[americandream]

I notice London and Chicago are more riot-prone than Tokyo or Berlin.

Which probably makes the case for anything but capitalism. But thats another debate. The issue here is whether anyone is capable of taking the wheel of capitalism other than the two core nations, and my contention is, no.

[rangerone314]

I think that in about 60-70 years, Brazil will be a major power, and will probably eclipse the US and Britain.

[americandream]

I think that in about 60-70 years, Brazil will be a major power, and will probably eclipse the US and Britain.

How so? Can you elaborate?

[rangerone314]

I think that in about 60-70 years, Brazil will be a major power, and will probably eclipse the US and Britain.

How so? Can you elaborate?

Large population, growing economy, plentiful (for the most part) resources, rapidly improving institutions (education, research etc), becoming more democratic, they got their ethanol to consume and their oil to sell. No real powerful neighbors. I'm reminded of the US in the 1870's.

[americandream]

I think that in about 60-70 years, Brazil will be a major power, and will probably eclipse the US and Britain.

How so? Can you elaborate?

Large population, growing economy, plentiful (for the most part) resources, rapidly improving institutions (education, research etc), becoming more democratic, they got their ethanol to consume and their oil to sell. No real powerful neighbors. I'm reminded of the US in the 1870's.

Did you read my analysis of what constitutes capitalist style assetisation?

[timmac]

I think that in about 60-70 years, Brazil will be a major power, and will probably eclipse the US and Britain.

How so? Can you elaborate?

Large population, growing economy, plentiful (for the most part) resources, rapidly improving institutions (education, research etc), becoming more democratic, they got their ethanol to consume and their oil to sell. No real powerful neighbors. I'm reminded of the US in the 1870's.

I so agree with that ranger, if I had to live in another country it would be Brazil, they do have some great resources down there and is pretty much like a new America rising as well.

[prajeshbhat]

Ferretlover Wrote

All economies are about people wanting things.

I don't agree. Majority of the people are looking for security. Things come later. Even during housing bubble, people were really looking for economic security. People really believed buying house on borrowed money is a good thing because houses always appreciate. So we can sell the house later and be better off.

[smiley]

Only the Anglo-Saxons refined the technique of extracting second, third, fourth and beyond tiers of estate from a primary estate using rules that are unwritten and inexact (flexible).

Well these instruments are a bit older than that, but indeed the Anglo-Saxons refined it. But I would say that the American type of capitalism only got its final form with the entry of Keynesian elements.

This part of the western economical models is unnatural or rather uncultural for Asians in general. In your rating example, the problem is not only that the Chinese have no track record in ratings, but more that the very nature of these markets is counterintuitive to them. Simply put they understand production, they understand trade, they understand debt and they understand investment. Anything that is not directly tied to tanglible assets or objectives is not worth pursuing.

Actually they might be better in rating then we because we put trillions in now worthless derivates while they kept clear

The Chinese would never try to emulate the Western financial systems, but they do seek to "bend" them to their own preferences. What is happening now is exactly playing in their hands. With the rating agencies limiting debt creation and debt flow, they effectively put a cap on the capitalists system.

Without the access to unlimited financial instruments, governments and companies have to compete on things like production, trade and such. That essentially puts the mercantilist nations on a level playing field.

[americandream]

Only the Anglo-Saxons refined the technique of extracting second, third, fourth and beyond tiers of estate from a primary estate using rules that are unwritten and inexact (flexible).

Well these instruments are a bit older than that, but indeed the Anglo-Saxons refined it. But I would say that the American type of capitalism only got its final form with the entry of Keynesian elements.

This part of the western economical models is unnatural or rather uncultural for Asians in general. In your rating example, the problem is not only that the Chinese have no track record in ratings, but more that the very nature of these markets is counterintuitive to them. Simply put they understand production, they understand trade, they understand debt and they understand investment. Anything that is not directly tied to tanglible assets or objectives is not worth pursuing.

Actually they might be better in rating then we because we put trillions in now worthless derivates while they kept clear

The Chinese would never try to emulate the Western financial systems, but they do seek to "bend" them to their own preferences. What is happening now is exactly playing in their hands. With the rating agencies limiting debt creation and debt flow, they effectively put a cap on the capitalists system.

Without the access to unlimited financial instruments, governments and companies have to compete on things like production, trade and such. That essentially puts the mercantilist nations on a level playing field.

