peter Zeihan 2020

Prince Ire said:
I very much question the idea that its harder to start a family these days than it was, say, a hundred years ago. But even assuming that was true, why then is fertility rate inversely proportional to income in developed countries? Surely the wealthy who have more ability to start a family should be the ones having more kids, then?
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Because of women in the professional workplace.

Essentially every society on the planet going back to the dawn of time aculturates women to prefer a higher status male as their mate. Status being defined generally by wealth, education, and profession.

As women have worked their way up the economic ladder they have made their own status higher while simultaneously reducing the number of high status jobs that are available for men to hold. This has the effect of reducing the relative number of acceptable mates and consequentially you have more single women and thus fewer kids.

The reduction in social consequences from being an unmarried women and having premarital sex have also reduced the incentives for women to marry and have kids.

Then you have the lengthening of childhood. A hundred years ago, leaving home at 16 was nothing special and if you weren't working by 18 then you were basically a bum. You were expected to be married and setting up your own home by 22 or so. Today? We barely count people as adults getting their first job at 22.

We are pushing the start of adulthood (i.e. living on your own, getting married, having kids) much closer to 30 than to 20.

Kids are also, as a percentage of income, much more expensive today than they were a hundred years ago. They are also in many respects harder to raise today. A hundred years ago virtually every mother was a stay at home mother and had their own kids; they also all went to the same churches and social clubs and grandparents usually lived in the same town. Communal child rearing was a lot more of a real thing than it is in most places today.
 
Bear Ribs said:
It's actually that, but rather people in favor of "regulations that actually benefit the regular citizen" are much like those that are in favor of "common sense gun control." Said regulations have proven to hurt the regular citizen and boost megacorps again and again because the more regulations you add, the more loopholes form from interactions of the laws, and the more corrupt lawmakers will produce protections for their donors.

I mean, if I thought you could do it I'd be standing next to you cheering. In the same boat that if I saw a socialist I thought could actually bring about their worker's utopia I'd be cheering them on too. Unfortunately I've seen that neither option actually works.
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So are you arguing we need to get rid of all regulations? That's a terrible idea; not only is it impossible, but the free market is not some panacea for all social ills. You're free to compare my position to that of a socialist, but I'd also argue that your position is similar to that of a communist. You're ignoring the fundamental realities of human nature, that most people will act like selfish jerks if given the opportunity, in favor of some idealized economic system that could never work in reality. Besides; you yourself even admit that not all regulations are a bad thing when you liked this post by bullethead:
bullethead said:
Well yeah, people are generally against dying/being seriously ill because they ate something that wasn't safe.
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China is the perfect example of what would happen without any regulations, because large swaths of their economy either have none, or have proven utterly immune to any attempt by the Chinese government to enforce any. Without regulations, you get wet markets, gutter oil, and other things that could quite literally kill the unsuspecting consumer if they ate them. For more, here's a handy video from China Uncensored:


We don't even need to go to the other side of the world though, as we need only look back into America's history to find the Robber Barons; men who worked their employees literally to death, forced them to buy everything at massively marked-up prices from company stores, and when they complained, had the National Guard shoot them. This is what you get when you have a completely "free market"; a minefield of potential life-threatening hazards with every purchase, and literal slavery.

The fact of the matter is that the customer and the employee has little to no actual power in the marketplace, and requires the government to act on their behalf to level the playing field between them and business owners. The problem we're dealing with now comes when said government both goes way too far in regulating the market, as well as accepts bribes from business owners to start making rules that favor them; and whether you wish to merely reduce regulations (as I do), or get rid of them entirely, you'll first have to somehow change that.
 
@Terthna
Thanks for saying this, you’re one of the few Lefties I’ve met online who actually DOES have rights to being called a moderate or actually look to want balance and aren’t acting as if we’ve already all got post-scarcity tech to make all those social programs work without extreme taxation and bureaucracy that may not even have good fruit
 
Prince Ire said:
Both of you are wrong, hence why birthrates are low in developed nations regardless of whether or not their taxes are high or low, have many regulations or few regulations, have generous maternity leave and child benefits or not, etc. Heck, just look at the US. Birthrates go down as income goes up. While economics does have some impact (hence why Hungary's child benefit program resulted in a small increase in birth rates), the primary reason birth rates are so low is cultural.

