Well China is changing, i don't think most people really realise it's changing a lot under Xi, they have been selling some things around the place and i'm sure they have reason to do so they don't really do things willy nilly anymore imo, there will be a reason for the moves for sure imo. They are doing a fair few things differently these days thus the western tariff's because if we live in a competitive world the west cannot compete and thus need tariff's to protect their people's livelyhoods, as every day passes the more convinced i am that the 'Globalism" we once had is over and competition is returning imo, unfortunately we in Oz can't do much about it as we are all use to cheap chinese goods and have gotten rid of our manufacturing abilites because our leaders must have thought China will keep doing as it's told or something or they were just stupid i guess, we can shift some stuff to India but it won't be enough and can't happen quick enough and theres no point being dependant on one nation and just shift dependancy to another.
It's these reasons and the deeper meaning of this change by China mostly which keeps me worried about our inflation here and other China dependant countries, cutting a long story short it means our cost of goods will rise, moving and setting up factories etc in India and reducing production in China has extra costs, Europeans not having cheap Russian gas anymore raises electric prices on top of the big increases in energy costs due to renewables and this means western costs of manufacturing and all industries and services plus just generally living costs more because everything is energy or requires energy to be made and distributed, western countries also have high wages in comparison to Chinese/Indian/Indonesian/Vietnamese wages and our regulations are also costly on business and these all mean prices have to keep going up and thus i don't think we anywhere near beating inflation, it might fall back but it's more than likely it bounces up again like it did in the 70's imo because we haven't solved the problems causing inflation, instead our government makes taxpayers borrow money to subsidizes electric prices for people and chosen businesses because they've risen so much in the hope to remain in power and get votes and because that discounts the energy costs calculations for the official inflation number and thus than can say inflation has come down when it hasn't and has actually risen and is still rising, the country as a whole still pays the inflated energy costs and thus the people will eventually bear the cost.
Due to China, the Russian/Ukraine changes in Policy and push back against the west our academics that thought globalism (global socialism) would manifest and bet the house on it we have a serious problem regarding our standard of living, in a competitive world we will need to become productive.
The other i think is a worry is the Brics setup, Brics seem to like a Gold standard, fair enough they not their yet but when one looks at what China is doin with it's economy two main things stand out to me, firstly they are deflating the asset bubbles like property, they've stopped pumping it up unlike say Australia for example, i think it was down over 30% just in the last year with more declines being had in previous years and this is a big change as it shows Xi don't like all the money printing that inflates property price bubbles, many over the last 3 or 4 years have all been expecting monetary policy stimulation but stuff all has come compared to us and how China use to do, they also stuffed bondholders with big haircuts on bonds from Evergrande so they don't care about those type customers returning and these things tell me that it wouldn't surprise me if Xi is getting his economy ready for a gold standard or alike, the second thing that stands out is is Military build up and fair enough it's possible to think that the deflating of some of it's bubbles is to do with getting prepared for war with the west if need be and i'm sure it this has something to do with it however the two things can have single reasons too.
Obviously if i'm right and globalism is really over theres not many ways for the west to compete properly without suffering inflation, due to capex, energy and wages being fixed costs mainly theres not much to cut in the way of businesses costs, people not going to want wage cuts, the renewable crowd don't want cheap reliable energy and construction and setup costs are what they are and increasing all the time and this means all thats left to cut is taxes and regulations really, one can't just keep printing with low productivity in a competitive world or we end up like Argentina did or Venuz and countries like China invest in mines in other countries to reduce it's costs of goods, with globalism they had dumping rules and did deals with who sells what to who and how much etc, now it's not like that anymore thus the tariff's coming from the west whether they be lwnj's or rwnj's both have to do it one day.
The other thing i worry about is Trump losing (which i don't think he will but really have no idea), if Trump loses i think it WW3 here we come and the old guard will push for it's one world gov idea thats been around quite a while, i say WW3 because i can't see Putin and Xi going back to how it was as both are making moves which are very hard to reverse or back out of and neither would want to lose "face" so to speak. I think if Trump wins we have a very good chance of avoiding WW3 as he's not part of the old guard and this means he's able to talk to the likes of the Dictators like Kimmy from NK, Xi from China and Putin, Trump can talk their lingo and understands their issues and also isn't a snowflake type character either and strong men like Xi, Putin, Kimmy will respect that type character more than who they deal with today imo.
Anyway, just my overall thoughts on things and reasons why i worry about rates/inflation/gov policies etc, but who knows those in power may have a plan that i haven;t thought of or consider i suppose and might be worried about nothing.
