![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So far, the names “Niall Ferguson” and “Ian Bremmer” have both appeared with strongly positive adjectives associated with them. Not an awesome sign.
Again, this is a book the basic idea of which — use real world constraints for making predictions in a geopolitical context — I completely agree with, and that I really want to like.
For clarity: NOT the same book I was reading. I’m done with that one.
“When the COVID-19 market selloff began in February 2020, I was in Miami at a gathering of top macro minds in the industry. Few there expected policymakers to react to the pandemic as dramatically as they did: with unlimited credit lines to businesses, massive quantitative easy (QE) programs, and even “helicopter money” — deficit-financed cash handouts to the public. The consensus at the event was that … Pelosi would play politics and delay the stimulus to hurt President Trump in the election.”
So, first off, what? I mean, I know that’s what Republicans consistently do, and I do understand that the writer was hanging out with a bunch of Republicans. But that is actually a bonkers degree of projection.
Author appears to default he/his when referred to a generic / gender unspecified person, but I’m not sure it is intentional, as there is at least one instance of “him or her” in the text.
!!!
“They were already primed to respond with extraordinary measures by the paradigm shifts of the last decade, particularly shifts away from the Washington Consensus. Fiscal prudence? Who cares? The US had already blown the budget deficit …”
OK, so, that’s not going anywhere useful.
The author of this book is, at a minimum, Not Old. Maybe he’s middle-aged. Maybe he still qualifies as “young”. What do I know. However, all the decision makers in February 2020 were Not Young, and mostly they weren’t even Middle-Aged any more. And they were elected disproportionately by people who are also Not Old. An absolutely crystal clear characteristic of Covid and its predecessor analogous-diseases (and let’s not lose track of just how terrifying SARS was, altho clearly the author here has lost track of exactly that) is that they are disproportionately lethal to The Olds. Covid may or may not have ever been that serious for the author; it sure as hell was to the people making the decision at the time.
This is surprisingly bad in-the-weeds political analysis. I’m not here for his political analysis. But still, this is surprisingly bad. It’s Ferguson and Bremmer type bad, tho, so I guess we’ll see where it goes.
“The quarter-century between 1985 and 2010 was a great time to be an investor. With geopolitics and politics on autopilot, running a business or a portfolio became routine, iterative and mathematical. The Goldilocks Era allowed for the professionalization of the investment industry in unprecedented ways.”
A _lot_ of _massive_ bankruptcies happened during that time frame. 1987 happened in that time frame. The Great Recession happened in that time frame. Waves of technological innovation created brand new industrial sectors and absolutely annihilated others. But sure, yeah, “running a business” was “routine, iterative and mathematical”.
“The reason policymakers [did this thing the author and his fellow conference attendees were not expecting] … had little to do with the nature of the crisis.”
Side comment: I have very little respect for people who set up shop to give advice on geopolitics. They tend to be a little different from academia engaging in the same forecasting / advice / commentary, but neither group looks very good over time. (Forecasting is hard, so people only do it if they are young enough to not really grasp how bad they are going to be at it and/or they _really_ believe in what they are peddling.) All that said, I did not have it in my head who had founded Stratfor, so I just looked that up in wikipedia, and then I looked up their book _The Coming War with Japan_. I remember 1991 pretty vividly, and so I _get_ why they thought that was plausible but wow did that not age well at all. Also, absolutely amazing that people take Stratfor seriously at all with that in the background. (ETA: It’s also possible people engage in this nonsense because they are that desperate to make a living and this is best suited to their personality / skill set / etc.)
There are some really great bits in this book. There’s a really good description of what’s wrong with hiring people who used to be in government, that wraps up with some high quality smack talk.
“Instead of a mosaic of intelligence, the investor quite often gets an over-the-hill technocrat looking to cash out … at best giving them useful background on a particular issue, at worst regurgitating Wall Street Journal and Financial Times op-eds.”
Big ups for that summary. It is Correct.
HOWEVER!
From a footnote: “A popular misconception is that the 1973 oil shock caused the stagflationary environment of the 1970s. This is not true. Commodity prices ex-oil were already on the rise well before the Yom Kippur War, signifying that inflation was coming one way or another.”
