Nimbin Paul, 14.05klm from the local riot squad.

Am I good for a loan son?

"The KISS theory at work!"
mHaze,
Not here old son, it's more a case of the more idiotic & unworkable one operates the more "in" one will be with the governing Woke !

The trouble for many of those who fancy themselves followers of international affairs is that they fall into the trap of mistaking short-term movements for long term trends. Sure, the US is currently led by one of the most incompetent regimes in its history, and certainly the most corrupt ever. But mistaking this for a long term trend is naive in the extreme and shows a monumental lack of understanding of history.

In the 1970's the US was similarly led by a hopelessly incompetent regime, yet this was turned around by the 1980 election and withing a decade the great rival - the USSR - was no more.

But those who hate the US and all it stands for continue to fantasise about its inevitable humbling.


In the 60's, the Soviets were going to surpass the US.
In the 70 and mid 80's it was still the Soviets. Vietnam and all that. I remember reading Galbraith saying the Soviet economy had already surpassed the US and walking around Moscow trying to reconcile that view with what I was seeing on the ground. I finally worked out that those saying this were as incompetent as the Soviets.

90s - Then the Soviets collapsed and it was Japanese managerialism that was going to supplant the US.

oops.. that came unstuck. But never fear because here comes the EU to put the great Satan in its place. How's that going?

So now we have China. Surely they'll overthrow the US. Isn't that what they all want. Except China's economy remains a shadow of that of the US and China has already passed it peak. Still the true believers in the ultimate demise of the hated west continue to believe.

I predict that in the 2080's we'll have AC's decedents telling us that it's inevitable that Nigeria will overthrow the US hegemony.

The long term trend of Australian history is that we have always, from our inception, allied with the leading democracy and the power that defends the freedom of the seas and the freedom of commerce. As explained earlier, Australia's very existence if predicated on the open world trading system. Its why we fought in the Boer War, in WW1 against Japan.

Australia could have easily elected to not oppose Japan in 1941, declared neutrality and left Japan to do as it wanted in S-E Asia. Ultimately we weren't in immediate danger. But our way of life was. So we fought.

Those who hate the Great Satan and instinctively cheer for whoever is its opponent, would have us overthrow this long term policy based on a short-term assessment of one US regime.

These people also wantonly forget previous lessons. They tell us how powerful the Chinese military is as compared the US. I well remember similar claims about how the Soviet military overwhelmed that of the US - just before the fall of the USSR!! There are all sorts of ways to compare the military power of nations but counting the number of ships is probably the dumbest of them all.

The US might be in long term decline. The next election will be pivotal. But overturning long term policy on such a small sample size is monumentally insane and inane. What we do know however is that China is most certainly in long term decline - its population size is collapsing even if you use the CCP's doctored figures. Industry is leaving. Its close rivals (Japan, Vietnam etc) are awake to its threats and reacting accordingly.

Again, overturning Australia's long term policy to align with such an alien and declining power is stupidity in the extreme that only people like AC and DD would fall for. Thankfully, even those of the ilk of our present leadership haven't reached that level of insanity.

Hi Paul,

Yes those damned hippies!
'If it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down.'

The Greenies (your lot) together with the tree-huggers...
Well, the children of actually... after attending Uni through which they took part in such great activities such as - 'laying on train tracks' and 'glueing themselves onto roads' and 'dangling from bridges' etc these young future thinkers all became climate scientists, and they worked the system from the inside.

They've achieved such wonderful accomplishments such as 'rolling blackouts' and helping to assist with the homeless...
(Assist in helping create more homeless that is)

And now I can't even by myself a cheap Chinese EV !
What is this country coming to?!

Ah well, can't win em all can we?
Nobody has any idea what the hell is going on...
It's the Australian way.

"But those who hate the US and all it stands for continue to fantasise about its inevitable humbling."

- Oh ffs stop being so naive.
It's not what I'm saying it's what everyone is saying that is paying close attention to it.
Look at the statistics, look where the winds blowing.
Your argument is that the United States and the collective West is going to re-industrialise our fecking economys and compete with Russia, China, the Middle East and the entire global south which hold all the worlds resources, which are all moving to join BRICS, to get away from the US dollar and current global trading system.

If America can freeze and confiscate a countries central bank funds, this is more incentive for these countries to move away from that system and towards one where they can trade in their own currencies.

China doesn't want to rule the world militarily, it wants to rule it economically by trade, it's the West that is threatened by that but can do little to stop the direction things are going.

The United States has 1700 fecking train derailments a year.
They don't have any hand in future energy, lithium EVs, China dominates.

Western leaders would send all their own citizens to die, for the sake of it's own elite oligarch capitalist political donor class and
protecting their wealth
- You know the ones who donate, not vote, not our interests.
- But only to the point those politicians own re-election campaign is threatened.

I told you all we need to start seriously looking at the flaws of democracy.