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Ask HN: What do you think about Peter Zeihan's Geopolitical Analysis?
I've been watching some videos and Keynotes delivered by Peter Zeihan, I may read his last book, but I would like to know HN's opinion of analysis. All his explanations really make sense but his claims sound hyperbolic. Let me try to recap some of the things he says (I'll probably forget many things):
- Most of the developed world save notable exceptions like the USA (in USA the Boomers are retiring but the Millenials will take over) is aging at an accelerated pace as a result of the decrease on the birth rates. In Europe, Germany which is currently like the 3rd or 4th economy worldwide, will cease to be so powerful because of their demographics alone. In addition to that, much Germany's industry was based on cheap gas from Russia which is no longer an option, and raw materials from Russia and China which also will no longer be an option.
- China's demographics are even worse, as a result of their one child policy, and their population is aging at a much faster pace. Average birthrate are like 0.8 and theres many more men than women which means that in 10 years there will no be China as we know it anymore. Add to that the results of Zero Covid policy which destroyed their economy, and now since they don't have herd immunity a full blown covid meltdown, the Evergrande meltdown (which I didn't hear him mention, that's my own addition) and some other factors and things don't look good for China.
- 90% of rare earth materials come from China and Russia, mostly China, and most of the manufacturing comes from China and Germany, so that would mean the age of abundance where we have everything, is gone (or will be soon).
- Russia's population is also aging dramatically, and since Russia is basically and basically impossible to defend, that's the main reason why Putin invaded Ukraine, but then he would have to invade Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Georgia, Azerbajan, Uzbekhistan, and a long list of other countries to feel secure. And they had to do it now because in a few years they won't have the amount of 20 year olds to wage a war.
- Russia is the main exporter of fertilizer and potash worlwide, so this year and into next year there will be famine in many parts of the world because there will not be enough fertilizer for everyone.The USA will be fine because it produces most of the inputs to grow food. China will not be fine because it imports most of the imports to grow food.
- 80% of neon production is gone since the first phase is done in Russia and the second phase is done in Ukraine. Neon is used for lasers in semiconductor industry. The other 20% comes from China...
I'm sure I'm missing lots of points to connect, but I think there's enough for now. What do you think of all of this? Do you have any other insights about the world to make?
- Russia's ships can't get insurance, so they can't transport oil and other exports. Russia kind of provides state insurance and so ships with oil go to Portugal where then China moves them to some rented supertankers and go the long route bordering the continent to China, but those supertankers are very vulnerable to pirates or any rogue state just taking them by force. Also there's not storage capacity so if the ships start queing it blocks the flow. Production cannot be stopped, specially since in cold weather if it stops moving oil converts into a gel and breaks all the machinery which took 30 years to reproduce last time that happened. So if we take 4 million barrels a day out, we can get to 180 dollars a barrel.
- 0xmarcin 4y agoGermany already took enormous amounts of immigrants from Syrian war. Now they "benefit" from Russian-Ukraine conflict. I think there will be zero/null shortage of the workforce there. The country is still desirable target for immigrants. Instead Germany problem may be lack of natural resources, they relied heavily on cheap commodities from Russia. Probably they will try to go back to business as usual as fast as possible to restore their competitiveness. China: just as government introduced one child policy it may introduce 2 or 3 children policy, saying e.g. that with 2 children you will get an apartment for free or that childless ppl have to pay 50% tax rate... So far China is not a consumption society, so decrease in population will not translate to a huge decrease in consumer spending. Instead they still rely on exports as engine of the economic growth. Introducing sanction against China by EU & US may be a greater hit than demographics. Probably we will have to find ways to produce e.g. batteries without rare earth metals. New deposits where recently also found in Sweden. No government will risk famine in their own country to support "rich countries sanctions". Certainly neither India nor China will. Poor countries will buy regardless if the wheat comes from Russia or Ukraine, not buying means starving a lot of people and social unrest. Time to build neon producing facility in the west... I think the current situation will be remembered as a small local conflict, just as Vietnam war, first gulf war and hundreds of other conflicts. Despite propaganda both sides (NATO, Russia) do not want to go to the full scale conflict (see NATO and Russia behavior after a missile have fallen on Polish border). Some EU politics still want to talk with Putin (Macron), some countries (Hungary) want Russia to actually win. My country (Poland) went "full panic mode", mostly because populistic government tries to use this conflict to boost their chances of winning an election coming in September. As for Taiwan there was already a serious conflict about that island: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Taiwan_Strait_Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Taiwan_Strait_Crisis Looks like we have a replay of that today. Just as south korea wants to avoid war at all costs (because the war will be on their territory), Taiwan want to also avoid war at all costs. China wants to unite with Taiwan on peaceful terms, otherwise we would see missiles flying over the island a long time ago. Overall I believe Chinese government is kind of "brute gentlemens" or maybe even merchants, while Russian gov are just brutes. Nevertheless as long as Russia and China do not pull from stuff like fight with global warming, WHO (US shame on you) there will be no WWIII. Do let media panic and propaganda get to your heart.
- 4y ago