The Changing Global Order: Perpetual War | Izabella Kaminska

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Guest: Izabella Kaminska
Host: Dr. Joeri Schasfoort @Money & Macro ​

Thanks to Carlo Humpert for clip selection!

[baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis]

No the Roman Empire didnt colapse because it didnt have fossil fuels. China didnt have fossil fuels either yet it stayed united excluding the civil wars which Rome also had.

[someonespotatohmm]

I feel Izabella glosses over that energy can be used more efficiently. Assuming economic growth and energy are directly linked, doubeling our efficienty gives you acces to twice the ammount of energy. The costs are increased production requirements, but with the information age production efficienty has increased increadable ammounts.
Even if your acces to production and resources stay the same forever. The economy, or atleast the quality of life, can increase. Because each bit of production that is left over can be used to increase efficienty. Giving you effectively more resources and production over time.
edit: helium is rare and a byproduct of gas extraction but didn't she mean Xenon that is used in the semiconductor industry (and is a byproduct of artificial fertilizer production).

[bumbiedumb]

Love that she mentioning Nat gas importance for fertilizers production. Russia, Ukraine & Belarus is one of the largest producer of fertilizers and potash. Along with energy, makes up the two pillars of the foundation of economy. Fertillizers prices have doubled since the war started. coupled with the low margins of modern agriculture, this will be a trigger for a lot of conflicts everywhere and threaten the world economy hegemony's control. Regime changes are starting to happen in politically fragile areas. (i.e. The main cause of current tension and conflicts in Pakistan & Sri Lanka is inflation and more will soon follow.)

After failing their initial blitz strategy. Russia changed their strategy to a game of brinkmanship with the west. They know their pain tolerance is way higher than the west and the world. Once high inflation cost starts to sink in later of the year, conincides with the bi-electoral elections in November that will create a split government. It does not take a guy with PHD to see what is going on.

Another pet peeves of western Economist view is that they perceived peripherals players are just pieces on the chess boards that static and unable to make any decision or moves by themselves.The world is dynamic! Outside of the west, most of us thinks this way: "Its russia, Iran & China now, it might be us next."

For example, If you look closely at what some of the peripherals players are doing such as saudi, whose slowly taking actions moving away from the petroldollar and recently dropping IEA oil data which data comes from the west and therefore sets the price of Oil. They knows that since Biden came into power, US have ostrasized Saudi with their grandstanding on human rights. US is no longer perceived as a pillar of the legitimacy.

Look at India, going into 2021 strong on the back of Quad Alliance. Now looking more like an ally of Russia and enemy of the west in 2022. Most of their decisions could be linked back to the ruling party main voter base, the farmers and agriculture sectors. Rising Energy prices will pushes India away from he west and closer to russia due to raising production cost. You screw with the farmers, you screw with india.

China? Ironically, they are the easiest to predict. Everything they do is all about the long con. Their actions such as South China Sea dispute, MIC 2025, Carbon neutrality 2060 can be easily trace back to their Political Core & Social Contract, Stability and growth. One less talked points of the CCP and the Chinese people is how strong and clear the Social contract the people and the government has with one another. A strong and clear Social contract gives the CCP theoretically a Blank check in Political Will. This cannot be understated. The last time US had a strong social contract, they are able to sent someone to the moon using pen and paper. The CCP will act rationally and thus easily to predict except for one small particular point, Taiwan. Nothing will be off the menu once Taiwan come into play. If you want to understand why, read more on Kishore mahubani's work.

Finally ASEAN which is where I'm from. Most of the country here had seen stable growth and government since the 1998 financial crisis. We are at the cross road of the economic centers of the world. Where trades from east and west flows through. Most country within do not strongly ally ourselves with either side. We had seen how dirty the West can play back during the cold war and the War on Terror had all but soured relations with most of the muslim countries for an entire generation. On the other hand, We simply too close to china to trust them as our allies, we do however like their money. Theoretically, ASEAN might be pulled closer to the Western Sphere if US provides more incentives and economic concessions but their human rights grandstanding and Internal unwillingness will never see this bears fruit. Just look at what happened to TPP, or the new indo-pacific economic framework its literally a useless piece of paper for the photo ops. No one here truly take US promises seriously anymore around here.

