All nations, if they are to be modern economies, require robust infrastructure that meets the needs of their age and time; during the industrial age, factories needed to be built, and roads to be maintained in cities to be constructed with the necessary infrastructure for manufacturing cities.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, England built sophisticated Riverway networks and locks throughout the country to transport coal, steel and other goods for manufacturing; this process repeated itself around the globe.
The United States has such poor infrastructure due to the period it began industrialisation in the late 19th and early 20th century. New technology was developed, including the internal combustion engine; for example, England and Europe invested their resources in the train, rivers and locks.
America chose to invest in the automobile and not trains, rivers that were predominant in the old world.
To get to the heart of America’s poor infrastructure, we must be aware of the Federal Highway Act of 1956, which aimed to build a country system of Interstate highways throughout the USA.
This highway project is one of the main reasons American infrastructure is poorly designed. The Federal Highway Act cost the United States $571 billion, and this funding primarily went to construct highways and parking spaces.
This means that American cities and suburbs are not designed with alternative public transport in mind; the United States is very much the nation of the automobile; to get to work, get groceries and move around, you must have a vehicle.
With the rise of fear of global warming and governments wanting to cut down emissions, the way American infrastructure is designed is so that it will be costly to redesign the way cities have been built for nearly a hundred years.
The United States, from the creation of the Federal Highway Act of 1956, have added nearly 50,000 miles of road or 80,000 km of road, which had over a million Americans displaced due to road construction; this burden mainly fell upon minorities within the USA.
The United States Housing Association Agency historically has subsidised housing construction, and during the time of discrimination and the United States, new houses being built were only four white families.
During this period, the US government marked African-American areas in red, showing that they were too risky to be insurable for mortgages.
After World War II, the Veteran Association funded housing for ex-white soldiers but not for other ethnic minorities.
In the 21st century, discrimination of the past no longer happens due to the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s and the wins to end discrimination against African Americans.
The old development model left a massive infrastructure problem within the United States. Of the 138 million homes within the US, 68% of these are single-family houses, and due to single-family zoning, many neighbourhoods are primarily made up of urban areas.
Due to this design layout, most US citizens not living in major cities to get groceries and other essentials require an internal combustion engine or an electric vehicle.
America, the national transport is the car United States has 5% of its land mass dedicated to car parking spaces, leaving eight parking spaces for each vehicle within the United States.
The National Car Ownership Statistics states that 278,063,737 personal and commercial vehicles were registered to drivers in the U.S. in 2021. The number of registered vehicles in the United States increased by 3.66% between 2017 and 2021, indicating an upward trend in car ownership.
This means there are 2,224,509.896 car spaces within the United States of America; one positive of this is that 99% of car parking spaces within America are free.
Brazil may have found a new strain of wheat that could revolutionise the global power imbalance between the global North and the global South.
The global North by nations that industrialise, and let’s primarily in the 19th century, with the British Empire being the first nation to go down the road of industrialisation beginning in the 1760s though historians debate the start date.
The nations that make up the global North are primarily nations that were part of the United States alliance to defeat the Soviet Union from 1945 until the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the fall of the Soviet state in 1990.
As for the Global South, these nations tend to be African nations, China, India, Eastern European nations, South American nations and the Russian Federation. However, these definitions will be debated whether China is a developed nation or a developing country.
Nations not part of tropical zones and traditional farming economies have been typically more successful than nations that rely on other food produce and animal husbandry to survive.
The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at 23°26′10.5″ N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at 23°26′10.5″ S.
The tropics are also referred to as the tropical zone and the torrid zone. Which, in layperson’s terms, is pretty much the nations within the centre of the earth if you are viewing the tropical area from a map.
With the breakthrough in wheat development, Brazil introduced a new wheat strain that can thrive in tropical climates, paving the way for self-sufficiency in just five years! Discover the incredible breakthrough that could change the game for agriculture.
However, the Geopolitical Analyst Peter Zeihan stated, ‘It will be two years to see if the new wheat works’.
Nations like Brazil may no longer depend on food imports but become self-reliant with food production within their countries.
A lack of dependency on grain imports from places like Ukraine, the United States and its corn belt and Russia are high grain producers.
With nations like Brazil with tropical climates having the possibility of self-sufficiency, this provides the opportunity for these nations to wean themselves off dependency on other states.
Nations don’t have friends; they have interests; each country competes in either hostile or friendly competitive nature to become a dominant power in their region or aspirations like China and India to become regional or global hegemonies.
It will be quite some time to see whether or not the new Brazilian strain of wheat will be successful, but with globalisation breaking down, this will be a godsend to states that are more dependent on global trade for national survival.
If the nation is not food sufficient, then that nation in a deglobalised world will face starvation and governmental collapse nations like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and other desert kingdoms depend on international trade and the continued survival and maintenance of their populations.
The question needs to be asked why are Americans jumping ship and leaving California, New York and other cities in the United States for new locations?
This is internal migration within the United States of America, not migration to other nations, particularly the English-speaking world and Europe.
People migrated due to better economic prosperity or an escape from persecution immigration to the United States since the 17th century experienced waves of immigration from war-torn Europe, particularly the English exporting its religious extremists to the North American continent.
People also tend to move locations due to economic prosperity and the perception of a better future, an example of this is the gold rush of the late 19th century to California.
Now America is experiencing a new rate of internal migration, with over 600,000 people leaving the state of California and New York in 2022.
In recent years 88 United States cities with a population of over 250,000 of these, 77 of these have experienced a shrinkage of the population or a slowdown in growth due to the mass exodus from American cities, which is having companies desperately trying to hold onto talent found within cities.
