Comment Re:The funny thing is (Score 1) 52
there's no benefit to workers from having consumer goods manufactured in your country anymore. Stuff like coffee pots and TVs and whatnot are almost entirely built by machines except where slave labor exists.
That is just late 20th century thinking. That worked in mono-polar world where we were the only nation really capable of sustain force projection (security), the reserve currency, and at least some technological superiority.
Advanced Medical equipment - If China wanted to take that market they could inside a decade. Same thing with chips at this point, they have all the precursors. There is nothing left we can produce that is a 'you can't get there from here' for them any longer, it is just a pick an item from the list make it priority and fill the gap. It is rapidly approaching the point where if we just cut them off completely all at once they could 'make do'. All your type of think at this point does is allow them to make progress - entirely at our expense on their own terms. It is DUMB
On the other hand be if coffee makers, or COIVD masks, those end up being things you need. You can't make do without them. Robots or people, however they get built in the re-emergence of a multi-polar world the nations that can make THINGS, especially basic necessity will again be the ones with power, both economic in terms of trade, and military in terms of being able to keep supplied. Look at Ukraine, Russia would have rolled over them long ago without a sustained supply of American arms - why because we can produce them. The rest of NATO - LOSERS every one! All together they can't meet basic logistical needs for any sustained conflict. China see that!
They see why Russia even a solid 20 years behind in most tech, remains at least someone combat effective.
Power is about control of production, money is just a tool to facilitate it. The nation that can put engines on chassis, tires on wheels, coffee makers on counter tops, counter tops on cabinet bases, and grain in those cupboards is a nation with a future. The nation that buys all those things, is just waiting to be how far to bend over by the seller and when.