New world order? Pandemic and war rattle globalization

That is not socialism. Those are social welfare programs. They are completely different.

Mate, every poticial system has a cost and a benefit. The cost of Socialism is the lack of ownership. The payoff is the social welfare programs. These cannot be separated.

But please keep doubling down and pretending half the system doesn't exist, since it is inconvenient for the point you wanted to make.

Socialism is defined in economics as direct government ownership of the means of production, and often no private land ownership.

I don't thinks that's right. Ownership by "the people" is the general definition I'm familiar with. And there are various definitions of "the people" - governments, cooperatives, collectives, etc.

Then you have Singapore which is notionally capitalist but the government at least 90% all of the land and 90% of the housing. The few freehold lots and homes in Singapore are priced in the tens of millions of dollars. Everything else is a government owned housing estate. The best you can do in Singapore unless you are fabulously wealthy is a long term lease for 999 years, but those are vanishingly rare now. Most leases are for 99 years or less. In this respect it is much like its old Crown Colony cousin Hong Kong. The state also owns an interest in most businesses through their sovereign wealth fund's investments in these companies and thus can dictate company policy. No company wants to defy the Singapore government so while notionally the companies are privately held, the government controls them. You make your money in Singapore only with the government's permission !

Singapore is not particularly democratic either. Lee Kwan Yew didn't have a lot of patience for the give and take of the democratic process and so Singapore is more of a single party police state with a token political opposition tolerated to a degree.

The main difference is that under communism, most property and economic resources are owned and controlled by the state (rather than individual citizens); under socialism, all citizens share equally in economic resources as allocated by a democratically-elected government.

Sigh. Please read the Communist Manifesto before making such comments. Communism meant no family, communal living, communal child rearing, no private property of any kind, no religion and the one that makes me laugh every time I look at images of Marx and Engels, "free love". Nobody was even supposed to really know who their parents were as they would be raised by the collective. The whole proposition was ridiculous but the Russians and Mao tried mighty hard to enforce it on their people. Land was collectivized. Private property was expropriated (my family in Shanghai has some hands on with the expropriation part). Government was envisioned as a "dictatorship of the proletariat" whatever that means. The term "Soviet" refers to workers committees but in practice you had single party police states without any worker input.

Socialism is simply the government ownership of the means of production and in some places like China and even Hong Kong under British rule, you cannot own land. The form of government can be anything from elected parliamentary democracy to a dictatorship. Socialism means the corporations, the factories, the stores, the farms are owned and managed by the state and the workers paid by the state. The state sets prices and wages.

You only stated half of Socialism. The other half is that all health care is provided by the government as well, and the people are provided for with a social safety net.

That is not socialism. Those are social welfare programs. They are completely different. Social welfare programs live happily side by side with market capitalism all over the world. Also note that not all single payer health care systems use a government run delivery system. In many cases the government acts as the insurance company but the medical practices and hospitals are all private. In other cases you can have a mixture of government owned and run clinics and hospitals alongside privately owned equivalents. Australia has such a system. No one would call Australia socialist.

Again, you are completely wrong. Socialism is defined in economics as direct government ownership of the means of production, and often no private land ownership. It means all the factories, the rail lines, the electric producers, the stores, apartments, everything, are owned by the government and workers are paid by the government.

You only stated half of Socialism. The other half is that all health care is provided by the government as well, and the people are provided for with a social safety net.

Oh sorry, was I supposed to forget half of the entire system simply because it didn't fit your narrative that socialist democracies contain a socialist element? My bad.

You are confusing their generous social welfare programs as "socialism".

How can I confuse something for being exactly what it is? You're a mess mate.

Globalization is a mask for world domination by a single force.

Other than the US Democrats, Xi jinping is also a vivid pursuer. Albeit they all have their own visions

Becoming Ghengis Khan and Queen Victoria of modern age is still an ambition of many

Again, you are completely wrong. Socialism is defined in economics as direct government ownership of the means of production, and often no private land ownership.

