Winter First Moon of the New Year
Jon and I went to the Yak and Yeti, a Nepalese place in Denver. We had the buffet, talked of politics and generations, family and China. Jon’s a bright, well-informed, guy whose political views have nuances.
He’s worried, for example, about a currency collapse if the dollar is no longer the world reserve bank note. I haven’t followed the argument closely, but from what I know of it, it imagines a scene in which China pulls back from the dollar, suddenly giving the privileges of the reserve to some other lucky money.
Here’s my two cents. As the world’s largest economy, it is in no one’s self interest to torpedo the US markets, especially for China. The interlocking nature of trade reduces the likelihood of hostilities, whether fiscal or military.
Britain, bestride the world at the end of the not so long ago 19th century, made a shift of the nature Jon anticipates, falling to second rate power status. Yet Britain and the British have survived.
We will not suffer the same fate. At worst, and I imagine, at best, too, we will be demoted from hegemon to co-hegemon. China and the US, perhaps eventually India, will share responsibility for word leadership. That’s bad for America 1ster’s but good for a world that can benefit from dilution of power in any one country’s hands.
Then we got in the rental Nissan, navigated through the blinking lights of Denver, the front range at our back and went back to Pontiac Street.