You don't read, do you? I have no doubt that China will excel in mercantilism as has Japan and I am not disputing that. My point is that the financial services monopoly enjoyed by the UK and US is unassailable for as long as capitalism prevails. We will not go back to mercantilism. Mercantilism requires the skills of capital to turn its one mercantilist dollar into ten capitalised ones. Capitalism, with its unwritten common law heritage ensures that instruments are fabricated in a fashion that cannot be emulated in traditions historically bound by coded systems and with no roots in the unwritten, and to that extent the monopoly is safe. Clearly, were this not the case, then countries like Germany would have not only grown their mercantilism, they would been active in the front end of financial services. After all, who in their right mind is going to pass by an opportunty to turn a very profitable dollar and Germany as we know, has been an active mercantilist participant in capitalism from capitalism's early days.

All I can suggest is sit back and watch the role that China, India, Brazil as well as Russia assume in the world. It wont be unlike that enjoyed by Japan....the financial services heart of these mercantilists will still be either London or New York.....of that I have no doubt going by past evidence.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Ferretlover Wrote

All economies are about people wanting things.

I don't agree. Majority of the people are looking for security. Things come later. Even during housing bubble, people were really looking for economic security. People really believed buying house on borrowed money is a good thing because houses always appreciate. So we can sell the house later and be better off.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!!! The illegal maid in California who bought the $700,000+ house while making $6 an hour didn't WANT the house. It was like, her 401-K plan. Brilliant analysis!

This makes as much sense as the Frontline episode about the Upper East Side of New York City and all the people yammering how they had no money after being laid off. Like the lady who was glad she had a Porsche -- so she could sell it to pay her health insurance. It's good that she had the car she said - I am better off since I had it. Another brilliant strategy. A Porsche for a 401-K! She didn't WANT the car -- she wanted a savings account, but was too stupid to find one of a bazillion bank branches in New York City!

I wonder which end of the political spectrum you support....

(And NO, before you ask, I do NOT want to pay her unemployment benefits until she is 65 since she was too stupid or undisciplined to save any money (she looked 50, so should have been working for about 30 years).

[Keith_McClary]

I think that in about 60-70 years, Brazil will be a major power, and will probably eclipse the US and Britain.

It's 7th in GDP and projected to soon pass UK and France for 5th place. Last year it was 7% less than UK.

[americandream]

Ferretlover Wrote

All economies are about people wanting things.

I don't agree. Majority of the people are looking for security. Things come later. Even during housing bubble, people were really looking for economic security. People really believed buying house on borrowed money is a good thing because houses always appreciate. So we can sell the house later and be better off.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!!! The illegal maid in California who bought the $700,000+ house while making $6 an hour didn't WANT the house. It was like, her 401-K plan. Brilliant analysis!

This makes as much sense as the Frontline episode about the Upper East Side of New York City and all the people yammering how they had no money after being laid off. Like the lady who was glad she had a Porsche -- so she could sell it to pay her health insurance. It's good that she had the car she said - I am better off since I had it. Another brilliant strategy. A Porsche for a 401-K! She didn't WANT the car -- she wanted a savings account, but was too stupid to find one of a bazillion bank branches in New York City!

I wonder which end of the political spectrum you support....

(And NO, before you ask, I do NOT want to pay her unemployment benefits until she is 65 since she was too stupid or undisciplined to save any money (she looked 50, so should have been working for about 30 years).

His point is that people are looking for security in much of what they do. Instances of exhuberant stupidity or downright criminality don't invalidate the point. They perhaps support the view that capitalism does encourage bizarre departures in that constant quest for security, as is evident from the examples you posted or Madoff's example where we had a fellow operating a ponzi scheme as a business.

[americandream]

I think that in about 60-70 years, Brazil will be a major power, and will probably eclipse the US and Britain.

It's 7th in GDP and projected to soon pass UK and France for 5th place. Last year it was 7% less than UK.

Japan has been a leading producer of consumer GDP for decades and yet the world is still run from London and Washington. Libya has been invaded, Iraq was invaded, Somalia had come and gone, the Falklands, Panama, Haiti....I can reel off the countries that the twin heads of the capitalist empire hadn and continue to have some direct impact on the sovereignties of and yet there has been nary a peep from Japan. Instead the cars roll off the ro-ro decks and the containers of toys, phones and tv's continue to be shipped daily. If anything, Japan is whisper quiet when it comes to anything of a geo-political nature...as are Germany France, Russia post the USSR's collapse (bar a few mutterings), India, the AU.....no one really challenges these two.

The last real challenge was the communist bloc but many of them have since become good capitalists or in the case of a few going by the example of one fellow on here, downright lovers of Victorian elitism.

[prajeshbhat]

Ferretlover Wrote

All economies are about people wanting things.

I don't agree. Majority of the people are looking for security. Things come later. Even during housing bubble, people were really looking for economic security. People really believed buying house on borrowed money is a good thing because houses always appreciate. So we can sell the house later and be better off.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!!! The illegal maid in California who bought the $700,000+ house while making $6 an hour didn't WANT the house. It was like, her 401-K plan. Brilliant analysis!

