I'm not so sure about his metrics on what makes a country declining and another rising. He gathers data like education level and debt and creates an overall score for each country.
He's been pushing this narrative for a while, and his Bridgewater fund has a heavy China tilt, but I'm also watching Polymatter videos which makes me a China bear.
That is certainly true but they also seem willing to go much further than any country has before in an attempt to reverse their population growth decline.
The biggest one has been deflating their property bubble. It still remains woefully unaffordable but they have stalled the relentless rise in housing costs and have started to even bring them down in some cities. Their "housing is for living, not speculation" policy along with 3 red lines and directives to deleverage developer firms are all taking effect.
They banned for-profit tutoring to bring down the cost of raising children (but also ensure children have time to be children). These services are now offered by or in-cooperation with the state school system and no-longer teach the same subjects as are taught during normal school hours. i.e they basically converted it into educational after-school day-care that is strictly non-profit.
1 child policy was replaced by 2 child policy, then 3 and finally abolished. Ironically this was only ever applied to Han Chinese, minorities like Ughyrs have always had uncapped family sizes (another massively misunderstood fact about China but getting into it would just lead to downvote brigade by people that have never even been to China).
So yeah the plan is to reduce cost of living, drive down costs of having children in particular, allow people to have as many children as they want and soon I imagine we will see direct incentives to have children.
Private tutoring will always be available to the rich. The various bans on personal freedom will keep life mediocre and ambitions small for the majority.
China won’t reverse anything and their authoritarian nature will (as always) lead to ruin.
Authoritarianism doesn’t always lead to ruin. It does have negative effects (stifling innovation, increasing likelihood of disastrous civil wars and revolutions etc.) but its not a given.
With China, we’ve seen it go both ways: Disaster under Mao and revitalization under Deng Xiaoping. What will leadership under Xi look like? Remains to be seen.
I don't know very much about him yet, but his life seems to be a fascinating one of gently guiding a failing state (that failed on epic proportions) back into normalcy and then into rapid growth.
If you compared China minus 50 years with China of today then ruin doesn't look so bad.
Take away The West's (citizens) bailing out their financial markets (circa 2007 / 08) and again authoritarian ruin doesn't look so bad.
I'm not stumping for China or authoritarianism; only pointing out that it's early days and there's more to that picture than brash big brush judgements.
> Ironically this was only ever applied to Han Chinese, minorities like Ughyrs have always had uncapped family sizes (another massively misunderstood fact about China but getting into it would just lead to downvote brigade by people that have never even been to China).
I'm from the west and I've never heard a defense or Chinese perspective. I understand that a lot of media we consume in the US is biased, especially on domestic issues abroad. Can you provide a link that explains the misunderstanding?
That's so interesting. I like all of those ideas in theory. Housing for living not profit, equality of opportunity for children, population at replacement (2 per couple) no more. I guess it really takes an authoritarian gov forcing it for those principles to be lived. North American politicians claim to be about some of these things, but it's structurally impossible in a free society.
I have a simple metric for judging the housing market (well, existing, single-family homes, anyway). I open Zillow, sort homes from Low Price to High Price, and count the number of price cut notifications on each page of 40-homes. I also exclude houses built in 2022. In Inland Southern California, very close to 25-percent of the homes have significant price cuts. Something similar seems to be happening in a few other places I'm interested in. Two months ago, in the community I live in, there were zero homes with a price cut notification on their listing. Now it's 25-percent plus. Yeah, my method is not sophisticated, but then neither am I. It is, however, up to date. I ignore prognosticating real estate experts... always.
Still not convinced any measure can change the direction unless capitalism and the experiences and lifestyles it enables are killed completely.
No amount of incentives have managed to push fertility rate above replacement level in any country as far as I can remember.
The data from countries like India also shows that as soon as any region experiences even moderate prosperity, birth rates drop like a rock. Heck, India’s fertility rate is now below replacement level and it happened waaay ahead of schedule.
Zeihan has the same thesis, plus insurmountable geographical challenges.
Really hard to root for a country that now has a population rhomboid instead of a population pyramid. Soon to turn into an inverse pyramid aka a reverse ponzi where the old work to keep the few young alive.
Agreed. Scott Rozelle's _Invisible China_ is very much worth a read on this topic.
The author is not a China hater - far from it. But he lays out in sobering detail the substantial demographic challenge they still face and why they may not escape what is known as at the middle income trap. If anything, I came away with the understanding that while many fear a rising China, it is a China that stumbles that can be more worrisome.
Even conservative GDP and growth estimates will put PRC in high income within a few years. Official 2021 per capita figures is $100 away, so theoretically reachable at end of year even with stymied covid growth projections. That said middle income trap is overstated to the point that it may not exist, including by OG researcher who coined the term. TLDR is middle income countries with successful industrial structure still generally grows significantly better than developed economies.
As for Rozelle, he does good work. But reality is even with deficient interior education infra, PRC is still massively overproducing talent after massive brain drain. There's record youth unemployment, again some of which is covid driven, but talent oversupply was evident pre-covid. The demographic crisis is going to be difficult to negotiate, but ultimately PRC has too manypeople, specifically undereducated older cohorts that can't be integrated into modern economy. Whatever happens PRC will be better off with 1B people than 1.4B, simply too many mouths to feed. Meanwhile there's plenty of talent to go around to build comprehensive power which more than GDP undergirds national strength. Xi/CCP's vison for "moderately prosperous society" was $10000 per capita, leadership knows PRC has too many people to reach developing country incomes. The current pipe "China dream" is $40000 per capita by 2049 (100 year anniversary) probably not realistic but still a lot of overhead to improve productivity. Likely enough to establish PRC as geopolitical superpower even with at low high income level. At end of the day, a populous country with $20000 GDP and 20 aircraft carriers is still much more powerful than a small country with $100000 GDP and none.
One thing that you overlook is something that even Xi points out as an issue: right now, China needs more quality than quantity.
For example, in semiconductors, Taiwan, with a much smaller population (and arriving late in the game) beat the US, Japan and Korea. China, with 600k STEM graduates per year, is still trying to catch up.
On covid vaccines, even Russia has their own vaccine that reach mRNA levels of protection, but China is still stuck with the Covid Zero policy.
Quantity was definitively an asset for Chinese growth based on cheap labor. That source of growth is almost running dry (to the point where they are resorting to labor camps). But at some point, quantity becomes more of a liability.
Yeah entire MIC 2025 move up value chain drama that turned into tech war with US.
TW had decades of head start over PRC serious semi efforts and TBH if it wasn't for US sanctions on Fujin Jinhu, PRC would have EUV machines 3 years ago, might be on 7nm by now, and at least Huawei pre sanctions was world class in semi design. Issue is PRC needs to pursue indigenous quality now which is burden but also opportunity. TW will rely on foreign equipment forever, even though they have monopoly on some supply chains (which PRC is replicating). Shit hits the fan, TW semi can't work without foreign tech, PRC can at least cobble together indigenous 28nm and soon 14nm.
Flip side of US PRC containment policy is seriously taking MIC 2025, i.e. PRC has gap of 300k in IC talent (need 720k according to white paper), and integrated circuit major was only upgraded to first-level discipline in 2018 due to tech war. Previously private companies happy with using western equipment but now they're pursuing entire indigenous supply chain. Something TW can't do. PRC needs to master quantity (in every sector and subsector) and quality, which is much larger task but also large growth potential. Transition is in effect, entire soft tech crack down to redirect talent into hard tech. Excess talent isn't be absorbed in many fields but semi not one of them. But really apart from semi, turbojet/aviation, very high end machinery, PRC is closing gaps everywhere. It's matter of time after finally US tensions finally kicked PRC industrial policy into right priority.
