Topic: On Apple's $200 billion dump and US shooting itself in the foot - page 2. (Read 699 times)

Dedollarisation was spoken about in the 80's, people had various ideas for alternatives.  Yet it survived then, rates went to 15% at one point and have declined alot since then generally though the recent rise appears big is nothing compared to what they had to do previously to turn around Dollar.
  People point out now the national debt is far too much to carry the burden of higher rates and its unlikely the debt can be repaid any time soon to reduce the cost of that debt load hence a possible melt down in Dollar value.  We dont know that happens but alot of factors point to that outcome occurring.


Alot of western economies became too dependent on production elsewhere,  too much service industry not able to innovate is a possible problem many  are concerned on that.   We import that production and capability from elsewhere, its obviously a vulnerability.

I'm not saying that "US will lose power soon", I say US has been losing power for years and it is now only speeding up.

Take dedollarisation for example. Something that people denied is happening 1-2 years ago and we only keep hearing about in the mainstream media recently has been happening for at least 15 years. It's easily seen on statistics too. 15-20 years ago US dollar was used in 75-85% of the entire international trades. Today that is barely reaching 50% and is dropping fast.
Not to mention that even Bitcoin falls under the category of dedollarisation and also was created 14-15 years ago.

Same with military, weapons, influence, etc. that you mentioned.

You see inflation and capitalism didn't just hurt regular people and industries. It's hurt everything. For example a simple UAV costs a shit ton of money to manufacture inside US, and the capitalist ridden companies have turned into the biggest scammers like Lockheed Martin that is more of a thief at this point rather than a solid aerospace company.
Off the top of my head I could mention the story of manufacturing The Beast aka RQ170 that you can read in books like Drone Wars. In short hundreds of billions of dollars were wasted Lockheed Martin for R&D on failed projects for years to lead to the final "successful" one that created what US considered to be the most advanced stealth aircraft. In its first attempt to spy on Iran back in 2011, not only it was easily detected by the Iranian defenses but also it took them seconds to hack it, take full control and land it safely inside Iranian soil. They then decrypted its data, reverse engineer its technology and mass produced it at ridiculously cheap prices!
This extends to the similar aircraft like B2 Bombers and of course the so called "stealth" fighters like F35. And US Airforce is supposed to be strong and advanced lol.

There are numerous examples I could give in other fields. Take influence for example. 5 years ago nobody could imagine Saudi regime (the 51st state) going against Petrodollar let alone threatening US with "economic devastation". Today they're doing it and worse!

I'd say you're touching facts. It isn't only Chinese kids it's others they're dreaming of bigger things but western kids chasing fame from influencers. It doesn't work. They're dreaming wrong dreams. Kids in poverty in Africa, S America, MENA are beginning to dream same social media stardom dreams like western kids but they'll wake up one day.

They've done that because what they knew is TikTok is like a spy to their country. Well, these trials do happen and result like that for most of their hearing even for other companies.

Much better to just stay with trade war. There will be collateral damage if an actual war happens and we don't want that to happen. But we can't do something if that triggers one of them to start it. Both of them are doing things that might startle the other. If they can't afford anymore the trade war, it's still possible that one can just fire to the other as the sign that it has all begun.

I wouldn't be so sure.

Which country had weapons of mass destruction back then? You can't really easily say that US will lose power soon, it's too early to say that, especially when it has the best military, best weapons, has influence on the whole world and so on. But I agree with you when you say that nothing lasts forever.

That's because when I was a kid, we wanted to become scientist, astronaut, president, doctor, chemist. And now? Kids want to become KSI, Logan/Jake Paul, PewDiePie, TikToker, Youtuber, gamer. Average American wants to become that while average Chinese kid wants to become a programmer, scientist, engineer. You see the difference? America went too much into entertainment but they manage to fill the gaps by attracting a huge number of workforce and talented people from other countries.

I can still remember how funny the trial/questioning to the CEO of tiktok from the senators of USA, it seems that lack of knowledge from something is chaotic when you have the power to just shut it down forever. Tiktok complied to all they need to operate in most of countries and then USA started questioning about their national security. National security over an application that lets you take a photo of yourself with a filter and record yourself dancing. just wow.

China isn't that weak to fight back against USA. I can sense that America is ready for something, like a warfare, so they just starting any conflict with countries. It is a great restart for their economy to avoid crawling against well performing country like China. 