Cities are economic powerhouses where traditional manufacturing exists, and greater access to Labour can be harnessed within one location.
If we look back to the 19th century, 80% of people lived on farmland and sustained themselves through agriculture, and today people working in agriculture in developed countries hover around 4% of their population.
With 77 of the 88 cities having low productivity or a loss of population, the United States may be experiencing 87.5% of United States cities in serious trouble in coming years.
The reason why there may be trouble is without a young population that is paying taxes and keeping the local economy running, the local legislators and governments of the cities and states, depending on how internal taxation works within the United States, the cities and government benefits will no longer be sustainable in the long-term.
Without taxation, there can be no government programs or benefits because, without taxation, there must be services that keep modern cities running.
In the year 2000, the trend for people to move away from cities began with bankers lending to People who would not traditionally be able to afford mortgages to buy houses in the suburbs.
The moment these mortgage interest rates went up meant that certain people never paid back their mortgages, triggering the 2007 housing crisis, which collapsed the global economy in 2008.
During the 2008 credit crunch, banks lost over US$1 trillion in bank loans and toxic assets; between 2007 and 2009, people were kicked out and forced to leave their properties where they were forced to move back in with their parents, moving to apartments or alternative living arrangements like being homeless.
After the 2008 credit crunch and collapse of the US housing market in 2007, cities began to grow again due to a lack of options or options being taken away so that people could no longer live in the suburb.
Due to this devastating event and lack of access to credit, the millennial generation put off raising families and made more significant focus on their careers.
However, according to geopolitical analyst and political analyst Peter Zeihan, the millennial generation is the most underqualified in United States history.
This levies the underskilled workforce the USA need to run its economies, and by the time the next generation is ready, it will be in the 2040s in terms of overall skills in years the millennials have at least lost half a decade.
From 2021 to 2022, the United States experienced a decline in city populations of 0.95%; this is the first time in recent American history that its cities have experienced a population decline.
With Americans jumping ship of its 50 states, these are the divided territories of the United States governed by each state under the leadership of the central government led by Washington DC in the office of the president of the United States of America.
Of these 50 states in 2022, California, New York, and Louisiana experienced the most population loss from their states of population.
In 2022, California lost 343,000 of its current population, 39.2 million, to internal migration within the United States of America.
New York lost 300,000 of its current population of around 19.8 million, and Louisiana lost 46,600 people, with its overall population of approximately 4.6 million, to internal migration within the USA.
The trend of people leaving these three states began in 2020 with American citizens trying to escape large cities due to the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, which some individuals saw as draconian and infringing on American liberties.
For People who are not American, it is essential to remember the context of the founding of the United States in rebellion against its whole nation Great Britain starting in the American Revolutionary War from 1775 until 1783, with the United States declaring its independence in 1776.
With this history, the United States population is naturally in certain areas of its people, and political culture is antic central government authority because it was a central authority which the founding fathers and the 13 colonies rebelled against in 1775.
A further example of Americans being firmly against the central government’s power is during the American Civil War from 1861 to 1865 when the southern states rebelled against the US federal government based in Washington over the divide between state and federal government’s rights.
Another interesting fact to highlight about this event is that American politics allows large-scale disputes, at least on paper, to be resolved through an armed conflict like the Civil War rather than have issues resolved peacefully.
This is baked into the American political culture that these kinds of conflicts can be resolved at the point of a bayonet.
It’s also important to highlight that the New York state area of New Jersey lost 64,200 people to migration in 2022, and Connecticut lost 13,500 to migration.
The fall in these populations can be linked to the financial services that dominate these states’ economies, and with people not moving back to big cities having experienced the countryside or urban areas, it is seeing the wealth transfer out of major cities.
This can be further seen in Massachusetts, which lost 57,000 residents in 2022 to internal migration.
Losses of these populations in New York and Massachusetts could be a precursor of economic depression in the Northwest of the United States, with the New York economy making 8% of the total USA GDP and Massachusetts making up 3% of GDP.
This means these two states are worth 10% of the American GDP. The continuing population loss will lead to lower tax revenues, many cities cannot run their public services, and the local economy will collapse if this trend is not reversed.
There is a strong correlation between people leaving states with big cities, with Illinois losing 141,600 and Pennsylvania 40,000 people to migration within the United States.
Also, eight out of the ten largest cities in the United States have recently lost some of their population; these states which are losing people to internal migration are New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Houston, San Diego, Dallas, Chicago and San Jose.
South Korea is one of the most successful economies in East Asia, only falling behind Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore in terms of economic prosperity. South Korea has grown from a rural economy focused on food exports and intern markets in the past five decades.
Now South Korea, despite having nearly no natural resources like iron ore, is one of the most dynamic economies in the world and a significant exporter of manufactured goods.
South Korean Economy is now home to internationally recognised companies such as Samsung, LG, Sk Hynix and Hyundai that export products all around the globe ranging from cutting-edge technology to industrial machinery.
It is incredibly remarkable after suffering from 35 years of Imperial Japanese occupation, and a bloody civil war between the communist North and capitalist South Korea has gone from a dictatorship and transformed itself into a democracy with a thriving economy.
The growth of industrialisation and urbanisation in South Korea has led to the move away from families maintaining themselves through their farms to sustain themselves and towards an urban economy, manufacturing focus and providing services has led to the decline of its population and the lowest birthrate on the planet.
The South Korean Economy is 20 Years Ahead of the World
South Korea, like China, Japan, Russia, and Germany are, in many ways ahead of the rest of the world due to their declining and, in some cases collapsing demographics because by 2040, most of the Boomer generation will be dead and sadly due to industrialisation boomers did not have a replacement generation of which is called the millennials.