>On covid vaccines, even Russia has their own vaccine that reach mRNA levels of protection, but China is still stuck with the Covid Zero policy.
Because mRNA vaccines makes very little difference. That's just triumphant mRNA propaganda wank. Traditional vax protects marginally less well for severe cases. mRNA virtue was preventing spread, which it doesn't post delta. Reality is Chinese vax is effectively as good as mRNA after booster, but covid zero is simply much better. Extrapolate current TW covid stats after they've capitulated to live with covid to PRC population and you're looking at millions of death even with mRNA. Zero Covid is power move by PRC who has strong state capacity to maintain zero covid (so far), relying on vax is capituation for those who systemically can't. The idea that mRNA would solve PRC covid problems is naive.
>Quantity was definitively an asset for Chinese growth based on cheap labor. That source of growth is almost running dry (to the point where they are resorting to labor camps). But at some point, quantity becomes more of a liability.
PRC labour is not cheap anymore. But PRC is improving both in quality and quantity as seen in export figures and value capture. They're moving up the industrial chain in many sectors. Remember meme that PRC only got $3 per iphone 3G?, it grew to $100 by iPhone X. Meanwhile anyone in manufacturing including Chinese will tell in you labour costs in PRC is becoming uncompetitive. South East Asia is much cheaper, but PRC efficient logistics still comes out ahead.
>resorting to labor camps
Alleged labour camps are poverty alleviation efforts as part of long running rural labour transfer programs. Even "coerced" labour studies by propagandist (Zenz) report payment is substantially higher than the 600M bottom tier Han living on 1000RMB a month. Most companies don't want to hire "cheap" Uyghur workers who has no language proficiency when there are plenty of Han willing to do the job for LESS. They're pressured by central gov take in Uyghurs workers for again, poverty alleviation (and yeah some Uyghurs being pressured to join these PAID programs along with reeducation). There's really no shortage of labours for the kind of low skill work they typically get thrown into. Like even the entire XJ cotton drama over Uyghurs picking cheap cotton is incongruent with fact that most...
I'm point out CCP strategy on poverty alleviation and sinicization to integrate restive regions and meet development/security goals. Not interested in interrogating morality debates, right/wrong reserved for whether it works or not.
Extrapolate world bank data $10,916 (from 2020) @4-5% growth and PRC will cross recently revised WB upper income of $12,696 within a few years. Official CCP stats is $12,551 for 2021, which will put PRC in upper income with 2% growth this year.
Yeah, PRC income disparity is massive, 600M living on un less than 1000RMB a day. But we're talking per capita. Disparity result of Deng's entire, some get rich that resulted in two (or more) tier society, high income coastal one with a few hundred million that can compete globally, and low income interior provinces that can be arbituaged to do things other countries can't (i.e. labour intensive massive low cost infra). It's like UAE with foreign migrant labour but entirely domestic. Xi's trying to fix this with common prosperity with wealth transfers, whether that works is another question. But IMO the math is in his favor. There are so many low income people that it's not unfeasible to dramatically improve their QoL YoY with relatively little resources = party stability. Like you can double 600M on 1000rmb to 2000RMB with annual transfer of 90billion dollars (USD). PRC GDP growth last year is projected to be 900B USD. A fraction of annual growth can be titrated over years to "underclass" to maintain marginal but consistent growth that people will always feel like they're getting richer. PRC can treat common prosperity of developing provinces same way developed nations treated developing nations with aid. That's why IMO demographic problem is managable, at least in terms of stability. The wealthy coastal competitve class has so much talent to increase productivity, while the poor interior provicnes can be easily bribed. Like it's still going to be a high pressure cooker east asian life, but PRC citizen's QoL could consistent increase since base effect of productivity so low, whereas in developed western nations new generations are worse off than their parents.
Self inflicted moderate demographics problems to delay a massive one. Without family planning, PRC would be at 1.7B people. Currently at 1.4B more than 600M are, to be blunt, excess people - underedcuated cohorts that subsists in informal economy that can't be integrated into modern consumption economy. PRC would be tackling a much grimmer demographic bomb if it were not for restricting births.
A significant fraction of the US seems to have problem to adjust to the notion that in the next decades China will become the clear number 1 country in many fields, and the US will be to China, what Germany is to the US.(Similar on a per capita basis, about 1/4 in absolute numbers)
Specifically, the problem is not having a large and young workforce productive enough to support the elderly population.
Observe both the shape and growth trajectory of populations for America, EU, China, and other entities at: https://www.populationpyramid.net. I think a lot of countries are going to have a similar problem - it's not isolated to China. However, China's unfriendly immigration policies, combined with the very large skew in their population demographics (both age and gender) lead many to believe that there will likely be issues like the one I mentioned earlier.
Plus most of their infrastructure is poorly built. On this YouTube channel they lived in China for a decade and rode through it on motorcycles documenting their adventures. It is pretty amazing https://www.youtube.com/c/ADVChina you learn beyond a few big Chinese cities pretty much everything is falling apart, shoddily built with no inspections, and not as rich as the government portrays. Demographics is certainly a problem but everything else is too... China is a house of cards.
Yeah I see I dont think Dalio is actually correct. I think he and bridgewater were the right place at the right time 30 years ago when they started. Returns at the fund actually havent been that amazing. I think he partly likes being in the public eye, and then its also good marketing for his firm.
Everyone who is giving interviews likes being in the public eye. It’s extremely easy not to give interviews - unless you did something like a big crime or are the center of a big story accidentally, you actually have to go out of your way to continue being famous.
It’s also why I’m suspect of everyone famous. It’s just such a warped personality that seeks and maintains a public persona. Not saying that they are evil or bad people - just that their motivations are very suspicious and you should be extremely critical of what a public person says. The vast majority of successful and wealthy people are not public figures and don’t try and parlay their opinions into personal fame.
One technique Ive found of understanding if someone is genuinely knowledgeable or faking it is to read their books or listen to long form podcasts (not just interviews). More data points create a more complete picture.
Also probably more complete in the sense an interview is likely to be edited (to establish or reflect a particular narrative). Along the same lives the interviewer and questions are often set up in advance to accomplish the same.
He is a Sinophile - I sort of agreed with him till couple years back, but then looking at China's zero covid policy, Xi's autocratic rule on steroids and foreign policy gaffes and a distinct change in policy which doesn't really care about the economy - makes me wonder why he is still so bullish on China. Probably has some ulterior motives with his fund or just plain loves being in the media eye.
I think investors don't buy this because long term population health and state capacity are significantly more important 10, 20, 30 years down the line than short term disruptions, and that is why investors are bullish on China.
Shutting a port down for one month is bad, having a hundred million people struggle with long covid is a lot worse. The bull case is pretty simple. The country has governance that is effective enough to tackle problems that most other places have given up on, even if it isn't particularly pretty in the short run.
study results seem to suggest about one in five to one in four people experiences long covid and further:
Shruti Mehta, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Looking at people who report they are not able to function in life, we’ve seen about 3 to 5 percent, which is still a large number.[..]My bottom line is, with a potential cost of $2.6 trillion, that’s so big that there’s nothing, no preventive action, that wouldn’t be worth doing to reduce the burden of long-Covid,” Cutler said.”
So I think one in ten being quite seriously affected is about in the right ballpark, if not too conservative.
Where did you come up with the 100 million number?
Shutdowns have been proven to be ineffective - especially the kind they are implementing - which are counterproductive.
People running out of food rations..
You don't shut down an entire city of 20 million when you see cases in the tens.
Covid is here to stay, you can't be shutting down entire cities over your "zero covid" policy.
