So the US is the largest country because it spends most on national defense/offense? That’s an idiosyncratic way of thinking about world affairs, especially when the US has just lost a war to a fifth rate power, but you do you.
There are discontinuities. In the US, the 14th amendment is one of them.
But we are discussing nations here, not countries. That means popular understanding, which entails simplification typically along lines convenient to the present. AKA myths. US historical memory only extends somewhat beyond 1776. More importantly, colonial history is very much understood as before the US.
Western Civilization traces itself back to Socrates, maybe Moses, maybe the builders of the pyramids. This is almost nonsensical geographically. But we’re not discussing geography and the history is highly selective and acausal. These are stories that people in existing countries tell themselves. So the Brits trace themselves to King Arthur and the US traces itself to George Washington.
Bigots are trying to overturn the American story, in favor of more ancient and feral tribal ones. In an international context, John McCain sketched a superior way of thinking:
From the ashes of the most awful calamity in human history was born what we call the West — a new and different and better kind of world order, one based not on blood-and-soil nationalism, or spheres of influence, or conquest of the weak by the strong, but rather on universal values, rule of law, open commerce, and respect for national sovereignty and independence. Indeed, the entire idea of the West is that it is open to any person or any nation that honors and upholds these values.
The one advantage we have in the fight against fascism is fascism’s utter incompetence in delivering growth and opportunity.
I believe the current conservative movement in the US, as exemplified by the Trump regime, is built on two pillars: grift and racism.
Look into the history between Amway and the Heritage Foundation. To refresh your memory, Amway is a pyramid scheme multi-level marketing company, whose founders got rich and started the Heritage Foundation, who are the authors of Project 2025, which is being used as a guide for converting democracy into kleptocracy under the guise of suppressing people of the wrong ancestry.
The corruption and grift are not a side effect, it was the plan all along.
I do think that there’s probably an embedded lag in the US data. To be fair, the score has declined from a high of 76 to 64 last year. But I still expect the US to remain above China, India, and Nigeria since the rot is mostly confined to the top and foreign investors can usually (not always) fly below the radar and avoid paying bribes to Trump unless they want to.
A further drop by 10 points in either the score or the world ranking would not surprise me. A 40 point decline would.
The Iran War is the most corrupt in US history. Which must really suck for US soldiers.
OBrien details four instances of multi-hundred-million dollar insider trading connected with this war.
When you boil it down, the policies of the USA do not seem to be being developed or run by those who care about the USA at all, but instead policies seem to be vehicles to openly (and secretly) enrich those with close Trump ties
This is what I mean about what we are seeing being the most corrupt war in US history. Every element of US policy seems to be crafted with an eye towards making money. Announcements seem to be made to benefit insider trading, deals made to reward past bribes, and government policy is in the hands of those with massive financial stakes from countries who are trying to influence US policy.
OBrien argues that dollar for dollar the US federal government sponsors the largest volume of monetary corruption in the world. That’s what happens when you direct middle and low income country corruption at a high income country.
And to the extent that oil futures markets stabilize prices and reduce uncertainty in the market as a whole, this is a problem. Paul Krugman explains:
Here’s how it works. There are people and institutions, such as oil producers, who will need to sell oil at a future date. They want to lock in the price today on those future sales. There are also people and institutions, such as airlines, who have a future need for oil and would like to lock in the price today. Thus the futures market lets both sellers and buyers of oil eliminate a major source of risk – fluctuations in the price of oil. This reduces uncertainty in the economy as a whole. …
… Either way, the effect of traders’ suspicion that they may be losers in a rigged game will be to make them reluctant to play at all — reluctant either to buy or to sell oil futures. And this will mean losing the risk-reducing benefits of a properly functioning futures market.
Now, insider trading of oil futures probably isn’t big enough to do critical damage to those markets. But it does do damage, which hurts all of us, not just the buyers who got stuck with the immediate losses.
And beyond the narrow economic losses, insider trading on oil is part of the broader rise of what we can call the predation economy.
Under Trump II, corruption runs rampant. Success in business depends not on what you know but on who you know, and there are no rules beyond having — and, obviously, buying — the right connections.
This is bad for everyone who doesn’t have those connections. It’s bad for economic growth. And it undermines the moral basis of the economy and society as a whole. It’s the path of how a country slides into third-world status.
Well, he just got himself more than a billion dollars as a discretionary slush fund paid for with our taxes. This was a reward for dropping the 10 billion dollar lawsuit against the IRS. It’s right in our faces.
But the best part is he and his entire family and investments will never be audited. God Damn, it’s fucking good to be a trump, yeah?
Trump is an historically unpopular President with a trendline approval rating currently at 36.6% which is lower than a month ago prior. Net approval is underwater at -23.5.
Nonetheless, Trump still has a lock on the primary base, to the chagrin of Rep Massey, Senator John Cornyn, and 6 Republicans in the Indiana statehouse who were primaried out not because they dislike gerrymandering (they practice it and love it) but because they think it should only be done once per decade.
It’s an authoritarian personality cult. It won’t go away on its own. Only massive electoral losses will do that. Judging from the experience in Hungary and everywhere else, political corruption can be a potent issue.
My take is that for those who step off the Trump train, the first word should be, “Welcome”.
For those who stay on the Trump train I say make them own it. Republican approval after Trump began the coverup of the Epstein files topped 85%: they clearly love it, almost as much as they like paying high gas prices caused by pointless wars. Kind of weird, but I don’t judge them for that last one. 85%+ approval. Still.
Reasonable Republicans and former Republicans are different. They have principles. They vote based on policy. Most Republicans are the opposite though: they base their policy preferences on what Trump is advocating that day. Even when Trump hints at pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell: most Republicans maintain their approving. They keep nodding their heads.
There’s a lot of ruin in a country. We are a high income country. GDP per capita will remain that way over the next decade.
