Just Saying
You’ll be hearing much more caterwauling and moaning about the death of the Globalization Dream as the WSJ bemoans today.
Of course, the Russian-Ukraine situation will gather its share of the blame. But real truth—one of the major victims in the movement—globalization and all of its attributes were waning and have been for a while as people take the time to understand its attacks on individual and local sovereignties.
Two of its major intended victims are property rights and the rule of law. While you’re at it toss in offshoring jobs and supply chains.
“You will own nothing. But you will be happy!”
You didn’t have to guess there would be a Trump-blaming blurb. We’re not defending Trump, Putin or anyone else. these are fact they don;t want you to hear.
But years ago a dude who is still in Congress named Schumer would rant and rage about China keeping its yuan too weak allowing Americans to buy all that cheap Chinese junk to later clutter their garages with and widen the trade deficit.
He had an apparent love affair with the term, manipulation. It’s apparently okay, however, when Americans, particularly politicians, lobbyists and bureaucrats do it.
The U.S.-led effort to expel Russia from international commerce marks another fracture in the free-trade vision that guided American policy for nearly 30 years, signaling a future where nations and companies shift away from trading with adversaries and focus more on like-minded partners.
The actions taken by the U.S. and Western European allies since Russia invaded Ukraine have been swift and punishing—including banning or scaling back purchases of Russian oil, gas and coal to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin to call off his troops.
The West has also moved to oust Russian banks from international financial networks, while a bipartisan coalition of U.S. lawmakers has introduced legislation calling on the U.S. to press for Russia’s suspension from the World Trade Organization—an action that would have no precedent in WTO history.
“The trading system as we’ve known it, with the World Trade Organization at its core and with a basic set of rules that everyone traded under, is coming apart,” said Jennifer Hillman, a trade lawyer and former jurist on the WTO’s trade court who now teaches international law at Georgetown University.
The new term now seems to be Regional Blocs.,” Pacific Rim, EU, USMCA, TPP, to name a few.
The concept of globalization—nations trading with few barriers, focusing on the industries and services they do best—has been under pressure for years, driven by economic rivalries, factory closings in wealthy countries and those who say open commercial borders aren’t in the best national interest, especially in times of emergency.
Former President Donald Trump stoked the trend by launching a trade war against China in 2018. The Covid-19 pandemic added momentum by exposing U.S. dependence on foreign-made items such as personal protective gear and computer chips.
Ms. Hillman sees the future of global trade agreements could be in large regional pacts where the participants share more common interests, such as the U.S.-Canada-Mexico Agreement signed in 2020.
“I think we’re going to see increasingly blocs, where there are coalitions of the like-minded,” Ms. Hillman said. “Whether it gets to formal clubs that trade with each other and not others or not, that’s hard to know.”
Most of you are aware in America most large corporations do stock buybacks though they once were illegal.
What you might not be aware of the beneficiaries are not shareholders or the newest popular propaganda term, stakeholders, but corporate suits.
Reshoring those supply chains, goes the elitist propaganda, would be costly. Yes, indeed but American workers would earn more and the suits would have to find anohter way to rig the benefits in the zero sum Wall Street game.
One higherup at BlackRock it was recently reported took home $1.1 billion in 2021. When the news leaked it probably pissed off Jamie Dimon who had to settle for a miserly bonus of $30 million plus his salary.
Then there’s is the Internet, controlled by a few autocrats.
The Internet is also becoming fragmented, a phenomenon known as the “Splinternet” as Russia has now joined China in severing many of its internet links with the West to restrict the flow of information.
The era of growing trade comity, and free and unfettered trade with rivals, is looking more like a fad and less like the end point of a trend.
A recent blurb noted that people in Detroit were forming their own Internet. Look for it to spread, a huge nightmare for the enlists set.
And while you’re at it do not leave out or forget the attack on privacy, yours.