Believe it or not, what’s unfolding in Europe with the Ukraine War is merely a sideshow to an infinitely larger seismic change in the entire world order!! Yes, dear reader, to call Ukraine a “sideshow” isn’t being callous to the human suffering up there; it’s to suggest the enormity of what’s unfolding right under our noses – with most of us oblivious to it. But we better wake up and smell the coffee (tea?) that’s been brewing for decades – else we end up being swept up in the coming tsunami.
Your Eyewitness will throw out one simple factoid on which his entire argument is based. As of 2021, China’s manufacturing output was EQUAL to that of the US and all of Europe combined!! We’d all been forewarned about China inching up to overtake the US as the largest economy and all that, but did you realise that, based on the production of REAL goods, they’ve already beaten them and some?!! The US’ present edge is based on intangibles through the legerdemain of financialisation of its economy. This measures “profits” from making money on money through “financial instruments” like derivatives and such like – that Warren Buffet calls “weapons of mass destruction!!
The irony, of course, is that China became the “factory of the world” primarily through the actions of the US from the 1980s!! US businesses followed the logic of capitalism, and pumped hundreds of billions of dollars in technology and markets into China, to take advantage of cheap labour!! Never mind China was “communist” – they brought China into the WTO and other world institutions to smooth its path. The US business magnates – and the Government they controlled – were willing to see their factories that had led the world into unheralded post-WWII prosperity form the “rustbelt”!!
They were even willing to have China reverse engineer its products, steal patented techniques, and form state-owned corporations that could compete with the western corporations! The Americans evidently felt that, in accordance with their then-dominant ideological premise, there would be a Fukuyama-like “convergence” of democratic systems. And there would be a “democratic peace” as with, say, Europe and Japan that had been rebuilt after WWII.
Ha!! This was capitalism with a Chinese face – and it worked because of its commandantist style that boosted productivity. Chinese leaders had their own millennia-old vision of their place in the world as the “Middle Kingdom” – around which all others literally revolved!! So, finally, the US has awoken to the Chinese challenge, and is furiously trying to “decouple” its economy – starting with the pullout of chip-making capabilities!!
There’s gonna be a lotta bloodletting; let’s see who can better stand the pain!! For the Chinese under Xi, it’s not about profits, but China’s honour!!
…gender bias??
In a list of 146 countries, Guyana’s now ranked 35th in the “Global Gender Gap” – jumping 18 places since last year!! We’re now #6 in Latin America and the Caribbean. So exactly what does this mean?? Generally, the survey measures gender gaps on economic, political, education and health matters. Specifically, on health we’re among 27 countries to cog the number one spot. So, your Eyewitness wonders whether maternity deaths are as high in the region as ours?? Something’s radically wrong if that’s so.
But it was “political empowerment” – where we scored #42 – that intrigued your Eyewitness. Here, we’ve already mandated that ONE THIRD of all MPs from the several parties must be female. This is in line with the goal of “representation by presence”; that is, women are best capable of representing “women’s issues”. Only those who FEEL can KNOW what it is to be oppressed on sexual grounds!!
So why their studied silence on the latest male outrage against women??
…passing ships
Your Eyewitness just learnt that when a ship hits a fixed object – like a bridge – it’s an “allission”, not a “collision”!! Well, it now appears the ship’s records before the allision were tampered with.
So, why no Police investigation??
