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Conceptual Model of State Collapse
Summary A minimalist conceptual model of the state is presented in which the fundamental basis of state existence and continuity is the flux of produced resources between producers and the needed state apparatus, while contending with powerful domestic non-state actors and foreign challenges. External conditions that reduce per capita production threaten state continuity, and the […]
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Everlasting Collapse: 70 Years’ Predictions of China’s Imminent Doom
From 1980-2008, EU GDP grew 2.7%, the US 3%, and China 9% . Since then, the EU has averaged 1.5%, the US 1.8% and China 7%. In other words, China’s economy has grown 300% faster than Western countries’ and, as they slip out of the top bracket of high income countries, China is entering it. […]
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People’s Response to APEC: Breakdown or Breakthrough?
The Doomsday Clock advances 10 seconds closer to midnight. Global temperatures rise beyond 1.5°C. Forests burn. Hurricanes intensify. Meanwhile, countries produce bombs and bullets, the New Cold War inches us closer to nuclear annihilation, and US President Donald Trump extorts the world. The response of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is to draw from the […]
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Trump’s Whims on Tariffs and Trade Deficits
“Trump’s tariff formula explained: How rates were determined for each country” IMAGE/USA Today/Duck Duck Go Tariffs Tariffs are a tax imposed on imported goods to protect local industries in order to be self-sufficient and thus avoid being taken advantage of. For a very long time, Britain charged tariffs on many items, only in 1860 were […]
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The Retreat of Free Trade
Free markets? Free trade? The modern economic world has little time for these erroneous, misdirected terms. More evident are the feelings of resentment, prejudice and indignant parochialism more accurately called My Country First, and Everyone Else Last. Back your industries; hobble the competitors. And everyone is doing it, except certain ideologues who, childishly, cling to […]
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Following US’ Protectionist Policies, Canada is Shooting Itself in the Foot
Illustration: Chen Xia/GT On the political stage, Canada often seems to trail behind the US. After the US government’s announcement in May of imposing high tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EV) and steel, the Canadian government has now decided to follow suit. On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Ottawa would impose a 100 […]
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Is the Reign of the Dollar Coming to an End?
Jiang Tiefeng (China), Stone Forest, 1979. In early June, a rumour began to circulate – which was widely reported in the Indian press as true – that the government of Saudi Arabia had allowed its petrodollar agreement with the United States to lapse. This agreement, made in 1974, is quite straight-forward and fulfills various needs […]
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Russian Economy Growing Faster than Main Western Rivals – Putin
© Sputnik/Evgeny Biyatov The Russian economy keeps growing and has already become the largest in Europe and the fifth largest in the world in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), President Vladimir Putin said while speaking at the ‘Everything for Victory’ forum in the city of Tula on Friday. PPP is a metric popular with […]
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The Fall of the West
In his bestselling book of 1987, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, historian Paul Kennedy chronicles the rise of western power and its world dominance from 1500 to the present. He reports that the rise was not due to any particular event, nor even an unusual series of events. It was, in fact, neither […]
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“Free Trade” as Revealed in the China-United States Paradigm
Free trade is much ballyhooed by the US and the capitalist world, but critics have been skeptical as to whether such trade freely takes place. Investopedia provides a useful definition of free trade: A free trade agreement is a pact between two or more nations to reduce barriers to imports and exports among them. Under […]
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