The Boomer generation was born in the post-war period, which began post-1945; the Boomer generation tends to be regarded as those born after 1945 until 1960.
This It necessary because South Korea, China and other East Asian nations started industrialisation or, in the case of Japan, reindustrialisation after World War II and the global order created by the United States, which enabled global trade, which meant each nation could go on the road specialisation.
In layperson’s terms, industrialisation means that people move away from the farms towards living in industrial and more economically productive cities, with children living in cities becoming, at best, an expensive accessory or, worse, a drain on household income.
If we look at the example of Great Britain, the first nation to go down the industrialisation process, the UK went from 80% of its population working on farms or in farming communities.
Nowadays, UK farmers and people working in the farming industry make up less than 4% of the U.K.’s population, which in 2021 is over 67 million people.
For countries to be successful, they must be global corporations even if they outsource the manufacturing and other labour costs abroad; an example is B&W which is based in Germany.
B&W’s manufacturing base is not actually in Germany; it is located in South Carolina in the United States of America which uses components shipped out of Mexico and components from Brazil and Canada which are sold across the rest of the world and not a single German is employed apart from the executives.
As for manufacturing production lines, other necessary assets are employed by people in the United States, Canada and Brazil.
You may be thinking, what is this has to do with economics, and how does this benefit Germany and, in turn, benefits the South Korean economy? If a global company is based in a nation, all its profits will be taken in by the company, and in turn, a whole country will receive tax revenue from the companies like B&W.
The world as we know it is not the historical norm but has been the new normal since World War II when all nations allied to the United States of America during the Cold War surrendered willingly or begrudgingly; in the case of the French, their foreign policy and security concerns America.
What this meant was that all nations trade with each other without the threat of foreign privateers or that other bad actors would disrupt free trade.
Furthermore, the USA made it possible for all nations to become specialists rather than having manufacturing, financial services, and other industrialise including technologies and farming production; in the home countries, each nation becomes a specialist.
The hyper-specialisation that is part of our modern world has enabled such technological advancement and prosperity since the end of World War II and continues until the present day.
Still, it does appear that the old system or more accurately, the new system of globalisation, is breaking down.
South Korea is taking advantage of globalisation like German companies such as B&W.
In the case of South Korean companies, Samsung, Hyundai, Daewood, and LG have operations similar to B&W, where the manufacturing, sales and production lines are happening outside of Korea.
Also, like different parts of the world, South Korea is the world’s sixth largest steel exporter, even though within its territories, no substantial iron deposits warrant the existence of the industry within South Korea.
This exists because of global hyper-specialisation and the existence of globalisation, which security is currently backed by the Navy of the United States of America to protect international shipping for everybody.
The primary method of global trade is by the ocean, with around 90% of traded goods being carried over the waves in giant tankers, according to OCED in 2022.
Apart from the continent of Europe, all other landlocked nations are severely poor due to the transportation costs of global trade being far too expensive and inefficient without access to oceans or internal rivers.
According to the Economics Explained Leaderboard, South Sudan, Chad and Niger, the Central African Republic, Bermuda, and Mali are the poorest landlocked countries.
Parts of Europeans get away with being landlocked because nations like Switzerland managed to develop their economies before globalisation.
However, places like Africa have geographical limitations that prevented their development before globalisation.
Civilisations like China, India and other places managed to develop their economies because of their access to internal river systems that enabled early civilisations to grow, with the most famous being Egypt’s with its famous River Nile helping to spark one of humanity’s early civilisations.
South Korea is practically an island with enemies to the North in the forms of China and North Korea. This means the South Korean Economy depends upon international global trade, oceans free of privateers or pirates in layperson’s terms, to keep its economy running.
For this reason, South Korea is home to the four biggest transportation shipping companies on the planet: Hyundai heavy industries, STX offshore and shipping, and the SME and Samsung heavy industries.
Access to chips and shipping is necessary for South Korea to function in its current form as a modern and hyper-specialised economy, just like China, Japan, and a host of other nations around the globe.
South Korea depends on global free trade and the protection of the USA’s Navy.
The fear by economists and geopolitical strategists with American withdrawal from international affairs is that the globalised system is breaking down and that nations are bringing their manufacturing bases home, which means the end of economies like South Korea.
In the old world order before 1945, if the nation did not have access to coal and steel, that nation did not industrialise in a post-almost dystopian world order without globalisation and free trade; this means specialisation like South Korea will no longer be possible.
The same applies to advanced economies; for instance, the United Kingdom is hyper-focused on financial services, and Germany, a major manufacturing nation, will no longer be able to maintain the status quo without the current global economy.
It is crucial to always appreciate a country’s soft power, especially with Korean pop culture spreading around the globe and the awareness of South Korea and the relevance of soft power, which is cultural power and its ability to influence others.
People don’t just buy goods and services because they are expensive, but the value is intrinsically tied to people’s perception of worth we do not spend money on a Swiss watch because it is a watch but due to the watch being Swiss.
This is where the link between real value, market value, and perception meets people buying expensive watches from Switzerland rather than China.
This attitude can change if China is perceived as wealthy or product is successful and conveys status.
South Korean economy is known for exporting Korean fashion, Korean cosmetics, Korean music, Korean holidays, and even Korean plastic surgeries are becoming highly demanded products because they are associated with South Korea.
Branding is vital; this is why I mentioned B&W in one of the earlier paragraphs because B&W is now more of a brand with its car manufactured mainly outside of Germany. New cars in South Korea and Japan are much better cars than their German counterparts.
