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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   33772 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 7, 2025

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Whether that was smart or not, historians will debate, but we were never going to keep this going much longer, certainly not beyond 2035. Fundamentally, because the U.S. government is insolvent. It burns through $10 billion a day it doesn’t have, backed by the money printer, which funds the military, which enforces global security, which props up the dollar, which keeps the money printer running.

This makes no sense to me. Why does globalism depend on the solvency of the USG? Because the US is responsible for keeping piracy on the high seas to an absolute minimum and that's not affordable? Why can't some of that responsibility be delegated to other countries? Of course, this is missing the point entirely, because the military is only the third biggest line item on the federal budget. The US is more likely to be bankrupted by boomers retiring than mowing the lawn off the coast of Somalia.

Global trade has existed for thousands of years. Spices and silk have been imported by the west since time immemorial. We're just haggling about the level.

Why can't some of that responsibility be delegated to other countries?

Past experience? The more parties you delegate enforcement to the more parties whose interests can clash.

You have four or five nations managing this stuff and you risk just being back in the great power era where people protected their own trade and spheres of influence.

Also, a lot of nations simply aren't as good at this right now due to delegating it to America. It's not Somali pirates you need to worry about but state-sponsored groups like the Houthis, and their sponsors themselves if they decide to pull a Saddam.

Global trade has existed for thousands of years. Spices and silk have been imported by the west since time immemorial.

Your example - a luxury good like silk - is telling.

We live in an incomparably more connected time and much smaller falls can lead to large changes in our standard of living.

Past experience? The more parties you delegate enforcement to the more parties whose interests can clash.

You have four or five nations managing this stuff and you risk just being back in the great power era where people protected their own trade and spheres of influence.

There's a different party on each end of the trade. The route between those parties being protected benefits both and hurts nobody.

Also, a lot of nations simply aren't as good at this right now due to delegating it to America. It's not Somali pirates you need to worry about but state-sponsored groups like the Houthis, and their sponsors themselves if they decide to pull a Saddam.

Indeed, but that's hardly insurmountable with a bit of will and training.

But I must repeat again that military spending is not the elephant in the room.

We live in an incomparably more connected time and much smaller falls can lead to large changes in our standard of living.

Agree. But I don't agree that reduced trade or living standards means the "end of globalism".

There's a different party on each end of the trade. The route between those parties being protected benefits both and hurts nobody.

This is a classic free rider problem. It’s always better to have the other guy go crack skulls for you than to do it yourself.

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