I remember when Trump tried to ban TikTok as that's a strikeback then against China. It's always these two that have their own strikebacks hitting each other's economy. While there have been pulling out for the manufacturers from US companies that are being sourced out to China because of cheaper labor. China sees that labor much better to be invested into their own products and workforce that shall contribute more to them for the trade that they export abroad to compete products that have always been from the US. It is true that it's not just tech that China isn't trying to compete but there are such a lot of other industries they're trying to get on like in cars, construction, etc.

Maybe but the certain thing is that US will become a normal country.

Well many of these countries with enormous power and resources have existed for thousands of years before United States was even invented. For them it would be like going back to factory settings...

I'm not predicting anything but same thing was said about a lot of other industries and countries. Like the Automotive Industry. It was once dominated by United States alone like in the 50's. Everywhere in the world the names like Ford, Cadillac, Chevrolet, etc. were heard. Today those are mostly a thing of the past as they are replaced by Toyota, Nissan, Mazda (Japanese), BMW, Audi (German), and of course the Chinese cars that are flooding US itself some like Buick under disguise of familiar names.

For example the Japanese automotive industry that is huge today, was once so tiny they would only produce a hundred or so cars and they were all "counterfeit". In early 50's with no infrastructure and no technology Japanese were basically copying American cars and were building cheap knockoffs.

In other words "counterfeiting" is not a culture, sometimes it is a step in the big journey.

These are good points and I agree, Apple is not going to see any catastrophic decrease of sales in near future but as I said above, Caddies were once "cool" too.


I never claimed it was a country-wide ban, I said "restricted the usage" without being specific because the degree of the restriction is not important in the points I'm raising here.
The argument here is the fact that for the first time in the past 30ish years where US used to be the solo world power, China has been placing such "sanctions" on US economy and they have been showing themselves up in US economy. This would have been unthinkable 5 years ago.

Otherwise a country-wide ban in China would easily wipe out between $0.5 to $1 trillion from Apple and that's only if the crash stops without Chinese market.

iPhones are not restricted from use in China, only government workers and officials are prohibited from using them (while they are at work). You must have read one of the misleading headlines that said China has banned iPhones. If that were true then Apple will lose most of their stock price because most of their manufacturing base is still in China.

Where's American influence going to be if all MENA region united? Countries are developing their economy, tech, military so they'll break way from American or European influence but it's going to take longer time. The old world order isn't finished it's in process of finishing.

"Being number one is sometimes not good, because without realizing it, number two will be able to overtake you at any time." These words are very suitable to represent the current state of America. They are very wrong if they still think that they alone can become leaders and that no country can overtake them. Economic war, technological restrictions, even using alliances, all the efforts made by America cannot stop China and other countries from continuing to develop. Even when they use their alliances such as "G7" and "NATO" they still cannot stop the development of other large countries. And that could even be a trigger for opposing countries to develop their own technology which could be much more developed than that displayed by America.
America must realize that now is no longer their time. Other countries are aware that what America is doing in the international world must end immediately and it is time to develop their economy, technology and military, and America must accept that situation.

What sells iPhone to your mind? What's its strong point? Price? Quality? I bet, it's none of these. iPhone is sold because it has Apple logo and its name is iPhone. If you own an iPhone, society thinks that you are a cool person. Almost absolutely every girl wants or owns iPhone. Why? Especially when they only use it for Facebook, Instagram and TikTok? The only option they use of this smartphone is Camera and call/messaging. They buy it because their friends think its cool and you are cool if you have latest iPhone in your hand, that's all, that's what sells iPhone. 99% of iPhone users don't need this smartphone and can easily live with $300 smartphone.
So, I don't expect this move to decrease iPhone sales in future.

Btw I hope top EU countries will find interest in new technologies and not focus solely on cars.

No, what about this Times reign, not kings ? This is a quote that one of my ausländer (He was calling himself so) colleague told me once when we were talking about Russia-Ukraine war.

There is a difference between leaders. Russia can't take care of its own country, how is it going to take care of others? But it wants to be a superpower, that's funny. Russia is the biggest country in the world but outside of Moscow and Saints Peterburg, there is absolutely no life in Russia. Check their buildings, their hospitals outside of those two cities and then compare it to random small German village for example, you'll see a huge difference.

People from developing countries seem to be benefitting from this trade war between China and the US. This war has led to the transfer of technology to other countries. Thailand, Vietnam, India, and Cambodia are now the major producers of some of the semiconductors used in the US as they stop relying on Taiwan and China. Some US companies in China moved their industries to China's neighbors which has made these nations advance in technology and increase in employment and revenue.