Despite the expressions of expertise, false dichotomies presented as facts and in error abound in these statements.

The main difference is that under communism, most property and economic resources are owned and controlled by the state (rather than individual citizens); under socialism, all citizens share equally in economic resources as allocated by a democratically-elected government.

Presenting these dichotomies as immutable facts is part of the problem and why many suffer under oligarchic and Neo-liberal forms of capitalism.

Of course they are! they're Socialist Democracies, which is a centrist system that lies between absolute capitalism, which is the style in the USA and to some degree China, and absolute Socialism. 

Again, you are completely wrong. Socialism is defined in economics as direct government ownership of the means of production, and often no private land ownership. It means all the factories, the rail lines, the electric producers, the stores, apartments, everything, are owned by the government and workers are paid by the government. Scandinavia isn't even a tiny little bit socialist. Not the tiniest little bit. They once were but that was the 1970s. By the 1990s privatization was in full swing and today these governments do not own any companies. China's biggest ship builder is state owned. Norway, Sweden and Finland's shipbuilders are all private companies. The Scandinavian countries are capitalist free market democracies in every sense of the word. In fact they have a healthier level of competition than one finds in the US as they don't suffer from monopoly and oligopoly to the degree the US does.

You are confusing their generous social welfare programs as "socialism". Social welfare programs are not socialism. China is half socialist, a mixture of classical socialist state owned industries, privately held firms and investor owned corporations, but China has very poor social welfare programs. We have to pay medical bills for my wife's mother in Shanghai, buy her meds and the like because the state health insurance is no insurance at all.

Modern Europe has effectively no socialist economies left. Belarus is the only one I can think of today. In fact what I find interesting is how well Europe has enforced competition in major markets, much moreso than one finds in the US where too many markets are distorted by monopolies and oligopolies.

The US should lead the New World Order.

We have to get ahead and make a world without borders.

Rubbish. Borders are there for a reason.

Looks like petrodollars are a soon-to-be extinct species. 80% of all US dollars in existence have been printed in just the last 2 years.

https://www.activistpost.com/2022/01/80-of-all-us-dollars-in-existence-have-been-printed-in-just-the-last-two-years.html

Considering that exchange rates have not changed all that much over recent years, it’s likely that most other currencies are in the same boat. It's also telling that China and Russia have been stocking up on gold whereas monetary authorities in the West see it as an outdated relic.

I hate to disappoint you but the Scandinavian nations and New Zealand are resolutely capitalist market economies.

It would only be disappointing if I expected a democratic socialist country to have worker ownership of the means of production.

False dichotomies are convenient for retarding progress and maintaining the status quo.

Even some of the examples you cited, as in Ikea and Sweden, are seeing the erosion of their democratic socialist systems by creeping neo-liberal market "reforms". This is the true danger.

Petrodollars are the core of US world “influence,” for lack of a better term.

Saddam Hussein was toppled because he turned his back on petrodollars and would only take Euros for Iraqi oil, not because the US cared about anything else.

the pandemic is just showing nations true colours. Its all a big plan anyway. Do you really think they dont know what will happen in a few years from now? the banks rule the world, money is god. Countries are becoming more nationalistic because covid popped the globalization bubble. 100 years ago the same things happened, pandemic, war, etc. its just history repeating, it just looks different.

an aside, but..... have to say I'm impressed with the depth and breadth of knowledge and opinion in all the above.... and the eloquence.... far removed from the usual shallow mudslinging which all-too-often characterizes the comments section. I learned. thanks to all..... JIJI

In the US most spending on education and social welfare programs occur at a state and county level funded through state and local taxes. I

The US want to be a bunch of small nations, but also want to be a big nation. This whole trying to have your cake and eat it too, is ripping apart America from the inside with its infighting. It turns out that the differences in opinion result in a hatred of the people of other states who don't agree with your state. There's no way that can conceivably create a unified national image, and we see that as the country collapses before our eyes.

