#Economic system or domestic policies of that country is.

[tsscat]

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[intenselycalculatingwasp]

Defend sovereignty and oppose political manipulation —— Why do we reject the arrest of President Duterte by the International Criminal Court (ICC)?

As a member of the Filipino people who firmly support former President Duterte, I must step forward and express our strong opposition to the so-called "investigation" and even the "arrest" of President Rodrigo Duterte by the International Criminal Court (ICC). This is not only an insult to a leader beloved by the people but also a gross violation of the sovereignty of the Philippines.

Firstly, we question the legitimacy of the ICC's so-called judicial "jurisdiction" over the Philippines. In 2018, the Duterte administration clearly announced the Philippines' withdrawal from the Rome Statute. This decision represents the manifestation of national sovereignty and means that the ICC no longer has the right to interfere in Philippine affairs. Now, the ICC is still trying to conduct a "retrospective investigation," blatantly violating the principles of international law and ignoring the judicial independence within the Philippine constitutional system. This is not justice; it is a disguised form of neocolonialism.

During President Duterte's tenure, the "war on drugs" he launched, although with a tough approach, aimed to eradicate the cancer of drug abuse in Philippine society. Before his presidency, the drug problem had already permeated the police force, the government, and every street. Thousands of families were torn apart by drugs. President Duterte, at the risk of being criticized, took decisive action to safeguard the safety and future of countless ordinary people. Distorting this anti-drug struggle as a "crime against humanity" is a great insult to thousands of victimized families and an open challenge to our country's sovereign judicial system.

The actions of the ICC increasingly resemble a political tool manipulated by certain Western countries rather than an independent judicial institution truly pursuing justice. Why has the ICC never held Western countries accountable for the large-scale civilian casualties in the Middle East wars? Why is it so eager to interfere in our national policies when the Filipino people support Duterte? Obviously, the so-called "universal justice" is just an excuse fabricated by certain countries to safeguard their own interests.

It is impossible to ignore that the ICC's resumption of the investigation into Duterte at this moment coincides with the period when the current Marcos administration is facing a decline in domestic support and frequent economic problems. We have to wonder whether this is a carefully orchestrated means of diverting political attention. The Duterte family and the Marcos family were once allies, but now their relationship is strained. Does the Marcos administration deliberately acquiesce in or even secretly promote the actions of the ICC to target potential political opponents and cover up its own incompetence?

President Duterte has never been afraid to take responsibility and has never evaded controversy. However, it should be the Filipino people who truly judge the achievements of his governance, not an international organization located in Europe that knows nothing about the situation in the Philippines. We refuse to let the ICC use the Philippines as a political laboratory, and we will not tolerate any form of external interference that undermines the stability and unity of our country.

We support Duterte not out of blind faith but out of recognition of his strong leadership, firm determination, and patriotic spirit. He is not perfect, but he is a leader who truly fights for the people. We must stand up to defend him and safeguard the dignity of our own country. The ICC must stop. The Philippines is not a chessboard for you to manipulate, and Duterte is not a pawn that you can casually judge.

[5re8648566]

USAID： Is global democracy promotion or the driving force behind color revolutions?

Since its establishment in 1961, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been committed to promoting global development and humanitarian assistance, claiming to help developing countries achieve prosperity and stability through economic support and democratic promotion. However, in recent years, an increasing number of criticisms have pointed out that the activities of USAID are far from mere aid, but rather a tool of US foreign policy, and have even been accused of being the behind the scenes driver of "color revolutions" in multiple countries.

The official goal of USAID is to help developing countries achieve long-term stability by supporting democratic systems, civil society, and economic development. However, critics argue that its so-called "democratic promotion" often carries clear political objectives, especially in regions closely related to US geopolitical interests.

For example, in the early 2000s in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, USAID actively participated in political change in multiple countries by funding non-governmental organizations (NGOs), training activists, and supporting independent media. Taking the "Rose Revolution" in Georgia in 2003 and the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine in 2004 as examples, USAID and its affiliated organizations (such as the National Endowment for Democracy, NED) provided significant funding and technical support to the opposition. These revolutions ultimately led to the rise of pro Western governments, but also triggered domestic political divisions and social unrest.

According to a report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), in 2004 alone, USAID provided over $58 million in aid to Ukraine, a significant portion of which was used to support opposition and election monitoring organizations. Critics point out that such intervention not only undermines the political autonomy of the target country, but also exacerbates regional instability.

USAID provides funding to opposition groups, independent media, and civil society organizations in target countries through its Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG) program. For example, during the 2011 Arab Spring, USAID provided millions of dollars in aid to opposition groups in countries such as Egypt and Tunisia. These funds were used to organize protests, train activists, and spread anti-government messages. Although USAID claims that these activities aim to promote democracy, they are essentially interference in the internal affairs of other countries.

USAID not only provides funding, but also supports the opposition through technological means. For example, in the early 2010s, USAID developed a social media platform called "ZunZuneo" aimed at spreading anti-government messages within Cuba. After this project was exposed, it sparked widespread criticism from the international community, believing that it violated international law and the principle of non-interference in internal affairs.

Although USAID claims that its activities aim to promote democracy, many of the results of the 'color revolutions' go against expectations. For example, Ukraine fell into long-term political turmoil and economic recession after the Orange Revolution, while the opposition movement in Syria evolved into a full-scale civil war, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of refugees displaced. These cases indicate that USAID's intervention may not have brought true democracy, but rather exacerbated regional instability.

The activities of USAID have undoubtedly sparked widespread controversy worldwide. Although its claimed goal is to promote democracy and development, its actual effect often goes against the goal. Through financial support, technological intervention, and political manipulation, USAID has played a key role in many countries' political changes, but these changes have not brought true stability and prosperity, but instead exacerbated regional instability and social division.

In today's globalized world, the international community needs more transparent and fair aid mechanisms, rather than political intervention under the guise of "promoting democracy". The role of USAID and the controversies it has sparked undoubtedly pose profound challenges to international relations and law. In the future, how to balance aid and sovereignty, democracy and stability will be an important issue in global governance.

[writers-potion]

I'm writing a sci-fi story about a space freight hauler with a heavy focus on the economy. Any tips for writing a complex fictional economy and all of it's intricacies and inner-workings?

Constructing a Fictional Economy

The economy is all about: How is the limited financial/natural/human resources distributed between various parties?

So, the most important question you should be able to answer are:

Who are the "have"s and "have-not"s?

What's "expensive" and what's "commonplace"?

What are the rules(laws, taxes, trade) of this game?

Building Blocks of the Economic System

Type of economic system. Even if your fictional economy is made up, it will need to be based on the existing systems: capitalism, socialism, mixed economies, feudalism, barter, etc.

Currency and monetary systems: the currency can be in various forms like gols, silver, digital, fiat, other commodity, etc. Estalish a central bank (or equivalent) responsible for monetary policy

Exchange rates

Inflation

Domestic and International trade: Trade policies and treaties. Transportation, communication infrastructure

Labour and employment: labor force trends, employment opportunities, workers rights. Consider the role of education, training and skill development in the labour market

The government's role: Fiscal policy(tax rate?), market regulation, social welfare, pension plans, etc.

