Here's Norway in the year 2016. Almost 50% of their exports are fossil fuel. But: most of the earnings of this trade are the people's wealth, not the wealth of a few individuals. 67% of StatOil are still in the hands of the state and were not privatised.
If African countries only followed Norway in this... their natural resources could heal all 55 countries on the continent in one go. Poverty would be gone, education would rise - hatred among ethnic nations would cease.
Instead, "western" human beings continue to rape the people. 100 years ago, it was "western countries", now it's "western corporations" doing it.
Funny how all countries' economies kicked off from ~2001 onwards. 10 years after the iron curtain fell?
Or was it China's huge population emerging out of poverty in the 90s and formally joining the World Trade Organisation in 2001?
...If African countries only followed Norway in this... their natural resources could heal all 55 countries on the continent in one go. Poverty would be gone, education would rise - hatred among ethnic nations would cease...
Sounds nice, and I hope you're right - I really do. The alternative is, they'd just pump resources into their military(s), in an effort to resolve said border disputes once and for all.
Nobody knows... I suspect however, that there may be a little padlock on this thread's icon, by the time I get home from work.
The list of criticisms that can be squarely aimed at the US is long, but I sure as hell hope they prevail over totalitarian China. Profit seems a poor excuse for empowering an oppressive regime.
And have you been following what China is doing with AI, facial recognistionl, video surveliance, and "Social Credit". It's sort of like Facebook for oppression, they will score you based on your opinions, relationships, and party alignment; and only the ones that are best fit for the government's vision of the China will get access to the good schools, jobs, etc. Minorities, dissidents, those with non-party opinions will be discriminated against. Big Brother.
And have you been following what China is doing with AI, facial recognistionl, video surveliance, and "Social Credit". It's sort of like Facebook for oppression, they will score you based on your opinions, relationships, and party alignment; and only the ones that are best fit for the government's vision of the China will get access to the good schools, jobs, etc. Minorities, dissidents, those with non-party opinions will be discriminated against. Big Brother.
Hang on, you are telling me the US doesn't do this? You could not be that delusional.
I can guarantee you 100% it's been going on in the US just as long and continues to. Facebook, Google, airport fingerprinting and scanning and so on ad infinitum. Same same, different oppressive regime.
Still a massive difference between the two countries Lewis - I can call Trump an idiot when I'm in the US; I wouldn't risk calling Xi Winnie the Pooh if I was in China.
Compared with your current chart where it says $466,2bn:
Sept 2008 shows as $738.6bn (snapshot from waybackmachine),
in 2007, the erliest snapshot on the waybackmachine and only 1 year earlier, it was at $862.3bn.
So your statement "Unfortunately, the CAB is >>getting deeper<< to the point where the increasing negative balance cannot be arrested (i.e. the rate of change in the CAB is getting worse)" is not factual.
However, if you WANT to be alarmed, there is a reason for that, too. A prediction tool for recession is the inverted yield curve: from the day that longterm interest rates, 10 years, fall below short term interest rates (3 months), it takes 6 to 18 months for the US to develop a recession.
The Fed Bank monitors and updates this same PDF monthly. So you can bookmark it for future, current reference. https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibr...s/Prob_Rec.pdf
Top chart shows the past recession as grey bars.
Here's the daily current view https://ycharts.com/indicators/10_ye...reasury_spread
Recession in 2020 is likely. Just when the Trumpist regime will hand over to the Dems (probably) and they get to clean up the Rep's mess, >again<. Dems are telling this narrative: that it was always a Rep's administration causing the recession, and the Dems inheriting it to clean it up. That cycle left the false impression in voters' minds that Dems have no fiscal/economic competence since it's always under a Dem administration that the people suffer from a recession.
Great post, great links... thanks.
However, I think your listed chronology is a little too narrow. My statement was based on the WEF analysis done last year. Maybe I should readjust my macro view, but the trend (from a statistical PoV) is clear (at least to me).
Hang on, you are telling me the US doesn't do this? You could not be that delusional.
I can guarantee you 100% it's been going on in the US just as long and continues to. Facebook, Google, airport fingerprinting and scanning and so on ad infinitum. Same same, different oppressive regime.
Indeed. Facebook has some shady practices to mine personal data, and Google is not better with their shady practices and treatint the internet as it is theirs.
This is the new 'communism', i.e. just a few companies (the Big Five: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft) are controlling over 90% of the internet. Now it is not a government, but commercial companies.
ON TOPIC:
I think there a two reasons Trump is doing this:
1. He does not know what diplomacy is.
2. He is scared that China will soon take over the US as the number one world economy. And the EU is another threat for him.
About prices of electronics ? Well, in AU and EU a few will change, but the US consumers will be hit hard and that will cost votes for the 6 Nov midterm elections.