But what keeps Germany in the game is that companies like B&W of built brand recognition which can be more valuable than the cars themselves, but it is the brand that is associated with success, which in turn leads to more customers due to the customers trust in the brand.
China is in crisis; according to geopolitical analyst and author Peter Zeihan, this decade will be China’s last decade as an international power, and the entire system of the Chinese Communist Party may also implode with the breakup of China.
It’s not clear precisely what is happening in China, but China is in crisis, with youth unemployment hitting a high in June 2023, with 21.3% of people aged between 16 and 24 unemployed.
The reason is that not enough graduate jobs are being created in the Chinese economy to develop its middle class.
There is a mismatch between Chinese university graduates and the jobs available within the Chinese economy.
The last time there was this imbalance in China was the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, with mass protests on the Chinese mainland.
China is also facing a crisis with its population being miscounted by at least 100 million people, and those people are the millennials who have not been born, which has increased the price of labour within China and with retirement and ageing out of the Boomer generation.
Furthermore, in China, the Boomer generation is now hitting mass retirement at 60 unless they change their policy and increase the working age by decree or by law.
This will further harm China’s ability to export manufactured goods at low prices, with the United States moving its suppliers of manufacturing goods from China to Mexico to ensure Americans still have the choice and convenience of cheap manufacturing goods.
The rest of the world has not noticed the growing issues and crisis rowing within China due to distractions within domestic politics with the United States focusing on the Orange Man, a.k.a. Donald Trump, the Japanese rearming, the cover 19 pandemic due to governments looking inwards and not outwards.
China in Crisis and Chinese Baby
What Does This Mean with China in Crisis
The Chinese Communist Party put forward a grand vision of China being a united entity for at least over 2000 years, if not more, going back around four millennia; this is, unfortunately, complete and utter horse shit.
As a united entity, China has spent more years being divided into separate warring kingdoms than it has been a united entity.
China is a monoculture dominated by the Han Chinese, making up 92% of its population, though these figures vary by percentage points.
China is typically disunited, but during different moments in its long and bloody history, a power in the northern plains of China, a.k.a. northern China, is united under new dynasties or regimes that proceeded to go on and conquer the other regions of China.
China is a massive country that requires a centralised government typically run from northern China, with the other regions breaking away at different points in history only to be reintegrated into greater China.
China faces many crises that could see the nation shatter and reintegrate after a Civil War period.
China in Crisis Food and Energy
Food and Energy
China is dependent upon food and energy imports, and this is a reason why China is facing a crisis due to the reliance on supply routes stretching from the Bosporus and the Aegean, through the Persian Gulf and through the Indian and Vietnam, seas which is a vulnerable supply line for China.
All it takes is China’s enemies or state-sponsored privateers to seize these goods, which could devastate the Chinese economy.
If the USA and China went to war today, China would starve to death within six months.
China is dependent upon global supply chains and global security that have historically been maintained by the Pax Britannica from 1815 to 1914 and then from 1945 to the present day by the Pax Americans.
Basically, the Chinese depend on infrastructure and, more importantly, the protection of the seas that was guaranteed historically by the Royal Navy and then the U.S. Navy.
With the United States no longer interested in global affairs and that system is going away, the U.S. Navy focused on constructing supercarriers, which are nation killers and not destroyer-heavy Navy that is essential for protecting global shipping lanes.
With the invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 by the Russian Federation, the Western world has had a massive wake-up call on the nature of mechanised and modern industrial warfare being demonstrated in Ukraine during its conflict with Russia from 2014 until the present day.
What has been demonstrated by the Ukraine War is that Western nations do not have the industrial capacity nor the population levels to wage conflicts typical in the mid-to early 20th century and in previous centuries during mass armies and campaigns in Europe and abroad.
To fight modern wars, nations need industry and a robust supply chain where a nation can access the raw materials of warfare and turn those materials into weaponry.
What happened since 1945 and the end of World War II, which lasted from 1939 until 1945, and in the post-Cold War and post-World War II period, nations in Europe started to deindustrialise due to the end of the perceived Russian threat after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990 and the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Without the threat of a land war in Europe and conflicts in the Pacific with communist China, nations in the West started to deindustrialise and closedown military manufacturing.
This process began much earlier due to the development of industrial capacities in East Asia, particularly China; during the 1980s and 1990s, Japan, South Korea and other industrialising nations were re-industrialisation in the 1950s and 1960s after the devastation of world war two.
The industrialisation of the global South and other developing nations saw nations that had industrialised in the 18th and 19th centuries, like the United Kingdom and its steel industries, being closed due to cheaper manufacturing capacity in industrialising countries.
This process repeated, particularly in the American working class and continental Europe, where steel and traditional working-class jobs moved to foreign nations.
This meant the deindustrialisation of the Western world and that jobs moved into finance, customer service and positions that required high-end thinking and design, with the lower-skilled jobs being moved abroad.
Throughout history, the nation usually possesses the largest population and the most significant resources that win mass conflicts between nation-states.
This can be shown in the Napoleonic wars and the French Revolutionary Wars lasting from 1793 to the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 by Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, at the Battle of Waterloo.
After seizing power in 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte embarked on a campaign of conquest and subjugation of central Europe.
He subdued the powers of the Austrian Empire’s control of the contemporary territories of Austria, Hungary and several modern states in the region.
In the North, there was the Kingdom of Prussia and several independent German states, for example, kingdoms such as Saxony and Bavaria, as well as the elector ship of Hanover controlled by King George III of England, being a descendant of the Hanoverian dynasty.