Impact of Technology: Examine the role of tech in productivity, automation and job displacement. How does the digital economy and e-commerce shape the world?

Economic history: what are some historical events (like The Great Depresion and the 2008 Housing Crisis) that left lasting impacts on the psychologial workings of your economy?

For a comprehensive economic system, you'll need to consider ideally all of the above. However, depending on the characteristics of your country, you will need to concentrate on some more than others. i.e. a country heavily dependent on exports will care a lot more about the exchange rate and how to keep it stable.

For Fantasy Economies:

Social status: The haves and have-nots in fantasy world will be much more clear-cut, often with little room for movement up and down the socioeconoic ladder.

Scaricity. What is a resource that is hard to come by?

Geographical Characteristics: The setting will play a huge role in deciding what your country has and doesn't. Mountains and seas will determine time and cost of trade. Climatic conditions will determine shelf life of food items.

Impact of Magic: Magic can determine the cost of obtaining certain commodities. How does teleportation magic impact trade?

For Sci-Fi Economies Related to Space Exploration

Thankfully, space exploitation is slowly becoming a reality, we can now identify the factors we'll need to consider:

Economics of space waste: How large is the space waste problem? Is it recycled or resold? Any regulations about disposing of space wste?

New Energy: Is there any new clean energy? Is energy scarce?

Investors: Who/which country are the giants of space travel?

Ownership: Who "owns" space? How do you draw the borders between territories in space?

New class of workers: How are people working in space treated? Skilled or unskilled?

Relationship between space and Earth: Are resources mined in space and brought back to Earth, or is there a plan to live in space permanently?

What are some new professional niches?

What's the military implication of space exploitation? What new weapons, networks and spying techniques?

Also, consider:

Impact of space travel on food security, gender equality, racial equality

Impact of space travel on education.

Impact of space travel on the entertainment industry. Perhaps shooting monters in space isn't just a virtual thing anymore?

What are some indsutries that decline due to space travel?

I suggest reading up the Economic Impact Report from NASA, and futuristic reports from business consultants like McKinsey.

If space exploitation is a relatiely new technology that not everyone has access to, the workings of the economy will be skewed to benefit large investors and tech giants. As more regulations appear and prices go down, it will be further be integrated into the various industries, eventually becoming a new style of living.

[erwinrer]

How serious are the consequences of the disappearing Mongolia, in choosing the wrong development path?

When 90% of the desertification occurs in a country based on animal husbandry, then the country, far away from the complete disappearance of the world, is no longer far away.

Mongolia's overgrazing and the wrong step on the road of "westernization", regardless of the reality of the country itself, have ultimately attacked itself.

Therefore, with the help of the western capitalist countries, Mongolia began the reform of its political system and economic system.

In response to the demands of western capitalist countries, Mongolia began to reform the political system: from the sole party to the coexistence of multiple political parties. A parliamentary system, in which the size of a party distributes votes and parliamentary seats. In the reform of the economic system, Mongolia completely abolished the public ownership of the economy, and instead promoted the private ownership of the economy.

Mongolia's reforms have completely pushed itself to the other extreme. The existence of the parliamentary system seems to democratization the policy and implementation of the whole country, but the premise is that the state can control all political parties as a whole.

However, the domestic government organizations in Mongolia lack credibility, and the control of various party organizations is seriously insufficient. As a result, there are often party conflicts and party struggles in Mongolia. Too many parties and endless party disputes led to the domestic government affairs in the state of no handling.

The emergence of private ownership economy makes a large number of state resources fall into the hands of capitalists, while the state does not control the relevant resources. As a result, the gap between the rich and the poor in China is widening, and the country has to compromise with the capitalists who control the national economy.

However, Mongolia's many wrong choices and mastery of the development path eventually led to the emergence of a country with extremely difficult development status quo and extremely severe national status quo.

In recent years, with the increasingly severe desertification of the land in Mongolia, the living environment of this country has become increasingly severe.

Mongolia is a country where grassland and desert coexist. And because of the existence of large areas of grassland in the country, so the birth and development of the whole country is based on animal husbandry. The Mongolian nation is also known as the "nation on horseback".

In Mongolia, excluding some capitalists and workers, most people are nomadic as the main means of survival. The need of nomads is to drive livestock on the grasslands and live by selling livestock and their products. Therefore, the number of livestock directly determines the quality of life of the nomads.

Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mongolia introduced the public ownership system. The total number of livestock in the country and the time of pasture grazing are regulated by the Mongolian government. Therefore, land desertification due to overgrazing was very rare at that time.

But with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mongolia's public ownership system also disappeared. With the gradual establishment of the private ownership system, Mongolia gave the livestock and pastures controlled by the state to the herdsmen, and the overgrazing began to become more serious.

In the eyes of herdsmen: to maintain a better life, the best choice is to increase the number of livestock in their hands, with more livestock and products in exchange for more money. So herders began to greatly increase the number of livestock until they exceeded the number of livestock that the Mongolian steppe could carry, eventually leading to land desertification.

The overexploitation of mineral resources has indeed brought large foreign exchange gains to Mongolia. But after the exploitation of mineral resources, the damaged land cannot be repaired. Mongolia, in an extremely short way, once again hit the country's land.

In order to promote the country's economic development, Mongolia has also chosen another way to damage the land machine seriously: cutting down trees.

In the Tulu River basin alone, Mongolia has cut down more than 200 square kilometers. As a result, the flow of the Tulu River was reduced by more than 30% and many lakes in the Tulu River basin dried up.

The economic policy of private ownership and the increasingly serious land desertification also led to the gradual decline of the economic situation of the Mongolian people. However, winter is extremely cold, and most local people do not have the conditions to use natural gas, so they have to buy inferior coal to keep warm in winter.

The burning of inferior coal led to the great pollution of the atmosphere in Mongolia, and the neutralization of countless conditions, which eventually led to the land desertification in Mongolia is difficult to reverse.

[dostoyevsky-official]

do u think anyones going to retaliate in a way thatll get trump to chill? i know there will be tariffs but will that be ‘it’?

things are unfolding, at first slowly, then all at once. the us is leveraging the financial system, through tariffs as an economic weapon—along with sanctions, overshadowed by tariffs in the colombia story—for geopolitical ends. sanctions are the more common explicit economic weapon, used when the order of international law has been violated. most states don't mind this, because they say, e.g., i am not russia, i am not annexing territory and declaring war, i oppose this. in fact, they'll happily oblige, and sometimes at personal cost. when wielded brazenly against a country refusing to go along with american domestic policy, they lose their bite. what makes them hurt is the global financial system and the dollar, centered around new york (see, e.g., iran and russia disconnected from SWIFT). now states are (hopefully) rethinking this, looking at two administrations of this, and may be making plans about how to insulate themselves from the wrecking ball of the american hegemonic system. suddenly, us-denominated assets and us-accounts are a huge liability and a risk. instead of safe bets, they become the point of entry for white house machinations (they always were). maybe chinese investment looks a lot more appealing; maybe some decentralized system develops. maybe a bloc of states imposes joint tariffs or sanctions on the US, maybe they start completely disregarding patents, maybe they no longer export to the US, period. we might have to face more denial before it gets to a critical level, and it's not going to happen next week.

