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"The End of the World Is Just the Beginning" By: Peter Zeihan

My 5 takeaways for the decline of globalization and its impact on the world for the next 2 decades. 👇🧵

By Musonius LatoyahPublished 2 years ago • 4 min read
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The cover for Zeihan's "The End of the World Is Just the Beginning"

I just finished reading "The End of the World Is Just the Beginning" by @PeterZeihan

This phenomenal book forecasts the decline of globalization and its impact on the world for the next 2 decades.

Here are my top 5 takeaways 👇🧵

By GeoJango Maps on Unsplash

1. Supreme American geography.

America geography determined not only American power, but also America’s role in the world. Being positioned far away from any of it's enemies would go onto make it a very hard target to attack which benefited the American economy immensely.

By Andy Li on Unsplash

2. The Americanization of Global Trade.

Global trade before the modern era was a trickling dribble. At the maximum extent of the Imperial era in 1919, Combined trade both within Empires and among countries reached only 10% of GDP.

The Americans emerged from World War II financially strong with the only remaining Navy of any substance. What came after would go on to change the world. America would ensure that all countries could enjoy full access to global trade in return for a US dollar standard.

Now being transformed into a single Global safe functionally internal Waterway filled and supplied by diesel-powered Steel behemoths, the Technologies developed during the previous couple of centuries would finally be able to function without the Specter of War.

There would be no more privateering, piracy, or Imperial confiscation under the watch of the policing Americans. Global Transport shifted from the jealous province of the empires to the unfettered circulatory system of the global economy.

While the Industrial Revolution made it much cheaper to ship products from A to B, it took the American's Global order to make transport much safer.

By israel palacio on Unsplash

3. Powering The Order.

With deglobalization well on its way, the supply chains needed in order to refine the oil which powers the world are currently facing the largest risk they have ever seen. And as oil trade is priced in US Dollars, this poses yet another risk to the dollar.

By Alexander Grey on Unsplash

4. Financing The Order.

In the year 2022 every country in the world has experienced financial crisis in Market meltdowns multiple times since the post cold-war era. Symptomatic of deep structural issues, wildly unsustainable, and posing yet another massive risk,

the Global Financial Order faces a significant restructuring. However, Zeihan argues that if you're worried about the collapse of the USD then you're not thinking big enough. Change into something we have never seen before is coming underway.

In the unified world of the order capital can fly back and forth across borders with few limitations, however, that too is undergoing change. Expect to hear a lot more about Capital flight and capital controls in the age of the deglobalization.

Also to be expected is populism within the rapidly aging Global demographics as most older folks tend to be rather set in their ways. But more than that retirees are dependent upon pensions. Most pensions are funded either by tax's or by dividends provided by large Bond Holdings.

By Christopher Burns on Unsplash

5. Industrial Materials

Copper, iron, & bauxite, Cobalt, lithium, silver, molybdenum, platinum, nickel, silicone, and other rare earth elements have all played their role in the virtuous cycle in which the order establishes stability, which Fosters economic growth, which enables

Technological advancement which leads to the availability of these materials which allows their inclusion into the products & lifestyle of the modern age. In the Order the invading of countries for raw materials was expressly forbidden. You simply had to pay for them.

Conclusions.

Peter outlines important historical and future developments for most important regions of the current global order including South American mining and agriculture & unsustainable Asian manufacturing environments posing risks to globalization.

Food, materials, and finance is about to start drying up very quickly, and for most countries this spells complete and utter disaster. Zeihan predicts that America will continue to remain the dominant global power for some time as the world goes through chaos and change.

Their navy is their most important resource for maintaining safety and peace for them and their allies. There is much to fear, but there is just as much if not more to look forward to as technological breakthroughs due to human ingenuity combat the collapse of global order.

One thing is for sure, this top-down Approach to Global trade with the US policing the entire world is no longer sustainable. Some change needs to take place in order for Human Society to continue evolving.

As the title suggests, the end of the world is truly just the beginning for Humanity and an incredibly excited and optimistic to see how the future transpires, despite all the negatives outlined in the book. I'm bullish on humanity till the end.

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About the Creator

Musonius Latoyah

24 y/o writer, thinker, philosopher, and innovator towards all attainable good.7

“The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.”

“Silence is worse; all truths that are kept silent become poisonous.”

- Friedrich Nietzsche

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