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A few comments: (a) America and Germany were both unmatched industrial powers from late 19th century. Two world wars later and US emerged as the sole industria

A few comments: (a) America and Germany were both unmatched industrial powers from late 19th century. Two world wars later and US emerged as the sole industrial power. The article is arguing for US to rejoin the industrial powerhouse set. (b) V. V. Putin and "partners" have set into motion a sort of historic locomotive. So far the thing has arrived if not departed from the station of 'burning bridges for EU'. If you read the article, it notes that Germany had prudently applied a two pronged approach for dealing with globalization: retaining component level (parts) manufacturing, and comprehensively (re)training its workforce for a new economic regime. What the article doesn't mention (though hints at by recalling Angela M's "we still make things" remark to an apparently confused Tony Blair) is the third prong of what was actually a trident: an energy 'stream' that did not require the services (or good graces) of United States Navy and client friends. That prong is gone now, and higher energy costs coupled with "Plaza Accord" type of "negotiations" (a scene from Godfather comes to mind) they enable, should make for a responsive set of allies. That said, the article advised negotiations with the Chinese, which does not compute on my end (unless the author is privy to information not available to the general public). (c)above

082349872349872 4y ago
Fair enough, if I understand your position on (b) and (c) correctly it is that while there may not be much carrot in evidence, there remains plenty of stick? Just a note as to (a): my understanding is that had Germany avoided 1914 and its sequelae, it would've (purely by extrapolation of existing growth curves and ignoring the chances that the UK would've turned from benign opposition ["Made In Britain"] to malicious [the Royal Navy having been, pre-Suez, what the USN is now]) peacefully passed the Empire in manufacturing over the course of the XX. My parenthetical reservations apart, historians' consensus take on the why of 1914 boils down to "people are stupid". [Edit: my memory tells me that the US accounted for ~50% of global manufacturing in 1960 (down from some huge percentage in 1948!). This number is amazingly difficult to confirm (the unpaywalled net being very biased towards recent time series), but if one compares to the 2015 figures of Table 1 in https://www.brookings.edu/research/global-manufacturing-scorecard-how-the-us-compares-to-18-other-nations/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/global-manufacturing-scor... , if the US wished to return to its golden age, it would have to somehow replace not only China (20%) but also all of either Japan (10%) or Germany+France (7+3%). Assuming the Chinese are unlikely to follow voluntarily in such a scenario, it would take total replacement of Japan+Germany+South Korea+India+France+Italy+UK for the US to, from its current 18%, hit 50%] Edit2: the previous Edit pretty much just recapitulates https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34254640 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34254640
- eternalban 4y ago
  (re "stupid" and US industrial decline before -Sputnik- event: read Gods of Money.) > Fair enough, if I understand your position on (b) and (c) correctly it is that while there may not be much carrot in evidence, there remains plenty of stick? Not my "position" - just observation. It seems to me a sort of super block fragmentation is over the time horizon. B.E. -> A.E. -> Oceania. Maybe the carrot bit is membership.
  - 082349872349872 4y ago
    Thanks for the GoM rec*. I count Brexit as having already established Oceania (it having marked Airstrip One's independence from Eurasia). * cool, this totally ties into my other hobby (online radicalisation): http://www.williamengdahl.com http://www.williamengdahl.com
    - eternalban 4y ago
      He plays fast and loose with some facts, but is hardly alone in that hobby. For example, he completely ignored USSR's occupation of Iran in context of Truman Doctrine. However, he does provide historical facts that were entirely obscure to me (at least) but have checked out, specially related to matter in the 19th c.

082349872349872 4y ago

Fair enough, if I understand your position on (b) and (c) correctly it is that while there may not be much carrot in evidence, there remains plenty of stick? Just a note as to (a): my understanding is that had Germany avoided 1914 and its sequelae, it would've (purely by extrapolation of existing growth curves and ignoring the chances that the UK would've turned from benign opposition ["Made In Britain"] to malicious [the Royal Navy having been, pre-Suez, what the USN is now]) peacefully passed the Empire in manufacturing over the course of the XX. My parenthetical reservations apart, historians' consensus take on the why of 1914 boils down to "people are stupid". [Edit: my memory tells me that the US accounted for ~50% of global manufacturing in 1960 (down from some huge percentage in 1948!). This number is amazingly difficult to confirm (the unpaywalled net being very biased towards recent time series), but if one compares to the 2015 figures of Table 1 in https://www.brookings.edu/research/global-manufacturing-scorecard-how-the-us-compares-to-18-other-nations/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/global-manufacturing-scor... , if the US wished to return to its golden age, it would have to somehow replace not only China (20%) but also all of either Japan (10%) or Germany+France (7+3%). Assuming the Chinese are unlikely to follow voluntarily in such a scenario, it would take total replacement of Japan+Germany+South Korea+India+France+Italy+UK for the US to, from its current 18%, hit 50%] Edit2: the previous Edit pretty much just recapitulates https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34254640 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34254640

eternalban 4y ago
(re "stupid" and US industrial decline before -Sputnik- event: read Gods of Money.) > Fair enough, if I understand your position on (b) and (c) correctly it is that while there may not be much carrot in evidence, there remains plenty of stick? Not my "position" - just observation. It seems to me a sort of super block fragmentation is over the time horizon. B.E. -> A.E. -> Oceania. Maybe the carrot bit is membership.
- 082349872349872 4y ago
  Thanks for the GoM rec*. I count Brexit as having already established Oceania (it having marked Airstrip One's independence from Eurasia). * cool, this totally ties into my other hobby (online radicalisation): http://www.williamengdahl.com http://www.williamengdahl.com
  - eternalban 4y ago
    He plays fast and loose with some facts, but is hardly alone in that hobby. For example, he completely ignored USSR's occupation of Iran in context of Truman Doctrine. However, he does provide historical facts that were entirely obscure to me (at least) but have checked out, specially related to matter in the 19th c.