RE: Pharmaceutical Tariffs and Avacta10 Apr 2025 13:46
Paul, re: the military protection, I agree that the west took a free ride. The EU and the UK are starting to do something about that and they now will no longer trust the US to adhere to the NATO treaty. Does that make the world a safer place? Could the same result have been achieved without the distrust? Don't know.
The US like all western countries lives beyond its means and gets away with it on a ponzi scheme of growth always continuing to service the debt until it becomes unsustainable. the US is in the same boat as the rest.
I can't work out if Trump is actually pretty smart or a tyrant. He could be a smart tyrant but even so, and even though i share your concerns about China, he managed to make me root for them. (And I am reasonably level-headed._
I think what we learned over the last few weeks is that whichever super power, China or the US, decides what it wants to do, the rest of the world does not get a say one way or the other, so it really, in any practical sense, doesn't matter whether its the US or China.
(The US is as "despicable" as China for suppressing democracy, supporting dictators, getting elected govts overthrown, torture, racism you name it. (all nations if they have the power, do it, tuns out its human nature)
Given politicians are ego maniacs (comes with the job), none of them will have liked being humiliated by Trump. He has treated friend and foe the same, so where was the benefit of being an ally?
Can the rest of the world do something... don't know, but I bet they try, just to "prove" they are not as superfluous as they have been publicly made to look.
This version of civilisation is drawing to a close. its inevitable as all civilisations do. What replaces it? who knows, but we all be long dead so who cares anyway. as my old pal Confucius says:
“We have two lives; the second begins when we realise we only have one.”