{"id":47998,"date":"2019-08-26T19:24:01","date_gmt":"2019-08-27T00:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=47998"},"modified":"2019-08-26T19:24:03","modified_gmt":"2019-08-27T00:24:03","slug":"the-great-switch-the-geo-politics-of-looming-recession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=47998","title":{"rendered":"The Great Switch: The Geo-Politics of Looming Recession"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Great Switch: The Geo-Politics of Looming Recession\u00a0<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Is the prospect of looming global recession merely an economic matter, to be discussed within the framework of the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 \u2013 which is to say, whether or not, the Central Bankers have wasted their available tools to manage it? Or, is there a wider pattern of geo-political markers that may be deduced ahead of its arrival?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, we have some help. Adam Tooze is a prize-winning British historian, now at Columbia University, whose histories of WWII (The Wages of Destruction<\/em><\/a>) \u2013 and of WWI (The Deluge<\/em><\/a>) tell a story of 100 years of spiraling; \u2018pass-the-parcel\u2019 global debt; of recession (some ideologically impregnated) , and of export trade models, all of which have shaped our geo-politics. These are the same variables, of course, which happen to be very much in play today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tooze\u2019s books describe the primary pattern of linked and repeating events over the two wars \u2013 yet there are other insights to be found within the primary pattern: How modes of politics were affected; how the idea of \u2018empire\u2019 metamorphosed; and how debt accumulations triggered profound shifts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But first, as Tooze notes, the \u2018pattern\u2019 starts with Woodrow Wilson\u2019s observation in 1916, that \u201cBritain has the earth, and Germany wants it\u201d. Well, actually it was also about British \u00e9lite fear<\/em>of rivals (i.e. Germany arising), and the fear of Britain\u2019s \u00e9lites of appearing weak. Today, it is about the American \u00e9lite fearing similarly, about China, and fearing a putative Eurasian \u2018empire\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The old European empires effectively \u2018died\u2019 in 1916, Tooze states: As WWI entered its third year, the balance of power was visibly tilting from Europe to America. The belligerents simply could no longer sustain the costs of offensive war. The Western allies, and especially Britain, outfitted their forces by placing larger and larger war orders with the United States. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Great Switch: The Geo-Politics of Looming Recession\u00a0 Is the prospect of looming global recession merely an economic matter, to be discussed within the framework of the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 \u2013 which is to say, whether or not, the Central Bankers have wasted their available tools to manage it? Or, is there a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[21269,124,130,8222,1264,827],"class_list":["post-47998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-geopolitics","tag-adam-tooze","tag-central-banks","tag-china","tag-great-financial-crisis","tag-recession","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47998"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48001,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47998\/revisions\/48001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}