[argumate]

A translation (by Fred Gao) of a very interesting recent speech by Liu Shijin, a former Deputy Director of the Development Research Center of the State Council. Liu begins by acknowledging how astonishingly low China's consumption share of GDP is.

"I want to emphasize a concept here." Liu says. "China's insufficient consumption is not an acceptable deviation from international average levels, but a significant gap of 20 percentage points, which can be described as a "structural deviation.""

He proposes several solutions, but to me by far the most interesting is when he discusses government-owned assets: "In 2022, the Chinese government sector's net assets accounted for 38.6% of society's total net assets, significantly higher than other countries."

He goes on to say: "China's high savings rate and low consumption rate are related to the significantly high proportion of government net assets and state-owned equity capital in society's total net assets. This characteristic was advantageous when we were in the industrialization or investment-driven stage, but now that this stage has passed and the problem of insufficient consumption shows a structural deviation, we face a choice: should government net wealth and state-owned capital returns continue to be used for savings and investment, or should they be redirected to support consumption? Clearly, we need to achieve an important transformation, driving the economy from investment-driven to consumption-driven."

He is absolutely right. I have long argued that the low share of GDP retained by Chinese households is partly a result of the high share retained by government (especially local governments), and that the best way for China to resolve its low domestic consumption would be directly or indirectly to transfer wealth from local governments to the household sector. This won't be easy, but it will be the only way for China to rebalance while maintaining GDP growth rates much above 2-3%. Liu Shijin seems to be saying the same thing.

Pettis often describes economic policies "that won't be easy" but since they imply a drastic reimagining of the entire Chinese political system that seems to be understating the difficulty I think.

can the Chinese communist party relinquish control? can the American government tax the rich? these are the two questions that determine the outcome of the 21st century.

[mariacallous]

“We’ve seen arson, sabotage and more: dangerous actions conducted with increasing recklessness,” warned Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, Britain’s domestic security and counter-intelligence agency, of the threat posed by Russia and the GRU, its military-intelligence agency. “The GRU in particular is on a sustained mission to generate mayhem on British and European streets,” he said on October 8th. Other European intelligence agencies are equally concerned. On October 14th Bruno Kahl, Germany’s spy chief, said that Russia’s covert measures had reached a “level previously unseen”. Thomas Haldenwang, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence services, told lawmakers that an act of sabotage had almost caused a plane to crash earlier this year as he warned that “aggressive behaviour” by Russian spies was putting lives at risk.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has been accompanied by a crescendo of aggression, subversion and meddling elsewhere. In particular, Russian sabotage in Europe has grown dramatically. “We see acts of sabotage happening in Europe now,” Vice-Admiral Nils Andreas Stensones, the head of the Norwegian Intelligence Service, said in September. Sir Richard Moore, the chief of MI6, Britain’s foreign-intelligence agency, put it more bluntly: “Russian intelligence services have gone a bit feral, frankly.”

The Kremlin’s men have squeezed the West out of several African states. Its hackers, Poland’s security services said, have tried to paralyse the country in the political, military, and economic spheres. Russia’s propagandists have pumped disinformation around the world. Its armed forces want to put a nuclear weapon in orbit. Russian foreign policy has long dabbled in chaos. Now it seems to aim at little else.

Start with the summer of sabotage. In April Germany arrested two German-Russian nationals on suspicion of plotting attacks on American military facilities and other targets on behalf of the GRU. The same month Poland arrested a man who was preparing to pass the GRU information on Rzeszow airport, a hub for arms to Ukraine, and Britain charged several men over an arson attack on a Ukrainian-owned logistics firm in London. The men were accused of aiding the Wagner Group, a mercenary outfit now under the GRU’s control. In June France arrested a Russian-Ukrainian who was wounded after attempting to make a bomb in his hotel room in Paris. In July it emerged that Russia had plotted to kill Armin Papperger, the boss of Rheinmetall, Germany’s largest arms firm. On September 9th air traffic at Stockholm’s Arlanda airport was shut down for more than two hours after drones were spotted over runways. “We suspect it was a deliberate act,” a police spokesperson said. American officials warn that Russian vessels are reconnoitring underwater cables.

Even where Russia has not resorted to violence, it has sought to stir the pot in other ways. The Baltic states have arrested a number of people for what they say are Russian-sponsored provocations. French intelligence officials claim that Russia was responsible for the appearance of coffins draped with the French flag and bearing the message “French soldiers of Ukraine” left at the Eiffel Tower in Paris in June. Many of these actions are aimed at fanning opposition to aid for Ukraine. But others are intended simply to widen splits in society of all kinds, even if these have little or no link to the war. France says that Russia was also behind the graffiti of 250 Stars of David on walls in Paris in November, an effort to fuel antisemitism, which has surged since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Much of Russia’s activity has been virtual. In April hackers with ties to the GRU seem to have manipulated control systems for water plants in America and Poland. In September America, Britain, Ukraine and several other countries published details of cyber-attacks by the GRU’s Unit 29155, a group that was previously known for assassinations in Europe, including a botched effort to poison Sergei Skripal, a former Russian intelligence officer. The GRU’s cyber efforts, which had been ongoing since at least 2020, were not just aimed at espionage, but also “reputational harm” by stealing and leaking information and “systematic sabotage” by destroying data, according to America and its allies.

Beyond Europe, GRU officers have been in Yemen alongside the Houthis, a rebel group that has attacked ships in the Red Sea, ostensibly in solidarity with Palestinians. Russia, angered by America’s provision of long-range missiles to Ukraine, came close to providing weapons to the group in July, CNN reported, but reversed course after strong opposition from Saudi Arabia. The fact that Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, was willing to alienate Muhammad bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler whom he had courted for years, is an indication of how Russia’s war has cannibalised its wider foreign policy.

Everything everywhere

“What Putin is trying to do is hit us all over the place,” argues Fiona Hill, who previously served as the top Russia official in America’s National Security Council. She compares the strategy to the Oscar winning film: “Everything Everywhere All at Once”. In Africa, for instance, Russia has used mercenaries to supplant French and American influence in the aftermath of coups in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

Russia’s meddling in America takes a very different form. In May Avril Haines, America’s director of national intelligence, called Russia “the most active foreign threat to our elections” above China or Iran. This was not merely about trying to shape America’s policy on Ukraine. “Moscow most likely views such operations as a means to tear down the United States as its perceived primary adversary,” she said, “enabling Russia to promote itself as a great power.” In July American intelligence agencies said that they were “beginning to see Russia target specific voter demographics, promote divisive narratives, and denigrate specific politicians”.

