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Book Review: ‘The End of the World Is Just the Beginning’ by Peter Zeihan
What a great book! I don’t know that I agree with all of it, but I was challenged the whole way through the book. The author’s thesis is that the Era of Globalization is ending, and what will likely happen if the amount of trade is reduced markedly. Answer: a lot of famine worldwide, and societal collapse for starters, especially with China. Yikes! About the only country that will weather this storm is the United States; also, Australia, France, New Zealand, Canada, and Mexico will do fairly well.
Why is the era of globalization ending? First, in the Bretton Woods system, the only country to emerge stronger after the Second World War, the United States, agreed to provide free passage worldwide, and to support ever-expanding free trade. The world prospered, as each country did what it did best, knowing that the sea lanes would be protected. The United States has 11 aircraft carriers; China, Italy, and the UK have two each; and six other countries have one each. However, with the United States turning inward, if we stop guaranteeing open sea lanes, this could lead to a marked increase in the cost of insuring transportation.
Second, is the specter of COVID-19. China, out of pride, refuses to use readily American vaccines but instead has closed large parts of China down. Shipping from China, which was once a sure thing, is no longer. (I would point to Xi’s Cult of Personality and his hidebound nature, refusing to admit to COVID being unleashed on the world, and now refusing to vaccinate.) Suddenly, it doesn’t make sense to fabricate items in China; we would be far better off to fabricate them at home, or in Mexico.
Third, many of the leading countries are facing a demographic disaster. Many countries are failing to keep pace due to the lack of births. China and Japan are two of the oldest countries in the world. Young people are needed to keep the economy going. They weren’t being born in the last several decades. They are missing now.
Agriculture is the basic industry. No food, no life. However, the great crop yields are greatly increased by the use of fertilizer. Where are the sources of fertilizer? Well, two of the primary sources are Russia and Ukraine. Uh oh. Zeihan suggests that we are looking at up to a billion people dying of starvation and another two billion being chronically hungry. Is this disaster going to happen? I hope not. I fear so.
Do you need more of an incentive to read this book? Peter Zeihan is a prolific speaker. He has bunches of YouTube clips. Watch one of them. If you like it, you will love his book.
Published in General
Here is a good 12 minute review of the 7 thesis’s of this book.
And you didn’t even get to chips, which requires neon. The source of neon is Russia. This is why American policy towards Russia has been such a disaster. We need Russia much more than Russia needs us. When large parts of the world are on the move because of famine towards the United States and Western Europe, thank the war hawks.
There are a whole bunch of rare earth elements in Russia and China. I truly wish that Russia had not forced our hand by invading Ukraine. I support Ukraine. But you make a good point that there is a downside to our support of Ukraine.
If I had it all my way, Putin would have a heart attack and a new, and hopefully better leader would emerge in Russia. That would appear to be wishful thinking right now.
Thanks for the review and links. May have to get this when some reading time frees up.
I believe that mass communication, especially social media, leads to increasing social and political fragmentation. We can see that now with Twitter generated controversy dividing those promoting identity politics, among others.
I believe we have reached peak globalization and it will decline unless enforced by authoritarian means. That could be brought on by war, a real pandemic, or some other “emergency”.
Zeihan is an interesting guy, and I find globalization to be dreadful, but since we are rapidly following in the footsteps of China and other totalitarian governments, what difference at this point does it make?
So many companies were geared up to “Just in Time” production. The problem with the disruptions in the supply chain is that it make sense for us to manufacture only in the U.S., or if we have to off-shore to do so with Mexico and Canada.
Mexico’s economy continues to grow. According to Zeihan, Mexico will likely have the tenth largest economy in the not too distant future.
If memory serves, the flow of illegals from Mexico is just about the same as the number of illegals going home to Mexico. If Central America could get its act together, that would reduce the flow from them. (No, I am not “open borders” but I see a benefit in NAFTA/USMC agreements, in that Mexicans are staying in Mexico.)
Ukraine is at the moment committing war crimes by shelling Donetsk civilian areas randomly with American weapons. This should hardly be surprising as the Ukrainians have been committing similar war crimes since 2014. It is never covered in the western press. Again, hardly surprising considering the Russophobia of the elites of the United States.
All part of the Biden plan.
Walmart distribution is responsible for about 10% increase in GDP. The downside, as you mentioned, is the vulnerability of supply chain disruption. That can uses be mitigated with multi-sourcing agreements, which work until some global black swan event.
Mexico, like many counties, has a caste system. The people coming illegally here are usually lower caste. Those billions of hungry people combined with Biden’s open borders policy is going to greatly lower living standards in America. All part of the plan!
I listened to the audio summary. I think he misunderstands modern shipping. 7 companies control 75% of shipping. They can afford to protect their own ships without the US Navy. The audio does not discuss the biggest threat, eco-communists. These are the idiots that have us stopping the use of fossil fuels and turning off hydro and nuclear, which will result in unavoidable global hardship. These same people convinced Sri Lanka to go 100% organic on fertilizers and is now facing national food riots. It is not fragility in the supply chain that is the problem, it is active destruction of prosperity by eco-commies and Atlanticists.
