[Tainari88]

This is a definite answer to why many African nations can't really prosper using classic capitalist principles. Because one nation does not have to pay its debts. And the other does. Lol. Power dynamics.

Again, this is not about magical racial superiority and the excuses for maintaining unequal power relationships between peoples, and nations and classes and economic investment in society. It is about control and forcing others to do the labor and suck up that surplus. This is one way of doing it and achieving it.

How can we make it about fairness economically?

[late]

China loaned Africa a ton of money, and it is never going to be paid back.

The geography of Africa makes it really hard to do North to South. It puts a limit on how much they can organise. It also makes it harder to develop economically.

One of my pet peeves is the Ag Dept. Almost no one in America knows about it, yet it is one of the most powerful bureaucracies, and it does a lot of damage. No one, and I mean no one, wants to take it on.

I recently had, may still have, a discussion going where the guy was saying the CIA was untouchable. Dick Cheney bent it over and gave it a good rogering when he was president...

The CIA is a cream puff compared to the Ag Dept.

Anyway, even if we assume we got everybody to treat the nations of Africa fairly, it's been raped for so long it's going to take a long time for them to develop. But, to take one example, how the hell would we get oil companies to play nice? They aren't that different from the Mafia..

[Tainari88]

@late these topics are necessary. The oil companies did not want leftist presidents in charge of huge oil reserves. They overthrew the shah of Iran and made the conditions that exist now in Iran. The Venezuelan economy is in shambles.

The oil companies are monopolies. How do you break them up? The same way you break up too big to fail banks and every other abusive economic actor in capitalism. But it does take organized efforts. Not people who are paid off by these powerful interests.

It can be done. But it requires courage of the political and economic kind.

[Puffer Fish]

This is a definite answer to why many African nations can't really prosper using classic capitalist principles. Because one nation does not have to pay its debts. And the other does. Lol. Power dynamics.

You're ignoring the issue of why Africa has to borrow in foreign currency like the U.S. dollar.

If the U.S. dollar ever became weak and ceased to be the world reserve currency, the same sort of situation would begin to befall the U.S. too.

This is what inflation does, combined with a lack of trust in the country and their currency. Most African nations have pretty much ruined their financial reputations.

Especially concerning since there's a lot of Leftists in this forum who believe the U.S. will never have to pay back their debt and can just pay back the debt through inflation.
That's what Africa did, and look where it got them now.

[Tainari88]

You're ignoring the issue of why Africa has to borrow in foreign currency like the U.S. dollar.

If the U.S. dollar ever became weak and ceased to be the world reserve currency, the same sort of situation would begin to befall the U.S. too.

This is what inflation does, combined with a lack of trust in the country and their currency. Most African nations have pretty much ruined their financial reputations.

Especially concerning since there's a lot of Leftists in this forum who believe the U.S. will never have to pay back their debt and can just pay back the debt through inflation.
That's what Africa did, and look where it got them now.

You are ignoring the most important factor. The nation that is in the position of empire, imposes the rules that favor them. That is what Superimperialism the book, writes about. Michael Hudson talks about that reality in the book and in the video.

They use power to force others to service their debt and their labor can't build their own nation Puffer. It is for others to benefit from. It is like growing a garden full of fruits and vegetables and you work on it all the time, and you are there weeding, and fertilizing, and trimming and carefully growing. When it comes time to harvest the lazy ass nobody who did nothing and only shows up to harvest the best of everything, takes it all. Leaves you nothing to eat. Then they blame you for being a lazy failure. That is what they do in these power dynamics.

Eventually it comes back to bite them in the ass.
Because no one can live being abusive for all time without consequences over the long run.

What they should do is cooperate with whatever they can offer the other party without violence and coercion and do real relationship building. Whether it is with knowledge, education, interaction, services, and goods or some tangible way of being equitable. Not being abusive. It is a formula for eventual resentment. And collapse.

Slavery ended for a reason after being implemented for thousands of years as a way of económica growth. Eventually it was replaced and the people who could not imagine life without it? Had to adapt to a life without it. The same will happen in a world where the nations used for extraction can't pay back these horrible debts. It will be cancelled and many economies will be self focused and self sustaining.

You then cooperate for supply chain trade, and better quality food, and better sustainable energy systems and you need beautiful natural nations with tons of plants and warmth that breathe for the planet to be part of the entire interdependency of the eco systems and you can't abuse the ones who before used to be indebted nations forced to be left without recourse. That is going to be eliminated. Just out of the circumstances of do not pay your debt and interest payments or you will perish due to not having enough to eat or to invest for survival.

That is what the future is.

Empires are going to have to accept that servicing and unpayable debt is not going to be realistic. Period.

[Puffer Fish]

You are ignoring the most important factor. The nation that is in the position of empire, imposes the rules that favor them. That is what Superimperialism the book, writes about.

I think it works the other way around. Money is what gives the U.S. their empire status.
The U.S. is currently in the process of destroying that. Which is going to mean the U.S. empire will be in decline.

When you keep piling on to the national debt and keep printing more money, and then other countries start becoming reluctant to want to use that money, you're special status is on the way out.

Can't pay for military action around the world without money, huge amounts of it.

U.S. has already destroyed their manufacturing base. What's left when that money goes away?

