GreatSquare comments on Even neoliberal economist Paul Krugman admits China is not only ahead, but US is unlikely to catch up even if the GOP loses power in 2028.

Even neoliberal economist Paul Krugman admits China is not only ahead, but US is unlikely to catch up even if the GOP loses power in 2028. (paulkrugman.substack.com)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by yogthos@lemmygrad.ml to c/economics@lemmygrad.ml

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[–] GreatSquare@lemmygrad.ml 26 points 10 months ago* (3 children)

Yet, rather than having another Sputnik moment, we are now trapped in a reverse Sputnik moment. Rather than acknowledging that the US is in danger of being permanently overtaken by China’s technological and economic prowess, the Trump administration is slashing support for scientific research and attacking education.

"Reverse Sputnik Moment" is a great term.(How about a Lutnick Moment? It's when you're so far up Trump's ass that you enthusiastically blurt out even dumber shit than Trump.)

Trump is being blamed for this? I think this is the Anger stage of Grief. This is Trump's SECOND term. WTF did people think was going to happen? A massive Federal push for education and infrastructure? Effectively zero Americans gave a shit about China "overtaking" for the past decade so it's way too late to try change course now. There's no point even discussing "catching up".

US economic fundamentals need fixing first.

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[–] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml [S] 25 points 10 months ago (1 child)

I find the focus on Trump particularly funny given that he himself points to 40 years of stagnation.

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[–] GreatSquare@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 10 months ago* (1 child)

It's not a prescriptive approach to the problems though. The author basically is saying the US is so fucked and Trump made it more fucked.

Americans have had this neolib strategy for the past few decades of climbing the value chain leaving manufacturing, privatization, moving into services, allowing tech bros to cook/break stuff etc.

Now he wants to do a backflip and be like China and wondering why it's hard to catch up. Is he a neolib or what?

If he is focusing on doing everything then that's actually being unfocused. Tech bros don't want universities doing the research. They want to own it. The whole point of outsourcing to the 3rd world was to bring cheaper goods in rather than expensively manufacturing it domestically. Privatization was meant to improve services. These are the neolib strategies.

These neolib dumb fucks don't make sense.

This is like Bessent & Lutnick saying importers will just eat the tariffs. Why would local manufacturing ever take off if the imports are still coming in?

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[–] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml [S] 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Right, the whole thesis is incoherent because it doesn't really address the root causes for why things are the way they are. I find this is a typical thing with libs where they just think everything is just a matter of will. They don't look at systems in terms of contradictions as a Marxist would. I mean you don't even have to be a Marxist, anybody who understands systems thinking would understand the concept of selection pressures, and how effective behaviors that are rewarded by the system end up dominating.

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[–] acabjones@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 10 months ago (1 child)

Your reply here mostly describes my thoughts on the Sachs/Mearscheimer debate vis a vis "spheres of security". Neither party seemed to me to be engaged in systemic analysis. Sachs' thesis is normative and idealist and fails to take into account why the u.s.' belligerence is increasingly unrestrained (decohering economic base). Mearscheimer kind of trots out his standard realist analysis which imo is mechanistic and can't accommodate factors which don't fit into the behavior of imperialist powers, i.e. also idealist.

That whole thing was kind of hard to listen to for me. Both of those two are useful in different ways but I thought that discussion simultaneously highlighted their limitations.

For ref https://lemmygrad.ml/post/9465503?scrollToComments=true

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[–] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml [S] 3 points 10 months ago*

Oh yeah I listened to it and was equally frustrated by them failing to address the elephant in the room.

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[–] GreatSquare@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 10 months ago* (1 child)

I find this is a typical thing with libs where they just think everything is just a matter of will. They don’t look at systems in terms of contradictions as a Marxist would.

There was another article in Krugman's substack, "No, Trump Can’t Make Manufacturing Great Again". (Behind a subscription wall)

Subtitle was"We’re a service economy now — and that’s OK".

A service economy doesn't need the electricity generation capacity of China - something that, in the original article, he was using to point to China being economically ahead of US. China uses the power for manufacturing and has a greater population. Why does he want to point to that statistic?

There's no direction to the strategy just dumb and dumber.

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[–] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml [S] 6 points 10 months ago

It's honestly hilarious to watch just how dumb these people are. These things should be obvious, and yet here we have a well respected western "intellectual" spewing incoherent nonsense.

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[–] fellagha@lemmygrad.ml 14 points 10 months ago (1 child)

They just need a scapegoat in the form of a figurehead to avoid having to attribute any shortcomings to the system their entire ideology is centered around.

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[–] GreatSquare@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 10 months ago* (1 child)

I don't think they have an ideology. Neolibs want to get into renewable energy now according to this author.

When was that ever part of neoliberalism?

It's only because China is doing it. They never fucking cared about solar panels and wind. Where is this shit coming from? Of course you can't catch up.

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[–] Maeve1@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Cost efficient.

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[–] 666@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 10 months ago

Nuclear. America has shut down nuclear reactors and doesn't exactly have a great history with them. All though now I believe they're considering modular.

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[–] GreatSquare@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 10 months ago* (1 child)

Then buy cheap solar panels from China to SAVE money. Biden put a massive tariff on Chinese solar panels BTW.

If the US wants to "catch up" on renewables, don't take the slow route of building the manufacturing processes from scratch.

There is no bean counting in Krugman's strategy.

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[–] Maeve1@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 10 months ago

I wholly agree. The fact they're doing this despite tariffs illustrates the cost of petroenergy, to the working class, despite heavy subsidization. They perceive the debt incurred as an investment.

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[–] cayde6ml@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 10 months ago (1 child)

I argue that many Americans unfortunately care about China overtaking the U.S., but for all the wrong reasons.

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[–] GreatSquare@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 10 months ago*

I think when I wrote that, it was in the context of China exceeding America is certain economic metrics that the author has now decided are important for neoliberal economies. First chart he used was comparing the amount of electricity generation. Then he goes off into renewables and then attitudes to education. Most Americans wouldn't see competing with China in those things as races worth the effort of trying to win.

Americans just think they're the greatest country and then they get on RedNote or whatever and see some modern Chinese cities and think "WTF? Why does that look nicer?" It's a vibes comparison.

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