Canadian Politics Today
Beyond Canada => The World => Topic started by: After 9 years of Trudeau Shady on January 07, 2023, 01:59:33 pm
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This is one of the more fascinating conversations of geopolitical issues I’ve heard in quite some time. Geopolitical analyst Peter Zaihan talks about China, Russia, and the United States. Some interesting points:
- China has 10 years left before it hits big population and economic problems.
- Mexico now has one forth the labour costs as China with double the skilled labour.
- Nobody in China’s government provides Xi with much direction.
- U.S. intelligence can easily monitor Russian conversations behind the scenes.
- U.S. intelligence can monitor Chinese conversations behind the scenes, but there are very few taking place within the Chinese government.
https://youtu.be/ED_yPDdqG5Y
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I am not a huge fan of Joe Rogan, but sometimes he does have interesting guests.
The one thing that China does have working against it is that demographics and growth curves are not going to allow it to continue on its current trajectory forever. Like Japan experienced, debt-fueled expansion and globalization are not limitless, and eventually the bill comes due. That doesn't mean they're doomed, but it makes them vulnerable and there will come a time (maybe within 10 years) when their growth flattens out to more closely match developed economies. Their ability to maintain their trade relationships and to promote innovation in a communist authoritarian system will determine how quickly and how smoothly they transition to "developed" economy, and whether they remain competitive.
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I am not a huge fan of Joe Rogan, but sometimes he does have interesting guests.
Yeah, I enjoy his podcast best when he has people like this, or Neil Degrasse Tyson, Brian Cox, and other various professionals in a particular field of study.
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Some very interesting news concerning the cloning of woolly mammoths. Guest is wildlife biologist Forrest Galante.
https://youtu.be/b6Tk7N1qH6M
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So whenever you hear somebody talking their opinion on complicated things, you have to listen to some counter points.
I had a far-right friend recommend Zaihan so I gave it a listen. He's pretty cocksure. So I listened to some skeptics and I agreed with the skeptics:
- Super knowledgeable guy
- Gets his opinions straight from facts
- No strong political bias there
- Some bias that America "is doing fine" but ok...
- Ultimate conclusions are a little too sure of themselves....
Like he talks about China having a lower population in 2050 and the likely effects.... but... it's 2050 he's talking about.
Still worth listening, and I (and both skeptics) all say give it a listen...
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So whenever you hear somebody talking their opinion on complicated things, you have to listen to some counter points.
I had a far-right friend recommend Zaihan so I gave it a listen. He's pretty cocksure. So I listened to some skeptics and I agreed with the skeptics:
- Super knowledgeable guy
- Gets his opinions straight from facts
- No strong political bias there
- Some bias that America "is doing fine" but ok...
- Ultimate conclusions are a little too sure of themselves....
Like he talks about China having a lower population in 2050 and the likely effects.... but... it's 2050 he's talking about.
Still worth listening, and I (and both skeptics) all say give it a listen...
I totally agree that he’s a little too sure about some of his conclusions. Some of it sounds plausible, but I’ll believe it when I see it. But he’s definitely a knowledgeable guy and non partisan.
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So whenever you hear somebody talking their opinion on complicated things, you have to listen to some counter points.
I had a far-right friend recommend Zaihan so I gave it a listen. He's pretty cocksure. So I listened to some skeptics and I agreed with the skeptics:
- Super knowledgeable guy
- Gets his opinions straight from facts
- No strong political bias there
- Some bias that America "is doing fine" but ok...
- Ultimate conclusions are a little too sure of themselves....
Like he talks about China having a lower population in 2050 and the likely effects.... but... it's 2050 he's talking about.
Still worth listening, and I (and both skeptics) all say give it a listen...
So I listened to it and googled the guy. Basically the last 10+ years he's made a career of making these surefire predictions in a confident way and getting a lot of them wrong. You can google his predictions from 10 years ago. Like 10 years ago he basically also predicted China would implode and they didn't.
IMO he's selling snake oil. He's basically 21st century Nostradamus backed reasonable sounding arguments.
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He's making predictions for 27 years from now.
So imagine it's 1996. Clinton just won a second term.
Now here's a guy to predict 2023.
Can he do it?
No way.
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First thing out of his mouth is.. Hillary Clinton runs for president ...
And we are all... Shocked!
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We see a lot of these wannabe-oracles out there. They have to make bold, emphatic predictions otherwise nobody cares or listens. The fact that most of them end up wrong is irrelevant because those get ignored and forgotten after the fact. A blind squirrel eventually finds a nut, however, so when someone like this finally does have one of their predictions turn out correct, the non-critical thinkers will dig it up from years ago and be shocked and amazed by how much of a genius he was all along. Those 99% of other times he was wrong? Irrelevant.
That being said, China does have a lot of problems they'll need to deal with over the next decades. Like the Japanese before them, there are costs associated with rapidly modernizing and globalizing your economy, and China has not yet paid.
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In his book "The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st century" (2009), George Friedman all but dismisses the concept of China as a superpower because of the very problems this podcast presents. I don't think that's the case though. China is changing qualitatively, not just quantitatively, and it's quite a culturally homogeneous country despite its size.
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Declining population is one I didn't know about.
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More from china.
It's surprising how little coverage the economics news from China gets. I'm not sure about this source, but I have heard that country Garden ... The large real estate company in China is now in trouble.
China going downhill is not going to be great for Canada though.
https://www.businessinsider.com/china-population-billion-people-not-enough-fill-empty-homes-2023-9?amp
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More from china.
It's surprising how little coverage the economics news from China gets. I'm not sure about this source, but I have heard that country Garden ... The large real estate company in China is now in trouble.
China going downhill is not going to be great for Canada though.
https://www.businessinsider.com/china-population-billion-people-not-enough-fill-empty-homes-2023-9?amp
You’re right, short term it will probably have a recessionary effect.
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They apparently buy a lot of building resources from us...
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China decreasing in power is fantastic news for Canada and the West. Yes i've heard of the population bomb happening over there. A generation or two of 1-child families and certain genders favoured over others means reproduction shrinkage.
Great news for the environment/climate also.
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China decreasing in power is fantastic news for Canada and the West. Yes i've heard of the population bomb happening over there. A generation or two of 1-child families and certain genders favoured over others means reproduction shrinkage.
Great news for the environment/climate also.
I think long term it is good for us, and others. Short term there could be some economic pain here.
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I think long term it is good for us, and others. Short term there could be some economic pain here.
Wow. Amazing insight. Incredible deep thought. Do you have a podcast? A YouTube channel? Anything where you can spread and monetize these incredible insights?
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I wonder if an economic downturn in China could make them take action on Taiwan though.
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I wonder if an economic downturn in China could make them take action on Taiwan though.
Or forestall it.
It's true that Democracies look for distractions when times are bad but China would be in a precarious position anyway if the economy was going down.... not sure how that would look to the people.