Their vaccine is ineffective, and they have too much pride to accept western vaccines.
I think a large part depends on if they are able to translate their infrastructure spending away from unprofitable or marginally profitable ventures like bridges into high-tech nuclear industry, more battery and solar tech, semi-conductors & lithography, etc.
They are certainly capable (we saw that with EVs, batteries and solar already) but proof will be in the pudding.
Is he listened to by serious people ? He sure has a following on youtube, people are parroting his ideas on a weekly basis.. whether he's right or wrong only matters if people in control are influenced too..
Is it wrong though? Maybe its because my immigrant (S. Asian) parents emphasized education heavily so they busted their ass to put me into the best public school districts. Believe me, being the poorest kid in school had its downsides, but doing well in school and sports was a great equalizer.
Now that I'm in my 30s and interact with the broader world, I can't help but realize that most people I meet outside of tech are... how do I say this? Not that bright? I'm talking people who can't add small numbers or multiply, and seem to have short term goals and interests. BTW these people are in the same socioeconomic level (or better, as many of them own property here within their family) as my family when we were brand new to this country.
In Los Angeles the schools are garbage and failing for the most part, and it is pretty sad to see the result - adults who can barely make ends meet and continue the cycle. Since I'm in the tech bubble, everyone else I hang out with is quite well to do and smart, but any time I've met people outside of this bubble I feel depressed and sad.
Like I said, I grew up in the districts where most of the people were focused on providing a good education for their kids. It was in the midwest suburbs right outside of the city metro, and my peers were involved in sports and also studying. Our football/basketball team were AP/honor roll students who also played in the orchestra, and most of them went on to higher education and have really good careers. When I see their Linkedin updates, I'm always happy to have been around such people who also motivated me.
I honestly believe that China, India, and other Asian countries will dominate the next century and beyond. They're pumping out engineers (people who can think, use their brain) while Americans talk shit about themselves and want to degrade. The USA needs to stop treating children like equals/adults (they're not, their brains are still developing) and focus on making sure their kids can think their way out of a box instead of crying or needing therapy (just stop giving them iPad games since they're 2 years old to make them shut up). We need to get off this addiction to instant gratification - that leads to mental retardation because when people don't have to think of alternatives or creative ways to do things, MOST people will just be lazy. We've proven this in animals, and we see it every day with people.
I'm honestly pondering if I should raise my family in the same midwestern suburbs I grew up in because I can't see my kids succeeding here in California. The schools suck, the people are not interested in education, and tech basically carries this state in terms of brainpower.
If China and India are going to be so great, why aren’t they so great already? Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Korea all industrialized faster and have a higher standard of living - all did it in the 1980s - 40 years ago.
So what if you said century. Time doesn’t stop for other countries. They’ll continue to progress, unless they become like Hong Kong and China takes them over - which is another clue for you to ignore.
No I wasn’t educated in America, not do I live there. You’re moving to personal attacks because you have nothing else.
HK, Singapore: City states with (relatively) tiny populations. Acted as capitalist hubs/entry points to larger economies (PRC, Malayasia, SE Asia etc).
Japan, Korea, Taiwan: Massive financial aid from the west, favorable trade deals for being strategic allies of the west.
This isn’t to say that the people in these countries didn’t work to get where they are; they could have absolutely fucked it up. But it’s important to understand structural reasons for why some countries develop faster than the others.
Upto the late 18th century, South + East asia were absolutely the dominant economic powers of the world accounting for over 50% of the worlds GDP. Colonialism was a huge setback but both China and India (+ other South/East Asian nations like Bangladesh) are rapidly industrializing.
Singapore aside, they all did it under authoritarian governance with massive US/western support at peak of US hegemony as essential vassals. They played great on easy mode. VS PRC which was sanctioned/contained by west, India less so but never the less got fucked with but held back by messy democracy that can't put together an industrial policy. And great is relative, high gdp / standard of living is great for citizens, and ultimately that matters a lot. But a country in terms of comprehensive power can be "great" via modest income and sheer scale, i.e. PRC who developed indigenous military, space, nuclear program (all while sanctioned) and essentially every industrial sector has much more comprehensive power than a Asian Tiger that's dependent on US protection and got US credit card for basically playing part in coldwar PRC containment. PRC generally industrialized faster than any of these countries after detente, through much more sectors, but simply have too many people to ever reach parity per capita income. PRC is doing well on hard mode. Not to mention US aligned authoritarian petro states like Qatar, UAE, somewhat Brunai also do much better than the Asian Tigers. At end of day, being small/medium size country under US patronage get rich. Being authoritarian helps, being a resource based economy helps more. But geopolitically, "greatness" extends to more domains than just standard of living. Otherwise, UAE is greater than US. Except they're obviously not.
> Since I'm in the tech bubble, everyone else I hang out with is quite well to do and smart, but any time I've met people outside of this bubble I feel depressed and sad.
So what? You hang out with allegedly smart people, we produce a lot of them, some even provide the world with more utility then working at a FAANG. What point are you trying to make? Are you suggesting there are no unambitious people in Asia?
We have a lot going for us too - our political system relies on institutions, not personalities. We still have the best of everything. Corruption and Nepotism is minimal - your family surname doesn't matter (you are a self-proclaimed example of this). The cream more easily rises to the top.
> I honestly believe that China, India, and other Asian countries will dominate the next century and beyond. They're pumping out engineers (people who can think, use their brain) while Americans talk shit about themselves and want to degrade.
> The USA needs to stop treating children like equals/adults (they're not, their brains are still developing) and focus on making sure their kids can think their way out of a box instead of crying or needing therapy (just stop giving them iPad games since they're 2 years old to make them shut up). We need to get off this addiction to instant gratification - that leads to mental retardation because when people don't have to think of alternatives or creative ways to do things, MOST people will just be lazy. We've proven this in animals, and we see it every day with people.
What a complete load of horseshit.
The US is at the forefront of dealing with the realities involved with living in an information-centered society. Therapy and a broader recognition of mental health issues as being significant are incredibly useful ideas that are helping society deal with the problems that come with this new age. Raising kids as being autonomous and having identities independent of their parents is absolutely the correct way of recognizing them as people and not just parent’s little helpers or minions.
There is legitimate criticism to be made of a society addicted to social media and swimming in disinformation. But both the criticism and the remedies suggested in this comment are complete nonsense and would do little to alleviate the situation. If your solution is “sterner parenting” you are simply going to have more rebellious kids who end up doing even worse things… we have been down this path before.
> being the poorest kid in school had its downsides
What was it like ? Just genuinely curious. I am an immigrant and a parent. We live in good school district, but we're not wealthy. Just want to learn from your experience, so I could understand what my kids might/will have to go through at school.
Globalization has favored migration, and this is built in to your background: ergo, "these people are not smart and don't work hard like I did...so I should exit" is your first inclination. It's a very common sentiment through America that somewhere else can be escaped to, that there's a new frontier to homestead.
But... I have been through California's most competitive schools. The ones in which everyone grubbed for grades, and therefore pursued exactly what you are romanticizing. Yeah, you get some education, but the course material mattered very little. All the serious challenges that have left an impression decades on were presented by other life events like kids who commit suicide(an occurrence that is depressingly frequent at those competitive schools). I do not think of myself as a winner, but a survivor. The moments where genuine flourishing took place are likewise things that were not really about the school system or what my parents did, but the whole confluence of factors.
California - as a society - is, in fact, facing and working through those challenges of how to make its society work without relying on exit, because exit simply means others get dumped on. Making it a place worth living in is not about working hard, or voting in the right government, but about answering all the ethical questions involved in creating that society with clarity and intellectual honesty, one day and one incident at a time. The parlor tricks necessary to earn a tech salary and then uproot oneself are simple stuff in comparison.
