Ahrrg, I sail the seven seas, looking for booty ta plunder!
In today’s world of hyper-sexualization of everything, plundering booty just doesn’t sound right, but there it is. And you can thank globalization for it. The spread of information about trans/queer ideology was made possible by Al Gore’s invention; then he invented climate Armageddon. How nice.
Globalization: the ticket to vast wealth held by a scant few, serving up cheap junk to lessen our load. We have been to the top of the mountain; we have seen our standard of living explode to glorious heights and yet the majority of us seek a simpler time. Screw Al and his internet. And his global meltdown. And his overall fatness.
A Harris Poll, referenced above, found that 77% of Americans age 35-54 surveyed want to return to the age before the internet. That is a shocking number, especially when considering these are the people who grew up and entered adulthood in the shadow of the internet and nurtured it as it became integral to everyday life. Even more shocking is that 63% of 18- to 34-years-olds have the same yearnings. This is the group that has never known what it’s like to be tech-free and it’s too much for even them. Since modern globalization relies heavily on the internet to thrive, is this a rejection of globalization?
Before we get into defining what globalization is and how it came about, we should look to see who will be the most devastated by its eventual loss. Beyond China—which will be a completely different animal we’ll look into later—the grand loser is…
Europe.
Globalization was put forth by the U.S. and accepted by the free world as a means to rebuild Europe and Japan after the destruction from the Second World War. Currently, Japan with its already over-the-hill gang is actually in better shape because it has embraced its aging population and begun to adjust their economy accordingly. And Europe?
Smug asses, one and all.
Don’t get me wrong. I love Europe. I spent some formative years there and have traveled quite a bit within the “Old World” and there is just something about it that is comforting. (I’ll add, though, that hanging around with them for any length of time transforms their guttural but sensual—ooh la la—accents into nails on a chalkboard to my dainty Texan ears.) Their leaders, however, are Eurotrash and fascists and in the attempt to hang on to what they once had, they are trying to ensnare the rest of us into their fascist economic despotism; at least that’s what I believe we’ll figure out.
As we’ll see, in a future column, Europe is caught in a demographic death spiral where their high-living, democratic-socialist ways are catching up to them. Under the guise of Net Zero!, Germany is in the process of major deindustrialization. Under Net Zero!, The Netherlands, unfortunately, is unilaterally relinquishing their tractors (The Netherlands is—or was—the second largest exporter of agricultural products behind the United States) and natural gas (did you know Holland has the largest natural gas field in Europe?) for windmill (they are known for their wind) and solar power where the sun peeks from behind the clouds every-so-often.
What Rebuilt the World
There is one factor that makes globalization possible: a strong military, especially sea power. After WWII, only the U.S. held that card—and still does—which allows us to project power anywhere at any time. We could have used it to finish off the world and become the largest empire ever seen but we were magnanimous; we threw them a lifeline and for a long time, we’ve kept them all prosperous—and in check. We became the police force for free trade and it could be argued that much of our foreign policy and endless military expeditions were the result of the role we accepted.
There was one comment made by BlackRock CEO Larry Fink that made me consider the relationship between globalists attempting to control the world versus real evidence that globalization is collapsing. He said globalization is dead because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Maybe the reaction by the Biden Administration exposed America’s faltering abilities to “manage” the world?
The seeds of globalization were planted in 1944 with the Bretton Woods Agreement. It established the gold-backed dollar as the world’s reserve currency and promised free trade. Gold and guns protected our allies and, eventually, overcame our communist adversaries.
The system the agreement created was fully operational by 1958 but died an ignoble death in 1973 after we manipulated the value of the gold-backed dollar under Nixon, forcing a raid on Fort Knox by said holders of dollars, which then forced us to cut loose gold and float money for make-believe wealth—a fiat currency. Luckily, after multiple oil embargoes, OPEC agreed to exclusively sell oil in dollars, giving rise to the petrodollar and the U.S. dollar remaining as the world’s reserve currency. It preserved the skeleton of globalization. Political and technological advances put meat back on those bones—and not the type of meat Bill Gates is cooking up.