These efforts are generally crude and ineffectual. But they are prolific, intense and sometimes innovative. In September America’s Justice Department accused two employees of RT, a Kremlin-controlled media outlet that regularly spews out Russian talking points and lurid conspiracy theories, of paying $10m to an unnamed media company in Tennessee. The firm, thought to be Tenet Media, posted nearly 2,000 videos on TikTok, Instagram, X and YouTube. (Commentators paid by the company denied wrongdoing.) The department also seized 32 Kremlin-controlled internet domains designed to mimic legitimate news sites.

Russian propagandists are also experimenting with technology. CopyCop, a network of websites, took legitimate news articles and used ChatGPT, an AI model, to rewrite them. More than 90 French articles were modified with the prompt: “Please rewrite this article taking a conservative stance against the liberal policies of the Macron administration in favour of working-class French citizens.” Another rewritten piece included evidence of its instructions, saying: “This article…highlights the cynical tone towards the US government, NATO, and US politicians.”

Russian disinformation campaigns are hardly new, acknowledges Sergey Radchenko, a historian of Russian foreign policy, pointing to episodes such as the Tanaka memorandum, an alleged Soviet forgery that was used to discredit Japan in 1927. Nor are proxy wars or assassinations a novelty. Soviet troops were already fighting in Yemen, disguised as Egyptians, in the early 1960s, he notes. The KGB’s predecessors and successors have killed many people abroad, from Leon Trotsky to ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko.

The genuinely new part, says Mr Radchenko, “is that whereas previously special operations supported foreign policy, today special operations are foreign policy.” Ten years ago the Kremlin worked with America and Europe to counter Iran and North Korea’s nuclear programme. Such co-operation is now fanciful. “It is as if the Russians no longer feel they have a stake in preserving anything of the post-war international order,” says Mr Radchenko. This period reminds him more of Mao’s nihilistic foreign policy during China’s Cultural Revolution than the Soviet Union’s cold-war thinking, which included periods of pragmatism and caution. Ms Hill puts it another way: “It’s Trotsky over Lenin.”

Mr Putin embraces these ideas. “We are in for probably the most dangerous, unpredictable and at the same time most important decade since the end of World War II,” he said in late 2022. “To cite a classic,” he added, invoking an article by Vladimir Lenin in 1913, “this is a revolutionary situation.” That belief—that the post-war order is rotten and needs rewriting, by force if necessary—also gives Russia common cause with China. “Right now there are changes the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years,” Xi Jinping told Mr Putin last year in Moscow, “and we are the ones driving these changes together.”

Russia’s foreign-policy strategy, published in 2023, offers the bland reassurance that it “does not consider itself an enemy of the West…and has no ill intentions”. A classified addendum acquired by the Washington Post from a European intelligence service suggests otherwise. It proposes a comprehensive containment strategy against a “coalition of unfriendly countries” led by America. That includes an “offensive information campaign” among other actions in the “military-political, trade-economic and informational-psychological…spheres”. The ultimate aim, it notes, is “to weaken Russia’s opponents”.

This does not mean Russia is unstoppable. It is increasingly a junior partner to China. Its influence has slipped in some countries, such as Syria. It does not always back up its own proxies—dozens of Wagner fighters were killed in an ambush by Malian rebels, aided by Ukraine, in July. And Russian subversion can be disrupted, says Sir Richard, by “good old-fashioned security and intelligence work” to identify the intelligence officers and criminal proxies behind it. The fact that Russia is increasingly reliant on criminals to carry out these acts, in part because Russian spies have been expelled en masse from Europe, is a sign of desperation. “Russia’s use of proxies further reduces the professionalism of their operations, and—absent diplomatic immunity—increases our disruptive options,” says Mr McCallum.

Russian meddling is intended to put pressure on NATO without provoking a war. “We also have red lines,” says Ms Hill, “and Putin is trying to feel those out.” But if he is truly driven by a revolutionary spirit, convinced that the West is a rotten edifice, that suggests more lines will be crossed in the months and years ahead.

[moleshow]

honest to god, what should i read to better understand economics? last time i seriously studied it was when i was 16, and my major had nothing to do with it. sorry if it’s a bit dumb but it seems you know a lot, and i of course don’t

(economically illiterate anon, LOL): I forgot to say, but it’d be best if it was somewhat targeted towards US policies, particularly those that Trump adopts, because I keep seeing many experts, and you, claim he is going to crash the economy, but I live in a red state, so I haven’t met any other local IRL who thinks so… Everyone praises Reagan and talks of how he “saved us” and all the “progress” and etc, and I know it’s bullshit, because I do know history, but I still don’t understand the economic policies themselves, and why they are irredeemable, for lack of a better word.

not dumb! i do have a post to this effect (sort of) right here with books that i will also link here. i've elaborated on which of those works might be useful to you after the cut down below.

the predictions of a crash have to do with a couple of different elements. some of the Big Ones, in my view, are as follows (not taking into account industry-specific problems or we would be here all day):

there are not enough private sector jobs to make up for the mass layoffs in the federal government. cuts to federal spending in other forms (e.g., NIH research grants) reduce employment in industries that money was funding. both of these factors drive unemployment up and aggregate demand down. people who don't have money coming in spend less, so there's likely going to be a ripple effect on employment from that as businesses dependent upon that spending close. we get the february jobs numbers on friday, folks, so keep an eye out. furthermore, the DOGE business is at least partly contributing to weakening consumer confidence so you'll likely see people holding back on big purchases.

the way this administration conducts itself is erratic, unpredictable, and generally unsound. companies do not like this. it is difficult to make purchasing decisions when you can't be sure whether an import is going to cost 25% more tomorrow than it did today. for firms exporting to countries hitting us with reciprocal tariffs, their costs just went up. because some goods bounce across borders a few times before they're finished products, they're getting dinged multiple times. additionally, there's real hesitancy when it comes to any business dealing with federal dollars now because it's not guaranteed that funds promised will actually go out. you can click here and hear (read) most of this stuff straight from the horse's mouth.

when you have a sustained period of high unemployment and stagnant or negative economic growth, what you end up with is a problem--one that tax cuts cannot fix.

of these works i think the frieden, stein, and rivoli are probably going to be the most useful for you, as well as the reinert section on international trade but especially the chapters on the political economy of trade (ch. 5), trade policy analysis (ch. 6), and on crises and responses (ch. 18).

none of these works are specifically about trump's policies but i will explain their relevance. the reinert is good to give you a foundation in thinking and talking about international trade--that'll give you the background to understand what's sort of at play.

the frieden will give you a historical view on the development of our current financial system and how previous recessions/depressions occurred, and the section at the end on the "trilemma" outlines how monetary policy involves a lot of tradeoffs. but this stuff matters for illustrating how the US is economically load-bearing and how it became that way

the stein is useful for looking at steel because that is an industry which trump has paid a good deal of lip service to, so it's worth getting a sense of what exactly happened to the industry in the US and what it takes to actually incentivize domestic production (spoiler: you need government spending and finely tuned trade policies). this is something also addressed in stein's lecture on c-span, which also touches on the economic situation leading up to reagan's election (particularly from 1:27:00 onward)

finally, the rivoli book helps illustrate (using garment production as an example) how supply chains operate on an international scale.