But the war in Ukraine is a chance for China to reduce its reliance on the U.S. dollar. The Wall Street Journal reported that Beijing is in talks with Saudi Arabia to buy oil in yuan instead of dollars.

Those talks have been going on for six years and have gone nowhere. Many in the foreign affairs field believe it is just a Saudi show to put pressure on the US to be more compliant with their several barbarities and is being highlighted now due to the anger within the US Congress at the state sponsored murder of Jamal Khoshoggi and just a general dislike of everything Saudi Arabian.

the only real alternative is democratic socialism as in Scandanavia, New Zealand.

I hate to disappoint you but the Scandinavian nations and New Zealand are resolutely capitalist market economies.

Of course they are! they're Socialist Democracies, which is a centrist system that lies between absolute capitalism, which is the style in the USA and to some degree China, and absolute Socialism. Basically, Democratic Socialism is a system of balance, rather than extremes, taking the best from both extremes and combining it for a healthy, non-extremist balance. So of course they are resolutely capitalist markets, that's their strength. But they do not practice extreme capitalism, rather they practice a form of capitalism that is balanced, with a healthy focus on creating a healthy economic market while also providing for the people. Such is the socialist side of it - the other strength. It's why people in Socialist Democracies are the happiest in the world, and much happier than the citizens of China and America (this has been proven with countless studies), and why they also are economically successful, and produce innovation.

you would be hard pressed to find any state owned industries in any of the Scandinavian nations. The Scandinavian countries are not socialist at all.

The socialist part is in taking care of the populace - universal health care, free education, social safety nets. Your comment that these countries are not socialist at seems to expose a lack of understanding about what Socialism is, and how Socialist Democracies differ from extremist capitalism.

You thought your comment would be disappointing. I suppose in a country like USA where "Socialism" has been corrupted by the right to mean "the boogeyman", some people might be disappointed by your comment. But I don't think anyone outside America actually thinks Americans have a healthy idea of how a democracy is supposed to work anymore, and your comment isn't disappointing at all.

I have watched the US invest more in Israel, China and India than it's own people and country.

In the US most spending on education and social welfare programs occur at a state and county level funded through state and local taxes. It is not an area the Federal Government is heavily involved in and many states do not want Federal input into how they spend their money. You see a bit over a dozen states refuse to participate in the ACA. It is available to them but their state legislatures and their governors refuse to allow their states to participate. Bodies like school boards that determine education curriculum and spending per child are elected locally. States fund and control most welfare programs and each state has their own rules. Same for unemployment. If you watch how the US Congress operates, state representatives are most often loathe to yield any power over local programs to the Federal Government.

Ukraine should shut up or shut the transient of gas through Ukraine from Russia, we got 732 million stored in Louisiana, ready to pump to refineries

Every cubic centimeter of US gas is already on a long term contract, and the loading terminals are operating at capacity. There is no spare gas or spare loading terminal capacity to use to sell gas to the EU with. Much of that gas is on long term contract to China and believe it or not a couple of dozen shiploads that were loaded for China went to Europe instead. China's demand for CNG was less than expected and that freed up some loads to be sent to Europe instead, but that was a unique situation. It would take at least two years to expand the capacity of US ports to liquify and load more CNG. It will probably happen but not next week.

The only real alternative is democratic socialism as in Scandanavia, New Zealand.

I hate to disappoint you but the Scandinavian nations and New Zealand are resolutely capitalist market economies. The means of production are all in private hands. Sweden and Finland long ago sold their state owned firms to private hands. Some of the worlds greatest corporations are Scandinavian, such as the 121 year old Electrolux Group of Sweden (worlds 2nd larges appliance manufacturer after Whirlpool), Nokia of Finland, Maersk of Denmark (was the worlds largest shipping line until they were dethroned by MSC late last year), Wartsila of Finland (shipbuilding, especially revered for their icebreakers, and big marine diesel engines used globally by all shipbuilders), etc. How about Ikea of Sweden? All of these are big privately held multinational corporations, not the state owned industries one finds in a socialist nation. In fact you would be hard pressed to find any state owned industries in any of the Scandinavian nations. The Scandinavian countries are not socialist at all.

