If you want to start closer to "the good stuff", click HERE (about 30 minutes into the video).
The lines are the amount of gross debt each country "owes".
SPOILER: We are going to have to learn how to "assemble" things again. Financially, we are fairly well buffered from contagion but China is near the end of the supply-chain and a lot of tentacles feed into it.
Suggested by Lucas Machias
Thanks ERJ. I started at the 30 minute mark (but may go back) and got up to the questions, which I will listen to later.
ReplyDeleteI did find the information about Vietnam and their transformation very interesting.
Wow
ReplyDeleteI have seen article on “de-dollarization”,saying they would like to settle trades in rupees, rubles, and yuan. What do they want to buy with those currencies? As of today, it takes 89 rubles, 83 rupees, or 7 yuan to buy 1 US dollar. Then with 2,040 US dollars you can buy 1 gold Troy ounce. Not a lot of solidity here. But the demographics are interesting in the video.
ReplyDeleteIf/when China goes tits up, and it's not a certainty it will, Americans will have to learn to do without. Because over the past 30+ years we have exported virtually ALL of our manufacturing skills, knowledge and equipment. And we will NOT be getting any of it returned. We would need to start over. And that would take a lot of time and a lot of capital, which we don't have.
ReplyDeleteI was talking to someone responsible for the supply chain for a large American manufacturer this last weekend. If I told you his company, you'd recognize it. He said they are busy on shoring the supply chain as fast as they can.
DeleteBut can enough companies onshore enough capacity quickly enough?
DeleteInteresting but I fear I don't have the background skillset to properly understand his message.
ReplyDeleteChina might only be some 3.5% of world trade importer BUT they are a MASSIVE American Food Importer.
Otherwise, Dan and others are correct, we are going to have to do with a LOT LESS in consumer goods and learn and rebuild our ability to create our own stuff.
As I asked one buddy who was a Buy American fellow. What American industry? Even his underwear came from China-Vietnam.
Got extra underwear and socks? Might be nice.
Change is coming. Keep trusted family close. Stay away from crowds. Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.
ReplyDeleteUgly is not the word for it...
ReplyDeleteWe are in a worse situation than China. Really.
ReplyDeleteOr at least for us it will be a more personal in our face chaos event. The Great Depression was a worldwide event.
DeleteFamilies that look ahead and make difficult choices about what home to multi-family in as to pay for taxes and such did far better than those that fumbled around until their homes and farms were being sold on the courthouse steps for pennies on the dollar for debts, Bankers guarded by Sheriffs.
Protect your trusted friends and trusted family members. A good well and garden is worth more than money in the (soon to be frozen) bank.
One problem is we have lost the greybeards who had the institutional knowledge to build what has been lost.
ReplyDeleteOr they/we got pushed out and do not relish having to go back and face-the-stupid again.
DeleteI think it is not just building the infrastructure, you also have ot face the much higher labour costs you will pay to get local people to work there. I am not sure if you will survive the sticker shock when the products land in the shops.
ReplyDeleteReducing the entitlements that makes it possible for a very large percentage of the population to NOT work would go a long way to improving their work ethic.
DeleteA single mother with two-kids gets about $60k of benefits a year in Pennsylvania without having to work. An additional $20k/year to put in 40 hours a week is not much incremental incentive.
China has a long history of economic collapses, and routinely it turns into a massive bloodbath. They may be the first since 1945 to use nukes and it may be against their own people.
ReplyDelete