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The US and EU came to a "deal" where the US will tax EU products at 15%, while the EU agreed to zero on US goods. (www.cbc.ca)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/worldnews@lemmygrad.ml
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[–] 41 points 1 year ago (16 children)

I have a feeling the imperialism the US imposes on its own fellow imperialists will just keep increasing over the years. Until it reaches a breaking point. The vassals are in for a rough decade.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 year ago

    This was already happening since 1945. Operation Gladio? Killing Palme? Literally setting up Italy's and Germany's political system? The Suez Crisis? The whole "revolutions" that brought down the eastern bloc?

    I pointed this out a few years ago and people would not believe me that european states are vassals. They found it laughable. Why? Because america allows (and enables) a limited form of imperial extraction? Do you think they do not benefit from it?

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago (13 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 25 points 1 year ago (12 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago

    The only ones in the vassals who might get pissed about it will be the petite bourgeoise and they'll just put that anger into fascism and blame immigrants instead of trying to dismantle empire. Based on what history has shown us when it comes to the proclivities of europeans.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago

    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.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    They don't need to relocate factories though. Just sell their stock in VW and buy ford stocks or something. They aren't tied down to a single company. Most of them are bought in to dozens of companies so when one is hurt another will benefit and their money keeps going up.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    That benefits the rich though. Because as standards of living in europe decrease they can reduce european wages and working conditions and extract more value from them. My point wasn't that it would make America produce more just that european capitalists and european petite bourgoise do not have alligned interests in this. The truly wealthy are international billionaires who have stakes in all western nations. They'll become more rich off this not less. Their own living conditions won't change. So they won't care.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Why do you think capitalists in the west, which has been actively de-industrializing for decades, have a materialist view of wealth? So long as the numbers in their bank accounts go up they will be happy. This is exactly the method the CPC has been using to undermine them, and i see no signs of it stopping. The only reason you see any push for domestic manufacturing is because of the national security interests who see it as a defence liability. There is absoultely 0 push back in western society on the rampant financialization of their economies.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I disagree with that analysis. Even manufacturing and agriculture are now owned by financial capitalists a lot of the time. And even when that isn't the case much of the manufacturing that is done is still using the same logic. Take for example an appliance. All of them have more and more bloat added on. Touch screens, software subscriptions, non-optional markups. This basically turns material products into a vehicle for more financialization. If someone owns a refridgerator company, and makes 50 million off of unit sales, 100 million off subscriptions for fridge++, and 250 million from selling ad space on the fridge screens are they really an industrialist at that point? The vast majority of the US GDP comes from extractive financial money moving. Rent seeking, etc. It's entire economy is entirely non-materialist, and is only propped up by the existence of the US Dollar as the global reserve currency, and a military domination of the world.

    I mean look at the top US companies.

    Google - Mostly made money from advertising/info sales. Has some material products, but they are a vehicle for their software, and subcriptions/ads

    Apple - Perhaps one of the more industrial companies. Still makes a significant amount of money from financialization. Markups on products. Features nobody asked for. Software/ad sales. App store fees. etc.

    Berkshire Hathaway - About as Financial as they come.

    Microsoft - Similar situation to google.

    NVIDIA - While they sell material goods they are pivoting hard into AI which is heavily financialized and produces very little of actual value compared to what is invested.

    Which of these is likely to be controlled by people who hold an actual materialist understanding of value? Maybe the most likely being Nvidia, or Apple? I doubt even them though.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    We aren't talking about american companies. We are talking about European Capital. The owners of which can surely see that being friends with usa is hurting their profits. Only a fool would doubt that there are some of european capitalists who can see what is right in front of their face and are working to change the situation in their benefit.

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