The House of Hanover inherited the crown of England in the early 18th century after the extinction of the Stuart line, which previously ruled England from 1603 until the death of Queen Anne in 1714.
Throughout the 18th century, the population of England exploded from around 6 million towards the end of the 17th century to 14 ½ million towards the end of the Napoleonic wars in the early 19th century and during the American Revolutionary War in 1775 until 1783, the population of England was over 8 million.
In contrast, France had a population of over 27 million by the time of the French Revolution in 1789, which overthrew the Bourbon monarchy that had ruled France from 1689 until 1789, and the executions of Louis XVI of France in 1793.
During the long conflict between England and France that lasted from 1793 until 1815, both nations engaged in economic warfare to limit the industrial and finances of both countries.
Throughout the conflicts known as the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars, the British Empire subsidised the other great powers on the continent to fight France.
The British mainly where fighting in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, India and the high seas never directly engaged the French on the battlefield apart from coalition forces led by Arthur Wellesley, known to history as the Duke of Wellington, during the battle of Waterloo which finally brought an end to the first French Empire which lasted from 1804 until 1815.
This shows that despite having a superior population, the French were defeated through the strategy of exhaustion; this is where the nation loses the ability to fight, not due to attrition but to no longer have the means to fight a war.
The strategy of exhaustion was used by the commander-in-chief of the American military, Winfield Scott, who created the Anaconda Plan, which aimed to blockade the Confederate States of America, which was in rebellion against the United States of America over the issue of slavery, state rights and whether or not it was constitutional for a state to leave the union.
The Anaconda plan, in layperson’s terms, was the goal of defeating the Confederacy by removing their abilities to wage war which requires equipment, food and not just manpower to wage a modern war, with the American Civil War lasting from 1861 until 1865 being viewed as the first modern war by historians.
The strategy of exhaustion was also used by the commander-in-chief of all American armies Ulysses S Grant and the commander of all American forces in the western theatre of the conflict, General William Tecumseh Sherman, who is seen as the world’s first modern general.
What General Grant aimed to do was not to defeat the enemy but defeat their ability to fight; for this, he had two goals destroy the Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by Confederate General Robert E Lee.
This was his objective because if he defeated the Army of Northern Virginia, the Confederacy would no longer have the means to continue the civil war, and the Confederacy didn’t have the numbers or the industrial capacity to keep fighting.
It’s essential to be aware that the British Empire provided the Confederacy with 60,000 modern contemporary rivals and that some divisions of the Confederacy used technology from the American Revolutionary War in the late 18th century.
The Confederate States of America also, throughout the war, did not even possess the capacity to create blankets for its armies when fighting the industrial might of the Union Army.
Furthermore, the population of the northern states was over 22 million; in comparison, the Confederacy was only around 5 million and 6 million souls, with nearly half of that number being enslaved African Americans.
This pattern of nations being defeated due to lack of supplies, lack of industrialisation and lack of manpower is repeated over and over again throughout history.
World War I from 1914 to 1918 and World War II from 1939 until 1945, Germany was defeated twice due to the British Navy’s success in preventing Germany from keeping its population and army well-fed and having the necessary supplies of steel and rubber and other resources required for war.
The Ukrainian conflict has made France prepare for war as part of the reforms that will take place over the next two decades. The war in Ukraine has shown that Western nations, including France, are unprepared to fight an industrial war.
The Russians are using 20,000 rounds of artillery per day during the Ukraine war, with a monthly average of 600,000 rounds of artillery.
With so many artillery shells, it has been found that nations like the United States would only manage 2 to 3 months of sustained combat due to burning through its ammunition stockpiles.
After the Cold War in 1989, throughout the 1990s, France and other Western nations started to sell off their stockpiles of ammunition and other industrial capacities due to the hope of peace after the cold war, which left countries no longer prepared to fight an industrialised war.
Industrial warfare requires the ability to repair and resupply equipment quickly. The Russian Federation has lost over a thousand tanks whilst fighting in Ukraine, and Russia still has over 70 years worth of military supplies they can burn through.
It is estimated that the Russians are losing ten tanks per day. This further demonstrates the need for robust populations with the industrial capacity to ensure that fighting men and women on the front lines have the equipment to wage modern war.
During this conflict, Ukrainians are losing tanks daily, and five out of ten Russian tanks, on average, are being abandoned by the Russian soldiers, with the wreckage being repurposed for the use of Ukrainian divisions.
As long as the Russians keep supplying Ukrainians with equipment, they will be able to continue to wage war in defence of their nation with the backed logistical support and intelligence of the Western world.
When looking at France preparing for war, it currently has just over 500 tanks in its stockpile, and this will not be able to maintain the loss of tanks which is being experienced in the slugging match happening in eastern Ukraine.
With the losses happening in Ukrainian, the French will be losing 20% of their tank forces per month, which would be unsustainable for any current French war effort because it takes years to build up the industrial capacity to replace the loss of equipment.
Ukrainians in the current war should be okay because they’re getting half of their tanks from the Russian Federation, making this war in terms of raw materials sustainably. After all, the Russians are keeping in Ukrainian army well-supplied.
The French preparations for war are part of the 20-year plan called Scorpion should be ending in 2040; though this may change due to the changing nature of warfare in the 21st century, nations trying to plan for the future are looking at present-day developments.
The French adopted from the American military the all-domain command and control, which has all levels of the military on and off the battlefield, and communications sharing information will provide greater coordination and victory for the French military.
American superiority in waging warfare was demonstrated in the first Gulf War from 1990 to 1991, and the second Gulf War during the invasion of Iraq in 2003 showed the superiority of American military doctrine and its use of data which crushed the Iraqi army twice.
