About 20 years ago, I read a book about 2020 where the Western Era will end and it will be the Eastern Era, and I remember that the content was repeated in an 800-year cycle. I saw this book at a bookstore, and something came to mind.
The price of gold has risen rapidly recently, which means that the value of the currency we currently use is falling; does this also indicate global turmoil?
I reached retirement age last year and haven't worked for a company, but I imagine that the business world has also been affected in no small part. Reading this book made me feel renewed that we must be prepared to welcome the new world we will see in the future.
Below are the points I was concerned about.
・The triad of “England, the United States, and France,” which created Western democracy together, is now collapsing, the domestic production base has flowed out of the country, hollowing out of industry has occurred, and ideals and values such as “human reason,” which enables freedom, intellect, critical thinking, understanding, and progress are disappearing, and the ideal of “progress” is collapsing (p4)
・Trump is threatening countries trying to stop using dollars in international transactions with tariffs, and the true slogan of the United States is to consume without production, always “consume without production” in all fields, because it is possible to buy from overseas with dollars generated from domestic budget deficits (p6)
・The reason I was convinced from the beginning of the Ukraine War that Western defeat is inevitable is due to the fact that Russia, which has a population of less than half of the United States, is requesting more engineers than the United States (p9) The Ukrainian military is collapsing, and Europe has become the biggest victim of economic sanctions (p38)
・Because Russia has no interest in peace, and despite clarifying the red line, NATO continued to expand eastward, reached the Minsk agreement, and was betrayed even after the Cold War, and it did not place any trust in promises (written agreements and agreements) with Western countries (p40)
・The United States is suffering from Super Dutch Disease, so to speak, and the natural resource here (the Netherlands is natural gas) is dollars. In the US, highly educated people advance in the financial and legal fields in order to get closer to the source of wealth called the dollar, rather than in the science or engineering fields leading to employment in industry and manufacturing (p49)
・Similar to the German case, it is absolutely impossible for the United States to protect Japan using its own nuclear weapons, and there are no options other than “not having” or “having its own” (p51) Japan should proceed with the build-up of conventional weapons along with nuclear weapons, and this makes wars more difficult, so military wars are born from power imbalances (p54)
・It is not Russia's victory, but the defeat of the West, that is, the internal collapse of the “Anglo-Saxon world” including the United States (p61) means the collapse of the “liberal (liberal) West” that has dominated the world until now (p62)
・In order for protectionist policies to be effective, simply imposing tariffs on imported goods may not be enough; an excellent, capable, and hardworking labor population is needed; the United States is already too late; there is not only a shortage of engineers, but there is also a shortage of engineers and high-quality workers (p65)
・The defeat of the United States this time is a defeat that has never been experienced before; the United States experienced defeat in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam, but this did not mean that they lost US hegemony over the world economy and it was not a dramatic situation, but defeat in the Ukraine war is not just a defeat, but it means “defeat in the world economy,” that is, “the hegemony of the United States, which has reigned over the world due to economic sanctions and financial control, is defeated” (p74 )
・The original family structure of Homo sapiens was each family, and what was next invented along with the outbreak of agriculture is the “immediate family,” which is thought to be to transfer limited farmland without dividing it into the next generation; characters were also created here, and immediate family members were suitable for “intergenerational transmission” of assets, knowledge, and technology (p93)
・Two characteristics of Japanese companies: 1) there are many long-lived companies, two-thirds of the companies that have existed in the world for hundreds of years or more are in Japan, 2) there are many companies that produce unique products that are rare in other countries, and Japan is still number one in the world according to this index called economic complexity (p98)
・Democracy is not a consumer, but is supported by workers, American liberal democracy transformed into a “liberal oligarchy” due to the extinction of such workers, and those who support Trump live under the benefits of the key currency dollar rather than workers, and consumers = commoners (p101)
・From World War II to the end of the 20th century, capitalism was in charge of economic growth and technological innovation, and there was a division of roles where democratic politics saved the disparities and weaknesses created as a result, but they were caught off guard, and democracy was unable to control the runaway capitalism, and democracy was taken over by capitalism through political donations and lobbying in the United States (p102)
・The total GDP of Russia and Belarus is 3.3% of the Western bloc's, but Russia can continue to produce missiles with this GDP; the problem is that as financialization/service industrialization of the economy progresses, GDP is no longer effective as a measure of “productivity = true economic power,” and what ultimately supports military power is real productivity (p113)
・The approach between Germany and Russia is the situation that the United States is most afraid of, and the hidden real purpose of the United States, which initiated a war by making Ukraine a de facto member of NATO with strong military support was the division of Russia and Germany, and originally Russia and Germany had a close complementary relationship in terms of energy and economy, and the cooperative relationship between the two countries contributes geopolitically to regional stability, and from a long-term perspective, the approach between these two countries is completely reasonable (p117)
・The total GDP of Russia and Belarus is 3.3% of the Western bloc's, but Russia can continue to produce missiles with this GDP; the problem is that as financialization/service industrialization of the economy progresses, GDP is no longer effective as a measure of “productivity = true economic power,” and what ultimately supports military power is real productivity (p113)
・The approach between Germany and Russia is the situation that the United States is most afraid of, and the hidden real purpose of the United States, which initiated a war by making Ukraine a de facto member of NATO with strong military support was the division of Russia and Germany, and originally Russia and Germany had a close complementary relationship in terms of energy and economy, and the cooperative relationship between the two countries contributes geopolitically to regional stability, and from a long-term perspective, the approach between these two countries is completely reasonable (p117)