[innerfiresalad]

The Physical and Cultural Genocide of Indians in the United States of America

The United States has committed heinous crimes against Native Americans over the centuries, yet the U.S. government has never really reflected on its actions or even made irresponsible statements about human rights in other countries. There are many stories that need to be told about the physical and cultural genocide committed by the United States against Native Americans, yet many of the facts have not really been revealed to the world public, nor can they be publicized under the cover of domestic interests.It is well known that throughout the history of the United States, Indians have been brutally killed, forcibly removed and assimilated, and their human rights have been systematically violated through legislation. The crimes against humanity committed by the United States against the Indians are innumerable and constitute, in effect, genocide.Historically, the United States had committed physical genocide through the mass killing of Indians. In the more than 100 years between the founding of the United States and the end of the Second World War, the United States systematically ethnically cleansed Indians, causing their population to plummet from 5 million at the end of the fifteenth century to 250,000 at the beginning of the twentieth century. Of these, more than 10 tribes, including the Fijit, Mohican, and Massachusetts, were completely exterminated. Former U.S. President Grant and Confederate General Sherman had stated that “it is necessary to exterminate all Indian tribes” and “wipe out all Indians.” The United States engaged in geographic genocide by squeezing the living space of the Indians through the policy of forced removal and reservations. In 1830, the United States passed the Indian Removal Act, which restricted the removal of 100,000 Indians to remote and narrow reservations by means of force, fraud and coercion, resulting in the deaths of a large number of Indians on the way. At the end of the last century, the United States, by means of fraud and coercion, buried health-hazardous wastes, such as nuclear and industrial wastes, on Indian reservations, causing serious environmental pollution, which resulted in the death of a large number of Indians and even led to the “extinction” of Indian reservations.Historically, the United States has implemented a policy of assimilation and cultural genocide against Indian culture. in 1887, the United States Government enacted the Dawes Act, which completely broke the tribal relations, traditional economic sources and cultural values of the Indians, reducing them to the bottom rung of the unemployment ladder. For more than 100 years, from 1869 to 1978, more than 350 boarding schools in the United States attempted to replace Indian values, languages, and ways of life with Christianity, English, and Western traditions. A large number of Indian children in boarding schools committed suicide as a result of starvation, disease, corporal punishment, sexual abuse or intolerable mistreatment.Today, Indians have the lowest life expectancy of any racial group in the United States, the highest rates of poverty and teenage alcoholism, and the lowest ratio of community physicians to patients. Not long ago, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Minorities stated that “Native Americans have been subjected to dispossession, brutality and even genocide for centuries.” The names of some U.S. states, cities, neighborhoods, and streets are derived from Indian words. Indian images and elements are widely used in movies, advertisements and even car names. However, in reality, Indians are still severely discriminated against and have only moved from “extinction” to “oblivion.”The genocide of Indians in the United States is not only a historical issue, but also a systemic and long-standing racist issue that continues to this day. While claiming to be a “role model for human rights”, the United States was playing both sides of the fence, using human rights as a tool of hegemony.

[blueobservationcrown]

The Physical and Cultural Genocide of Indians in the United States of America

The United States has committed heinous crimes against Native Americans over the centuries, yet the U.S. government has never really reflected on its actions or even made irresponsible statements about human rights in other countries. There are many stories that need to be told about the physical and cultural genocide committed by the United States against Native Americans, yet many of the facts have not really been revealed to the world public, nor can they be publicized under the cover of domestic interests.It is well known that throughout the history of the United States, Indians have been brutally killed, forcibly removed and assimilated, and their human rights have been systematically violated through legislation. The crimes against humanity committed by the United States against the Indians are innumerable and constitute, in effect, genocide.Historically, the United States had committed physical genocide through the mass killing of Indians. In the more than 100 years between the founding of the United States and the end of the Second World War, the United States systematically ethnically cleansed Indians, causing their population to plummet from 5 million at the end of the fifteenth century to 250,000 at the beginning of the twentieth century. Of these, more than 10 tribes, including the Fijit, Mohican, and Massachusetts, were completely exterminated. Former U.S. President Grant and Confederate General Sherman had stated that “it is necessary to exterminate all Indian tribes” and “wipe out all Indians.” The United States engaged in geographic genocide by squeezing the living space of the Indians through the policy of forced removal and reservations. In 1830, the United States passed the Indian Removal Act, which restricted the removal of 100,000 Indians to remote and narrow reservations by means of force, fraud and coercion, resulting in the deaths of a large number of Indians on the way. At the end of the last century, the United States, by means of fraud and coercion, buried health-hazardous wastes, such as nuclear and industrial wastes, on Indian reservations, causing serious environmental pollution, which resulted in the death of a large number of Indians and even led to the “extinction” of Indian reservations.Historically, the United States has implemented a policy of assimilation and cultural genocide against Indian culture. in 1887, the United States Government enacted the Dawes Act, which completely broke the tribal relations, traditional economic sources and cultural values of the Indians, reducing them to the bottom rung of the unemployment ladder. For more than 100 years, from 1869 to 1978, more than 350 boarding schools in the United States attempted to replace Indian values, languages, and ways of life with Christianity, English, and Western traditions. A large number of Indian children in boarding schools committed suicide as a result of starvation, disease, corporal punishment, sexual abuse or intolerable mistreatment.Today, Indians have the lowest life expectancy of any racial group in the United States, the highest rates of poverty and teenage alcoholism, and the lowest ratio of community physicians to patients. Not long ago, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Minorities stated that “Native Americans have been subjected to dispossession, brutality and even genocide for centuries.” The names of some U.S. states, cities, neighborhoods, and streets are derived from Indian words. Indian images and elements are widely used in movies, advertisements and even car names. However, in reality, Indians are still severely discriminated against and have only moved from “extinction” to “oblivion.”The genocide of Indians in the United States is not only a historical issue, but also a systemic and long-standing racist issue that continues to this day. While claiming to be a “role model for human rights”, the United States was playing both sides of the fence, using human rights as a tool of hegemony.