And Asia is not gaining in terms of competitiveness: it's gotten wealthier and older too, and it has started having the same kinds of issues, of younger Japanese going "hikkikomori" or Chinese workers "lying flat".
> I can't help but realize that most people I meet outside of tech are... how do I say this? Not that bright? I'm talking people who can't add small numbers or multiply, and seem to have short term goals and interests.
I thought that way when I was younger, judging people by the skills I excelled at. Not only was I mistaken but the attitude was damaging to myself and others.
Unskilled and unaware is a thing: it takes wisdom, maturity and focus to learn to recognise the excess talents and abilities of others in areas that oneself is weak in. Looking at myself and understanding where I have an IQ of 60 is painful, but necessary.
Oddly enough, the more I look for talents in the people I know, the more I see the excess talents of other people: especially soft-skills and non-scholastic skills. We all have a lot to learn. The smartest people I know recognise they are dumb in significant areas of their lives. The stupid people I know can be snowflakes: often overconfident and often overvalue their profession.
Based on my experience in the valley, there are many extremely bright folks in tech who have failed miserably at achieving happiness, beyond a short term, insecure feeling of superiority when they win a small battle in life. The overarching theme I encounter is unhappiness. Those aren't the type of people who build thriving societies. They're the type of folks who miss the forest for the trees and end up deeply unhappy with every aspect of their lives beyond their careers.
For me, the contrast is most obvious when looking at Southern California vs the Bay Area. People are noticably less happy in the Bay Area. It's nothing like life among the "happy idiots" of SoCal.
Whatever you do, I hope you find satisfaction in life and teach your children to achieve the same.
>> I honestly believe that China, India, and other Asian countries will dominate the next century and beyond.
Before they do that, they'll have to solve similar problems the US is facing right now in terms of inequality. In fact they are running into these issues even now.
However there is one major difference that India and China have to contend with which would be a big problem. And that is scale - the very thing that propels their growth will be a major obstacle. It is one thing to have inequality in a country of 300M, it is another to have to contend with 500M+ disgruntled citizens.
And sadly, looking at the state of affairs, I am not sure if the leadership of both the countries are equipped/want to deal with it.
> but I'm also watching Polymatter videos which makes me a China bear.
Shouldn't base your worldview on silly youtube videos. What are the odds that grifters peddling youtube videos are experts on china, mrbeast, ikea, india, dennis rodman, etc?
These people just make videos targeted for their group of dumb masses in order to sell ads.
Just go to their youtube page and ask yourself what are the odds that the grifters running polymatter are experts on any of the topics they pumped videos out for? The answer is none. What they do is most likely analyze what types of garbage their subs may like and create garbage for these people.
You'd think HN would be the last place anyone would take polymatters seriously. But from the comments, many actually look to youtube grifters and outright propagandists ( zeihan ) to form their opinions.
Yes. YouTube educational videos are fun to watch because they surface “cult” or “not widely known” knowledge in a fun way.
But they are also availability machines usually not backed by domain knowledge or deep research. They’re designed to grab views. Wendover productions for instance has lots of great videos about transportation (especially aviation) which are mind blowing. The creator Sam is also just a college student in his 20s with no deep domain knowledge on any of the subjects he covers — his expertise is perhaps enthusiasm, knowing how to do research into trivia type knowledge, and making great videos about it.
Most Wendover videos are good, but there are some in which he is pretty wrong.
He's been pushing this narrative for a while, and his Bridgewater fund has a heavy China tilt, but I'm also watching Polymatter videos which makes me a China bear.
Yeah, he is intellectually and emotionally invested in it. It's also unfalsifiable. America has been running large debts forever but has only become bigger and more successful post Covid, whereas other countries have become weaker relatively speaking. I think his ego is too invested in this model of the world to let it go.
It’s possible to believe his concerns regarding indebtedness of “The West” and the state of the current debt cycle while also disagreeing with his bullish view of Chinese economic growth / dominance.
This is my personal view after reading his most recent book.
It is a safe default bet that Dalio is wrong; because economies are highly chaotic and technology is very much a loose cannon in what can happen next.
But the US has debt levels where it is basically impossible that everyone is going to get back what they put in. Somebody has been conned into making a donation without realising it. And the #1 strategy to deal with any crisis seems to be money printing. If that political culture remains ascendant then all the alternatives will have to have really screwed up. Which is sadly plausible when looking at China - but they wouldn't have to change much to start whipping the US.
In case you haven't been watching... the money printing culture is already over (for now) and the stock market continues to fall as the FED tightens the money supply to control inflation.
> America has been running large debts forever but has only become bigger and more successful post Covid, whereas other countries have become weaker relatively speaking
I am not sure what metrics are you using to quantify success post covid for America. Trust in institutions are all time low, there is a mental health epidemic, supply chain is still a mess and America is finally giving in to the Chinese demands withdrawing (at least partially) trade tariffs and going back to largest trade deficits as well as lately caving to the Saudis. Following the debacles in Afghanistan and Ukraine war, there isn’t exactly a foreign policy strength that America is able to project.
In all measures, these aren’t exactly success but hey we are selling weapons at record pace to everyone else so that may be it.
I like Lei’s Real Talk Videos (it’s like China Uncensored but more in-depth at least with some of her older content).
I discovered her channel when looking for videos on the Shanghai Clique and the infighting that goes on within the CCP.
Western Media is thin on that, they tend to portray the Chinese Government without any disfunction. Ironically, Chinese Media tends to portray United States the same way too.
"I’m a capitalist. I believe in capitalism. But I think everything’s got to be reformed. The bottom 60% of the population has not had a rise in per-capita income since 1980. There are big opportunity gaps in areas like education ...
I almost don’t care what’s done as long as it’s bipartisan. The most important thing is that we have to develop a solid middle — a bipartisanship of smart people who can work together across party lines to make the reforms."
Amen to that.
Since the 1980s debt, currency account deficits have risen under both parties. There's nothing in sight from either party that suggests either had the appetite or aptitude to do a darn thing about it. Paul Ryan? Please. He took a zero here. Democrats definitely deserve criticism about constantly talking the income side rather than the spend side, thereby leaving spending all for the Republicans to soap-box on. But you wanna know what? Republicans can spend money just fine too.
Some things I'd like to see for the USA. Our kids - yours and mine both --- are getting screwed over right now:
- A 25% shift back to US based supplied chains
- A plan to bound the current account deficit and debt. We need the US dollar to continue to be a desirable reserve currency
- A short term plan to get our hands and Europe's hands on fossil fuels, and complement our portfolio for electrically with fission. In the medium to longer term fossil fuels need to become an under 30% energy source. I do worry about climate. Modern countries have no experience fixing problems like bees gone (so agriculture suffers), or temperature beyond human control. Energy independence will reduce our need to get involved in wars.
- A return to the middle. Frankly that's where the power is, and it's where the fun is especially if you like direct and powerful criticism. In Washington DC it's twice the target rich environment: you can hammer Rs and Ds. DC is like the first half the Breakfast club: it's regressed to stupid inbred, sterile clubs. If we can meet in the middle we can grind off the silly right and left. MLK is a great example here: he neither sat on his hands or went to violence. He stayed the middle requiring more backbone, guts, intellect, a better message for all, and better organizational skills to get people engaged despite being a really tough problem.
The parallels between Dalio’s ideas and those of William Strauss and Neil Howe (The Fourth Turning) make me wonder if he read their works and based his own theories off theirs.
