Introduction to the 'gated laissez-faire' model

I can’t stand people who are unable to accept the consequences of their own decisions and choose to blame others for their failures

It is a form of cowardice that we see playing out today on a global scale: the United States pointing at China as the villain that stole its prosperity is the greatest political magic trick of our time

The narrative is simple and easy to sell: "they play dirty and flood us with cheap products." But the reality is far more uncomfortable to admit, because the American decline wasn't an external theft. It was an internal design

America’s real problem isn’t China. It’s the conscious decision to prioritise the free flow of capital above everything else

Decades ago, Washington decided that money from the entire world should be able to enter and exit the country without any rules. The goal wasn't to create real value, build infrastructure, or strengthen industry, but to turn the American economy into a massive financial casino

When you allow capital to flow freely for speculation, money doesn't go to the factories that create jobs, it goes where it can multiply quickly: to real estate and Wall Street. This has caused the cost of living to skyrocket while wages stagnate, because it’s more profitable to bet on housing prices than to pay someone to manufacture something tangible

What no one dares to say is that, while they blame the Chinese for being "too competitive," the American system has maintained an artificially strong dollar so that its investment funds can buy up the world at bargain prices

A strong dollar benefits those who move money, but it destroys those trying to export and sell American products to other countries. The United States didn’t lose its industry by accident. It sacrificed it on the altar of financial hegemony

That’s why promising a return to a golden age simply by bringing factories back is a massive deception. Because even if the industrial plants fill up again, the capital system suffocating the average citizen will remain the same

In the end my friend, the key takeaway here is that if you do not understand why things happen to you, you will never learn. And if you never learn, you will never find a way out of your mess

By deceiving itself about the origin of its social decay, the United States is moving toward a "Fortress America" model, also referred to as a "Gated Laissez-Faire." In other words, a free market for insiders, protected by high barriers for outsiders

They want to stop foreign products from entering and stop companies from leaving. They say they are protecting the worker, but here is the real deal: they have no plan to stop the only thing that matters, the free movement of speculative money

The lesson, my friend, is that sometimes we have no option but to try to be honest with ourselves

In fact, the world would be a better and more prosperous place if for once in modern times we stopped looking for enemies and had the courage to own our own mess