This makes as much sense as the Frontline episode about the Upper East Side of New York City and all the people yammering how they had no money after being laid off. Like the lady who was glad she had a Porsche -- so she could sell it to pay her health insurance. It's good that she had the car she said - I am better off since I had it. Another brilliant strategy. A Porsche for a 401-K! She didn't WANT the car -- she wanted a savings account, but was too stupid to find one of a bazillion bank branches in New York City!

I wonder which end of the political spectrum you support....

First of all I don't believe a maid was offered a $700000 home loan. Even if that's true, she wasn't stupid enough to believe she could live there for ever. She must have thought of selling it at some point, but didn't do it soon enough. And cars don't appreciate. If it was really things they wanted, there are thousands of homes lying vacant and foreclosed, why don't people just live in one of them. It's because those houses have no resale value. Hence no security.

(And NO, before you ask, I do NOT want to pay her unemployment benefits until she is 65 since she was too stupid or undisciplined to save any money (she looked 50, so should have been working for about 30 years)

If she has been working in USA for 30 years, what makes her illegal

[Keith_McClary]

Japan has been a leading producer of consumer GDP for decades and yet the world is still run from London and Washington.

Until recently the govts of US & UK were solvent, or perceived to be. The capitalists are still rich, but these bankrupt govts are a weakening instrument of the capitalists power.

[Keith_McClary]

First of all I don't believe a maid was offered a $700000 home loan.

There were crooked bankers, realtors and appraisers who were raking in $ from a few % commissions on these transactions (it wasn't their money, it was depositors' and shareholders'). All they needed was someone with not much to lose willing to sign some papers and move into a McMansion.

[americandream]

Japan has been a leading producer of consumer GDP for decades and yet the world is still run from London and Washington.

Until recently the govts of US & UK were solvent, or perceived to be. The capitalists are still rich, but these bankrupt govts are a weakening instrument of the capitalists power.

Very true. But the manpower necessary to formulate their various convoluted transactions reside in the UK and US. It's hardly any surprise that the UK and US have a "special relationship" both financial services wise as well as militarily. And it's hardly any surprise that Rhodes laid on scholarships for prospective leaders from the Anglo-Saxon region.

The only two empires I rate of any significance and both share a lot in common are the Anglo-Saxon and Arab Empires. Both enjoy complete cultural and economic dominance over territories they encompass.

The Far East as well as continental Europe are no more than efficient machine toolers for Western financiers.

[SeaGypsy]

"AD"The only two empires I rate of any significance and both share a lot in common are the Anglo-Saxon and Arab Empires. Both enjoy complete cultural and economic dominance over territories they encompass.

The Far East as well as continental Europe are no more than efficient machine toolers for Western financiers.

Getting way off topic for a moment, there was very nearly a huge 'far eastern' influence on the modern world. The weakness of hindu/buddhist cultures has been in their lack of focus on the primacy of business. If there is one strength the Arab and Anglo Saxon have in particular, it is this focus.

This cultural paradigm may shift drasticly post carbon.

[smiley]

You don't read, do you? I have no doubt that China will excel in mercantilism as has Japan and I am not disputing that. My point is that the financial services monopoly enjoyed by the UK and US is unassailable for as long as capitalism prevails.

I did understand and I completely agree,

We will not go back to mercantilism.

This is were we differ.

A financial service is just that; a service. A bank transports, stores and lends money and receives a fee in return for those services. That has been its function for the past thousands of years. It is only in recent history that function has evolved to something that has allowed the financial institutions to grow the size of medium countries. That is what I call modern capitalism.

At the root of this evolution is a disconnect between the financial and the physical markets. I think that there is no more compelling example than the graph below.


The function of the rating agencies is to ensure that financial instruments are adequately represented by tanglible assets. As you can see in the graph above they have been napping for the past years.

My thesis is that if the rating agencies are starting to do what they supposed to have been doing for the past years this form of capitalism is gone and we go back to a situation which is more mercantilist in nature.

[americandream]

@Smiley

I would suggest that you give this two years alright? If you are still here in that time, I venture that nothing will have changed, the the US and UK will still dominate capital and still remain the preferred providers of global financial services. If you are here, touch base with me. Then 5 years. Then 10 years.

I give capitalism at the earliest, the middle of the century.......during which China will remain a passive member of global capitalism, The US and UK will still dominate, we will find a steady standardisation of global labour, the onset of disaffection and eventual emergence of a radical political consciousness that will unseat Anglo-Saxon culture (as well as the Arab empire).

We can argue till we are blue in the face. Instead lets touch base so that I can explain why each of these time scales must pass and conditions (as you will find them then) MUST emerge as they are. Or better still, read Capital by Karl Marx.