Friday, August 15, 2008

georgia: the end of pax americana? paul krugman

aug 15th, 2008

i would have thought iraq and afghanistan had already proved the end of pax americana.

will globalization falter? perhaps. the high price of shipping is already causing people to look more carefully at being locavores (eating local food) and industrialists to look at closer suppliers -- eg mexico, not china.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/opinion/15krugman.html?th&emc=th

happily, the death of distance via the internet means there is no cost to shipping services overseas. good for india, bad for china. see another report on the new crop of financial research jobs moving to india.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/business/worldbusiness/12indiawall.html?em

3 comments:

san said...

Thanks for posting this - I liked it. I always find some useful insight in Krugman's predictions. Well, we shouldn't be too cocky about our services-oriented economy surviving a breakdown in globalization better than China's manufacturing-based economy could. After all, China's economic shift and manufacturing boom began in 1980s, while the Cold War was still vigorously happening. But India's economic progress was nowhere to be seen. Our economic advancement has only occurred in the fully post-ColdWar period. Unlike the others, we don't have even a minimal power projection capability, to establish spheres of influence. Even our smaller immediate neighbors are able to thwart us. If cyber-warfare flourishes, if regional economic blocs harden, if resource monopolies increase, then we may find ourselves out on a limb. Beware of threatened trans-nationalists groups like the Atlanticists then moving to sabotage support for globalization in the West, though in more sophisticated ways than Islamist bombings against Bangalore or Gujarat.

nizhal yoddha said...

i think the hydrocarbon monopoly is going to be broken in the next 5 years, as we will see oodles of alternative energy, and also we'll learn to run our cars on something else. in that case, we have plenty of resources for modest growth.

the problem, as you said, is the increased pressure the mohammedans will put on us, as well as the inimical limeys and yanks. not to mention our own politicians.

i persist in my opinion that manmohan singh is the worst prime minister india has ever seen.

Unknown said...

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. Consider how things have played out in the current food crisis. For years we were told that self-sufficiency was an outmoded concept, and that it was safe to rely on world markets for food supplies. But when the prices of wheat, rice and corn soared, many governments rushed to protect domestic consumers by banning or
limiting exports, leaving food-importing countries in dire straits. Thanks so much for sharing.

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Sam
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