One of the great insights of cultural history has been that Marx was mistaken about the nature of social classes. He believed class and class behavior was based solely on economic interests. He was wrong. Social class is both constructed and performative, hence why the same social classes will sometimes act quite differently across cultures. In the present age of globalism, class culture is one of those things that has become increasingly globalized. Why are birthrates so low across developed nations? Because of the globalized sense of what it means to be a member of the Modern Middle Class. Humans are conformists, and generally stick to class expectations in are behavior. We even tend to rebel against expectations in ways that conform to what are culture expects a rebel to behave like. And the Modern Middle Class class expectation in regards to procreation is to only have 0-1 children. This can be seen in studies which indicate professional women want to have more children than they actually end up having. They want more children. They can afford more children. And yet they don't, because humans conform to class expectations even when doing so makes them unhappy. And the expectation of a Modern Middle Class woman (and to a degree man) is to have few if any children. Want to increase birthrates? Change Middle Class cultural norms in regards to number of children on a global scale, even if only to 2-3 children in order to get to replacement level. How to go about doing this? I don't know. It may not even be possible. But expecting economics to solve the problem on its own simply isn't going to work.
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Exactly. Thats what I've been saying. Culture and media and schools which are leftist encourage the idea to not have kids. Economy and cost doesn't help but its not the sole reason.

Nobody wants to face up to the main reasons. They just want to blame the economy.
 
Terthna said:
China is the perfect example of what would happen without any regulations, because large swaths of their economy either have none, or have proven utterly immune to any attempt by the Chinese government to enforce any
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This isn't even remotely true. China's economy is almost completely defined by extreme authoritarianism; the fact that certain niche elements escape government control does not change that. Every Chinese business is at all times subject to arbitrary shutdown, seizure, orders to change in any given way, etc. Government control policies keep capital from moving freely, have resulted in mass starvation, result in the bulk production of goods that are then dumped on foreign markets at little profit or sometimes an outright loss, etc, etc.

The Chinese economy and economic behavior is not a remotely accurate example of what would happen without any regulations, much less a 'perfect' one. Just because the government is ineffective at regulating a specific section of the market right now, does not mean that sector is not massively influenced by other elements the government controls with an iron fist.

And beyond that, the kind of results you get out of a lack of regulation, massively depend on the nation's culture. There's also the fact that suing for damages can help keep abusive business practices under control even without a specific legal regulatory structure.
 
LordsFire said:
This isn't even remotely true. China's economy is almost completely defined by extreme authoritarianism; the fact that certain niche elements escape government control does not change that. Every Chinese business is at all times subject to arbitrary shutdown, seizure, orders to change in any given way, etc. Government control policies keep capital from moving freely, have resulted in mass starvation, result in the bulk production of goods that are then dumped on foreign markets at little profit or sometimes an outright loss, etc, etc.

The Chinese economy and economic behavior is not a remotely accurate example of what would happen without any regulations, much less a 'perfect' one. Just because the government is ineffective at regulating a specific section of the market right now, does not mean that sector is not massively influenced by other elements the government controls with an iron fist.

And beyond that, the kind of results you get out of a lack of regulation, massively depend on the nation's culture. There's also the fact that suing for damages can help keep abusive business practices under control even without a specific legal regulatory structure.
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Suing for damages has spotty effectiveness at best, and relies mostly on massive public outcry, without which the company can simply stall until the person suing runs out of money to pay their lawyer. Not to mention the fact that nearly every successful case relies on the company having violated some sort of regulation, so I'm honestly flabbergasted that you would think it would still be a viable option if there were none.

As for China's economy; I stand by using it as an example of what happens without any regulation. Because while it is defined by extreme authoritarianism, it is equally defined by corruption; so in practice those arbitrary shutdown, seizure, orders to change in any given way, etc? Those only become a thing when you've done something to attract the attention of the CCP; as long as you don't noticeably screw up, get caught, and cause a scandal that makes the CCP lose face, for the most part they honestly don't care what you do.

You ever hear of Horseshoe Theory? Where two extremes begin to resemble each other as they become more extreme? An economy that is under authoritarian control greatly resembles an economy that has no control over it whatsoever. Because people, being people, will act selfishly. Perhaps not to their friends, family, and neighbors; but total strangers? Business rivals? Enemies? Culturally speaking, there's not a single culture on this planet I would trust to be able to handle a total lack of regulation, without someone trying to screw everyone else over for personal benefit; and it only takes one selfish person to ruin any system that lacks checks and balances against the abuse of power.
 
Terthna said:
So are you arguing we need to get rid of all regulations? ... Besides; you yourself even admit that not all regulations are a bad thing when you liked this post by bullethead:
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No, as you noted yourself, I think not all regulations are bad, there's a notable middle ground between "X specific laws will cause more problems" and "I hate all laws anywhere and want pure anarchy." I am indeed in favor of regulations of the right sort. Specifically I like simpler systems because more complex ones hurt small businesses and tend to be easier to manipulate. Additionally, "close a loophole" tends to be words that arouse deep suspicion in me. Loopholes in my experience either don't actually exist (The Gun Show Loophole) or are protecting something that actually needs protecting (Loopholes to protect Charities).
 