Walmart was a successful company before the wave of offshoring to China began…indeed, starting in 1984 and extending at least through the early 1990s, Walmart was a strong supporter of the Crafted with Pride in the USA campaign, which was launched by textile entrepreneur Roger Milliken, among others.
If China had never entered the global marketplace, would the US GDP be smaller than it is currently?…Maybe slightly, but there also would be a lot less economically-devastated areas in the US and consequently less of the social problems that stem from such situations.
See Even Smart People Get it Wrong Sometimes.
Zeihan notes that millions of people died in China because Mao didn’t believe in fertilizers!
I truly wish that we hadn’t forced Russia’s hand by ignoring its security concerns for at least 14 years.
When Putin presented a fairly reasonable list of demands in 2021, the response from the West was mockery, an embarrassing naivete about the realities of geopolitics, and an astonishing inability of most people in America to see the Russian point of view.
There is a lesson to be learned here. I don’t think that there was any reason for us to be at odds with Russia. Russia was not expansionist in any significant way. If you think that Putin is eager to restore the Soviet borders, ask yourself why he took only a small chunk of Georgia in 2008, and hasn’t moved into Armenia or Azerbaijan for 14 years.
By the way, you’re incorrect about the rare earth metals, at least in any important way. I did a post on this many months back, when this was given as a reason for staying in Afghanistan. We have plenty of rare earth metals, and there are ample supplies in secure, friendly countries (including Australia and several in South America).
Neon is not one of them, as it’s one of the noble gases.
There is a problem, of course, with reliance on Russian supply of important commodities. This is one of the reasons why we should not have provoked them by offering NATO membership to Ukraine, and why we should not prolong this war by supporting Ukraine.
America First.
I listened to a one hour discussion of this book, and the future it paints is an absolute horror story.
Hope he’s wrong. He’s not just talking about the end of globalization, but the end and restart of the world from the ground up, basically.
I totally hope that he is wrong. I fear that he might be right. Right now I am pulling in my horns, not spending money that I haven’t committed and battening down the hatches. High seas, stormy weather forecast.
It is reported that Otto von Bismarck once said, “there is providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children, and the United States of America.” We need to walk very carefully here. Yes, I love my country, but I also don’t want rest of the world to go to hell.
This book is very well written. It also scared the daylights out of me about how many things can go wrong.
Here’s another clip. I have seen this movie before, stag-flation during the Carter years, where there is runaway inflation during a recession.
Hey, it is what Americans voted for, you guys won. Enjoy the victory, savor it. Suck in its marrow. Celebrate its death. Biden is getting what his folk want. The great reset or whatever. The great new society the Dems crave. The new green economy or whatever. The brave new world led by people that do little and know less but voted in the same.
I think that there is enough blame to go around.
With pressure from the Republican Congress, Clinton had a couple of years of surplus where we paid down on the national debt. It was not to last.
W. nearly doubled the national debt from Clinton.
Obama nearly doubled the national debt from W.
Trump nearly doubled the national debt from Obama.
And now Biden is nearly doubling the national debt from Trump.
Trump spent like a drunken sailor. True enough.
What he DIDN’T do was announce before the election his intention to destroy the “fossil fuel” industry, thus destroying the US economy. Biden made it clear that was his goal. Whoever is pulling Biden’s strings is clearly motivated by hatred of the US.
In the book, Zeihan claims the irreversible destruction is underway. These supply chain disruptions and food shortages will only get worse.
Bidens War on Energy is going to cause a very painful 25% reduction in living standards.
All according to plan. Gaia demands that humans suffer.
What do these two sentences have to do with each other? Demanding is not the same as planning.
You can forget about this for a variety of reasons.
I have never heard this before. I do know that most would prefer to stay in Mexico if they could.
It’s built into their Constitution. Most of those cultures South of the border have this problem and they codified it.
And here I thought all spending came from Congress. I learn something new every day.
The only way you can stop this is if the Fed had much harder policy in the 90s. I’ve gone on and on about it.
The hedge fund guys I follow speak very highly of Peter Zeihan.
China isn’t producing babies? More than any other country but below what they could if they changed their policies. What they’re doing is killing a lot of female babies. I don’t think China is under any threat. They’re creating a lot of males who won’t have a purpose, great for making war, which China is preparing the capacity to do as fast as they can. Should we choose to not destroy ourselves we’d be quite able to defend ourselves and other Pacific countries. What most matters is our own debate. We’ve turned our country over to insane people. It’s not clear to me we can stop them unless we have free elections. We didn’t have them last time and we’re going to arrange them the same way but now don’t even occupy the White House. We can’t see the future, but the decline in western democracies is almost certain if we don’t get rid of the folks running matters here, and while China thinks that may be in its interests, it isn’t, but we collapse first.