Ukraine should shut up or shut the transient of gas through Ukraine from Russia, we got 732 million stored in Louisiana, ready to pump to refineries

The pandemic had already raised questions about the world's reliance on an economic model that has broken trade barriers, but made countries heavily reliant on each other as production was delocalized over the decades.

It means that we have enjoyed a long span of relative peace and prosperity since WWII.

Russia's war in Ukraine has raised fears about further disruptions, with everything from energy supplies to auto parts to exports of wheat and raw materials under threat.

But the fact that Russia and EU have already become more dependent on each other, not mutual love, is actually preventing an all-out war against each other.

I still don't understand the meaning of globalization. Is it just about trade, or something else?

In the past, the UK seemed to globalize much. "It's ours", was perhaps the main theme. So control rather than simply trade.

These days, I can buy New Zealand apples in my local supermarket in the UK. Is that good or bad? It seems somewhat mad to me. But why does buying a car from Japan seem less crazy?

Being able to travel to other countries is enjoyable. Why would we stop that?

If someone could define globalization for me, I'd be grateful.

The Avenger

I have watched the US invest more in Israel, China and India than it's own people and country.

I am skeptical about that. It sounds like a political propaganda.

US federal government spending by categories is as follows:

Income Securities (Unemployment Compensation, Housing assistance, etc): 24%

Social Security: 17%

Health: 12%

National Defense: 11%

Medicare: 10%

Net Interest from Debt: 5%

Commerce and Housing Credit: 4%

Education, Training etc: 4%

General Government: 4%

Veteran's Benefits: 3%

Transportation: 2%

Administration of Justice: 1%

Agricuture: 1%

International Affairs: 1%

etc.

Years of study, experience, and teaching left me undecided about globalization.  You know: Implementation, effects, benefits . . . that sort of thing.

Well, I’ve made up my mind. Finally, believe it or not.

Understandably the status and future of globalization has been thrust into the spotlight, what with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. After all, wasn’t globalization logically supposed to prevent this kind of aggressive war?  Dreams of empire were to be no longer?

So I logged into a serial panel roundtable seminar over globalization last week. Usually boring subject, made a little more interesting lately.

One of the participants was an economist and professor. I honestly can’t remember his name (he didn’t speak often or at length), and I would gladely attribute the following if I could (video hasn’t posted online yet) but ONE thing he did say caused me a double and triple take.

He said globalization was not the cause of this war, and its advance will not be hindered, since it has not yet been fully implemented.

Implemented? Fully?

Full implement means that the full planning, execution, and exercise (read enforcement) of efficient and effective globalization REQUIRES single source global governance. An executive and his/her council will, essentially “coordinate” each countries’ economic activity to fit the needs of the global economy. Production, resource allocation, food and goods allocation and consumption; along with equitable pollution control and public health resource measures. 

Essentially, everything.

No more war. No more famine. No more preventable adverse anythings.

So, I’ve finally made up my mind.

As dysfunctional and rude as they prove themselves to be, time after time, and as much as they have shown a disturbing inability to play nice with others in the neighborhood and across the seas, they STILL are the folk that were chosen by ballot in the hands of yours truly, my family, and my community.  After all is said and done, we are not subject to laws written and enforced via a global majority vote, who’s rulers and population has frequently and cynically been influenced / bribed / forced by any one of several superpowers or alliance superpowers. Those who could care less about my history and traditions, but could potentially wish me ill becauee of who I am.