An example of American success was its Marine divisions were advancing towards the Iraqi capital Baghdad, but the Marines were engaged with the enemy tank divisions and were pinned down.
The American Marine divisions only had armoured Humvees, but through superior data and communications, they could coordinate an airstrike which destroyed the Iraqi armour and saved American Marines.
This use of intelligence has previously and continues to be seen throughout the war in Ukraine. One of the modernisations of the French military is its mechanised arsenal, and the new tank division is the new BRC Jaguar which is a replacement for the 40 years old AMX 10 RC.
The new tank has a superior gun, and armour is also simpler and meant for mass production, which is perfect for modern industrialised nations and high attrition wars due to losses of materials.
The cost for the new tank, the EBRC Jaguar, is under €1 million, which is an attempt to lower the costs placed upon the French Republic and its taxpayers.
The parts to the tank also are available in commercial markets; therefore, when fighting on the battlefield looking for supplies and replacements for the new French tank, replacement parts will quickly be available.
The overall benefit for the EBRC Jaguar is its cost for one tank being €1 million or below, depending on the financial requirements; it ways 25 tons and has three crew one commander, one driver and one gunner.
The armour is rated to withstand ballistic weapons and mines and able to withstand improvised explosive devices, more commonly known as IEDs which most likely is heavily influenced by America and its ally’s experience during the 20 years Afghanistan war from 2001 until the American withdrawal in 2021with the leadership of USA president Joe Biden.
In contrast to the BRC Jaguar, which costs €1 million and has commercial parts already in use by the public, the Americans have the Striker tank, which costs $5 million per tank.
The French infantry is also upgrading with the new VBMR Griffon, which will have interchangeable parts that are available commercially, and its components can be interchangeable with the EBRC Jaguar.
The new armoured personnel carrier will replace the old French VAB troop carrier transport, which has been used since 1976.
With the beginning of this year’s Shanghai auto exposition in 2023, the predominant cars and other vehicles on offer have mainly been electric vehicles (EV) and hybrid vehicles, which mainly use cobalt to create electric batteries that run the vehicle.
In the exposition, car companies presenting their new vehicles, such as BMW and Nissan showcasing new vehicles, particularly electric and hybrid ones, claim that EV vehicles will be clean and have low carbon emissions.
Unfortunately, these companies are either being malicious, misinformed or turning blind alleys to the blood and sacrifice that goes into the production of batteries; these are not just batteries in their vehicles, but the batteries maintain modern ways of life.
Mr Siddharth Kara Is an author, journalist and researcher in supply chains and cobalt mining; in his new book Cobalt Red How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives, he presents the case against corporations and the exploitations of poorer nations.
His whole argument can be found on the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast, where he breaks down the importance of cobalt and the appalling, inhumane and humanitarian crisis caused by cobalt mining.
On average, people who work in the Congo cobalt mines earn two dollars a day per sack of cobalt they have mine without protective gear. The chemicals from these materials cause infertility, the loss of a child, and a host of other concerns.
Cobalt mining practices are reminiscent of something out of the 19th century, with people using primitive pickaxes and wooden beams to maintain the tunnels where the digging occurs.
Electric Vehicles and Cobalt
Globally there are only a few deposits of cobalt available on this planet which can be Gathered from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia, with final deposits available in Sudbury, Canada and Norilsk.
Increasing demand deposits of cobalt led to a decrease in the conditions of miners working in the Democratic Republic of Congo, conditions which.
According to Siddharth Kara, it can be likened to the state of the Congo when it was controlled by Leopold II of Belgium, who ruled the Congo from 1885 to 1908 as his private property Congo Free State.
During King Leopold’s period of rule, over 15 million people living in the Congo were killed and subject to other travesties that can be likened to the conditions currently happening with the current miners in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The 2023 Shanghai Auto Expedition is targeted at the internal car market within China with the growing number of electric vehicles available and China’s massive population of over a billion souls; however, these numbers can be hotly debated.
Due to China having a large population and, more importantly, China’s number of registered Vehicles at 319,030,000 Units in Dec 2022, It’s essential to factor these numbers into China’s growing electric vehicle market.
The current Sales of gasoline-electric hybrids and all-electric vehicles rose 26.2% over a year ago in the first three months of 2023 to 1.6 million, according to the China Association of Auto Manufacturers.
Sales of purely electric vehicles rose 14.4% to 1.2 million, while hybrids increased 75.1% to 433,000.
The increasing demands globally for COBOL electric vehicles mean a deterioration of conditions for people in the poorest nations due to being at the bottom of the global supply chain.
A supply chain is where goods, services and resources are added to creating and distributing products with processes like mining at the bottom of the supply chain.
As goods move higher up the supply chain, the money paid to the people doing these tasks increases; for example, a web designer gets paid more than a person creating the computer’s keyboards and circuitry.
These principles naturally apply to the minerals required to run electric vehicles; the minerals in an electric vehicle, 8 kg of lithium, 14 kg of cobalt, and 20 kg of magnesium, can be much more for Tesla-run batteries which, for example, contain 62.6 kg/138 pounds of lithium.
Throughout each presentation during the Shanghai Auto Exposition 2023, each company highlighted and continually spoke about how their EV technology will be green and that the supply chain throughout the manufacturing process will be carbon friendly.
Ultimately this is entirely nonsense; the supply chain is not environmentally friendly as the damage caused to the environment throughout the mining process.
