[churchill]

Thank you; you summed it up perfectly. Globalization is the reason many Western countries still have the level of stability they do, since they can export their inflation to the developing world, while maintaining a consistent stream of cheap, abundant goods.

No amount of mass-produced goods from the developing world will ever be enough, as long as Western governments are committed to diluting the wealth of their people through QE.

The perfect example of a country playing globalization to their benefit is Singapore: started off manufacturing cheap plastic stuff; kept levering up, retraining their citizens, and aggressively pitching their country to businesses; maintained a levelheaded, business-friendly atmosphere; accumulated extremely deep reserves.

Singapore has like $2.5T in reserves, which is mind-boggling for a country of 6M that spends just 10-20% of GDP annually. In comparison, excluding the UAE, most of the Arab Gulf who literally dig up money from the ground, haven't accumulated that much in their sovereign wealth funds.

[FirmwareBurner]

Retirements and healthcare in Singapore are based on how much each person chooses to invest in it, kinda like in Switzerland.

Meanwhile in most of Europe it's based on socialist principles where everyone receives as much as they need regardless if they didn't contribute, a system which stops working the moment you have more people using it than paying in it, basically a ponzi scheme propped up by governments and voters.