Blog Roll: Ukraine

 The Russo-Ukrainian War began in 2014 and is still ongoing without any clear sign of resolution. What the Russian Invasion will mean for the Ukrainian Economy is not clear but it has been a sever shock to the system. On this page, I will list what I have learned so far about the  Ukrainian Economy and Russian Economy in the hopes of understanding what might happen in the future. I will continue to update this page as I learn more.

• Seven Futures for Ukraine The UAL20 BAU model with different inputs suggests that there are not many desirable attractor paths for Ukraine. Most attract paths are worse than a Random Walk, with only the Business-as-Usual (BAU) model and linking to the  Russian Economy being better.
• Five Futures for Russia Interestingly enough, the best future for Russia is linkage with the European Union! Google AI reports:
  
  
  
  
  
• Is the EU Heading for a Steady State? From the standpoint of conventional Neoclassical Economic Growth analysis, future prospects for the EU don't look that good either. The EU may become a Steady State Economy. From the standpoint of continued Environmental damage, this might be a good thing. From the standpoint of growth-obsessed Russia, it would be unattractive.

My objective at this point (since the future us unknowable) is to try to figure out how the Ukrainian Economy, the Russian Economy and the economies of the European Union work and understand how they will respond to the shocks of the Russo-Ukrainian War.

• The Ukrainian Economy
• The Russian Economy

For more information about how my State Space models are estimated and constructed, see the Boiler Plate.

Trump's Trade War: the World-System Perspective

 

The New York Times today posted two interesting graphics about Trump' Trade War (here): The country status (above) and the results ranked by 2024 Imports (below).

From the ranks (above) it seems that he is going after the money, targeting our biggest trading partners. The economic sense of this (if there is any) is Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI) for the US, a strategy typically employed by Global South countries. Basically, price imports so high that home-grown industries will develop to fill the gaps. Unfortunately, building factories and developing an ecosystem of suppliers takes times. In the mean time, prices in the home country (US) go up as are result of tariff expenses being added to list prices (remember when tariffs would be listed on automobile sticker prices).

By the time ISI would have any impact, Trump will be out of office.

Blog Roll: Syria

 

Blog Roll: Iran

 

Iran has been in the news lately after US and Israel bombings. However, the problems for Iran are really historically driven and go back to the immediate aftermath of WWII. I have state-space models of the Iranian economy from 1950 to the present and use the models to help understand Iran's historical development 

HINT: the Iranian economy is an historically driven economy not a Neoclassical Economy. 

Here's a blog roll:

• The Iranian Revolution Still being worked out today.
  
• A Deep Dive into the Iranian State Space Cycles vs. Control
  
• Will Israel and US Attacks Hurt the World-System? Yes
  
• How Does the Iranian Economy Work? Not like a Neoclassical, free-market economy.
  
• What was the Impact of the Iranian Revolution? Elimination of Cycles!
  
• Stabilizing the Iranian Economy Easy but not easy!
  
• Iranian Globalization and Unemployment created the discontent that led to the Iranian Revolution.
• Iran as a Neoclassical Economy US Technological domination!

Further reading:

• Iranian Revolution a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979.

• Strait of Hormuz a strait between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. It provides the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean and is one of the world's most strategically important choke points.

• Iran-Contra Affair a political scandal in the United States that centered on arms trafficking to Iran between 1981 and 1986, facilitated by senior officials of the Ronald Reagan administration

• Iran Nuclear Program one of the most scrutinized nuclear programs in the world, has sparked intense international concern.

• Pahlavi Iran the Iranian state under the rule of the Pahlavi dynasty. The Pahlavi dynasty was created in 1925 and lasted until 1979 when it was ousted as part of the Iranian Revolution, which ended the Iranian monarchy and established the Islamic Republic of Iran.

• Iran-Iraq War an armed conflict between Iran and Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. Active hostilities began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for nearly eight years, until the acceptance of United Nations Security Council Resolution 598 by both sides.

• Iranian Economy a mixed, centrally planned economy with a large public sector. It consists of hydrocarbon, agricultural and service sectors, in addition to manufacturing and financial services, with over 40 industries traded on the Tehran Stock Exchange.

• The White Revolution a far-reaching series of reforms to aggressively modernize the Imperial State of Iran launched on 26 January 1963 by the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and ended with his overthrow in 1979.

• Modernization Theory holds that as societies become more economically modernized, wealthier and more educated, their political institutions become increasingly liberal democratic and rationalist.

• Foreign Policy of the Kennedy Administration The United States foreign policy during the presidency of John F. Kennedy from 1961 to 1963 included diplomatic and military initiatives in Western Europe, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, all conducted amid considerable Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union and its satellite states in Eastern Europe.

• Sharia Law a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition based on scriptures of Islam, particularly the Qur'an and hadith.

Why MAGA?

 

Sometimes I think I understand the MAGA Movement, other times I don't. ChatGPT (here) reports that there are a handful of reasons. The best I can say right now is that it is complicated. My favorite explanation, that aligns with historical analysis of the Nazi Movement, is Right-Wing Reactionism. The failure and humiliation of loosing World War I led Germany to Nazism. The failures for the US are not so clear, but let me just explore Economic failures in this post.

Everything seems to have come to a head during the COVID-19 Pandemic which was a strong shock to the US Economy and was handled very poorly by the first Trump I Administration (2017-2021).

MAGA and Big Tech

To me, the alignment of the MAGA movement and Big Tech continues to be surprising. I have worked in Tech all my life because of the intellectual challenges and the ability to get things done (estimating statistical models, specifically) that couldn't reasonably be done on a desktop calculator. I don't find anything about the MAGA movement intellectually challenging but the Tech Bros seem to see MAGA as a way to get things done. What exactly are they trying to get done and, what if anything is the intellectual attraction?