[Beren]

the guy was saying the CIA was untouchable.

I was arguing that nobody would dare aspire to crush it, actually. Your misinterpretation explains a lot, though.

[Potemkin]

I was arguing that nobody would dare aspire to crush it, actually. Your misinterpretation explains a lot, though.

The last guy who aspired to crush the CIA ended up with his brains splattered all over his wife’s Chanel skirt suit.

[late]

I was arguing that nobody would dare aspire to crush it, actually. Your misinterpretation explains a lot, though.

Cheney ripped it's nuts off.

The thing you need to realise is that most Americans float on a mythology a hundred layers deep. The CIA didn't kill JFK, Congress beat it up in the 70s, etc.

[Beren]

Cheney ripped it's nuts off.

Which could easily be a misinterpretation as well.

most Americans float on a mythology a hundred layers deep.

Or they're just simply lied to, which they wittingly accept. It's not an exclusively Russian thing.

[Rancid]

The last guy who aspired to crush the CIA ended up with his brains splattered all over his wife’s Chanel skirt suit.

I still believe it was the mafia in that case.

[Potemkin]

I still believe it was the mafia in that case.

The CIA were working with the Mafia to try to assassinate Fidel Castro at the same time. They had each other on speed dial. Hand in glove, @Rancid. Hand in glove.

[Fasces]

What's the apocryphal quote? "When China shows up, we get a hospital; when Britain shows up, we get a lecture."

[JohnRawls]

What's the apocryphal quote? "When China shows up, we get a hospital; when Britain shows up, we get a lecture."

Cough Sri Lanka Cough... Did China finally allow to restructure the debt or not?

[Rancid]

The CIA were working with the Mafia to try to assassinate Fidel Castro at the same time. They had each other on speed dial. Hand in glove, @Rancid. Hand in glove.

oh shit... I forgot about the mob going after Castro!

[Fasces]

Cough Sri Lanka Cough... Did China finally allow to restructure the debt or not?

Name a second "example" . I'll wait.

Statistics demonstrate that 80% of Sri Lanka's foreign debt is owed to multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and the Wall Street investors. Its debt to China is only 10% of its total foreign debt, a level on a par with that to Japan.

Not even a great one, if we're calling for debt forgiveness.

But let's assume the worst - China built the port and seized it. Does it still handle cargo? Do Sri Lankans still benefit from the existence of that port? Does it still reduce logistical friction for imports and exports? Yep. Saudis own all the ports and gas refinaries in Texas - they useless to the residents of Texas?

[JohnRawls]

Name a second "example" . I'll wait.



Not even a great one, if we're calling for debt forgiveness.

But let's assume the worst - China built the port and seized it. Does it still handle cargo? Do Sri Lankans still benefit from the existence of that port? Does it still reduce logistical friction for imports and exports? Yep. Saudis own all the ports and gas refinaries in Texas - they useless to the residents of Texas?

Sri Lanka asked for debt restructioning and only China didn't agree to it compared to all the other lenders which kinda screwed Sri Lanka. Not sure what is the state nowadays.

As for other smaller examples at the current: Ghana, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Djibouti... Not yet that catastrophic as Sri Lanka but getting close.

[late]

I still believe it was the mafia in that case.

Humans don't like unanswered questions. It's why we have religion, and other fiction.

But, in academia, there are endless tons of unanswered questions. You learn to live with it.

We just don't know. But it is entirely possible that it was a one in million circumstance, a loser that got 'lucky'. But, again, we just don't know.

[Tainari88]

Humans don't like unanswered questions. It's why we have religion, and other fiction.

But, in academia, there are endless tons of unanswered questions. You learn to live with it.

We just don't know. But it is entirely possible that it was a one in million circumstance, a loser that got 'lucky'. But, again, we just don't know.

One question that is answered is that superimperialism is about forcing power dynamics economically on nations that are not Empires. So you can keep sucking out their wealth and it only favors your own imperial economy.

Using violence or the threat of violence and overthrowing governments that do not agree with you is a very consistent imperial action.

[Beren]

Humans don't like unanswered questions. It's why we have religion, and other fiction.

But, in academia, there are endless tons of unanswered questions. You learn to live with it.

We just don't know. But it is entirely possible that it was a one in million circumstance, a loser that got 'lucky'. But, again, we just don't know.

Sure, it's entirely possible if you religiously believe in blind chance or 'luck' or you're too much into fiction while dogmatically refusing even the mere possibility of any conspiracy.

It's a well-researched issue and the least we can know if we care to know and do our homework is that it wasn't a loser that got 'lucky', or rather that it simply wasn't or couldn't even be Oswald, which explanation is for dummies anyway.

I still believe it was the mafia in that case.

It may be more plausible than that it was the CIA or at least the CIA was involved, but it's still a conspiracy theory. If you're smart and educated enough (or even academia perhaps) as I am, you learn to live with it as one of many unanswered questions rather than being a conspiracy theorist to any extent.

One question that is answered is that superimperialism is about forcing power dynamics economically on nations that are not Empires. So you can keep sucking out their wealth and it only favors your own imperial economy.

Using violence or the threat of violence and overthrowing governments that do not agree with you is a very consistent imperial action.

You got really inspired by his dumb pretentious crap.