One of my favorite demographers is Peter Ziehan, an American thinker who has for the past decade been right more than he has been wrong. His most important contribution is to the impact of history and demography on economic and political power.
In a nutshell, his conclusions are that China, Russia, Korea, and Germany are in deep trouble, but that France, the UK, and the US are well positioned.
The failure points for China and Germany are the same -- demographic collapse and energy shortage. Of course, both countries face different specific challenges but the reality is that both are energy dependent for their growth, both have plummeting birthrates, and both rely on the American security umbrella to succeed, and provide cheap transport.
The Americans no longer need the rest of the world, already the US has withdrawn the 6th fleet from the Middle East, and has only about 1,000 advisors left in the region. It is estimated that by the end of 2023, the US will have no skin in the game in the Middle East -- and nature abhors a vacuum. Contenders to replace the Americans are Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey. For the first time since WWII, the US has lost interest outside of North America. It is a net energy exporter, it is a food exporter and a raw material exporter. Finally, the US has the most attractive demographics of all of the OECD.
Ziehan's prediction is that China will be done by the end of the decade (as will Russia) because of population collapse, and that doesn't take into account any additional risk that faces the economy (at the end of an incredibly long energy supply route, heavily dependent on food imports, and is having a fight with America -- the country that has for the past 60 years provided the world with its trade security umbrella and for the past 40 years China's primary export market.
But Peter is not always right...
PZ has an issue with electric vehicles, mainly because of the issue of supplies of goods necessary for the construction of EVs, specifically Lithium, copper, and rare earth metals essential in the manufacturing of electric vehicles (BTW Rare Earth metals are not "rare" it's in the context of rare-earth oxides...).
In the past month, Tesla made two important announcements:
(1) Tesla will begin processing Lithium ore directly in the US and ecologically. This is a major shift since the issue of pollution in processing is one of the many dirty secrets of electric vehicles, and
(2) Tesla's new motors will be manufactured with zero rare earth metals!
It is one of my major criticism of PZ's analysis, he has a deterministic view of the world that is based on long historical trends -- e.g. his reading that the invasion of Ukraine was inevitable because of Russia's paranoia, and that there is no option but to fight Russia to the death in Ukraine otherwise, future land grabs by the Russians will end with nuclear exchanges. He's almost certainly right on that issue.
However, PZ has a blind spot with technological improvements. The rare earth metal issue is one of the most important weaknesses of EVs -- but their removal from future Tesla engines is a massive shift in the sector. Considering that Tesla doesn't protect its technology with patents, it is almost certain that other manufacturers will follow Tesla's lead.
We all suffer from the disease we fail to see the certain long-term implication of technological changes or changes of use. In 1900 there was an issue with stables in NY City, and how dirty and unpleasant they were, yet within 15 years the issue was gone (different pollution). In 1900, 99% of all vehicles in NYC were horse drawn carriage. In 1913, 99% all NYC vehicles were ICE powered. The can-opener analogy is the "assumption" one makes about the future based on history. Sometimes the assumptions are wrong!
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