Bear Ribs said:
No, as you noted yourself, I think not all regulations are bad, there's a notable middle ground between "X specific laws will cause more problems" and "I hate all laws anywhere and want pure anarchy." I am indeed in favor of regulations of the right sort. Specifically I like simpler systems because more complex ones hurt small businesses and tend to be easier to manipulate. Additionally, "close a loophole" tends to be words that arouse deep suspicion in me. Loopholes in my experience either don't actually exist (The Gun Show Loophole) or are protecting something that actually needs protecting (Loopholes to protect Charities).
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I also would prefer a vastly simpler system that benefits smaller businesses, and I understand your reluctance in regards to "closing loopholes"; but just because the regressive left has abused that phrase to utterly insane degrees (especially when it comes to Gun Control; which I do not at all support, for the record), does not mean it can never have merit. I encourage you to be suspicious, but also to judge arguments on their merits.
 
Terthna said:
Is it just me, or does Zeihan seem to want the EU to survive? The more I glean about this man's personal politics, the more I realize I disagree with them.
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I want the EU to die, with the bonus being Brussels ceasing to exist and its politicans being drawn and quartered. But we can't have everything, so I will settle for the dissolution of the current EU into a less tyranical alliance.
 
Terthna said:
zeihan.com

A Faint Flicker of Hope in Europe - Zeihan on Geopolitics

Pre-coronavirus the world was already hurtling through its most rapid breakdown in living memory; Coronavirus has accelerated…everything.
zeihan.com zeihan.com
Is it just me, or does Zeihan seem to want the EU to survive? The more I glean about this man's personal politics, the more I realize I disagree with them.
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Well, the EU surviving both simplifies his job and reduces the instability in the world, so it's not surprising.
 
Terthna said:
zeihan.com

A Faint Flicker of Hope in Europe - Zeihan on Geopolitics

Pre-coronavirus the world was already hurtling through its most rapid breakdown in living memory; Coronavirus has accelerated…everything.
zeihan.com zeihan.com
Is it just me, or does Zeihan seem to want the EU to survive? The more I glean about this man's personal politics, the more I realize I disagree with them.
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Zeihan really liked the order, it brought the greatest era of human peace and prosperity in human history. So yeah when you think of it like that of course he's going to miss it. But he's also one of the few people in the sphere who realizes that its not going to last, that the end is envitable.

He accepts that the world is changing even if he doesn't like the change. That's a good thing.

Accept the world as it is even if its complete shit is the first step to actually making things better.
 
Here's the two most recent newsletters:

The State of the Pandemic: Latin America - Zeihan on Geopolitics Excerpt:
Peter Zeihan said:
As with all things coronavirus, the first question is where to start. Most COVID-related data is, in a word, unreliable.

New hospitalizations data are wildly misreported. Useful new deaths data assume patients were tested for COVID at all, and comparing death rates from COVID across countries assumes a common quality of care. Any hospital-related or death-related data assumes that the health system wasn’t overwhelmed (and so suffered no breakdowns in data collection) as well as being very well funded and staffed (and so had the luxury of being able to test everyone). Considering how infectious COVID is and how many health personnel have died of it, those can be tall bars in places where the epidemic rages hot.
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The State of the Pandemic: The United States - Zeihan on Geopolitics Excerpt:
Peter Zeihan said:
Let me bottom-line it: In the United States, the COVID epidemic is now the second-worst in the developed world and among the dozen worst globally. The epidemic will get considerably more intense in just the next few weeks. Red states and Blue states will experience almost identical epidemics. The situation will not noticeably improve until such time as we have a widely distributed vaccine program.
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Please remember that I'm just the messenger, so aim your disagreements at Zeihan, not me. Now, if you'll excuse me... *bails in anticipation of... severe disagreement between various posters on the subject of just how dangerous the Wuhan Flu is*
 
Honestly, I didn't see anything in those two pieces that hit propaganda level. I do think the USA's response will face muted vindication (due to the riots) in a few years, long after one can make political hay out of it, once we get accurate number s out of certain other countries. That the riots are going to result in a surge of new cases is a given, but I can't be the only one who looks at Covid's fatality rate and wonders what the big deal is. We turned out to not need all those respirators after all.
 
f1onagher said:
Honestly, I didn't see anything in those two pieces that hit propaganda level. I do think the USA's response will face muted vindication (due to the riots) in a few years, long after one can make political hay out of it, once we get accurate number s out of certain other countries. That the riots are going to result in a surge of new cases is a given, but I can't be the only one who looks at Covid's fatality rate and wonders what the big deal is. We turned out to not need all those respirators after all.
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I think we got a very different strain from China, we were watching a lot of people suddenly drop dead, but the strain here seems more tame, the initial fear was warranted, this is not.
 
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