> Maybe the success of Japan-Korea-China
> is one of the main symptoms of the problem the system is facing. The
> system
> "wants" a free flow of goods and therefore an international division of
> labor. But nationalists in Japan-Korea-China wanted to build a full
> production set of their own.
The great irony, though, is that East Asian capitalism is narrowly nationalistic in the cultural/ideological field, but their keiretsu/chaebol structures are deeply multinational -- just the opposite of the US, which has a fairly cosmopolitan corporate multiculturalism, but an economic structure run mostly by Wall Street rentiers.
> The only possible outcomes are (1) an end to the free flow of goods; Asia
> produces for the Asians, America for Americans, etc; or (2) a nasty
> shakeout where one side or the other is forced to shut down its production
> capacity.
There's a third alternative: the US goes down the tubes, and the EU and East Asia step in at the last second with a suitably magnanimous bailout -- at a suitably exorbitant price. Maybe the oiligarchy will sell a couple blue states to the ECB.
-- DRR