Historically, the world order changed "gradually, then suddenly." I doubt it would be any exceptions this time around. Except probably for a long while there will be a Multipolar world order due to higher stakes and risk. Coupled with climate change, our children will be living in interesting times.

P.s. To many, the US main problem in the future will be a bipolar political party, but the greatest timebomb will be their shifting demographic make-up. Thou it is rarely spoken or heard, It took my country, Singapore put in a huge amount of attention and political bandwidth to manage the enthic relations well along with constant monitoring to make sure the country stays united and shares a commonly agreed culture. The majority in the US will start feeling marginalised and the rise of ethic/cultural tension will soon becomes the main problem. I feel that we are barely seeing the cracks of it right now.

[shoobeze]

Very interesting talk. Can you please make a video about Ukraine's economic problems, why this country is so poor and who is profiting from it?

[Magus_Michael]

The answer is nuclear power. Money is not to constraint. Money is nothing but a representation of real value, energy, food, land, technology, human capital, ect...

[antoniom]

Take an other perspective on EU agricultural production: they predicted 10% loss in yeld and rising cost on chemicals. But before they use to have overproduction about 25%, use to dump milk on the fields, tomato on the squares near town hall etc
So, maybe it comes back to equilibrium?

[mrm]

05:05 is anything she mentioned about rome true or is that just her opinion?

[fairenoughthenwhat]

China has become the world's production engine and Russia provides a huge percentage of the world's natural resources and raw materials. Whatever you do, you cannot avoid massive negative consequences for 'team West' at least over the short to medium term, with 'team East' benefiting. Europe cannot afford to stop purchasing energy from Russia without huge hardship to the people and large deindustrialisation in places like Germany. For years now, Russia and China have headed the warnings and have been in preparation for military engagement and this economic war of attrition. Sever hardship for Europe (and to varying degrees others western nations) is now baked into the cake.

[dlperk]

There's a bloke in these comments who has stated that one option to humanity is to become an "interstellar species." By the way, if I were an "alien" or extraterrestrial intelligence observing current events on Earth, or just judging from how even in these comments your predilection (regardless of who may be "right") for fighting EACH OTHER, I would think your whole damned "species" ("individually and collectively) was (as the Irish and Scottish say) "fookin nuts" and I had happened on what could only be called a planetary asylum (as in insane asylum). In other words, none of us extraterrestrials would want your "species" to go one centimeter past your own sun.

[silentwilly]

Personally I feel you two are missing the big picture. Izabelle may be right if you take the short term perspective that energy/carbon emissions are an issue and that a zero growth going forward as a consequence (I'm not entirely convinced this will be the case) is a problem. The real problem is the premise that we've to strive for eternal economic growth. Almost half a century ago the Club of Rome produced a report stating the obvious, unlimited growth in a limited world is not sustainable. Yet we keep striving for economic growth and just (try to) solve the symptoms of this unsustainable behavior such as acid rain, hole in the ozone layer, nitrogen emissions, greenhouse gas emissions, etc etc. Though we may be able to fix some issues, ultimately this will fail. There are fundamentally only 2 solutions to the issues we face. Either we aim at a long term economic growth of zero, or we become an interstellar species. Even if we achieve the interstellar species solution, the local growth will eventually have to be essentially zero as we will run into fundamental logistical issues. With current technologies the second option is not possible, though interplanetary may be achievable within a century or so and could give some room for growth. Ultimately we've one way or another to move towards a zero economic growth solution. Given the strive and the competitive advantages that economic growth provides I'm not optimistic that this will be achieved and fear the final outcome will one way or another be some kind of Armageddon after which the cycle can start again.