re: Supply Chains Implode As "Price Doesn’t Even Matter Anymore"

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I'm betting on China. The 21st Century Competition will be won by China.



That Belt Road Initiative is going to kick the shite out of everyone else.

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China is a ponzi scheme waiting to implode

They have to simultaneously:

Placate the middle class with economic growth and material goods so they don't get restive over their lack of political and social freedom.

Keep a still-massive underclass under control who see that the benefits of modernization aren't trickling down to them.

Deal with restive minorities. When a man has nothing left to lose, you can't intimidate him any more. The Uighurs will figure that out sooner rather than later and the Tibetans will be watching with interest.

Try to assert their will on neighbors who universally hate and distrust them, and try to play a colonial game in the third world that every other empire has failed at.

Oh by the way there's a looming demographic bomb with an aging population and not enough young people being born to support them.

Maybe China will surmount all these challenges, but I'm betting on a Soviet-style implosion that nobody saw coming, except a few scholars who paid attention to the trends that were plain to see for anyone willing to look.