The rich know they’re fighting a class war, and I’d argue they understand Marxism better than the vast majority of workers in the west.

China certainly played a role, but Russia didn’t adapt solely because of China. Russia was preparing for this eventuality since at least 2014, and has now become largely an autarky in terms of all the necessities. Russia also does large amounts of trade with Africa, Asia, Middle East, and Latin America. On top of that, standard of living in Russia is now growing which means rise in consumption which creates a market for China. Russia is not as big as the US, but it’s still a market of of over 143 million. The economies of countries in ASEAN are rapidly growing as well. I expect that’s where China will be refocusing trade along with boosting domestic consumption.

The specter of Russia has become a central rallying cry for neoliberals, who increasingly frame it as the root justification for their policies. The narrative goes: “Elections must be suspended to prevent Russian manipulation. Budget cuts are necessary to avoid funding a potential invasion. Censorship of independent media is justified to combat disinformation.” By framing every crisis through the lens of Russian interference, neolibs can justify any power grab they want.

I mean BRICS is growing economically, which means rising internal consumption. Meanwhile, consumption in US is dropping which means that even without tariffs there will be less demand going forward. There will definitely be some pain in the short term, but I expect it will get resolved within a year. I’m basing this on how quickly Russia was able to adapt to being cut off from trade from the west. If Russia was able to do this, you can bet China can do it better.

You’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy.

Sure, it’s not nothing, but I imagine it’s an amount of trade that can be redirected either internally or towards other friendly economies. There might be some short term pain, but that’s where the government can step in to ensure a smooth transition away from reliance on US.

Exactly, this is a huge disaster from US perspective, and barely noticeable drop in exports for China.

It definitely seems more inline with other measures such as credit card delinquencies. Thanks again for linking it, definitely an interesting read.

oh wow didn’t know about lisep, 24% effectively unemployed is wild

lol maybe he’s grown as a person :)

I guess images have become the standard way to share agitprop nowadays.

Can you look at western regimes today and see anything but profound evil?

The Sheep Look Up is looking more prophetic by the day.

the study https://www.lung.org/media/press-releases/state-of-the-air-2025

BRICS is already pretty entrenched there with Brazil being one of the founding members.

AI is not good with tracking objects temporally :)

Exactly, nobody would be crazy enough to allow the US to be a central part of the world economy again. It seems like even the attempt to carve out a bloc has failed at this point with both Canada and EU talking to China.

indeed

“eh, do we even want to bother trying to sell this stuff in the USA? Yeah it’s a huge market, but it’s also a huge risk now”

Exactly, and once trade is rerouted away from the US, what exactly is the incentive to go back. Political volatility makes the risk of doing business unacceptable. I just don’t see a way back at this point. I’m sure once Trump drops tariffs, then trade will inevitably resume, but I highly doubt it’ll come back to the same levels as before. The US has severely undermined its global economic leverage with this stunt.