Why doesn't Britain make things any more? (2011)

The poor countries more or less have to spend the dollars because they need to buy fuel and high tech. It's the rare exceptions that stockpile it, China and Norway, and they can afford to do that because they're oil-producing.

> The poorer country would be better putting people to work creating domestic infrastructure straight away and only exporting what is necessary to get needed goods and services required to create that infrastructure

Generally true, but harder to achieve than it sounds. Worked in east Asian countries, but not in Africa, largely due to corruption. And the amount that has to be imported is high.

> You have to issue liabilities against 'Other Assets' rather than 'US Treasuries'

I can't even work out what this is referring to.

First, I didn't say it would be better if Britain was in control of Euro. Obviously it would be better if the Euro was controlled to the interests of all the Eurozone, not particular to the interests of some top-dog states. Which might even need a "two/three zone" currency.

Second, if you ask whether it be better for Britain to control its own currency, that's a given. EU aside, that's what any economist will tell you: a country is better off when it controls its own currency. Denying that is as kooky as being an anti-vaxxer.

The facts show that GB had way more rights and power to decide than Germany (exlusions from certain EU rules everyone else accepted etc.)

Germany is also by far the single biggest financial contributer to the EU.

The GB politicians used to blame the EU for all their own problems. There will be a hard awakening coming at the end of the year, but I‘m sure the EU will still be their scapegoat somehow.

Historical experience, including recent historical experience. Naively, most discussions of EU power balances resolve in the nominal voting system, and the vote count allotted to each country. Germany uses its economic and political might to push around smaller nation states, secure satellite votes, and do as it pleases within the EU, far more than its allotted voting power (besides a lot of the serious decisions are taken in backroom deals, and informal bodies like the "Eurogroup", through raw power, bypassing voting altogether).

Here's a good take: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/germany-...

Even this Spiegel article simultaneously downplays and confirms that Germany runs Europe:

"When Angela Merkel travels to Brussels, she does so as the leader of by far the strongest economy in the euro zone. Policies she doesn't agree with don't get passed. Power as such isn't a bad thing when those that have it use it wisely. But do they? There is a new tone in Germany. It is one that no longer abides by the noble customs of diplomacy. Whispering, suggesting and hinting have been replaced by ranting and blustering. (...) The economically powerful Germany got its way. In order to put the struggling countries on the right track -- on the German track, that is -- Merkel brought in the International Monetary Fund so as to free Germany from having to play the strict overseer. Still, it has not escaped notice that Berlin is in charge. (...) German sociologist Ulrich Beck, who has since passed away, referred to the pressure being exerted on Europe from Berlin as "Merkiavellismus." [2]

As a matter of fact, one of the stated goals of the bureaucrats that created EEC was (and remains) to contain Germany.

  "The German question produced the Europe of today, as well as the 
  transatlantic relationship of the past seven-plus decades. Germany’s 
  unification in 1871 created a new nation in the heart of Europe that was 
  too large, too populous, too rich, and too powerful to be effectively 
  balanced by the other European powers, including the United Kingdom. The 
  breakdown of the European balance of power helped produce two world wars 
  and brought more than ten million U.S. soldiers across the Atlantic to 
  fight and die in those wars. Americans and Europeans established NATO 
  after World War II at least as much to settle the German problem as to 
  meet the Soviet challenge, a fact now forgotten by today’s realists—to 
  “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down,” as 
  Lord Ismay, the alliance’s first secretary-general, put it. This was also 
  the purpose of the series of integrative European institutions, beginning 
  with the European Steel and Coal Community, that eventually became the 
  European Union. As the diplomat George Kennan put it, some form of 
  European unification was “the only conceivable solution for the problem of 
  Germany’s relation to the rest of Europe,”

So in essence it was taking money from Northern taxpayers to give to Northern banks to save them from illiquidity.

People in the South and their country budgets haven't seen a cent of these money.

Should the business school give preference to applicants who say they have a real business in their hands?

Yes, when the student's business grosses $73 million in its first year of operation and he come backs to you, hat in hand, asking for more training, that should count for something.

The business school, like the rest of UT, is there to serve the public interest. If a former student needs help with a fast-growing company that would eventually spend 25 years on the Fortune 500 list, the matter of his previous grades could have been overlooked, and should have been. Finding a way to accommodate him would have been the right thing to do.

Paper assets require a supportive legal framework to transfer them usefully. Imagine creating a blacklist of tax evaders with the sort of teeth we see with, say, the sanctions on Iran/Venezuela/the DPRK. Shut down their economic life until they'll yield a useful cut.

Physical assets can't easily be schlepped across national borders without anyone noticing.

Units? Weight? Volume? Dollar Value?

To fully understand China's economic path, you would at least need to study the economic terrain/decisions/outcomes starting in the 1750s-1800s.

Starting in the 20th century? Skipping the first 100 years of Western criminality in China is like talking about the Titanic sinking and ignoring the iceberg it hit.

Western powers collapsed Chinese/Indian/African trade routes. An industrial revolution is great, but it works even better if you murder/colonize/enslave all the competition.

Western powers engaged in industrial espionage and stole trade secrets (Ex. Notice the countries with tea industries (the most consumed beverage on the planet)? Almost all didn't exist before this UK crime in the 1800s). In fact Chinese leadership even offered tons of free tea (one of the most valuable commodities at the time) to the UK if they could just stop producing poison (opium) around the world. The UK ended up stealing tea production secrets from China instead of accepting this offer.

Western power's "opium as a way to avoid trade deficits" policy not only led to countless murders and abuses but also led to 30% of the under 25 population being addicted to opium in China. Even worse, when this turned into an epidemic, Christian missionaries then started giving opium addicts morphine and promoting it as a cure (not a doctor but quite sure that is adding gas to a fire).

Western powers (primarily US) gave the Japanese authorization to expand West into Asia in 1905, after all the drugging they did for the better part of a century (Teddy Roosevelt was a douchebag and his wealth was mostly inherited drug money, unpopular historical fact). If you don't know why Pearl Harbor happened, it is because we reneged on this secret treaty with Japan and assisted China in the 2nd Sino-Japanese war.

The problem with popularized historical narratives (very true in the US especially) is they can be manipulated and mischaracterized for propagandizing effect. Economic history, on the other hand, cannot be played with the same way and what originally was characterized as exceptionalism now we can see is just criminality on an unprecedented scale. We can track most of the opium money, domestic and international trade flows, and economic outcomes of these countries during this period more accurately and thoroughly than using any other set of data points, like political speeches/rhetoric etc...