America has been stuck at stages "9-15" forever it would seem: lots of debt, foreign interventionism, huge and forever-widening wealth inequality, some social unrest, etc. Either the model is wrong or America is uniquely resilient. I think both. Investing in education is not good enough: you need those outliers who create major tech companies and innovation. Counties like brazil and Turkey have compulsory education like the US, but are not nearly as successful on a per capita basis. I don't think Dalio's model is correct here, sorry to say.
This guy wants to act like he’s doing so much for the world. He literally made some guess and it paid of well yet, we’re trusting him like this century’s fucking Nostradamus?
> Huge part of his riches came from investing in a company that poisons people with sugar water.
This and that are 2 different things. You may disagree with where he invest his money or his morales but that has nothing to do with his intelligence and his ability to invest which is what the parent comment is saying Dalio does not have.
Gates owns pharma labs and reflects a lot on diseases through his foundations. I don't know how much exactly we can trust on his opinions on those subjects, or any subject for that matters, but I would say his knowledge isn't 0, in reality it's probably higher than in software nowadays.
Personally, I found his chat with Lex Fridman [1] pretty good where he covers the same topics. I suspect it's hard to take a 570 page book [2] and get into bullet/talking points without the context. When I read the book over the 2021-2022 holiday break I honestly found it a bit stressful since he's pretty much listing historical/present day facts, along with the data to back it up, and that's hard to argue with (vs his opinions). Guess take it for what it's worth, but I found it hard to read the book, then take a look around, and not think he might be onto something.
Dalio's interview with Tyler Cowan [1] was embarrassing. He was totally unable to back up any of his opinions with a coherent argument. His performance was worse than that of any other Cowan guest by an order of magnitude. I'm reluctant to take anything he says seriously after listening to that.
I saw one with Tom Bilyeu [1] where Dalio opens with how bad crime is in Chicago and New York. While those metros do have a fair amount of crime, you actually have more violent crime, per capita, in a lot of smaller cities like Memphis, Little Rock, Odessa, and Shreveport [2]. Politicians and others spend a lot of time and effort calling out crime rates in certain giant metros, while ignoring higher crime rates in their own back yard.
Of course smaller cities will have more per capita. They don’t have massive universities or large companies or whatever to offset the violent parts of town.
I’m sure you can draw a few square blocks in Chicago with the highest concentration of crime and then, voilà, that section has the highest crime rate per capita.
> I’m sure you can draw a few square blocks in Chicago with the highest concentration of crime and then, voilà, that section has the highest crime rate per capita.
Yes, obviously, and that's called cherry picking data. This is talking about violent crime rates within city limits, a statistic that most people would agree with.
If we're trying to identify the most violent areas, it makes sense to find the contiguous areas with the most crime, with a minimum populations sample size. Finding contiguous areas with higher violent crime is not cherry picking, it's just zooming in and finding actionable insights. "Cherry picking" as a concept only applies if you're playing political games.
> This is talking about violent crime rates within city limits
The fact that something is arbitrary does not make it useless or unimportant. If you're concerned about zoning, taxes, snow removal, or school districts, then administrative regions become very important.
> who cares? that's a logical fallacy.
Comparing regions by rate or density is a cheap measurement, but it's not a logical fallacy by any stretch of the imagination.
We should stop idolizing billionaires and looking at them for advice. They have figured out how to engage in certain segments of the market but I don't see why they should have a worthwhile insight into how the country should be run. They seem to mostly push for things that benefit them personally without much regard for the rest.
Dalio likes to think of himself and wants to be a thought leader. I don’t know why. Maybe he’s bored with all the money he’s made but I truly don’t believe he has anything insightful to say beyond how to invest money and even then, his approach is vastly different than someone who has tens, or hundreds or even millions.
He has nothing interesting to say and nothing applicable. He just likes to hear himself talk
As someone who worked for his son, that's exactly it. Bridgewater is failing and he wants to build his legacy as a "smart thinker" and a philanthropist before it's all wiped out.
Why don't all the USA billionaires sponsor a contest to search out the best template for public education? The Broad Institute tried. Let's try again. It's a matter of life and death.
There are so many ideas that could create great progress if they could find a sponsor.
"We're not in a recession, we're in the early stages of a depression. A depression is a self-feeding liquidity crisis - it's a cash-flow squeeze that occurs when the economy turns down, inventories are being sold, borrowings increased, and liquidity reduced."
- Raymond T. Dalio, New York Times, Jun 27, 1982
"For decades the numbers have told us that each time the capacity utilization figure moves over 85 percent, the inflation rate rises, and also that each inflation cycle tends to peak at a higher level than the preceding one. During this inflation cycle, we expect capacity utilization to cross the 85 percent line by early 1985, when the CPI should be running at an annual rate of 7.8 percent and well on its way to a cyclical peak of about 11.5 percent sometime in 1986."
- Raymond T. Dalio, New York Times, Jun 17, 1984
If you google "ray dalio 1980" you'll see he's talked about that being his biggest mistake and massive learning opportunity [1, 2, 3]. He even dedicated a chapter to it in his book (chapter 3) [4]. It's sort of hard to fault someone for being wrong 40 years ago and think they have nothing new to contribute.
Suspect we'd all be completely screwed if we were wrong, never learned from it, and just continued on. No idea if he's right or wrong but guess time will tell. What you're implying here though, that because someone was wrong at a point in time, learned from it, evolved and changed their way of thinking, then think that all their future stuff is tainted somehow, seems pretty strange.
I'm not impressed with his story about what he learned from it. He basically says he learned that sometimes he can be wrong. No indication of whether he's learned when he's more likely to be wrong or right.
If you must simp for billionaires, Jim Simons, Bill Gates, and the Collison brothers are somewhat more interesting people IMO.
Since you mentioned him, Jim Simons has a really good interview too and it was pretty cool to hear his story [1]. Worth a watch if you haven't seen it and are into RenTec.
112 comments
[ 5.4 ms ] story [ 182 ms ] threadHe's been pushing this narrative for a while, and his Bridgewater fund has a heavy China tilt, but I'm also watching Polymatter videos which makes me a China bear.
They banned for-profit tutoring to bring down the cost of raising children (but also ensure children have time to be children). These services are now offered by or in-cooperation with the state school system and no-longer teach the same subjects as are taught during normal school hours. i.e they basically converted it into educational after-school day-care that is strictly non-profit.
1 child policy was replaced by 2 child policy, then 3 and finally abolished. Ironically this was only ever applied to Han Chinese, minorities like Ughyrs have always had uncapped family sizes (another massively misunderstood fact about China but getting into it would just lead to downvote brigade by people that have never even been to China).
So yeah the plan is to reduce cost of living, drive down costs of having children in particular, allow people to have as many children as they want and soon I imagine we will see direct incentives to have children.
China won’t reverse anything and their authoritarian nature will (as always) lead to ruin.
With China, we’ve seen it go both ways: Disaster under Mao and revitalization under Deng Xiaoping. What will leadership under Xi look like? Remains to be seen.
I don't know very much about him yet, but his life seems to be a fascinating one of gently guiding a failing state (that failed on epic proportions) back into normalcy and then into rapid growth.
Take away The West's (citizens) bailing out their financial markets (circa 2007 / 08) and again authoritarian ruin doesn't look so bad.
I'm not stumping for China or authoritarianism; only pointing out that it's early days and there's more to that picture than brash big brush judgements.
I'm from the west and I've never heard a defense or Chinese perspective. I understand that a lot of media we consume in the US is biased, especially on domestic issues abroad. Can you provide a link that explains the misunderstanding?
No amount of incentives have managed to push fertility rate above replacement level in any country as far as I can remember.