China is now seeking other markets after the crackdown on its investment in Europe and the US. After the sanction and legal restrictions placed on Huawei in the West, even countries like Lithuania encouraged their citizens to drop Huawei smartphones,  the Chinese company has shifted its market to Africa and the Middle East. Almost 70% of 4G networks across the African continent are handled by Huawei. Most of these developing nations need these important infrastructures and the trade war between these two world powers has made them an important market.

There is one nuance that explains why totalitarian and semi-totalitarian regimes have always been and will always be more backward, while free countries are more technologically advanced.

The free developed world gave birth to free economy, free market, and effective competition. This means that companies are willing, able and eager to provide consumers with new competitive solutions. And this means, first of all, technology. In totalitarian and close to totalitarian economies, what the economy can do is to generate something for the military-industrial complex and to provide for the elites.
The best example is the USSR. Like "the best missiles, tanks, ...." and so on. But people did not have normal clothes, primitive household appliances, everything was in short supply, produced minimally and with disgusting quality....  In addition, China is also coming with a new "party course".  It was the arrival of developed capitalism and Western technology in China that China turned from a backward agrarian country, with low-quality production, into a major high-tech economy. But Xi JinPing decided that China does not need progress and development, it needs a rigid regime, curtailment of freedoms, including economic freedoms....

Well, take for instance the "ASIC" chip development and manufacturing in Crypto currency mining.... Silicon Valley will never be able to catch up to the Asian manufacturing capabilities and the technology that they have patented. 

The US Government (NASA) are not the power house it used to be and countries like India are now landing spacecraft on the Moon. The most technologically advanced countries are now coming from South Korea and Taiwan and the most sophisticated hackers are coming from North Korea and Russia. 

I did some quick surfing on the net and found a list from Global Finance regarding the most tech-advanced countries in the world as of 2023. Based on their list South Korea ranks one (if you wanna know how they did the ranking you can check the list) while the US closely follows on rank two. Although East-Asian countries are well represented in the top 20 (with Taiwan, Japan, and Singapore) China falls on rank 38. The article explained that even though China invests a lot in research and tech production, the country fails to utilize its citizens for greater technological advancement, unlike its economic peers. With this, I would like to agree with you, although I am sure some will argue that this is not enough foundation to state that China will not make it as big as the US in terms of technology as China has been providing a lot of production parts towards big tech companies like Apple. I guess we'll just need a more conclusive article if we are going to actually make a comparison with that. Nevertheless, for now, I wouldn't go as far as saying that China will be as big as the US, perhaps they will continue to grow and develop in tech but not as quickly and as massive as the US as of now.

Link to the article/list: https://www.gfmag.com/global-data/non-economic-data/best-tech-countries

When I read stuff about Tencent and the like, I don't doubt that statement at all.  On the other hand, it seems like a lot of the tech innovations that have changed our lives have originated in the US--I've no idea whether that's going to continue or not, but I wouldn't count the US out just yet.

As far as China goes, I've got my doubts that a communist country is going to become a tech giant on their own.  They're very good at using everything that other countries have invented (not to mention their culture of counterfeiting shit), but I don't think they're going to make any major developments in tech all by themselves.  But hey, I've been very wrong before, more times than I can count so we'll see.  What I'm more worried about is how all of these countries with enormous power and resources are going to get along in the coming decades.

When two friends turn enemies the centre can no more hold as before.

In the real sense of liberalism there's no country if the world that's practicing it to the letter. I caption it as a camouflage that permeate the current age and nothing more.

It is said that when two elephants fights it is the grass that suffers but in this fight the grass have been cleared and it's the two elephants that are feeling every bit and pieces of their fight and that's what makes the fight more captivating to spectators watching from afar.

You have some very depressing worldview
Have you tried to look at what is happening from a different perspective ? Believe me - there are many positive things in the western world that are not available in those countries where "kindness, welfare, equality".... The truth is only on radio and TV
For example, North Korea is a perfect example of a developed society, and no capitalism and "fucking everyone with the help of your favorite son"
Or did I misunderstand your line and thought ?

China's holding financial leverage so they're able to retaliate. Look at the MENA region if they fell under one framework for trade they'd be able to challenge any hegemony. The old world order won't continue much longer because China isn't going to accept it. BRICS expanded to more countries so it's going in directions away from United States.