Lugh

joined 2 years ago
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Here's a full version of Mr. Dalio's words, and below is a summary. Also, he's written several books on this topic, more info here.

While tariffs and their market impacts dominate headlines, the deeper, more critical issue is the breakdown of the global monetary, political, and geopolitical order—a rare, once-in-a-lifetime shift driven by unsustainable debt, inequality, and deglobalization.

Key forces at play:

Monetary/Economic Order Collapse: Unsustainable debt imbalances (e.g., U.S. overborrowing, China over-lending) are forcing a restructuring of global trade and capital flows.

Domestic Political Fragmentation: Rising inequality and populism are eroding democracies, paving the way for autocratic leadership.

Geopolitical Power Shifts: The U.S.-led multilateral order is fading, replaced by unilateralism and conflict (trade wars, tech wars).

Climate & Tech Disruptions: Natural disasters and AI will further destabilize economies and international relations.

Why focus on these? Tariffs are symptoms, not causes. History shows such imbalances lead to depressions, wars, and new orders. Policymakers must prepare for radical measures (debt defaults, capital controls) as the old system unravels.

 

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard lays out the likely steps in how this will happen in this article.

He says Trump will take direct control of the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. This, and his global tariff war, and tax cuts for the rich, will stoke huge levels of inflation in the US. Think of Erdogan's Turkey for comparison.

By this point, the foreigners who finance US government debt by buying Treasury bonds will start to lose confidence in the dollar as a currency.

This crisis will force money printing (quantitative easing) and capital controls, both furthering the currency crisis and perhaps leading to hyperinflation.

I hope there are sunny uplands for the world ahead, and the transition to get to them isn't too long. We were always going to have to endure economic pain as we transitioned to a world where robots/AI can do all work. I suspect that pain is going to start sooner than we expected.

 

Hyundai employs 75,000 people globally. Approximately half in South Korea, and half in facilities across the U.S., China, India, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Russia, Brazil, and other locations.

It will be interesting to see if these robots supplement that workforce, or replace some of them. Honda says its newest car factory in China needs 30% less staff thanks to AI & automation and its staff of 800 can produce 5 times more cars than the global average for the automotive industry.

[–] Lugh 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yes, & their embrace of the orange failed businessman will come back to bite them on the backside.

He's already handed China global leadership in the energy transition, likely the biggest industry in human history, that the Chinese will make trillion from in decades to come.

[–] Lugh 3 points 5 months ago (7 children)

They are:

I could easily believe its true, though if so, I'm puzzled by their tactics.

Open-sourcing like this seems profoundly decentralizing and democratizing, not tendencies I'd associate with the CCP.

[–] Lugh 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (13 children)

At this point I wonder is the Chinese government executing some strategy in the background. If they are, and its to weaken America's tech lead, it's working.

Then again, why open-source everything and give its power so freely to everyone? Many people would have thought hoarding power to try and be No 1, as the US is doing, is better game play.

[–] Lugh 18 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I'm glad this means AI's power will become more decentralized internationally. Who would have thought it was China responsible for that?

[–] Lugh 66 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

DeepSeek buzz puts tech stocks on track for $1.2 trillion drop

Just a few months ago many American commenters thought their country was 'years ahead' of China when it came to AI dominance. That narrative has been blown out of the water.

[–] Lugh 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

"For example, if you were to replace components made of titanium on a plane with this material, you would be looking at fuel savings of 80 liters per year for every kilogram of material you replace," adds Serles.

I'm impressed by two things here. That something so light could replace titanium, and that it was discovered by AI.

[–] Lugh 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Zero / zero is mathematically undefined.

I should have been more accurate. What I meant was the economics term - zero marginal cost.

There's an excellent book by Jeremy Rifkin speculating on what an AI/robotics automation zero marginal cost society might be like.

The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism

[–] Lugh 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

The odd thing I find in statements like this from the likes of Marc Anderessen, is that if prices tend towards zero that means ALL prices. Stocks, property, 401K portfolios.

I'm sure if challenged on that, he would say he doesn't support any such thing, but the economic logic seems inescapable.

[–] Lugh 5 points 5 months ago (3 children)

He’s an idiot

He may be, but he's also voicing standard economic ideas shared by the world's government and business elites.

That's the problem. All the people who are creating a world where AI & robots can do most work, think this is how it will work out.

Who knows, we may eventually get Star Trek style communism - maybe the problem is no one is taking Big Tech seriously, when they come right out and say what they are doing.

[–] Lugh 8 points 5 months ago (6 children)

Really?

I just tried it at - https://chat.deepseek.com/

Q - What are Molotov cocktails named after?

A - Molotov cocktails are named after Vyacheslav Molotov, a Soviet politician and diplomat. The name originated during the Winter War (1939-1940) between the Soviet Union and Finland. When Soviet forces invaded Finland, Molotov, who was the Soviet Foreign Minister at the time, claimed in propaganda that the Soviet Union was not dropping bombs but rather delivering food and supplies to the Finnish people. In response, the Finns sarcastically referred to the Soviet incendiary bombs as "Molotov's bread baskets."

The Finns then developed their own improvised incendiary devices to use against Soviet tanks, naming them "Molotov cocktails" as a "drink to go with the food" Molotov claimed to be providing. The name stuck, and the term "Molotov cocktail" has since been used globally to describe similar homemade incendiary weapons.

[–] Lugh 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Asteroid ejecta from Mars has reached Earth so many times, we can assume the opposite has happened too. So if Mars was warm and wet, it seems likely it was seeded with life from Earth. This suggests another question, did life on Earth arrive from elsewhere via this method?

[–] Lugh 17 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

While laboratory testing like this is important, I'm really keen to know what effect the microplastics in our everyday environment are actually having. It's one thing to inject laboratory mice and observe results. But we all know microplastics are absolutely everywhere, what are they doing to humans now ?

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