[DaedalusII]

you give the 'elites' far too much credit. reagan was a tv cowboy that got elected because he was really popular, and cut taxes. Bush 1 was a cowboy and oil man from texas, and clinton was a cowboy from arkansas who made money trading cattle futures and doing land deals in the ozarks. Bush 2 grew up in rural texas and had a GPA of 2.35.

these people were really good at fundraising and getting elected, nobody after kissinger was competent in these ideas (kissingers morality is debatable, but he was very competent)

[woooooo]

Agree wholeheartedly with the exception that Bush 1 alone out of all of them may have actually been a successful shadowy lever-pulling elite. Spends his early life running a tiny front company for the CIA then all of a sudden he's the director, and then a top member of the Republican party. All while maintaining this "aw shucks", dorky persona.

[DaedalusII]

I agree in reference to military operations and foreign policy. economically he was pretty bad though and lost on that basis. a bit like a kyle machlachlan american psycho

although, the more damaging strategic trade decisions did come from clinton later i suppose.

[Gud]

Neither Bush is from Texas, they’re from the north east.

I guess the cowboy hats are working.

[meekaaku]

But wasnt it kissinger who normalized relationship with china?

[DaedalusII]

yes he did, but that was only diplomatic relations not industrial policy and tariffs. this was also done in the context of dividing the communist spheres.

mainland chinese manufacturing and trade in the 70s and 80s was still mostly garments, appliance assembly and so on. the kind of thing you see in bangladesh today - even vietnam has mostly developed past garment manufacturing.

the world leading electronics manufacturing and precision components only began in china after bill clinton invited china into the wto in 99/2000 and the heavy capital started to flow. even by then, I don't think the USG expected shenzhen to exist

china didn't really move from bicycles to private car ownership until the 00s.

I mean its easy to forget; if you said in 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, maybe even 2005 that china would be the worlds largest producer of cars, electronic cars, smart phones, drones, etc, on track to develop its own EUV lithography, and that many chinese cities would have the highest living standards in the world, you would have sounded ludicrous. intel was king and nokia/blackberry/motorola were the giants in cellular