The data from countries like India also shows that as soon as any region experiences even moderate prosperity, birth rates drop like a rock. Heck, India’s fertility rate is now below replacement level and it happened waaay ahead of schedule.
Really hard to root for a country that now has a population rhomboid instead of a population pyramid. Soon to turn into an inverse pyramid aka a reverse ponzi where the old work to keep the few young alive.
The author is not a China hater - far from it. But he lays out in sobering detail the substantial demographic challenge they still face and why they may not escape what is known as at the middle income trap. If anything, I came away with the understanding that while many fear a rising China, it is a China that stumbles that can be more worrisome.
As for Rozelle, he does good work. But reality is even with deficient interior education infra, PRC is still massively overproducing talent after massive brain drain. There's record youth unemployment, again some of which is covid driven, but talent oversupply was evident pre-covid. The demographic crisis is going to be difficult to negotiate, but ultimately PRC has too manypeople, specifically undereducated older cohorts that can't be integrated into modern economy. Whatever happens PRC will be better off with 1B people than 1.4B, simply too many mouths to feed. Meanwhile there's plenty of talent to go around to build comprehensive power which more than GDP undergirds national strength. Xi/CCP's vison for "moderately prosperous society" was $10000 per capita, leadership knows PRC has too many people to reach developing country incomes. The current pipe "China dream" is $40000 per capita by 2049 (100 year anniversary) probably not realistic but still a lot of overhead to improve productivity. Likely enough to establish PRC as geopolitical superpower even with at low high income level. At end of the day, a populous country with $20000 GDP and 20 aircraft carriers is still much more powerful than a small country with $100000 GDP and none.
For example, in semiconductors, Taiwan, with a much smaller population (and arriving late in the game) beat the US, Japan and Korea. China, with 600k STEM graduates per year, is still trying to catch up.
On covid vaccines, even Russia has their own vaccine that reach mRNA levels of protection, but China is still stuck with the Covid Zero policy.
Quantity was definitively an asset for Chinese growth based on cheap labor. That source of growth is almost running dry (to the point where they are resorting to labor camps). But at some point, quantity becomes more of a liability.
Yeah entire MIC 2025 move up value chain drama that turned into tech war with US.
TW had decades of head start over PRC serious semi efforts and TBH if it wasn't for US sanctions on Fujin Jinhu, PRC would have EUV machines 3 years ago, might be on 7nm by now, and at least Huawei pre sanctions was world class in semi design. Issue is PRC needs to pursue indigenous quality now which is burden but also opportunity. TW will rely on foreign equipment forever, even though they have monopoly on some supply chains (which PRC is replicating). Shit hits the fan, TW semi can't work without foreign tech, PRC can at least cobble together indigenous 28nm and soon 14nm.
Flip side of US PRC containment policy is seriously taking MIC 2025, i.e. PRC has gap of 300k in IC talent (need 720k according to white paper), and integrated circuit major was only upgraded to first-level discipline in 2018 due to tech war. Previously private companies happy with using western equipment but now they're pursuing entire indigenous supply chain. Something TW can't do. PRC needs to master quantity (in every sector and subsector) and quality, which is much larger task but also large growth potential. Transition is in effect, entire soft tech crack down to redirect talent into hard tech. Excess talent isn't be absorbed in many fields but semi not one of them. But really apart from semi, turbojet/aviation, very high end machinery, PRC is closing gaps everywhere. It's matter of time after finally US tensions finally kicked PRC industrial policy into right priority.
>On covid vaccines, even Russia has their own vaccine that reach mRNA levels of protection, but China is still stuck with the Covid Zero policy.
Because mRNA vaccines makes very little difference. That's just triumphant mRNA propaganda wank. Traditional vax protects marginally less well for severe cases. mRNA virtue was preventing spread, which it doesn't post delta. Reality is Chinese vax is effectively as good as mRNA after booster, but covid zero is simply much better. Extrapolate current TW covid stats after they've capitulated to live with covid to PRC population and you're looking at millions of death even with mRNA. Zero Covid is power move by PRC who has strong state capacity to maintain zero covid (so far), relying on vax is capituation for those who systemically can't. The idea that mRNA would solve PRC covid problems is naive.
>Quantity was definitively an asset for Chinese growth based on cheap labor. That source of growth is almost running dry (to the point where they are resorting to labor camps). But at some point, quantity becomes more of a liability.
PRC labour is not cheap anymore. But PRC is improving both in quality and quantity as seen in export figures and value capture. They're moving up the industrial chain in many sectors. Remember meme that PRC only got $3 per iphone 3G?, it grew to $100 by iPhone X. Meanwhile anyone in manufacturing including Chinese will tell in you labour costs in PRC is becoming uncompetitive. South East Asia is much cheaper, but PRC efficient logistics still comes out ahead.
>resorting to labor camps
Alleged labour camps are poverty alleviation efforts as part of long running rural labour transfer programs. Even "coerced" labour studies by propagandist (Zenz) report payment is substantially higher than the 600M bottom tier Han living on 1000RMB a month. Most companies don't want to hire "cheap" Uyghur workers who has no language proficiency when there are plenty of Han willing to do the job for LESS. They're pressured by central gov take in Uyghurs workers for again, poverty alleviation (and yeah some Uyghurs being pressured to join these PAID programs along with reeducation). There's really no shortage of labours for the kind of low skill work they typically get thrown into. Like even the entire XJ cotton drama over Uyghurs picking cheap cotton is incongruent with fact that most...
Source? I think big coastal cities are very advanced, but there are loads of rural villages with subsistence economies and widespread poverty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_administrative...
Yeah, PRC income disparity is massive, 600M living on un less than 1000RMB a day. But we're talking per capita. Disparity result of Deng's entire, some get rich that resulted in two (or more) tier society, high income coastal one with a few hundred million that can compete globally, and low income interior provinces that can be arbituaged to do things other countries can't (i.e. labour intensive massive low cost infra). It's like UAE with foreign migrant labour but entirely domestic. Xi's trying to fix this with common prosperity with wealth transfers, whether that works is another question. But IMO the math is in his favor. There are so many low income people that it's not unfeasible to dramatically improve their QoL YoY with relatively little resources = party stability. Like you can double 600M on 1000rmb to 2000RMB with annual transfer of 90billion dollars (USD). PRC GDP growth last year is projected to be 900B USD. A fraction of annual growth can be titrated over years to "underclass" to maintain marginal but consistent growth that people will always feel like they're getting richer. PRC can treat common prosperity of developing provinces same way developed nations treated developing nations with aid. That's why IMO demographic problem is managable, at least in terms of stability. The wealthy coastal competitve class has so much talent to increase productivity, while the poor interior provicnes can be easily bribed. Like it's still going to be a high pressure cooker east asian life, but PRC citizen's QoL could consistent increase since base effect of productivity so low, whereas in developed western nations new generations are worse off than their parents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_median_ag...
A significant fraction of the US seems to have problem to adjust to the notion that in the next decades China will become the clear number 1 country in many fields, and the US will be to China, what Germany is to the US.(Similar on a per capita basis, about 1/4 in absolute numbers)
Wishful thinking is a terrible basis to plan.
Observe both the shape and growth trajectory of populations for America, EU, China, and other entities at: https://www.populationpyramid.net. I think a lot of countries are going to have a similar problem - it's not isolated to China. However, China's unfriendly immigration policies, combined with the very large skew in their population demographics (both age and gender) lead many to believe that there will likely be issues like the one I mentioned earlier.
It’s also why I’m suspect of everyone famous. It’s just such a warped personality that seeks and maintains a public persona. Not saying that they are evil or bad people - just that their motivations are very suspicious and you should be extremely critical of what a public person says. The vast majority of successful and wealthy people are not public figures and don’t try and parlay their opinions into personal fame.
