooled by Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. As usual, the "lumpen-shmoletariat" will foot the bill - in fact as well as in force - probably through some new digital reign of terror involving various apps....
TYTY for another great article, of course. It all makes sense, once it's been pointed *out.* TY again.
Some small thoughts: I thought that article about China panicking about how much arable land they've been using for renewables was pretty funny. But, then, they've got the Gobi Desert as a backup. And I wonder why it is that the Netherlands, France and Germany leave the American wheat producers in the dust? That's just plain shambolic, to me. TY yet once again, Sir.
And most major (and many minor) cities in the US make it illegal to raise more than a handful of chickens. We're so deluded on so many levels and it will come crashing down. When the pain ensues, Caesar will be hailed by a country who will do anything to have Walmart reopen.
I wonder if about 5 million Americans would starve to death before Washington and Wall Street would notice? I probably over state it. But then I take a step further...would they even do anything about it?
Is there any equivalent in the west? Our author is effectively telling us the Chinese leadership is wise in both its diagnosis and prescription. Is there any such thing amongst our rulers: wise, realistic judgment? Paul Kingsnorth calls it the Abbey of Misrule (substack) and he is, like Lyons, quite brilliant.
For an athiest, there's a lot of Biblical wisdom in Xi.
As the West tears down its agriculture and energy, de-populating and sacrificing our children in an effort to woo the god of climate, the other powers store. The nations of the world will come to them for food and energy, as they must just to survive, and we will tinker with AI, robots, metaverses and transhumanism, believing it will lead us to heaven.
I liked this article- I’ve been thinking about the combination of change and complexity for decades, but I am interested primarily from a statistical-thermodynamic view. You should acquaint yourself with “the red queen hypothesis” in evolutionary biology. You will find that the average of change over time is the entropy of a system, our society, and entropy always increases. Likewise, all forms of.information (false and true alike) have been diffusing more and more rapidly since Gutenberg up to today’s internet. This every-varying context forces adaptive change or competitive failure. It also forces more and more energy to be expended on maintaining a model of the world and navigating an ever more complex context.
The Friston Free energy principle relates both these concepts mathematically. The lightly alarming news is that when the balance between the cost of not changing and the cost of complexity exceeds a limit, an information system “dissolves” - it can’t maintain independent existence. It is as true for people, for species, political systems and empires. USSR suddenly collapses. The antebellum south collapses. The Incas. Latin language. Etruscans. Khmer. It’s an old story. Even if you do adapt and change, if it’s too energetically complex to sustain, it’s over.
Hmmm, the Chinese have always had this tendency to want to be a "hermit kingdom", and to want to be proudly self sufficient and need nothing from "inferior" foreigners.
Let us remember that the Chinese rebuffed the British offer of trade in the 18th century by proudly and haughtily declaring they could not possibly need or desire anything from foreigners.
At least this is one major tendency in Chinese culture going back to ancient times - at its best, of course, China transcends this petty and small minded mentality - which is really a want of self-esteem - and reaches great cultural heights, like in the Tang dynasty.
But nevertheless, this tendency has existed since ancient times and Xi seems, in general, to be reviving all the worst aspects of Chinese culture - Legalism, isolationism, imperialism, etc.
Another extremely significant factor in my view is this - China has drunk deep - perhaps deeper than any other country - at the well of technology and technocratic thinking. As Ian McGillchrist shows in his magisterial new book, excessive devotion to "left brain" thinking makes one lose touch with reality and become paranoid.
China's obsession with food security must be seen as of a piece with it's insane zero COVID policy - the product of a paranoid mentality and a deranged desire for total control that is characteristic of people who develop the narrow, analytical "left hemisphere" of their brain, with it's narrow logic and inability to see the larger picture.
Nice analysis. The golden age of globalization does appear to be over. Trust is now in the process of collapse.
Zoltan Pozsar's recent dispatch "This is What the New World Order Will Look Like "After Europe's Minsky Moment "Where $2 trillion of German Value Depends on $20 billion of Russian Gas," parallels the logic of your analysis about Chinese concerns about food security.
Poszar argues that in 2022 global supply chains, whether they produce military or civilian goods are facing a Minsky moment (which during the 2008 financial crisis was about the implosion of the long-term intermediation chains of shadow banking, and is today about the implosion of the long-intermediation supply chains, whether food, chips, or artillery shells. The triggers aren't (as in 2008) a lack of liquidity and capital but instead a lack of inventory and protection, in a globalized production system where major countries design at home and manage from home, but source, produce and ship from abroad.
Pozsar claims that today inventory for supply chains is what liquidity was for banks in 2007-2008, when big banks ran "just-in-time" liquidity while presently big international firms run "just-in-time" supply chains, from which they had previously assumed that they could always source what they needed, without dramatically moving the price.
