One of my fav examples of how much libs despise actual democracy is how they denigrate any populate movements as populism. What they really believe in is rule by elites, and they find the idea of unwashed masses having any kind of say in how a society is run absolutely horrifying.

Being The Economist, they even managed to work in the whole ‘but at what cost angle’ 🤣

Foreign unis feel the pain

Abroad, shrinking enrolment is now hurting some universities that had become overly reliant on Chinese students. In the 2024-25 academic year Chinese made up more than two-fifths of international students at the Russell Group of 24 top British universities. Many of them expanded master’s programmes to attract students from China, charging them fees far above those of home students. Faculties grew and new facilities were built. There was an “illusion of financial stability”, says Filippo Boeri, at City St George’s, University of London. But now universities are closing courses and laying off staff or asking them to take voluntary redundancy.

Chinese students drying up will deprive the West of valuable talent. It may also do no good for China. As the country opened up to the world, haigui brought home skills and knowledge acquired overseas. The group were key in helping the country to modernise and the economy to catch up (eight of the 21 current members of the Communist Party’s ruling Politburo studied abroad). The international experience of the haigui has also helped Chinese firms seeking a foothold in foreign markets. When fewer turtles swim the seas, China will surely suffer too. ■

Also, never ask how the country got to the point where somebody like Trump is a viable political figure.

I’d argue that we’re just starting to reach that moment right now. Cause a lot of tech people are now using Chinese LLMs and realizing they’re not actually behind. And it’s causing a lot of existential angst right now.

I think their politicians are too deep in American pockets though, as I recall they even have military ties.

amusingly a title from the official media too

Not that I can think of aside from Iran and Yemen interdicting Israel aligned ships.

yeah like that’s so fucked

I think it’s the former because the vassals pouring money into American MIC isn’t going to magically lead to it becoming significantly more productive. We already saw how NATO couldn’t even ramp up production of basic things like artillery shells for Ukraine. And now there are structural problems like lack of ability to produce rare earths or magnets, without which you can’t even build advanced weapons. The lack of productive capacity in the west is the elephant in the room here.

yeah this definitely reeks of desperation

indeed

same

I think what we’re seeing is that Europe is losing strategic significance for the US. The war on Russia failed, and the primary adversary has always been China. So, Europe has little to offer at this point, and hence why the US can just dump euro without caring what the Europeans think. And yeah, while it’s hard to speculate on the timelines, there do appear to be structural problems that you can’t just paper over. As far as Europeans go, I think the current regimes will have to fall first. The people in charge painted themselves into a corner politically. They staked everything on a war with Russia, and once it ends they’re going to become politically toxic. So, they need the war to keep going at all costs, and that means they need the US in whatever capacity they can get access.

Also, the whole US economy hinges on the AI bubble and that would almost certainly pop if rates went up. I think the more fundamental issue is that the west is losing colonial access to resources and labour in the Global South, and that’s the real economic shock. On top of that, western companies are simply unable to compete with China in any industry because they have legacy processes and western countries lack industrial density. So, western goods are losing markets, and input costs keep going up. And of course, wars in Ukraine and against Iran are making the whole situation worse for the west.

Yeah, it creates structural incentives to continue using fossil fuels. One of the silver linings from the war on Iran could be that the world starts getting serious about transitioning to renewables now seeing how vulnerable oil supplies are.

It seems like the least worst scenario at this point.

Yeah, it’s gonna be bigger for sure because the economy is much less diversified today. Tech stocks are basically where any growth is happening at all at this point. And regarding the empire lashing out, we’re seeing limits of that in Iran already. The huge mistake the empire made was to outsource its core industries abroad. Now they can’t even produce stuff like magnets on their won. Rebuilding the industrial base is a decades long process under the best of circumstances, and practically impossible in the current environment. So, I expect the west is just going to implode the way Roman empire did.

My expectation is that the west is most likely headed for a 2008 style crash, and this time it’s unlikely that China will bail them out like they did last time when China bought a fuck ton of USDT. And yeah, it’s guaranteed to be a really rough time when this happens. I also expect the AI bubble popping will be a likely trigger for the unravelling.

Once this happens, I expect that countries which spent time insulating themselves from the western financial system will do best. China has been working on dual circulation for a while now. Russia has been decoupled out of sheer necessity, same with Iran. A lot of the BRICS nations are in a good position as well, I’d argue. I personally don’t think that western finances are as central as people make them out to be. What’s more important are labor and resources, and those are predominantly in the Global South. When the western economic model runs its course, those resources and labor power aren’t just going to disappear into thin air as a result.

:)

haha fair