They’ve been doing this quietly for decades already. I get the feeling the vassals are already plotting and this new brazen open extortion is just going to accelerate the opposisiton. It will be a rough decade for sure but then it might end sooner than that.
What groups inside the vassals would be plotting such an opposition? The US and Europe are not separate things, they are just parts of the world capitalist empire. The capitalists freely move their capital and their residency between the countries of the empire, and the European politicians likewise are guaranteed cushy gigs in international organizations if they don’t rock the boat. These people have nothing to gain from loyalty to their country and trying to oppose the US, and everything to gain from just keep selling out their countries like they have been doing.
Factories take years to relocate. You think VW can just pack up and move out of germany? Sure they can transfer money to another country but money is not capital.
They are already majorly cutting down jobs and closing plants. I come from the heartland of german auto industry and its GRIM. Some move to east germany, some to slovakia or romania, but most leave the country.
Again money, stocks, and bonds are not capital. Capital is name for things that capitalists have invested in in order to make and sell commodities for profit.
Financial Capital is not capital. It is not even paper. Its speculation and rent.
Saudi Arabia sells oil to america but the Saudis can’t buy whatever they want. Their money has to stay in america. They only get to buy enough american military equipment to keep their neighbors from invading and their people from revolting. The rest they have to spend on stocks (but never controlling interest.) They aren’t even allowed to buy gold bullion. Their finance “capital” is only able to produce more “capital” and nothing else. If they can’t use it for anything else it is worthless.
You can’t “just sell” stocks, there has to be someone to buy them (and they’ll get them cheap). Regardless of who owns the stocks or what they are valued at there is capital in europe and that capital has productive capacity. The owners will want that capital, whether it is factories or farmland or data centers, to work at capacity to generate maximum profit. Being subject to the whims of empire is the primary impediment to profits.
Sucking stock value from europe and injecting it into america will not make america produce more. The factories will stay in europe. All the process will accomplish is putting the economic leverage in the hands of european capitalists who are willing to stand up to the american empire.
If capitalists divest themselves of european based Capital they will become poorer because money alone does not generate commodities. They might get more dollars but those dollars are becoming worthless.
The value of us dollars is based only on confidence. Trumps trade wars have forced people to see the difference between industrial power and financial power and it is destroying confidence in the dollar. We are getting near the point where you cant buy rare earth minerals with dollars and you will have to pay for them with other currency and kind words to the CPC.
The capitalists in europe will not get richer unless they make a break with american imperial policy. This “trade agreement” is making that obvious to everyone. It is a direct attack on european capital and while many will turn the other cheek, some are surely plotting their resistance.
Capitalists are not a monolith. Some of them like the donald and crypto bros don’t have materialist perspectives on wealth but they are not industrial capitalists. They are finance capitalists and they only deal in theoretical economics never in the physical reality. That is why every move made under this administration has made their situation worse.
There are a good number of capitalists who deal in real things like agriculture and manufacturing and they have no choice but to have a materialist understanding of wealth because they deal with materialist conditions every day. Just because you don’t see these people pushing back against financialization doesn’t mean they aren’t aware of the repercussions and aren’t preparing to use the inevitable collapse to their advantage.
They’ve been doing this quietly for decades already. I get the feeling the vassals are already plotting and this new brazen open extortion is just going to accelerate the opposisiton. It will be a rough decade for sure but then it might end sooner than that.
What groups inside the vassals would be plotting such an opposition? The US and Europe are not separate things, they are just parts of the world capitalist empire. The capitalists freely move their capital and their residency between the countries of the empire, and the European politicians likewise are guaranteed cushy gigs in international organizations if they don’t rock the boat. These people have nothing to gain from loyalty to their country and trying to oppose the US, and everything to gain from just keep selling out their countries like they have been doing.
deleted by creator
Look what happened to Von der Leyen, Habeck and Baerbock. They all got very nice jobs.
Factories take years to relocate. You think VW can just pack up and move out of germany? Sure they can transfer money to another country but money is not capital.
They are already majorly cutting down jobs and closing plants. I come from the heartland of german auto industry and its GRIM. Some move to east germany, some to slovakia or romania, but most leave the country.
deleted by creator
Again money, stocks, and bonds are not capital. Capital is name for things that capitalists have invested in in order to make and sell commodities for profit.
Financial Capital is not capital. It is not even paper. Its speculation and rent.
Saudi Arabia sells oil to america but the Saudis can’t buy whatever they want. Their money has to stay in america. They only get to buy enough american military equipment to keep their neighbors from invading and their people from revolting. The rest they have to spend on stocks (but never controlling interest.) They aren’t even allowed to buy gold bullion. Their finance “capital” is only able to produce more “capital” and nothing else. If they can’t use it for anything else it is worthless.
You can’t “just sell” stocks, there has to be someone to buy them (and they’ll get them cheap). Regardless of who owns the stocks or what they are valued at there is capital in europe and that capital has productive capacity. The owners will want that capital, whether it is factories or farmland or data centers, to work at capacity to generate maximum profit. Being subject to the whims of empire is the primary impediment to profits.
Sucking stock value from europe and injecting it into america will not make america produce more. The factories will stay in europe. All the process will accomplish is putting the economic leverage in the hands of european capitalists who are willing to stand up to the american empire.
deleted by creator
If capitalists divest themselves of european based Capital they will become poorer because money alone does not generate commodities. They might get more dollars but those dollars are becoming worthless.
The value of us dollars is based only on confidence. Trumps trade wars have forced people to see the difference between industrial power and financial power and it is destroying confidence in the dollar. We are getting near the point where you cant buy rare earth minerals with dollars and you will have to pay for them with other currency and kind words to the CPC.
The capitalists in europe will not get richer unless they make a break with american imperial policy. This “trade agreement” is making that obvious to everyone. It is a direct attack on european capital and while many will turn the other cheek, some are surely plotting their resistance.
deleted by creator
Capitalists are not a monolith. Some of them like the donald and crypto bros don’t have materialist perspectives on wealth but they are not industrial capitalists. They are finance capitalists and they only deal in theoretical economics never in the physical reality. That is why every move made under this administration has made their situation worse.
There are a good number of capitalists who deal in real things like agriculture and manufacturing and they have no choice but to have a materialist understanding of wealth because they deal with materialist conditions every day. Just because you don’t see these people pushing back against financialization doesn’t mean they aren’t aware of the repercussions and aren’t preparing to use the inevitable collapse to their advantage.