Megatrends no American will Accept
Like it or not the way things are going in America, China will indeed take over the world. I don't like it any more than you but too many signs indicate that this is currently inevitable.
Every now and again I come across an article that always gets me thinking this way. The latest featured the longest above and below water bridge on the planet. It blows me away. So did building in a week, move in ready condos and hospitals, both impossible in the west. Here is one such article: china's world's longest bridge - Bing images. See for yourselves.
So now you are all (How many? I have no idea but wish it were more. Please pass me on!) saying or screaming something like:
- yes, but they stole the technology from us (sometimes true, not always)
- yes, but they were educated in western universities (possibly, but who accepted them as students?)
- yes, but we put the first man on the moon (Yes but with German technology - true!)
- yes, but do you want to live in a dictatorship? No, but something better change or we will be. See if you can TRUMP that statement!
- etc., etc. America has never accepted that some people and countries elsewhere in the world kick its' ass. Just look at how their athletes behave overseas when they lose - like spoiled bratty teenagers. Other western nations feel the same.
Successful dictatorships have always produced the latest and greatest things - usually weaponry. They can force their best to produce or pay severe consequences. Hitler started wars with superior battleships, submarines, and long-range weapons. He almost had the atomic bomb and moon reaching rockets but in these cases it was America who stole the technologists and technology!
Now you can say that eventually the allies caught up, surpassed, and defeated him. However, it took world wars and the loss of millions of lives and billions of dollars in damage to get us to that point.
This is likely to repeat itself.
Why? Just look again to the west and America as the prime example. Her system of government(s) is not just showing cracks but suffering major destruction. They are out of date and need drastic change. Ironically, it might require another war - international OR civil, to make her wake up.
In the west unless special war measures are passed in a rarely bipartisan Congress, it takes years to accomplish anything! This includes:
- taxing the super wealthy to pay their share
- punishing the worst of citizens and politicians (you know the guy!)
- building and repairing infrastructure
- moving away from oil
- closing the borders in a reasonable fashion
- strengthening the military
- establishing and enforcing equal rights for all citizens including the vote
- providing decent national health care
- defending the Constitution
- and God forbid - trying to change it!
I can just hear the establishment - the ones we recently learned only put in a few hours at a time before going home. The ones who enjoy above average taxpayer funded incomes, benefits, and pensions. They will go on about how the system has existed since the Founding Fathers created it so it can't be bad. Not long ago women were not "persons" and could not vote or become doctors, lawyers, etc. Yes, the system was bad and to some degree it DID change - after decades. We no longer have decades.
Our best hope is with the younger generation both in the west AND in the dictatorships. The saddest part of all is that many of them will hate their ancestors - US - for creating the mess while we maintained the status quo so the wealthiest were able to live obscene lives.
#thebrewsterblock