Oil production in the US and other outside-the-middle-east oil producers peaked earlier, and fragility was increasing in the system as a result. That earlier peaking production is what caused stagflation, in conjunction with the extremely expensive Viet Nam war, which impacted labor as well. It’s not that the footnote is wrong, it’s just that it’s not right. At. All.
ETA Still More, but this may be the last of it! I’m finally into what is a constraint vs. What is a preference specific examples.
““Vladimir Putin wants to Recreate the Soviet Union”: The most obvious example of the fundamental attribution error in the last decade is the prevalent analysis of President Vladimir Putin’s strategic thinking. The flawed argument is that since coming to power in 1999, the Russian president, enamored of the Soviet Union, has wanted to recreate the communist empire. Evidence for this argument: the 2008 invasion of Georgia, the 2014 annexation of Crimea, and the subsequent interference in domestic affairs of former Soviet states. The Baltic states must, by this analysis, “be next.” 25”
The footnote goes to a 2014 article.
“Even if Putin’s nostalgia motivated Moscow’s policies, Russia faces numerous constraints. Its symbiotic economic relationship with Europe is a major constraint. While most pundits see Moscow dominating that relationship, it is actually Berlin that has Russia by the … pipelines. [… is in the original.] With at least 80% of Russian natural gas exports headed for the EU in 2019 — and about half of that going to Germany alone — it would be economic suicide to turn off the tap to Europe. 26”
26 goes to a footnote that elaborates on Putin in 2014 making a deal with China and noting the interdependencies.
“Another subtler constraint is the state of Russia’s military. While much improved since the 1990s, Russia’s military does not have the capability necessary for the massive power projection required to maintain the borders of a vast empire. It barely had the capacity to interven in Donbas, where Ukrainian troops held Moscow’s mercenaries and unofficial volunteers in check. Ukraine has one of the least equipped and motivated militaries in Europe.”
LET US CONTEMPLATE THAT ANALYSIS AND CONSIDER SOME DATES! SHALL WE?
Publication date: October 2020. The introduction refers to covid.
Ahhhhhh.
I think we are done here, right?
Again, this is a book the basic idea of which — use real world constraints for making predictions in a geopolitical context — I completely agree with, and that I really want to like.
For clarity: NOT the same book I was reading. I’m done with that one.
“When the COVID-19 market selloff began in February 2020, I was in Miami at a gathering of top macro minds in the industry. Few there expected policymakers to react to the pandemic as dramatically as they did: with unlimited credit lines to businesses, massive quantitative easy (QE) programs, and even “helicopter money” — deficit-financed cash handouts to the public. The consensus at the event was that … Pelosi would play politics and delay the stimulus to hurt President Trump in the election.”
So, first off, what? I mean, I know that’s what Republicans consistently do, and I do understand that the writer was hanging out with a bunch of Republicans. But that is actually a bonkers degree of projection.
Author appears to default he/his when referred to a generic / gender unspecified person, but I’m not sure it is intentional, as there is at least one instance of “him or her” in the text.
!!!
“They were already primed to respond with extraordinary measures by the paradigm shifts of the last decade, particularly shifts away from the Washington Consensus. Fiscal prudence? Who cares? The US had already blown the budget deficit …”
OK, so, that’s not going anywhere useful.
The author of this book is, at a minimum, Not Old. Maybe he’s middle-aged. Maybe he still qualifies as “young”. What do I know. However, all the decision makers in February 2020 were Not Young, and mostly they weren’t even Middle-Aged any more. And they were elected disproportionately by people who are also Not Old. An absolutely crystal clear characteristic of Covid and its predecessor analogous-diseases (and let’s not lose track of just how terrifying SARS was, altho clearly the author here has lost track of exactly that) is that they are disproportionately lethal to The Olds. Covid may or may not have ever been that serious for the author; it sure as hell was to the people making the decision at the time.
This is surprisingly bad in-the-weeds political analysis. I’m not here for his political analysis. But still, this is surprisingly bad. It’s Ferguson and Bremmer type bad, tho, so I guess we’ll see where it goes.