One technique Ive found of understanding if someone is genuinely knowledgeable or faking it is to read their books or listen to long form podcasts (not just interviews). More data points create a more complete picture.
It's been amazing for his personal wealth, that much is true though
I think investors don't buy this because long term population health and state capacity are significantly more important 10, 20, 30 years down the line than short term disruptions, and that is why investors are bullish on China.
Shutting a port down for one month is bad, having a hundred million people struggle with long covid is a lot worse. The bull case is pretty simple. The country has governance that is effective enough to tackle problems that most other places have given up on, even if it isn't particularly pretty in the short run.
Shruti Mehta, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Looking at people who report they are not able to function in life, we’ve seen about 3 to 5 percent, which is still a large number.[..]My bottom line is, with a potential cost of $2.6 trillion, that’s so big that there’s nothing, no preventive action, that wouldn’t be worth doing to reduce the burden of long-Covid,” Cutler said.”
So I think one in ten being quite seriously affected is about in the right ballpark, if not too conservative.
https://observer.com/2022/05/long-covid-will-have-a-massive-...
I think a large part depends on if they are able to translate their infrastructure spending away from unprofitable or marginally profitable ventures like bridges into high-tech nuclear industry, more battery and solar tech, semi-conductors & lithography, etc.
They are certainly capable (we saw that with EVs, batteries and solar already) but proof will be in the pudding.
Now that I'm in my 30s and interact with the broader world, I can't help but realize that most people I meet outside of tech are... how do I say this? Not that bright? I'm talking people who can't add small numbers or multiply, and seem to have short term goals and interests. BTW these people are in the same socioeconomic level (or better, as many of them own property here within their family) as my family when we were brand new to this country.
In Los Angeles the schools are garbage and failing for the most part, and it is pretty sad to see the result - adults who can barely make ends meet and continue the cycle. Since I'm in the tech bubble, everyone else I hang out with is quite well to do and smart, but any time I've met people outside of this bubble I feel depressed and sad.
Like I said, I grew up in the districts where most of the people were focused on providing a good education for their kids. It was in the midwest suburbs right outside of the city metro, and my peers were involved in sports and also studying. Our football/basketball team were AP/honor roll students who also played in the orchestra, and most of them went on to higher education and have really good careers. When I see their Linkedin updates, I'm always happy to have been around such people who also motivated me.
I honestly believe that China, India, and other Asian countries will dominate the next century and beyond. They're pumping out engineers (people who can think, use their brain) while Americans talk shit about themselves and want to degrade. The USA needs to stop treating children like equals/adults (they're not, their brains are still developing) and focus on making sure their kids can think their way out of a box instead of crying or needing therapy (just stop giving them iPad games since they're 2 years old to make them shut up). We need to get off this addiction to instant gratification - that leads to mental retardation because when people don't have to think of alternatives or creative ways to do things, MOST people will just be lazy. We've proven this in animals, and we see it every day with people.
I'm honestly pondering if I should raise my family in the same midwestern suburbs I grew up in because I can't see my kids succeeding here in California. The schools suck, the people are not interested in education, and tech basically carries this state in terms of brainpower.
USA has been independent since 1776.
And notice I said "century". Were you educated in America?
No I wasn’t educated in America, not do I live there. You’re moving to personal attacks because you have nothing else.
Its not my fault your reading comprehension sucks.
Japan, Korea, Taiwan: Massive financial aid from the west, favorable trade deals for being strategic allies of the west.
This isn’t to say that the people in these countries didn’t work to get where they are; they could have absolutely fucked it up. But it’s important to understand structural reasons for why some countries develop faster than the others.
Upto the late 18th century, South + East asia were absolutely the dominant economic powers of the world accounting for over 50% of the worlds GDP. Colonialism was a huge setback but both China and India (+ other South/East Asian nations like Bangladesh) are rapidly industrializing.
So what? You hang out with allegedly smart people, we produce a lot of them, some even provide the world with more utility then working at a FAANG. What point are you trying to make? Are you suggesting there are no unambitious people in Asia?
We have a lot going for us too - our political system relies on institutions, not personalities. We still have the best of everything. Corruption and Nepotism is minimal - your family surname doesn't matter (you are a self-proclaimed example of this). The cream more easily rises to the top.
> I honestly believe that China, India, and other Asian countries will dominate the next century and beyond. They're pumping out engineers (people who can think, use their brain) while Americans talk shit about themselves and want to degrade.
"Pumping out" is the key phrase here.
What a complete load of horseshit.
The US is at the forefront of dealing with the realities involved with living in an information-centered society. Therapy and a broader recognition of mental health issues as being significant are incredibly useful ideas that are helping society deal with the problems that come with this new age. Raising kids as being autonomous and having identities independent of their parents is absolutely the correct way of recognizing them as people and not just parent’s little helpers or minions.
There is legitimate criticism to be made of a society addicted to social media and swimming in disinformation. But both the criticism and the remedies suggested in this comment are complete nonsense and would do little to alleviate the situation. If your solution is “sterner parenting” you are simply going to have more rebellious kids who end up doing even worse things… we have been down this path before.
What was it like ? Just genuinely curious. I am an immigrant and a parent. We live in good school district, but we're not wealthy. Just want to learn from your experience, so I could understand what my kids might/will have to go through at school.
But... I have been through California's most competitive schools. The ones in which everyone grubbed for grades, and therefore pursued exactly what you are romanticizing. Yeah, you get some education, but the course material mattered very little. All the serious challenges that have left an impression decades on were presented by other life events like kids who commit suicide(an occurrence that is depressingly frequent at those competitive schools). I do not think of myself as a winner, but a survivor. The moments where genuine flourishing took place are likewise things that were not really about the school system or what my parents did, but the whole confluence of factors.
California - as a society - is, in fact, facing and working through those challenges of how to make its society work without relying on exit, because exit simply means others get dumped on. Making it a place worth living in is not about working hard, or voting in the right government, but about answering all the ethical questions involved in creating that society with clarity and intellectual honesty, one day and one incident at a time. The parlor tricks necessary to earn a tech salary and then uproot oneself are simple stuff in comparison.
And Asia is not gaining in terms of competitiveness: it's gotten wealthier and older too, and it has started having the same kinds of issues, of younger Japanese going "hikkikomori" or Chinese workers "lying flat".
I thought that way when I was younger, judging people by the skills I excelled at. Not only was I mistaken but the attitude was damaging to myself and others.
Unskilled and unaware is a thing: it takes wisdom, maturity and focus to learn to recognise the excess talents and abilities of others in areas that oneself is weak in. Looking at myself and understanding where I have an IQ of 60 is painful, but necessary.
Oddly enough, the more I look for talents in the people I know, the more I see the excess talents of other people: especially soft-skills and non-scholastic skills. We all have a lot to learn. The smartest people I know recognise they are dumb in significant areas of their lives. The stupid people I know can be snowflakes: often overconfident and often overvalue their profession.
For me, the contrast is most obvious when looking at Southern California vs the Bay Area. People are noticably less happy in the Bay Area. It's nothing like life among the "happy idiots" of SoCal.
Whatever you do, I hope you find satisfaction in life and teach your children to achieve the same.
Before they do that, they'll have to solve similar problems the US is facing right now in terms of inequality. In fact they are running into these issues even now.
However there is one major difference that India and China have to contend with which would be a big problem. And that is scale - the very thing that propels their growth will be a major obstacle. It is one thing to have inequality in a country of 300M, it is another to have to contend with 500M+ disgruntled citizens.
And sadly, looking at the state of affairs, I am not sure if the leadership of both the countries are equipped/want to deal with it.