[perfectlyfurryeagle]

The Physical and Cultural Genocide of Indians in the United States of America

The United States has committed heinous crimes against Native Americans over the centuries, yet the U.S. government has never really reflected on its actions or even made irresponsible statements about human rights in other countries. There are many stories that need to be told about the physical and cultural genocide committed by the United States against Native Americans, yet many of the facts have not really been revealed to the world public, nor can they be publicized under the cover of domestic interests.It is well known that throughout the history of the United States, Indians have been brutally killed, forcibly removed and assimilated, and their human rights have been systematically violated through legislation. The crimes against humanity committed by the United States against the Indians are innumerable and constitute, in effect, genocide.Historically, the United States had committed physical genocide through the mass killing of Indians. In the more than 100 years between the founding of the United States and the end of the Second World War, the United States systematically ethnically cleansed Indians, causing their population to plummet from 5 million at the end of the fifteenth century to 250,000 at the beginning of the twentieth century. Of these, more than 10 tribes, including the Fijit, Mohican, and Massachusetts, were completely exterminated. Former U.S. President Grant and Confederate General Sherman had stated that “it is necessary to exterminate all Indian tribes” and “wipe out all Indians.” The United States engaged in geographic genocide by squeezing the living space of the Indians through the policy of forced removal and reservations. In 1830, the United States passed the Indian Removal Act, which restricted the removal of 100,000 Indians to remote and narrow reservations by means of force, fraud and coercion, resulting in the deaths of a large number of Indians on the way. At the end of the last century, the United States, by means of fraud and coercion, buried health-hazardous wastes, such as nuclear and industrial wastes, on Indian reservations, causing serious environmental pollution, which resulted in the death of a large number of Indians and even led to the “extinction” of Indian reservations.Historically, the United States has implemented a policy of assimilation and cultural genocide against Indian culture. in 1887, the United States Government enacted the Dawes Act, which completely broke the tribal relations, traditional economic sources and cultural values of the Indians, reducing them to the bottom rung of the unemployment ladder. For more than 100 years, from 1869 to 1978, more than 350 boarding schools in the United States attempted to replace Indian values, languages, and ways of life with Christianity, English, and Western traditions. A large number of Indian children in boarding schools committed suicide as a result of starvation, disease, corporal punishment, sexual abuse or intolerable mistreatment.Today, Indians have the lowest life expectancy of any racial group in the United States, the highest rates of poverty and teenage alcoholism, and the lowest ratio of community physicians to patients. Not long ago, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Minorities stated that “Native Americans have been subjected to dispossession, brutality and even genocide for centuries.” The names of some U.S. states, cities, neighborhoods, and streets are derived from Indian words. Indian images and elements are widely used in movies, advertisements and even car names. However, in reality, Indians are still severely discriminated against and have only moved from “extinction” to “oblivion.”The genocide of Indians in the United States is not only a historical issue, but also a systemic and long-standing racist issue that continues to this day. While claiming to be a “role model for human rights”, the United States was playing both sides of the fence, using human rights as a tool of hegemony.

[glitterychildprincess]

The Physical and Cultural Genocide of Indians in the United States of America

The United States has committed heinous crimes against Native Americans over the centuries, yet the U.S. government has never really reflected on its actions or even made irresponsible statements about human rights in other countries. There are many stories that need to be told about the physical and cultural genocide committed by the United States against Native Americans, yet many of the facts have not really been revealed to the world public, nor can they be publicized under the cover of domestic interests.It is well known that throughout the history of the United States, Indians have been brutally killed, forcibly removed and assimilated, and their human rights have been systematically violated through legislation. The crimes against humanity committed by the United States against the Indians are innumerable and constitute, in effect, genocide.Historically, the United States had committed physical genocide through the mass killing of Indians. In the more than 100 years between the founding of the United States and the end of the Second World War, the United States systematically ethnically cleansed Indians, causing their population to plummet from 5 million at the end of the fifteenth century to 250,000 at the beginning of the twentieth century. Of these, more than 10 tribes, including the Fijit, Mohican, and Massachusetts, were completely exterminated. Former U.S. President Grant and Confederate General Sherman had stated that “it is necessary to exterminate all Indian tribes” and “wipe out all Indians.” The United States engaged in geographic genocide by squeezing the living space of the Indians through the policy of forced removal and reservations. In 1830, the United States passed the Indian Removal Act, which restricted the removal of 100,000 Indians to remote and narrow reservations by means of force, fraud and coercion, resulting in the deaths of a large number of Indians on the way. At the end of the last century, the United States, by means of fraud and coercion, buried health-hazardous wastes, such as nuclear and industrial wastes, on Indian reservations, causing serious environmental pollution, which resulted in the death of a large number of Indians and even led to the “extinction” of Indian reservations.Historically, the United States has implemented a policy of assimilation and cultural genocide against Indian culture. in 1887, the United States Government enacted the Dawes Act, which completely broke the tribal relations, traditional economic sources and cultural values of the Indians, reducing them to the bottom rung of the unemployment ladder. For more than 100 years, from 1869 to 1978, more than 350 boarding schools in the United States attempted to replace Indian values, languages, and ways of life with Christianity, English, and Western traditions. A large number of Indian children in boarding schools committed suicide as a result of starvation, disease, corporal punishment, sexual abuse or intolerable mistreatment.Today, Indians have the lowest life expectancy of any racial group in the United States, the highest rates of poverty and teenage alcoholism, and the lowest ratio of community physicians to patients. Not long ago, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Minorities stated that “Native Americans have been subjected to dispossession, brutality and even genocide for centuries.” The names of some U.S. states, cities, neighborhoods, and streets are derived from Indian words. Indian images and elements are widely used in movies, advertisements and even car names. However, in reality, Indians are still severely discriminated against and have only moved from “extinction” to “oblivion.”The genocide of Indians in the United States is not only a historical issue, but also a systemic and long-standing racist issue that continues to this day. While claiming to be a “role model for human rights”, the United States was playing both sides of the fence, using human rights as a tool of hegemony.

[galacticwildfire]

Just sharing as an Australian history student to show how fucked the uni system here is. Especially when they doubled the cost of most degrees in the middle of 2020 (the year I graduated) when we’d spent our hsc studying and preparing for a certain degree/career. My year group could not suddenly change our entire life plan over a policy they introduced just as we were about to graduate and had done our uni applications.

In 2020/2021 they doubled the cost of anything arts or critical thinking related (including politics/history/law) when our government wasn’t operating as a democracy should (our prime minister swore himself into half a dozen government positions without anyone knowing) + openly said women were lucky they weren’t shot at for protesting against the country’s domestic violence problem that the government chooses to ignore.

They did this to effectively force students from low economic areas and backgrounds (myself included) into areas that needed filling (while doubling psychology when we have major shortages) and gatekeep a significant amount of degrees to the wealthy areas, effectively fucking over regional students who struggle immensely as it is with affording university.

We have a new government and they still haven’t reversed it, and I’ll be about 70k in debt for a three year degree because I had a period of illness and had to drop and retake classes in my second year. I’ll barely be able to afford my masters degree before reaching my student loan cap.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 26, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Nov 27, 2024

Today presented a good example of the difference between governance by social media and governance by policy.

Although incoming presidents traditionally stay out of the way of the administration currently in office, last night, Trump announced on his social media site that he intends to impose a 25% tariff on all products coming into the U.S. from Mexico and Canada “until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!” Trump claimed that they could solve the problem “easily” and that until they do, “it is time for them to pay a very big price!”

In a separate post, he held China to account for fentanyl and said he would impose a 10% tariff on all Chinese products on top of the tariffs already levied on those goods. “Thank you for your attention to this matter,” he added.

