2 comments on Bad Losers

1. Al Jahom says:

   January 31, 2023 at 9:08 pm

   I haven’t read Malice’s book yet, but I’m already sceptical about his hypothesis based on what you’ve said about it. Post-Soviet Russia is not a good news story in any meaningful way. Their economy is a train-wreck hitherto propped up by massive commodity resources, which were tapped using western technology and technicians. None of this is an option any more and the Russians can’t do most of this stuff themselves – not innovation, operation or maintenance. And they’re now in a war where they’re just throwing the bodies of their young men into a meat grinder, even in the face of a demographic timebomb.

   You should get to know Peter Zeihans’s work. Look at his YouTube vids, see his recent Rogan appearance, read his book “The End of the World is Just the Beginning”.

   His thesis is sobering:

   1) Demographics are destiny. Retiring boomers will remove liquidity from investment markets and will milk dry what’s left of our western welfare state. When they die off, we’ll be left with a collapsing residential property market as the number of residences begins to exceed demand and eventually completely overshadows demand. If we have a problem in Europe, then Russia and China have it 10x worse. He predicts the total collapse and break-up of Russia and China in the coming decade.

   2) North America is uniquely capable of self sufficiency in fossil fuels, food and technology. Its demographics are in far better shape than Europe’s as well. Seeing the writing on the global wall, they are turning to isolationism and building a wall around North America to insulate its from the coming global shitshow. See the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act. America are no longer going to act as ‘world police’. The sense in which this is a bad thing is that since WW2, they’ve hitherto assured safe passage on the global shipping lanes thus enabling the supply chains we have in the world today. No Team America, no maritime security. Hello literal piracy. Goodbye global supply chains for fertilizer, food, oil, gas, electronics, vehicles, pharmaceuticals etc.

   3) The popular version of the green agenda – net zero etc – is completely impossible due to the sheer volume of commodities required for electrification of everything. We are not going to be able to decarbonise at any sort of meaningful rate in our lifetimes, and at the same time, for the above reasons, fossil fuel supplies are going to become increasingly precarious and hence increasingly expensive.

   4) This is going to lead to widespread starvation, war and desperate imperial conquest.

   Here in Europe, we will be lucky not find ourselves back in the bronze age before our generation dies. By his estimate, we face a horrendous 20 year decline to come, if we’re lucky, by 2045 the world may recover back to the sort of regional mercantilism we had in the 1970s.

   Slainte 🙂

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2. Al Jahom says:

   January 31, 2023 at 9:27 pm

   (There’s a whole load more on point 1 that I missed out to do with experienced workforce retiring in numbers that cannot be replaced, causing shortage of senior skilled workforce, due to the boomers being such a big cohort compared to every subsequent generation)

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