As for the people who are mining, they only get paid $2 a day to collect minerals that help run electric vehicle batteries; the process throughout the supply chain is riddled with unethical practices that are likened to the slavery of the 17th and 18th centuries.
The United States of America has become increasingly unsatisfied with its commitments to the European Union and the old alliance network that defeated the Soviet Union during the Cold War from 1945 until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and, finally, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990.
Since the election of George W H Bush from 1989 until 1993 United States has continually voted in presidents that are becoming more Pacific-focused and more disengaged with Europe’s affairs.
When George W Bush became president-elect in 2000 and served in office from 2001 until 2008, he began with policies more focused on the Pacific and deescalating tensions with the Russian Federation.
However, with the United States becoming embroiled in the war on terror and the invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, the United States became refocused on Europe and conflicts in the Middle East.
The USA fighting the war on terror meant that the American policymaker focused primarily on the Middle East region, which enabled bad actors like the Russian Federation to invade Georgia in 2008 and the expansion of Chinese soft and military power in the Pacific.
With the end of the war on terror in 2021, the United States can now manoeuvre without the concerns of Iraq and Afghanistan due to the Americans being dependent on supplies that could only be shipped to forces based in the region through the Russian Federation.
Barring the Ukraine war, the Americans and their Western allies in NATO, who are supporting the Ukrainian war effort by supplying technical aid, military resources, financial resources and other United States, are now free to counter the Chinese threat to America’s position as the global hegemony.
AUKUS, also styled as Aukus, is a trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, announced on 15 September 2021 for the Indo-Pacific region. Under the pact, the US and the UK will assist Australia in acquiring nuclear-powered submarines.
As part of this alliance United States starting in 2023, will regularly have its nuclear submarines visiting Australia. United States is also investing an additional US $2.4 billion in submarine industrial bases over the fiscal year 2023 to 2027 to increase construction capacity.
Also, as part of the AUKUS alliance, the British and the Americans will train Australian sailors and British ships, and American navies will patrol the Australian seas.
However, it’s essential to add that the Americans will make up most of the alliance’s capabilities. It’s important to remember that since the Second World War, England has been increasingly decreasing their naval capacities in favour of running its socialist-based healthcare system, which would not be possible without the American back security agreements.
This is because the money the United Kingdom spent on its NHS is the equivalent of spending the United Kingdom had to maintain its global navy before the start of the Second World War in 1939.
The United States can build alliances and further its international interests because its allies lack military strength, enabling these nations to invest in their national development at the expense of the United States due to providing protection.
Despite the turbulent history between the United States and Japan, having fought against each other from the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, until the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing between 129,000 and 226,000 Japanese people and ending the Second World War in the Pacific.
With this bloody history of conflict and regional rivalry between Japan and the USA, as well as the ending of the American occupation of Japan in 1952.
The alliance between these two nations has grown because of the bad blood between China and the Japanese and other regional powers, which is much greater than any hatred the Japanese may still hold against the United States of America.
Currently, the Japanese and the Americans are developing defences and weaponry involving supersonic weapons. Raytheon Technologies and NORTHROP GRUMMAN are presently engaged in the development.
The Japanese announced in 2022 their plans to increase military spending by 20%, which will lead to 2% of their gross domestic product being used for the military, again showing Japanese commitment towards defence spending.
With this stated, it is advantageous to be aware of Japanese imperial history and the bad blood regarding international relations they have created due to past territorial ambitions.
It still is very much the Americans holding up the alliances in the Pacific because the United States has only existed since winning the War of Independence from 1775 until 1783, meaning that the United States has yet to develop centuries and millennia of bad blood with its neighbours.
In contrast, the Japanese invaded the Philippines, mainland China, and South Korea. The Chinese have invaded Japan and Vietnam multiple times; this kind of history of conflict is repeated repeatedly around the globe.
It can be strongly emphasised that the United States in 1945 had not pissed off many nations; however, until that point, it was only really three nations United States that had historically bad relations with they being the British Empire, the Mexicans due to the United States taking half of Mexico’s lands and finally the Soviet Union being United States chief rival between 1945 until the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Russia announced on Monday, 17 July 2023, that the Black Sea grain deal would not be extended since the start of the Ukrainian conflict in 2014 with the seizure of Crimea and the launch of a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 in February of that year has been renewed on average within 105 days.
The trade agreement allowed Ukrainian great exports you pass from southern parts of Ukraine connected to the ocean as well as the use of the Crimea peninsula to ship grain through the Black Sea and the Bosporus to the rest of the world.
This initiative has enabled Ukraine to export agricultural products through Russia’s blockade of the Black Sea; however, Ukrainian exports are only at a fraction of pre-war levels.
Before the conflict, Ukraine exported roughly 25 to 30 million tons of corn a year, mostly through the Black Sea, and 16 to 21 million tons of wheat.
Including only three ports has limited the capacity to ship grain through the Black Sea under the pact.
Ukrainians currently have around 18 million metric tons of grain ready to be exported around the globe, with this deal no longer being renewed.
The termination of the grain deal should sound alarm bells for everyone.
As one of the world’s largest grain exporters, Ukraine has played a vital role in feeding the world’s population.
With exports already limited, the end of this deal will likely spark widespread shortages, price increases, and famine.
This will increase food prices by a factor of four which for the United States will be an extra $0.25. Which last time global food prices increased contributed to the Arab Spring was a series of anti-government protests, uprisings and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s.It began in Tunisia in response to corruption and economic stagnation.
So why did Russia terminate the deal? Reports from the Kremlin state that not all conditions outlined in the deal had been met, so the agreement ceased to be valid.