In 2007-2008 there was the Federal Reserve Bank, acting as the world's financial hegemon that managed to stabilize the financial crisis, however in 2022 the major political hegemon, the U.S, is being directly challenged by China and Russia with no clarity as to the depth of the ensuing instability which might occur.
"China ... dismantling ill-considered solar farms that threaten productive agricultural land and water resources..."
As Hawkeye said in Thor, I'm starting to root for this guy.
"China clearly thinks so, anyway, and is determined to be prepared to live in this new world as it is. What’s troubling is that so many of our leaders in the West still clearly are not."
The Merry Resetters (and all the other WEF hostages) will eventually get schooled by Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. As usual, the "lumpen-shmoletariat" will foot the bill - in fact as well as in force - probably through some new digital reign of terror involving various apps....
You will phone nothing and be appy.
I'm definitely curious to watch everything develop. From the midwest of the US, it is still almost as easy to feel curiosity as it is to feel fear.
Well done to America for matchmaking this marriage made in heaven.
Friendless Russia with it's vast resources and needy China with its mass markets.
This was a great piece. I learned a lot. Fascinating facts. The Chinese are an intense, intelligent competitor. We are at war with them.
Is globalization only possible in a unipolar world?
More evidence that China really intends to invade Taiwan. Scary. I wonder if it will happen during the last week of Biden's term.
TYTY for another great article, of course. It all makes sense, once it's been pointed *out.* TY again.
Some small thoughts: I thought that article about China panicking about how much arable land they've been using for renewables was pretty funny. But, then, they've got the Gobi Desert as a backup. And I wonder why it is that the Netherlands, France and Germany leave the American wheat producers in the dust? That's just plain shambolic, to me. TY yet once again, Sir.
And most major (and many minor) cities in the US make it illegal to raise more than a handful of chickens. We're so deluded on so many levels and it will come crashing down. When the pain ensues, Caesar will be hailed by a country who will do anything to have Walmart reopen.
I wonder if about 5 million Americans would starve to death before Washington and Wall Street would notice? I probably over state it. But then I take a step further...would they even do anything about it?
If I where the Chinese CCP, I would want the US to have a President like Joe Biden and have the modern Democrats in majority power.
Is there any equivalent in the west? Our author is effectively telling us the Chinese leadership is wise in both its diagnosis and prescription. Is there any such thing amongst our rulers: wise, realistic judgment? Paul Kingsnorth calls it the Abbey of Misrule (substack) and he is, like Lyons, quite brilliant.
For an athiest, there's a lot of Biblical wisdom in Xi.
As the West tears down its agriculture and energy, de-populating and sacrificing our children in an effort to woo the god of climate, the other powers store. The nations of the world will come to them for food and energy, as they must just to survive, and we will tinker with AI, robots, metaverses and transhumanism, believing it will lead us to heaven.
I liked this article- I’ve been thinking about the combination of change and complexity for decades, but I am interested primarily from a statistical-thermodynamic view. You should acquaint yourself with “the red queen hypothesis” in evolutionary biology. You will find that the average of change over time is the entropy of a system, our society, and entropy always increases. Likewise, all forms of.information (false and true alike) have been diffusing more and more rapidly since Gutenberg up to today’s internet. This every-varying context forces adaptive change or competitive failure. It also forces more and more energy to be expended on maintaining a model of the world and navigating an ever more complex context.
The Friston Free energy principle relates both these concepts mathematically. The lightly alarming news is that when the balance between the cost of not changing and the cost of complexity exceeds a limit, an information system “dissolves” - it can’t maintain independent existence. It is as true for people, for species, political systems and empires. USSR suddenly collapses. The antebellum south collapses. The Incas. Latin language. Etruscans. Khmer. It’s an old story. Even if you do adapt and change, if it’s too energetically complex to sustain, it’s over.
Hmmm, the Chinese have always had this tendency to want to be a "hermit kingdom", and to want to be proudly self sufficient and need nothing from "inferior" foreigners.
Let us remember that the Chinese rebuffed the British offer of trade in the 18th century by proudly and haughtily declaring they could not possibly need or desire anything from foreigners.
At least this is one major tendency in Chinese culture going back to ancient times - at its best, of course, China transcends this petty and small minded mentality - which is really a want of self-esteem - and reaches great cultural heights, like in the Tang dynasty.
But nevertheless, this tendency has existed since ancient times and Xi seems, in general, to be reviving all the worst aspects of Chinese culture - Legalism, isolationism, imperialism, etc.
Another extremely significant factor in my view is this - China has drunk deep - perhaps deeper than any other country - at the well of technology and technocratic thinking. As Ian McGillchrist shows in his magisterial new book, excessive devotion to "left brain" thinking makes one lose touch with reality and become paranoid.
China's obsession with food security must be seen as of a piece with it's insane zero COVID policy - the product of a paranoid mentality and a deranged desire for total control that is characteristic of people who develop the narrow, analytical "left hemisphere" of their brain, with it's narrow logic and inability to see the larger picture.