U.S. median income in 2013 was a mere 4 % higher than in 2008; meanwhile, Chinese & Vietnamese median incomes increased more than 100%, while Thailand’s median income increased by 85% & India’s by 60%.
China has played an enormous role in lowering global inequality. The economic growth of its 1.4 billion people has reshaped wealth around the world. But China has become so wealthy that its continued growth no longer plays such an important role in lowering global inequality.
India, with a population that is still relatively poor, now plays an important role in making the world more equal. In the last 20 years, China and India have driven the reduction in global inequality. From now on, only Indian growth will perform that same function.
Africa, which boasts the world’s highest rates of population growth, will become increasingly important. But if the largest African countries continue to trail behind the Asian giants, global inequality will rise.
If China’s growth continues to top Western countries’ growth by 2% to 3% annually, in a decade middle-class Chinese will become wealthier than their counterparts in the West. For the first time in two centuries, Westerners with middle incomes will no longer be part of the top 20%
Gloomy forecasts are plausible. The opposite of growing equality of globalization might come to be: the gap between US & Chinese middle classes may be preserved if the present trade war heats up, but at the cost of the slower (or negative) income growth in both the US & China.
Improvements in real income would be sacrificed in order to freeze the pecking order of the global income distribution. The net real income gain for all concerned would be zero.
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As Joel Rayburn explained: US sanctions immiserate average Syrians because the Caesar Act "lowered the bar" for imposing them.
"With sanctions, oftentimes there can be a very high hurdle for the evidence that you have to gather in order to prove legal sufficiency under certain… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
US policy makers had decided by 2013 that they did not want to see the Syrian military destroyed b/c they feared that the opposition was dominated by radical Islamists & the country might fall apart.
The US chose Assad over the alternatives.
Blaming Russia is disingenuous
Read the Deputy Director of the CIA in 2013
"it's going to take the institution of the Syrian military and the institutions of the Syrian security services to defeat al Qaeda when this is done."
“The international sanctions on #Syria must be lifted, and Jordanian-Syrian economic relations must return to the status quo ante,” wrote Musa Al Saket, a member of the Amman Chamber of Commerce.
“The sanctions are unfair to our economy & the Syrian people,” he wrote. “Twelve years since the war broke out, more than 90% of the #Syria population lives below the poverty line, with limited access to food and medicine. This is a major catastrophe,” Saket added:
Russia wants us to seek an agreement #Syria, Kobani told Zaman
“As for the U.S., they need to articulate a policy on Syria. They have no strategy beyond fighting [ISIS] and have failed to formulate a clear policy with regard to the future of the areas under our control.
"The absence of this policy makes it harder for us to negotiate successfully with Damascus,” adding that the US does not oppose talks with Assad’s government.
But Syria’s not ready, “and Russia is not applying enough pressure on them,” adds Kobane.
Shifting energy import patterns enhance China’s clout in the Middle East
China became in 2016 the largest investor in the Arab world with investments worth $29.5 billion, targeted at infrastructure, industrial parks, pipelines, ports, and roads.
Total bilateral trade b/n Saudi Arabia & China grew from $42.4 billion in 2010 to $76 billion in 2019, quickly making China the top trading partner for Saudi Arabia.
In 2020, China replaced the European Union as the GCC’s largest trading partner.
The logic of Turkey and Syria returning to the Adana Agreement of 1998 or something approaching it is overwhelming.
Both Turks and Americans are learning that ruling hunks of Syria and unruly Syrians, is a thankless task that will sink them into ever growing trouble.
1. Idlib & N Aleppo cannot be made into a viable state. Neither can Kurdish led N.E. Syria. 2. ISIS is strengthened by Syria's partition into 3 waring parts. 3. There is no internat'l legitimacy to the N. Syrian statelets, which means that no oil company will undertake repairs.
4. The US gains little by its control of N Syria, save the knowledge that it has yet to forsake the Kurds. Turkey is the more important ally, causing the US to turn a blind eye to Erdogan's excellerating attacks on the SDF/YPG. It is a matter of time before US soldiers are killed