Admittedly, I’m surprised that the intermittent coordination between Kyiv and Moscow lasted this long, and that’s before we even look at the Kerch Strait Bridge being attacked (again) on the eve of this deal’s expiration date.
According to the Joint Coordination Centre in Istanbul, the Black Sea Grain Initiative has allowed three Ukrainian ports to export 32.9 million metric tons of grain and other food to the world.
The Russian Federation has repeatedly claimed that rich nations ultimately benefit from the Ukrainian export of grains.
Data from JCC has shown that 57% of grain from Ukraine went to the poorest developing nations such as Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia, for instance, which are dependent on food imports from Ukraine, he said.
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said this month that 45 countries need outside food assistance, with high local food prices ‘a driver of worrying levels of hunger’ in those places.
However, the nation that gets the most food imports from Ukraine is China, with nearly a quarter of all grain from Ukraine, which feeds the Chinese population of between 800 million to 1.2 billion due to the nation not being self-sufficient or having a diverse enough supply chain to cope with shocks like the Ukrainian conflict.
This could very well be why this deal with the Russian Federation and the Ukrainian government has lasted so long due to the influence of the Chinese Communist Party upon the Russian government led by Vladimir Putin though this is mainly speculation.
There is much doubt from analysts like Peter Zeilhan, who repeatedly stated that the Chinese government, which has become a cult of personality dedicated to President Xi Jinping, can no longer make rational decisions.
High costs for grain needed for food staples in places like Egypt, Lebanon, and Nigeria exacerbated economic challenges and helped push millions more people into poverty or food insecurity.
Rising food prices disproportionately affect people in developing countries because they spend more money on meals.
Poorer nations that depend on imported food priced in dollars are also spending more as their currencies weaken, forcing them to import more because of climate change.
Under the deal, prices for global food commodities like wheat and vegetable oil have fallen, but the food was already expensive before the war in Ukraine, and the relief hasn’t trickled down to kitchen tables.
Nations only gain their independence in the post-World War II environment and do not have the institutions or the democratic legacy in their DNA, unlike nations like the United States and the United Kingdom, to cope with the rising challenges of an increasingly divided world order.
It’ll be at least a few years before Ukrainian grain is returned to global markets.
In the meantime, nations that will suffer will be people experiencing poverty and those that don’t have oversupply options for feeding their nation’s population.
This will mean war and instability for nations that cannot feed themselves, leading to more regional and civil conflicts within those regions due to mass starvation being the ultimate continuity killer for a nation’s continuity, legacy and existence.
The Russian Federation’s wheat shipments have hit all-time highs following a large harvest.
U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that it exported 45.5 million metric tons in the 2022–2023 trade year, with another record of 47.5 million metric tons expected in 2023–2024.
Demographics are so important in the decline and fall of states and the economy because regions like California need to have a healthy balance of the elderly, young, and those in between that enables the capital flow and labour costs.
This is integral in an environment where companies with access to young and low Labour and capital make investments possible.
One of the greatest capital opportunities existed for the Boomer generation born between 1946 to 1964.This generation typically entered the workforce in the late 1960s and early 1970s.With the entry of the world’s largest generation into the global and domestic work markets, the cost of labour dropped due to so many people working in the workforce, making Labour cheaper and a more business-friendly environment.
The boomers, in terms of professional success, reached their greatest achievement in the 1990s and 2000 due to them reaching the sweet spot between 35 and 55, where people tend to invest what spare money they have in investments.
Over the past 25 years, because of the environment and the cheap capital and easy capital available for start-ups enabled the phenomenal success and the tech boom in the 1990s and 2000 integration of new technologies like the smartphone.
California has been one of the most successful states in the US, primarily because of things outside its control.
Still, it should be noted that 40% of the population of the USA lives near coastal cities and regions and that most economic activity still occurs near major waterways.
Large-scale inward international immigration has enabled California to continue its population growth.
Unfortunately, this is an artificial dependency on internal migration within the United States of America and immigrants, particularly from the Far East and the Pacific, which is not addressing the internal issues causing California’s decline.
Californians suffer the same demographic problems as the rest of the global North regarding the creation of future generations to continue the legacy of the nations and regions.
Without the birth of new generations, the only option is immigration.
For this addressing the issue of declining birth rates, the problems of California are structural such as a higher cost of living and the culture not being pro-mother.
The millennial desire for an urban coastal experience has kept California from declining millennial generation was born from 1981 to 1996 and was the last generation to grow up without the dominance of social media.
However, they experienced this in the mid-2000s with the creation of Facebook in 2004, YouTube in 2005, Twitter in 2006, LinkedIn in 2003 and Instagram in 2010.It has brought a constant influx of people in their 20s and 30s, which has helped with taxes and a steady labour force.
Now combine all these people with a rich capital environment and boom, which enabled the existence of places like Silicon Valley.
Ideas flow from the tech startups in the valley to factories in China, Japan, and Taiwan, making California the gateway to East Asia.
And when those products get imported back to the States, their first stop is the Long Beach Port along CA’s coast.
This is just another external element contributing to California’s solid economic model.
But now, all the factors that have propped up California are flipping.
Immigration is stalling. The capital situation is upside down. The cost of living is through the roof, so the labour force is moving to places like Texas.
The data used in the study analysed the cost of living in each city as of 2022.
For California cities like Los Angeles, Berkeley and San Diego, a single person must make more than $76,000 to ‘live comfortably,’ the data show.
Unfortunately, the average salary in California is about $65,539. It is slightly lower than the national average of $66,665.Rising tensions with Asia are causing reshoring and nearshoring. The only thing California can do now is reinvent itself.