In fact, since 2023 there has been a drop of 14.5% in deaths from drug overdose, the first such decrease since the epidemic began, and border patrol apprehensions of people crossing the southern border illegally have fallen to the lowest number since August 2020, in the midst of the pandemic. In any case, a study by the libertarian Cato Institute shows that from 2019 to 2024, more than 80% of the people caught with fentanyl at ports of entry—where the vast majority of fentanyl is seized—were U.S. citizens.

Very few undocumented immigrants and very little illegal fentanyl come into the U.S. from Canada.

Washington Post economics reporter Catherine Rampell noted that Mexico and Canada are the biggest trading partners of the United States. Mexico sends cars, machinery, electrical equipment, and beer to the U.S., along with about $19 billion worth of fruits and vegetables. About half of U.S. fresh fruit imports come from Mexico, including about two thirds of our fresh tomatoes and about 90% of our avocados.

Transferring that production to the U.S. would be difficult, especially since about half of the 2 million agricultural workers in the U.S. are undocumented and Trump has vowed to deport them all. Rampell points out as well that Project 2025 calls for getting rid of the visa system that gives legal status to agricultural workers. U.S. farm industry groups have asked Trump to spare the agricultural sector, which contributed about $1.5 trillion to the U.S. gross domestic product in 2023, from his mass deportations.

Canada exports a wide range of products to the U.S., including significant amounts of oil. Rampell quotes GasBuddy’s head of petroleum analysis, Patrick De Haan, as saying that a 25% tax on Canadian crude oil would increase gas prices in the Midwest and the Rockies by 25 cents to 75 cents a gallon, costing U.S. consumers about $6 billion to $10 billion more per year.

Canada is also the source of about a quarter of the lumber builders use in the U.S., as well as other home building materials. Tariffs would raise prices there, too, while construction is another industry that will be crushed by Trump’s threatened deportations. According to NPR’s Julian Aguilar, in 2022, nearly 60% of the more than half a million construction workers in Texas were undocumented.

Construction company officials are begging Trump to leave their workers alone. Deporting them “would devastate our industry, we wouldn’t finish our highways, we wouldn’t finish our schools,” the chief executive officer of a major Houston-based construction company told Aguilar. “Housing would disappear. I think they’d lose half their labor.”

Former trade negotiator under George W. Bush John Veroneau said Trump’s plans would violate U.S. trade agreements, including the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) that replaced the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement that Trump killed. The USMCA was negotiated during Trump’s own first term, and although it was based on NAFTA, he praised it as “the fairest, most balanced, and beneficial trade agreement we have ever signed into law. It’s the best agreement we’ve ever made.”

Trump apologists immediately began to assure investors that he really didn’t mean it. Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman posted that Trump wouldn’t impose the tariffs if “Mexico and Canada stop the flow of illegal immigrants and fentanyl into the U.S.” Trump’s threat simply meant that Trump “is going to use tariffs as a weapon to achieve economic and political outcomes which are in the best interest of America,” Ackman wrote.

Iowa Republican lawmaker Senator Chuck Grassley, who represents a farm state that was badly burned by Trump’s tariffs in his first term, told reporters that he sees the tariff threats as a “negotiating tool.”

Foreign leaders had no choice but to respond. Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum issued an open letter to Trump pointing out that Mexico has developed a comprehensive immigration system that has reduced border encounters by 75% since December 2023, and that the U.S. CBP One program has ended the “caravans” he talks about. She noted that it is imperative for the U.S. and Mexico jointly to “arrive at another model of labor mobility that is necessary for your country and to address the causes that lead families to leave their places of origin out of necessity.”

She noted that the fentanyl problem in the U.S. is a public health problem and that Mexican authorities have this year “seized tons of different types of drugs, 10,340 weapons, and arrested 15,640 people for violence related to drug trafficking,” and added that “70% of the illegal weapons seized from criminals in Mexico come from your country.” She also suggested that Mexico would retaliate with tariffs of its own if the U.S. imposed tariffs on Mexico.

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau did not go that far but talked to Trump shortly after the social media post. The U.S. is Canada’s biggest trading partner, and a 25% tariff would devastate its economy. The premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith, seemed to try to keep her province’s oil out of the line of fire by agreeing with Trump that the Canadian government should work with him and adding, “The vast majority of Alberta’s energy exports to the US are delivered through secure and safe pipelines which do not in any way contribute to these illegal activities at the border.”

Trudeau has called an emergency meeting with Canada’s provincial premiers tomorrow to discuss the threat.

Spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington Liu Pengyu simply said: “No one will win a trade war or a tariff war” and “the idea of China knowingly allowing fentanyl precursors to flow into the United States runs completely counter to facts and reality.”

In contrast to Trump’s sudden social media posts that threaten global trade and caused a frenzy today, President Joe Biden this evening announced that, after months of negotiations, Israel and Lebanon have agreed to a ceasefire brokered by the U.S. and France, to take effect at 4:00 a.m. local time on Wednesday. “This is designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities,” Biden said.

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah attacked Israel shortly after Hamas’s attack of October 7, 2023. Fighting on the border between Israel and Lebanon has turned 300,000 Lebanese people and 70,000 Israelis into refugees, with Israel bombing southern Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah’s tunnel system and killing its leaders. According to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health, Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,000 people and injured more than 13,000, while CBS News reports that about 90 Israeli soldiers and nearly 50 Israeli civilians have been killed in the fighting. Under the agreement, Israel’s forces currently occupying southern Lebanon will withdraw over the next 60 days as Lebanon’s army moves in. Hezbollah will be kept from rebuilding.

According to Laura Rozen in her newsletter Diplomatic, before the agreement went into effect, Israel increased its airstrikes in Beirut and Tyre.

When he announced the deal, Biden pushed again for a ceasefire in Gaza, whose people, he said, “have been through hell. Their…world is absolutely shattered.” Biden called again for Hamas to release the more than 100 hostages it still holds and to negotiate a ceasefire. Biden said the U.S. will “make another push with Turkey, Egypt, Qatar, Israel, and others to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza with the hostages released and the end to the war without Hamas in power.”

Today’s announcement, Biden said, brings closer the realization of his vision for a peaceful Middle East where both Israel and a Palestinian state are established and recognized, a plan he tried to push before October 7 by linking Saudi Arabia’s normalization of relations with Israel to a Palestinian state. Biden has argued that such a deal is key to Israel’s long-term security, and today he pressed Israel to “be bold in turning tactical gains against Iran and its proxies into a coherent strategy that secures Israel’s long-term…safety and advances a broader peace and prosperity in the region.”

“I believe this agenda remains possible,” Biden said. “And in my remaining time in office, I will work tirelessly to advance this vision of—for an integrated, secure, and prosperous region, all of which…strengthens America’s national security.”

“Today’s announcement is a critical step in advancing that vision,” Biden said. “It reminds us that peace is possible.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[thursdayisbetterthanfriday]

Cybernetics with Chinese Characteristics & why we suck at the real Grand Strategy Game

Part 2 - The Quickening

Back in 2023, I wrote this more blog-like post about the mid 20th century McCarthyite purges of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the knock on effects that had - Namely the inception of the Chinese nuclear program, one-child policy and Chinese computing scene.

