First, of course, is the giant worldwide slow motion collapse that is ongoing, but has become uninteresting. The end game is fairly apparent, but those who can affect a change seem certain to ignore reality as long as possible, quite possibly because they have a vested interest. Since you can now hit up any regular news source for plenty of (dis)information on this subject, and the Bureau has released post after post on that subject, which should provide plenty of (dis)information from the Bureau's perspective, we'll just ignore that 800 pound elephant in the room and look at what awaits in the wings.
Of course, the Bureau continues to monitor China, as the global economy is pretty much riding on China's back. China is in a strange situation where their country's wealth on a global stage is tied up in US paper. This gives them amazing leverage of the kind that a madman has in an elevator with a grenade.
If China starts to liquidate its Dollar-denominated paper, it will trigger a collapse of those assets, which will reduce the sovereign wealth of the country. The question, of course, is whether they care. The United States certainly cares, as it is that wealth that currently staves off the devaluation of the Dollar on a global stage.
If China stops buying US paper, it will no longer be able to export anything to the United States. The objective of a Communist state differs from that of a Mercantilist state such as ours has become. A Communist state putatively exists to provide the workers with a better life, something the Chinese Communist state has done more than lip service to. Therefore, the longer the Chinese can keep US Dollars flowing in as an excuse for continued employment, the better it is from a Chinese viewpoint. This is why they are buying our paper.
Further, China now finds itself more and more in a position of global influence. They have a lever with which to move the world as we know it. The United States no longer commands the control of this planet. It still boasts the largest and most effective military, but it cannot take on China in any war near the Chinese homeland. It also cannot see to the one thing the US Navy has a right to be doing, which is deterring piracy on the high seas.
What this means is that most of the world, including Russia, are now required to pay begrudging respect to Chinese diplomats and China now obtains the kind of respect they have come to expect in their culture for their ancient society. It also means China is now more civic-minded, having deployed warships to deal with piracy in a way the US hasn't.
So, to summarize: China has control of the US by having control of the majority of US paper. China is now using its navy with some effect in a global stage fighting piracy, something the first-rate navies seem unwilling or unable to effectively address.
Now, for the bad. China lacks enough jobs to be fully-employed and has too many people to remain agrarian. This poses a serious problem. However, the meteoric rise of China has not come to an end; they now are in possession of a large manufacturing base, paid for by the United States and Europe, and are capable of turning that to their gain. Thanks to industrious effort, they have taken the leg up the rest of the world offered them and proceeded to climb further in their own direction. Everything the world has asked them to make they have reverse-engineered and created clones more useful to them.
The Bureau still believes China wants nothing more than to be considered a 'peer of the world' rather than a third-world nation, and has no militaristic intentions. However, many continue to misinterpret China's anti-piracy efforts as China attempting to establish blue-water naval capacity. It is possible China may achieve true blue-water naval power, but in the day of the nuclear arsenal, it means little to any first-world military, a class China finds itself in more and more often these days. What the Bureau must stress is that China has taken every precaution to ensure that these cruises are co-operative with the rest of the world, particularly India, England and the US.
That's it for the China desk. Now, off to another part of the world, Russia. The Bureau feels that the Bear is waning. Russia's short time in the limelight was due entirely to a booming energy market. The serious bust in the energy market has hurt Russia's bottom line, and, since their governance process and society at large is simply riddled with corruption, it can stand little reduction in the inflow of cash. It is expected that Russia will turn inward for the near future and there will be less and less problems with satellite states.
The next area of concern is the EU. The Bureau is primarily concerned with major players and those players that speak English because the Bureau is quite lazy. However, noises coming out of EU are very interesting, indeed. The Euro is in trouble, as the ad hoc alliance it really represents is coming apart. Germany does not feel it should pay to bail out Italy, for instance, and Italy wishes to inflate to fix its financial problems, something that would hurt Germany. As the tension grows, the EU will be under heavier and heavier fire.
England, the only country that has really implemented most of the EU directives, is watching its economy plaster under the weight of those directives, and is beginning to awake to the suffocation. The libertarian movement in England may gain steam as a result, and it is becoming more clear that England may secede from the EU, something it certainly can do as the EU has no standing military, and the only power strong enough to do anything about it, France, is allied with England in NATO.
We're not looking at Armageddon or WWIII, we're looking at a slow, grinding dissolution of a more and more ineffectual system, as Europe deteriorates faster than the United States from the contagion released on these shores.
Well, I lied; we will discuss the current economic disaster, but only to point out that the worst of the economic problems are clearly happening elsewhere. The United States managed to sell tons of toxic paper to the rest of the world and they are now suffering the losses for having bought the paper. Literally, the damage to the rest of the world has been greater than the damage to the United States. Such is the benefit of having the reserve currency.
This brings us to the last topic on tonight's agenda, the sociological ramifications of recent events. One thing the Bureau has considered at length over time as part of the futurological model we subscribe to, is the fact that the United States got more than its fair share of charlatans. They came here in droves to find a new place to work. They have so far managed to stay ahead of most of the rest of the world in dirty tricks. They managed to sink Japan with the cost of the great real estate collapse in the 80s and now they are shafting the rest of the world right now.
However, it is becoming apparent that the backbone of the country, those professionals that produce the high income and therefore high taxes, as well as provide the services and management expertise that has made the US one of the best run countries in the world, those same professionals are talking of leaving. They were talking of leaving when Bush was elected, and some did move to Canada. However, now it is no longer ideological; it is an active concern for the future. There are a lot of potential issues to consider, but the biggest winner in this change is likely to be, of all places, New Zealand. Hopefully the target countries will savor the opportunity to receive the new refugees from the dissolution of the Great Republic, and for certain, were the Bureau to relocate, the updates would continue about as often as they have so far.
Once again, there is a heaviness in the air. One is tempted to end with the old adage 'last one out, turn out the lights', but it is likely that the power will be off anyway.
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