Shouldn't base your worldview on silly youtube videos. What are the odds that grifters peddling youtube videos are experts on china, mrbeast, ikea, india, dennis rodman, etc?
These people just make videos targeted for their group of dumb masses in order to sell ads.
Just go to their youtube page and ask yourself what are the odds that the grifters running polymatter are experts on any of the topics they pumped videos out for? The answer is none. What they do is most likely analyze what types of garbage their subs may like and create garbage for these people.
You'd think HN would be the last place anyone would take polymatters seriously. But from the comments, many actually look to youtube grifters and outright propagandists ( zeihan ) to form their opinions.
But they are also availability machines usually not backed by domain knowledge or deep research. They’re designed to grab views. Wendover productions for instance has lots of great videos about transportation (especially aviation) which are mind blowing. The creator Sam is also just a college student in his 20s with no deep domain knowledge on any of the subjects he covers — his expertise is perhaps enthusiasm, knowing how to do research into trivia type knowledge, and making great videos about it.
Most Wendover videos are good, but there are some in which he is pretty wrong.
Yeah, he is intellectually and emotionally invested in it. It's also unfalsifiable. America has been running large debts forever but has only become bigger and more successful post Covid, whereas other countries have become weaker relatively speaking. I think his ego is too invested in this model of the world to let it go.
Citation needed, not clear how America has become more successful post covid.
This is my personal view after reading his most recent book.
But the US has debt levels where it is basically impossible that everyone is going to get back what they put in. Somebody has been conned into making a donation without realising it. And the #1 strategy to deal with any crisis seems to be money printing. If that political culture remains ascendant then all the alternatives will have to have really screwed up. Which is sadly plausible when looking at China - but they wouldn't have to change much to start whipping the US.
I am not sure what metrics are you using to quantify success post covid for America. Trust in institutions are all time low, there is a mental health epidemic, supply chain is still a mess and America is finally giving in to the Chinese demands withdrawing (at least partially) trade tariffs and going back to largest trade deficits as well as lately caving to the Saudis. Following the debacles in Afghanistan and Ukraine war, there isn’t exactly a foreign policy strength that America is able to project.
In all measures, these aren’t exactly success but hey we are selling weapons at record pace to everyone else so that may be it.
I discovered her channel when looking for videos on the Shanghai Clique and the infighting that goes on within the CCP.
Western Media is thin on that, they tend to portray the Chinese Government without any disfunction. Ironically, Chinese Media tends to portray United States the same way too.
https://youtube.com/c/LeisRealTalk
Polymatter is great though. At least the videos on China (like the demographics one) seem well researched and have a unique take on the subject.
"I’m a capitalist. I believe in capitalism. But I think everything’s got to be reformed. The bottom 60% of the population has not had a rise in per-capita income since 1980. There are big opportunity gaps in areas like education ... I almost don’t care what’s done as long as it’s bipartisan. The most important thing is that we have to develop a solid middle — a bipartisanship of smart people who can work together across party lines to make the reforms."
Amen to that.
Since the 1980s debt, currency account deficits have risen under both parties. There's nothing in sight from either party that suggests either had the appetite or aptitude to do a darn thing about it. Paul Ryan? Please. He took a zero here. Democrats definitely deserve criticism about constantly talking the income side rather than the spend side, thereby leaving spending all for the Republicans to soap-box on. But you wanna know what? Republicans can spend money just fine too.
Some things I'd like to see for the USA. Our kids - yours and mine both --- are getting screwed over right now:
- A 25% shift back to US based supplied chains
- A plan to bound the current account deficit and debt. We need the US dollar to continue to be a desirable reserve currency
- A short term plan to get our hands and Europe's hands on fossil fuels, and complement our portfolio for electrically with fission. In the medium to longer term fossil fuels need to become an under 30% energy source. I do worry about climate. Modern countries have no experience fixing problems like bees gone (so agriculture suffers), or temperature beyond human control. Energy independence will reduce our need to get involved in wars.
- A return to the middle. Frankly that's where the power is, and it's where the fun is especially if you like direct and powerful criticism. In Washington DC it's twice the target rich environment: you can hammer Rs and Ds. DC is like the first half the Breakfast club: it's regressed to stupid inbred, sterile clubs. If we can meet in the middle we can grind off the silly right and left. MLK is a great example here: he neither sat on his hands or went to violence. He stayed the middle requiring more backbone, guts, intellect, a better message for all, and better organizational skills to get people engaged despite being a really tough problem.
Huge part of his riches came from investing in a company that poisons people with sugar water.
This is not the kind of mind I want to follow when trying to write our collective future.
This and that are 2 different things. You may disagree with where he invest his money or his morales but that has nothing to do with his intelligence and his ability to invest which is what the parent comment is saying Dalio does not have.
But the idea that “oh he’s wealthy so what he says is important” is a bit odd when you take a step back.
I mean if Bill Gates says something about software I’m all ears. Something about healthcare? The fuck does he know about that?
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TISMidxdZoc
[2] https://www.amazon.ca/Changing-World-Order-Nations-Succeed/d...
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9D0ElcV8DA
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-6bv8_pj-E 2. https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-most-dangerous-cities-i...
Of course smaller cities will have more per capita. They don’t have massive universities or large companies or whatever to offset the violent parts of town.
I’m sure you can draw a few square blocks in Chicago with the highest concentration of crime and then, voilà, that section has the highest crime rate per capita.
Yes, obviously, and that's called cherry picking data. This is talking about violent crime rates within city limits, a statistic that most people would agree with.
> This is talking about violent crime rates within city limits
arbitrary gerrymandering, not really useful.
> a statistic that most people would agree with.
who cares? that's a logical fallacy.
The fact that something is arbitrary does not make it useless or unimportant. If you're concerned about zoning, taxes, snow removal, or school districts, then administrative regions become very important.
> who cares? that's a logical fallacy.
Comparing regions by rate or density is a cheap measurement, but it's not a logical fallacy by any stretch of the imagination.
He has nothing interesting to say and nothing applicable. He just likes to hear himself talk
There are so many ideas that could create great progress if they could find a sponsor.
"For decades the numbers have told us that each time the capacity utilization figure moves over 85 percent, the inflation rate rises, and also that each inflation cycle tends to peak at a higher level than the preceding one. During this inflation cycle, we expect capacity utilization to cross the 85 percent line by early 1985, when the CPI should be running at an annual rate of 7.8 percent and well on its way to a cyclical peak of about 11.5 percent sometime in 1986." - Raymond T. Dalio, New York Times, Jun 17, 1984
Industrial production from Jun 1982 through Jun 1984: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=rU2
Inflation from Jun 1984 through Jun 1986: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=rU3
Suspect we'd all be completely screwed if we were wrong, never learned from it, and just continued on. No idea if he's right or wrong but guess time will tell. What you're implying here though, that because someone was wrong at a point in time, learned from it, evolved and changed their way of thinking, then think that all their future stuff is tainted somehow, seems pretty strange.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/04/billionaire-ray-dalio-was-on...
[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/bridgewater-ray-dalio-lesson...
[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephaniedenning/2018/01/23/is-...
[4] https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Life-Work-Ray-Dalio/dp/150...
If you must simp for billionaires, Jim Simons, Bill Gates, and the Collison brothers are somewhat more interesting people IMO.
Since you mentioned him, Jim Simons has a really good interview too and it was pretty cool to hear his story [1]. Worth a watch if you haven't seen it and are into RenTec.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNznD9hMEh0
> Two (or more) of his predictions proved wrong. Therefore, he lacks credibility?
Hedge fund managers make wrong predictions all the time. Did you find a systemic flaw in his approach?