“The quarter-century between 1985 and 2010 was a great time to be an investor. With geopolitics and politics on autopilot, running a business or a portfolio became routine, iterative and mathematical. The Goldilocks Era allowed for the professionalization of the investment industry in unprecedented ways.”
A _lot_ of _massive_ bankruptcies happened during that time frame. 1987 happened in that time frame. The Great Recession happened in that time frame. Waves of technological innovation created brand new industrial sectors and absolutely annihilated others. But sure, yeah, “running a business” was “routine, iterative and mathematical”.
“The reason policymakers [did this thing the author and his fellow conference attendees were not expecting] … had little to do with the nature of the crisis.”
Side comment: I have very little respect for people who set up shop to give advice on geopolitics. They tend to be a little different from academia engaging in the same forecasting / advice / commentary, but neither group looks very good over time. (Forecasting is hard, so people only do it if they are young enough to not really grasp how bad they are going to be at it and/or they _really_ believe in what they are peddling.) All that said, I did not have it in my head who had founded Stratfor, so I just looked that up in wikipedia, and then I looked up their book _The Coming War with Japan_. I remember 1991 pretty vividly, and so I _get_ why they thought that was plausible but wow did that not age well at all. Also, absolutely amazing that people take Stratfor seriously at all with that in the background. (ETA: It’s also possible people engage in this nonsense because they are that desperate to make a living and this is best suited to their personality / skill set / etc.)
There are some really great bits in this book. There’s a really good description of what’s wrong with hiring people who used to be in government, that wraps up with some high quality smack talk.
“Instead of a mosaic of intelligence, the investor quite often gets an over-the-hill technocrat looking to cash out … at best giving them useful background on a particular issue, at worst regurgitating Wall Street Journal and Financial Times op-eds.”
Big ups for that summary. It is Correct.
HOWEVER!
From a footnote: “A popular misconception is that the 1973 oil shock caused the stagflationary environment of the 1970s. This is not true. Commodity prices ex-oil were already on the rise well before the Yom Kippur War, signifying that inflation was coming one way or another.”
Oil production in the US and other outside-the-middle-east oil producers peaked earlier, and fragility was increasing in the system as a result. That earlier peaking production is what caused stagflation, in conjunction with the extremely expensive Viet Nam war, which impacted labor as well. It’s not that the footnote is wrong, it’s just that it’s not right. At. All.
ETA Still More, but this may be the last of it! I’m finally into what is a constraint vs. What is a preference specific examples.
““Vladimir Putin wants to Recreate the Soviet Union”: The most obvious example of the fundamental attribution error in the last decade is the prevalent analysis of President Vladimir Putin’s strategic thinking. The flawed argument is that since coming to power in 1999, the Russian president, enamored of the Soviet Union, has wanted to recreate the communist empire. Evidence for this argument: the 2008 invasion of Georgia, the 2014 annexation of Crimea, and the subsequent interference in domestic affairs of former Soviet states. The Baltic states must, by this analysis, “be next.” 25”
The footnote goes to a 2014 article.
“Even if Putin’s nostalgia motivated Moscow’s policies, Russia faces numerous constraints. Its symbiotic economic relationship with Europe is a major constraint. While most pundits see Moscow dominating that relationship, it is actually Berlin that has Russia by the … pipelines. [… is in the original.] With at least 80% of Russian natural gas exports headed for the EU in 2019 — and about half of that going to Germany alone — it would be economic suicide to turn off the tap to Europe. 26”
26 goes to a footnote that elaborates on Putin in 2014 making a deal with China and noting the interdependencies.
“Another subtler constraint is the state of Russia’s military. While much improved since the 1990s, Russia’s military does not have the capability necessary for the massive power projection required to maintain the borders of a vast empire. It barely had the capacity to interven in Donbas, where Ukrainian troops held Moscow’s mercenaries and unofficial volunteers in check. Ukraine has one of the least equipped and motivated militaries in Europe.”
LET US CONTEMPLATE THAT ANALYSIS AND CONSIDER SOME DATES! SHALL WE?
Publication date: October 2020. The introduction refers to covid.
Ahhhhhh.
I think we are done here, right?