The tenets of Reaganomics included deregulation that broke-up AT&T into the Baby Bells, thus creating competition. It spurred high-speed data lines that could accommodate the demands for computer-to-computer communications as well as the cellular phone market. These new technologies allowed for the near instant communications needed to automate much of today’s supply chain to hyperdrive globalization.
The other impact from the 80s was just-in-time manufacturing. A factory owner once purchased all of the materials needed and warehoused them close by to feed the manufacturing process. This is costly and requires a lot of capital upfront. If parts and other materials were to be shipped and delivered just as the assembly line needed those parts, the owner saves on the warehousing and can also inject capital as needed instead of tying it up in inventory. The globalized system, made possible with faster communications and automated processes, facilitates needs cheaply allowing for savings in raw materials, manufacturing, shipping, wholesale, retail, and, ultimately, your pocket.
Shipping costs from around the world plummeted by supplying automated systems to provide the logistics of getting raw materials to finished products and into your possession. Then the advent of containers allowed cargo ships to carry more, further lowering costs. Globalization without the internet could not be nearly as efficient and the quality, quantity, and variety of products available to you would be far less.
It’s a machine that lifted many nations out of poverty and the U.S. became the primary benefactor in the system that, really, we built. Win-win. (That’s one of those absolutely inane terms launched by consultants of my era. Along with “shifting paradigms”, I walked away without becoming addicted to sayings that really mean nothing at all. Now it’s “sustainability” and “diversity, equity, and inclusion”. Someone please pass me a straight edge razor.)
However, there was a huge cost to our system. Heavy manufacturing fled to distant shores that were more cost effective and we paid for it by turning the most productive manufacturing sector in the world into the Rust Belt. It also pushed us into a service sector economy where lattes on the way to work are more efficient than the time and effort to brew your own cup of coffee at home.
For the most part we build nothing and when GW Bush—with the help of a Republican congress—okayed Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) with China in 2000, it paved the way for the communist nation’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its meteoric rise to manufacturing powerhouse.
Trade deficits are more than just numbers we hear, from time-to-time, on the evening news. A trade deficit with another country equals money flowing from our wallets to theirs; it is a transfer of wealth. A case can be made for this freeing our economy to focus on more meaningful endeavors, such as high-end technological advancements, but it also destroyed an entire economic sector of our nation. Now, we realize that we can’t even get baby aspirin without the help of China’s Communist Party and our trade deficit with them in 2022 was $383 billion. Of course, China finances some of our humongous federal government debt; so, there is that.
Is (was) globalization good? Yes. It has delivered on what was promised. While we fight in the so called forever wars, it is a far cry from the major wars experienced in the 19th and 20th centuries. That was the goal.
It delivered to us, the United States, the greatest economy the world has ever seen though that spurred greed on an unprecedented level. It gave us efficiencies that spurred more technological advances that, in theory, gave us an unparalleled standard of living. However, with all of that wealth came schemes to redistribute that wealth which has caused more harm than all of the do-gooders believed could be accomplished and gave the financial class absolute power. As the old saying goes, the rich got richer and the poor poorer. Utopia, it has not delivered.
There are signs that globalization is faltering. The supply chain, damaged by the covid overreaction, is slow to rebound. Crumbling infrastructure throughout the advanced economies have train derailments and bridge collapses a regular occurrence. The inability to thwart ransomware and the seizure of infrastructures, such as the Colonial Pipeline system hijack in 2021, are huge threats. But it will be, in the end, the depopulation of the western world, for various reasons, that will intensify the pressures on the system.
There is a whole biosphere in the geopolitical world to explore such as entities like the World Economic Forum, multinational corporations, and the bureaucratic state that are forming the perfect trinity of tyranny. Globalization has handed people with ill intent a mechanism to seize power from the very people it has benefited the most. If globalization is collapsing then it is going to be managed by this trinity to their advantage. We have our cake but they aren’t going to let us eat it.
Unless, of course, it contains cricket powder.
Next time on As The World Turns…
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck… it’s His Galactic Majesty Herr Doktor Klaus Schwab! Sieg heil!