As seductive as the idea of global trade and mutual beneficial relations that increase prosperity, increase literacy, and reduce human suffering are, I simply cannot reconcile myself to be told where I can live, what job I can do – and for what wages, if any – what I can or cannot eat, what I can or cannot buy, how I can travel down the street (or not), and what my neighbors and I can possibly do to improve our lives and standard of living. Not to mention – potentially – what I can and cannot say or write. Or who I can or cannot vote for, and when.

If such is the future of globalization, I must vote no.

BlackRock owns the world now. They own both sides of the coin in almost everything. They influence the top 7 banks, top 7 newspapers, both CNN and Fox News, up or down, left or right, black or white, high or low, they have all sides covered.

Globalization has resulted in $300 laptops $25 Wranglers. Globalization has led to a long upward improvement in the quality of life of millions of people around the world and a long improvement in levels of poverty for millions around the world. Globalization has kept inflation and wealth destruction at bay for 30 years.

The end of globalization will not be fun for many people. If millennials in some countries have been shocked by housing cost increases (housing costs are local and have not benefited from globalization) they are going to be devastated by the end of globalization and the long sharp downward trend in their standard of living.

It’s hard for the west to give up “globalization” when a company can buy something from China for $5.99 landed cost, sell it for $180 and can’t keep enough in stock to satisfy the demand.

Obviously there's no order to this new world we're living in.

The American dream was just a dream.

Super powers and superheroes are super stupid.

Building back a better world by tearing down the old one and taking advantage of the situation by creating turmoil and destabilization and pretending to be leading the way.

And which nation's was it that pushed the industrial revolutions and coined the terms underdeveloped nation's ?

Globalization of industrialized fossil fuel dependance at the demise of the environment and ecosystems.

The new world order leaders are having a laugh .

The Hegelian Dialectic is one of the best tools in the globalists’ toolbox. Control both sides and you control the outcome, sorta like a rigged football match where it's not only both teams that are in on it but the ref as well. Take a step back and you’ll see a deliberate transfer of power from West to East. CBDCs and a world wide social credit system based on the Chinese model seem to be the goal unless enough people wise up to what’s going on.

https://off-guardian.org/2022/03/22/10-reasons-to-question-the-putin-vs-davos-narrative/

China and Russia roll out new global financial system

https://www.voltairenet.org/article216112.html

When I was a child the food was much healthier, yummy.

However, nowadays, vegetables, fruits, meats... don't taste anything, everything is artificial, genetically modified, the meat smells anti-biotics, probably has antivirals and growth hormones. Everything to maximize production is profit of the shareholders of large corporations.

Surely a smart person would give up the big city life and move to a small farm and produce their own food.

When I hear the phrase "New World Order" it makes me think of the wealthy gaining even more power and the average person gaining less, in exchange for "stability" or "security".

At the end of the day, its mostly about the wealthy and financial institutions passing on their debts to the tax payer like we saw in 2008.

CSToday  05:58 pm JST

Bye bye USD dominance.

They still have about 50 years

Not sure about that!

Already China is insisting on paying for oil and other products in Renminbi and starting to demand payment for things like rare earth metals and other globally traded commodities in Renminbi not dollars.

Russia is demanding gar payment in Rubles and if it doesn't get it then Europe better be ready for shortages.

Even Canada the USA number one lap dog under most of our recent PMs is looking at demanding payment for wheat, corn, soya, in Canadian dollars as exchange rates get more and more volatile and the fees cut into the small profit margins.

Also oil Canada's break even price per barrel is high so even a small change in the currency market can mean the difference between making money and loosing money.

So even Canada's oil industry is looking at Canadian dollar payment policy.

Makes sense, the buyer is the one needing to pay the fees and exchange rates.

How about asking the average working class person what they think of globalization/new world order/Great Reset where they will 'own nothing and be happy' (Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum)?

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/01/how-klaus-schwab-built-a-billionaire-circus-at-davos

And what unites them? Global transnational capital that has been liberated through their money's influence on politics from most regulation and taxation.