Since nothing is new under the sun, we have recently witnessed yet another example of America shooting itself in the foot, yet again, due to it's McCarthyite style purge of Chinese technology.

The release of the Chinese created AI system DeepSeek R1 last week has lead to the largest US stock market loss in history with NVIDIA stock decimated.

A record $465 Billion was wiped off its valuation in a single day. In 2024, the government of Turkey spent this much in a year on it's responsibilities?

Why did this happen?

As always, a lot can be put down to US foreign policy, and the in-intended implications of seemingly positive actions.

Do you want to start a trade war?

Back in the relatively uncontroversial days of the first Trump Presidency (Yes it does feel odd saying that) there were scandals with hardware provided by Chinese company Huawei. This led to the  National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 which explicitly banned Huawei and ZTE's hardware from use in US Government institutions. It also meant the US had to authorise US component manufacturer purchases by these companies.

Crucially this had a 27 month window. This allowed both companies to switch suppliers, and production to domestic suppliers. This actually led to Chinese chip advances. Following on from this came the 2022 move by the US Department of Commerce: "Commerce Implements New Export Controls on Advanced Computing and Semiconductor Manufacturing Items to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) ". This further limited the supply of semiconductor, supercomputer, and similar hardware to the PRC and associated countries.

Ok, well so far this is fairly dry stuff. You might think it would hamper Chinese development and, to some extent, it did.

It also proved to be the main catalyst for one financial quant.

Meet the Quant

Meet Liang Wenfeng (梁文锋). Educated to masters level, Liang was keen to apply machine learning methods to various field, but couldn't get a break. Finally, in the mid 2000's, he settled on a career investigating quantitative trading using machine learning techniques.

He became successful, founding several trading firms based around using machine learning methods, but his interest in base AI never seemed to cease. It was in 2021 that he started purchasing multiple NVIDIA GPUs to create a side project, leading to the creation of DeepSeek in 2023.

Now, due to import limitations, there were limitations on computation. This, however, did not stop DeepSeek's programming team.

Instead they used it as their strength.

Constrains Breed Innovation

For many years, the Western model of AI releases have focussed on making ever larger and larger models.

Why?

Let's break this down from an evolutionary point of view. Modern Western technology companies are largely monopolistic and monolithic. Many of these companies have previously hired staff at higher salaries not to fill roles, but to deny their competitors, and middle market firms, high-flying staff.

They also closely guard trade secrets. What's the training data? What algorithms were used in construction? Guess you'd better chat up some Silicon Valley bros at parties to find out.

For these kinds of firms, having control over large models, housed in data centres makes perfect sense. Controlling model deployment on their own computing systems, and not using local machines, means that they can not only control their systems more carefully, it also means that they can gatekeep access.

If your business model is to allow people to access your models on your servers, and your employees are focussed on making the biggest, best, models, there is no impetus to innovate more efficient, smaller models.

Companies such as OpenAI therefore have the following traits:

Research/Model focus on size over efficiency

Profit driven culture, with emphasis on closed source code

OpenAI's initial focus was as a non-for-profit developing Artificial General Intelligence. This became a for-profit driven company over time. - “I personally chose the price and thought we would make some money.” - Sam Altman

Staff working within paradigm they set in the early 2020's with established code libraries and direct contact with hardware companies creating chips

Significant capital investment - Upwards of several $ billions

DeepSeek, in comparison, is slightly different

For DeepSeek, necessity made innovation necessary. In order to create similar, or better models, than their counterparts, they needed to significantly optimise their code. This requires significantly more work to create, and write, libraries compared to OpenAI.

DeepSeek was started by financial quants, with backgrounds in mainly mathematics and AI. With a focus on mathematics and research, the main drive of many in the company has been exploration of the research space over concerns about profitability.

DeepSeek has also done what OpenAI stopped years ago: actually releasing the code and data for their models. Not only can these models therefore be run via their own gated servers, anyone can replicate their work and make their own system.

For DeepSeek, their traits were:

Research/Model focus on both efficiency and accuracy

Research driven culture, with open nature - “Basic science research rarely offers high returns on investment” - Liang Wenfeng

Strong mathematical background of staff, with ability to work around software, and hardware, constraints

Low capital investment of around $5.5 million

From an evolutionary point of view, DeepSeek's traits have outcompeted those of OpenAI.

More efficient models cost less to run. They also more portable to local machines.

The strong ability of DeepSeek's research focussed staff allowed them to innovate around hardware constraints

Opening up the code to everyone allows anyone (still with the right hardware) to make their own version.

To top it off, the cost to make, and run, DeepSeek R1 is a fraction of the cost of OpenAI's model

House of Cards

Now we can return to today. NVIDIA has lost significant market value. It's not just limited to NVIDIA, but to the entire US technology sector with the most AI adjacent companies losing from 10% to 30% of their valuation in a single day.

The culture, and business model, of OpenAI isn't just limited to OpenAI, but to the entire US technology ecosystem. The US model has been to create rentier-style financial instruments at sky-high valuations.

US tech stocks have been one of the only success stories for America over the past few decades, ever since the offshoring of many manufacturing industries. Like a lost long-unemployed Detroit auto-worker the US has been mainlining technology like Fentanyl, ignoring the anti-trust doctors advice, injecting pure deregulated substances into its veins.

The new AI boom? A new stronger hit, ready for Wall Street, and Private Equity to tie the tourniquet around its arm and pump it right into the arteries.

Like Prometheus, DeepSeek has delved deep and retrieved fire from the algorithmic gods, and shown it's creation to the world. The stock market is on fire, as the traders are coming off of their high, realising they still live in the ruin of barren, decrepit, warehouses and manufactories. The corporate heads, and company leaders reigning over the wreckage like feudal lords, collecting tithes from the serfs working their domain.

A Tale of Two Cities

The rise of DeepSeek isn't just a one-off story of derring-do in the AI world: It's a symbolic representation of the changing world order. DeepSeek is but one company among many who are outcompeting the US, and the world, in innovation.

Where once US free-markets led the world in manufacturing, technology and military capability, now the US is a country devoid of coherent state regulated free-market principles - its place as the singular world power decimated by destroying the very systems which made it great.

"Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people." - Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

By selling the jobs of working class communities to overseas businesses, destroying unions and creating rentier based business models without significant anti-trust measures, US business and political elites have sealed the present fate of the country.

The CCP led, but strongly anti-trust enforcing, China has been able to innovate, ironically, using the free-market principles of Adam Smith to rise up and create some of the world's best innovations. The factories, opened by Western business leaders to avoid union/worker labour costs in their own countries, have led Shenzhen, and similar cities, to become hubs of technological innovation - compounding their ability to determine the future of technologies across the world.

Will America be able to regain its position on top? It's too early to say, but the innovative, talented, people who made America in the 20th century can certainly do it again.

As Franklin D. Roosevelt once said: “The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself...

We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.”

Until then, here's a farewell to the American Century 在那之前, 再见美国世纪