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How the last superpower was unchained

June 19, 2018

How the last superpower was unchained

Think of it as the all-American version of the human comedy: a great power that eternally knows what the world needs and offers copious advice with a tone deafness that would be humorous, if it weren’t so grim.

If you look, you can find examples of this just about anywhere. Here, for instance, is a passage in The New York Times from a piece on the topsy-turvy Trumpian negotiations that preceded the Singapore summit. “The Americans and South Koreans,” wrote reporter Motoko Rich, “want to persuade the North that continuing to funnel most of the country’s resources into its military and nuclear programs shortchanges its citizens’ economic well-being. But the North does not see the two as mutually exclusive.”

Think about that for a moment. The US has, of course, embarked on a trillion-dollar-plus upgrade of its already massive nuclear arsenal (and that’s before the cost overruns even begin). Its Congress and president have for years proved eager to sink at least a trillion dollars annually into the budget of the national security state (a figure that’s still rising and outpaces by far that of any other power on the planet), while its own infrastructure sags and crumbles. And yet it finds the impoverished North Koreans puzzling when they, too, follow such an extreme path.

“Clueless” is not a word Americans ordinarily apply to themselves as a country, a people, or a government. Yet how applicable it is.

And when it comes to cluelessness, there’s another, far stranger path the United States has been following since at least the George W Bush moment that couldn’t be more consequential and yet somehow remains the least noticed of all. On this subject, Americans don’t have a clue. In fact, if you could put the United States on a psychiatrist’s couch, this might be the place to start.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Could the U.S. Become the Unrivaled Superpower Again?

January 29, 2015

Could the U.S. Become the Unrivaled Superpower Again?

That Grand Narratives based on short-term trends are often wrong should not surprise us.

Two of the most durable and least-questioned narratives of the past 15 years are:

1. The world is becoming multipolar, meaning that rising power centers such as the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) are expanding their share of the global economy, at the expense of the U.S. and to a lesser degree, Europe and Japan. In sum: the U.S. is no longer the dominant superpower, but merely one power among many.

2.  The U.S. dollar is in a long-term decline due to money-printing by the Federal Reserve and the world’s desire for an alternative to the dollar as the world’s default reserve currency.

Having written extensively on the complex dynamics of currencies (in particular, the strength of the U.S. dollar) since 2011, I am skeptical that these two narratives are correct for the simple reason that the dynamics do not align with these results.

Why the Rising U.S. Dollar Could Destabilize the Global Financial System (November 13, 2014)

What Will Benefit from Global Recession? The U.S. Dollar (October 9, 2012)

Could the U.S. Dollar Rise 50%? (January 12, 2011)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

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