They are "free" (free markets and free trade) to profit from disaster and misery.

We have to get ahead and make a world without borders.

Larry Fink, the head of financial giant BlackRock....

U.S. Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen....

former director general of the World Trade Organization, Pascal Lamy....

Ferdi De Ville, professor at Ghent Institute for International & European Studies....

Xiaodong Bao, portfolio manager at the Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management firm....

How about asking the average working class person what they think of globalization/new world order/Great Reset where they will 'own nothing and be happy' (Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum)? Or does our opinion not matter to the elites and the media? Of course it doesn't.

@Richard Gallagher

That was awesome.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

I do hope for a productive and peaceful and strong US someday.

The heads that are bobbing around like those things on car dashboards spend WAY too much time looking for enemies and plotting division.

Forgot one more, which is the most unpredictable of all, Mother Nature.

https://www.democracynow.org/2022/1/21/world_economic_forum_davos_man

Global capitalism will profit from the war in the Ukraine like it has profited from the financial crisis and COVID to further its agenda of capital accumulation to the degredation of the planet and populace.

Be distracted at your peril.

America first, baby.

Our money and our people and our needs as priority. Biden says the US is going to have a food shortage because we got involved in Ukraine?

why do we have to suffer that and inflation and $7 gas while other countries making excuses why they can’t participate?

Globalization. put a stake in he heart of that monstrosity. Evolved from Bush he Elder; New World Order. PNAC during Bush 2.0 years. Plan For a New American Century - which led to disaster in Afghanistan & Iraq and financial meltdown by crooked bankers & financiers.

Now, following latest dance craze: Obama Pivot to Asia - Biden following that choreography. Pandemic. War in Europe. West versus East - China, SE Asia, India - wedded with Russia and turning Africa into a Chinese farm. USA containing Russia and pushing Germany down, to reclaim its position as the one indispensable nation. Doomed to failure and the basis for USA power, military, not economic, as the American Empire wanes and burns out. China on the rise. Europe looking to de-couple from USA. New World Order, not as imagined by Biden and his handlers, but imminent as China passes the USA.

The debacle in eastern Europe, a perfect display of the ineffectual and dangerous divorce from reality of American economic planners and a foreign policy that seems cobbled together by a gaggle of ivy-league effetes whose most conspicuous trait is their coiffure and clubby insulation from hat which is real & genuine..

Bye bye USD dominance.

They still have about 50 years.

Most people easily confuse Capitalism with Globalism but actually Globalism is the new Communism...

The confusion and false dichotomy is between oligarchic state capitalism in Russia and China and neo-liberal corporatism.

That is the choice faced in the West.

The only real alternative is democratic socialism as in Scandanavia, New Zealand..

Shortages of surgical masks at the outset of the pandemic in 2020 became a symbol of the world's dependence on Chinese factories for all sorts of goods.

Blackstone and disaster capitalism and pandemic profiteering.

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-rich-investors-not-doctors-profit-from-marking-up-er-bills

The pandemic has as usual been and excuse for a massive wealth transfer to the .01%

Larry Fink, the head of financial giant BlackRock, put it bluntly: "The Russian invasion of Ukraine has put an end to the globalization we have experienced over the last three decades."

Larry Fink and Blackstone and their huge private equity are one of the main culprits of global wage depreciation, tax avoidance、bankruptcy of small business, a bankroller of Trumpist populism for the tax cuts and too much disaster capitalism to count.

Google it..look upon it and despair.

Most people easily confuse Capitalism with Globalism but actually Globalism is the new Communism...

It only benefits 1% of the most richest people and dictatorial regimes like the CCP.

Perhaps Russia is the last frontier of Nationalism/Patriotism.

"Every dog has its day" The US has been spending too much money, and time in the Middle East. It should have been building up its infrastructure, industry and providing relief for its citizens. I have watched the US invest more in Israel, China and India than it's own people and country.