A paper says governments aren't responding to private sector or voter demand with new (anti-globalism) trade restrictions, but are instead driving this trend.

The data shows that right after Covid, firms were looking to add new suppliers to diversify supply chains but crucially trying to maintain their relationships with existing suppliers.

$92b market for inexpensive ($150 usd) cell phones.

#Globalism #India #China

"For the past 500 years it's been all about figuring out how to maximize your share of a pie that is steadily growing. ... As long as there is more technology and more people growth is easy, and regulating growth in such a situation is something that we have a lot of experience in, but that's not the case anymore."

#Zeihan #Globalism #Industrialism

#Africa #Globalism #Zimbabwe #Gold

35 years with plenty of finance, no security risks, and where anyone who wanted to play a part in the international trading system could (even countries that could have never been successful on their own in a pre-American-led-and-secured globalized system), and it was backed up by massive waves of workers and consumers. Low security costs allowed low-cost production.

China had its best 35 years. Remove American globalism from the equation and it doesn't work. Play China forward and you see they don't have a work force.

Currently, half the world population is dependent directly on food imports. 3/4 on fertilizer imports to grow their own food. Trade links.

Some places weren't able to expand their populations until they could import food (like the Middle East). Some places couldn't get into manufacturing until the security thing happened (like East Asia). Some places used to go to war for energy until recently (like Europe).

#globalism

... "like China, like Russia, like Iran, like North Korea. China mostly. It doesn't share the same value system. They don't share the same legal system. We have a rule of law, they rule by law. And when it comes into times when there's global conflict or friction you see that globalization can lead you down a path that puts you in a very difficult position from a national security perspective."

"It was probably a real bad idea to let 95% of the pharmaceutical ingredients for our antibiotics to be made in China. And have the global chip shortage around the world that really emanated from Taiwan, which makes 40% of the chips we need for just about everything."

Various things being outsourced has to be thought of in terms of risk assessment, he said. 3-5 years away still from being self-sufficient on the chip side. Antibiotics and supply chains aren't rocket science, they just need to be reshored. While we watch the friction increase almost daily between the US and China. Xi, the most leverage China has is now, and every day that goes by they have less leverage, so things might happen sooner than later. China's media is really pushing the Taiwan issue.

With Ukraine. For a long time things boiled, and one day war happened. Russia's control over Europe also could be said to be decreasing with time, as their supplier of energy.

Because the White House changes every 4 or 8 years, the US needs a team that transcends administrations and needs a better grand strategy, he said.

#China #Globalism

#Xi #BRICS #Globalism #Sanctions

... because of local shortage. Prices for it are up 40%, and people protested.

Indonesia does 1/3 of global vegetable oil exports. 30m tonnes exported by them. India imports half its vegetable oil from Indonesia, 13m tonnes (60% of that is palm oil, 25% soybean oil, 12% sunflower seed oil). (Malaysia does 32% of India's imports to Indonesia's 55%.) There will now be much more demand than supply. 20% rise in priced expected in India.

Poorer countries depend more on cheaper cooking oils like palm oil.

#Indonesia #Globalism

$500b yearly, controlled by criminal networks.

Opium in Asia.Central Asia, Golden Triangle, Golden Crescent. Cannabis resin in Morocco. Cocaine mainly from Colombia. Biggest consumers are US and Europe. Transport over sea and air.

#Globalism

After feminist politician group there complained to the police that they 'employ an anime character that depicts a young girl as a sexual object.'

The Vtuber anime character made a video with the Japanese police about how to ride a bike safely.

Although the video was family friendly and the anime character not particularly young-looking, the group didn't like that her breasts swayed when she moved and wore a short skirt that 'exaggerated her sexual appeal.'

The police pulled their links to the video and the video was taken down.

Two other cases in the past several years had the same sequence of events, with NHK (Kizuna Ai talking about the Nobel Prize) and Japanese Red Cross (Uzaki-chan promoting blood donation), and afterwards more people defended the characters than were offended.

The creator of the anime in question said she wears what she wants to wear, not because other people tell her to wear it.

It was pointed out that during 'patriarchy' men shamed women for behavior and types of clothes they wore, suppressing their freedoms, but now 'feminists' are doing the same thing.

One commenter who didn't like the Vtuber wrote, "The VTuber in question is wearing a miniskirt and a school uniform while exposing her midriff. Regardless of the person's intentions, the men watching would naturally view her in a sexual way. The way she speaks is also slow and clumsy, the same way a little girl speaks. She is exactly what men want: a young, innocent, erotic woman. That is why she is so popular. At the very least, I don't want to show off my midriff to a crowd, and I don't want to talk like an idiot."

#Japan #Feminism #Globalism #Sex

15m items of used clothing arrive in just Ghana every week, sent from the first world. Lots of people go through this clothing to sell it in used clothing stores. More and more of what arrives is 'fast fashion,' which is low quality and doesn't last long.

There are fields of garbage that include a lot of this clothing (estimated 40% of used clothing that arrives in Ghana goes there).

Afghanistan is highly dependent on US and other countries. If the government meets what US and others want it to meet, US might release these foreign currency reserves. Some say they don't even have funds to pay government workers there.

A lot of Afghani investors are also currently out of the country.

#Afghanistan #InternationalRelations #Globalism #US